The Highland Countess

by M C Beaton

  “I did, didn’t I?” said Freddie, unabashed. “I’ll put things right next time I see her.”

  But the sunshine had gone out of Morag’s day. If Lord Toby had really been interested in her, he would not have reacted to the idea of her marrying Freddie the way he did. His green eyes had been hard, reflecting no emotion whatsoever. Until that moment, Morag had not realized she had clung on to a dream that Toby would disengage himself from Henrietta and marry her. She had been living in a fantasy world. Her head ached and all she wanted to do was lie down in a cool room.

  “… and Freemantle pays too much attention to what Rory says,” she became aware Freddie was saying. “Bonapartiste spies, indeed.”

  “Take me home, Freddie,” said Morag quietly. “I have the headache.

  “Oh, very well,” said Freddie, looking disappointed. He delivered her reluctantly into the hands of her butler, noting to himself that the fellow was overfamiliar for a servant and would have to go—as soon as they were married, of course.

  Morag trailed up the stairs, nearly colliding with Rory, who was staggering down under the weight of his cat.

  “Cannot that animal walk?” she demanded with some asperity.

  “He likes being carried,” said Rory hotly, springing to the defense of his beloved cat. “He killed three rats in the kitchen last night and cook and Hamish are extremely pleased with him. He is a resting warrior.”

  “Then I hope the resting warrior has not got fleas. Let me past, Rory. I must lie down.”

  “Are you going to marry Lord Freddie?” asked Rory, still blocking her path.

  “No. I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

  “We don’t need anyone else,” said Rory earnestly. “We get on splendidly, just you and me and Mr. Service and The Beastie, of course.” The cat screwed its large head round to stare at Morag and gave her its sinister smile.

  “Take that thing away. It gives me gooseflesh,” said Morag. “Now, let me past, Rory. I do not want to marry anyone. Now what is it?” For Rory still barred her way.

  “Astley’s, mama,” breathed Rory. “Mr. Service says, with your permission, he will take me to Astley’s this evening.”

  Morag hesitated. She would, not so long ago, have refused point-blank. But look what had come of all her mollycoddling. “Very well,” she said wearily. “Come to my room before you go. I wish to speak to Mr. Service so bring him with you.”

  What, after all, could be the harm in a visit to Astley’s Amphitheatre? The shows were vulgar and spectacular, of that she had heard, but there was nothing dangerous about the place.

  Rory danced off to tell Mr. Service the good news, the cat’s heavy head jogging on his shoulder.

  Hamish, however, was the first to hear the good news. The butler smiled tolerantly. He was still cautiously not overfond of Rory but a certain truce had been struck up between the two and the boy was a hundred times better since he had found that dreadful animal.

  “I’ll tell Mr. Service ye’re going,” smiled Hamish. “Go and wash your face and hands and change your clothes.”

  “Isn’t it marvelous!” cried Rory. “I’m going to the Surrey side.” The Surrey side of London was famous for its theatres, which catered to the more unsophisticated tastes. Of these, Astley’s was the most famous, combining all the joys of the theatre with that of the circus.

  “I heard a poem once about the Surrey side,” said Hamish. “Gie me a bit time and I’ll remember it. Ah, I have it now.”

  The butler began to recite carefully in precise English:

  “Can I forget those wicked lords,

  Their vices and their calves;

  The things they did upon those boards,

  And never did by halves;

  The peasant, brave though lowly born,

  Who constantly defied

  Those wicked lords with utter scorn,

  Upon the Surrey side!”

  Rory laughed. This sort of poetry was more to his taste than any of his “mother’s” volumes.

  He spent the next hour getting ready. Then he tucked The Beastie up in his bed and kissed the top of its large head.

  He ran to find Mr. Service and fairly pulled that large gentleman along to Morag’s private sitting room.

  There was no sign of her and Rory quietly pushed open the bedroom door. Morag was asleep. He hesitated. If he awoke her, she might regret her earlier decision. She might not let him go!

  He decided to leave her a note instead.

  He crossed to the writing desk in the corner of the sitting room and sat down. He was scribbling a note to explain that he had not wanted to awaken her when suddenly he at last put a face to that voice he had heard at Lady Montclair’s. He quickly wrote down that piece of information, signed and sanded it.

  “Come, Mr. Service,” he said, putting his small hand confidently in the big man’s. “We shall not wake my mother and, after all, there is no need. She has already given me permission to go.”

  Morag struggled up out of sleep, vaguely aware of diminishing voices in the corridor outside. She had meant to instruct Mr. Service to bring Rory straight home and not allow himself to be lured into Vauxhall Gardens, which was near Astley’s, to watch the fireworks. But he was a sensible man, she thought, climbing slowly from bed, and could be trusted to take care of the boy.

  She rang the bell for Scott, saying, “Lay out anything at all. I do not care what I wear this evening. I shall not be going out.”

  Nonetheless, she selected a pretty sprigged muslin gown. Would she never rid herself of the foolish hope of seeing Lord Toby Freemantle?

  “There a note from his lordship.” said Scott, handing her Rory’s letter. “His lordship?” repeated Morag, her face lighting up.

  “Yes, my lady. Master Rory.”

  “Oh!” Fighting down a twinge of disappointment, Morag scanned the schoolboyish scrawl with an indulgent smile on her face. Then she read the last two lines and turned white.

  “Lord Freemantle, Scott. Send a footman for Lord Freemantle. We need help. Fetch Hamish!”

  “It’s Hamish’s night off,” said Scott. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Yes, yes,” babbled Morag. “Get Lord Freemantle. Send two footmen—one to his address and one to his club.”

  “Lord Freemantle to see your ladyship,” announced the footman from the doorway.

  Lord Toby waited nervously in the drawing room. He had told Henrietta that he could not marry her. She had shrieked and ranted and raved and then to his relief had said that he was not breaking the engagement, she was. And that had been that! He was a free man. Now all he dreaded was that he might be too late—was she engaged to Lord Freddie? Surely not.

  He rehearsed all sorts of speeches in his mind and tried to imagine the coming meeting, how she would look, what she would say.

  But the reality was stranger than anything he could have imagined. She threw herself into his arms, crying, “Toby! Oh, it was Freddie all the time!”

  “Oh, Mr. Service! I think you are God!” cried Rory, as he sat beside his large companion in Astley’s Amphitheatre.

  “’Ere now!” declared Mr. Service, looking profoundly shocked. “You h’aint ought to talk like that, young ’un. That’s blasfeemissus. You sit there and stow it or I’ll take you home.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Rory meekly, although his eyes danced.

  Was there ever such a place as Astley’s!

  He sat among all the paint and gilding and mirrors, facing a curtain which as yet hid all the mysteries of the theatre. In front of the curtain was a ring with clean white sand.

  The orchestra was tuning up in that dilatory tuneless way of theatre orchestras—the most exciting sound in the world. They had had a tremendous fight to get in, what with the crowd heaving and jostling in front of the paybox. Mr. Service had coped with that by hoisting Rory onto his broad shoulders and using his fists to good effect. They soon had their checks and were able to battle their way in, well before the performance w
as due to start.

  And then the curtains parted and the fun began.

  It opened with a marvelous piece where the hero was shut up in a mill. He tried to escape up a ladder, only to find himself confronted by the ruthless villain, barring his escape with a horse pistol. How the audience hissed that villain! Then as the hero gave himself up for lost, a door higher up flew open to reveal the heroine, brandishing two horse pistols which she fired dramatically while the ladies of the audience screamed. The villain was confounded. Tableau and curtain where the villain bowed his thanks to a storm of boos and hisses.

  Then there was a clown and a tall thin military man who made Rory and Mr. Service laugh so hard they thought they would burst.

  “’Ave a pint o’ wet,” said a hoarse voice at Mr. Service’s elbow and he took it and swallowed it gratefully in one gulp. He turned to thank his new friend but the seat next to him was empty.

  Meanwhile Rory was applauding a splendidly intelligent horse who had discovered the name of the murderer and who would not walk on all fours until the murderer was taken into custody but pranced around on its hind legs.

  Then the first act ended with a beautiful lady who jumped over nine and twenty ribbons held out by the cast and came down safely on her horse’s back. Rory cheered till he was hoarse and then turned his glowing face to Mr. Service.

  But Mr. Service was slumped back on the bench, his chin on his chest, breathing heavily. Rory shook him.

  “Wake up, Mr. Service!” he cried, tugging at his jacket. “You’re going to miss all the fun.” But his tutor’s head was lolling on his chest. Rory saw the tankard dangling from Mr. Service’s listless hand. Drunk! But he couldn’t be. He had been as sober as anything only a minute ago.

  He looked round for help. Mr. Service had taken him to the cheaper seats rather than to a box, thinking that the boy would have more fun from mingling with the crowd. Then at the end of the row, Rory saw the cheerful, boyish features of Lord Freddie Rotherwood and crouched back in his seat. He had a sudden awful feeling that Lord Freddie’s remarks at Lady Montclair’s about being loyal to Napoleon had not been a joke. His wits sharpened with fear, he knew that Lord Freddie had come looking for him and that, in some peculiar way, he was responsible for Mr. Service’s sleep. Then Lord Freddie turned and looked straight along the row at him. Rory sat paralyzed with fear. Freddie edged down toward him, his cheerful smile painted on his face.

  “Well, surprise!” he cried. “What’s happened to your gorilla? Drunk?”

  “No,” said Rory. “Drugged,” and then he could have bitten his tongue out. Now Freddie knew that he knew what the game was. He should have played for time.

  “As a matter of fact I came looking for you,” said Freddie. “Your mother asked me to bring you home.”

  He sounded so frank and honest that Rory’s spirits rose. But then they dropped just as quickly. He knew instinctively that however badly his mother wanted him home, she would never have made him leave in the middle.

  “So let’s go, laddie,” Freddie was saying.

  “No,” said Rory. “You are not in charge of me. Mr. Service is. I shall wait until he wakes up. So there!”

  The smile left Freddie’s face. He caught hold of Rory’s arm in a painful grip. “Come along.”

  “Help!” screamed Rory suddenly. “This man is a French spy. He’s going to kill me. Help!” The crowd looked, amazed, from Rory’s contorted face to Freddie’s open boyish one and some began to laugh. “Take ’im ’ome, guv,” called a man. “’e’s bin seein’ too much play’ouse.”

  Freddie sat down suddenly, pulling Rory with him. Rory felt something hard pressing against his side. “Feel that!” hissed Freddie. “That, dear boy, is the pistol with which I killed old Cosmo. Didn’t want him around mucking up the family escutcheon or whatever it was he was holding over your mother. I’m going to marry your mother but you…” He broke off but Rory finished the sentence in his mind for him. “You won’t be around to see it.”

  Rory was paralyzed with fright. He knew that Freddie was going to make sure he wasn’t going to be around to tell anyone anything. He couldn’t shoot him in the middle of Astley’s? Oh, yes he could, thought Rory, remembering the piece in the mill and the loud bangs of the stage guns.

  “You’re joking, sir,” said Rory, forcing himself to relax. “You shouldn’t tease me like that. I tell you what. Let me see the end of the show and I’ll go with you.”

  Freddie stared down at the boy in surprise and Rory looked back at him with limpid gray-blue eyes. He really does think I was joking, thought Freddie. He knows I’m a spy but he doesn’t think I mean to murder him. Best sit still and await my chance. There should be some noise from the stage any moment now.

  To Rory’s relief the first performer in the second act was a lady who rejoiced in the name of Kitty Pretty. She sang a sentimental ballad and, when that was over, shouted coyly out to the audience. “Who’ll be my gallant?”

  There was a roar of “me me” and Kitty flirted with her skirts. It was part of her act to select some man from the audience and bring him “on stage”—or rather the edge of the circus ring—and sing to him.

  Rory grasped what it was she wanted and realized Freddie could not shoot him in full view of everyone.

  “Me!” he yelled, his shrill, childish voice carrying over that of the men. “Me!” And before Freddie knew what he was about, Rory had wriggled along the bench, urged on by the cheering spectators and run to the edge of the gallery. “Me!” he cried.

  Kitty Pretty peered up and saw the fair-haired child, waving frantically over the edge of the gallery. “Come on down, young ’un,” she called.

  Eager hands swung Rory over the balcony, more hands caught him and swung him down over the boxes and into the pit and thrust him forward toward Kitty.

  Kitty was delighted with Rory. She began to sing her next song right into his face, a state of affairs which would normally have embarrassed Rory dreadfully, but as things were he stared adoringly up at Kitty. And then out of the corner of his eye, he saw Freddie walking through the pit toward him.

  “Don’t let him get me!” he cried to Kitty, who glared at him and went on singing.

  They were standing in the middle of the white sand of the circus ring. Freddie marched coolly up. “Time I took this lad home,” he said loudly, cutting Kitty off in mid-warble.

  “Leave the boy alone,” shouted a familiar voice. Rory let out a sob of relief and Lord Toby Freemantle strode into the ring, followed by Morag.

  The orchestra trailed off into silence. Kitty looked desperately from Lord Freddie to Lord Toby to Rory, who was being clutched to the bosom of a beautiful red-headed girl, and then her face cleared. That idiot of a manager had staged this seemingly impromptu act without telling her. Well, she would show him that she was up to snuff. She remembered just such a scene in the Wicked Baron. She took a couple of fencing foils out of the prop basket in the corner and remembered her lines. “If you must fight,” she cried, “at least fight like gentlemen.”

  The audience cheered and settled back to enjoy the show. For a moment, it had all looked serious but it was just one of Astley’s stunts after all.

  “Come quietly,” Lord Toby was saying. “The authorities are already on their way here.”

  In answer, Freddie knocked the button off the end of his foil. “You’re mad!” said Lord Toby, and in that moment, he realized Freddie was indeed mad. The boyish face seemed to have crumpled into a mask of ratlike cunning.

  Freddie laughed and Lord Toby quickly parried. Then he knocked the button off his own foil. “Oh, Toby, be careful!” screamed Morag, still clutching Rory. The orchestra struck up a lively number.

  The audience at Astley’s really thought the acting was splendid. These two big bucks seemed genuinely out to kill each other and that pretty miss with the child was acting her heart out.

  The two antagonists riposted, parried and feinted while the audience roared its appreciation. Both were fine
swordsmen. Members of the Quality in the lower boxes assumed Lord Toby and Lord Freddie were doing it for a bet and promptly began to lay wagers themselves.

  As the duel went on, a queer silence fell on the audience. It was all too real, the panting, striving men and the frightened girl and terrified child.

  Both men were hampered by the fact that neither had had time to remove his jacket or boots and both their jackets were tailored to allow the minimum of movement.

  Suddenly there was a commotion at the entrance of the theater and a group of the Bow Street Horse Patrol marched down the aisle in their blue greatcoats and the red waistcoats which gave them the nickname of Robin Redbreasts.

  Someone gave them a cheer but the rest of the audience suddenly knew that the scene in front of them was real. For they knew to a man that these were real officers of the law and not actors.

  At that moment, Lord Toby broke through Freddie’s guard and plunged his sword deep into Freddie’s side. He pulled it out, wiping it on his jacket sleeve, and stood back as Freddie fell in the sawdust. Tableau. Hero stands over villain. Curtain. The audience went mad and cheered them to the echo. Now that it was all over, they felt sure it had been staged.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lord Toby Freemantle was definitely mauvais ton. The fact that he had apprehended a murderer did not please the patronesses of Almack’s one little bit. He should have done it in a more seemly manner, they said, instead of exhibiting himself before the vulgar gaze at Astley’s. Henrietta told everyone and anyone who would listen what a narrow escape she had had—in increasingly shrill tones.

  Lord Freddie confessed to the murders of Cosmo and Miss Simpson and then had hanged himself with his cravat in his cell—a sordid ending to a sordid affair. The military had ransacked his lodgings for evidence of state secrets and had only found evidence of poor Freddie’s mad adoration of Napoleon.

  The French actors were rounded up and questioned and one remembered the conversation at Lady Montclair’s. Milord was quite mad, he said, and had been convinced he could rescue Napoleon. Freddie had apparently planned to marry Morag and use her fortune to bribe the necessary people to effect the emperor’s escape.