Dinner Most Deadly

by Sheri Cobb South

  Pickett and Lady Fieldhurst exchanged looks, then turned back to the solicitor and shook their heads.

  “A pity, that; it might have saved us a great deal of trouble,” remarked Mr. Crumpton, consulting his papers once more. “Now, as you may not be aware, it is no easy thing to dissolve a marriage, even an irregular one. Marriages are meant to last ‘until death do us part.’ There must be grounds—compelling reasons, that is—why the marriage can and should be nullified.”

  “But—but we haven’t done anything!” insisted Lady Fieldhurst, blushing. “I mean—that is—we haven’t—”

  Mr. Crumpton permitted himself a smile. “It is a common misconception, your ladyship, that a lack of consummation constitutes grounds for annulment or divorce, but I fear it is rather more complicated than that.”

  “Then what are the possible grounds?” she asked.

  The solicitor ticked them off on his fingers. “The first is fraud, which we have eliminated. The second is incompetence under the law, which includes being underage.” He turned to look at Pickett. “I believe we have established that you are over twenty-one years of age, Mr. Pickett?”

  “These three years and more,” said Pickett, perhaps understandably annoyed to have his lack of years dredged up yet again.

  “Just so,” said Mr. Crumpton, nodding. “Incompetence under the law also includes insanity, which I daresay we can also rule out,” he added with an indulgent smile.

  “I don’t know about that,” muttered Lady Fieldhurst. “I think I must have been insane to think of escaping to the Scottish coast under an assumed name in the first place.”

  Mr. Crumpton wagged his finger at her. “I fear you gave the Fieldhursts a rare turn over that escapade, your ladyship, but that in and of itself hardly suggests an unstable mind. No, I believe we can rule out insanity as possible grounds for annulment.”

  “What does that leave?” asked Pickett, weighing the wild hope that they would be forced to let the marriage stand against the bitter knowledge that his wife would hate him forever if it did.

  For the first time in the interview, Mr. Crumpton’s professional demeanor faltered. “The only possibility that remains is, er, that is, it involves consummation of the union.”

  “But you just said a lack of consummation did not constitute grounds,” protested Lady Fieldhurst.

  “No, but if either party should prove unable to—that is, to be incapable of—” He took a deep breath and started over. “Your ladyship, I must remind you that you and the late Lord Fieldhurst were married for six years. If, during that time, it had come to light that you were—were incapable of participating in the act that might have given your husband the heir he desired so desperately, he would surely have sought such an annulment for himself years ago.” He turned to Pickett, his eyebrows raised expectantly. “Such being the case, that only leaves . . .”

  As the solicitor’s implication dawned, Pickett flushed a deep red.

  Lady Fieldhurst was equally embarrassed, but considerably more vocal. “You cannot ask Mr. Pickett to—to—” Words failed her. She broke off and tried again. “Mr. Pickett may not have been married, but I daresay there is a female somewhere who could destroy such a claim simply by coming forward and—and—”

  “As a matter of fact,” Pickett said miserably, “there isn’t.”

  “There isn’t?” echoed Lady Fieldhurst.

  Pickett shook his head and prayed for the floor to open up and swallow him.

  “There isn’t,” she murmured, regarding him with new eyes.

  “But,” he added hastily, “that isn’t to say I couldn’t—that is, I—I have no reason to suppose that—that all my parts are not—not in good working order.”

  “Oh, my.” She snatched up one of Mr. Crumpton’s legal papers and began fanning herself with it. “Oh, my.” What must it be like, she wondered, to be someone’s one and only? Even in the early days of her marriage, when she was still overawed by the wealthy and powerful man who had swept her off her feet, she had never flattered herself that there had not been others before her.

  Small wonder that Mr. Pickett had rejected her invitation! He was saving himself for Mrs. Pickett—for the woman who would someday be the real Mrs. Pickett. She wondered fleetingly if he had a particular female in mind for the position, and recalled seeing him at Drury Lane Theatre in the company of a rather sharp-faced yet not unattractive young woman wearing a ghastly purple bonnet. Oh no, surely not! Then another memory intervened, this one of the two of them in her drawing room, standing awkward and ill at ease, yet near enough to touch. I yearn for you body and soul . . . No, they were not the words of a man already committed to another woman. And for some reason, she was glad.

  “There will, of course, be a medical examination to be made,” continued Mr. Crumpton, “but the physician is well known to the Fieldhursts, and will falsify the results for a consideration.”

  “A bribe, in other words,” observed Pickett.

  The solicitor shrugged. “Call it what you will, but his testimony before the bishop in ecclesiastical court is what will allow the annulment to be granted—or not.”

  “No!” protested Lady Fieldhurst. “You cannot ask such a thing of Mr. Pickett!”

  “Now, Mr. Pickett,” continued the solicitor as if she had not spoken, “I have taken the liberty of discussing the matter with Lord Fieldhurst—”

  “George?” cried Lady Fieldhurst. “Mr. Crumpton, you had no right to discuss such a thing with him without my knowledge, much less my consent!”

  “Now, now, your ladyship, of course Lord Fieldhurst, as head of the family, is entitled to know, and to have some say in the matter. In fact, he was already aware of the marriage—”

  “But how could he have been?” she demanded.

  “I’m afraid I told him, my lady,” Pickett confessed, feeling as if he were sinking himself lower in his lady’s esteem every time he opened his mouth.

  “You?” Her voice rose on a note of hysteria. “Just how many people have you told, Mr. Pickett?”

  “No one else,” he said hastily. “That is, Mr. Colquhoun, my magistrate knows, but it was he who told me, not the other way ’round.”

  “But George, of all people!”

  “Believe me, my lady, I had no choice. When I called on you at the Berkeley Square house, he insisted on knowing the nature of my business with you, and refused tell me where I might find you until I made a clean breast of the matter. I’m sorry, my lady. If there had been any way of avoiding it, I assure you I would have.”

  She sighed. “I cannot be angry with you, Mr. Pickett, for I know George all too well! But the very idea that he should expect you to—to—to debase yourself in such a way—”

  “As I was saying, your ladyship,” the solicitor put it, “Lord Fieldhurst is eager to settle the matter as quickly and as quietly as possible.”

  “I can just imagine,” muttered Lady Fieldhurst.

  “However, his lordship is well aware of the sacrifice Mr. Pickett is being asked to make. In fact, Mr. Pickett, you will be pleased to know that I have been authorized by his lordship to offer you a bank draft in the sum of two hundred pounds sterling as compensation for any indignities you might suffer.”

  “You may tell Lord Fieldhurst,” said Pickett tightly, “that I have neither the need nor the desire for his money.”

  The solicitor had clearly not expected this response to his lordship’s generosity. “But Mr. Pickett, consider if you will—”

  “There is one thing, though,” Pickett said. “If I understand you aright, you are asking me to perjure myself.”

  “Not at all, not at all,” the solicitor assured him hastily. “You need never testify, nor even appear in court at all if you do not wish to do so.”

  “But—but this is positively wicked!” cried Lady Fieldhurst, aghast. “I am the one who got us into this mess, so I should be the one to get us out of it.”

  The solicitor shook his head. “As I pointed out, your
ladyship, Lord Fieldhurst would have long since sought an annulment if such a—problem—existed.”

  “There must be a way,” insisted Lady Fieldhurst. “Perhaps we might claim that the problem is of a more recent date.”

  “You cannot have thought of your reputation, your ladyship,” the solicitor chided her. “If such a rumor should be bruited about, you would never have the opportunity to marry again.”

  In fact, that was the best reason Pickett could think of for allowing Lady Fieldhurst to bear the burden of proof. But chivalry won out, and he said woodenly, “I will do whatever I must in order to release her ladyship from a marriage she does not want. After all,” he added with a twist of his lips that was no doubt intended to be a smile, “no one cares about my reputation but me.”

  She laid her hand over his. “I care, Mr. Pickett,” she said softly.

  “Excellent!” declared the solicitor, rubbing his hands together in glee at having so delicate a matter resolved so easily. “Very broad-minded of you, Mr. Pickett, if I may say so. And if your, er, little problem is resolved a respectable length of time after the annulment is granted, I’m sure no one will question the matter too closely.”

  With these assurances (if one could call them that), the solicitor stacked his papers and took his leave, promising to inform Lady Fieldhurst when a date had been set for their appearance in the ecclesiastical court.

  Pickett and Lady Fieldhurst sat in stunned silence for a long moment after he had gone, Pickett, at least, feeling as if he had received a blow to the solar plexus.

  Lady Fieldhurst found her voice first. “Mr. Pickett, I—I don’t know what to say to you. When I appropriated your name, I never dreamed it might end like this!”

  “I am equally to blame, my lady,” he pointed out. “I did nothing to correct the misunderstanding when I had the chance.” I liked the idea too much to dispute it, he might have added, but did not.

  “Please believe that I would never have—I would never intentionally do anything to cause you to suffer,” she insisted. “After all you have done for me, it is shameful that your kindness is to be rewarded so shabbily!”

  He gave her a singularly bleak smile and rose to leave. “Please do not distress yourself, my lady.”

  She did not summon Rogers to show him out, but accompanied him down the stairs and to the front door herself. When they reached the hall, she laid her hand on his sleeve. “What you’ve consented to do, Mr. Pickett—”

  He sighed. “Yes, what of it?”

  “I think—I think perhaps you should accept George’s offer, after all. Yes, I know what you told Mr. Crumpton,” she added hastily, anticipating his objection, “but God knows you deserve something in return for what is being asked of you.”

  He shook his head emphatically. “You heard my answer. I said it, and I meant it. The whole thing is emasculating enough without being paid for my services like a cuffin-crack.” He gave a bitter laugh. “But no, that won’t wash, will it? I’m supposedly incapable of that sort of thing.”

  She looked up at him with wide, troubled eyes. “If you will accept no other compensation, Mr. Pickett, at least let me tell you that it is the most—the most selfless thing I have ever heard of, and that if only—if things were different—if it were not for—” She broke off and swallowed past the lump that had formed in her throat. “What I am trying to say, Mr. Pickett, is that I—I could envy the woman who will someday be Mrs. Pickett.”

  “There will never be another Mrs. Pickett,” he said in a flat voice.

  “I know it must feel that way now, but you are very young, Mr. Pickett, and someday—”

  He jerked his arm from her grasp so abruptly that she started. “I am sick to the teeth of hearing how young I am! I’m old enough to know what I want, and old enough to know I can’t have it, so please don’t condescend to me as if I were some schoolboy with a youthful passion I’ve yet to outgrow!” He seized her roughly by the shoulders and kissed her hard and swift on the mouth, then left the house, slamming the door behind him.

  Lady Fieldhurst had never seen him lose his temper before, and the sight was terrifying to behold—not because she thought herself in danger from his anger, but because she knew it to be entirely justified, and because she knew herself to be responsible for it. She stood alone in the hall for a long while after he had gone, the back of her hand pressed to her bruised lips.

  She was still standing there some minutes later, when Lady Dunnington knocked on the door and let herself into the house with the ease of long acquaintance.

  “Julia? What has just happened here?” she demanded. “First I see your Mr. Pickett striding down Curzon Street as if the devil were at his heels, walking right past me without so much as a by-your-leave, and then I find you standing here as if turned to stone.” Her eyes grew wide as a new and terrible possibility came to mind. “Never say you told him about Dunnington!”

  “What?” Lady Fieldhurst blinked. “Of course not! You urged me to keep silent on that point, did you not? Although why you insisted on summoning Mr. Pickett in the first place, when you refuse to give him the information that would allow him to exercise his unique gifts—”

  This charge led not unnaturally to thoughts of what other unexercised gifts he might possess, and she pressed her hands to her flaming cheeks.

  “If not Dunnington, then what?” asked the countess. “What was he doing here?”

  “Oh Emily, we are in the very devil of a fix!”

  “We are?” Her voice rose on a squeak. “Does he intend to arrest Dunnington?”

  “For heaven’s sake, Emily, pray disabuse yourself of the notion that Dunnington is in imminent danger of going to the gallows!” said Lady Fieldhurst with some asperity. “When I said ‘we,’ I meant Mr. Pickett and myself. It—it is rather more complicated than we ever expected. This morning we met with a solicitor to see how the thing might be annulled—”

  “On what grounds?” Lady Dunnington interrupted.

  “Grounds?” echoed Lady Fieldhurst in some indignation. “Does everyone know about these grounds except me?”

  “My dear Julia, I doubt there is a married couple in existence who has not considered the possibility of annulment at some point—annulment, or divorce, or murder.” She grimaced at her own words. “Pray forget I said that!”

  “The good news, according to Mr. Crumpton, is that an annulment might be granted, provided such grounds could be shown to exist,” Julia said slowly, choosing her words with care.

  “What grounds?” asked Lady Dunnington again.

  Lady Fieldhurst told her.

  “Oh, the poor boy!” gasped the countess. “No wonder he turned you down!”

  Lady Fieldhurst felt compelled to come to Pickett’s defense. “It isn’t true, of course!”

  Lady Dunnington’s left eyebrow arched suggestively. “How would you know?”

  “Not from any personal experience,” Julia assured her hastily. “I just—know. But he is allowing himself to be held up as an object of ridicule in order to release me. And yet—I wonder—” She broke off as a new and utterly unexpected thought occurred to her.

  “Yes? You wonder what?”

  “I wonder if being Mrs. John Pickett would truly be so dire a fate.”

  “Julia!” exclaimed Lady Dunnington, torn between amusement and horror. “You cannot be serious! He would never be received anywhere, and you would be ostracized from all good Society.”

  “I know,” confessed Lady Fieldhurst. “But I hate what this annulment must do to him, particularly since it was I who set the whole dreadful thing in motion. Oh, how I wish I had never set foot in Scotland!” she groaned.

  “It is unfortunate that such a thing should have happened, of course,” Lady Dunnington acknowledged, “but if that is the only way for you to be released—” She looked at her friend sharply. “You do want to be released, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do, but not at the cost of crucifying someone I—”

 
She broke off abruptly, and Lady Dunnington regarded her with eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Someone you what, Julia?”

  “Someone I esteem very highly, and to whom I owe a great debt,” insisted Lady Fieldhurst.

  But the words sounded feeble, even to her own ears.

  Pickett’s anger had burned itself out by the time he reached the environs of Bow Street, leaving in its place only abject misery. So sunk was he in despair that he didn’t hear the voice calling his name until a small hand in a raveled fingerless glove of black netting slipped through his arm and clutched his sleeve. Looking down, he saw the crown of a purple bonnet of surpassing hideousness. He didn’t have to see the face beneath it to recognize Lucy Higgins, the Covent Garden strumpet who’d had designs on his virtue since the night when, as a nineteen-year-old newly minted member of the foot patrol, he’d arrested her for prostitution.

  “Why the long face, John Pickett?” She peered up from beneath the brim of her bonnet, a pert young woman with flashing dark eyes and dusky curls. “You look like you’ve just lost your last friend.”

  He nodded a half-hearted greeting. “It isn’t that, Lucy, it’s just—” He broke off abruptly. “Lucy! You’re just the person I need!”

  “Finally!” exclaimed Lucy, who needed no urging to follow when he grabbed her hand and half-led, half-dragged her into the nearest tea room.

  “Two,” he told the proprietor as he plunked Lucy down at a vacant table near the window.

  “Might I have a drop of Blue Ruin instead?” Lucy asked hopefully.

  Pickett grimaced. “That stuff rots your insides. Tea,” he repeated in a voice that brooked no argument.

  “Is this going to take long?” Lucy asked, while Pickett waited silently as the proprietor set two steaming cups before them. “I don’t mean to rush you, ducks, not when I’ve waited so long, but I’m a working girl, you know, and—”

  “Lucy, I’m married to her ladyship.” And to his horror and shame, he found himself blurting out the entire story of his irregular marriage to Lady Fieldhurst, and what was required of him in order to set it aside.