The groom climbed up beside the coachman, but instead of giving them the signal to start, Lady Clovyle poked her head out the window and continued with her instructions to Bethia. “Now you must be sure to write to me once a week and tell me how you are getting on. And if you can spare the time, you may visit me in September, or perhaps October would be better. Well, there is plenty of time to decide that.”
Without waiting for Bethia to reply, she sat back in her seat, then rapped sharply on the roof of the coach with the handle of her parasol, and they set off on what would be, at the pace Lady Clovyle thought suitable for traveling, a four-day journey to Bath.
Bethia’s emotions were too raw to allow her to face anyone, even Digory, who had disappeared into the study as soon as they were done breakfasting together.
So she returned to her room and wandered listlessly around, unable to come up with any solution to her problems.
Finally, resolving to think of something else, she unpacked the small trunk that had belonged to Digory’s aunt, and examined its contents.
The clothing was still serviceable, and although too outmoded to be of any particular use in London, some of the items might be comfortable to wear when gardening in the country.
Then at the very bottom of the trunk, Bethia found a packet of papers tied up with a faded velvet ribbon. Laying the folded dresses back into the trunk, she rang for a footman and instructed him to carry it up to the attic.
Once she was alone again, she untied the knot and unfolded the topmost piece of paper, which turned out to be a love letter from the Earl of Blackstone to Mary Ann, whom Bethia assumed was Digory’s mother.
The late earl had been quite eloquent, and it would have been most romantic reading, had not Bethia known that he was deliberately deceiving a chaste and honest woman.
She could not bring herself to do more than glance at the other love letters, but she did read the letter from a Mr. Jackson Thwaite, who informed Mrs. Rendel that she was not, in fact, the Countess of Blackstone, since she had been underage and had failed to obtain the necessary permission from her father for the marriage. Therefore the marriage was null and void, even if her father were now willing to consent.
At first Bethia thought that the solicitor had erred in referring to Digory’s mother as Mrs., but the last document explained everything. It was the marriage certificate for Mrs. Mary Ann Rendel, widow, and Mr. William Blackleigh, Earl of Blackstone.
It was signed by the vicar, two witnesses, and both parties to the marriage. And it was a completely worthless piece of paper.
As much as Bethia hated her cousin—whichever one had conspired to have her killed—it was nothing compared to the hatred she now felt for the fifth Earl of Blackstone.
He had casually and wantonly destroyed innocent people. It staggered the imagination to think how different Digory’s life would have been if he had been the heir instead of being the bastard. And how his mother must have suffered from shame! If the earl were not dead already, Bethia would not have hesitated to kill him herself.
She was still considering how satisfying that would have been, when her musings were interrupted by a tapping at the door. Quickly, she put the letters out of sight in the drawer of her writing table, then wiped the tears from her cheeks and called out, “Come in.”
It was one of the maids, and she carried a note. “Beg pardon, Miss ... I mean, Mrs. Rendel,” the maid said with a blush for her slip of the tongue. “But this just come for you.”
Thanking the girl, Bethia took the note and broke the seal. It was from Lady Edington, who had been at the wedding along with her husband, and it was an invitation to go out for a drive.
The sun was high in the sky when Wilbur Harcourt ventured forth to begin his campaign to force Lady Clovyle to admit that her niece was missing. At the speed with which gossip spread, by tomorrow a hue and cry would be raised, and as a loving cousin, he would insist that a Bow Street runner be hired to find the poor child.
Since he would give the runner a few hints as to the most profitable area to commence his search, by the time the week was out, Wilbur would be rich.
He was sauntering down Bond Street looking for precisely the right ear to whisper into, when opportunity found him in the person of Lord Keppel.
“I say, Harcourt, is it not ghastly? Like to have turned my stomach when I read it in the Morning Post.”
“Read what?” Wilbur said absently, his mind occupied with choosing the precise way to arouse the viscount’s curiosity and suspicions.
“Why your cousin, of course—Miss Pepperell. Or I suppose now I must call her Mrs. Rendel, though I never heard of the gentleman before. Can’t believe I was cut out by a total stranger. Don’t mind telling you, I’d not have been surprised if she’d taken you or one of your brothers, but this fair leaves me speechless.”
His tongue continued to flap, but Wilbur was too stunned to breathe. Just as Keppel was turning to continue on his way, Wilbur managed to grab his arm and croak out, “What do you mean, Mrs. Rendel?”
The viscount shook off Wilbur’s hand. “Confound it all, now you’ve wrinkled my sleeve,” he said with a scowl that quickly changed to a grin “You don’t mean to tell me you didn’t know?”
“Please...” Wilbur said, reaching out blindly.
Deftly fending off another attack upon his clothing, Lord Keppel said, “The chit was married yesterday at Lady Letitia’s house. Which means I’ve got to screw up my courage and offer for Witchell’s eldest. Got a squint, but eight thousand pounds a year does remarkable things for her looks.”
“She can’t be married,” Wilbur said, too dazed to believe what he had just heard. “She’s—” He almost blurted out that she was dead, but he caught himself in the nick of time. “She’s not mentioned a word of it to me,” was what he said instead.
“If I were you, I’d be off to the Continent before your creditors get the word,” Lord Keppel said, clapping him on the back and then strolling off.
Wilbur remembered nothing of the retreat to his rooms, but when he unlocked the door and let himself in, he found a letter on the floor. Picking it up, he broke the seal and unfolded it.
It was from Mr. Kidby, his uncle’s solicitor, and as he read it, Wilbur felt a white-hot rage burning inside him.
His mind now clear, he began to plan how he would make his recovery.
Digory was ostensibly looking through the papers the solicitor had sent over relating to the management of various estates formerly owned by his wife’s grandfather.
At a casual glance, the accounting seemed to be in good order, which was fortunate, since he could not focus for long on the columns of numbers. Despite his most valiant effort, he repeatedly found himself thinking about his wife and the reproach in her eyes, rather than about rents and expenditures.
He had just thrown down his quill in disgust when the door to the study opened and his wife entered. She had her bonnet in her hand, and although her color was high, her voice was calm when she spoke to him.
“I am going out for a drive with Lady Edington,” she said.
“Are you sure that is wise?” he asked, rising to his feet and approaching her near enough to see that her eyes were red from crying. He reached out his hand, but she shied away from his touch.
“I understood that my will and Kidby’s letters to my cousins have taken care of any danger, so I should have nothing left to fear.”
“I was not worried that you might be in physical danger,” he said. “I merely thought to save you from needless embarrassment.”
“Embarrassment?”
“Lady Edington knows I am a bastard, which might make you feel uncomfortable around her. I suggest you decline the invitation.”
To his complete amazement, instead of seeing the reasonableness of his request, his wife turned into a veritable virago. She seemed to swell up to twice her normal size, and so fierce was the expression on her face that he found himself taking an involuntary step backward.
“How dare
you!” she said, making no effort to moderate her voice. “How dare you imply that I should be ashamed of you! I am not such a shallow creature that I let other people’s prejudices and bigotry determine my own opinions, so do not try to make me cower like a craven in my room, for I shall not do it.”
He was trying with little success to calm her when the knocker banged twice, and with one last fulminating glare, Bethia marched out of the study, slamming the door behind her.
A moment later he heard the front door slam, and crossing to the window, he watched Bethia climb into a high-perch phaeton pulled by a pair of high-spirited chestnuts.
Then with a curse for his own lack of foresight, he dashed after his wife.
Chapter Twelve
With a smile for Bethia, Lady Edington signaled her groom to release the horses’ heads, but as soon as the man stepped aside, Digory took his place, preventing her from setting off.
“It is perfectly all right with me if you drive over him,” Bethia muttered under her breath, not even trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
Lady Edington glanced at her with one eyebrow raised. “So the honeymoon is over already?”
“I would prefer it if you took Little Davey along when you go out,” Digory said.
“We have no need of a groom,” Lady Edington said. “I am quite a noted whip, and even dearest Matthew trusts me to drive him.”
“Please,” Digory said, looking right at Bethia.
“No,” she said flatly, and after a brief hesitation, he stepped aside.
Lady Edington set her horses going at a pace that was a bit faster than Bethia preferred, but she neither asked her companion to slow down, nor did she turn around to see what her husband was doing. She stared resolutely ahead, and did not even comment when they entered Green Park.
“Since Hyde Park is the only proper place to be seen at this hour of the day,” Lady Edington said, “with luck we will not be interrupted here.”
Bethia did not immediately reply, but the viscountess was not the least bit discommoded. “Please call me Adeline, and if you have no objections, I shall call you Bethia.”
Bethia nodded briefly, but she was still too angry to speak.
Patting her on the hand, Adeline said, “If you will think of me as an older sister, I am sure you will find it is not at all difficult to tell me what has gone wrong with your marriage. I am not a gossip, and whatever you tell me I promise I will never reveal to another soul, not even to my husband.”
Her voice shaking with outrage, Bethia said, “Digory has decided that if I stay married to him beyond my birthday, my life will be ruined. He plans to obtain an annulment. Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous?”
“Astonishing! Does he give any reason for this peculiar idea?”
“Merely the fact that he is base-born, and that people will shun me if they discover his low origins.”
“When they find out, for they will find out, you know,” Adeline said gently. “It is not the kind of secret that can stay hidden for long. And he is correct. Everyone who is anyone will avoid you as determinedly as if you had the black plague.”
“But I do not care what other people say or do,” Bethia said, feeling quite put upon. “Why can no one understand that?”
“Well, then, if that is the case, there is nothing more to be said, and so you should tell your husband.”
“I did tell him. And yet he still refuses to consummate the marriage.” Bethia felt herself blushing, but when she turned her head, her companion was smiling. “And I do not find it at all amusing,” she added.
“But my dear Bethia, it is positively hilarious,” Adeline said. “There is no way on earth that he will be able to resist your charms for long, for it is quite obvious that the poor man is totally besotted with you.”
“He may be head over heels in love with me, but he is also impossibly stubborn. You would not believe how pigheaded he can be. Why he slept in a chair for two nights during our journey back from Cornwall, and the beds were quite wide enough for the both of us,” Bethia said, feeling her spirits lift a tiny bit at the thought that her companion might possibly be right.
“You must trust me, for I am very knowledgeable about men, having lived with one for over nine years,” Adeline said, pulling the horses to a halt and then executing a very skillful turn around so that they were heading back out of the park. “The only way your husband would be able to suppress his own desires for the next several months is if he were locked up in a monastery, and fortunately King Henry the Eighth dissolved them. Furthermore, so that you will not have to languish about for too many weeks, waiting for your husband to come to his senses, I am going to introduce you to my modiste, who is able to concoct the most wicked nightgowns imaginable.”
An hour later Bethia was put to a blush by the sheer silks and delicate laces being displayed for her approval. “I shall look like some rake’s mistress,” she murmured for her friend’s ear alone.
“Precisely,” Adeline replied. “These will leave nothing to your husband’s imagination. Once he sees what he has forsworn, he will soon contrive to overcome his scruples about taking advantage of your innocence.”
“I am not sure I will have the courage to wear them.”
Adeline shrugged. “Even if you pay Madame extra to have them put before her other orders, she will not be able to finish them for several days. When they are delivered, if you still feel they are too daring, you may pass them on to me, and I will be happy to pay for them. Matthew has grown a bit too complacent lately, and it is time he was reminded that I am not yet in my dotage.”
Under normal conditions, Gervase Harcourt would not even have bothered to open the note from his brother, but having read the letter from Mr. Kidby, he assumed that Wilbur was interested in securing a place for himself in Gervase’s curricle, to spare himself the expense of a ticket to Dover.
The note was brief and demanded that Gervase present himself without delay in Wilbur’s rooms in Castle Street So rudely was it phrased, that it was only the desire to rub his elder brother’s face in their mutual misfortune that kept Gervase from ignoring it all together.
The address of his brother’s lodgings was not bad, but the rooms were low-ceilinged and miserable. Directly under the roof, they were unbearably hot for half the year and bitterly cold the rest of the time. They had obviously been used as servants’ quarters when the building had been a private house, and Gervase was puffing by the time he had climbed the four flights of stairs.
His younger brother was before him and was already banging on the door. “I cannot believe Wilbur is so pinch-penny as to live in such squalor,” Inigo muttered. “I warned him when he moved in that it would be his neck if any of my friends discovered how low he has sunk. Not that it matters now,” he concluded as the door was swung open.
“It’s about time you got here,” Wilbur said crossly.
Feeling wonderfully cheered up by his elder brother’s ill humor, Gervase smiled and said mockingly, “I see you have already read the Morning Post. If you want me to give you a ride to Dover, I must tell you that the only time I’d ever help you on your way is if you were crossing the River Styx.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Wilbur said. “I am not about to flee to the Continent when all is not yet lost. Now then, the first thing we must do is pool our resources and discover what we can about this Rendel fellow.”
“Why on earth would we want to waste our blunt on a fool’s errand like that?” Inigo said, leaning negligently against the wall and surveying the crowded room with distaste.
“What for? Why, so we can have the marriage declared invalid.”
“Don’t be daft,” Inigo said. “Even if you succeeded—and there is no reason to think you will—no one but a parcel of gullible tradesmen ever believed that one of us had half a chance to marry, our dear cousin.” He picked up a half-empty bottle of Scotch and took a swig, then pushed himself upright. “So if you’ve nothing else to say, I’ve unpleas
ant business of my own to handle.”
“You must help me,” Wilbur demanded, but Inigo ignored him and opened the door.
“Hold on,” Gervase said. “I begin to smell a rat.”
At his words Inigo turned back. Standing shoulder to shoulder, the two of them stared at their older brother, who now seemed to have difficulty looking them in the eye.
“Do you know,” Gervase said, “Keppel told me a very interesting story about how Cousin Bethia’s cinch broke when they were riding together. He said that if he hadn’t been close enough to catch her, she would have been badly injured ... or even killed.”
“Accidents happen,” Wilbur said with a shrug.
Inigo picked up the bottle again, this time by the neck. “I begin to see what you mean, Gervase. I also recall once when my cinch broke—cut in two it was.”
“Cousin Bethia’s cinch was old and rotted through,” Wilbur said, backing away and almost falling over a chair.
“Now how would you know that?” Gervase asked, his temper rising. “Can it be that you arranged for the accident? What do you think, Inigo? Why do you suppose our dear elder brother is acting so distraught?”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover he has been trying to gain an inheritance by killing off our cousin,” Inigo said with a smile that made other men hesitate to challenge him to a duel.
“Stand back,” Wilbur said, raising his fists, “or I shall thrash you the way I used to do.”
Gervase began to chuckle. “It seems you have forgotten that we are now as big as you are.”
“And that there are two of us,” Inigo said, taking a step forward.
“And that there is no mother to run to with lies about how we have been picking on you," Gervase added.
The beating he and Inigo proceeded to administer to Wilbur was not bound by any code of gentlemanly conduct, and was far more savage than bare-knuckle boxing. By the time they tired of the sport, Wilbur lay unconscious and bleeding on the floor.
The Counterfeit Gentleman Page 17
