by M C Beaton
His eyes suddenly opened wide, looking strangely intelligent and alert, but the next second were registering all his usual amiable indifference.
“Good morning, dear heart,” he said sitting up in bed and affording Jennie an excellent view of his naked chest. “I see by your beautiful sparkling eyes that you cannot wait to tell me of Perry’s insults and misdeeds. But before you speak, do bring me that letter… over on my dresser.”
Jennie opened her mouth to snap that she had no intention of listening to him read any letter but she was nonplussed by the sight of her half-naked husband and his imperturbable good humor. “Go on,” he urged gently, removing his nightcap and running his long fingers through his hair.
She flushed in embarrassment, walked over to the dresser and picked up the letter. Her husband read it out loud. Perry had indeed written an abject apology. It would be churlish and unladylike not to accept it. Jennie found herself furious that the wind had been taken so neatly out of her sails. “You always have an answer to everything,” she remarked bitterly. “Well, answer me this. How long do you intend to flaunt your relationship with Mrs. Waring in front of me?”
“I stopped… er… flaunting Mrs. Waring before we were married, my heart,” said the Marquis with lazy amusement. “I would not for a minute consider flaunting anyone in front of you… even one of my female relatives.”
“I didn’t think you had any,” said Jennie, momentarily diverted.
“I have a few maiden aunts and distant cousins. Apart from that, I am all alone in the world. What are your plans for the day?”
Jennie looked at him cautiously. “I-I thought I would spend the evening with Sally,” she said. “Just me. I mean… girls’ gossip, you know, you would be frightfully bored.”
“You never bore me,” he said simply. “Come and kiss me, Jennie.”
“No!” she squeaked, backing toward the door.
“Dear me,” said his lordship with unimpaired good humor, leaning back against the pillows of the high bed. “I believe you are frightened of me.”
“Nonsense!” said Jennie roundly. “It is just that I am not in the way of being intimate with you.”
“I was not asking for any great degree of intimacy,” he said mildly. “I simply asked for a kiss.”
“Oh, well, if that is all,” said Jennie ungraciously. She moved towards the bed and dabbed a kiss on his cheek, but he took her by the shoulders and held her gently away from him, looking at her flushed face and downcast eyes.
Then he bent his head very slowly and kissed her gently on the mouth. Jennie backed away from him, feeling dizzy and upset. It had been a kiss, no more, but it had left her feeling strangely trembly and weak. She would have turned and fled but his next words stopped her.
“Your tutor will be here in an hour,” he said. “He is a Scotchman of some learning, I believe. His name is Mr. Porteous.”
The Marquis swung his long muscular legs out of bed and Jennie gave a choked sound of shock. She ran out of the room as fast as she could.
When he descended the stairs an hour later, he paused outside the drawing room from which came the sound of Mr. Porteous’ voice, “Now, now, my leddy,” he was admonishing his new pupil, “just a wee bit mair patience and you will have penned your furst sentence.”
The Marquis grinned and then turned as he saw his butler, Roberts, crossing the hall with a small note folded into a triangle which he had placed on a silver salver. “For my lady,” said Roberts.
“I will take it to her,” said the Marquis, picking up the billet but, instead of entering the drawing room, he went back upstairs.
He closed the door of his private sitting room behind him and stood looking down at the letter in his hand. It was sealed with a lurid purple wax and the seal itself showed a rather groggy griffin rampant. He crossed the room to his dressing case and took out a razor. Then he lit a candle and held the long Sheffield steel blade over the flame. He neatly slid the hot blade through the wax and carefully opened the letter so as not to break any more of the seal.
The letter read, “Dear Coz, I shall be waiting for you at the White Swan which is in the village of Harham, beyond Highgate on the Barnet Road. The coach will call for you at five. Do not fail me. Your humble and adoring… Guy.”
The Marquis studied his reflection in the mirror. “I wonder,” he murmured, “I really wonder how I would look with a pair of horns. But I have no mind to play the cuckold.”
He frowned suddenly and stared down at the letter in his hands.
Although Chemmy was apt to maneuver towards a desired goal with the single-minded tenacity of the English aristocracy, he had escaped much of that breed’s insensitivity. His instinct was to trust Jennie. His instinct also told him that Jennie would never be unfaithful to him, no matter how many Guys came upon the scene. It would be better to let Jennie find out for herself just how weak and devious her cousin was. “The more I leave her alone,” he thought, “the more likely she is to come about. But on the other hand, he could not leave her at Guy’s mercy. It is time to take some action!”
He carefully folded the letter back into its triangular shape and gently heated the wax, this time with the blunt edge of the razor, and deftly molded the seal back into shape.
He then ran lightly down the stairs and entered the drawing room.
Jennie was sitting at a pretty Hepplewhite secretaire. There was an ink blot on her cheek and her face was flushed with concentration. Mr. Porteous, a grizzled middle-aged man with craggy features and small twinkling eyes was watching her indulgently. Chemmy crossed to his wife’s side and silently handed her the note, which she slid under her book like a guilty child.
He was greatly tempted to stay and insist she open it, but he fought against it and kissed her lightly on the cheek instead.
Jennie watched him leave. She felt terrible. If only she had not promised to meet Guy.
“Well, back to your lessons, my leddy,” said the voice of her tutor, Mr. Porteous. “I have here an interesting observation by Montaigne, I would like you to write. Now, just copy my handwriting as best you can and then we’ll finish for the day. Oh, I’ll read you what it says first so you’ll know what it is you’re writing about. Let me see… mphm… Montaigne says here in his Essays, ‘Marriage may be compared to a cage: the birds outside despair to get in and those within despair to get out.’ Aye, just so. Shall we begin?”
Guy Chalmers stood at the edge of Harham village duck pond and watched the winter sun drowning in its glassy waters.
He lit a cheroot and felt at ease with the winter world which stretched around him in the evening light like a symphony in monochrome. The pale gold of thatch on the low houses huddled on the edge of the village green shone in the dying rays of the sun. Tall brown reeds stood sentinel at the water’s edge and great trees etched their brown patterns against a gray and yellow sky. Beside the water one scarlet leaf, brave survivor of autumn, blazed like a jewel among all the golds and browns. Behind him stood the inn, emanating warm smells of beer and roast beef. He fingered the bottle of laudenam in his pocket. He would slip a large measure of it into Jennie’s wine and then escort her to that bedroom he had so thoughtfully bespoken.
He blew a smoke ring in the air and was contemplating feeding the glowing end of his cheroot to a passing duck when a mighty kick in the rear-end sent him flying into the shallow pond.
He floundered and gasped and struggled to get up. A massive blow from a mighty fist struck him behind the ear and he fell senseless into the water. A pair of strong hands dragged him into the shelter of the reeds and turned his white and senseless face up to the evening sky.
The shadow of the coach he had hired for Jennie swept over his body and the long thin shadows of the reeds cast bars across his face.
In the cozy inn parlor, Jennie, Marchioness of Charrington, warmed her hands with a glass of negus and wondered what on earth had happened to Guy. Through the leaded windows of the inn she could see candles beginning to flic
ker in the windows of the village cottages. She was painfully aware of the fact she was unescorted and was glad that the parlor was as yet devoid of other customers, although cheerful masculine voices were beginning to resound from the taproom beyond.
She wondered if Perkins, the housemaid, had read Guy’s letter for her aright. Perhaps she had mistaken the time.
The little cloud of guilt which had been hanging around Jennie’s head all day gathered into a full-sized storm and seemed to burst upon her. She should never have come. She resolutely gathered up her reticule and gloves and, leaving a little silver on the table to pay for her negus, prepared to return to London.
But there was no sign of her coach. A cheeky ostler told her that the coachman had taken off at a great rate saying “as he didn’t hold with violence, not him.” And while Jennie stared at him in horror, wondering what on earth he could mean, a familiar voice sounded in her ears. “What a surprise! Jennie, my love!”
Jennie spun around and found the great bulk of her husband towering over her.
“W-what are y-you doing here?” she babbled.
“I have been visiting some friends in Barnet,” he replied in his usual amiable, pleasant drawl. His face was in the shadow.
“I-I w-was doing the same thing exactly,” lied Jennie desperately. “I decided to go and visit my old nurse who is… or was… retired here. Alas, the poor dear died some time ago and my stupid Jehu… I hired a carriage, you see… he ups and goes back to London, leaving me stranded.”
“Amazing!” said his lordship, without so much as a trace of mockery in his voice. “We can travel back to town together and, since you have obviously decided to forgo your call to Sally, perhaps you would care to spend a quiet evening at home with me?”
“Oh, yes,” said Jennie faintly. “And do let us leave now.”
She was suddenly afraid that Guy might arrive and prove her story a lie.
The Marquis threw a coin to the ostler and they waited in silence until the carriage was brought around, led by the wooden-faced groom, John.
Jennie, who knew that a lady never expects a gentleman to help her up onto the box of his carriage when he is driving it himself, waited until the Marquis was seated with the reins in his hands and then nipped up nimbly beside him.
She wrapped herself in the rugs thoughtfully provided for her by the groom.
She became aware that the carriage showed no signs of moving. The Marquis was staring in the direction of the pond. Suddenly he gave a little sigh of satisfaction, bent and kissed his wife hard on the mouth in such a way as to leave her feeling breathless and strangely exhilarated.
Chemmy sprang his horses and the carriage swept in a half circle past the village pond and off in the direction of London.
The muddy, weed-covered, shivering and abject figure that was Guy Chalmers heaved himself up from the mud pond and stared after them with a rage in his heart as black as the sky above.
Jennie looked down the long length of the dining table and covertly surveyed her husband. Although they were dining at home, he had changed into a faultless evening coat and knee breeches. He had been chatting lazily of this and that. Jennie, now that she had got over her shock, felt those old familiar stirrings of contempt. What proper man would have accepted such a cock and bull story as the one that she had told about her nurse? Jennie had never even considered for a moment that her husband might have somehow read her note from Guy. The Marquis caught her eye and lovingly smoothed the sleeve of his coat.
“Do you like this, my heart?” he asked anxiously. “I had it made for me by Weston and he claims it is his masterpiece.”
“Very fine,” said his wife, with a slight curl to her lip.
“I am so glad you like it,” he said in the earnest voice that he only used when talking about clothes. “Did I tell you we shall be traveling into the country tomorrow? No! Dear me. How remiss of me. Yes, I feel it is high time we paid a call on your… er… beloved home.”
It was Jennie’s day for feeling guilty. She had not really thought much about her grandparents since she had come to town. The thought of her former dirty home with its comfortless rooms and terrible meals made her want to shudder.
“I wish you would not make such arrangements without consulting me first,” she snapped.
Chemmy raised his thin eyebrows in surprise. “Had I thought for a minute that the idea would be repugnant to you, of course, I would naturally have consulted you. But since your love for your home was strong enough to make you want to spend your wedding night there, I naturally assumed…”
“Then you shouldn’t,” said Jennie pettishly, throwing down her napkin.
“Poor Jennie,” he said, getting lazily to his feet and strolling around the table towards her. “You shall just have to make the best of it. Your grandparents are expecting you.”
“I do not like having a master,” said Jennie mulishly.
“Do you mean me?” cried Chemmy, taking her in his arms and clutching her to his bosom in what she uneasily felt was a deliberately theatrical manner. “I worship the ground you walk on. I kiss your feet… or rather I would if my jacket would but allow me to bend.”
“Oh, you… you fop,” said Jennie, struggling to release herself and hoping against hope that she had gone too far this time and that her seemingly emotionless husband would at least be provoked into a show of anger, but his blue eyes merely glinted with amusement as he gazed down into her flushed face.
“How true and, oh, how sad,” he said, holding her very close, so close that she could feel the hard muscles of his legs pressing against her own. He began to kiss her very lightly and expertly, her eyes, her nose, her mouth, her breast and her mouth again until she gave a choked moaning sound in the back of her throat and clutched desperately at the silk revers of his evening coat for support.
“Oh, Jennie,” he sighed huskily, “there is something I must tell you, my heart.”
“What is it, Chemmy?” she breathed, staring up into his handsome face with a drowned look in her eyes.
“You are clutching me so hard, you are quite spoiling the set of my coat,” said the Marquis.
“Damn your bloody coat, sirrah, and damn and double damn you,” howled his little wife, wrenching herself out of his arms and fleeing from the room.
The Marquis looked after her disappearing figure and a smile curled his mobile mouth. “Yes, I really must buy you a horse, my lady wife,” he murmured, “for you have obviously had a close acquaintanceship with the stables!”
Chapter Seven
For a long time afterward, Jennie was to associate bright sunshine with disaster. Not for her the Gothic omens of the thunderstorm, with its jagged flashes of lightning and purple clouds.
When she and her husband drove up to the ivy-covered front of Runbury Manor, brilliant sunshine was flooding the ragged estate and the birds were chirping busily in the trees, ruffling their feathers under the benison of a mock spring day.
The groom, John, performed a cheerful rat-tat-tat on the door knocker and Jennie and the Marquis stood side by side on the mossy steps, waiting for someone to answer.
Silence.
No omens. No warnings. Only the busy chattering of the birds in the ivy and the dry rattle of crumpled dead leaves over the frozen gravel of the drive.
John banged on the knocker again and then tried the door which swung open revealing the darkness of the hall beyond.
The smell of the cold, fetid air was like a blow in the face.
On an old, high-backed carved chair in the hall sat the elderly footman, dressed in his finery of the last century. His thin, spindly legs in their clocked stockings were neatly crossed, his frail, gloved hands rested motionless in his lap and his pale old eyes stared blankly into space.
Jennie would have run to him but the Marquis held her back. “He is dead,” said Chemmy quietly. “I do not know what has been going on here, my dear, but the stench is appalling. You must wait outside in the carriage for me.”
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br /> Too shocked to argue, Jennie stumbled out of the door and took in great gulps of the clear, cold winter air outside.
She climbed into the traveling carriage and wrapped herself in rugs, willing herself not to think. Not to think at all.
After what seemed like an age, the Marquis walked slowly from the house, followed by John and climbed in beside her.
He took her small gloved hands in his own. “Your grandparents are dead,” he said in an emotionless voice. “I found Martha, the cook, and some of the remaining servants in the kitchens in a bad state of shock.
“They say they had pleaded with Lord Charles to hire men to clear the cesspool but he stubbornly insisted it was a waste of money. The other night when it was very cold, he had a sudden fit of extravagance and ordered the servants to close all the windows and light fires in every room and keep them burning all night. Your grandparents and several of the servants died of asphyxiation.”
Jennie clung to his hands, unable to take in the shattering news. People died of such causes every day of the year but it was hard to understand that it could happen to anyone one knew.
“And Jeffries… the footman?” whispered Jennie.
“I think he died of a broken heart,” said Chemmy gently. “He was the one who discovered your grandparents dead. He then dressed himself in his best livery and sat himself in that chair in the hall… as if on duty… and waited for death to arrive.”
“I must go to them,” said Jennie.
“There is nothing you can do,” said her husband, pressing her back into the seat. “John will convey you to the nearest inn while I attend to all that is necessary here. Believe me, my heart, you will only distress yourself beyond reason. You must leave things to me.”
Jennie nodded dumbly. “The dogs are dead too, poor brutes,” said the Marquis, “and unless I remove the rest of the old servants quickly, I will not answer for their lives. Please go, Jennie. John will take care of you until I arrive.”
