by M C Beaton
There was a furtive scurrying sound behind them as Mr. Porteous swung around. No one. At the far end of the lane, the trees of the Park swayed and turned in the lightest of summer breezes, making the Park look like an Eden shining at the end of some particularly noisome alleyway out of hell.
Mr. Porteous walked along uneasily.
There was a sudden loud clatter of running feet. Holding his cane he swung around. With the lightning speed of the ferret he resembled, a little, red-eyed man tried to nip under Mr. Porteous’ arm and drive the long wicked looking knife he held in his hand straight into Jennie’s ribs.
Mr. Porteous brought his cane down with a savage blow on the man’s wrist and the knife spun off into the kennel.
Jennie’s assailant staggered, regaining his balance and turned to flee. With surprising agility, Mr. Porteous caught him by the back of the neck and began to shake him like a rat.
“The Runners will be glad to get a look at you, laddie,” he grated.
The little man squirmed in his grasp. “I was paid to do it, guv,” he panted. “Let me go an’ I’ll tell you. I swear. You’re hurting me!”
“All right, you scum, who paid you?” demanded Mr. Porteous while Jennie and Sally clutched each other for support.
“‘Twas ’er husband,” gasped the man. “God’s word, it was.”
“Fustian!” said Mr. Porteous. “You do not even know the name of this leddy.”
“That I do,” said the man, turning his small red-rimmed eyes towards Jennie. “The Marquis of Charrington paid me and that there’s his rib, his wife, that’s wot.”
Mr. Porteous swore in amazement, slackened his grip and the assailant saw his chance and took it. He lashed out a vicious kick, which caught Mr. Porteous full in the stomach and then he fled, disappearing into the blackness of the lane.
Sally helped Mr. Porteous who had fallen to his knees.
But Jennie stood still. The horrible rat-faced man’s words seemed to pound and pound in her ears:
“The Marquis of Charrington paid me…”
Chapter Nine
Chemmy paused on the threshold of the drawing room with Perry behind him, his eyebrows lifting at the strange scene that met his eyes.
Mr. Porteous was lying stretched out on the sofa while Sally was perched on the edge of it, trying to persuade him to drink a glass of wine. His wife was standing a little way away at the fireplace, looking white and frightened.
Perry was the first to speak. “Miss Byles,” he said sternly, “you are practically sitting in that man’s lap. Get up immediately.”
Sally got to her feet with a mulish expression on her face.
“I was administering to Mr. Porteous,” she said, tossing her ringlets. “He was hurt saving Jennie’s life!”
“I would have a word with you in private, my lord,” said Mr. Porteous, weakly raising his head.
“Very well,” said Chemmy. “Perry, please take Miss Byles home. And madam”—to Jennie—“wait for me in the morning room.”
Sally looked as if she was about to refuse to go, but an appealing look from Jennie sped her on her way.
When they were alone, the Marquis noticed that Mr. Porteous abandoned his role of invalid and sat up on the sofa, looking very alert and businesslike.
“It seems I am in your debt,” said the Marquis. “Pray, tell me what happened.”
Mr. Porteous slowly and concisely explained the details of the attack, ending with the man’s strange accusation.
The Marquis sat very still, studying the ends of his fingernails.
“Very strange,” he said at last. “And did any of you believe that I had hired someone to kill my wife?”
“My lord,” cried Mr. Porteous, springing to his feet. “As if any of us would.”
“You are a very useful man to have around, Porteous,” said the Marquis. “I am very grateful to you. Which puts me in mind of something else. I have been considering employing a secretary and I feel you would be the very man for the job. I would like you to live here if that is convenient.”
“Thank you, my lord,” said Mr. Porteous. “Very convenient.”
“You will, of course, continue to tutor my wife. I would also like you to keep an eye on her, Mr. Porteous. Make her your friend. Perhaps there are some things about my wife I do not understand. I will be frank with you, since I know you to be a man of honor. I believe my wife married me for my money, but there is yet in my mind a nagging seed of doubt.”
“There bluidy well should be,” shouted Mr. Porteous. “My lady us nothing mair than an artless child.”
“Dear me,” said the Marquis softly. “The democracy of the Scots. Remember your place, my good man.”
“I will not apologize for my loyalty to her ladyship,” said Mr. Porteous, standing his ground. “Miss Byles is a friend of my leddy and anyone who has Miss Byles as a friend is nigh on the road to paradise!”
The Marquis blinked in astonishment. Then he understood what had overset the tutor’s nerves and what also had made him lie so weakly on the sofa so long as Sally was in the room.
“What a busy day you have had to be sure,” murmured the Marquis lazily. “You save my wife’s life and fall in love with her best friend and all in the space of a few hours!”
All the fight went out of the tutor and he stood and hung his head like an overgrown schoolboy. “Ye think I’m cheeky, my lord, and ye would be right. But I maun speak what is in my heart. I cannae thole deception,” he said, his brogue at its thickest.
“In that case,” said the Marquis, “you will be an excellent secretary. But do not expect me to smile on your passion for Miss Byles. She is, after all, about to marry my closest friend.”
“Aye, just so. I’m old enough to be her faither anyway,” said the tutor with a heavy sigh.
“Courage, man! How old are you, Porteous?”
“Forty-one, my lord.”
“A mere child, I assure you,” said the Marquis, ringing the bell. “Ah, Roberts. Have Mr. Porteous conveyed to his lodgings in my carriage and then send my wife to me.”
“My lord.”
“Yes, Roberts?”
“My lady gave me the diamonds for safekeeping until you return. She does not wish to see them again.”
“Very well, Roberts,” said Chemmy. “Have them conveyed to my room.”
When the doors had closed behind the butler and Mr. Porteous, Chemmy walked over to a little desk at the window and picked up a long, thin stilleto which he used for cutting the pages of new books and turned it idly over and over in his fingers while he waited for his wife.
He wondered why she was returning the diamonds and decided it was simply a childish trick to impress him and, at the same time, humiliate him further. In Jennie’s spoiled child naïveté, he thought he saw the workings of a cold and acquisitive brain. Perhaps she had even hired someone to pretend to try to kill her and throw the blame for it onto him as part of some devious plan. Damn her!
With absolute clarity, he suddenly remembered the silken feel of her skin against his naked body. Suddenly his carefully cultivated mask of urbanity cracked and shattered and, beside himself with longing, anguish and rage, he stabbed the long knife again and again into the soft leather top of the desk.
A sharp noise made him turn. Jennie stood watching him, the pupils of her eyes dilated with fear.
Hardly knowing what he was saying, he swept her a bow. “I do not need you this evening,” he drawled. “I have a call to make on Mrs. Waring.”
He pushed past her and a second later she heard the street door bang. She felt numb with terror. Her husband was a maniac—and a maniac hell-bent on killing her and marrying Alice Waring.
Jennie could not bear the thought of waiting alone in the house. She sent a footman to find her a chair to take her to Sally’s home a few streets away.
Sally was fortunately at home. It transpired that she had been invited to a party that evening but Perry had been too angry with her to escort her. When J
ennie was announced, Sally was sitting in the drawing room with her parents, the Honorable Mr. and Mrs. Augustus Byles, a jolly, plump, good-natured couple.
Mrs. Byles hailed Jennie’s arrival with relief. “I am right glad you are come, Jennie,” she said, rising and shaking out her skirts. “Mr. Byles and I are invited to an evening of cards but we did not want to leave Sally alone. Perhaps you can stay for some while and keep her company? You will? Splendid! Come, Mr. Byles. I declare I am anxious to be off. Such an irritating evening! As if I did not know how to behave like a parent after all these years. How dare he!”
“Perry,” explained Sally gloomily, when her parents had left. “Not content with accusing me of philandering with servants… he meant Mr. Porteous, of course… he went on to tell Mama and Papa that I had been very badly brought up and so they were quite incensed with him as well, and I hoped against hope that Mama would tell me to give him his marching orders. But, no! She forgave him. Said that jealous men were always twitty.
“But, Jennie, enough of my worries. What about yours? You look terrified to death!”
“I am,” said Jennie, and began to pour out the story of Chemmy’s assault upon the desk, large tears beginning to roll down her face. “And then he said he was going to Mrs. Waring,” she ended, taking an inadequate handkerchief out of her reticule and trying to mop her face with it.
“You must compose yourself, Jennie,” said Sally in a muffled voice. “We shall drink a glass of Papa’s madeira wine and you will feel more the thing. Oh! It-it’s so funny.” And with that, the mirth that Sally had been trying to restrain poured out as she rolled around on the sofa and whooped and hiccupped.
“You’ve gone mad,” snapped Jennie, anger drying her tears.
“It’s not that,” said Sally when she could. “I’m sorry to laugh but, poor Chemmy, he sounds so like Papa.”
“What can a raving madman have in common with Mr. Byles?” demanded Jennie angrily, comparing the mental picture of her husband stabbing at the desk with one of the usually cheerful and placid Mr. Byles.
“It’s true,” choked Sally, beginning to laugh again. “It’s all right, Jennie. Don’t glare at me like that. I’ll explain.
“Well, we had in our employ in town a simply exquisite footman… like a young Adonis. Now, it was on that very gusty, blowy day about a se’enight ago and the wind was roaring down all the chimneys and Mama got a cinder in her eye and it was terribly painful.
“This footman… Bryant… happened to be in the room at the time, lighting the candles, you know, and he rushed forward with a handkerchief and offered to take the cinder from Mama’s eye. Well, Mama was so grateful, she simply clutched on to him while Bryant worked away with a pocket handkerchief to get the cinder out.
“Papa errupted over the threshold. ‘Damn, woman,’ he roars, ‘is this what goes on in mine household when I am abroad?’ Poor Bryant flees. Mama tries to explain but Papa is so mad with jealousy, he won’t listen.
“He throws all her pretty figurines from the mantle onto the floor and he starts jumping up and down on them… quite beside himself with rage, my dear… grinding them to a powder and shouting, ‘There, madam, there! What d’ye think of that. Heh? Heh?’ Quite mad, I assure you. But Papa would never kill Mama, you know. In fact he bought her a very pretty trinket. He even apologized to Bryant… not that it stopped him from sending Bryant to our house in the country, for Papa said that a young man like that around the house was simply throwing temptation in any female’s way.”
“And you think…” began Jennie, wonderingly.
“I don’t think… I know,” said Sally triumphantly. “Imagine for a minute that there had not been an attempt on your life and you had found Chemmy behaving like that. You would have simply thought he had the gout or had lost money on the Funds or something…”
“Perhaps,” said Jennie slowly. “But Chemmy is… well… always so mannered… so very much the gentleman…”
“So is my Papa,” pointed out Sally reasonably. “At least, most days of the week, that is. Now, I wouldn’t mind if Perry would go off his head once in a while instead of sitting with his cane stuffed in his mouth, emanating an atmosphere of disapproval, or occasionally unstoppering himself to tell me my dresses are fast or that I’m making sheep’s eyes at Mr. Porteous… which, of course, I am. Isn’t he gorgeous, Jennie. So silent and masterful. When he looks at me from under those dear shaggy eyebrows and says, ‘Aye, just so,’ I go quite weak at the knees.”
“Sally,” exclaimed Jennie. “It would never answer, you know. Your parents would never hear of it.”
“Not in the ordinary way, they wouldn’t,” grinned Sally. “Give them a little more of dear Mr. Deighton and they’d give their blessing to a tiger from Exeter ’Change!”
“He’s rather old, isn’t he?” said Jennie. “Mr. Porteous, I mean.”
“Nonsense!” said Sally. “If you think Mr. Porteous is old, then Chemmy is ancient.”
“Chemmy is thirty-five!”
“Exactly!”
Both girls glared at each other and then Jennie began to laugh. “Oh, Sally,” she said. “You are better than a tonic. Somehow life seems normal again.”
“Good,” grinned Sally. “And why should you be amazed and frightened if Chemmy throws a tantrum? Do you still hold your breath?”
“Oh, dear,” blushed Jennie. “I haven’t done that for a long time. What a spoiled brat I must have been. And how on earth could I be so spoiled? Grandmama and Grandpapa were quite strict with me, you know.”
“Guy was the one who spoiled you,” said Sally. “I don’t like that young man.”
“Guy loves me, like a sister,” said Jennie, flying to her cousin’s defense and then guiltily remembered his anything-but-brotherly kisses. “I must talk to Chemmy tonight and explain everything.”
“I wouldn’t do that. I would leave him to cool off,” said the worldly-wise Sally. “Why don’t you go away somewhere and leave him alone so that he’ll miss you. He’ll never see things in perspective with you underfoot. Tell him that you want to see the improvements to your old home. You told me the servants… the old ones… are at Charrington Court. Have them conveyed back again, order new furniture, get the old place cleaned out. With all that, you will not have time to mope. And I shall come and visit you.”
“Very well,” said Jennie. “But I shall say something to Chemmy. I cannot bear him to go on thinking me mercenary.”
“Give Mr. Porteous a goodnight kiss for me,” grinned Sally. “Has he moved in?”
“I don’t know,” said Jennie, “and furthermore you must tell Perry you are not going to marry him, especially if you are dreaming about someone else. Has it ever dawned on you, Sally, that Perry might be in love with you?”
“Pooh!” said Sally. “That one only loves himself!”
“Perry, if the girl is making you so unhappy, why marry her?” demanded the Marquis of Charrington.
He and Mr. Deighton had spent a long, dreary and silent evening playing cards. Both of them had been reluctant to return to their respective homes and, instead, had driven several miles out on the Brighton road, looking for a congenial hostelry where they could first clear their heads with the cool air of the drive and then revive their spirits with a good bottle of wine.
They had finally alighted at the Three Sisters Inn at Horley and had found themselves a quiet table in the small garden at the back.
The evening was very still and warm. A small moon rose high above and the smells of grass and flowers mingled with the homelier smells of ale, wine and coffee which drifted from the taproom.
Perry had burst into speech under the relaxing influence of a good bottle of port. He had entreated Chemmy to talk to the tutor and tell that presumptuous Highlander to keep his roving eyes on his books.
The Marquis had refused. He was in a difficult position, he said. The tutor had saved his wife’s life and appeared to be receiving every encouragement from Sally. Also, the tutor had co
me with impeccable references from the Duke of Westerland, who had also written from his Scottish fastness to say that Mr. Porteous came from a very old family and that his bloodline was impeccable. The man had, in fact, everything to recommend him except money.
“How did the trouble with Sally start?” asked the Marquis, prepared to sink himself in Perry’s troubles so that he might cease worrying about his own. He could not, after all, discuss his wife, even with his best friend. Discussing her with Porteous was a different matter. He needed Porteous as a watchdog.
“I did not like the way she dressed and told her that I would choose her trousseau for her,” said Perry.
The Marquis groaned. “Perry, my dear Perry, if Miss Byles was in the habit of arraying herself in vulgar or ostentatious clothes I could see the point, but she is always very attractively gowned.”
“That’s just it,” complained Perry. “She’s too attractive by half. Who would have thought she would have changed from that plump little country miss? I see the way other men look at her and I can’t stand it.”
That was when the Marquis had pointed out that Perry might be better off not marrying Sally if she made him so unhappy.
“But I shall be even more unhappy without her,” said Perry moodily. “I am also shocked at the intensity of my feelings. After all, one does not have passionate relationships with one’s future wife.”
The Marquis put down his glass and stared at his friend in amazement. “Why ever not?”
“Well, it’s not decent, is it?” pleaded Perry. “One reserves that sort of behavior for the ladies of the town. And when Sally responded to me rather ardently, I had to rebuke her.”
“You had to…” The Marquis groaned. “Look you, Perry. Women are the same creatures whether they come from the demimonde or from our world. They are human. They want passionate love as much as we do. If Sally ever wants to see you again, I shall be much surprised. How on earth did you come about these Gothic notions?”
