The Desirable Duchess

by M C Beaton

  Why should he listen to gossip—whether relayed to him by Edward or anyone else? He smiled suddenly at Alice. “Fetch your bonnet and pelisse, my dear, and we will take the air.”

  Relieved by his abrupt change of humor, Alice ran to put on a pretty Lavinia bonnet and a pere-line, instead of a pelisse, that short cape of fine muslin trimmed with bugle beads that was more of an ornament than a protection against the weather. Men were indeed odd. Mama had warned her that they were subject to a Disorder of the Spleen from time to time, which made the creatures tetchy.

  And his evident good humor lasted as he drove her competently to the Park in a smart phaeton. Alice began to relax and enjoy herself. Her estrangement from her husband had caused her a certain amount of social isolation. Now all could see they were on the best of terms.

  Soldiers were drilling at the far side of the Park, a military display rather than the military necessity it had been during the wars with the French.

  They bowled along, the duke nodding to people he knew. Alice felt very proud to be seen out with him. He smiled down at her. “Had enough of the quizzes?” he asked.

  “Let’s go round one more time,” said Alice. “I want everyone to see us together. And I want a closer look at the soldiers.”

  “How unfashionable of you,” he mocked, to disguise the fact that he was highly pleased. “The fashionables are thinning out now.”

  The carriage moved slowly under the trees. They had just come abreast a stand of bushes quite near where the soldiers were drilling. The front rank of soldiers raised their muskets and fired a volley in the air, making Alice start, and the carriage rug slipped from her knees. Holding the reins in one hand, the duke stooped to raise the rug round her knees again and, as he bent down, there was a sharp report. “Those soldiers,” said Alice. “What a waste of ammunition.”

  The duke reined in his team and then slowly removed his curly-brimmed beaver and held it out. “Why!” exclaimed Alice, “There is a hole in your good hat…” Her voice trailed away and she looked at him in horror.

  “Exactly,” he said grimly. He called to his tiger on the backstrap to go to the horse’s heads and then he jumped down. “I won’t be long,” he said. “I am just going to have a word with the colonel in charge of those men.”

  Alice sat looking about her. What a terrible thing to have happened. Sometimes it seemed as if there were guns going off all over London—from military displays to Cockney sportsmen who brought their guns into town and fired at dogs and cats and geese. And then a movement to her right caught her eye. Walking briskly away, near the stand of bushes, was a figure that looked familiar. She leaned a little forward. Surely she recognized that long body and those short legs. Surely that was Sir Gerald. She felt suddenly cold. Could he… would he dare… fire at her husband? But the idea was preposterous.

  “I am going for a little walk,” she called to the tiger.

  She jumped nimbly down and forced herself to walk slowly round to the back of the stand of bushes until she found herself screened from the tiger.

  Then she parted the branches and peered into the green undergrowth. A musket, a military musket, was lying on the ground. Then she heard her husband’s voice asking where she was and hurried back.

  “The colonel says it could not have been any of his men. He watched them and they all fired in the air,” said the duke.

  “John, I am afraid someone was firing at you,” said Alice. “There is a musket hidden in those bushes and I think the shot might have come from there.”

  His face grim, he went to look, drawing the musket out of its hiding place and sniffing the barrel. “Recently fired,” he said. “Did you see anyone?”

  Alice shook her head. It could not have been Sir Gerald. Her eyes must have been playing her tricks. It was probably one of the Cockney sportsmen firing at a bird in a tree and hitting the duke’s hat by mistake. To mention Sir Gerald’s name would start up all the old scandal. But as soon as she had shaken her head, she immediately wished she had told him the truth. To tell him now would seem as if her first impulse had been to shield Sir Gerald, and she could not have him believe that. She looked wretched, but the duke put it down to fright.

  He walked back and stopped a smart carriage. Mrs. Tumley’s rouged face looked at him in surprise. “Please, would you take my wife home,” said the duke. “I have an urgent matter to attend to here.”

  “Gladly,” said Mrs. Tumley, goggling with curiosity as Alice was helped in beside her.

  “What was all that about?” asked Mrs. Tumley as they drove off.

  “Someone shot at my husband and would have killed him had he not been bending down at the time,” said Alice.

  “How frightful!” shrieked Mrs. Tumley. “My dear duchess, I feel quite faint. There are murderers and assassins everywhere.”

  “I think it might prove to be some Cockney sportsman,” said Alice quietly, wishing she could get that retreating figure—looking so like Sir Gerald Warby—out of her head.

  “You must be all of a quiver, but then you are used to living dangerously,” said Mrs. Tumley, with a titter.

  “What do you mean by that remark?”

  “Oh, my dear,” Mrs. Tumley put a gloved hand on Alice’s knee. She glanced around and lowered her voice. “We all know you are pining for Sir Gerald.”

  “How dare you!” said Alice furiously. “How dare you spread such malicious gossip? It is not true. Coachman! Stop here!”

  Alice jumped down from the carriage and walked off along Park Street, her face flaming.

  So it’s true after all, thought Mrs. Tumley with satisfaction. She would not have been so vehement in her denial if there had been nothing in it. So instead of driving on, she went to call on a Mrs. Grange, and among Mrs. Grange’s callers was Lucy Vere, who listened, appalled, to the gossip.

  She declared it was all lies and promptly took her leave. The ladies nodded wisely after she had gone. Lucy Vere was a friend of the duchess’s. Of course she would try to defend her friend. And so gossip, fueled by envy of the pretty duchess, continued to spread.

  Lucy went home, sat down at her desk, and wrote a note to Sir Gerald requesting him to call. She knew Edward was not expected back for another two hours. Then she waited impatiently.

  Sir Gerald arrived quite promptly. He had been in his lodgings, cursing himself for his failed attempt on the duke’s life. He was feeling sick and shaky. He felt he could not make another attempt. It was one thing to dream about taking a man’s life, another thing to actually try to do it. The summons from Lucy intrigued him. Perhaps Alice had sent him a message through Lucy. If only he had never accepted that money from her parents to go away. He could have married the girl and had her fortune.

  Lucy received him in the library of her home, a setting she felt more suited to grave business than the drawing room, despite the fact that the library contained only one bookshelf full of romances. Edward did not read anything other than the morning papers.

  “Be seated, Sir Gerald,” said Lucy. “I have something very important to discuss with you.”

  He sat down. Lucy regarded him steadily. She had always thought him a handsome man and had envied Alice in the days before she, Lucy, had met her darling Edward. There was some change in Sir Gerald, she thought, a certain loss of innocence. There were dark shadows under his black eyes and his mouth had become fuller.

  “I heard some very distressing gossip this afternoon,” said Lucy.

  Gerald sat very still. Surely he could not be suspected of that attempt on Ferrant’s life. He had first established an alibi by riding to a curricle race at Hammersmith. As soon as he had talked to as many people as possible, he had slipped away and ridden as hard as he could back to London. He was sure no one had seen him in the Park. He had heard that the duke was to take Alice driving and he knew of the military exercise. He had purchased an army musket and had carried it to the Park. He had hid in the stand of bushes, hoping that the duke and Alice might drive over to look a
t the soldiers. That they should have driven past just after that volley of shots was a remarkable piece of luck—but the duke would choose that moment to stoop in the carriage—and so the musket ball had gone harmlessly through his hat.

  “Mrs. Tumley,” said Lucy, “is spreading gossip about you and Alice.”

  “Fie for shame,” said Gerald, with relief. “Alice is lost to me.” His agile brain was working. No use telling this friend of Alice’s any lies about a liaison. On the other hand, she could be put to use.

  “I know there is no truth in it,” said Lucy, “and I want you to tell everyone so.”

  “My dear Mrs. Vere,” he said, putting his hand on his heart, “your wish is my command.”

  “Yes… well, very fine, to be sure,” said Lucy uneasily.

  “But there is one thing you do not realize, Mrs. Vere. I have been much wronged. Alice’s parents called on me and told me to leave Alice alone… begged me. They said she was in love with Ferrant and had not the courage to tell me. Ah, the pain and humiliation of it all. My heart nigh broke.”

  “Very sad,” said Lucy uncomfortably. “But that is all past and she is married, and so…”

  “And so I must accept it. But she is so unhappy. Surely you have noticed that. This… er… flaunting of Lady Macdonald…”

  A shadow crossed Lucy’s face. “Let us not talk about that.”

  “As you will. What concerns me is that I have not had a proper chance to explain myself to Alice. All I want is one meeting.”

  “That would not be wise. You know the way of the world, sir. A man may have mistresses, but a woman must never cause any scandal whatsoever.”

  “But it is only one meeting, I beg of you. If you could prevail on Alice to see me, just once. I could also tell her about these dreadful rumors, and together we could scotch them.”

  Lucy looked at him doubtfully. “To be frank, if there are any embers of warmth toward you left, Sir Gerald, I do not feel like doing anything to fan them.”

  “You would not. A final good-bye would be to everyone’s advantage.”

  “Very well. I will call on Alice tomorrow and see what I can do.”

  Gerald stood up to take his leave. Just to be on the safe side, he should establish that alibi even more. “I had the pleasure of meeting your husband this afternoon, a curricle race at Hammersmith,” he said as he bowed his way out.

  He felt pleased. The intrigue had bolstered his spirits. “Hey, Warby!” cried Mr. Jermyn, a Bond Street lounger. “What news?”

  Gerald looked at him solemnly. “There is no truth in the rumors that I am having an affair with the Duchess of Ferrant,” he said. “Tell everyone.”

  Mr. Jermyn goggled at him. “Oh, I will, I will,” he said, and then went on to his club, where he regaled his cronies with the fact that the Duchess of Ferrant was having an affair with Sir Gerald Warby—and Sir Gerald was trying to cover up the fact in the clumsiest way possible, which is exactly what Sir Gerald had guessed he would do.

  Alice was dismayed to receive a message from her husband saying that he would not be home until late. The duke was continuing his questioning of the soldiers and anyone else who had happened to be in the Park at the time. One soldier, brighter than the rest, had vouchsafed that he had seen a fellow walking away from the bushes with an empty canvas gun bag. No, the soldier had said, he had not remarked on him particularly. Had thought idly that he was one of those Cockneys come to see the drill. He described the man as being tall and wearing a wideawake on his head, but couldn’t remember much else.

  Mrs. Duggan called to remind Alice that they were engaged to go to Lady Markman’s picnic on the morrow if the weather held fine. After she had left, Alice was sitting flipping through a pile of invitation cards, discussing with Oracle whether she should go to one of the social events on her own, when Lucy was announced. Lucy had decided she could not bear to wait until tomorrow. Edward had not come home. He had sent a note to say he would join her at the opera later.

  Alice embraced her warmly. “I am so glad to see you, Lucy. Such a frightful thing has happened. Someone shot at Ferrant in the Park.”

  “Merciful heavens,” said Lucy. “You must have had a dreadful shock. Have they found who did it?”

  Alice shook her head. “Ferrant is still making inquiries.” She suddenly wanted to unburden herself, to tell Lucy about that man she had seen, that man who had looked so like Sir Gerald, but Lucy had begun to speak again.

  “I had a visit from Sir Gerald Warby, Alice.”

  Alice blushed. Lucy said evenly, “This followed a distressing call on Mrs. Grange. Mrs. Tumley was there… and she was spreading gossip that you are having an affair with Warby.”

  “This is awful!”

  “Exactly. So I took the liberty of sending for Sir Gerald and telling him to scotch the rumors.”

  “When was this?” asked Alice.

  “Late this afternoon. I was lucky to find him at home. He had just returned from a curricle race in Hammersmith.”

  Alice felt limp with relief. So it could not have been Sir Gerald in the Park. She had been right to keep her suspicions to herself.

  “Sir Gerald quite moved me,” Lucy went on, “by the way he described how your parents had coerced him into leaving you. He said they had told him you were in love with Ferrant.”

  “I shall never forgive them for that,” said Alice.

  Lucy looked at her sadly. “If you won’t forgive them for stopping your marriage to Sir Gerald, surely that means you still long for him.”

  “No, no,” said Alice wretchedly. “I am furious because my parents did not confide in me, because they tricked me.”

  “Sir Gerald begged me to see you. He wishes to talk to you for one last time, to explain.”

  “He has already explained,” said Alice wearily.

  “I suppose I feel a certain sympathy for him,” said Lucy earnestly. “He was tricked as well. Could you not spare him a few moments of your time?”

  Alice bit her lip. “I cannot have him call here. But, yes, I think I would like to see him. Perhaps I could beg him to leave London so there would be a chance of all those horrible rumors dying down. I am to go with Mrs. Duggan to Lady Markman’s picnic tomorrow. I do not know if Sir Gerald has been invited, but at these hurly-burly affairs an odd uninvited member of society is not remarked on. It is at three in the afternoon in the Surrey fields. Tell him to be there and I can talk to him for a little.”

  “Everyone will see you together,” pointed out Lucy doubtfully. “Can you not meet him in private?”

  Alice shook her head. “If anyone saw a private meeting, that would be worse.”

  “But to return to this shooting,” said Lucy. “Who could have possibly done such a thing?”

  “I found a musket lying in the bushes,” said Alice. “Perhaps one of the soldiers—It was a military musket.”

  “The Cockney youths often use old army muskets as well for their sport. I don’t mean one of them would consider shooting Ferrant as sport. What I mean is that they drink so much, and as soon as they are drunk, all they want to do is shoot things. One of them shot Lady Markman’s pug when it had run away from her carriage. And the fellow had the gall to say he thought it was a rat!”

  Alice began to feel quite lighthearted. It did not cross her mind that her husband’s assailant might have chosen an army musket in the very hope that the soldiers would have been blamed, or some lout from the East End of the City who could afford only an old army weapon.

  “I feel it is definitely time to start afresh, Lucy,” she said. “Once I have spoken to Sir Gerald and heard what he has to say, then I feel I can begin a new chapter.”

  Lucy looked at her seriously. “I hope your husband means to start a new chapter as well.”

  “He has told me about Lady Macdonald. It was a flirtation, Lucy, not an affair, and it is at an end.”

  Lucy gave Alice an impulsive hug. “You are going to be the most happily married lady in London, and wo
n’t that confound the gossips!”

  Sir Gerald received a letter from Lucy that was waiting for him when he had returned home. He felt exhausted. It had been a long day. First the meeting in the City with Lord Werford and Percy, the discussion with them of the best way to shoot the duke, the getting of the musket, the dash to Hammersmith, the dash back from Hammersmith to the Park, the circuitous approach to that stand of bushes, walking neither too fast nor too slow, his hat pulled down over his eyes to cover his face, and then the failure. He had tracked Werford and Percy down to a coffeehouse in Pall Mall in the evening, and, to their complaints, he had replied waspishly that the whole project of shooting the duke in broad daylight in the Park had been insanity. In future, they would have to trust him and let him do his own planning, to which Lord Werford had barked, “Don’t take too long about it,” and his eyes had been full of threat.

  He scanned Lucy’s note and then smiled. It was also his job to see that the duke and Alice did not become close—or the next thing would be that Alice would be with child and Werford would be demanding her murder.

  He wearily put on his evening clothes and went out again to search for Lady Macdonald. He was quite prepared to attend every social function in London to find her, but he fortunately called at her home first—and to his relief found her there.

  He told her about his planned meeting with Alice at the picnic. “Good,” said Lady Macdonald, “but what will you do if Ferrant is there?”

  “I do not think he will be,” said Gerald. “If she is prepared to speak to me, then she will not want her husband to be witness to it.”

  Lady Macdonald smiled. “It would be in my interest to get him there. I have been invited.”

  Gerald thought quickly. All sorts of opportunities at a picnic. Shooting had been clumsy. Now poison was easily available, and poison was subtle. There was arsenic all over London: arsenic in the wallpaper paste to keep down bugs, arsenic in the kitchens to keep down rats, and arsenic used as a cosmetic to clear the skin. Of course, there would be an outcry to see who had killed the great duke. First suspect would be Alice, but he could testify to her innocence and cleverly throw the blame on Lady Macdonald, saying she was mad with jealousy.