by M C Beaton
“No,” said the marquess, horrified. “I will take no blame for the brutal murder of your poor maid.”
“Let me escape,” pleaded Maria. “Please, Rockingham.”
“You did not let Benson escape,” he said. “And you thought you had killed Kennedy. You must stand trial.”
Maria closed her eyes for a moment. She had attended so many public hangings that she knew what it would be like to be the chief performer.
“Please…” she whispered again.
At that moment a Runner poked his head through the skylight and leveled a pistol at Maria. “Stay where you are,” he ordered. “In the king’s name, I—”
But that was as far as he got.
With a loud scream, Maria Deauville jumped.
The marquess crouched down and leaned over the edge. Maria lay in the middle of the road, her head at an awkward angle.
Jewels lay spilled about her.
There was a great roar from the people in the street.
The marquess closed his eyes as the greedy crowd closed in on the body, grabbing and tearing at the jewels.
Mr. Zeus Carter went straight to Mr. Dancer’s lodgings, to find that gentleman supervising the packing of his trunks.
“Maria has killed herself,” said Mr. Carter. “Oh, my heart! Jumped to her death. From the roof of her own house! Rockingham and the Runners were there.”
“Take those cases down to the carriage,” Mr. Dancer ordered his servants. Then he turned to Mr. Carter and said harshly, “Did she talk before she died?”
“I do not know,” said Mr. Carter, beginning to cry. “Rockingham was with her on the roof. Where are you going?”
“I am going to Paris in case Maria has told Rockingham of the plot to ruin his wife.”
“Take me with you,” begged Mr. Carter. “He will kill me.”
“I am not waiting in town for you to pack!”
Mr. Carter began to cry harder than ever.
“Oh, the deuce. Go and fetch your traps and meet me at the Wheatsheaf on the Dover Road. Do you know it?”
Mr. Carter nodded, and gulped.
“Then be off with you, or Rockingham will eat us both for his dinner!”
The two were eventually fortunate in their escape. For by the time the marquess had completed all the statements necessary about Maria Deauville’s guilt and manner of death, the couple were well on their way.
The marquess returned home after having failed to find either of them. He remembered the elation he had felt when he had bought that necklace for Lucinda. Now he felt miserable and guilty. To have had a mistress before marriage was just about as common in society as it was to have a mistress after marriage. But to have kept a mistress who was a murderess! How could he explain that? How could he explain that his relations with his mother had colored his view of women? That he had never in his life contemplated being married to anyone who would have any emotional hold on him whatsoever? His conscience told him he could at least start off by apologizing, but his conscience was at war with all his aristocratic upbringing. Gentlemen never apologized.
He pushed down the door of his home in Berkeley Square, to be met by those now-familiar smells of flowers and beeswax and applewood fires.
But there was an empty air about the place. The very spirit of home had fled.
So he was not surprised when Chumley with a face like a fiddle handed him a letter from his wife.
He went into the saloon and slumped down in a chair and looked at it a long time without opening it.
At last he broke the seal.
“Dear Rockingham,” he read, “I am gone to Lord Chamfreys’ to join my father. I think you must understand that after today’s events I am come to my senses and must demand an annulment of our marriage. Nonetheless, I remain deeply grateful to you for rescuing me from Lady Ismene. You must see, however, that we could never suit. I remain, Yr. obedient servant, L.”
He put down the letter on his lap and stared miserably at the dancing flames of the fire. Most of society stopped lighting fires at the end of March and did not think it necessary to warm their houses until the beginning of September. Only such a homemaker as Lucinda appreciated that the English climate was never really warm.
Chumley stood outside the door, waiting for the shout to get the carriage ready. Another night’s wild dissipation would be in the cards, of that he was sure.
When the expected shout came, he went sadly into the saloon.
But the marquess’s words surprised him. “Chumley, why the deuce has my lady gone to Chamfreys’? Does she not know her father is at Cramley, looking after the alterations to the gardens?”
“No, my lord,” said Chumley. “My lady simply said to me she was going to join her father. I naturally assumed you would have told her all about removing Mr. Westerville to Cramley.”
“Order the carriage, Chumley,” said the marquess, “and pack my things.”
“Yes, my lord,” said Chumley, his face breaking into a rare smile. “Right away, my lord.”
“Which carriage did my lady take?”
“She went post chaise, my lord.”
“Good, then perhaps we can catch up with her. She will need to put up somewhere on the road for the night.”
At the Pelican posting house, Lucinda prepared wearily to go downstairs to the dining room for a late supper. Her mind told her she had had a lucky escape from such as the marquess. Her heart ached with longing. It was going to be hard to get over a man who did not even love her. She could not understand her own distress. Rockingham was a brute and a rake.
She entered the dining room. The only other occupants were a clergyman and his wife and two small children. Lucinda nodded politely to them and sat down, feeling she should eat something, but longing only for sleep and the oblivion it would bring.
To the landlord’s disappointment, my lady turned down all his exotic dishes and said she merely wanted some bread and water and a cold collation.
She was dismally pushing the meat on her plate around with her fork when the door of the dining room crashed open. The clergyman’s wife let out a squeak of fright and Lucinda looked up.
Her husband was standing on the threshold, still attired in the black coat, buckskin breeches, and top boots he had worn during the day.
He came over to her table and sat down opposite her.
“You should have had the decency to spare me any scenes, Rockingham,” Lucinda said in a low voice.
“I am come, lady,” said the marquess in a level voice, “to tell you you are going in the wrong direction. Mr. Westerville is at Cramley.”
“Your home! Why?”
“I removed him from Chamfreys’ because he had recovered. When I was at Cramley, I started alterations to my gardens. I needed someone to supervise the work. My father-in-law, I decided, would be better helping me than slaving for an ungrateful vicar.”
“You did that?”
“I am not entirely a monster,” he said with a rueful smile.
“But,” said Lucinda, dropping her voice to a whisper, “you did have a mistress in keeping—a mistress who was a murderess.”
“And you, Miss Prim and Proper, thought nothing of traveling into the country with London’s most notorious seducer.”
“That was different. Mr. Dancer hasn’t killed anyone.”
“As far as you know,” the marquess said cynically.
“Rockingham. It is of no use. Nothing will mend this marriage. I must see my father. All I want is to return to the simplicity of my old life. We shall contrive somehow, and have no right to be your pensioners.”
“We must discuss this further.”
Lucinda wearily pushed her plate away and got to her feet. “Not this evening. I am exhausted.”
She curtsied and left the dining room. The landlord appeared after she had gone and the marquess ordered food and then sat pushing it around his plate much as his wife had done.
When Lucinda reached her room, she found a connecting
door to the next room was now unlocked and standing open. She marched into the next room and found Chumley in the process of unpacking his master’s clothes.
“Chumley,” Lucinda said severely, “I want this door locked and bolted.”
“Very good, my lady.”
Lucinda waited in her own room with her arms folded until she heard the key click in the lock, and then she began to prepare for bed.
She was just slipping her nightgown over her head when she heard her husband’s voice from behind the connecting door.
“Lucinda! May I come in? I have something for you.”
“No!” she called, thinking it was maddening that the lock and key should be on his side and therefore she had wasted her time in getting Chumley to secure it. “I am going to sleep.”
But she heard the key turn in the lock and her husband walked in.
He fished in the pocket of the tails of his coat and pulled out the necklace and threw it on the bed.
“I bought this for you,” he said, not looking at her. “You may as well have it.”
Lucinda picked up the heavy gold-and-ruby necklace. “It is beautiful, Rockingham,” she said with a catch in her voice. “But I fear I have no longer any right to take it.”
“Oh, take the bauble,” he said furiously, remembering with misery all the love he had felt for her when he had bought it.
He turned away.
Something made Lucinda ask, “Why did you buy it?”
“Because you are my marchioness, and I noticed you did not have any jewelry,” he said impatiently. He stood looking at her, haughtily, arrogantly, and then he added, “And because I am in love with you, dammit!”
Her eyes were very large and dark in the candlelight and her thick hair was now long enough to curl on her shoulders. “I have never had a more beautiful present in my life, Rockingham.”
“I am glad it pleases you,” he replied curtly.
“I am not talking about the necklace,” Lucinda said. “I am talking about your words. Do you really love me?”
All the hauteur and arrogance and pride fell from the marquess. “I suppose so,” he mumbled. “Now, if you will excuse me, madam—”
“Oh, Rockingham,” Lucinda cried, throwing herself into his arms. “Why did you not say so before? I have been so unhappy.”
“How am I supposed to recognize love easily when it comes?” he said huskily. “It is all so new to me. It took me some time to know what I felt for you.”
“I thought all you felt for me was a mixture of anger and lust.”
He silenced her with a kiss—a kiss that went on and on, a kiss that started as one of chaste tenderness and respect and ended up a hot fusing of mounting passions.
Next door, Chumley stood holding his master’s nightgown and cap. He heard a tremendous crash from next door and raised his eyes to heaven.
“You knocked over the water jug,” Lucinda said. “Look, there is water all over the floor.”
“I was trying to carry you to bed,” her husband grumbled.
“You are determined not to wait until the six months is up,” she said.
He put her down gently on the bed and lay next to her. “I shall wait… if you wish it.”
“Perhaps. I am afraid.”
“Don’t be,” he said, drawing her into his arms.
“Oh, Rockingham, you have got your boots on.”
“My name is Julian. And I am about to remove my boots.”
“What if I cry ‘Stop?’ You will be so furious with me.”
“I’ll try not to be, my love,” he said, sending one boot flying, and then the other.
Behind the door, Chumley brightened. At least he had taken off his boots. Was there hope?
“Now, my sweeting,” the marquess said at last. “No boots, no clothes, only me. Kiss me, Lucinda.”
