by Liz Carlyle
“Metcaff didn’t kill anyone, I am quite sure,” said Kemble impatiently. “He is completely innocent of that, if nothing else.”
Just then, one of the footmen came in with the coffee. Gareth gladly began to pour. “So, Rothewell,” he said, casually passing a cup, “what brings you back? Surely our little contretemps cannot compare to the excitement of London?”
“Actually,” said Rothewell, “I have come at the behest of the Vicomte de Vendenheim and his friends at the Home Office.”
“Have you indeed?” Kemble was up from the desk in a flash and swishing his way around the furniture. “Well, why didn’t you say so? This must be delicious!”
Rothewell looked at Kemble a little charily. “It is just that de Vendenheim wished me to convey some information he was not comfortable putting in writing,” he said. “Though it makes dashed little sense to me.”
Kemble’s eyes were alight. “What has happened to Max? Why didn’t he come himself?”
Rothewell looked vaguely uncomfortable. “I collect his twins had the chicken pox,” the baron reported. “Besides, I drive faster.”
“It sounds as if something exciting must have happened,” said Gareth.
“Well, in part, it is more about what didn’t happen,” said Rothewell. “He said I was to tell you that Lord Litting was avoiding him, and that he’d had no success running him to ground. He said you would understand what he meant.”
Gareth felt the excitement wane. “Oh, that,” he said. “Yes, Litting already came down here in a fit of pique. Accused us of setting our hounds on him. We didn’t get much more out of him, I’m afraid.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said the baron. “De Vendenheim went to see the barrister, Sir Harold Somebody-or-other.”
“Indeed?” Kemble sat down, his eyes widening. “And did he talk?”
“Jabbered like a magpie, as I understand it.” Rothewell paused to sip his coffee. “Apparently, de Vendenheim invoked Peel’s name, and that did the trick.”
“So?” said Kemble breathlessly. “Out with it. What did he say?”
Rothewell’s gaze turned inward. “I’ll tell it to you as best I can,” he said. “It is quite an amazing story—but de Vendenheim wouldn’t let me write anything down.”
“Well, get it straight,” snapped Kemble. “Leave nothing out.”
The baron’s eyes flashed with ire, but his temper held. “This Sir Harold fellow said the Duke of Warneham asked him down here to discuss a touchy legal situation,” said Rothewell. “The whole story was couched, I gather, in mights and maybes, but the gist of it was that Warneham hinted that he had made a Gretna Green marriage in his youth—this was prior to his inheriting the dukedom—and he wanted this barrister to explain the ramifications of the marriage.”
“What do you mean, hinted?” asked Gareth. “And why was he confessing such a thing now?”
Rothewell’s broad shoulders rose. “He said he was in his cups, and may have done it on a lark,” said the baron. “The barrister thought he was lying about that part, for what it’s worth. Anyway, Warneham wanted to know what the punishment would be if he confessed publicly.”
“Punishment for what?” asked Gareth. “Eloping to Gretna Green was thought scandalous, but it was hardly illegal.”
“No, not punishment for eloping.” Kemble had slid to the edge of his chair. “Punishment for bigamy—that is what he meant, wasn’t it, Rothewell? The man married four other women that we knew of. That could mean four bigamous marriages, depending on how long his Gretna Green bride lived. And he was going to own up to that?”
The baron nodded. “Apparently, he was considering it,” said Rothewell. “According to this barrister, Warneham claimed he first wished to annul his marriage to the present duchess so as to limit her father’s anger.”
Kemble had leapt to his feet and was pacing the room. “So Warneham was essentially claiming that his marriage to the first duchess was bigamous,” he said, rubbing his chin with one hand. “Not to mention the other three.”
“And he was willing to literally bastardize poor Cyril by making the story public,” Gareth said angrily. “That was why he wanted Litting’s blessing. And it is why Litting would not tell us the whole truth—he was outraged, no doubt.”
“But why would Warneham care what this Litting chap thought?” asked Rothewell. “The story is scandalous and outlandish on its face.”
Kemble stood before the cold hearth, his hands clasped tightly behind his back, his eyes afire with some inscrutable emotion. “He would care about Lord Litting for the same reason he would care about Lord Swinburne,” he said. “Because if Warneham managed to get himself charged with four counts of bigamy, the whole bloody mess was apt to land in the House of Lords like the fetid, steaming pile of horse manure that it is.”
“And that would have been a grave embarrassment to Litting’s family.” Gareth rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. It felt as if his coat was suddenly too tight. By God, there was something else—something in the back of his mind, nagging at him.
Suddenly Kemble stopped his pacing and clutched madly at his throat. “Oh, dear!” he cried.
“What now?” asked Rothewell sourly.
“I believe I have just been seized with the quinsy!” he wheezed. “Someone must fetch Dr. Osborne!”
Fifteen minutes later, Kemble had swooned himself onto Gareth’s red leather divan, declaring himself too overtaken with illness to even go upstairs. A eucalyptus salve was sent for, and in this way, Nellie Waters caught wind of the situation and came in herself to deal with it, saying that since she had already had it, there was no possibility of her contracting it again. She sat down by the divan, stripped off Kemble’s cravat, and began to apply the salve up and down his neck with a vigor which suggested she was rubbing down a sweating horse, and producing all manner of moaning and groaning from her patient.
Gareth was watching it all through a veil of suspicion when Antonia came in with a blanket. He was beginning to grasp just what Kemble was about.
“Oh, Mr. Kemble!” she cried, going at once to the divan. “What perfectly dreadful news. I thought we’d got beyond this.”
Nellie took the blanket and shooed her mistress across the room. “Get back, all of you,” she said authoritatively. “This is a nasty business we’re dealing with here.”
Gareth believed it might indeed be nasty, but he was not at all sure it was of the contagious sort. Nonetheless, mere moments later, Coggins brought the doctor in. Osborne greeted everyone cheerfully. Nellie Waters relinquished her seat, and if the doctor thought it odd to perform before a crowd, he said nothing of it.
“I thought we were done with this quinsy,” said Osborne sympathetically as he poked about inside Kemble’s mouth with a little wooden stick. “There, yes, just turn to the light a bit.”
“Unggghh,” said Kemble.
Osborne turned to Gareth. “A sudden onset, did you say?”
Lord Rothewell opened his hands. “Well, one moment he was quite fine, and the next—”
“Unggkk,” Kemble interjected.
Osborne withdrew the stick.
“Actually, I felt a little ill in the rain last night, now that I think on it,” said Kemble.
Osborne looked doubtful. “Well, there is no abscess of the peritonsillar tissue, as one would expect,” he said. “And your mucous membranes look fine. Perhaps you simply inhaled too much smoke last night?”
Kemble seemed to seize upon the notion. “Yes, yes, I daresay you are right,” he said. “Well! I am much reassured.” He sat up and laid a hand on Osborne’s coat sleeve. “You must excuse me, Doctor. I do worry inordinately about my health—much as poor Warneham did, you know. Almost obsessively, one might say?”
Osborne cleared his throat a little pompously. “It is true that the late duke was not entirely well,” he said. “He was plagued by a great many health problems.”
“And you are, in point of fact, an amazing diagnostician, are you not, Dr. Osb
orne?” said Kemble. “I am fortunate you could rush up here and see me, and give me such reassurance. After all, you were able to diagnose Warneham’s severe asthma after only”—he looked at Mrs. Waters—“three short days of coughing?”
Mrs. Waters nodded.
Osborne was beginning to look uncomfortable. “Asthma can be dangerous if left untreated.”
Kemble smiled. “Indeed, in an acute attack, one wheezes and gasps for breath, do they not?” he said almost solicitously. “But you were able to diagnose the duke’s problem well before any of those symptoms set in, thank God—and just days before His Grace’s wedding, too. Yet poor Mrs. Musbury coughs for nearly three months out of every year, but you have never once prescribed potassium nitrate for her. Why is that, Dr. Osborne?”
Osborne drew himself up quite rigidly. “Why, I resent what you are implying, Mr. Kemble.” The doctor snapped his bag shut and stood. “I care for each and every one of my patients, regardless of circumstance or birth.”
“Oh, I never thought otherwise!” Kemble tried to wave him back down again. “I am sure potassium nitrate would not be appropriate for Mrs. Musbury. It can be a very dangerous and debilitating drug. In fact, a mere layman such as myself might refer to it by an altogether different name, mightn’t he? It is commonly called saltpeter, I believe.”
“Kemble,” said Gareth warningly, “be sure you know where you are going with this.”
But the two men were focused on one another. “That is a misnomer,” said Osborne hotly. “It is a legitimate drug when used appropriately.”
“Yes, and you were using it appropriate to your purpose, were you not?” said Kemble sweetly. “As an anaphrodisiac—in hope of making certain that Warneham never begat an heir, an heir who might displace you in his affections?”
From the back of the room, Antonia and Mrs. Waters gasped. Rothewell cursed appreciatively beneath his breath. Intrigued, Gareth stepped nearer. “But saltpeter doesn’t really work, does it?”
Kemble shrugged. “Osborne obviously thought it worth a shot.”
Osborne looked truly stricken now. “I don’t know what the two of you mean to imply!” he said tightly. “I never, ever wished Warneham ill. Good God, we—we were friends! We dined together! We played chess together! I would never do anything—anything—to hurt him.”
“Oh, I think you were more than friends,” said Kemble quietly. “I think you were his son.”
At this, Osborne froze. Suddenly, everything clicked into place for Gareth. The nagging thoughts. The snippets of familiarity. The afternoon sun was slanting through the window now, turning Osborne’s dark hair to a shade of warm brown. For the first time, Gareth truly looked at the man—at his elegant profile and his expensive coat. At the set of his jaw and the way he held his head. It was as if time hurled him back almost twenty years. Yes, it was there—if one looked for it.
Then suddenly, Osborne drew in his breath on a wretched sob. He sat back down in his chair, and covered his face with his hands. “Oh, God!” he cried. “Oh, dear God!”
Antonia set her fingertips to her mouth and sank slowly into a chair. Mrs. Waters edged closer and set a protective hand upon her mistress’s shoulder.
Gareth moved to Osborne’s side. “Do you want to know what I think, Doctor?” he asked quietly. “I think that you wanted Warneham to be dependent on you. I think you encouraged his delusions about his health and fed into his fear of dying without a legitimate heir.”
“Quite so.” Kemble exchanged a knowing glance with Gareth. “In fact, we think you came to the village from London with every intention of either blackmailing Warneham or ingratiating yourself with him—I am still pondering that one.”
Finally, Osborne looked up. “No!—” The word came out on a ragged sob. “That is a vile lie! I was just a lad! I wanted only to see my father. To—to know who he was. What he looked like. Is that so terrible? Is it?”
“No,” said Kemble, casting his gaze around the room at his audience, who all stood rapt, as if frozen to the floor. “I daresay any of us here might have done the same. And yes, you were just a lad. But your mother—when I knew her, by the way, she called herself Mrs. de la Croix—she was a woman of great…er, experience, was she not?”
“She was a woman who had suffered a difficult life,” snapped Osborne. “You people cannot know what that does to a person. At times, we were nearly destitute. And yes, de la Croix was her name. We…we changed it when we came here.”
Gareth crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, but Warneham recognized the two of you at once, didn’t he?” he suggested. “Certainly he recognized Mrs. de la Croix—his first love. His first bride. Your mother was a very beautiful woman, Osborne. I can well imagine he might be persuaded to elope with her.”
At last, Antonia spoke. “I do not understand,” she rasped. “Gabriel? Mr. Kemble? Are you two claiming that my husband was already married? Married to Mary Osborne?”
Gareth looked at her in sympathy. “Well, the duke had married her, yes,” he answered. “In his youth. At Greta Green. Without his father’s permission.”
“And I am sure Mrs. Osborne still had the papers to prove it,” Kemble chimed. “She was a sly one. You had to be, to survive in her sort of world—the world of the demimondaine. Trust me, I know.”
The doctor was still quiet.
“What happened, Dr. Osborne?” Kemble gently urged. “You came to see Warneham on the morning of his death, did you not? You brought him some things, his medication amongst them. But you made a mistake, did you not?”
“Yes,” rasped the doctor. “Yes, damn you. I made a mistake.”
“Tell us what happened,” said Kemble. “I know that it has been a burden to you. If it was an accident—why, I am sure no one here will wish to prosecute you. And you no longer have any secrets to keep. We know them all, Osborne. I am quite sure of it now.”
A long, pregnant silence fell over the room. Then the doctor drew a great, heaving breath. “I brought the wrong medication,” he whispered. “I realized it as soon as I was called to his room that morning. But no one else knew, you see.”
“No, the medication I saw was potassium nitrate, all right,” said Kemble. “It was not simply the wrong medication.”
Osborne shook his head. He looked weary beyond words. “I always bought the medication from my regular chemist’s in Wapping,” he admitted. “But…but then I cut it, you see, with sodium chloride.”
“With salt?” said Gareth. “Common…table salt?”
“Yes,” the doctor whispered. “It lasted longer that way, and Warneham was able to take a larger dose. That was important to him.”
“Why?” Gareth demanded.
Osborne gave a halfhearted shrug. “I often did such things,” he admitted. “Warneham took a great many medications, most of them harmless. It comforted him, and the more the better. He was persuaded, you see, that he was going to die of something soon, and he wished me to treat his illnesses aggressively.”
“That was aggressive, all right,” muttered Kemble.
“I never let him take it full strength,” said Osborne. “I only wished him to have…to have—”
“Just enough to render him impotent?” Kemble suggested. “It probably didn’t take much. Indeed, given his age and his fanciful notions, he probably was impotent.”
Osborne looked down and slowly shook his head. “I just didn’t want…I just didn’t want there to be another child,” he said pleadingly. “As long as Cyril lived, Mother knew Warneham would never look twice at me. But the instant he was gone, Mother packed our bags. She knew that if Warneham could just meet me—could just see me—how bright I was, how handsome I was—that he would at least befriend me, if no more. After all, he had no one else.”
It was beginning to come clear. Gareth marveled at Kemble’s perspicacity. But if Osborne was Warneham’s son, why wasn’t he standing here, in the shoes Gareth had so reluctantly filled?
Kemble, however, was still speaking.
“Oh, I think Warneham did a great deal more than befriend you,” he suggested. “He educated you—and in a grand style, at the very best school. He brought you and your mother into his social circle—probably to placate her.”
“And he likely paid for that house your mother lived in—through some discreet third party, of course,” Gareth added. Suddenly, he remembered something the old groom Statton had said. “And that nonsensical story she made up about your saving his favorite mare was precisely that, was it not? Nonsense devised to explain away his generosity. Warneham never kept mares—for breeding or for riding.”
“It was so stupid of Mother!” said Osborne, sounding suddenly more angry than grief-stricken. “I begged her never to tell it again, and she didn’t—but Lady Ingham just won’t hush up.”
“Yes, and Warneham wished his involvement in your life kept a secret, I daresay,” said Gareth. “He wanted no one to know of his youthful folly.”
“Why?” Antonia suddenly blurted. “If—why, if Mrs. Osborne was his wife—why should he?”
“Ah, therein lies the coil!” said Kemble. “She married him—but she was not his wife, was she, Doctor?”
Osborne shook his head. “No,” he whispered. “No, Mother was already married. To a man named Jean de la Croix.”
“Who the hell was he?” said Gareth.
Osborne shrugged. “A disreputable Frenchman whom she married in Paris,” he said. “He would leave her for months at a time to go drifting about the Continent, playing at cards and dice. Petticoat-chasing. Once he was gone for over a year, so Mother returned to London to live her own life. And after a few months, she just decided—”
“She decided her husband must be dead,” Kemble supplied. “It was a gamble, of course. But a handsome young English nobleman had fallen desperately in love with her, and she was carrying his child. As it happened, however, de la Croix was not so obliging as to actually be dead, was he?”
“No.” Osborne hung his head. “He got wind of the wedding before they had even returned from Scotland. He left whatever woman’s bed he’d been warming to come to London to laugh, and to demand money for his silence. Warneham did not take that too well—and since he had kept the marriage a secret from his father, he simply left her.”
