The Hired Wife

by Cari Hislop

  “If Morley had designed to ruin your sister with her assistance, there was little you could do to stop it. If you’d banned him, he’d have found a way. He’d have taken his pleasure and then either abandoned Alyce or ensured she died in an accident.”

  “No. I could have protected her! I could have pummelled that thing senseless years ago!”

  “Alyce wanted to marry Morley and she did; you couldn’t save Alyce from herself!”

  Marshall grimaced as part of him wanted to believe it to ease the guilt. “I could have tried.”

  “What could you have done?”

  “I could have killed him.”

  “You believed his lies Marshall. You thought you could trust him.”

  “I was a gullible idiot!”

  “You thought he was your friend; we all make mistakes.”

  “My mistake has killed my sister…” The words boomed across the lake and faintly echoed off the surrounding hills. “I could have ordered my carriage and carried you all away! After what he did to you…I should have taken you to safety. Alyce would be alive…”

  “Alyce considered herself the Marchioness of Morley; she wouldn’t have come.” Mary glanced towards the picnic basket packed for two. “Thankfully no one else drank out of that bottle.” There was a long paused and then Mary leaned against him. “Lord Adderbury says he’s sorry for your loss.”

  Turning his head, Marshall was forced to acknowledge the tall beautiful man next to Mary. Compassionate black eyes caused a burning shame that almost made him forget his sister was dead. “Adderbury…Henry was such a liar. I feel so awful; I didn’t know you had a stammer.” The tall man accepted the apology with a silent nod.

  Mary slipped her arm around her husband’s waist, “Someone will have to tell Lady Morley that her son is dead.”

  “She’ll think I killed him; I wish I’d killed him.” Marshall sighed in regret as he glanced down at the slender woman pressing herself up against him and came to his senses. “Mary…what are you doing down here? You’re supposed to be resting.”

  “You needed me.”

  “You should have stayed in the house where you were safe…don’t look at that mutilated devil.” He physically turned her towards the steps and inhaled a lungful of air as if putting the dead behind him made it easier to breathe, but he merely coughed in disgust as the scent of death filled his mouth. Clutching Mary he started back towards the stairs secretly wishing someone would pick him up and carry him up to the house. The silent Lord Adderbury slowly walked beside him, the man’s dusty black telling its own story of frantic haste to protect his loved ones.

  The arm around his waist kept his feet moving one in front of the other as he tried to console his aching heart with the fact that the Earl of Morley would never hurt his beloved Mary. He’d be able to sleep at night knowing his wife was safe, even if his sister was…dead. One nightmare had been exchanged for another.

  Stopping at the bottom of the stairs he watched as Alyce reached the top of the hill. For once he was grateful for his impaired hearing; he wouldn’t have to listen to his Aunt Beatrice screaming at the sight of her favourite niece limp and lifeless. His resentment of the old woman’s interference reminded him that he wasn’t the only gullible fool responsible for his sister’s death.

  Marshall grimaced at the thought of having to inform Lady Morley that her youngest son had murdered his unwanted wife after being poisoned by his manservant. The old woman’s reaction would be understandably hysterical. Buckingham was the host; he’d be able to tell her the facts without bursting into tears. He’d listen to the old woman’s heartache and refuse to let her view her son’s body. Marshall shuddered again as he thought of the cold flesh missing important parts. It was the most awful thing he’d ever seen; those empty sockets and that unsightly bloody patch where Henry’s male member had once protruded. The monster who’d once taken pleasure in causing pain had been unmanned; nature had executed its own form of justice. Morley’s missing parts would become the latest ondit. The thought gave Marshall a minute amount of pleasure. Justice would be served; Henry Fitzalan’s corpse would become a source of public amusement.

  Chapter 28

  Cecil Smirke silently noted his brother’s arms quivering from fatigue as they crossed the drive towards the door. “George…let me have a turn at looking like a hero. You’ve carried her all the way up the hill.”

  George willingly stopped to pass on the burden as Robert pushed past Cecil. “She hated you; I’ll carry her!”

  Cecil met George’s exasperated expression before easily dragging Robert back. “Stand away! I’ll carry Alyce while you thank God we kept you from attending her poisonous picnic. If that doesn’t convince you to listen to us nothing will!”

  “Papa’s here, you can’t tell me what to do!”

  “No, but I could tell Papa you had an assignation with a married woman. I could tell him how you nearly ended up travelling home in a coffin. Now shut up and let me carry Alyce to the drawing room. You can be Romeo and weep over her on the sofa.”

  Black eyes burned with apprehension. “I didn’t have an assignation with Alyce…”

  “Of course not; that’s why you went straight to the Chinese folly like a bee to the hive. She must have been irritated to find those two dead servants had trumped her. If she’d had any sense she’d have noticed the similarity of the empty bottle lying next to them and the one Morley had sent her. No man would remove his breeches, drink poison and then start making love in the hope he wouldn’t die before he could finish. No, if he was set on killing himself he’d drink the poison afterwards. And that poor woman; if she wasn’t dead she’d die of embarrassment. Alyce was an idiot!”

  Robert bit his lip and let Buckingham pass carrying the still sobbing Emily out of earshot into the house. “Have some respect for the dead!”

  “Alyce did nothing, but sneer at me. Why should I respect her?”

  “She’s dead. Being respectful is the decent thing to do!”

  “Decent? Is that what you call bedding another man’s wife?”

  “I didn’t bed her and the marriage was illegal.”

  “Yes and you were going to bed her anyway.”

  “No I wasn’t.”

  “I’ll wager if I were to search your pockets I’d find an impediment to procreation. Do you know what would have happened if you’d been found in a drunken stupor with Alyce in your arms? If you both hadn’t been poisoned, Papa would have made you marry her. You’d have been stuck with her for life.”

  Robert snorted in contempt. “I made it clear she wasn’t marriage material.”

  “Papa wouldn’t have seen it that way.”

  George’s face was red as he hissed through clenched teeth, “Cecil, I’m going to drop her…” Cecil pushed his baby brother out of the way and scooped the dead woman into his arms. “…my arms feel like Indian rubber.”

  Cecil hurried into the house, his ears drumming with the sound of his blood pumping through his heart. He exhaled in relief as he dropped the dead woman on the nearest sofa. Her left arm immediately slid off the side and swung there defying him. He gingerly picked it up and wedged it against her side and pulled her skirts down over her calves. He didn’t have time to put the head at a more natural angle before Emily burst away from Buckingham and wrapped her arms around her sister’s head. Cecil noted Buckingham’s look of mortification. Cecil could understand the man being upset; he wouldn’t want his sweetheart hugging a corpse, even if it was her dead twin.”

  His brother George leaned over and whispered, “I think Bucky’s upset because all this death will put back the wedding. I overheard the servants saying he’s proposed.”

  Cecil pursed his lips. “Bucky won’t wait and I wouldn’t either…”

  “They’ll have to, to mourn. People will think they’re unseemly. I’d be in agony if I was Bucky.”

  “Who cares what other people think? Alyce is dead; she isn’t going to care if they wear black for a year though
she’d enjoy knowing she forced them to wait. If she wasn’t dead I’d suspect her of plotting to ruin Bucky’s life. The woman was a bi… Ouch! Watch where you swing your feet! That was my shin and it isn’t made of steel. If I was Lord Raynham I’d order them to elope out of kindness.”

  George shoved his hands in his trouser pockets, “I’ll wager you a guinea of Christmas money that Emily will make him wait; poor Bucky…”

  “Done! You won’t have any Christmas money come Christmas Day at this rate. Bucky?” The large protruding front teeth turned in his direction. “Shall I order tea? We’ve missed lunch; a sandwich might help take Emily mind off death and I’m starving.”

  Bucky’s nose twitched in disbelief causing his upper lip to rise and fall over his front teeth. “How can you think of food after finding Morley…?”

  “Clearly I’m not the only thing that can think of food after seeing Morley naked and Papa will have been riding for hours…”

  Lord Buckingham’s disproving expression faded into agreement. “True, a man can’t ride all day and expect to be starved on arrival. Have a servant tell Mrs Cooper to serve tea in the breakfast room; we can’t stand around Alyce eating cake.”

  Cecil glanced at the dead woman. “Why not? We can pretend she’s sleeping with her eyes open…” Buckingham appeared unhappy with the idea. “…but we don’t have to eat in here Bucky…George; stay here with Romeo…”

  Lady Emily dragged her wet swollen eyes off her sister and turned a furious glare at Cecil. “Have you no feelings? My sister is dead!”

  “Yes, and I feel very sad for you, but if I’d drunk that cursed bottle and your sister was alive she’d be elated at my demise…”

  “It doesn’t matter what she might have felt; she’s dead.”

  “Exactly, she’s dead and I’m hungry. She’d be demanding a feast to celebrate my death. I merely wish a cup of tea and a sandwich. Do you think Mrs Cooper has made another one of those sponge cakes?”

  “My sister is lying there dead. I don’t want to hear about food…not after seeing Morley. Bucky…”

  Cecil nodded in understand. “You’re probably faint from hunger. I’ll fetch you a cup of hot tea and you can eulogise Alyce while we eat. She’ll be the center of attention; she’d like that.”

  “Bucky, make him go away!”

  Bucky’s top lip twitched unhappily over his front teeth. “Cecil…”

  “I didn’t mean to upset her; we don’t have to eat in here.”

  Lady Emily’s head jerked back in Cecil’s direction. “You can’t eat in the same room as a corpse…she’s not some stuffed deer head mounted on the wall for decoration! She’s a dead person…she’s my…dead sister…” The young woman burst into tears as she reached a hand towards her future husband. “Bucky!” The man jumped to her side and picked her up and carried her away from the sofa murmuring unintelligible words of comfort into her hair leaving Alyce lying with her neck contorted at an uncomfortable looking angle.

  Cecil eyed the reclining Alyce as he approached the sofa. The awful woman was probably on her way to hell, but that didn’t mean her family had to remember her as a contorted corpse. He gently turned her head so she was facing upwards and then tidied her hair. “She doesn’t look dead. She looks mesmerised…”

  “Cecil!” Buckingham’s voice held a note of command. “Go order tea for the breakfast room and see if your Papa needs a room for the night.”

  Cecil’s search for a servant was a protracted effort, but having placed the order for tea, sandwiches and cake he headed back to the drawing room. Pausing in the doorway he was pleased to see his father and the rest of his brothers standing among the mourners. Lord Raynham looked despondent as he stood with his arm around Lady Mary glaring down at his dead sister as if waiting for her to sit up and confess it was all a bad joke. Cecil crossed to his father and slapped him on the back producing a cloud of dust and a steely look as Peter Smirke turned his full attention to his eldest child. “My Lord?” That look told Cecil he was in trouble, though he didn’t yet know why. Feeling his father’s firm hand on his shoulder he willingly turned towards the door. The sooner his father gave him the lecture the sooner it would be over and he could eat.

  After half a dozen steps Cecil felt his father’s hand grip telling him to stop. Lady Morley could be heard imperiously demanding a servant if they’d seen her son. The servant’s answer couldn’t be heard, but a loud thump and the servant’s yelp of pain clearly illustrated the old woman’s displeasure in the answer. “Where is everyone? Lord Buckingham?” She sailed into the room, her walking stick in one hand, her lorgnette in the other.

  Cecil couldn’t help wondering what the ugly dragon had looked like in her youth. His grandmother had once told him that Lady Morley had possessed a rare beauty that had entranced numerous men, but it was difficult to imagine what his grandfather had ever seen in the woman; the lines in her face seemed to spell out the words ‘vicious harpy’. “Where is that bucktoothed man? Ah…there you are. Your impertinent servants are imbeciles. None of them will even tell me if they’ve seen Morley…” The old woman’s eyes fixated on the sofa. “Alyce! Where’s Morley?”

  The woman lying on the sofa serenely ignored her command, but Lady Mary turned to look at the old woman dragging her husband’s glare towards the door. “Raynham, make that impertinent hussy get off her backside and tell me if she’s seen my son. I wish to leave and I can’t find Morley. I don’t know what he was thinking to drag me here. I hate the countryside. Well? Where’s my son?” An uncomfortable silence settled over the room like a suffocating white dust sheet heralding a change of residence.

  Chapter 29

  Lady Catherine Fitzalan, the Marchioness of Morley sneered at the large blurry human shaped blobs of colour dotting the Drawing room. As soon as she found her son she’d order her carriage and depart. She had to put distance between Morley and the dubious temptation of Mary Godfrey. Morley must be ill; the woman didn’t even have beauty or conversation to recommend her. Lady Catherine wouldn’t have believed her son capable of such a demeaning passion, but he’d freely admitted the desire. He fobbed off her concern by saying Mary Godfrey was a passing fancy, but there’d been a look in his eyes that gave cause for alarm. She’d persuaded him to discard the slut Alyce; she’d persuade him the plain Mary was unfit to be his Marchioness. If he insisted on marrying the ugly woman a small amount of inheritance powder in Mary’s tea would ensure it didn’t last long.

  Lady Catherine thumped her walking stick against the ground, “Where’s my son?” The silence had an eerie quality. Scowling at silent blurry shapes, her eyes were drawn to the odd giant patch of black. Buckingham had a new guest. Lifting her lorgnette, her stomach dropped as Peter Smirke came into focus. “When did Lord of the Smirkes arrive?” Her sneer caused nothing more than a blink as if he’d resigned himself to a life of insults. His father would have demanded a public apology with a steely look that made her knees tremble in delight.

  Her heart still burned with hatred and longing for the man who’d jilted her. Gripping her walking stick, she reluctantly turned away from Peter Smirke with a look of disgust and struck the floor with angry force as she approached the sofa where her illegal daughter-in-law was resting. “Alyce! Stop lying there like a lump and tell me when you last saw Morley.” Quiet sobs were quickly muffled on the other side of the room.

  “Madam…” She ignored Lord Beast’s booming reproof and struck the lying woman on the leg with her stick, but there was no flinching or cry of pain. “…you can’t hurt my sister.”

  Lady Morley scrunched her face in displeasure at having to converse with the deaf man. “Oh can’t I? Your sister is a brazen hussy. She’s unfit to marry my son.” The man couldn’t hear her and his hired wife didn’t repeat the insult. Lady Catherine had long advised her son to end the obnoxious childhood friendship, but her silly boy had merely insisted that Lord Beast had his uses. What use could a deaf brute be? With the blood of kings in his veins it was on
ly right that Morley count the Regent as an acquaintance. Everyone knew the Fitzalans descended from Charlemagne. Marshall Godfrey should have kissed her son’s feet for deigning to marry one of his sisters. “I wouldn’t allow that hussy to be the Marchioness of Morley after what my son told me. The day before she was to marry Morley, Alyce was seen in the conservatory kissing that Smirke child.” She gestured in the direction of Charles, assuming because he looked like his evil uncle he’d debauch an innocent. “He looks old enough to do more than kiss and I dare say he did.”