The Last Hellion

by Loretta Chase

  He fled to the billiard room, only to be ambushed by another lot of servants.

  He escaped to the library, only to find yet more close on his heels.

  He went from room to room, looking for refuge, only to meet invasion time and time again.

  At last he skulked into his study, closed the door, and shoved a chair against it.

  “Oh, my dear,” came his wife’s amused voice behind him. “That isn’t necessary.”

  He swung toward the sound, his face hot. She was sitting at the desk, trying very hard not to laugh.

  “They’re everywhere,” he reproached.

  “They won’t come in here today,” she said. “I told Mrs. Clay I needed to work.

  “Work?” he cried. “They’re tearing the house to pieces. Thousands of them. They tear rugs out from under your feet. They pull the drapery—rods and all—down on your head. They—”

  “Do they?” She smiled. “Mrs. Clay means to make a thorough job of it. I thought she would.” She set down her pen and folded her hands upon the desk.

  “And you’re mightily pleased with yourself,” he grumbled. He started to move the chair from the door, then changed his mind and left it as it was. He advanced to the desk, pushed aside a tray piled with correspondence—his, neglected—and perched on the corner, half turned toward her. “They’re so terrified of you that they scarcely know I’m there.”

  “Why are you there? Or here, rather. I’d thought you’d have run screaming from the house long since.”

  “I couldn’t decide where to go,” he said. “China seemed far enough away. But then, New South Wales may be more appropriate, being a penal colony and all.”

  “May I suggest Bedfordshire?” she said.

  He didn’t move, by not so much as a muscle twitch. His gaze remained fixed upon the untidy pile of letters and cards, while in his mind’s eye images played, of how they’d made lazy, sleepy love this morning, while the rain softly pattered at the windows…and of how she’d left the bed before he did, and he’d dozed, and wakened to her scent—in the pillows, the bedclothes, on his skin—and the musky scent of their coupling.

  “Yes, well, I did not expect you to leap eagerly at the suggestion,” she said. “But I cannot walk on eggshells about the topic. I am your wife. The proper thing to do is take me to meet my new family. This house is in turmoil and will be for some days. I had thought we might kill two birds with one stone: escape the upheaval and induct me into the family.”

  “You’ve work to do,” he said, very quietly, very calmly, while he remembered last night, and evilly feminine underthings, and how he’d gone dry-mouthed, like a boy seeing his first naked female—he, who’d seen hundreds.

  “I am merely completing obligations to Macgowan and the Argus,” she said. “My new position is Duchess of Ainswood. I accepted it intending to carry out all of its responsibilities. One of us, you see, did consider the consequences.”

  “Then do what you like.” He left the desk and headed to the door. Quietly and calmly he moved the chair away. “I’m not going to Bedfordshire.”

  He opened the door and walked out.

  Lydia quickly pulled off her shoes and hurried out into the hall. He was moving swiftly toward the vestibule.

  She hurried noiselessly after him, ignoring the startled gazes of the servants working in the hall.

  She grabbed a bucket and flung its contents at him, just as he opened the front door.

  She heard a chorus of gasps.

  Then the hall became utterly still.

  Ainswood stood for a moment, unmoving, while dirty, soapy water streamed from his head over his neck and shoulders, and dribbled down his coat to plop on the threshold.

  Then, very slowly, he turned.

  “Oops,” she said.

  His green glance swept over the servants—maids covering their mouths with their hands, footmen gaping—a tableau of paralytic shock.

  He looked down at his sopping garments, then up again, at Lydia.

  Then his mouth opened and laughter cracked out, sharp as a pistol shot. And more spilled out, great guffaws that reverberated through the carpetless hall. He leaned against the doorframe, shoulders shaking, and kept trying to say something, only to go off into whoops.

  Then finally, “Th-thank you, m’dear,” he choked out. “M-most refreshing.” He straightened, and his glance took in the servants, who had recovered their wits sufficiently to cast perplexed looks at one another.

  “Yes, that settled the dust nicely, I think,” he said. “I believe I’ll change.”

  And, Yes, I believe you will, Lydia thought as she watched him saunter, dripping, past her and down the hall, to the stairs, and up them.

  This afternoon, the Duke of Ainswood bore his valet’s grumblings and sarcasms with a suspiciously angelic meekness.

  After he was freshly bathed and dressed, His Grace spent a very long while examining his reflection in the glass. “I shouldn’t have put you to so much work,” he said. “They’re only going to get spoiled when I climb out the window.”

  “If I may be so bold as to offer a suggestion, Your Grace?” said Jaynes. “The front door is in excellent working order.”

  “I was lucky to get away with merely a dousing,” said the master. “I’d rather not imagine what she’ll try the next time.”

  “If I may venture an opinion sir, I strongly doubt Her Grace entertains any objections to your exiting the house.”

  “Then why did she stop me?”

  “She was not trying to stop you. She was expressing exasperation.”

  The duke gave him a dubious glance, clasped his hands behind his back, and walked to the window.

  “If I may speak plainly sir,”—Jaynes generally did—“you are exasperating.”

  “I know.”

  “If she murders you in your sleep, no one will be in the least surprised, and there is no jury in all of Great Britain that would not instantly acquit her. On the contrary, she would likely be awarded the kingdom’s highest honors.”

  “I know.”

  Jaynes waited for a clue to what had triggered the expression of exasperation. His master simply continued looking out the window.

  Swallowing a sigh, Jaynes left him and went into the dressing room to collect the duke’s pocket watch and the small box containing the assorted oddities the master carried about, to the detriment of his finely sewn pockets.

  When Jaynes returned to the bedchamber but two minutes later, the window was open and the master was gone.

  Leaning out, Jaynes caught a glimpse of chestnut hair among the tall shrubbery.

  “No hat, as usual,” Jaynes muttered. “Just as well, I suppose. He’ll only lose it.”

  He set down the box and pocket watch to one side of the wide sill and closed the window, for the day was chill and damp, promising more rain. “And it’ll be a miracle, I daresay, if wet’s the worst of his condition when he comes home.” Preoccupied with an array of uniformly appalling scenarios, Jaynes exited the bedchamber, altogether forgetting the items he’d left upon the windowsill.

  The eminent firm of Rundell and Bridge having considerable experience with the upper orders—including the uppermost, His Majesty the King—its shop clerks manifested no signs of dismay or alarm at the entrance of an alarmingly large nobleman towing a black mastiff the size of a young elephant.

  “Dash it, Susan,” said Vere, “you can move quickly enough when Trent’s in the vicinity.” He tugged on the leash and grumbling, Susan condescended to cross the threshold of Number 32, Ludgate Hill.

  Then she sank down on her haunches, laid her big head on her forepaws, and let out a martyred sigh.

  “I didn’t force you to come with me,” Vere said. “You were the one who started whimpering and making me feel sorry for you.”

  The dog had apparently arrived—presumably with Bess and Millie—sometime after Vere had gone upstairs to wash and change. He’d found her wandering in the garden, the lead in her mouth. He’d p
etted her and headed for the gate. She’d followed. When he tried to shut the gate behind him, she’d commenced whimpering.

  “You’re blocking the door,” he said now. “Get up, Susan. Up.”

  A chorus of male voices assured His Grace that the dog was not at all in the way.

  “That’s not the point,” he said. “The point is, she’s doing it on purpose to vex me. You’d think she’d run all the way from St. James’s Square, instead of covering the distance sound asleep, on my feet, in a hackney.”

  The youngest of the clerks stepped out from behind the counter. “That is Her Grace’s mastiff, isn’t it?” he said. “I’ve seen her before. I think she’s guarding the door, that’s all, sir. Protecting you.”

  Vere looked at the dog, then at the clerk.

  The man bowed. “And if you will pardon the liberty, Your Grace, may I offer my heartiest felicitations upon your recent nuptials.”

  A murmuring chorus seconded this speech.

  Vere’s neckcloth felt much too tight, and the shop seemed much too warm. He mumbled a response—he wasn’t sure what. Then, fixing his eye upon the one who knew all about the dog, Vere said, “I want to buy a gewgaw. For my lady.”

  If the term “gewgaw” was not as precise as could be wished, the clerk showed no signs of discontent.

  “Certainly, Your Grace. If you would be so good as to come this way.”

  He ushered Vere into a private room.

  Ten minutes later, Susan ambled in and collapsed on Vere’s feet.

  Two hours later, his toes numb, Vere exited the shop, a small parcel tucked into his waistcoat pocket.

  He didn’t see the female scurry away from the shop window and dart into an alley. He didn’t know who Susan was growling at, or whether she was simply growling at everyone because she was cross again, at having to move after she’d finally got comfy.

  He was unaware of Coralie Brees peering from the corner of the alley and staring, long after she could actually see him, and so he could have no inkling of the murderous fury churning in her breast while she imagined the sparkling baubles he’d bought, and what she’d do to the one he’d bought them for.

  It was early evening when Lydia found the box.

  By this time she was aware that Ainswood had gone out and taken the dog with him. Millie, who’d gone to the garden to try to coax Susan to eat—she was sulking again—had seen Ainswood come in the garden gate, pick up the leash, and depart with the mastiff.

  It was Bess who brought up the dinner Lydia had elected to eat in the master bedchamber, since that was the only part of the house not under attack or still thick with grime. And it was Bess who passed on the information that His Grace had exited via his bedroom window.

  “And Mr. Jaynes is ever so vexed, miss—mean to say, Your Grace—on account of it was a new coat, just come from the tailor’s.” Catching Lydia’s frown, the girl added hurriedly, “Only he said it to me private-like, not in front of anybody, and said I might mention it to you, but nobody else, as it wasn’t proper for him to tattle on the master, but you ought to know, in case His Grace comes back the same way and gives you a fright in the middle of the night.”

  After Bess left, Lydia went to the window. It was no easy climb, and she wondered where he’d found a foot-hold in the well-pointed brick. If it had been raining when he left, he could have easily slipped and broken his neck.

  That was when the box caught her attention, shiny lacquered black against the yellow paint of the windowsill.

  She remembered the fuss Ainswood had made last night about his pocket contents.

  She was a journalist, and prying into others’ affairs was her stock-in-trade. She was also a woman.

  She opened the box.

  In it lay a stump of a pencil, a black button, a hairpin, and a splinter of ebony.

  She snapped it shut, started to put it back where she’d found it, then took it up again and pressed it to her heart. “Oh, Ainswood,” she cried softly. “You wicked, wicked man. Keepsakes.”

  “You’re the most aggravating female who ever lived. There’s no pleasing you.” Vere crouched beside the dog. “It’s raining, Susan. What the devil do you want to lie in the rain for, when you can lumber about a great, warm, dry house and trip the footmen and throw all the maids into fits of terror? Mama’s in there, you know. Don’t you want to see your mama?”

  A deeply despondent doggy sigh was her answer.

  Vere collected the various parcels he’d thrown down when Susan threw herself down, then stood up and marched into the house.

  Once inside he bellowed for Jaynes.

  “The damn dog won’t come in,” he said, when the valet finally skulked into the hall.

  Leaving Jaynes to deal with Susan, Vere hurried upstairs and into his bedchamber.

  He threw the parcels on the bed. He pulled off his wet coat. Turning to toss it toward a chair, he saw his wife, sitting on the rug before the fireplace, her knees drawn up, her arms wrapped about them.

  His heartbeat quickened to triple time.

  Avoiding her gaze and trying to steady his breathing, he knelt down beside her. Looking for words, and looking anywhere but at her face, he saw the box her ink-stained fingers encircled.

  He stared at it, frowning, for a long moment. Then he remembered. Jaynes. The lacquered box.

  “What have you got there, Grenville?” he said lightly. “Poison for exasperating husbands?”

  “Keepsakes,” she said.

  “They’re not keepsakes,” he said stoutly, while well aware the lie was written plain on his face in vivid scarlet. “I like to keep a lot of rubbish in my pockets because it makes Jaynes wild. You make it easy because you’re forever leaving debris in your wake.”

  She smiled. “You’re adorable when you’re embarrassed.”

  “I’m not embarrassed. A man who’s spent half the day conversing with a dog is past embarrassment.” He put out his hand. “Give it back, Grenville. You’re not supposed to go poking about in a fellow’s personal belongings. You should be ashamed of yourself. You don’t see me sneaking behind your back for a look at the next chapter of The Rose of Thebes, do you?”

  He felt rather than saw the box drop into his hand, for his gaze had shifted to her face. He caught the startled look in the instant before she blinked it away.

  “I’m not blind,” he said. “I saw Lady Dain’s ring—the great ruby, amazingly like your description of the Rose of Thebes. I’d had my suspicions before of who St. Bellair really was—interesting, isn’t it, how the letters can be rearranged to spell ‘Ballister’?—but the ring clinched it. Today, I found out—in the same way you did, I reckon—where Lady Dain’s ruby had come from. Whether originally looted from a pharaoh’s tomb, no one could say. But the jeweler’s agent did buy it in Egypt.”

  To her credit, Grenville didn’t try to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about. “You suspected before?” Her blue gaze was soft with wonder. “How did you suspect? No one suspects. Even Miss Price, who is almost painfully perceptive, gaped at me for a full minute when I told her.”

  “You gave yourself away in the last two installments, when Diablo started sounding like me.”

  She swung up onto her feet in a rustle of bombazine. She began to pace, as she had done last night.

  He sank down onto the carpet and lay on his back, his hands clasped behind his head, which was turned to the side, so he could watch her. He loved to watch her walk, long confident strides that would have seemed mannish if it weren’t for the arrogant sway of her magnificent rump. That was all woman.

  This was but a temporary respite, he knew, and not much of one at that. While he lay apparently at his ease, images advanced and receded in his mind, like shipwreck victims upon the waves.

  He’d taken Susan to Southwark, to the Marshalsea. He’d seen children, some hurrying out—on errands for parents who could not leave the prison—and some returning, more listlessly, their steps dragging as they neared the gates.

/>   His wife had been one of those children, and he knew what the Marshalsea had stolen from her.

  …take me to meet my new family.

  He knew what she wanted in Bedfordshire.

  “Oh, it’s impossible!” She flung herself into a chair. “I shall never manage you.” She set her elbow on the chair arm and her chin on her knuckles and eyed him reproachfully. “You undermine and overthrow me at every turn. Every time I want you to do something you find disagreeable—which is practically everything—you find a way to turn my heart to mush. What have you done, read every word I’ve ever written, and analyzed and anatomized it?”

  “Yes.” He turned his gaze to the ceiling. “And if I’d known that was all it took to turn your heart to mush, I could have saved myself a good deal of money today—not to mention sparing myself Susan’s aggravating company.”

  There was a silence, during which, he assumed, the parcels on the bed finally attracted her attention.

  “You wicked man.” Her voice was low and not quite steady. “Have you been buying me gifts?”

  “Bribes,” he said, sneaking a glance at her. She had left the chair to go to the bed, and stood looking at the packages. “So I wouldn’t be obliged to sleep in the stables.”

  After Rundell and Bridge, after the Marshalsea, he’d taken Susan from shop to shop, with one break for sustenance in a private dining parlor of a coaching inn.

  “Perhaps you’re not so good at reading my mind as I believed,” she said. “That thought never crossed it.”

  He got up and went to her. “Open them,” he said.

  There were notebooks, their rich vellum pages bound in leather as soft as butter. There was a cylindrical pen case of delicately worked silver, with an inkwell that screwed to the bottom of the tube. There was a small traveling writing box, decorated with scenes from mythology, whose compartments contained pens, inkwells, and pounce box, and whose small drawers held wafers, notepaper, and a silver penknife. There was a silver inkstand, as well as a papier-mâché pencil box, filled with pencils.