The Cold Earl's Bride: A Historical Regency Romance

by Audrey Ashwood

  “I believe so,” Annabelle replied. Her throat was bone dry.

  “And you are not angry with me?”

  “Why would I be? To me, it sounds as if you have been… sick as a cushion.” Annabelle frowned. This explanation sounded plausible, even though she had improvised. And over the last few days had she not thought the same thing herself – that her growing feelings for St. John felt like a fever? “I love you, my dear Felicity. Always. No matter what happens, I am always here for you.” She was silent for a moment. “Did he try to blackmail you with your letters?”

  “How do you know… oh, why do I even ask? Yes, he did.”

  Meanwhile, Annabelle busied herself again with buttons, this time closing them one by one.

  “He said that if I wanted them back, I would have to come and get them.” She shivered. “He named an address in Whitechapel, can you imagine that? He asked me to meet him there, in a tavern.”

  That vicious dirty-dish, Annabelle thought, and she was not even ashamed that she had allowed these words to enter her thoughts. In fact, she would have loved to spit them out loud and clear.

  “I borrowed a dress from Mary and rented a coach.”

  “You did that? All by yourself? You are so incredibly brave,” Annabelle commented, sighing a sigh of relief her sister’s bright green dress was finally buttoned up. “I probably would have fainted before the carriage had turned around the first street corner.”

  Felicity snorted. “I doubt that. You have always been the braver of us. I believe you would have needed three days longer for the preparations, because you would have planned everything down to the smallest detail, but you would have gone either way.”

  “What was it like traveling through London all by yourself?” They sat down on the recamier by the window. It almost felt like the good old days, when the two of them hid from Rose to escape their demanding youngest sister for a while.

  “It was fabulous,” Felicity answered eagerly. “I was nervous and a little scared, but it was a great excitement to do something completely on my own. Do you know what I mean? I…” she swallowed and turned pale again. “I had brought something to put an end to my life with if he did not hand me back my letters.”

  “You did what?” Annabelle shook her head in disbelief, and she wanted to say something, but her sister interrupted her.

  “You do not need to be worried anymore. I realized that this man was not worth my feelings. But only three days prior to that I had still seen something in him that was not actually there. I believe that my imagination had taken over, and I shaped him the way I wanted him to be. That night, I saw who he truly was for the first time. He was ugly, Annabelle, and very mean.”

  “So, you wanted to take your own life and then decided against it,” Annabelle steered the conversation back to the original point that interested her most. It would be too much of a coincidence that Greywood died shortly after Felicity had gone there with poison. “It was poison, is that right?” She continued her train of thought aloud.

  “Yes. You know how Foster,” their parent’s gardener “always has something in his chamber to keep the rats at bay? I took some with me. I thought that if I needed to die, then Rupert should at least watch me as it happened.”

  “So, you arrived at the tavern in Whitechapel. Then what?”

  “The place was more a rotten drinking hole than a tavern,” Felicity explained. “The landlord led me upstairs, where Rupert had rented a room for the night. He was not there, but the table had been set, and glasses filled with wine. So, I sat down and poured the poison into my own glass before Rupert turned up.” She lifted her hand to her throat and then let it sink again. “He laughed at me, Bella, and then he forced me to kiss him.”

  “He did not do that!” Annabelle covered her mouth with her hand. “Forgive me, I believe you, just how could a gentleman sink so low?”

  “He had the breeding of a gentleman, but not the bearing,” Felicity answered in an almost world-weary manner. “In a way, it was a good thing the way he acted. Otherwise, I would have still hoped for more and begged on and on. But when I saw him like that, heard him speak to me as if I were a woman of easy virtue, I finally understood that he was neither worth my own death – nor anything else. So, I got up and left.” She sighed. “I expected the letters to emerge at any moment, but his death explains why he did not send them to the papers or to Father.”

  Annabelle’s heart was racing, but she tried to sound as nonchalant as she could muster. “When did all this happen?”

  Felicity frowned, but then she told her.

  Now Annabelle knew why Marcus had spared her the details. The timing fit so well that no other explanation was possible. Greywood must have drunk the poisoned wine that her sister had left behind. It seemed her sister did not realise the connection between Greywood’s death and the poison.

  And Annabelle prayed that she never would.

  Marcus felt strong and optimistic in a manner he had not felt in a very long time. His wound was healing at a rate that astonished the doctor, and even the fact that Finch had taken it upon himself to get Greywood’s body out of the house turned out to be an advantage. Annabelle’s absence had spurred him with a fresh determination to take care of the whole shadow-man affair.

  Every now and again, when he walked past her bedroom, he missed her. It was a similar and yet completely different feeling if he were to compare it to the bond he had felt with Matilda. The deciding difference was that he had not lost Annabelle for good. Their separation was a temporary one. Of that, he reminded himself over and over again whenever his gaze fell on an object she had left behind, such as the book in the parlour. Three days it had been since she left. He wondered what her parents, in particular her father, had said about Annabelle’s unexpected arrival. Marcus had half-expected a raging Duke of Evesham to storm his front door, demanding satisfaction. Now, the continuous silence, which he himself had demanded of her, began to tug on his nerves. He shook his head with a self-deprecating smile. This was the downside to having feelings. They were distracting, played on one’s mind, confused the spirit – and yet, they were what made life worth living. Was it not so that one appreciated life’s sweetest gifts only when one had suffered the darkest of sorrows?

  He glanced at his pocket watch, a modern product from abroad but nonetheless the most accurate and reliable timepiece he knew and noticed it was time to relieve Finch from his duty, who had been watching Greywood’s house since the early morning hours. He and his good friend had agreed that keeping an eye on Greywood’s residence offered a good chance of success, which turned out to be correct: The Bow Street Runners had visited the house and gained access, giving away the fact that his body had been discovered.

  Greywood’s apartment had been turned upside down by the Runners as they searched for clues, but Marcus knew that they had found nothing enlightening. He had read it on their indifferent faces as they left the scene. It had not even been the place where Greywood had died, but merely the location where the body had been dropped, Marcus thought, and almost felt sorry for the unsuspecting investigators. If they were all as smart as Hawthorne promised to become, he would have been in trouble. But for now, he relied on Greywood’s mysterious employer turning up at his residence himself to search for, and remove, any incriminating material. If Marcus knew that Greywood was not to be trusted, then the man in the shadows would not make a mistake about it either.

  As he walked the short distance to Belgrave Square on foot, breathing in the pleasant, cool air that refreshed the town with the fading daylight, he put himself in the shadow-man’s shoes. If he were the one who wanted to break into Greywood’s house, he would do it tonight. The body had been found three days ago. It was highly unlikely that the chronically overworked Runners had positioned a guard for the entire duration to monitor the comings and goings at Belgrave Square. Within that timeframe, almost all of Greywood’s servants had disappeared to find new employment elsewhere. Only his personal manservan
t, a creature named Ichabod Descord, who was in many ways no way inferior to his master in repulsiveness, remained in the house.

  Marcus had instructed Finch to keep a particularly close eye on the valet. If anyone knew about Greywood’s affairs, it would be this man. For a brief moment, Marcus had toyed with the idea of offering him a hefty sum to pick his brains for some of his knowledge, but his instinct had warned him against it. First, he did not want a pesky witness to his interest in Greywood, and second, he was convinced that Descord had already contacted the shadow-man to sell his silence as dearly as possible. The mysterious figure would most likely play along for a while and then get rid of the servant. The question was not whether Descord would survive the encounter, but whether the shadow-man would do the deed himself.

  Finch waited at the agreed meeting place. They had chosen a side alley that did not see much traffic, and which offered an excellent entry point to the house through the garden. Any reasonably competent man could gain access over the terrace.

  His friend did not even flinch when Marcus put his hand on his shoulder from behind. “You got here just in time,” he whispered nodding towards the house. In the darkness, Marcus guessed the movement more than saw it.

  “So, something is going on,” Marcus noted, satisfied, and peered over to the house. On the upper floor, a faint light lit up behind the windows and moved around the room. Someone, most likely Descord, had lit a candle and was closing the curtains. Marcus snorted silently. This showed all the more clearly just how half-witted the valet truly was. The more secretive and furtively one behaved, the more one aroused suspicion and attention of everyone around them. “He got a visitor,” he whispered. “Were you able to see who it is?”

  “Unfortunately not,” Finch replied, turning his head. “The presumptuous bounder must have walked right in through the front door.”

  Marcus did not hesitate for long. The chances were even that the visitor would likewise leave the house through the front door. Rapidly, he scanned the possibilities in his head: If the visitor were to leave Descord alive, he could leave the house openly. If he did not… Marcus signalled to his friend and watched Finch leave his hiding spot. He felt remorse about watching his friend disappear into the darkness. He asked a lot of him, but Finch never complained. When all this was over, he would… a movement in the garden caught his attention. He pressed deeper into his hiding spot and breathed calmly and steadily. He imagined melting into the darkness and becoming one with it, just as his teacher had taught him – though everything demanded him to leap at the man and finally look behind the ratbag’s mask.

  His patience was rewarded.

  The figure approached the low brick wall that separated the grounds from the back alley. Even though it was drawing nearer, Marcus had trouble making out details. Regrettably, the darkness that shielded him also covered his enemy in a protective cloak. But one thing was clear: He was clothed in black just as Marcus was. His movements were of a flowing elegance reminiscent of a dancer. He was far from being tall but conquered the waist-high wall with one easy jump. My opponent is younger than I have imagined, thought Marcus surprised. All the meagre facts he had been able to obtain pointed to a sly old fox who knew exactly what he was doing.

  The man did not look to either his left or right side but started moving with long strides. Something in the way he was moving forward felt familiar to Marcus, but he could not pinpoint what it was exactly. As soft-footed as he could, he followed the man, who, seemingly without a care in the world, turned right towards the main road. Marcus watched him pass Greywood’s house. Finch joined him by the time the slender man arrived at the next street corner.

  Despite the late hour, the area was lively. Presumably, people were coming from the theatre or a night about town, ready to be driven home in their carriages to their warm beds. At this hour, pedestrians could not be seen in this choice suburb. The valets had long gone to bed, and the high society typically did not travel on foot. Therefore, following the only pedestrian was not too difficult.

  For crying out loud! What was it that he thought he recognised? Marcus contemplated his chances of getting closer to him without being seen. The longer he followed the untroubled person, the more certain he became that this was not the man in the shadows.

  “Does something about him look familiar to you?” he asked Finch, who had fallen into a light trot next to him and now pulled him by his elbow.

  “No,” his friend shook his head, “but we should drop back, if we don’t want him to discover us.”

  “I suggest we take the chance,” Marcus replied, tired of the endless cat-and-mouse game. “This is not our man. Let us bring a bit of movement into the game and catch this bloke out.” Finch continued to hold him and slowed down. Impatiently, Marcus stretched his head to watch their prey disappear and pulled Finch, who quietly protested, along with him.

  “Do you want to jeopardise everything just because you are growing impatient?” he asked Marcus, finally letting him go.

  “Yes, that is exactly what I am going to do. I have had enough,” Marcus replied. “For two years we have been sneaking around that bloody double agent. I am sick and tired of just reacting to his treacherous scheming. I should have taken things into my own hands a long time ago.”

  “Remember what happened to Lady Matilda,” Finch hissed sharply, but he no longer tried to stop Marcus. They quickly caught up to their suspect. “I thought you wanted revenge for what they did to you,” Finch continued. “If you come out of hiding now, you will endanger everything we have achieved so far!”

  “Nonsense,” Marcus said with a muted voice. The man ahead of them stopped in front of a store window and looked at the display. Marcus knew the store, he had often walked past it, and secretly laughed at the women talking excitedly about the daring creations of the hatter. He almost stumbled when he suddenly realised what it was that seemed so familiar about this man. It is the way he walks, he thought, glancing at the swinging hips. He was following a woman!

  The thoughts in his head began to race. Had the shadow-man sent a female substitute in his place to deal with Descord? Or had Marcus, for all these years, been double-crossed in more ways than one? He quickly estimated the height of the woman, who strolled as cool as you please through the night streets of London, in black male clothing no less. He sensed Finch’s reluctance, as he sped up even more. He would not wait any longer. It was now or never!

  Only a few steps separated him from the guilelessly strolling figure. Could it be Madeline, who had given him the run-around for all those years? For goodness’ sake, he simply was not sure. Whenever he thought he was about to recognise a familiar detail, the inkling disappeared again. Behind him, the wheels of a carriage rumbled dangerously close to the sidewalk. Instinctively, he took a step to the right and hit Finch, who in turn stumbled and fell to his knees. A grunt of pain escaped his friend. Bloody hell! Marcus saw the woman in front of them hesitate for a fraction of a second before falling into a faster trot. Marcus looked down at his friend, who was rubbing his ankle with a face writhing in pain.

  “Wait here,” he said, “I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”

  Finch grunted something, which sounded suspiciously like a curse, but Marcus had already taken up his pursuit of the slender figure.

  However, it was too late. He watched the carriage, which had just come dangerously close to him, slowing down. The door was thrown open, an arm stretched out and helped the woman inside. The driver snapped the whip. The horses responded and pulled the vehicle – without a crest or any other memorable signage – ruthlessly away from him.

  Chapter 16

  “Do you not want to change your mind?” Her mother looked at Annabelle attentively. “The likelihood that you will encounter your husband at the countess’ is not low.”

  Annabelle’s heart made a little jump. She swallowed dryly and forced herself to give her voice a steady tone. “Do not worry, Mama, I am fine. I am not afraid of a confrontation with him
.”

  “That is not what I meant,” her mother replied, putting aside her embroidery work. It was the same one she had been working on for years – without any real progress. Disdain for any kind of needlework was one thing that Annabelle shared with her mother. “Even a man like St. John will not cause a scene in public, I believe. I was rather thinking about your condition, my darling.”

  Did her mother truly believe that she was expecting? Annabelle decided to disregard it. She did not think that she could bear a discussion about the intimacy of married life.

  “I have already confirmed my attendance,” she returned firmly. “It would be impolite to cancel a visit to the countess on such short notice and make a mess of her table arrangements. And quite frankly, I am looking forward to finally getting out of the house.”

  The past three days at her parents’ home had shown her that her nerves were not as strong as she had believed. Although her mother meant well, the freedom she had tasted as St. John’s wife was not easy to give up. She had felt like a prisoner while she had been living there, at least until she and Marcus had begun to get closer. Now having to bow to her parents’ rules was unexpectedly difficult. From the mealtimes to the hours she had to get up or go to bed, everything was set. She wondered how the Countess of York, who was a widow, might feel. She lived alone, even without a husband, and made all her own decisions. Just like Felicity’s carriage ride, it had to be an exhilarating feeling to be responsible for one’s own life!

  “Annabelle?” She made a jump. Her mother frowned. If I did such a thing, I would immediately be reprimanded, Annabelle thought, startled by her own rebellious thoughts. “Are you sure that you are ready to face the spiteful comments that await you? You know how sharp-tongued certain ladies and gentlemen can be, do you not?”

  Her mother had no idea what Annabelle was willing to endure, at least for as long as she could see for herself that Marcus was well. So, she repeated once more that her mother did not need to worry and included Felicity into the subject. “It will be good for Felicity, too, to be among people,” she said. As hoped, changing the subject matter distracted her mother’s thoughts.