The Wedding

by Edith Layton

  There was a footman at the door when she approached it.

  “My lady,” he said unhappily. He glanced over her head, his apparent distress the signal to another footman to fetch Mr. Stroud.

  “Can I help you, my lady?” the butler asked from behind Dulcie, as the footman blocked her exit. Dulcie thought he asked it as though he knew he couldn’t.

  “No, not at all,” she said, wishing she knew his name so she could have the better of him. “I’m only going out for a while.”

  “Very good. Winston, accompany the lady,” Stroud commanded the footman. Winston nodded, straightened his coat, and opened the door.

  “No,” Dulcie said firmly, “I do not wish to have an escort.”

  “It is unheard of for a lady to go out without being accompanied by a footman,” Stroud said with scant patience.

  “Exactly,” Dulcie said, sweeping out the door as though she were wearing ermine, “And I, as you certainly have been informed, am not a lady.”

  She was down the street before the butler could move. She turned the corner, running so fast he would have had to send Mercury after her to catch her. She pulled her cloak’s hood over her head and then hid in a doorway, just to be sure they hadn’t followed.

  When she ventured out again the rain had resolved itself into a cold, sullen mizzle that seeped into her clothes, shoes, and bones. She was alone, however, and Dulcie felt rejuvenated. She headed for her lodgings, and didn’t slow her pace. She hurried past the taverns, clubs, and shops in the viscount’s part of town with her head down, in the admittedly foolish hope that if she didn’t see them, the viscount and his minions wouldn’t see her.

  She only dared to look up again when she heard familiar raucous music. She knew the voices of the street vendors in her own part of town, and as she walked, she found herself relaxing. She smiled as she listened to women singing the virtues of their flowers, fruits, oysters, and eggs, and heard the rough counterpoint of men bawling about their fish and vegetables, firewood and meat. Their cries were loud and discordant, but the sound was truly music to her ears. She felt as if they were serenading her, welcoming her home.

  She shuddered as she sidestepped a rabbit seller whose long poles were strung with skinned and trussed little bodies, hung head down, and she was making her way down the alley to her door when her luck ran out.

  “Why, viscountess,” Harry Meech said with great satisfaction as she was forced to stop short in front of a hulking brute who had stepped directly in front of her, a smirking giant she dimly recognized from her nightmare of a wedding party. “How good to see you again. “If you will come this way, my lady,” Meech said as he saw her eyes darting about, looking for a way around him and the two bruisers who accompanied him.

  “Your father’s not at home. We checked. And since your husband’s not with you, either, I offer you my escort. After all, we wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, would we? This is a very dangerous city for a young, beautiful noblewoman traveling alone,” he warned her, offering his arm.

  “No,” she said, and was as shocked as he was by her answer. But if she could be rude to a viscount, she reasoned, trying to hold back her panic, she could be just as bold with a common swindler. She swallowed hard and spoke before she could think better of it. “No,” she said again, “I do not want your escort.”

  A nobleman had ignored her rudeness, but Harry Meech didn’t. He grabbed her arm. “Too bad, because you’re having it and more, my lady. You’re most definitely coming with me, like it or not.”

  “I don’t see why,” she said. “My father is a pauper, the viscount doesn’t want me, and I don’t want him. I’ve left him. So you can’t hold me for ransom. Well, you could, but it wouldn’t do you any good. The viscount would be only too glad to have you do away with me, or dismember me, or whatever,” she said, shivering, “so there’s no profit it in for you.”

  “But you are still his viscountess, whether you like it or not,” Harry said with a smile. “All sorts of interesting things can be done to or with a woman who bears his name. Whether or not he likes you, I do believe he values the name you now bear. So you’re worth a great deal to him, my lady. And to us, too.”

  “I can’t see how,” Dulcie said, thinking she might be able to argue her way out of this predicament, though the coldness in Harry’s smile and her own stomach were arguing that she could not.

  “Oh, but I can,” Harry said. “For example, your employment in a brothel might do it. You’re a lovely girl; many men would like to lie with you, I’m sure. But no matter what you looked like, many would find it amusing to bed the Viscountess West for a few coins. It would be great sport for a certain kind of gentleman. Lovely gossip in their clubs, too. I think the viscount would mind that, don’t you?”

  “I told you,” she persisted, though her knees felt weak, “he doesn’t care what happens to me.”

  “Doubtless,” Harry said impatiently, “but the name you have now—he cares very much for that, doesn’t he? There are other things,” he said, when he saw how quiet and pale she became as she thought about it, “even worse things. I won’t discuss them now. Or ever—if you come along with me. After all, I’ve every confidence he’ll pay up to get you back. I’m not a cruel man. So why should I bother your pretty head with all the unpleasant possibilities he’s going to be presented with? Just come along, my lady, won’t you?”

  Dulcie planted her sopping shoes firmly on the muddy street, as though she hoped they’d take root there. “No,” she said. “No, I won’t. I won’t.”

  Never, she thought. They would have to pick her up and carry her, and she would scream louder than the fishmongers, and kick and pinch and bite, and they’d have to knock her silly to get her to go with them. But at least that way she’d be unconscious, and so wouldn’t feel as terrible as she did now. Her bravery wasn’t much, but it was the only thing she could do to assert herself. She braced herself.

  “Oh, you will,” Harry promised.

  “No, she won’t,” another voice said from behind her.

  Dulcie spun around. She had thought that he looked like an angel the first time she saw him. Now he looked like an avenging angel. The viscount had drawn his sword, and his eyes glowed with blue fire. She wanted to applaud, but was happy enough to have her wrist wrenched hard as he grabbed her and pulled her to his side. Then Crispin thrust her behind him, and she was never so happy to be cast off. The earl of Wrede, who was standing beside her, she noted absently, was smiling.

  “Don’t worry, my dear,” Wrede said loud enough for everyone to hear in the tense silence, “your husband is a brilliant swordsman.”

  “No matter,” Harry said from the side of his mouth to his two men, who stood hesitant. “One swordsman, brilliant or not, can’t do much against three men.”

  “Two men,” Crispin corrected him, taking advantage of the moment of hesitation to toss his sword to his other hand. He used his free hand to throw a hard punch to one burly man’s considerable stomach. When the man bent over double, Crispin slammed the hilt of his sword against his chin so hard they could all hear the man’s teeth click together before he crashed to the cobbles.

  “No, sorry, make that one man,” Crispin said through his own tightly clenched teeth, as he placed the point of his sword at the other ruffian’s throat. As the man stood, irresolute, Crispin stamped hard on the toe of his boot. He yelped, and Crispin said, “So sorry,” and landed a hard punch on his chin, then landed another and sent him sprawling.

  “Ah, alone at last, Harry,” Crispin said with a snarl, advancing on Harry Meech. “Now I get a chance to show off my brilliant swordsmanship,” he said with a feral grin.

  “I think not,” Harry cried, and turned and ran, with considerable speed for a man of his age. He had disappeared into the shadows by the time Crispin sheathed his sword.

  “Now,” Crispin said, advancing on Dulcie with no less threat than he’d shown the men groaning at his feet, “I’d like to know what you thought yo
u were doing?”

  “Getting rid of myself,” she said, her lips trembling because of the terrible look in his eyes, which was not glad or welcoming or comforting. “Vanishing. Or trying to. The way you said you wanted me to do. But I don’t know how to throw myself away, although I tried. Surely you must see that I tried.”

  Then she began to cry, and so she didn’t see the look in his eyes. Although it was still not welcoming or glad, it would have pleased her.

  *

  “She’s in her room, sleeping, or pretending to,” Crispin said wearily to Wrede, as he nursed his snifter of brandy.

  He didn’t mention that he’d gone to Dulcie’s room when she hadn’t appeared for dinner, and when he received no answer to his repeated taps on her door, he had opened it anyway and found her sound asleep, curled up in a chair, as though she found even his bed loathsome. He’d stared at her for a moment, noting how her face was slightly flushed with sleep, as a child’s might be. He’d seen, too, the steady rise and fall of breasts that proved she was no child. She was still wearing that dreadful gown of hers. But she’d let her hair down, and it fell in soft, shining curls to her shoulders.

  He was fascinated. Her hair was silky. He’d been drawn to it, and couldn’t resist feeling it first with the tips of his fingers and then, bemused, with the back of his hand. She’d stirred beneath that light touch, as though her soft flesh had felt his caress. He’d snatched his hand away and left, quickly and quietly.

  Now he looked at the hand that had stroked that cool silken fire, until he saw Wrede watching him quizzically. Then he turned his hand over and gazed at his cut and bruised knuckles. “I’m becoming too much the London gentleman,” he commented. “A few blows and my hands turn to forcemeat. I should have skewered Harry and his friends instead of crushing my knuckles on them.”

  “You behaved very badly,” Wrede said, as he rose from his chair.

  “Don’t I know it. I was way off form,” Crispin agreed. “It took too much effort. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d more practice.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” Wrede replied. “She’s only a young girl. You were beastly to her. If I had such a pretty little thing in my care, I wouldn’t thunder at her and make sour faces.”

  “You don’t have her,” Crispin said bluntly, the firelight showing a strange glitter in his eyes.

  “Oh. So you want her, do you?” the earl asked, lifting an eyebrow.

  “No, I do not. And you know it,” Crispin answered edgily, “but Harry Meech was right about one thing: for so long as she bears my name, I will protect her. Good God, Wrede, seriously—just think of the hold she has on me! Until I straighten this mess out, I have to be her chaperon as well as her bodyguard.”

  “Flight, capture, violence, then laughter and tears,” Wrede said with relish. “Discussion at my clubs can’t touch this sort of stuff. Even my brilliant friends’ efforts to amuse pale in comparison. Why, your company these days is better than the theater. It’s only too bad I can’t invite my other friends along.”

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” Crispin said sourly, “because I’m not.”

  “Don’t bother to see me out,” said the earl, heading for the door, “I’ve an engagement this evening or I’d stay. I wonder what will be dished up when she eventually comes down for dinner. I haven’t been so amused in years. Thank you, Crispin.”

  “Wrede,” Crispin said as he turned his empty goblet around and around in his long fingers, “thank you for helping.”

  “But you never gave me the chance.”

  “Knowing I was not alone was helpful.”

  “My dear friend, you had an army behind you. Two footmen who followed her from the house, another lurking at the father’s lodgings, and that odd little boy who kept peeping out at us from various places after we left the tavern when your footman came running to tell you she’d escaped. At first I thought there were three or four young boys along the route, but they all had the same filthy, furtive, and very intelligent countenance. Was he with us or against us, by the way?”

  “I don’t know,” Crispin said, with the first real smile he’d worn all afternoon, “but knowing Willie Grab—both, I think.”

  Then, as though the words had reminded him, he put a finger to his lips and rose quickly from his chair. While his friend watched, puzzled, he stalked to the partly open window and threw it all the way open suddenly.

  “You might as well show yourself, Willie,” he called out. “I felt the draft when I came in but didn’t understand it until now. There’s no other reason for this window to be open on such a dank night, not even just the crack you lifted it so you could hear. So give over. There’s someone I’d like you to meet. A gentleman. Don’t worry, it’s not anyone from Bow Street. You know which gentleman I mean—the tall one you’ve seen with me all day.”

  “Oh, him!” a merry voice said, and a grimy face appeared at the window. Then a knee, and then all of the thin boy who scrambled into the room through the opened window. He wore threadbare hose and baggy breeches, and his coat was ill-fitting enough to conceal anything he chose to stow in its many pockets. But his grin was wide and congenial, as though he were welcoming the two fine gentlemen to his rooms, instead of having just clambered in their window.

  “Willie Grab, may I present the earl of Wrede?” Crispin said. “Wrede, this horrible youth is the author of my difficulties. He’s the one who recommended me as a groom to Harry Meech in the first place.”

  “As a favor, my lord,” Willie reminded him, gazing around the room in fascination.

  “Yes,” Crispin mused, putting a hand in his pocket and withdrawing a coin. He watched its dulcet golden glow in the firelight, and smiled. “It seemed like a favor at the time. Now, of course, it’s a millstone, isn’t it? Leave off counting the merchandise, Willie. You’ll never get a piece of it outside this door without a fight,” he commented idly. “Why were you following me today?” he asked suddenly, without looking up.

  The boy was too quick for such tricks and answered just as idly, without removing his roving gaze from the room as he took inventory of it. “Keeping an eye out for you, my lord.”

  But then, as though he felt the icy force of Crispin’s continued stare, he turned to him and protested, “Honest. I was. I knew our Harry was up to no good. Been lurking, he has. He and his bully boys. Lurking all about the place, watching for her, or you. Very narked, is our Harry. There’s money about, and he can’t get his hands on it. It makes him wild.”

  “But it’s not his money,” the earl said, fascinated.

  “In his head it is,” Willie explained, throwing a bright look at the earl’s splendidly clad figure, “’cause, see, he was the one brought the girl to the lord, as he sees it. So if she’s in the gravy now, he wants a spoonful too—any way he can get it. Leave it to Harry to think up ways. He looked for old man Blessing everywhere, but he’s run for it. If you get Bow Street looking for the old man, remember that some of the Bow Street crowd owe Harry a favor or two too. Just thought I’d pass that on.”

  “Kind of you,” Crispin said. “Is that why you were following me today? Out of kindness? And if so, then why didn’t you come speak to me, instead of scarpering off each time I saw you?”

  “I didn’t have to tell you nothing when I saw you today ’cause you were already on the right scent,” Willie said. “I was just making sure of it.”

  “Or were you following Harry’s orders?” Crispin went on pensively. “And if so, I wonder why you let me see you at all. When you don’t want to be seen, you’re invisible.” Crispin began to smile at the thought, but remembered someone who had just tried to vanish. It wiped the grin from his face. His voice was chill when he asked, “You’re full of mysteries, aren’t you? How much will it cost me to discover them? And how much will Harry pay you to tell him about this conversation? You’ll be a rich lad soon, won’t you, Willie?”

  “Nah. Nobody gets rich working for Harry,” Willie said wi
th regret. Then he drew himself up, looked Crispin in the eye, and said clearly, “Listen, my lord. I work for Harry sometimes, but I think for myself all the time. There’s things I’ll do and things I won’t—not for no money. Harry asked me to keep an eye on you. I done it. You don’t need to pay me a thing. That’s my coin, my lord, if you remember. You offered it to me once. I gave it back, but I remember it. Just look on it like I’m protecting my investment. You watch out for yourself, my lord. And the pretty lady. Harry’s hungry, and when he’s hungry, he puts rats to shame.”

  He grinned at his own cleverness, and then, after a mockery of a bow, he put one hand on the sill and vaulted out through the window.

  “Don’t bother looking,” Crispin said, as the earl hurried to the window and looked out. “He’s either a mile away or so close by that he could pluck off your wig before you could blink.”

  The earl straightened, but not before both men thought they heard a giggle—or perhaps it was a branch, stirred by night breezes, scratching against a pane of glass.

  “I claim a friendship with the Fielding brothers,” the earl said after a moment’s thought. “Henry’s a good man. But gone from the country at the moment, alas. He’s off to write somewhere else, leaving London’s crime and criminals to his brother, Sir John. A good man, too, he’s the magistrate now. Would you like me to ask him to have Bow Street look into Harry Meech and the missing father?”

  “No, no need,” Crispin said. “Anyway, don’t forget, my actions were as criminal as anyone’s in this. I entered a mock marriage for purposes of deception, as well as for money, you know.”

  “Ah, but you’re an aristocrat, and so much can be forgiven—and forgotten,” the earl reminded him.

  “Didn’t you hear the boy? Bow Street may be useful and the runners good at their work, but not if Harry can reach them. And don’t forget, the girl is as guilty as I am. She’ll be in trouble if the marriage is annulled as quickly as I hope it can be.”