Uncle then went on to talk about how archaeologists and historians argued whether the pharaoh in Exodus was Ahmose the First or Ramses the Great, and perhaps if there were enough excavations, they would find out for certain. Digging up the past, Uncle concluded, was much like human beings sifting through their own pasts to reveal their sins, confess them, and ask forgiveness.
The last had been tacked on, as though Uncle realized his congregation was nodding off over the history of Ramses. Sophie pumped the organ and plodded through the next hymn, while Uncle shook himself and returned to the rest of the service.
David glanced up from where he sat with Eleanor and Dr. Gaspar, and shot her a quick grin. Arrow to her heart.
Once they reached home, Mrs. Corcoran, after she’d removed her Sunday hat, handed David a small envelope.
“You’ve a telegraph message, Mr. Fleming. Village boy gave it to me as I was walking back.”
David neatly slit the envelope with a pocket knife and slid out the paper inside. He read the brief missive then folded it, his eyes dark.
“I must return to London.” His voice was easy but held a note that stirred Sophie’s worry. “Is there a train up, Mrs. Corcoran?”
Mrs. Corcoran shook her head. “There’s no train from our station ’til morning, very early. But the butcher’s son is driving into Shrewsbury to be at the market tomorrow, and there’s a mail train from there at four this afternoon.”
“You are a walking Bradshaw, good lady,” David said, impressed.
“I’ve lived here all my life,” Mrs. Corcoran answered. “Stands to reason I know the trains. Not that there’s many out our way, so I’ve come to know the Shrewsbury timetables as well.”
“Excellent. I shall seek this butcher’s son and beg him to take me in his cart.”
Sophie did not like how heavy her heart grew as she listened to this exchange. She could say nothing, only swallow the lump in her throat.
Uncle Lucas gave David a surprised look. “Why the hurry to be off? Are they arresting you at last?”
Dr. Gaspar started, and even Eleanor looked concerned.
“No, indeed,” David said quickly. “It’s business that won’t wait. I’ll return as soon as I’m able.”
“Not until you’ve had luncheon, certainly.” Uncle led the way to the dining room as though brooking no argument.
Sophie tried to corner David as they went in, but he eluded her, slipping past Dr. Gaspar to escort Eleanor and seat her with aplomb.
Had the telegram to do with Sophie’s divorce? She’d asked him to leave it alone, but she didn’t believe for a moment he would. David was a whirlwind, Sophie had come to understand, and when he fixed on a problem, he’d sweep it up and pound on it until that problem surrendered in defeat.
“I believe I will accompany you, Mr. Fleming,” Eleanor announced as Mrs. Corcoran brought in the meal—a cold one, as she did no cooking on Sundays. “I have taken many photographs, and I want to develop them in my darkroom at home.”
Dr. Gaspar gazed at her in alarm. “Gracious, dear lady, you cannot ride all the way to Shrewsbury in a butcher’s cart. You are a duchess.”
Eleanor sent him a pitying smile. “Well, I am not about to tramp to Shrewsbury with my photographic plates strapped to my back. Do not worry, Dr. Gaspar, I am not delicate porcelain. And I am certain David will give me the best seat on the cart.”
“Of course.” David winked at Sophie.
Sophie ate her cold beef without answering.
Eleanor shot Sophie what she supposed was meant to be a reassuring look. Sophie did feel a little better—Eleanor had decided to travel back so that she could keep an eye on David, Sophie surmised. Developing the photographs was an excuse.
After luncheon, David disappeared to his chamber at the top of the house, descending with his small valise. Eleanor had several large cases, which David and Dr. Gaspar gallantly loaded onto the cart for her. The butcher’s boy, a placid youth, assisted, seemingly unbothered by his detour.
David turned to Sophie once the cases were safely stowed. “Au revoir, my lady.” He gave her a sweeping bow, narrowly missing hitting his head on the cart’s large rear wheel.
“I will take good care of him, dear.” Eleanor caught Sophie’s hand and kissed her cheek. “He needs looking after.”
Sophie had been thinking things over since the day at the ruined abbey, and she’d come to a few conclusions. “Eleanor,” she said, drawing the lady a few steps aside. “May I ask you to help me do something?”
She told Eleanor what she had in mind in a few short sentences, and Eleanor listened in delight.
“Well, of course.” Eleanor sent her a broad smile, and then one to David, who looked suddenly suspicious. “Leave it to me. Wait for my message.”
“Thank you.”
Sophie squeezed Eleanor’s hands, who returned the squeeze. Eleanor accepted Dr. Gaspar’s assistance into the cart, David climbed up after her, and Uncle stood back and waved.
David tipped his hat to Sophie as the butcher’s boy started the cart with a jerk, and they rolled away. His look held both curiosity and misgivings, but Sophie trusted that Eleanor wouldn’t breathe a word.
* * *
David slept at his London flat that night, every moment agony as he alternately missed Sophie and dreamed erotic dreams of her. In the morning he took time to bathe and make himself presentable before he turned up at a horribly early hour at Essex Court in Middle Temple to meet Sinclair, Lackwit Laurie, and a barrage of solicitors.
He had not been able to pry out of Eleanor what she and Sophie had been whispering about before he’d rolled away from the vicarage. Eleanor had only given him one of her serene gazes and spoke determinedly of other things. He was not certain whether to be worried or amused. Worried—he should most definitely be worried.
David reflected, as he reached Essex Court, that he’d grown so used to Pierson dragging him up at dawn that he entered the meeting at Sinclair’s chambers relatively refreshed and wide awake.
On the other hand, Laurie, the Earl of Devonport, looked as though he’d been dragged from the warmth of sleep, poured into a suit, and dropped on Sinclair’s doorstep. His eyes were bloodshot, his face flushed, his hands trembling with dissipation. David did not like to think that for most of his life, he had appeared the same.
“Fleming,” Laurie said with a sneer as they all took chairs. “I am glad you’ve condescended to join us. We can put an end to this nonsense.”
David crossed his elegantly booted feet. “Indeed. I look forward to you vanishing from Miss Tierney’s life.”
Laurie’s sneer grew more pronounced. “So you can have her yourself, you libertine.”
“You mistake me. I am acting as her friend, attempting to free her from a terrible situation. What she does after that is entirely up to her.”
“Your idea of annulment has failed, damn you.” Laurie clutched the arms of his chair, but his eyes gleamed in triumph. “As I am here to reveal.”
Sinclair, who could be both silent and heavily present at the same time, adjusted his cuffs. Laurie’s two solicitors fussed with papers, pretending to ignore their client’s boorishness.
“Why are you so adamant about divorce?” David asked, as though merely curious. “Annulment will free you to re-marry without fuss. Divorce complicates matters.”
“Because there are no grounds for annulment.” Laurie nearly shouted the words. “As I told you before. I had no choice.”
“Ah, so better that it is Sophie’s fault than yours.” David’s voice went hard. “I warned you, Lackwit. You ought to have taken my advice.”
“I did. I let myself be tested for impotence.” Laurie flushed, as though too delicate for such matters. “A rather humiliating ordeal, but I am happy to report that I passed with flying colors.”
“Poor man. The ladies pleased you, did they?”
“They did.” Laurie smiled, his eyes sparkling.
Sinclair cleared his throat, a dry
but powerful sound. “Perhaps, your lordship, you will let me share the testimony of the ladies in question?”
Laurie’s flush deepened. “Why not? Then Fleming will leave me alone. That is, after I sue him for poking his fingers into my private business.”
“That sounds disgusting.” David sat back, resting his hands easily on the arms of his chair. “I wouldn’t put my fingers anywhere near your private business. Carry on, McBride. Let us hear the worst.”
Sinclair cleared his throat again. He was very good at it.
“I need not read the entire statement of either lady present at the examination. The gist from Mrs. Lane and Mrs. Whitaker is that at no time during the procedure did Lord Devonport show any physical response to them. They vow that he remained flaccid the entire hour.” Sinclair dropped the paper, his cheekbones tinged red. “No matter how much or how often they tried.”
Laurie gaped in astonishment. Not a pretty sight—he was developing jowls. Some men retained handsomeness for life, but Laurie wouldn’t be one of them.
Laurie gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles were white. “That is a damned lie. You’re in his pay—of course you’d claim that.” He glared at David then snarled at his solicitors. “Speak up. Read the statements. Do what I pay you for.”
One of the solicitors raised his head, his expression strained. “We have the same testimony, my lord.” He held up a sheaf of papers.
Laurie sprang to his feet. “But it’s a bloody falsehood. My cock stood like a soldier at attention from the moment they started on me. More than that. I had Mrs. Lane, had her several times right there on the floor. She was most willing, squealed quite fetchingly. Then I went to my mistress and had her several times that night. Not only am I not impotent, gentlemen, I am most healthily robust.”
David rose in one smooth motion and faced the triumphant Earl of Devonport, while the solicitors looked away, painfully embarrassed. Sinclair sat like a stone, but his eyes glittered with resolve.
“I am glad you said that,” David stated to Laurie in a quiet voice. “It allows you a choice. You can either agree with this testimony as it stands and proceed with an annulment, or I and Mr. McBride can be witnesses for Sophie that you are an adulterer many times over, and she needs a divorce from you.”
Laurie’s chin came up. “I’ll not let you bully me into telling lies. This isn’t school anymore, Devilish David. The divorce proceedings I began will go forward. Count on that.”
“No, they won’t.” David had hoped he’d taste triumph at this moment, but only revulsion filled his mouth. “You have no more witnesses. The gentlemen you bribed to make false statements against Miss Tierney have withdrawn them. They admitted they were liars and that you paid and coerced them to claim they’d had relations with your wife. They never did, and they have signed sworn statements saying the same. Lady Devonport is spotless and innocent, and you will proclaim that to the world, Lackwit. What you have done to her, your duplicitous scheme to ruin your own wife in a loathsome fashion, is all over London, and I doubt that after this, any house will receive you.”
Chapter 12
Laurie’s mouth had dropped open once more, and his face was mottled red and white.
“You’d ruin me?” he demanded of David. “You heard this, did you not, gentlemen?” He appealed to his solicitors. “Those women are damned liars—likely in Fleming’s pay. You’d take the word of courtesans over that of a gentleman?”
By the solicitors’ expressions, they would.
Sinclair, at David’s behest, had made certain the solicitors would take the depositions Mrs. Whitaker and her protégé, Mrs. Lane, gave as legal testimony. The ladies had played their parts well, swearing up and down that Laurie was as impotent as a castrated bullock. David would send Mrs. Lane a lavish gift for putting up with Laurie’s despicable attentions, and Mrs. Whitaker one for orchestrating their part of the scheme.
“I want to be tested again,” Laurie snarled. “With ladies of my choosing.”
“Do,” David said. He knew plenty of courtesans, as did Mrs. Whitaker, who would make certain whoever Laurie chose would also claim him impotent.
Laurie recoiled. “Kilmorgan is behind this, I know it. He wants to impugn my character, to ruin me.”
“The Duke of Kilmorgan had nothing to do with any of this,” David said. He spoke the truth. Mrs. Whitaker, who had assisted David and Hart so much in the past, had done the favor because Eleanor asked her, not Hart. Mrs. Whitaker had much respect for El.
David looked into Laurie’s eyes to read fear there. Laurie was losing ground, and he knew it.
“You’ve impugned your own character, ruined yourself,” David said quietly. “The scandal-loving newspapers are already printing your perfidy now. I’d leave for the Continent soon, Limp-Prick. After you annul your marriage with Miss Tierney.”
Laurie scowled at David, the petulant boy he’d once been shining through. He glanced at the solicitors and Sinclair, but those gentlemen sat silently, offering no help.
David lifted a pen from Sinclair’s desk and shoved it at Laurie. “Mr. McBride has drawn up everything you need to begin proceedings for an annulment. Sign it.”
“How dare you?” Laurie blustered. “You can’t threaten me. This is a farce, and you a bloody scoundrel. You are Hart’s arse-licking toady—what is his game? You fu—”
Laurie choked off the word as David caught the lapel of his coat, pressing the tip of the pen hard to Laurie’s cheek. “How dare you make Miss Tierney’s life a living hell? What you owe her you can never, ever repay. Now sign the bloody papers or this pen goes down your throat.”
Laurie drew a breath to argue, but what he saw in David’s eyes defeated him. He’d always been a coward, full of bravado and bullying, wilting whenever challenged in truth.
“Damn you.” Laurie jerked himself from David’s grip. “Damn you all.”
He snatched the pen from David’s hand and thrust it into the inkwell Sinclair held out to him.
“I’ll ruin you, Fleming,” he vowed. “I’ll smear so much dirt on you, you’ll never be able to stand for Parliament again.”
“An empty threat,” David said, his easy drawl emerging. “I’m a bit tired of it all, as a matter of fact. I plan to return home, make a go at farming.”
Laurie glared fury at him. But he turned to the desk, and with a few strokes of the pen, started Sophie on her path to freedom.
* * *
Sophie had never been to Hertfordshire, in spite of the county lying so near London. She knew of Hatfield, where Good Queen Bess had grown up, but she’d never traveled to look at that queen’s historic house. Being the countess hadn’t allowed her much time for herself.
David Fleming’s estate lay in the north of the county, near its border with Bedfordshire. The train took Sophie and Uncle Lucas to the village of Clopdon—from there the stationmaster directed them two miles north to the house called Moreland Park.
As it was a fine day, and they had brought only one valise with their combined belongings, Uncle Lucas suggested they walk.
None at the station had questioned their intent to visit Moreland Park. The gardens were open for viewing, provided one paid a shilling to the gatekeeper, and on a certain day each month, the house could be toured as well.
The home itself hailed from the eighteenth century, built in the French style, kept well by the current landlord, if he rarely visited it. Mr. Fleming’s father had purchased it about forty years ago when the line of the family who’d originally owned it died out. The Flemings, senior and junior, had spent much to restore and modernize the estate.
So had said the stationmaster, who regarded the house and grounds with much pride. The master wasn’t a bad sort, he said, even if he preferred Town living to country.
“Glorious.” Uncle Lucas gazed about in admiration as they trudged through a side gate from the lane to a vast front garden. “I had no idea David lived in such splendor.”
A park with straight
walks through greenery spread before them, spring bulb flowers emerging in symmetrical beds. Daffodils, tulips, and irises brushed bright yellow, orange, red, and purple through the green. The walks were pressed clay, stripes of burnt orange leading through the flowering splendor.
The house, in the style of a French chateau, was long and low, with three stories in its center wing, the top floor studded with dormer windows in a mansard roof. Two single-story wings flanked the main one, and a shallow flight of steps rose to a front terrace and a double-door entry.
Though the house was formal, Sophie found it inviting. Its soft golden stone shone in the afternoon sunshine, and French windows lined the ground floor. The entire scene suggested ladies and gentlemen moving casually about, strolling onto the terrace to enjoy a view of the garden, or back inside to warmth and a cup of hot tea.
“Have you never visited?” Sophie asked as she and Uncle Lucas made their leisurely way through the garden.
“Never had call to. I’m so pleased he’s invited us now.”
Sophie halted. Uncle walked onward for several yards before he realized she’d stopped, and glanced back in surprise.
“I did not realize you thought Mr. Fleming had invited us,” Sophie said awkwardly. “He did not.”
“No?” Uncle Lucas gazed across the garden as though expecting David to pop up from behind a box hedge and explain. “Then why have we come?”
Sophie’s face went hot. “Lady Eleanor arranged it. I asked her to.”
Uncle frowned in perplexity. “I am not certain I understand. Why not simply ask David to show you his house? It is open every third Thursday to the world, anyway.”
“Because …” Sophie was no longer certain, and she fumbled for an explanation. “He might have said no, and I wanted … I wanted to see where he comes from. Learn more about him.”
A Rogue Meets a Scandalous Lady: Mackenzies, Book 11 Page 12