And Then She Fell

by Stephanie Laurens

  Turning to James, Louise added, “As for deciding the wedding day, as I understand it, as long as your marriage occurs before the first day of June, all will be well—is that correct?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ll have to consult more widely before we can decide on a date”—Louise caught his eye—“but the family will want to informally celebrate your betrothal, so we’ll see you for dinner tomorrow evening, my dear.”

  James inclined his head. “I’m hoping to meet with Simon today—I’m going to enjoy seeing his face when I inform him I’ll shortly be his brother-in-law.”

  Louise laughed and patted James’s cheek. “He’ll be as delighted as we are.”

  They left the parlor. Arthur returned to his study. James took his leave, bowing over Henrietta’s hand, then, his eyes meeting hers, he raised her fingers briefly to his lips before releasing her, finally dragging his gaze from hers, and walking out of the door a beaming Hudson held wide.

  As Hudson shut the door, Henrietta sighed, amazingly happy and content, then she turned to see her mother dispatching her dresser, whom she’d summoned to fetch her cloak, bonnet, gloves, and reticule.

  Turning to survey Henrietta, her mother said, “You’ll do as you are—the others would never forgive me if I didn’t give them this news as soon as humanly possible.” She turned to survey Mary.

  Who was waltzing, twirling, a delighted smile curving her lips, a dreamy expression on her face.

  Louise’s eyes narrowed. “I can understand that you might feel happy for Henrietta, but why, my darling Mary, are you so very overjoyed?”

  Mary’s smile didn’t waver, but she halted. “Because I’m thrilled that Henrietta will now be able to pass on the necklace to me, and I’ll be able to get my search for my own hero properly underway.”

  “Ah.” Louise nodded. “Well, in the meantime, I believe you should accompany us to St. Ives House—your aunt Helena will want to be informed straightaway, as will Honoria—so go and fetch your bonnet and cloak.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Her exuberance undimmed, Mary rushed up the stairs.

  Henrietta watched her go, and wondered. Mary rarely if ever lied, not outright, but she was a past master at deflection, and even though, as Henrietta understood it, Mary already had her hero in her sights, who knew what her little sister meant by “properly”?

  Henrietta turned to her mother to hear Louise confirm for Hudson that “Miss Henrietta is, indeed, engaged to Mr. Glossup.” Her mother went on to sketch their current thoughts on the engagement ball and the wedding.

  Hearing the words—words she’d heard so many times before about others, about her older twin sisters, her numerous female cousins—and knowing that this time those words referred to her, Henrietta again felt a species of amazement well.

  The Matchbreaker had met her match, and was getting married.

  It suddenly occurred to her that it was a very good thing that their wedding would take place as soon as could be. She seriously doubted her patience would bear with the quips and comments that would inevitably rain down upon her; luckily she would only have to grin and bear it for at most three weeks.

  Not for the first time, she offered up a silent prayer of thanks for James’s Grandaunt Emily and her farsighted will.

  On leaving the Cynster house, James drove his curricle the short distance to the mews behind the house in George Street he’d inherited from his grandaunt. Handing horses and curricle into the care of his grandaunt’s stableman—now his—he crossed to the house and found replies from both Simon and Charlie Hastings already waiting.

  Reading the short notes, James snorted. He wasn’t surprised by the alacrity expressed; his request for them to meet with him at Boodles to discuss a major development had been intriguing enough, and the fact that his messages had been delivered by Lord Arthur’s footmen would have made the lure irresistible. Folding both missives, he quickly climbed the stairs; he needed to wash away the dust and change before showing his face in Boodles.

  Earlier that morning, while he’d been dressing prior to leaving Henrietta’s room, she’d asked him not to tell her father about her “accidents.” While he’d wanted to oblige—she’d asked, and his first impulse was, apparently, to grant her whatever was in his power to grant—the application of a little thought had forced him to admit that he didn’t feel able not to inform her father of all that had happened, and, more, of what he now feared.

  What she now feared, too, yet she’d argued her point, opening his eyes to the likely outcome seen from her perspective, one he’d never before considered. They’d ended discussing the pros and cons at some length. Eventually, he’d agreed to consider carefully how he presented the subject to her father, while she’d reluctantly conceded that he couldn’t conceal the matter entirely.

  The drive from Ellsmere Grange to London had afforded him plenty of time for cogitation. Once ensconced with her father in his study, he’d told Lord Arthur all—he couldn’t ask the man to trust him with his daughter and her future while keeping the very real threat to both back—but he’d also explained Henrietta’s understandable reaction to the prospect of being so hemmed in by protectiveness that she wouldn’t be able to enjoy said future. She’d made a strong case that as the victim of the attacks, it was unfair to force her to bear the consequences, especially as they could not know when, or even if, another attack would come.

  Lord Arthur had been understandably concerned, and James had made no bones about his own agitation over Henrietta’s safety. Perhaps because Lord Arthur had seen that James’s concern was, if anything, even more acute than his, his lordship had suggested that, for the moment, they might proceed with a simple protective strategy, one Henrietta might not even notice.

  As soon as he’d repaired the damage that travel had wrought on his person and changed into attire better suited to St. James, James quit the house, hailed a hackney, and rattled off to Boodles.

  Simon and Charlie were already there, waiting at a table tucked away in an alcove at the rear of the club’s dining room. They rose as James arrived; the three shook hands, Simon’s and Charlie’s gazes examining every tiny facet of James’s expression for some clue as to his news.

  He’d expected that, and wore an expression of utter inscrutability, even though his lips were impossible to force straight.

  Waving them back to their chairs, he sat, too, met Charlie’s gaze across the table, then looked at Simon. “I’ve just come from your parents’ house. I’ve offered for Henrietta’s hand and been accepted.”

  Simon’s slow grin broke across his face. “Henrietta’s accepted you?”

  That, James had to admit, was a pertinent clarification. He nodded. “We spent the last few days at Ellsmere Grange, and . . .” He shrugged. “We decided we would suit.”

  “Wait, wait.” Charlie, although beaming, also managed to look confused. “I thought she was helping you find your necessary bride? That you’d persuaded The Matchbreaker to turn matchmaker?”

  “That was how it started,” James allowed, “but the more time she spent in my scintillating company, the more she came to understand that she wanted to marry me herself.”

  Both Charlie and Simon made rude, scoffing sounds.

  Simon noticed the head waiter passing, hailed the man, and ordered a bottle of the club’s best burgundy, a wine the three of them preferred. Turning back, he said to James and Charlie, “To celebrate.” Looking again at James, Simon, still grinning delightedly, shook his head. “God knows how you did it, but you do realize, don’t you, that you’re going to be the toast of the ton’s gentlemen? Ah.” Simon turned as the head waiter proffered a bottle for inspection, then, at Simon’s nod, poured three glasses.

  After passing the filled glasses around, the waiter set down the bottle and withdrew.

  Simon raised his glass. “To James—the man brave enough, with fortitude enough, to beguile The Matchbreaker into matrimony.”

  “To James,” Charlie echoed, raising hi
s glass, too. “The Matchbreaker’s fate.”

  “The Matchbreaker’s mate,” Simon offered, setting his glass to Charlie’s.

  James shook his head, raised his glass to both of theirs, and corrected, “The Matchbreaker’s match.”

  “Yes—that’s it!” Charlie clinked his glass against the other two. “The Matchbreaker’s match—that’s you.”

  Of course, their ribbing didn’t stop there, but as it was all good-natured, and his friends made no secret of how pleased and happy they were over his news, James put up with their more ribald jokes until, finally, they reached the point of asking about the engagement ball and the wedding.

  Their meal had arrived by then. While they ate, James told them what he knew, and Simon confirmed that when it came to weddings in the Cynster family, the men were expected to do as they were told and otherwise leave all to the females of the clan.

  “It’s not worth trying to get a word in,” Simon warned.

  James shrugged. “As long as we front the altar before the first of June, I’m happy to leave it all in their hands.”

  Eventually, they pushed their plates aside, refilled their glasses, then relaxed in their chairs, sipping contentedly. Turning his glass in his fingers, James studied the red glints gleaming in the wine and more quietly said, “So I’ve told you all my good news, but, I fear, there’s a more disturbing tale to tell.”

  “Oh?” Simon studied his face. “What?”

  James told them of Henrietta’s “accidents,” and why he no longer believed they were accidental at all.

  Simon and Charlie listened without comment; by the time James reached the end of his report, both were entirely sober.

  “Good God,” Charlie said, his wine forgotten, “a massive capstone? You would both have been killed!”

  James grimly nodded. “If we’d still been under it when it reached the ground, without question.”

  A long moment of silence ensued while Simon and Charlie digested the facts, then Simon said, “So . . . some unknown gentleman, a member of the haut ton, is trying to kill Henrietta and make her death look like an accident. We have no idea who he might be, or why he wants her dead.”

  James lowered his glass. “Correct.”

  “Clearly we have to expose this beggar and hand him to the authorities.” Charlie looked from James to Simon and back again. “So what’s our next move?”

  “Our first priority,” James said, “is to keep Henrietta safe.” He looked at Simon. “I told your father all, of course, and he and I felt that if we can ensure that Henrietta is guarded whenever she isn’t surrounded by the females of your family, then this blighter, whoever he is, will find it difficult to approach her. He seems set on making her death appear an accident, so as long as there are others with her, she should be as safe as we can reasonably make her.”

  Simon grunted. “Reasonably being the critical word—Henrietta will hate being ‘guarded.’ ”

  “True, but as long as we’re not overly obvious about it, she’s unlikely to get her back up. Luckily, what with our about-to-become-public engagement, with our wedding to follow quickly thereafter, no one—including Henrietta—will think it odd if I’m constantly by her side when she’s in public, and on the few occasions I might not be there, for one of you two to be there instead.”

  Both Simon and Charlie nodded.

  “The timing of your impending nuptials is helpful,” Simon agreed. “We should be able to pull that off without abrading Henrietta’s feminine sensibilities.”

  James nodded. “And your father is going to speak with your mother, so she will ensure that female members of your family are always around while Henrietta is with them, attending their various daytime entertainments. Enough people will know to ensure that she’s never left alone.”

  Simon nodded. “All right—we’ve got Henrietta covered, as protected as we can make her in the circumstances.”

  James grimaced. “Short of sealing her up in a tower, I can’t see what more we can do. And as she’s been quick to point out, whoever this madman is, we can’t be certain that he’ll try again.”

  Charlie’s gaze sharpened. “But we need to find out who he is, just in case he does.”

  “True,” Simon said. He met Charlie’s gaze, then James’s. “Any thoughts as to how we might do that?”

  They revisited the three incidents again, trying to draw what they could from the facts, but that was precious little. Wine gone, they rose from the table and made their way out into St. James Street.

  On the pavement, Simon halted and slid his hands into his pockets. “The incident in Upper Brook Street holds little hope, but I wonder if I can persuade Lady Marchmain to part with her guest list?” He met James’s eyes. “If you’re right about the incident at Marchmain House, then the villain was there, and almost certainly one of her ladyship’s guests.”

  James slowly nodded. “It’s a place to start. There must have been a hundred or more there, but only half of those will be men, and from the incident at the ruins, we know we’re looking for a man.”

  “More,” Charlie put in, “there’ll be a lot of gentlemen on Lady Marchmain’s list we can immediately exclude. You, Lord Marchmain and his cronies, and probably a host of others.”

  “You’re right.” Simon nodded. “We’re looking for a reasonably strong, able-bodied, fit and healthy blackguard—”

  “Who’s masquerading as a gentleman of the ton.” James met his eyes. “Exactly.”

  After agreeing to share anything they thought of or learned that might help identify Henrietta’s would-be murderer, they parted, Simon sauntering off to see if he could locate Lady Marchmain and inveigle her guest list from her, while Charlie strode off to keep an appointment with his barber.

  James headed back to George Street, strolling and wracking his brains, trying to think of what more he could do.

  That afternoon, Henrietta was the toast of an impromptu gathering of all the Cynster ladies and the family’s close female connections presently in London. Eschewing the more formal setting of the St. Ives House drawing room, the ladies, one and all, crowded into the more comfortable back parlor, into which footmen had ferried additional chairs, love seats, and sofas.

  Every seat was taken, because everyone was there—from Louisa, the young daughter of the house, still in pigtails, to Louisa’s grandmother, Helena, and her even older bosom-bow, Therese Osbaldestone. The younger ladies, Henrietta included, stood chatting in groups wherever there was space between the chairs and occasional tables and behind the sofas. Their elders frequently engaged those standing, especially Henrietta, who was passed from group to group, each clutch of ladies wanting to hear her story—how she came to have decided on and enticed James Glossup to the point of him offering for her hand—directly from her lips.

  Although Henrietta normally found such gatherings wearying, to her very real surprise she discovered she enjoyed being caught up in the hubbub of excitement engendered by the news of her unexpected engagement, and the even greater excitement provoked by the demands of organizing her engagement ball and then her wedding, all at such short notice.

  Not that she harbored the slightest anxiety on that score; she’d seen these same ladies in action many times before. She had every confidence her engagement ball and her wedding would pass off without a hitch; her mother, her aunts, Helena, Horatia, and Celia, let alone her cousins’ wives, would simply not allow anything else.

  Of her cousins’ wives, Honoria, Patience, and Alathea were presently in London, but letters had already been dispatched to all the others, and their ranks would swell as soon as those others could get their horses hitched to their carriages. Henrietta’s sister-in-law, Simon’s wife, Portia, was presently standing by Henrietta’s side, beaming with delight.

  Beaming almost as much as Mary, but, viewing her sister as she stood chatting with Louisa, Henrietta honestly didn’t think anyone could possibly be more ecstatic than Mary.

  Studying her sister, and wonde
ring yet again which gentleman Mary had in her sights, Henrietta became aware of the necklace about her throat, felt the pendant touching the sensitive skin above her décolletage.

  She hadn’t believed in the necklace, but she had worn it, and . . . here she was, betrothed to James and planning her engagement ball and her wedding.

  After a moment’s hesitation, she excused herself from Portia and Caro Anstruther-Wetherby, with whom she’d been chatting about the latest style in veils, and made her way across the room to Mary.

  Louisa had just been summoned by her mother, which, Henrietta reflected, was just as well; after Mary, the necklace was due to return north to Scotland, and she had no idea whether it would come south again—that was in The Lady’s hands.

  Mary turned to Henrietta, and her smile grew brighter. “How are you holding up?”

  Henrietta arched her brows. “Surprisingly well.”

  “I daresay it’s different when it’s your engagement, your wedding, and you at center stage.” Mary’s tone suggested that while she didn’t begrudge Henrietta the position, she was nevertheless looking forward to the day when it would be her turn to stand in the glow.

  “I thought,” Henrietta said as she drew the necklace free of the modest neckline of her day gown, “that as we have reached this stage—me betrothed, with Mama and the others arguing about how many musicians should play at my wedding breakfast—then perhaps it’s time for me to give you this.” She let the pendant dangle from her fingers, swinging before Mary’s gaze, which had fixed on the rose-quartz crystal.

  Covetousness shone clearly in Mary’s cornflower blue eyes, but her lips slowly firmed, then pressed into a line, and, slowly, she shook her head; Henrietta got the distinct impression that it took effort for Mary to force herself to do the latter.

  Then Mary dragged in a breath and tipped up her head. “No. I want it—obviously—but it has to be right. It has to be passed on to me exactly as it’s supposed to be—as Angelica passed it on to you—at your engagement ball. If I don’t get it in exactly the right way, it might not work as it’s supposed to, and what use will it be to me then?”