by M C Beaton
“But did Mrs. Bride not return to her father?” asked the marquess.
“She tried. But her mother was dead and her father in ailing health. He would have nothing to do with her.”
“Have you ever heard of a Mrs. Waverley?” asked Felicity.
“Let me see. I remember a Miss Waverley who was a close friend of Mrs. Bride. She, too, was a curate’s daughter and lived in a village outside York called Lower Demper.”
“Let us go to this Miss Waverley now,” urged Felicity after they had bade the rector good-bye.
“I think we should go tomorrow morning. I have made arrangements for us to be married at two tomorrow afternoon. Besides, we must say good-bye to Miss Joust. You may learn some sad news, Felicity. It is more than likely you are the daughters of poor Mrs. Bride who was turned out in the streets to die. But if that is the case and Mrs. Bride is indeed dead, then the Bride fortune belongs to you and your sisters.”
“I would rather find Mrs. Bride alive,” said Felicity.
They went immediately to Agnes’s room on their return. She was sitting waiting demurely, her bonnet on her head and her corded trunk at her feet. In her hand she held a letter, which she handed to the marquess. “Read that,” she said, then sat back with her hands folded and a smile of triumph on her face.
“That’s my letter!” cried Felicity, her face flaming. “You have no right, no right at all, to read my correspondence.”
The marquess handed the letter to Felicity and said coldly to Agnes, “Are you ready to leave?”
“But the letter!” cried Agnes, starting up. “She wrote that book.”
“I knew Miss Felicity wrote that book long before I met her,” said the marquess. “I thought she must be a very fast young lady. Then I discovered her racy knowledge came from a good grounding in the classics. I hope after we are married Felicity will continue to write.”
Agnes’s nose turned bright red. “Marry? You cannot marry her. She is a wanton.”
“Miss Joust, if you persist in insulting my future wife,” said the marquess evenly, “I must withdraw my generous offer.”
There was nothing the now-frightened Agnes could do but beg Felicity’s pardon. But her spite had had the effect of stopping either Felicity or the marquess from going to the mail coach to say good-bye to her. John, the groom, was sent instead.
Agnes climbed into the mail coach. The comte was already there. She sat down beside him. “We shall be married as soon as we reach London,” she said.
“Alas,” said the comte, “the special license I got in York will not serve in London. We must wait a few days until I find another.”
“Give me the receipt for the jewels,” said Agnes, a sharp fear gripping her.
“There is no need, my love. I have it safe.”
“Give it to me,” said Agnes evenly, “or I shall return to the inn and tell Darkwater what we have done.”
He reluctantly handed over the receipt, which Agnes popped down the front of her dress and wedged in the top of her corset.
The couple waited tensely as the clocks of York began to chime six o’clock.
“Will he never move?” cried the comte.
“Always waits for the Minster clock,” said a fat lady who had just climbed in.
Then there was a great boom from the Minster clock, the first stroke of six. The coachman cracked his whip, and the mail coach began to move off.
Agnes tried to remind herself she had nothing to fear, she would soon be married to this handsome man. But no rosy fantasy came to soothe her, only increasing dread that he meant to cheat her.
***
Miss Waverley, it transpired, ran the village school. She sent word to them that she refused to be disturbed until school was over. The marquess smiled at Felicity and said they may as well pass the time by getting married as planned. To Felicity, it was all a dream, the dark church, the hired witnesses, the brief service.
“I don’t really feel married,” she said timidly as they left the church.
“It will grow on you,” he remarked cheerfully.
“I still cannot get over that you knew all along I had written that book,” said Felicity.
“I think I probably fell in love with you then,” said the marquess, “when I saw you standing in that dark bookshop, clutching your manuscript. Now let us find out what this Miss Waverley has to say for herself.”
Miss Waverley ushered them into her home, a small cottage beside the school. She was a tall, thin lady with a mannish figure and a stern face.
Felicity explained that she suspected Mrs. Bride might be her mother and wondered whether she was still alive.
Her heart beat hard as Miss Waverley replied, “She is still alive.”
“Where may I find her?”
“I would like to write to her first and see whether she wants to see you,” said Miss Waverley. “She does not reside near here. She lives in the south. If you give me your address in London, I will write to you there and let you know what she says.”
“And is she indeed my mother?” asked Felicity desperately.
“If you tell me a little of your history, Miss …?”
“Lady Darkwater,” said the marquess. “We are newly wed.”
Miss Waverley bowed from the waist. “My felicitations, Lady Darkwater.”
“All I can remember is the orphanage,” said Felicity. “The Pevensey orphanage. Fanny has some memory of another place before that, but not anything very clear. A Mrs. Waverley came to the orphanage one day and adopted the three of us, Fanny, Frederica, and me. We lived with her in Hanover Square until she ran away to marry Baron Meldon. Tell me about Mrs. Bride. We came looking for Mrs. Waverley’s past and found Mrs. Bride’s.”
“You know about the scandal?” asked Miss Waverley.
Felicity nodded.
“She came to me, quite distraught. By that time, my parents were dead and I was even then running the school. She had always been a heedless, flighty thing, and I told her a woman with an uneducated mind had no resources. And so I proceeded to educate her. She had an agile mind and soon outstripped my knowledge. And then after five years, I read that Bride had died. I contacted his lawyers despite Mrs. Bride’s protests that he would have left her nothing. On the contrary, he had left her everything. I told her she now had her chance to build a school for young ladies and educate them as I had educated her. But the flighty part of her was still there. She said she was going to go to London to find her daughters. She settled a generous annuity on me, but I preferred to remain here and teach.”
Felicity looked at Miss Waverley’s stern face and then said slowly. “You do not need to write to my mother. I know who she is. She changed her name to Waverley, did she not? She went to the orphanage and adopted her own daughters. Oh, why did she not tell us who she was? Why did she treat us so unnaturally, keeping us mewed up, playing tricks on us, setting us against one another?”
“It is her story,” said Miss Waverley harshly, “and you must ask her her reasons.” She stood up to indicate the interview was at an end.
“I shall never forgive her. Never!” cried Felicity as they drove back to York.
“Then you will always wonder and wonder why she did it,” pointed out the marquess. “The social column of the Morning Post today says both Lady Tredair and Lady Danger are back in London. There is an address for Fanny, Lady Tredair. Write to her and suggest the three of you to go to see Mrs. Waverley.”
“Perhaps,” said Felicity. “I should be relieved to find my parents were actually married and not criminals, but had they been, then they would have had an excuse for sending me to an orphanage.”
As he drove into the inn yard, he said, “Do not look so downcast, my love. Remember we are married. Are you still worrying about Mrs. Waverley?”
“No, Simon. I was wondering if losing my virginity was going to be very painful.”
“You have no doubt read extensively on the subject?” he said, half-exasperated, half-amused.
/>
“Yes,” said Felicity, hanging her head.
“Well, my love, there is no need to rush into things. I can wait.” He helped her down from the carriage and tossed a coin to a hostler who had come running out.
He tucked her hand in his arm and led her toward the inn. “I would not frighten you or hurt you for the world,” he said gently. “You have had an upsetting day.”
Felicity frowned and worried all the way up to her room, remembering what he had said about his first wife.
At the door to her room, he kissed her gently on the forehead. “I shall see you at dinner,” he said. “I must speak to the landlord. We are late again.”
Felicity looked up at him, her eyes wide and dark. Then she turned and opened the door, then seized him by the hand and pulled him inside.
“What are you doing?” he asked, as she tore off her bonnet and pelisse and began to fumble with the tapes of her gown.
“I am getting into that bed with you,” said Mrs. Waverley’s daughter, “before I change my mind.”
***
The York Minster clock boomed out the first stroke of midnight. Felicity lay with her head on her husband’s naked chest. She awoke and rolled on top of him and luxuriously stretched against him, marveling how well their bodies fitted together.
He awoke, and his arms went tightly around her. “What are you doing, my wanton?” he asked.
“Still trying to complete my education,” mumbled Felicity as his hands slid down to her bottom.
***
The next afternoon, Felicity sat at her writing desk and sleepily pulled a blank sheet of paper toward her. She began to write: “Dear Fanny.” Then she frowned and tore up the paper, took a fresh sheet, and wrote: “My very dear sister.”
At last she finished the letter and sanded it. She opened her desk to find a stick of sealing wax, when her eye fell on the bank receipt for the jewels. She picked it up and looked at it. Something was not quite right about it. The receipt, she remembered, had been in heavy black ink. But the ink now was a faded brown. The comte had not used the best ink for his forgery.
She stared at it. Agnes had been searching in this desk, which was how Agnes had found the bookseller’s letter.
She picked it up and went through to her husband’s room.
“Simon,” she said, “do but look at this receipt. There is something odd about it. Do but mark the color of the ink. Then the bank manager, Mr. Lombard, had an odd curly flourish at the end of the d.”
The marquess took out his quizzing glass and studied the document. He let out his breath in a long hiss. “A forgery. Damn that long-nosed grasping bitch.”
“Can we let the bank know in time?”
He shook his head. “She went by mail coach, and nothing is faster than that. She will probably go straight to the bank as soon as she arrives.”
“But they will surely not give her the jewels without a letter from me.”
“Whoever forged this for her, if she did not do it herself, will no doubt forge a suitable letter for her.”
“Then I am penniless … apart from the house in Hanover Square.”
He put his arms around her. “After the riches you gave me last night, my sweeting, I do not care a damn about the Waverley jewels.”
“Are you sure?”
“Come to bed and I will show you how very sure I am.”
As he unfastened the tapes of her gown, Felicity said shyly, “Do people make love all day and night like us?”
Her gown fell to the floor followed by her petticoat. He put his hands over her naked breasts and sighed against her hair. “Who cares about what other people do. It is what we do to each other that matters. Damn Agnes Joust. The jewels will never bring her one fraction of the pleasure we enjoy.”
***
Agnes Joust followed the bank manager down to the vaults, her heart beating hard. At Limmer’s Hotel, the comte was waiting for her return. He had given her a forged letter supposed to come from Felicity. He had tenderly kissed her goodbye and promised to marry her on the following morning.
But Agnes did not believe him. The part of her mind that had manufactured all those fantasies to trick her and comfort her did not seem to be able to work anymore. She now knew his hair was dyed. She knew his French accent was false. She knew she was afraid of him. On her way to the bank, she had torn up his forged letter. She presented herself to Mr. Lombard, the manager, as Miss Waverley’s companion and said Miss Waverley had instructed her to fetch a few items from the box. She looked a highly respectable lady, and she did have the receipt. The manager saw no reason to doubt her. Agnes felt sure if she only took some of the jewels and not all, Felicity would not trouble to report her to the authorities.
She had brought a large wash leather bag with her. Into it, she put the emerald necklace and bracelet. She would never sell those. Then a diamond parure, a sapphire brooch, a diamond tiara, twelve fine rings of various precious stones, and a collar of rubies.
She remained calm and ladylike until she was seated once more in the hired hack that had brought her, and then she burst into tears because nobody loved her and she was nothing more than a common thief.
She returned to the hotel where, unknown to the comte, she had packed her luggage early that morning and left it downstairs. She sweetly told the manager that she was leaving and that the Comte D’Angiers who was abovestairs would settle the bill. The hack was still waiting. She went straight to Rundell & Bridge, the famous jewelers, and, looking the very picture of respectability, sold the diamond parure for a very large sum of money indeed. Afterward she returned to the hack and continued on to the city, where she bought a seat on the mail coach for Dover. Napoleon no longer terrorized Europe, and she could travel freely. She endured the long miles of the journey in a frozen calm. She endured all the rigors of a rough crossing without complaint. She traveled in a foul stagecoach to Paris, barely noticing the discomfort. Once in Paris, she went to the best hotel, bespoke the best suite of rooms, telling the manager her lady’s maid would be arriving shortly. Then she roused herself enough to go around the suite and turn all the pornographic pictures the French assumed the English visitors would adore to the wall. After that she lay on the silken cover of the bed and listened to the sounds of Paris.
And then all at once, that part of her mind that had seemed to be frozen for so long came back to life. Paris was full of handsome and dashing men. She would go downstairs to dine, and she would wear her lilac silk gown and the emeralds. He would approach her. “I am smitten with your beauty,” he would say. He would be tall and blond and English. He would not be a mere marquess, but a duke. Agnes closed her eyes and smiled and followed the dream all the way back across the Channel to her triumphal wedding at Westminster Abbey, and was happy last.
***
The Comte D’Angiers trudged along the Dover road, his boots cracked and his fine clothes covered with chalky dust. He had been wandering ever since his escape from the hotel. He did not know what had gone wrong. He had been so sure of Agnes, so very sure. He was wondering who he was going to pretend to be next. He would wait until nightfall and then stagger up the drive of some country home and say he had been attacked by highwaymen and his luggage and carriage stolen. He looked to right and left as he walked along, searching for a suitable mansion. Perhaps he should pretend to be a comte still. The ladies were his mark, and the ladies all had a soft spot for French aristocrats.
Then he saw a pair of imposing gateposts. He stopped before he reached them. He did not want the lodgekeeper to see him. He climbed over the wall and slipped quietly into the green gloom of a small wood. He heard someone coming and lay down in a tangle of brush and brambles until he heard whoever it was go away. He would wait until dark, walk to the drive, then stagger up it and collapse artistically on the doorstep.
The owner of the mansion was a choleric squire with a passionate hatred for poachers. He stared wrathfully at his lodgekeeper. “What d’ye mean, Jem … there’s a ruffian
on the grounds?”
“I marked him approaching the lodge,” said the lodgekeeper, “but he never come past. Shabby individual. Must have climbed over the wall.”
“Get the gamekeepers out and tell them to shoot on sight this time. I’m wasting no more time in court.”
Night fell and a full moon rode above, silvering the landscape.
The comte rose stiffly from his hiding place, his bright blue coat grass-stained. He made his way cautiously toward the drive. He could not risk going to the gates in case the lodgekeeper refused him admission. He would say he had staggered over the wall after he had been beaten up by the highwaymen. He hoped there was some pretty lady in the house whose heart would be melted by his plight.
And then there was a flash of fire, and something struck him with a blow like a hammer in the chest. He cried out in sheer amazement, and as he fell dying to the ground, his last thought was that somehow it was all Agnes Joust’s fault.
Chapter Nine
The three sisters sat in the drawing room of Baroness Meldon’s home and awaited the arrival of their mother. The baron was visiting an old friend in a neighboring county, and his servants had not felt able to turn away three titled ladies from the gates.
The double doors to the drawing room were thrown open and Baroness Meldon, or Mrs. Waverley, as she would always be to her daughters, walked in.
Her eyes ranged coldly from Fanny’s golden beauty to Frederica’s gypsyish looks to the slim elegance of Felicity.
“Why are you come?” she demanded harshly. “I have no time for you.”
“Why not, mother dear?” demanded Felicity.
The baroness held onto a chair back for support. “You know?” she whispered.
“Yes, we know,” flashed Frederica. “But what we do not know is why you should rescue us from that orphanage where we were placed through no fault of yours, yet not let us know we were your children.”
“But why must you know?” demanded the baroness passionately. “You never cared for me, any of you. You have all married well. What do you want of me?”
“We demand an explanation, and we will stay here until we get it,” said Fanny in a cold, hard voice.