The Scandals Of An Innocent

by Nicola Cornick

  “You’re turning as superstitious as my mother,” Miles said. He shifted in his chair. Suddenly he was conscious of a feeling of discomfort prickling between his shoulder blades. He dismissed it, draining his glass and reaching for the brandy bottle again. “What could possibly go wrong?” he said.

  LYDIA COLE HAD RECEIVED a letter. It had been delivered by hand late the previous night and it had only been by the remotest chance that she had seen it poking from beneath the mat when she had crept downstairs to heat some milk in an attempt to soothe herself into sleep. She had taken it up to her room and opened it, her hands shaking as she unfolded the paper. When she saw the name at the bottom of the page she trembled so much that the letter fell to the floor.

  After a sleepless night and hours of reflection the following day, Lydia had decided to respond to the plea in the letter. She knew she was a fool to do so. She was not even sure what prompted her to go-curiosity, anger or even love. She waited until Alice and Lizzie and Mrs. Lister had gone out to the ball, and the servants were enjoying a quiet evening tucked up in the warm, and then she slipped like a wraith from the garden door of the house and crept out to the stables. There was a light in the window of the little mews house where the coachman lived with his family, but the groom’s lodging was in darkness. Lydia suspected that he was probably spending his evening off-and his wages-at the Morris Clown Inn.

  It was a cold, damp night, no evening for a young, pregnant girl to be loitering in the dark. Yet Lydia, who had spent so much of the previous few months indoors, turned her face up to the cold, sleety caress of the breeze and felt a spark of life rekindle inside her.

  She had her hand on the latch of an empty storeroom at the end of the cobbled row when someone stepped from the darkness in front of her and put a gentle hand on her arm. Although she was expecting him, her nerves were stretched so tense she almost screamed. His hand tightened warningly on her elbow and then he had drawn her through the door of the storeroom and bolted it behind them, and in the dim lantern light within, Lydia turned to look at the man who had been her lover.

  He looked different. Gone was the dark, devil-may-care Tom Fortune, the adventurer with a twinkle in his eyes and charm enough to burn. She barely recognized the man who stood before her now. His face was thinner. There were deep lines about his eyes. He looked older and harder. It made Lydia realize, with a sudden pang, just how little she knew him. She had been a naive girl who had tumbled into love with a man she had never known at all. Cocooned in the marvelous sensation of being in love, swept away by the discovery of physical passion, she had never questioned Tom’s love for her or his commitment to her, and she had paid the price of that misplaced trust in the child she bore now.

  He made no move toward her, but stood still just within the door, looking at her with a kind of desperation in his eyes. “I was not sure if you would come,” he said. He sounded young and anxious. “I was afraid to contact you, but there was no one else who could help me.”

  “I am not sure that I can do that,” Lydia said. Her voice was cold and hard.

  There was no one else who could help me… That, she thought, the taste of bitterness in her mouth, was exactly like Tom Fortune. He thought only of himself.

  “I only came here because I found that I wanted to see you again,” she added. “To see the sort of man you really are rather than the man I once imagined you to be.”

  Tom flinched. “You’ve changed.” His voice fell. “Of course you have. How could you not, with what has happened to you? I am sorry-”

  “For what?” Lydia said, still in the same cold voice. “For seducing me for nothing other than sport, like the rake you were, or for running off and leaving me alone and pregnant?” She turned away from him. “Or did you mean that you are sorry you are a murderer twice over and a wanted criminal-” Despite herself, her voice cracked with emotion and she stopped to draw a steadying breath. The pain felt as though it was locked into a tight little box inside her chest. She tried to breathe deeply and to make it melt away, but it was too powerful to be dismissed. The sharp edges of her grief stabbed her, stealing her breath. Suddenly she knew she had to get away from him. This was more difficult and heartbreaking than she had imagined.

  “I won’t tell anyone that I have seen you,” she said, “but I cannot help you, Tom.” She shook her head. “That was all you wanted from me, wasn’t it?” she said. The tears clogged her throat. “I came here, pregnant with your child, to see if you had ever cared a rush for me, and I find that all you want is my help. You never think of anyone but yourself.”

  She had turned to leave when he put a hand on her arm, and such was her need to believe that he cared, even a little, that she stopped.

  “I do care,” he said. His voice was harsh. “Lyddy, I swear I care for you. I want you to marry me.”

  Lydia almost laughed aloud. “It’s too late,” she began, but he hushed her, drawing her down to sit beside him on the rough stone floor of the storeroom. He had spread his ragged coat on the stone, but it could not ward off the chill, and even with her thick cloak wrapped about her, Lydia was frozen. Five months ago, she thought, had we met like this, there would have been no words and Tom would have been making love to me by now. There had never been many words between them.

  “Listen,” Tom said roughly. “Please.” When she remained silent he seemed surprised, almost as though he could not find the words, now that she had granted him the time he had begged for.

  “It is true that I seduced you for sport last year,” Tom said, and Lydia could not quite prevent the tiny shudder that went through her at his words. Even now she had hoped in a corner of her mind that it had not been true. “I was bored and spoiled and a scoundrel,” Tom said, “and you were pretty and gentle and you loved me. It flattered me to realize that you cared for me. It made me feel good. I am sorry if it hurts you to hear me say this, but I have to tell you the truth now-all of it.” He paused and took her cold hands in his. “I am more sorry than I can say, now, that I was so careless and thoughtless and hurtful that I took your trust and I twisted and ruined it.”

  Lydia said nothing. She felt cold through and through. She could not tell him that it did not matter because it did. It mattered dreadfully.

  “It was the same boredom and immaturity that led me to work for Warren Sampson,” Tom continued. “I wanted excitement in my life, fool that I was. He paid for my gambling and in return I fed him information. Sometimes I rode out with his men when they were about his illegal business. But I never hurt anyone. I certainly never killed anyone! That magistrate whom I was supposed to have murdered on Sampson’s behalf…”

  “Sir William Crosby,” Lydia said. “You had his ring. You gave it to me as a love token. A secondhand ring taken from a dead man!”

  “That was shabby of me,” Tom said, “but I swear I did not know it was Crosby’s. Sampson gave it to me. He threw it to me carelessly one day and I thought it was pretty and that you might like it.”

  “I did,” Lydia said, “because you had given it to me, and I thought it meant that you loved me.”

  There was a silence. The wind was rising, catching the edges of the roof and whistling through the gaps in the bricks. Lydia shivered. “Are you staying here?” she asked.

  “No,” Tom said. “I stay nowhere very long. It’s too dangerous.”

  “You should go to the authorities,” Lydia said. “Tell the Guardians. I know they must be looking for you.”

  “They are,” Tom said. “Anstruther and Waterhouse have been tracking down all Sampson’s associates, and Miles Vickery has been interviewing the servants at Fortune Hall to see if I have been back there. It will not be long before they pick up my trail. I’m certain of it.”

  “Then go to them first!” Lydia argued. “Tell Dexter or Miles Vickery what you have told me-” She stopped. Tom was shaking his head.

  “I can’t, Lyddy,” he said. “They would never believe me. I’m a wanted man and I have no proof of any of i
t. All the evidence is against me.” His hands tightened on hers. “But you believe me, don’t you, Lyddy? Please say you do.”

  Lydia was silent for a very long time. She realized with a shock that she had strength now, strength enough to see Tom Fortune without illusion and to judge him objectively.

  “I am not sure,” she said slowly at last, and heard him sigh.

  “You see?” Tom said. “If you do not believe in me, then who will? Certainly my own brother does not. Monty has washed his hands of me.”

  “Sir Montague was never a very reliable character,” Lydia said. “He bends with the wind. But, Tom, the question we should be asking is if you did not kill Crosby and Sampson, who did?”

  “I did wonder,” Tom said, staring at the flickering flame of the lantern, “if it was one of the Guardians themselves. Oh, I know they are sworn to protect and uphold the law, but men have gone to the bad before now, and Sampson could well have been blackmailing them, or Crosby been about to expose them. Any one of them would have the knowledge and the skill to murder.”

  “No!” Lydia said, recoiling instinctively from the thought. “It cannot be. Not Dexter Anstruther-”

  “Probably not Dexter,” Tom conceded. “He is too principled, though one never knows. But Miles Vickery now…” Tom laughed. “You cannot tell me that he has not done many a thing that would lay him open to blackmail, and he would be ruthless enough to kill, I am sure of it.”

  “Lord Vickery has renewed his attentions to Alice,” Lydia said, frowning a little. “If he is mixed up in something illegal, he has not profited from it financially, I am sure. He is so poor he is selling everything off.”

  “Surely Miss Lister has not welcomed his suit,” Tom said.

  “There is something between them,” Lydia said. “I know it.” She fidgeted with the seam of her cloak. “I recognize it. For all that she was once in service, Alice is as innocent as I was, and Miles Vickery fascinates her in the way that you used to fascinate me, Tom.” She smiled a little sadly. “It is because you are both so very bad, you see. Bad and dangerous and such a temptation to an innocent girl…” She sighed. “But there is one difference between Alice and me. I do not think she will be as foolish as I was. She is very strong and I do not think she will allow herself to be seduced as I was.”

  “And now you see me as I really am, Lyddy,” Tom said, his voice cracking with self-disgust. “Not so attractive now, is it?”

  “No,” Lydia said, “it is not. But if we are to clear your name and I am to have a father for this baby of ours-”

  “Lydia!” Tom crushed her to him so that the rest of her words were lost. “You are too good for me,” he said, his breath hot against her hair, “but if we come through this I swear I shall be a better man and you will be proud of me.”

  “Well,” Lydia said breathlessly, feeling his arms about her and thinking it heavenly despite the fact that he was dirty and unkempt, “in that case we had better devise a plan. Now, what are we going to do?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “T HERE IS STILL NO INVITATION to Mary Wheeler’s wedding,” Mrs. Lister mourned as she and Alice and Lizzie took breakfast the morning after the assembly ball. “I would have thought that now you are betrothed to Lord Vickery, Alice, and I am his mother’s new best friend, the Wheelers would be most anxious to invite us. I cannot understand it. I wonder if the letter has got trapped behind the door? I shall send Marigold to search for it.”

  “Mama,” Alice said, sighing, “I have already explained that my betrothal to Lord Vickery is not to be made public until he has fulfilled the terms of Lady Membury’s will, so it is not surprising that the Wheelers do not know of it.”

  Lizzie, who was eating turtalong and seed cake with great gusto, make a sound of disgust. “And anyway, dear ma’am, Alice would not be able to attend the wedding even if you were both invited! She will be too busy at the Bedlam Hospital-” Lizzie glared at Alice at this point “-where I shall be delivering her personally for being mad enough to betroth herself to Lord Vickery!”

  “Oh, Lizzie,” Alice said on a sigh. “Can we not drop the subject now?” She stirred her cup of chocolate and picked at the cake very halfheartedly. She was blue-deviled that morning. Lizzie had found out about the betrothal from Lowell the previous night and had harangued her all the way home in the carriage. She had then followed Alice into her bedroom and had pestered her for a further half hour, demanding to know why Alice had accepted Miles’s proposal and asking if her wits had gone abegging. She had even offered to fetch Dr. Salter to tend to her. None of Alice’s feeble explanations had cut the slightest bit of ice with Lizzie, which was not surprising, Alice admitted to herself, since they were so unconvincing that she would not have believed them, either. And as soon as they had got up this morning Lizzie had started grousing again and Alice already had a headache. The breakfast room was overheated because Mrs. Lister insisted on having an enormous fire, and Alice wished she could be out in the fresh air rather than cooped up inside.

  In addition she was still smarting over events of the previous night. She had only been awake a few seconds that morning when she had recalled the way in which her family had been slighted by the rest of Fortune’s Folly society. She knew that it hurt her mother dreadfully and that Mrs. Lister would never understand why people were so cruel. And gradually, now that she had rejected so many suitors, the snubs had been growing more blatant and the language more crude, and people like George Wheeler and the Duke of Cole showed their absolute contempt and disrespect for her.

  Worse, Miles had witnessed it all. She had seen him watching. He had stood by and done nothing, and she had been silently begging him to come across and speak to her. She realized that she had wanted him to rescue her from the slights and she had felt hurt and angry when he had simply turned and walked away. It was further proof, if proof were needed, of what he had told her. He cared for nothing but himself. She meant nothing to him other than as a means to save him from the debtor’s prison. There was no kindness in him and she was foolish to expect it.

  “What I simply cannot understand,” Lizzie was saying, “is how you could be so stupid, Alice. You are not by nature a stupid person and yet here you are, throwing yourself away-”

  “Please, Lizzie!” Alice said sharply. Her feelings felt raw. “You know that Mama wishes to see me settled,” she added, despising herself for trying yet again to convince her friend, and yet somehow powerless to stop herself. “It is important to her to have a place in society-”

  “Oh, indeed it is!” Mrs. Lister confirmed, beaming. “I am more than happy with Alice’s choice!”

  “My dear ma’am,” Lizzie said, “I know that you will not be offended when I say that you would have been happy with any one of the other nineteen titled gentlemen who made Alice an offer. Any of whom,” she added to Alice, glaring, “would have been preferable to Lord Vickery!”

  An unhappy silence prevailed around the table, broken eventually by Marigold knocking at the door to tell Mrs. Lister that there was no wedding invitation but that some flowers had been delivered for Alice from Lord Vickery.

  “Shall I bring them in here, miss?” she said. “Proper bright and cheerful they’ll look on the windowsill.”

  “They will be roses, I suppose,” Alice said with a sigh, putting her napkin aside and getting to her feet. “In a basket, with a ribbon. How unoriginal.” She wished that it were not such a hollow gesture when she knew Miles cared nothing for her. Under the circumstances, Alice thought crossly, those roses could wilt amongst the potato peelings in the scullery for all she cared.

  She bustled out of the breakfast room and almost collided with Marigold in the hall. The maid was carrying a beautiful glass vase with bright scarlet flowers that seemed to glow in the pale February morning light. Alice could see tiny pips like rubies at their centre. She caught her breath.

  “Pomegranate flowers,” Mrs. Lister said, coming out of the breakfast room behind her. “How charming and unusual
they look. Lord Vickery must have hot-houses at Drummond Castle.”

  Alice touched the petals lightly. They felt rich and smooth beneath her touch. “They are very pretty,” she conceded.

  “In the language of flowers the pomegranate means unspoken desire,” Mrs. Lister said. “How very subtle of Lord Vickery.”

  “There is nothing remotely subtle about Lord Vickery’s desires, Mama,” Alice said, “nor are they unspoken.”

  “Really, Alice, sometimes you can be quite coarse for a lady,” Mrs. Lister reproved. “At least he did not send anthurium. You know the ones-spread orange leaves with a pointed, fleshy spike standing straight up in the middle. It always reminds me of a-”

  “Of a tongue. Yes, thank you, Mama,” Alice said hastily, catching Marigold’s wide-eyed look. “I agree it is a blessing that Lord Vickery was more subtle than that.”

  “Sending an anthurium is a token of a man’s intense attraction,” Mrs. Lister said.

  “It could certainly be seen as a token of his eagerness,” Alice murmured. The scent of pomegranate filled her senses, heady, fresh and sweet but with the faintest of sharp undertones.

  “Was there a note?” she asked.

  “No, miss,” Marigold said. “His lordship delivered them himself, though. He said he would call later.”

  “I shall not be at home,” Alice said decisively. The flowers were pretty and a far more clever choice than she would have expected, but her feelings still smarted from Miles’s behavior the previous night. “His lordship is presumptuous.”

  “Yes, miss,” Marigold said, “but he is very handsome, isn’t he?”

  “Which is nothing to the purpose,” Alice said.

  “No, miss,” Marigold said, “but you like him, don’t you, miss?”