Salt Hendon Omnibus 01 to 03

by Lucinda Brant

  Before leaving for the ball, he’d had a last word with Semper about arrangements for later that evening. His valet-in-training, Nikolas, shrugged him into the blue silk and gold brocade military-style frock coat that completed his costume as Peter the Macaw, and as he stood before the long looking glass appraising his outfit, he enquired if everything and everyone was in place when the time came for him to give the signal for Diana’s recapture. This would occur at the end of the evening, as the guests departed in the small hours, when people milled about the entrance foyer of Salt House saying their farewells, and carriages were coming and going. He and Diana would climb into his carriage, Lady Porter shown home by sedan chair, and leave Grosvenor Square heading north, not south and drive up North Audley Street. The carriage would turn left into Tyburn Road and head out of the environs of Westminster. A carriage carrying Mr. T and his associates would follow, and a second carriage was waiting to meet both carriages at the turnpike.

  There was a cottage near the turnpike, possibly lived in by the collector of tolls. Sir Antony did not care to know. All he cared was that Mr. T had secured its use and the selective blindness and loss of hearing of the cottage’s occupants. In this cottage, Diana would be stripped of her finery and put into a rough linen gown, her ankles and wrists manacled. She would be rendered speechless by a scold’s bridle. A frightening instrument, but as necessary and as justified as the manacles for a cold hearted murderess—a monster who had tried to infect a newborn infant with a smallpox-ridden rag.

  Once the prisoner was bundled into the second carriage, Sir Antony would hand over a letter of instruction and half what was owed Mr. T and his associates. The rest of their payment would be forthcoming once his sister—he would never call her that after tonight—was transferred to her Russian handlers, those intrepid souls taking her deep beyond the Ural Mountains. The last he ever wanted to hear of the prisoner was by letter, from her jailer at the settlement at Beryozovo.

  And what would Society make of this second sudden disappearance of Diana, Lady St. John? The inspiration for that had popped into Sir Antony’s bare head while soaking in his thinking tub. Such a necessary luxury, his thinking tub. The details he had mulled over while making the perfect cup of tea. He had taken his cup of tea to the walnut writing table in the sitting room off his bedchamber. Here he sat with a scarlet silk banyan covering his nakedness and composed a news piece to be published in the morning’s newssheets. It would be anonymous. Written on fine parchment, the red sealing wax offset, clumsily imprinted with the intaglio seal in his signet ring, so as not to identify the sender. Yet, delivered by a liveried footman, the proprietors could not fail to print the interesting news as fact, not hearsay. It only remained for Sir Antony to persuade the second party named in the missive to cooperate, and he didn’t doubt that gentleman’s support when he confronted him at the masquerade.

  As for Mrs. Smith…

  Diana had descended the stairs to the entrance foyer in all her Elizabethan finery with a secret smile of satisfaction curving her painted mouth, no doubt in response to last minute instructions given Mrs. Smith for her next dastardly deed. Sir Antony responded with one of his own lovely smiles as he complimented her on her gown, knowing that at that very moment, four of his Russians were bundling Mrs. Smith down the backstairs and out into a waiting hackney bound for Bethlem Hospital. Mrs. Smith would spend the rest of her days in Bedlam, a certified lunatic. It was more than she deserved. But Sir Antony had taken a modicum of pity on the woman for being duped. Besides, anyone who could be so slavishly devoted to such an evil creature as his sister had to be insane.

  Returning his mind to the immediate present, Sir Antony yet again curbed the desire to choke the life out of his sister but decided that, as this was their penultimate carriage ride, he should allow her a momentary glimpse beneath the surface of his urbane exterior to see the brother she did not know in the least. If nothing else, it would provide him with a temporary release of tension and a mild satisfaction.

  “Jenny Dalrymple invited to one of Salt’s masks?” Diana St. John scoffed, opening out her red silk fan to flutter air across her low décolletage. “My dear Lady Porter, you and I know poor Jenny is not fit for decent company. She would only be an embarrassment to Salt. It was quite right of his lordship not to invite her. No doubt if the guest list had been entrusted to the Wide-Eyed Stick Insect, who knows what sort of riffraff would bump our shoulders!”

  “That red ribbon and star suits you very well, Sir Antony,” Lady Porter said with a smile, thinking it prudent to change the topic because in the four years Diana St. John had been absent from London she had made several visits to Salt Hendon at the invitation of Lady Reanay and had gotten to know the young Lady Salt; she liked her very much. “What order did you say it was?” she added, with a vagueness she hoped hid the fact that she knew well enough the answer to her own question.

  “The Imperial Order of St. Anna,” Diana answered before her brother could part his lips to respond. “Bestowed by the Russian Empress at her discretion. I was rendered speechless when told my little brother was to be given such an honor, and he the first foreigner too!”

  “That is because you do not know me,” Sir Antony said flatly.

  Diana shrugged a shoulder in dismissal and pulled aside the velvet curtain to look out the window. “What is there to know…?”

  “An audience in the royal drawing room is quite something to behold,” Lady Porter continued, as if brother and sister had not spoken. “Their Majesties in all their finery… The long-suffering ladies-in-waiting in those outdated mantuas that were the height of fashion when my mother was a young girl… That red sash is quite splendid, Sir Antony—oh! Or is it Lord Temple now, or does that come later? I do apologize. My mind is not what it used to be…”

  Sir Antony doubted that very much. Lady Porter was known in polite circles as a very shrewd matron who never let a piece of gossip pass her by, be it gossip from her drawing room or about those below stairs, her servants and those in the employ of others. He had no idea why she was being deliberately vague but decided to play along with her little charade

  “I believe I should not be addressed as Lord Temple until the Letters Patent have been prepared and my new title gazetted. That is of small importance. It can all wait until Lady Caroline and I return from our honeymoon in Ireland.”

  “Ireland? Honeymoon? Oh, so a date has finally been settled between you and Lady Caroline? What simply wonderful news, Sir Antony! I congratulate you both. Isn’t it, Lady St. John?” Lady Porter said with a sigh of satisfaction. “Oh dear! Are you perfectly well, my lady?”

  Diana St. John was making a choking sound, a gloved hand to her rapidly rising and falling bosom. She brought herself under control and said contemptuously,

  “My God, Antony! You cannot—you cannot—be serious? You are given the highest honor the Russians can bestow upon an Englishman and are made a Viscount by our sovereign, and you instantly throw away the opportunity to marry a great heiress by shackling yourself to a penniless widow?”

  “I am marrying a great heiress, but Caroline’s dowry never entered my mind.”

  Diana St. John slowly lifted her eyebrows as if she knew vastly more on the subject than he did; this was nothing new to him.

  “I have it on the best authority that Aldershot fritted away every penny of Caroline’s dowry.”

  Sir Antony resettled on the upholstered seat, not a blink at his sister’s thin smile of superiority, long fingers fiddling with the collection of gold fobs dangling from a thick gold chain at his waistcoat pocket. He allowed himself to look smug.

  “There is no higher authority than Lord Salt in this matter, and he hasn’t spoken to you in four years.”

  “Oh I do hope Lady Caroline still has part of her dowry. Her marriage to that petulant boy was not a happy one.”

  “Indeed it was not, my lady,” Sir Antony replied to Lady Porter. “Fear not. Lady Caroline still has her dowry, every penny of it. Sa
lt made certain the thirty thousand pounds was buried in legalities until Caroline reached her twenty-fifth birthday, or married me, whichever came first.”

  It was news to Diana. She screwed up her mouth. She hated second-hand information almost as much as she hated her brother’s self-satisfied grin. She pretended a moment of deafness and returned to staring out the window, her gloved hands gripping hard the sticks of her fan, which she had closed with an annoying flick of her wrist. Well! He certainly wouldn’t be smiling when she emerged from the smoke of the burning nursery, the golden-haired child limp in her arms. Ha! No one would be smiling then. Salt would talk to her then. Oh, he would talk, talk to her for hours then.

  Sir Antony held his feathered mask up to his face and said, to goad his sister, “So you see, my dear Lady Porter, I am finally marrying the woman I love, who just happens to have a dowry fit for the bride of Croesus. The notice will be in the newssheets tomorrow, but I crave you will keep this piece of news to yourself, though you do have the satisfaction of being the first to congratulate me.”

  Lady Porter smiled. Diana did not and kept her profile to him until the carriage slowed, joining a long line of carriages waiting their turn to drive up to the entrance of Salt House to deposit their excited occupants. It was just as Lady Porter was being helped down the carriage steps by a liveried footman, Diana ready to ascend after her, that Sir Antony noticed the unusual tassel ornament dangling from the closed sticks of his sister’s fan. He had never seen a baby rattle before and would not have known one had it been shoved in his face, and this fan ornament looked to be nothing unusual to the untrained eye: A little silver ornament of a unicorn and three tiny silver bells all hanging from a fine silver chain.

  However, Sir Antony was very attuned to such a silver ornament because it matched the description of his godson’s stolen rattle, given him by Betsy over her cup of tea. Such an embellishment to Diana’s fan would go unnoticed by everyone and be of significance to no one, except the one person Diana hated with every beat of her blackened heart: Jane, Countess of Salt Hendon.

  Sir Antony did not doubt that Diana gained some sort of warped satisfaction in having in her possession the silver rattle belonging to Jane’s infant son. It was a talisman of her superiority and intelligence, a trophy of sorts, much like the skin of a bear or a lion proclaims the mastery of the hunter over the hunted. And he was certain his sister had brought it along to the masquerade to taunt the Countess. He doubted Salt would be able to identify the ornament as belonging to his infant son, but to the fretful mother—to Jane—the rattle would shine out like a lighthouse beacon, as obvious and as dramatic as a twenty trumpet salute.

  Diana would flaunt it, but slyly, making certain Jane saw the rattle at every opportunity, knowing the Countess was powerless to say a word or cause a scene over something most would consider unworthy of comment, or disbelieve the Countess that Diana St. John would have in her possession an insignificant object belonging to another, an infant at that.

  Sir Antony was having none of that, and so he put a stop to his sister’s planned cruelty before she had a chance to inflict her mental torment.

  Furious, he grabbed Diana’s upper arm before she could take the gloved hand held out to her by a liveried footman, and pushed her back onto the carriage seat. Before she knew what was happening and could get her bearings he snatched for her fan and with one hard tug broke the rattle’s little silver chain.

  “No you don’t,” he growled, shoving the silver rattle in a waistcoat pocket. “This doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to my infant godson, a babe, an innocent babe you tried to infect with the smallpox!”

  “Dear me, Antony, what has come over you?” Diana said with practiced amazement. She slowly brushed out the folds in her petticoats, all to regain the upper hand. She carefully avoided all mention of the rattle. “Parents inoculate their children all the time with the smallpox in the hopes of making them immune. Putting the brat into a diseased chemise is surely less cruel than scratching pus under such lovely soft skin?”

  “Good God! If you think I’ll swallow that twaddle—!”

  Diana blinked across at him, as if he were the one speaking nonsense. Sir Antony had to concede she was a remarkably good actress. Either that, or in her insanity she was convinced that her alternate explanation was just as valid and believable.

  “It was a gift,” she enunciated, as if speaking to a half-witted child. “Is it my fault you and the Stick Insect choose to consider it differently? I suppose that lackbrained nursery wench lost the small card that went with the package…?”

  The card was new to Sir Antony. Betsy had certainly not mentioned any card. He did not believe Diana, and decided it was not worth his time arguing with one who was criminally insane.

  Diana tapped her brother’s silken knee with her fan and said with a frown of concern, “What you need is a glass or two of champagne and a large brandy. That will quell your temper and put you back in charity with the world. Since you have foolishly decided to limit yourself to tea and cordial you’ve become the most bad-tempered fellow imaginable. I have an excellent notion! Once we are indoors, you should immediately take yourself off to the refreshment rooms where you can join the other inebriates, and drown your sorrows at having a sister who is so much cleverer than you’ll ever be. Let’s not keep the other carriages waiting, there’s a good little brother.”

  She shook out her petticoats and prepared to leave the carriage, but Sir Antony stuck his arm across the doorway and filled its space so that she could not exit, and those outside on the cobbles could not see what was taking place in the carriage. He looked into her brown eyes and held her gaze, and when he spoke his voice was flat and thus far more effective than had he shown her his fury.

  “Let me assure you that once this night is over, I will have no further contact with you in any form. You can also be assured that my life, married to Caroline, and as part of the Salt Hendon extended family, will be a joyous one. I will distinguish myself in my chosen career and if I am fortunate enough to be remembered for my efforts, then so be it. Though, I would rather be remembered for being a gentleman, and as a loving husband and father. You will not be remembered, in fact you will be forgotten, a footnote to the family tree. If your children do recall you upon occasion, it will not be with love or fondness, and you will never be spoken about. The rest of your life will be miserable, but that was of your own making, and misery is more than you deserve, you wicked, vile creature.”

  Without expecting a response, he turned and stepped out of the carriage, put up his gloved hand to help her alight, folded her arm over his and offered his other arm to Lady Porter, who was patiently waiting for them to join her. They then merged with the throng on the pavement filing into Salt House. Sir Antony’s handsome face was again in repose and he managed a smile as he admired the guests dressed in their exotic and quite fanciful costumes, from Roman senators and Turkish sultanas, to Merry Monarchs and Medieval maidens, everyone in animated conversation and brimming with excitement and laughter to be attending the ball of the season.

  Diana dared to blink up at her brother and wonder if she had not had a mild faint brought on by her tighter than usual corset lacings. Perhaps her brother’s speech had just popped into her head of its own accord, certainly not by his initiative. Yet, that could not explain his demeanor. She had never seen her brother so self-possessed and certain of his place in the world. It had to be his costume, the military frock coat, or was it the red sash across his waistcoat and the Imperial star upon his right breast that gave him such an air of confidence? Or was it the fact he was to be made a Viscount? She could not work it out. She could not work him out.

  Not since those early days locked up in Harlech Castle, when she had questioned her actions for the briefest of moments, did her arrogant self-belief slip ever so slightly from her shoulders. But it was not enough to stop her believing that the path she trod was a righteous one. The plan she intended to carry out that very evening
with the help of the stalwart Mrs. Smith was the only recourse left to her to make Salt come to his senses. What did one tiny little silver rattle matter, when, under her skirts, was hidden the golden-haired child’s toy monkey. Her plans for the second son may have been thwarted, goading his mother the skinny whore also, but she was in no doubts that when the time came, Salt’s eldest son and heir, the boy that was the future of the Salt Hendon earldom and all that it stood for, would come running into her open arms, and that would be the beginning of the end for his parents.

  ~

  SIR ANTONY RAISED his feathered mask and peered through it to slowly look the Earl of Salt Hendon up and down. He gazed at the curled toes of his silk slippers, then at the dark blue and gold sash wrapped about the waist of a pair of billowing ivory silk pantaloons, and which held to the Earl’s hip an ornate-handled scimitar. Up Sir Antony’s gaze went, to the white silk shirt over which was a long open waistcoat covered in gold braid worthy of any military uniform. He finally fixed on the dark blue and gold silk turban atop his lordship’s noble head. Pinned center front was a large brooch of a single sapphire surrounded by diamonds that he did not doubt were genuine sparkling gems, worth a sultan’s ransom.

  “Good God, Salt! Let me guess: You are the Pasha of Persia; Terror of the Turks; The Emperor of Ethiopia, mayhap? No! Don’t tell me! I know. You’re the King of Constantinople!”

  Salt eyed his cousin with barely-concealed resentment, nostrils aquiver.

  “Very good, but no. I am the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and you, like all those under my roof, are a mere vassal!”

  “As are the multitude of ladies of his harem,” Jane announced, appearing at her husband’s side, blue eyes bright with mischief. She held his arm and looked up at him lovingly. “He makes a wonderful sultan, do you not think so, Antony?”

  Salt winked down at his wife with a smile, again in charity with the world, although he privately agreed with Sir Antony’s veiled estimation that his costume was outlandish to say the least. Truth be told, it was the prospect of Jane in a diaphanous Turkish costume that had him agree to attend his own masquerade dressed as a sultan, when his first thought was to dress as a Plantagenet king.