by M C Beaton
He went along to the card room. Guy Carruthers appeared wild and disheveled. He was wearing his coat inside out for luck. The earl studied the play. It did not take him long to realize that Guy was losing heavily.
Then Guy said, “I shall be back in a trice.” The earl followed him out. Annabelle was dancing a country reel with the vicar. The earl could see Guy waiting impatiently for the dance to finish. Then he approached his wife. The earl saw Annabelle shake her head and saw Guy’s face darken with anger. He took a half step forward for he was afraid Guy was about to strike his wife. Then Guy turned on his heel and went back to the card room. The earl saw him later propped against the wall, no longer part of the game, watching the play with hungry eyes.
Mr. Temple, too, had been watching Guy. He was delighted with Guy’s losses, for Guy had not only lost his winnings, but had gambled away the Manor as well.
He’ll be ready for work now, thought Mr. Temple with satisfaction.
Guy saw him standing at the entrance to the card room and hope lit in his eyes.
He crossed the room and joined Mr. Temple. “Where can we talk?” he asked.
“There’s bound to be a room somewhere,” said Mr. Temple. “Follow me, dear friend.”
He pushed open a door next to the card room. It was a small morning room with delicate furniture and gold and white striped paper on the walls.
“I need more money… now,” said Guy.
“You will get more as soon as you start work for us in London,” said Mr. Temple, looking amused.
Guy smiled slowly. “No, my dear friend, I think you will pay up and pay up gladly when you find out what I have to say. If you do not pay me, then I shall go to the authorities and denounce you as a traitor.”
Mr. Temple’s face darkened. “You would not dare. You would damn yourself. You have already accepted money from us.”
“And where’s your proof?” jeered Guy. “Stupid of you, wasn’t it? You didn’t even ask for a receipt. I don’t believe a word of all this rot of having powerful friends. What can you do? Take me to court? Stand up there and damn yourself as a traitor in order to convict me? So pay now.”
Mr. Temple took a snuffbox from his pocket and helped himself to a pinch of snuff with maddening slowness. His foppish face betrayed nothing, but he was thinking furiously. Things had not worked out the way his superiors had planned. They had said Guy had worked easily for them before. He was a shiftless wastrel who could be used and then discarded. But Guy Carruthers must be silenced for the moment until he could think what to do.
“I am not a walking bank,” he said at last. “I have a hundred pounds on me, nothing more.”
“That’ll do,” said Guy feverishly. “I’ll take that now, and you call on me tomorrow and be prepared to pay for my silence.”
“As you will,” said Mr. Temple calmly. He pulled a wad of notes out of his pocket. Guy grabbed them and rushed from the room.
But when he returned to the card room, it was to find it closed and locked. The earl had learned that Guy had lost the Manor and had persuaded his friends to stop the play. He wondered what on earth to do. He wanted to help Mrs. Carruthers, but that was a job for her husband. His friend, Captain Jamieson, had won the Manor from Guy. To suggest to the captain that he tear up the IOU was unthinkable. Gambling debts were debts of honor. Well, Mrs. Carruthers had chosen to marry a gambler, thought the earl, forgetting that women usually had little say in whom they married.
He felt bored, restless and tired playing lord of the manor in this sleepy corner of the Cotswolds. The past ten years had been spent in one battle in the Peninsula after another, ending on the field of Waterloo. He might tell himself he was tired of death and carnage, but the risk and excitement of battle had not left him.
Perhaps what he needed was a wife. It would be fun to have sons and teach them to hunt and shoot. His eye fell on Rosamund, who smiled at him, and he felt his pulses quicken. That glinting sideways glance of hers promised so much.
But as the next waltz was announced, he somehow found himself bowing before Annabelle. Soon his hand was at her waist and he was circling the floor with her, conscious of her nearness, of the pliancy of her body, of the sweet flower perfume she wore. There was something so vulnerable and feminine about her, a woman to cherish and protect.
“Have you enjoyed yourself?” he asked.
Annabelle looked into his eyes and said, “Yes, my lord. Thank you for inviting us.” But there was a world of sadness there. He thought he would like to see her laugh. She was too young to be so worried and sad.
Rosamund, dancing with Captain Jamieson, tried to listen to what he was saying while keeping her eyes on the earl. Her mother had told her that the earl planned to open his town house. In London she would have the field to herself with no disturbingly attractive Mrs. Carruthers around to take the earl’s attention away. Rosamund was not worried about the earl’s rumored mistress. All gentlemen had at least one in keeping. Ladies turned a blind eye to such things. Rosamund knew the earl to be the biggest available catch on the marriage market and it was ambition rather than desire that fueled her determination to get him.
The earl had no sooner finished dancing with Annabelle than Guy lumbered up, drunk and angry.
“Come along,” he said sharply to his wife. “Time to go home. The evening’s gone curst flat.”
Annabelle swept a low curtsy to the earl and quietly took her husband’s arm, trying to steady him as Guy staggered from the long gallery. The earl watched the pair for a moment and then with a little shrug went in search of Rosamund.
Chapter Four
Guy staggered and reeled down the drive. Annabelle had released his arm when they were clear of the house, and she walked behind him, the iron rings on the soles of her pattens striking sparks from the frosty pebbles on the drive. Trees with their tiny new leaves stood out black against the starry sky like fine lace. Some water bird hooted mournfully from the lake echoing the desolation in Annabelle’s heart.
She knew about Guy gambling away the Manor because he had told her, just outside the house, defiantly and drunkenly, almost proudly, as if the loss of their country home had elevated him to the top league of gamblers. They still had the town house, he had said, and they would travel there as soon as possible. Jamieson was welcome to that ruin of a place.
Now all Annabelle wanted to do was get to bed. She blessed that custom of the upper classes of having separate bedrooms. Guy hardly ever visited her bedroom, and when he did, it was a distressingly drunken fumble rather than lovemaking.
She let him get well ahead of her. Carriages of the departing guests passed them on the drive, their faces momentarily lit by the carriage lamps inside, driving past secure in a rich world, not one looking out at the figures trudging down the long drive.
By the time they turned in at the gates of the Manor, Annabelle was shivering with cold. There would be no fires in the bedrooms. The woodpile had dwindled away, and there were no outdoor menservants to cut more.
Guy, ahead of her, let himself into the large square house and left the door open behind him. He did not even turn around to see if she were there.
Annabelle went into the blackness of the hall and groped on the side table for a candle. Guy had already lit his and was mounting the stairs, a small circle of wavering candlelight showing his uneven passage.
She picked up her own candle and followed slowly up the stairs and turned in at her own bedroom door.
Sanctuary! For one night. She carefully took off her beautiful dress and hung it away in the wardrobe, hoping she would have a chance to wear it again in London. She shivered as she washed her face and hands in cold water and then, quickly stripping off her underclothes, she pulled a nightgown over her head and climbed into bed.
Sleep came quickly, blessed sleep. But almost immediately she began to dream. She was dancing the waltz on the lawns in front of Delaney with the earl. The day was sunny and warm. He held her closer and closer and then he tilted her chin up and his
lips approached hers. But she twisted her mouth away. He was smoking a cheroot and the smoke from it, burning in his left hand, was strong and acrid. She choked and flapped at the smoke, and he began to laugh.
Annabelle awoke. The smoke was not in her dream but all about her. There was a red light under her door. She darted from her bed and opened it and then quickly slammed it shut again in the face of the red and crackling inferno of fire that lay outside. She ran to the window and opened it. The two maids were on the lawn in their nightclothes, screaming loudly and pointing upward. Annabelle seized a cloak and pulled it on over her nightgown. She thrust her feet into a pair of slippers and then began to climb out of the window, grasping tight hold of the ivy outside. She swung herself out and hung motionless for a moment and then scrabbled with her feet until she found a hold in the ivy. Slowly, she began to descend, her ears full of the roaring and crackling of the fire. She heard shouts from the driveway now and the galloping of horses’ hooves. Inch by inch, she felt her way down, trying not to panic. She did not think of Guy’s safety, instinctively feeling Guy would be all right. God protected drunks and little children. Strong arms grasped her and lifted her to the ground, and she heard the earl’s voice say sharply, “Who else is in the house?”
“Only my husband,” said Annabelle, twisting around and looking at him, her eyes dilated. “But he must have escaped.”
The earl caught her up in his arms, strode off with her, and then put her down on the grass next to the two maids who were still sobbing and crying. The village fire engine was sending a jet of water into the flames, a thin weak jet that seemed mocked by the raging inferno of the building.
Soon the lawn in front of the house was full of people. Men had formed a chain from a weedy pond to the house and were passing along buckets of water. There was no sign of Guy.
Cressida and her father, the vicar, drove up. “Come away, Annabelle,” said Cressida. “You cannot stand here in the cold.”
“My husband,” said Annabelle through white lips. “What has happened to Guy?”
And then by the light of the still raging flames, she saw the earl and his friends carrying a body clear of the house.
Shaking off Cressida’s restraining hand, Annabelle ran forward.
“He tried to escape,” said the earl gently, “but broke his neck in the fall.”
Annabelle sank to her knees beside the body of her husband. He must have gone to sleep in his clothes, she thought, bewildered. He reeked of brandy. The smell was appalling. He smelled as if he had been doused in brandy.
She became aware of Cressida’s arms around her and Cressida’s voice in her ear. “Come away. You cannot do anything here.”
“Yes, go,” said the earl harshly.
Numbly she allowed herself to be led away. She sat huddled in a corner of the vicarage trap, moving away from the red light of the fire, unable to believe that Guy was dead. Surely he would spring up and laugh drunkenly and say he had done it for a wager.
Cressida was trying not to feel excited. It was all so fascinating. She had seen in the light of the flames as she and her father had turned into the Manor drive, the earl carrying Annabelle away from the house in his arms. Now Annabelle’s useless husband was dead. He had probably set the place on fire himself by knocking over the bed candle. What a marvelous heroine Annabelle made! How like an engraving in a novel she had looked with her hair streaming down her back and her face as pale as alabaster.
After they had reached the vicarage and she had supervised putting Annabelle to bed, Cressida lay awake for a long time, planning Annabelle’s future. Cressida was too young and thought too little of herself to realize that she was in love with the earl, and wished to live out the romance she dimly felt she never could have, by organizing Annabelle’s life.
Annabelle awoke late and sat up in bed, struggling to cope with all the horrible memories of the night. The sun was streaming in the bedroom window. It all seemed like a horrible dream. She got out of bed and looked about her. She had no clothes to wear. She thought sadly of her beautiful gown, now, no doubt reduced to ashes, and then shuddered to think that she could mourn a ballgown and not her husband.
Guy!
She hugged her shivering body as waves of shock and anger and grief passed through her.
The door opened, and Cressida stood there, surveying her guest with something like satisfaction. Oh, if the earl could only see his Annabelle with that romantic distress on her face! But in her usual practical way, she said, “I have brought you some clothes I hope will fit you. You must have some fresh air, eat a little, and then retire to bed again. Try not to think of it. Papa and I will do all we can to help.”
It was then that Annabelle began to cry in a lost dreary way. For the first time in her life, she felt without hope of any kind.
When she had finally dried her eyes, bathed her face, and dressed, Cressida said, “May I write to your parents, or relatives?”
“The cholera took my parents late last year,” said Annabelle. “Such relatives as I do have are very poor and could not help.”
“Then Mr. Carruthers’ parents?”
“Dead, too, and such other family as he had disowned him this age.”
“Oh,” sighed Cressida happily. “Then you must leave things to us. I am sure the Earl of Darkwood will arrange all matters suitably for you.”
Annabelle’s face hardened. “I must tell you, Cressida, that had it not been for that fire, I would still not have been able to stay at the Manor. Guy lost it in a card game last night with the earl’s friends.”
“But you are a widow! No one can keep you to such an monstrous wager. Who won the Manor?”
“A Captain Jamieson, I believe.”
“Then the earl must tell him to tear up that IOU. It is only fitting.”
Annabelle smiled wanly. “I see you do not know about gambling debts. They must always be paid, no matter who is ruined in the process. Captain Jamieson has won a mortgaged, smoldering ruin. Even if he did hand it back to me, there is nothing I could do with it.”
“Come downstairs and take a little breakfast,” urged Cressida. “We will be able to see things more clearly as the day goes on.”
Annabelle dutifully drank tea and ate a little toast. The vicar called her into his study.
“You must make your home with us for as long as you like, Mrs. Carruthers,” he said gravely. “I have been discussing the matter with Cressida. If you will allow me, I will make the funeral arrangements. The Earl of Darkwood has kindly said he will meet all expenses.”
“No! He cannot.”
“My dear,” said Mr. Knight, “I believe you have no choice, and you owe it to your poor husband to see he is decently buried.”
Three days later, Annabelle followed her husband’s body to the churchyard while the great bell in the Norman tower of the church tolled out the long strokes of the death knell. The earl was there with his friends but not his sister, who had returned to her own estates with her husband after the ball.
He was dressed in black mourning clothes and looked almost satanic, a formidable figure in the morning sunlight. Memories raced through Annabelle’s mind as the coffin was lowered into the grave. Her mother saying sadly, “You must accept Mr. Carruthers’s offer. We have very little money, and you would be off our hands. Such as we are not allowed to choose in marriage.”
She remembered Guy collecting money at the wedding reception for he had bet his friends that she would not be wearing a wedding veil and had won. She remembered the honeymoon at one of Guy’s gambling friend’s country homes and how in that brief spell he had seemed to be genuinely in love with her; she had felt happy and confident that she would come to love him. But soon it was all over and Guy was drinking and gambling heavily. She had learned to avoid him when he was drunk, for the first time she had tried to remonstrate with him, he had beaten her, and his maudlin remorse the next day was almost as bad as the beating.
There was a simple funeral reception at
the vicarage and then the earl spoke to Mr. Knight and approached Annabelle.
“I wish to talk to you in private, Mrs. Carruthers,” he said. “The vicar says we may use his study.”
Annabelle bowed her head in assent and walked into the study with him.
“Please sit down,” said the earl, pulling out a chair for her. “Has your husband’s lawyer been to see you?”
Annabelle looked bewildered. “I do not know the names of my husband’s lawyers, and I assume all papers have been destroyed. But there should be some in our town house. I shall travel there shortly. I cannot go on being a burden on the vicar’s household.”
He held out a parcel. “These are items and clothing I took from your husband’s body. As you know, Mr. Carruthers lost the Manor in play. I need hardly tell you about gambling debts, but if you wish, I shall try to get Captain Jamieson to forget the debt.”
“I belive the manor was mortgaged to the hilt,” said Annabelle. “I could not do anything to restore the building even if I had it back.”
He surveyed her gravely. She was wearing a black gown of Cressida’s, and her hair was severely braided, and she was very white. And yet there was something about her, a softness, a femininity that made his pulses race as, say, Rosamund Clairmont never could. He gave himself a mental shake. He had more or less decided to ask Rosamund to marry him. He was an aristocrat who owed it to his ancient name and lands to marry well. Such was the way of the world. He had never been in love and considered that emotion a transient thing. Marriage should be based on money and breeding.
But all in that moment, she looked younger than Rosamund and painfully vulnerable. He asked her about family, his face darkening as he learned she had no one on whom she could rely.
Despite all her grief and distress, Annabelle was aware of a sharp longing not to be an object of pity.
“I do have one very good friend in London, Matilda, Duchess of Hadshire,” she said. “The duchess will help me come about. I have the town house to sell, and then I can repay you for the funeral arrangements.”