by M C Beaton
He moved softly into the room. The curtains were drawn back and moonlight streamed across the bed. Annabelle looked very young and defenseless in sleep.
Her reticule was lying on a chair beside the bed. He drew open the strings and felt inside.
“Who is there?” Annabelle’s voice, sharp with fear.
He dropped the reticule and swung around. “It is only I, Darkwood.”
“What do you want?” Annabelle struggled up against the pillows.
He smiled down at her in the moonlight. “You forgot to kiss me good night,” he said.
Annabelle’s heart plummeted like a stone. It was bound to happen sooner or later, she thought dismally. She had offered herself to him. He had merely come to take her up on her offer.
“It… it… is very late,” she said pathetically. “Can it not wait until tomorrow?”
“My dearest, I thought you offered to be my mistress.”
“Yes, so I did,” said Annabelle miserably. “Very well, I shall kiss you.” She screwed her eyes shut and puckered up her lips.
She shivered as she sensed rather than saw him leaning over her. Then his lips were against hers, hard and commanding. What happened next shocked them both. Annabelle’s body seemed to leap into flame. The earl felt his senses whirling as his kiss grew deeper. His hand slid up her back to caress her neck under the heavy weight of her tumbling hair. He stretched out on the bed next to her, feeling the softness of her breasts against his chest. He moved away from her a little, and his hand slid down the neck of her nightgown and took possession of one full, rounded breast, and she moaned faintly against his mouth.
And then a little sharp cold thought entered his brain. He had no intention of seducing Annabelle Carruthers or becoming involved in any messy liaison. He stood up abruptly and said in a husky voice, “It is late.”
Annabelle watched, wide-eyed, as he strode from the room.
Her body was aching and trembling and craving more kisses. Damn the man! He was a devil to arouse her so. The dreary fact that it all would mean nothing to him brought tears to her eyes. Now she was really frightened of him.
She lay awake for a long time, finally falling into a heavy sleep around dawn. That was when the earl returned to her room and took the letter. He carried it over to the window and read it carefully before returning it to her reticule and drawing the strings tight again.
He returned to his room and sat down in a chair. It appeared Guy Carruthers had been working for the French. That Annabelle did not know anything about it was clear from the letter. It had happened after the ball. The traitor or traitors could not have been at that ball, for he had known everyone there with the exception of the Clairmonts, and they were surely above suspicion.
And then he remembered the supper room and being amused at the sight of his sister, unusually flirtatious, with a foppish young man. He had not remembered him and had asked who he was and learned that he was a stranger who had been staying at the inn. Temple, that was it. A Mr. Temple, who had stopped him in the village street and had spoken about the ball and had obviously been hoping for an invitation. He would need to go to the authorities in London with what he knew and see if this Mr. Temple could be taken for questioning, but he would need to make sure Annabelle was not arrested as well. Like Annabelle, he suddenly realized the wife was often found out to be as guilty as the husband, even if there were no proof.
To Annabelle’s relief, the earl continued to ride outside the carriage and barely looked at her. To her even greater relief, he ordered the carriage to take her straight to Clarence Square.
Annabelle was welcomed by Miss Davenant. “Such a pretty house,” she said, “and everything in the first style of comfort. So kind of Darkwood. I never thought of him as being a kind gentleman before.”
Annabelle, too, before the episode in the posting inn, had had a tiny hope that the earl did not really mean to take her as his mistress, however that hope had now died. But how could he embroil his respectable aunt in such a ploy? Was that faded gentlewoman supposed to remain deaf and blind while he cavorted with her in her bedchamber?
But as Miss Davenant prattled on about the misery of her straitened circumstances, Annabelle began to believe that the earl knew his aunt would do anything for money and turn a blind eye when required. She was also sure that as yet Miss Davenant knew nothing of her disgraceful arrangement with the earl.
To her surprise, the earl did not put in an appearance during the following week. Or the week after that.
The earl had returned to Upper Chipping. The landlord of the Crown had given him the interesting information that Mr. Temple had called for five bottles of brandy in the small hours of the morning. The earl then rode to his sister’s house and asked her if she still had Mr. Temple’s card and to furnish him with the address.
Lady Trompington surrendered the card reluctantly. She often dreamed of Mr. Temple and of dancing with him at some ball.
The earl studied the address. Curzon Street, a good enough address in a way, but Mayfair could still house a great many parvenus.
On his return to London, he went to Horse Guards and laid what he knew about Mr. Temple and the death of Guy Carruthers before his old military commanders. He explained Annabelle’s innocence and repeated the contents of that letter, word for word. One of the elderly generals facing him sighed and said, “We thought we had seen an end of this treachery. What could Carruthers have done for them anyway?”
“He was a gambler,” said the earl, “and gambled with some of the top-ranking military. I assume the French were after the usual thing. They want to rescue their emperor from the island and carry him back to Paris in triumph. So they need to know the strength of the guard on him, when the guard is changed, the names of the officers of the guard, and which ones, home on leave, are liable to be vulnerable to blackmail or bribery. No one took Carruthers seriously, a bit of a wastrel, but a good fellow, that sort of thing. It is my belief he could have gained quite valuable information. I suggest you lend me two officers, and I shall take Temple myself.”
“Take six at least,” said the general. “He might manage to escape you.”
Mr. Temple was preparing to go out. It was two in the afternoon, a fashionable hour to rise from bed. He lived in an apartment on top of a tall building in Curzon Street, near Shepherd Market. Curzon Street, despite all the aristocratic names that dwelt in it, still had a raffish air, as if the ghosts of the revelers from the old Mayfair still haunted it. Mr. Temple did not have a servant. He lived economically, all money he gained from his spying activities being lodged safely in Coutts Bank. Unlike other traitors, he did not betray his country for money, but for the feeling of power the secrecy of his life gave him. It made him feel important when he ingratiated his way into ton parties, to survey the gilded throng and think that when Emperor Napoleon was restored, they would soon all be marching to the guillotine. He was used to living dangerously and had developed a sort of sixth sense.
He was all at once sharply aware of danger. He heard shuffling footsteps on the stairs and slowly took out a pistol, primed it, and stood facing the door.
The door swung open but it was only the housekeeper who looked after “her gentlemen,” the men who rented the apartments in the building. He smiled and lowered the pistol. “I brought you a lamb chop and some porter,” said the housekeeper, putting a tray down on the table. Mr. Temple almost laughed aloud at his fears. It should have dawned on him that it was odd the housekeeper did not make any remark about the pistol which he was now laying down on a side table.
She left the door open, and he went to close it just as the earl, followed by three officers, marched into the room. The other three were guarding the front entrance.
“What is this?” blustered Mr. Temple. “How dare…?”
“I charge you in the king’s name,” said the earl, “with the murder of Mr. Guy Carruthers and with being a traitor to England.”
“Fustian,” said Mr. Temple, turning pale
. “What proof have you?”
“Guy Carruthers left a letter for his wife,” said the earl. “It incriminates you.” It had not, in fact, but the earl was sure that Mr. Temple would believe him. “You will come with us.”
One of the officers bound Mr. Temple’s wrists. He was led down the stairs and out into a carriage. Where were they taking him? He must get help.
Lord Darkwood had instructions to take Mr. Temple to a military barracks in Chelsea. There he would be questioned so that they could find out the names of the other traitors. It was all to be done quietly, secretly, the authorities believing that a public trial would be bad for the morale of the country.
Mr. Temple’s apartment was searched from top to bottom, but nothing incriminating was found.
He was locked in a small room and interrogated by the earl and two officers. He stubbornly protested his innocence and demanded the services of a lawyer.
The earl drew the officers outside the cell and said, “Leave him alone without food and water. He will talk soon enough.”
Left to his own devices, Mr. Temple fought down rising waves of panic. It was not his fault. His employers had bungled, and bungled badly by choosing such a dangerously blabber-mouthed tool as Carruthers. He took off his coat and began to pick feverishly at the lining. There between lining and cloth he found a small notebook and pencil, and four guineas. He wrote a letter on a page of the notebook and went to the bars of his cell and looked out into the fading light. A sentry was parading up and down.
“Hist!” The sentry came to the barred window and looked at Mr. Temple curiously.
“If you take this letter to the gentleman whose name I have written on the other side,” said Mr. Temple urgently, “he will reward you. Here are four guineas for you. Quickly. Before we are seen.”
“What’s it about,” said the soldier suspiciously. He turned the paper this way and that.
Guessing that he did not know how to read, Mr. Temple said, “It is merely a request to a powerful friend to get me a lawyer. Come, man. Do I not deserve a lawyer?”
“See what I can do,” said the soldier. “But I can’t read. What’s the name of the gentleman I’ve to take this to?”
Mr. Temple told him.
The soldier whistled under his breath. “Take it when my duty is over,” he said.
Mr. Temple watched him like a hawk until he was relieved of his duty. He waited anxiously, dreading to see the soldier produce that note and show it to the relief guard. But the sentry walked away whistling. Now all Mr. Temple had to do was wait. They had promised to help him if he were ever in any trouble. He had told of Mrs. Carruthers’s betrayal in his note. It was up to them to deal with her. Had it not been for her, he would still be at liberty.
All that night he waited. When would his sentry come on duty again? The next day with a stoicism that amazed his interrogators, he continued to protest his innocence.
At last when they were gone, he rushed to the bars, and there was the sentry parading up and down. He called him over. “What news?”
“He says as how you’re to confess to the murder of Carruthers and deny being a traitor. That way, they’ll move you to Newgate instead o’ the Tower, and he can get you out of there.”
“You are sure?”
“Cross me heart. That’s what he says. Sounds daft to me. Here.” The sentry fished in a capacious pocket and looked quickly around. “He’s sent you some brandy for to keep yer spirits up.”
“Later,” said Mr. Temple urgently, hearing the key turn in the door of his cell.
His faith in his employers was absolute, and that is what gave him courage to admit to the murder of Guy Carruthers. But the earl, who he was beginning to hate with a passion, merely smiled at him and said mockingly, “We know you murdered Carruthers, but you shall be kept here without food and water until you give us the names of the other traitors.”
Left alone, Mr. Temple sat down wearily. They had failed him. How long could he hold out? He could not go on much longer without food and water. Perhaps he would have been better to have used his four precious guineas to bribe the sentry to bring him a meal. The brandy! That was something. He called to the sentry.
“Dead,” said the earl to Annabelle. “Stone dead. Poisoned. A bottle of brandy found its way into his cell, and no one will say how it got there. The sentries are old Waterloo campaigners, and my suggestion that one of them might have passed the bottle through the bars was met with horror. But someone got it to him. However, as I told you, he did confess to the murder of your husband. So be careful and should anyone suspicious approach you, inform me immediately.”
She sat pale and still, rigid with shock. Although she had just had her worst fears confirmed, it was still a terrible blow.
“It will be in the newspapers, will it not?” she said.
“No, it is being hushed up. I have finally persuaded them to have the two sentries who were on duty outside his cell followed and watched. We must try to find who sent the brandy to him. The sentries have been investigated. Both are brave men, but even brave men will do strange things for money.”
He stood up. “Miss Davenant tells me you have not been out of the house. You may have one of my carriages at your disposal. I suggest you start to take the air.”
He bowed and left.
Annabelle felt very alone. She could not confide in Miss Davenant because it was being increasingly borne in on her that Miss Davenant not only did not know of her arrangement with the earl, but would certainly not be a party to it if she knew.
Chapter Seven
Each day, Annabelle steeled herself for a visit from the earl, and each day came and went that long summer without him putting in an appearance. She read in the social columns that he had gone to Brighton. Later she read of his return. He had attended a picnic given by Lady Clairmont. His name was linked with Rosamund Clairmont. It was all very odd.
The house rental was paid regularly as was her generous allowance. She and Miss Davenant took leisurely drives, went to Gunter’s for ices, sewed in the evenings, and remained on the fringes of society; Annabelle because she felt she had joined the ranks of the “fashionable impure,” Miss Davenant because she considered it would not be suitable for the mourning Mrs. Carruthers to attend any functions until the Little Season.
Annabelle did not know that Cressida had sent a letter to her former London house and, failing to receive a reply, assumed that Annabelle had become too grand a London lady to want to be troubled with her old friend from the vicarage. Matilda, too, had called at the house to find new occupants in residence and no news of where Mrs. Carruthers had gone. She did not know that Annabelle had called on her that day for the simple reason that her husband had not told her.
It was an exceptionally fine summer. Miss Davenant’s company was undemanding to say the least. She was now more like a placid sheep than an intense one; her snowy, woolly curls as springy as ever, but her face mild and relaxed. Miss Davenant had achieved the dream of every former poor relation—security. She took her job as companion seriously and agreed to every suggestion Annabelle made, although she found Annabelle’s desire to visit musty old buildings such as the Tower of London and the Monument sadly unfashionable.
Annabelle had grown in beauty as calm day followed calm day and all bills were paid promptly and the shadows of death, violence, and murder receded from her mind.
One particularly warm and balmy day, she startled Miss Davenant by saying, “Let us go to Vauxhall this evening.”
“Do you think that would be wise? Two ladies, unaccompanied?”
“We shall be perfectly safe. We will take James, the footman, to attend us, hire a box, and have an elegant supper. I have never been to Vauxhall,” said Annabelle wistfully. “Mr. Carruthers was always promising to take me, but he always forgot.”
“I, too, have never seen Vauxhall,” said Miss Davenant, beginning to flutter with excitement. “And, of course, if we take James, we shall have nothing to worry about
.”
And so the elderly chaperon and the young widow giggled like schoolgirls as the carriage bore them over Westminster Bridge. Vauxhall was a great adventure.
Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens lay on the south side of the city. The name was originally Faux Hall, which was corrupted into Vauxhall. It was popularly believed that the name derived from Guy Fawkes, the gunpowder-plot conspirator, but the true derivation was from Faulk de Brent, a famous Norman soldier of fortune to whom King John gave in marriage, Margaret de Ripariis. To that lady belonged the manor of Lambeth to which Faux Hall was annexed.
The admission charge was four shillings each which, as Miss Davenant paid over her share, said was so extravagant it made her feel like the veriest profligate.
Followed by their footman, the two ladies passed through the turnstile and entered the gardens. Annabelle let out a gasp of surprise, and Miss Davenant stood blinking in the sudden blaze of light.
As her eyes became accustomed to the radiance, Annabelle saw that the principal part of the gardens was a quadrilateral, called the grove, bisected by long colonnades. One of the colonnades on Annabelle’s right was at least three hundred feet long and covered by an arched Gothic roof where the groins were marked by lines of lamps shedding a golden light and the pendants by single crimson lights at the intersections. In the middle of the grove was an orchestra playing under a large inverted cockleshell canopy, flooded also in a blaze of light.
Annabelle and Miss Davenant linked arms and moved forward as if in a dream. There was so much to see, it was bewildering. There was the rotunda where an equestrian display was taking place. Then further on, they came across a replica of William Tell’s cottage, then a statue of Neptune with his horses shooting jets of water from their nostrils, then onto another theater where the Revers family were delighting a crowd with their juggling and acrobatics, then back to the rotunda, drawn by the sound of the music. The display of horsemanship was over, and now a ballet was in progress, the grace and classical beauty of which was rather spoiled, aesthetically at least, by the performances of the tightrope dancers high above the pit where the ballet was being performed.