My Lady's Pleasure

by Olivia Quincy

  She turned around, and he was delighted to see that a smile lit up her face. “Gerry! I was just thinking about you.” She stood up and walked around the sofa to where he was standing, but not without stumbling and almost falling into the lap of a man Gerry did not recognize.

  “I’m so glad to shee you,” she said. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, and even a man without Gerard’s experience with drunken companions could see that she had had far too much wine.

  “And I you,” he said gallantly, taking her elbow firmly. “Let us find a quiet spot and see if there isn’t a cup of coffee to be had.”

  “Oh, I don’t want coffee,” Miss Niven said. She waved her hand in dismissal, and the gesture almost cost her her footing. “I know I’ve had too much to drink, but I daresay I shall be fine tomorrow without coffee tonight. But let us by all means find a quiet spot.”

  They did. And as soon as they had sat down, Alexandra said, “I have something important to tell you.”

  Gerry raised his eyebrows. “Do you indeed?”

  “I do.” She hiccuped, in what Gerry thought was almost a parody of inebriation. He half expected that little bubbles would come out of her mouth.

  “Do you remember when you asked me to marry you?” she said. She flopped back in her chair and looked at him as though he might really have forgotten.

  He was surprised. This was the last topic he expected her to embark upon at such at time, in such a state.

  “You may not credit it, but I actually do have a hazy memory of just that,” he said with a smile. “But perhaps such a serious topic isn’t appropriate conversation for such a festive occasion.” He was terribly afraid that her liquor had emboldened her to tell him no, and he knew that, once the word was said, it would probably not be unsaid.

  Since he had made his proposal, he had steeled himself for her eventual refusal. He understood that he was not without his charms and attractions, but he understood also that those charms and attractions might very well not be enough for a beautiful, intelligent girl twenty years his junior.

  “I think it is the perfect occasion. I think you should know that I mean to do it. To marry you.” She said this with the tone of a mother telling her young child that she meant to let him have cherry pie for breakfast.

  Gerry sat back in his chair and looked at Miss Niven openmouthed. How was he to respond to this? If she really did mean to marry him, she would make him the happiest man in the empire. But was this simply the wine talking, and was this a decision she would repent in the cold light of morning?

  He would not let her take such a step under the influence of strong drink. And, in his characteristically straightforward way, that was what he told her.

  “My dear girl. If you decide to accept the hand I have offered you, it will be a source of joy unbounded to me. But I will not allow you to make the decision in your current state.”

  She waved her hand. “Oh, don’t worry. I didn’t make it in my current state. I made it before. I’m perfectly certain.” But then she looked uncertain as to just what it was she was certain about, and Gerry laughed aloud.

  Drunk as she was, she knew her own mind, and her acceptance of his proposal was in earnest. Before the evening began, she had been leaning toward accepting him, and the incident of Freddy and the dance pushed her over the top. The contrast between the two men was so great, and showed Gerry to be such a superior, considerate, gentlemanly man, that she could not help but decide in his favor.

  And she liked him. She liked him greatly, and she thought she could love him. She was at her ease in his presence, she enjoyed his conversation, and, most important, she thought she could entrust her future to him. She felt safe with him. Safe and loved. Hours before the wine caught up with her, she knew she wanted to marry him.

  Gerry knew none of this, of course. He knew only that he had to get her upstairs.

  “This is a conversation we will certainly continue in the morning,” he said as he helped her to her feet. “Or perhaps the afternoon,” he added, skeptical that she would be in a talking frame of mind any time before midday.

  A young servant girl was clearing glasses nearby, and Gerry motioned to her.

  “This lady could very much use our assistance, I think,” he said. “Perhaps you would be so good as to come with us upstairs and help get her to bed.”

  The girl looked doubtful; this wasn’t part of the job she’d been hired to do for the evening. When Gerry slipped her a half crown, though, she thought she could see her way clear to making it part of her duties.

  Gerry got Miss Niven up to her room and left her with the girl, trusting that, with the servant’s assistance, she would get to bed.

  On his way back down the stairs, he encountered Lady Georgiana going up them. Like most of the remaining guests, she had taken off her mask.

  “Off to bed so soon?” he asked.

  “No, I’m afraid,” she answered, and waved a small note she held in her hand. “I have been summoned upstairs for a late-night chat.” She said it breezily enough, but Gerry sensed she wasn’t happy about the prospect of the interview.

  “Nothing alarming or disagreeable, I hope,” he said.

  “I hope the same.” Her mouth stretched into something halfway between a smile and a grimace, and then she continued up the steps.

  It was clear she was not happy about her summons, and, as Gerry watched her go, he wondered if he should offer to accompany her, or intervene in some way. Had she turned around, he probably would have made such an offer, but she did not turn around, and he continued on downstairs.

  Georgiana was indeed unhappy about the note that asked her to come upstairs to what was laughingly referred to at Penfield as the grand laboratory. It was a small room, tucked away in a far corner of the house, where Lord Loughlin kept a telescope. When he was younger, he had been interested in astronomy, and used to go up there of an evening and make notes about stars and planets. In recent years, though, his interest had waned and the room was little used.

  Lady Georgiana had been in it only once in all her years of visiting Penfield, and it struck her as very odd, and even a little suspicious, that she was to meet there for a tête-à-tête.

  It was Barnes, naturally, whom she was to meet. She had been in the drawing room talking with the same group Gerry had extracted Alexandra from, when Rose, the parlor maid, came to her with a little folded note on a tray.

  She had unfolded and read it. Meet me in the grand lab. I must speak with you. B.

  She folded it up again and held it in her lap as she considered her options. She could understand that Barnes might want to speak with her again, and she could even understand why he might like to speak with her privately. It was possible, she knew, that she had hurt him rather badly, in which case she should now be as kind to him as she could.

  But why the grand lab?

  She wasn’t sure whether she ought to go. Was it conceivable that he meant to do her harm? Had he wanted to harm her, she felt sure he simply would have done it, and not asked for an appointment, but her last two interviews with the man had made her see that there might be menace in him. She considered that he might be the person behind the threats to her and Alexandra, although she could think of only the flimsiest of motives for his missives to her, and none whatsoever for those to her friend.

  She thought also of the times they had spent together. She thought of the pull she had felt for him, and the way he had made her feel. She thought particularly of their evening in the lake, and thoughts of menace receded. Surely she knew this man better than to think he would harm her.

  She resolved that she would go, and made her excuses to the company.

  As she made her way to the staircase, it was the good memories she had of him that she replayed in her mind. The more she thought of them, the less trepidation she felt about the upcoming interview. When she encountered Gerry on the stairwell, though, the meeting derailed her thoughts, and as she continued up the stairs the trepidation returned, and
she even thought about asking him to accompany her.

  When she had gone some ten steps beyond him, she decided she would do just that, but when she turned around he was already on his way down the stairs, and she changed her mind.

  Up she went. She had to pass through the wing of the house where many of the guests’ bedchambers were, and she occasionally heard the murmur of conversation, or the sounds of more intimate activities. Fortunately, Penfield had electric lights throughout, and the corridors were bright. She felt sure she would have had trouble facing an eerie dimness at this time of night, in these circumstances.

  She passed through the guest corridor and mounted a staircase at the far end. Lord Loughlin had placed his observatory in the top corner of the house, as far as possible away from the electric lights and as close as possible to the stars he was intent on observing.

  Why the grand lab? The question revolved around and around in her head.

  Once at the head of the staircase, she was on the top floor of the house. All that remained between her and the grand lab was a long gallery with the relics of Lord Loughlin’s family. There were portraits of his Irish ancestors dating back hundreds of years, and objets d’art that Lady Loughlin had deemed too fusty for the main house. There was even a suit of armor that dated back two centuries, the memento of an ancestor who fought King William at the Battle of the Boyne.

  Of Paulette’s family, there was of course nothing. When Lady Loughlin had first shown the gallery to Lady Georgiana, she had made a joke about it. “What would we put here, the formula for the complexion cream?” she had asked. “A coat of arms with a microscope and a factory?”

  Georgiana thought of that as she made her way through the gallery, looking at the pictures, but she was not in the mood to see the humor. She found that she was profoundly uncomfortable, almost frightened. This part of the house was completely empty and absolutely silent, but she did not feel alone. The hairs were up on the back of her neck, and she slowed her steps as she strained to hear any sound.

  She was almost through the gallery when the lights went out.

  Georgiana’s first thought was that it was an unfortunate coincidence, that a servant had been sent to turn out lights simply because it was so late. A split second told her she was wrong.

  She heard footsteps running toward her, but she couldn’t see a thing. There was some light filtering into the hall from a skylight, but her eyes had been accustomed to the brightness of the electric lights, and the semidarkness seemed total to her.

  That is why she didn’t see the suit of armor topple over. She heard a metallic creaking, and automatically turned her head in the direction of the noise. She still didn’t see it as it barely missed her head, grazed her shoulder, and almost knocked her down. She jumped back instinctively as the armor clattered to the floor in front of her.

  She was desperate to see what was happening, and her eyes finally started to make out some of the shapes in the darkness.

  The shape she saw bearing down on her horrified her. It was a person, arms overhead, carrying some kind of weapon, presumably intent on bringing it down on her head. She turned to flee, but tripped on the helmet from the armor, which had come loose from its body and rolled behind her. She fell, sprawling on the floor, and steeled herself for the blow that was to come.

  She heard the whoosh of whatever weapon it was, and then the clang of metal on metal and then a grunt of pain. Her assailant had hit the helmet instead of her. Georgiana turned over as quickly as she could. Her eyes were now accustomed to the dimness, and she could see that her attacker wore some kind of robe, and was holding his wrist in his hand.

  The blow had made him drop the weapon, which she could now see was a battle-ax of some kind.

  She reached for the ax, thinking first to take it to defend herself. Feeling its weight, though, which was too substantial for her to handle deftly, she decided against that and instead slid it along the floor, far enough down the gallery to be out of reach, in order to give herself time to escape.

  Before she could recover her footing, her assailant was upon her, trying to get a grip on her throat. Although she knew she ought to be terrified—and, on some level, she was—she found herself thinking remarkably clearly. She didn’t know who this was, and she didn’t know why she was being attacked, but she did know that she would not let this be her fate if she could help it.

  She fought. She fought with all her strength and all her guile. She kicked and she bit as she tried to shield herself from the blows of her attacker and protect her throat. But her attacker was bigger and stronger, and Georgiana was just beginning to feel that she must lose when the lights went on again.

  Her attacker immediately stood up and pulled the hood of his robe over his face so he could not be identified. He knew someone was there, someone who would help, and that his only chance was to run.

  He did run, straight into the arms of the Roman senator Georgiana had danced with earlier in the evening.

  The senator was no longer wearing his mask, and Georgiana was astonished to find herself face-to-face with Jeremy Staunton.

  “Are you badly hurt?” Jeremy asked her as he wrestled to hold what Georgiana could now see was a man dressed as a monk.

  She took inventory of her limbs even as her mind reeled to make sense of Jeremy’s presence there. “I believe I am barely hurt at all, just quite shaken,” she answered as she stood up.

  Both Jeremy’s hands had been occupied in restraining the monk, whose hood still covered his face. Georgiana lifted the hood, and saw that it wasn’t a man at all. It was a young red-haired girl whom Georgiana thought she recognized as a servant of the house.

  It was Maureen.

  TWENTY-TWO

  There was much that Georgiana wanted to know, but she was so addled by her experience, and by Jeremy’s sudden appearance, that she could think only of the one question that was to her most relevant.

  “Why did you do this?” She asked it plaintively. She really had no idea, and it was important for her to know.

  Maureen said nothing, and looked at the floor.

  “Will you not tell me?” Georgiana said.

  Maureen again said nothing.

  “We need to find Lord Loughlin, and call the local constables,” Jeremy said, as he started walking Maureen down the hall. “There is no point in trying to get information from her.”

  “Wait,” said Georgiana, and ran down the hall in the other direction to take a look into the grand lab. As she suspected, Barnes was not there. The note had been a ruse to get her to the gallery.

  She returned to Jeremy, and they went off to search for Lord Loughlin. They found him in the library with his Armagnac and a few friends. He was startled to see a man he didn’t know holding one of his servants, dressed as a monk, firmly by the wrist. He looked at Georgiana inquisitively.

  “I think we have a great deal to tell you,” she said to him. “But I don’t know that you know Jeremy Staunton.” She nodded toward Jeremy, and some of the confusion on Lord Loughlin’s brow cleared.

  He extended his hand. “Mr. Staunton, I am glad to see you. We were, of course, expecting you, but I did not have the chance to make your acquaintance earlier.” He looked at Maureen. “But you must tell me what is going on here. Perhaps we can find a more private spot.” He made his excuses to his friends and bade them enjoy his Armagnac, and the four went to one of the parlors, which was completely deserted at this hour.

  The story of the assault, which horrified Lord Loughlin, was soon told.

  “And are you hurt?” he asked Georgiana with real concern.

  “I am not,” she said. “Shaken, but not hurt.”

  “I am glad of that.” He turned to Maureen. “This is a very serious matter.”

  She still said nothing, but looked down at the carpet.

  Lord Loughlin looked at his guests. Lady Georgiana, now that the incident was over, had been overtaken by a tiredness that penetrated to her bones, and her weariness showed o
n her face. Jeremy, who had risen at dawn to make the trip to Penfield, was manfully trying to stifle a yawn.

  “Nothing can happen at this hour,” Robert Loughlin told them. “I will make sure Maureen is confined, and I will send a messenger to the police first thing in the morning.” He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and added, “Which is only an hour or two from now. In the meantime, though, we must all get some sleep.”

  This was the first thing to make sense to Georgiana since she had received that note, and she was perfectly ready to excuse herself.

  She turned to Jeremy as she was leaving. “In the morning, you will have to tell me what on earth you’re doing here.”

  “In the morning, I will do just that,” he said, smiling.

  The morning came and, with it, the constable. Cowed, perhaps, by his presence, Maureen told all.

  Lord and Lady Loughlin, Lady Georgiana, and Jeremy Staunton had assembled to hear it.

  She did it because she was desperately in love with Bruce Barnes. When she learned of his affair with Lady Georgiana, she was afraid she would lose him. She thought it would be easy to scare off her rival, and her first attempts at threats were harmless enough.

  But her rival would not be scared off. And that was why she tried the tainted milk.

  “But why did you give that to Miss Niven?” Lady Loughlin asked, bewildered.

  “I didn’t,” said Maureen. “Rose did. It was supposed to go to Lady Georgiana, but the stupid girl mixed up the trays.” That explained a great deal, and Georgiana was sure Miss Niven would be relieved to hear that she hadn’t been the target, after all.

  At the moment, though, Georgiana was busy assimilating the fact that she had been someone’s rival. She had no idea whether Maureen’s obsession with Barnes had been born of an affair the two of them had been having, or whether she had formed it without any assistance from him, but her bet was on the former. She knew, firsthand, how he could exert his pull with women, and Maureen was an attractive girl.

  She sighed and stood.