by M. C. Beaton
Rainbird was dressed in sober livery. He was carrying a large ledger under each arm.
Mr. Isaacs minced in. “Where are the books, Palmer?”
“I’ll kill him,” muttered the duke.
“Shhh!” said Lady Bellisle.
“Oh, most noble Duke of Pelham, I have them here,” said Rainbird, holding out one ledger and putting the other behind his back.
“He must not find out there is one set of books for me and one for his grace,” said Rainbird in an aside to the audience.
The audience began to fidget. This was not very funny.
But then the stage duke demanded the books again, and Rainbird began to juggle them along with the inkwell, a ruler, and a sand-pot. Mr. Isaacs had spent a life improvising. He began to try to catch Rainbird while Rainbird ran hither and thither, still juggling all the objects while the audience began to stamp and cheer.
The brief sketch was quickly over. Rainbird bowed to the audience, and then turned and deliberately bowed to the side box where the duke was sitting.
Then he turned back to the audience and began to regale them with a hilarious description of the news of the day, most of it highly libellous.
The Duke of Pelham sat stunned while his versatile butler pursued Columbine, fought a duel with Pantaloon, juggled and conjured, capered and danced.
“Oh, bravo!” screamed Lady Bellisle at the end. “Bravo!” roared the audience.
“You must introduce me to that wonderful butler,” said Lady Bellisle. “What a man!”
“My lady, it is late. I shall deal with the mountebank when he gets home. I shall escort you first.”
“Don’t be so stuffy, Pelham,” said Lady Bellisle. “The man’s a genius. Confess. He even made you laugh when he was playing that hussar officer. But it was wicked of him to use your name on the stage. And have you a Palmer who keeps the books?”
“Yes. And the sooner I see him the better!”
The duke drove Lady Bellisle to her home but refused her offer of tea. “Do not be too harsh to that butler,” she chided. “He is not a bonded servant, you know. After tonight, I doubt very much if he will ever work as a servant again.”
“I am no longer worried about Rainbird,” said the duke. “He was trying to tell me that Palmer was fiddling the books. But why he must needs perform it on the stage instead of seeing me in my own parlour any time he cares is beyond me.”
After Lady Bellisle had gone in, he set out for Clarges Street, but before he got home, he changed his mind. Hedrove his carriage down to Lambeth Mews and told one of the grooms to rub down the horses and put the carriage away. Then, tucking a pistol in his pocket, he began to walk through the hot, dark night-time streets in the direction of Holborn. From far away to the west came the low menacing rumble of thunder.
Jenny had been relieved to find Mary Maddox present at the turtle dinner. She did not have much opportunity to talk to her for a long time, as the dinner lasted for five hours. But she was seated next to Mr. Toby Parry and did her best to entertain him. She encouraged him to talk about Mary Maddox and was quite pleased at the end of the dinner to find she had not thought of her own appearance except on two occasions.
She retired to the drawing room with the ladies, and, leaving her aunt to receive felicitations on her engagement, she went to sit with Mary Maddox. To her surprise, Mary was looking downcast, and answered all Jenny’s questions in monosyllables.
Jenny was about to give up and walk away and find more pleasant company when she decided that the new Jenny would surely stay put and try to find out what was ailing Mary Maddox.
“I think,” she said firmly, “that if we are to be friends, there should be frankness between us. I must, therefore, ask you, Mary, why you are so sad and why you so obviously wish me in Jericho.”
Then Jenny waited bravely for the reply. What if this newfound friend should say something awful, like “It is because you are so vain.”
Mary gave a little sigh. “It is hard not to be beautiful,” she said in a low voice. “Everyone loves you when you are beautiful. I wish I looked like you.”
“But since I came to London, everyone seems to be telling me I ought to be like you,” said Jenny. “All talk of the openness and charm of your manner.”
“Nothing compared to beauty,” said Mary sadly. “I have never before seen Mr. Parry look so relaxed or happy as he was this evening in your company.”
“You widgeon!” cried Jenny. “I know the way to that young man’s heart. I talked about you!”
“Me?”
“Yes, you, silly. I knew poor Mr. Parry was deeply interested in you, but I thought that you were not interested in him.”
Mary seized Jenny’s hands and held them in a tight clasp. “You are not funning?”
“Not I. I talked about you and asked questions about you, and any time I looked like changing the subject, he lost interest.”
When they were joined by the gentlemen, Jenny had the joy of seeing Mary’s happiness as she sat and talked to Toby Parry. It was a wonderful feeling to have been instrumental in bringing happiness into someone else’s life. During the dinner, Jenny had half made up her mind not to go to Holborn.
But now she was more determined than ever.
Chapter
Eight
A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.
—Francis Bacon
Jenny had been very pleased with her appearance before she slipped out of the house after Lady Letitia had gone to sleep. She had wrenched all the feathers and ornaments from a straw bonnet and reduced it to a modest shape. She was wearing a simple morning gown and she had wrapped an old shawl of her late mother’s around her shoulders. Looking in the glass before she left, she was reassured by her dowdy appearance. Rich clothes would have attracted too much attention.
But the Jehu on the box of the hackney carriage which she hailed in Piccadilly looked down doubtfully at the drabness of her dress and demanded his fare in advance.
“Very well,” said Jenny crossly, handing him a shilling. “But you must wait for me.”
The coachman grunted by way of reply, and Jenny climbed into the malodorous interior of the carriage. Shejerked the carriage window down, but the air that poured in was far from fresh. London smelled appallingly of bad drains and horse manure.
The rattling of the old carriage prevented her from hearing the approaching storm.
So she was surprised by a tremendous crack of thunder almost overhead when she alighted in Holborn. The horses reared and plunged. “You will wait?” she called up to the coachman.
“You ain’t paid the way back, miss,” he called down, “and I’m gettin’ out of here afore the storm breaks.”
To Jenny’s great irritation, he drove off.
Well, really, she thought crossly. Now I shall just have to find another when my business is done.
The door from the street into the building was unlocked. She twisted the knob and let herself in and mounted the worn shallow stone steps, feeling her way upwards. Why had she not brought a lantern or a candle? But such an important person as the duke’s agent would not lodge in the attics. She waited on the first-floor landing until a great flash of lightning struck a brass plate beside a mahogany door. PELHAM ESTATES leapt out at her in a sudden glare of gold before the stairwell was plunged into darkness again.
Here I am, thought Jenny, now terrified out of her wits. She began to wonder whether madness ran in the Sutherland family. What on earth was she doing, standing on a Holborn staircase in the middle of a thunderstorm? But there was no one around, and she could not possibly leave until the storm had abated. She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and tried the door handle. The door was tightly locked.
Jenny had never really worked out how she was goingto get into the agent’s office. She stood and looked at the door in a baffled sort of way. Then she remembered reading a romance where the heroine had picked the lock of her dank dungeon with a hairpin. She fished
in her reticule and brought out a bone pin and set to work.
Above her the storm increased in fury, and the very building seemed to rock beneath the onslaught. Her fiddlings and probings had no effect whatsoever. But the heroine of the book had taken half an hour over the business. Jenny bent her head and tried harder than ever. Between her intense concentration and the noise of the storm, she did not hear footsteps behind her as someone mounted the stairs.
The Duke of Pelham saw the small, dark, anonymous figure stooped over the lock. He mounted the last stairs in a bound and seized Jenny roughly and turned her about.
“Who are you? What the deuce do you think you’re doing?” he grated.
Jenny screamed and punched at the white blur of the face above her own. Another great flash of lightning lit up the stairwell.
The duke dropped his arms to his sides. “Miss Sutherland!” he cried. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“Pelham. Oh dear,” said Jenny. “Must I tell you?”
“Of course.”
“I came to aid your servants. I cannot tell you who told me, but they believe your agent is cheating you and feel sure if they found the accounts books, they could prove the matter.”
“Am I such a monster that they cannot come to me in mine own house and voice their doubts?”
“But don’t you see,” said Jenny eagerly, “it might turn out that you are the skinflint and not this Palmer.”
“I am tired of all this nonsense. Return to your carriage and maid, Miss Sutherland, and do not interfere again in my affairs.”
“But I cannot,” wailed Jenny. “I did not bring my maid, and the hackney carriage would not wait for me.”
“Then come along and I shall take you back.”
“Are you not going to open the door?”
“I intended to shoot open the lock. I cannot do that with you fainting and screaming.”
“I shall not faint and scream,” said Jenny, anger at the duke bringing all her courage back.
“All ladies faint and scream at the sound of shots. Oh, very well. Stand back. I shall wait for the next crack of thunder. I do not want the neighbours to call the watch.”
Jenny retreated a little. There was a brilliant stab of lightning, then silence. Then a preparatory rumble and a tremendous explosion as the duke shot the lock in the middle of the noise of the next thunderclap.
“The deuce,” she heard him mutter. “Stay clear, Miss Sutherland. That was only one lock. I have to shoot the other.”
Again they waited. Far above them, rain drummed down on the roof.
Then came the lightning again. Jenny put her fingers in her ears this time.
The duke’s timing was wrong and the shot rang out before the thunderclap came.
He stood for a moment listening, and then he kicked open the door.
Jenny went in after him. She heard the rasp of a tinderbox and then an oil-lamp on Palmer’s desk bloomed into yellow light.
The duke raised the lamp and looked at Jenny. Despitethe drabness of her dress, she made a romantic figure with her dark curls rioting from beneath her bonnet. Her large eyes looked black in the whiteness of her face.
“Sit down,” said the duke, “and bend your head down towards the floor. I have enough to do without having to trouble myself restoring you from a faint.”
“You are rude and pompous, as I told you before,” said Jenny, stamping her foot. “I am not going to faint.”
“Then find a chair, sit down, and keep quiet. How convenient. My agent has already been at his books.”
The duke sat down at the agent’s desk, pulled the lamp close, and began to read.
Jenny studied him. He was very handsome. Such a pity he was a churlish brute, she told herself huffily. She waited and waited, and yawned and yawned. “You might at least tell me,” she said at last, “whether your agent is an honest man or not.”
“Far from honest,” said the duke. “Those servants at Clarges Street must have been living on their wits, else they would be skin and bone now on what he paid them. But why did not Rainbird tell me? Why cavort around the public stage?”
“Rainbird the butler? What do you mean?”
“I went to the Spa Theatre at Islington tonight with Lady Bellisle. To my amazement, my butler was acting the part of harlequin. He also acted the part of Palmer and did a mime of trying to keep the books from his master. That is why I came straight here when the performance was over.”
“Are you going to marry Lady Bellisle?” asked Jenny.
“Miss Sutherland. We have broken into a London office in the middle of the night. You are unchaperoned. Andyet you find time to ask trivial questions to satisfy your idle curiosity!”
Jenny blushed and looked away. Her eye fell on a loose floorboard in the corner. She rose to her feet.
“Where are you going?” asked the duke.
“There is a loose floorboard over there,” said Jenny. “Perhaps Palmer has sacks and sacks of gold underneath it.”
“If you ladies would stop addling your heads with Mrs. Radcliffe’s romances, it might … Leave that floorboard alone. It is a loose floorboard, nothing more.”
But Jenny had slipped her fingers under the end and lifted it up.
Then she bent down and pulled out a wash leather bag and opened it.
“Here you are!” she cried triumphantly. “All your money. Perhaps if you addled your own brains a little, your grace, you might not be so stuffy and narrow-minded.”
The duke crossed over and knelt down on the floor and began to take bags of gold out, one after the other.
“Apologise!” cried Jenny.
He knelt silently looking at the gold.
“Apologise,” said Jenny again, and she gave his shoulder a shake.
He twisted round and looked up at her. Her eyes were full of mocking laughter, her shawl had slipped from her shoulders, and as she bent over him, he could see the shadowy swell of her breasts revealed by the low neckline of her gown.
He gazed at her, his eyes suddenly serious and intent. A huge burst of thunder cascaded down over their heads.
He reached up and took her by the shoulders and pulled her down until she was kneeling in front of him.
“I am very stupid,” he said. “I never notice what is under my nose.”
“You mean Palmer?” asked Jenny, her eyes wide and wondering.
“No,” he said softly. “I mean you.”
His hands slid to her waist. “Jenny,” he said softly.
“Oh, no,” said Jenny. “Not you. You, of all people.”
He frowned. “And what do you mean by that?”
“I thought you would be too formal and stuffy to take advantage of me. I know my behaviour this evening has been disgraceful, but it does not mean my morals have been in the slightest damaged.”
“Stop talking. I want to kiss you.”
“You cannot kiss me. You have not asked Aunt Letitia leave to pay your addresses to me.”
“I’ faith, I did not say I wanted to marry you, only to kiss you.”
“Then you cannot have kisses without marriage, and I don’t want to marry you.”
The fact that Lady Bellisle had not wanted to marry him had wounded his pride and irritated him, but nothing more. But Jenny’s saying she did not want to marry him caused him a stab of acute anguish. He looked at Jenny in dawning amazement—amazement that such a little chit should already have the power to inflict such pain on him.
The only way he could think to ease that pain was to kiss her.
And so he did.
And he went on kissing her, uncaring of the blows she was raining on his chest. His kisses were gentle, serious, passionate, and intent. Jenny decided wildly that if she stopped fighting him, and lay limp in his arms as if she had fainted, he would soon stop. But before he raised his mouthfrom hers, her body had already begun to respond in a dreadful way. The minute she found herself free, she should have leapt to her feet. But instead, her arms seemed to
wind themselves about his neck of their own accord, and her lips blindly sought his.
After some time, he untied the ribbons of her bonnet and pulled it from her head, and then buried his lips in her hair.
The very noise and fury of the storm, combined with their passions, kept all thought of the conventions at bay. It was only kissing. No amount of thunder and lightning would make the duke forget himself as much as that. But the kisses became more dragging, more lingering, sweeter to the point of pain.
He was stretched out beside her on the floor, her hands were buried in the crisp golden curls at the nape of his neck, his hands were moulding her face, when a harsh voice called, “What’s this ‘ere?”
The duke sprang to his feet and Jenny scrambled up after him.
The watch, accompanied by the parish constable, were standing in the doorway.
“There is no need for alarm,” said the duke haughtily. “I am Pelham.”
“And I am the Archbishop o’ Canterbury,” sneered the watch. “Firing pistols in the night and frightening the neighbours. It’s off to the round-house with you and your doxy, my fine sir!”
Before the storm broke, there had already been a feeling of friction and tension in the servants’ hall, as if an emotional storm were slowly approaching from the west, borne on the black thunder-clouds covering London.
Joseph was racked with a mixture of spite and guilt. Perhaps if they had all gone to bed at a reasonable time, matters would have remained the way they were for a little longer. But Rainbird was still absent, and they were all waiting for the butler and Dave and wondering what had become of them.
“They would probably have heard the thunder and have gone somewhere for shelter,” said Mrs. Middleton. At that moment, a great white light flashed into the servants’ hall as the lighting stabbed down overhead. Mrs. Middleton screamed. Then there was a great crack of thunder.
“Oh, Angus!” cried Mrs. Middleton. “It sounds like the end of the world!”
“There, now,” said the cook. “I’m here, my good lady. There is nothing to fright you.”