The Scandalous Lady Wright (The Regency Intrigue Series Book 4)

by M C Beaton

  His little eyes rested on Emma, and she was startled to see concern and affection in them.

  The magistrate swung round to face Emma. “That fan of yours, my lady. We must find out how it got there. Did you go into the study at any time?”

  “I could not,” said Emma, beginning to feel as if she were living in a nightmare. “How could I? I was locked in my room.”

  Sir Henry signaled to the Bow Street runner. “Show her the fan.”

  Emma looked at it in bewilderment. It was the one she had carried to the ball the night before. It was a large one of blue and gold silk with ivory sticks. “I attended the ball at the French ambassador’s last night,” she said. “I was carrying that fan. I cannot remember if I brought it home or left it in the ballroom.”

  “Think!”

  Emma half closed her eyes. The ballroom. Dancing in the arms of the Comte Saint-Juste, swaying to the music, the blurred faces of the watchers, the feeling of elation and happiness all floated through her dazed mind. “I cannot remember,” she said. “I cannot!” She buried her face in her hands.

  And then she heard the magistrate say to Tamworthy, “You say Sir Benjamin treated Lady Wright badly. Did you at any time hear Lady Wright utter any threats against Sir Benjamin’s life?”

  Emma went rigid. Her own voice seemed to sound in her ears. You monster! I could kill you!

  “No, sir,” she heard Tamworthy say. “My lady was all that a good and obedient wife should be.”

  The magistrate stared at him for a long moment. Then he said, “Get the other servants in here.”

  Emma kept her hands over her face. She heard the shuffle of feet as the staff filed into the room, and then there was a long silence.

  “Now, hear me,” began Sir Henry after what had seemed like a lifetime to Emma, “your good master has been foully murdered. You must answer this question honestly. I ask you all… at any time did any one of you hear Lady Wright threaten her husband in any way?”

  Emma took her hands slowly down from her face. They were all looking at her, all those servants she had assumed to be so devoted to Sir Benjamin. They were looking at her, all of them, with a steady kindness and sympathy. The housekeeper, Mrs. Chumley, elected herself spokeswoman. “I think I speak for all of us, sir,” she said, “when I say that my lady has been all that is kind and dutiful and patient.”

  The magistrate dismissed them angrily. Only Austin insisted on staying, standing at attention behind her mistress’s chair.

  “It is all most odd,” he said grimly. “You may retire, my lady. We shall summon you if we need you.”

  Emma rose to leave, but her legs were weak and she clung to the arm of the chair for support. Austin put a strong arm about her mistress’s waist and supported her from the room.

  The servants were standing in the hall. They drew aside to let Emma and Austin past. As she mounted the stairs, she heard Tamworthy telling them to return to their duties.

  All day long Emma sat in her bedchamber, numb with shock and guilt. She felt she had willed her husband’s murder. For so long she had dreamed of being free of him, and now she was, but in such a macabre and sinister way.

  And then toward evening she heard a high, commanding voice from outside. “I demand to see Lady Wright and I will not be stopped. She is in need of friends.”

  Emma let out a stifled little cry of relief. She recognized that voice—Matilda, Duchess of Hadshire. She opened her bedroom door and called to the servants, “Let Her Grace attend me.”

  Matilda, followed by Annabelle, Mrs. Carruthers, entered the room.

  The duchess was a small, dainty woman with hair so fair it was almost white. She looked like a Dresden figurine. Annabelle was tall and willowy with thick brown curls, large gray eyes, and a generous mouth.

  To their questions, Emma falteringly outlined what had happened.

  “So someone shot the old devil and tried to have you hanged for the murder,” said Matilda, whose forthright manner belied the fragility of her appearance. “If it were not for the fact that the murderer tried to put the blame on you, I would wish him well.”

  “Matilda!”

  “There is no denying it, Emma. Your husband was a brute, and you are better off without him. What happens now?”

  “I think there will be an inquest and then I must make arrangements to take… to take the body back to Upper Tipton for burial.”

  “And then you had better return to London, dearest Emma,” said Annabelle.

  “To the Season! T’would not be fitting.”

  “But we are here and you will have need of friends.”

  “I have my family to support me,” said Emma quietly. “And the servants have been so kind. They are so loyal. I never imagined they would stand by me the way they have.”

  Matilda and Annabelle exchanged glances. The news of Sir Benjamin’s murder had spread through fashionable London like wildfire. The gossips had gleefully described how Lady Wright had danced like an angel in the arms of the Comte Saint-Juste and how her furious husband had marched her from the ball. Everyone seemed so very sure that Emma had shot him. But Emma looked so pale and miserable that neither had the heart to tell her of the wicked gossip.

  After they had left Emma’s house, Matilda and Annabelle discussed possible plans to travel with Emma to the country. “For I have a feeling that she will need our support there as much as here,” said Matilda.

  The duchess’s glittering town carriage bore her home to her husband’s palatial mansion in Grosvenor Square. She walked into the rich silence of the house and handed her gloves and walking cane to the butler and asked if her husband was at home. Hearing he was in the Yellow Saloon, she made her way up the curving flight of stairs to the first floor. She stood for a moment with her hand on the doorknob and then, squaring her shoulders, she opened the door and walked in.

  Her husband, the tenth Duke of Hadshire, was standing in front of the looking glass that hung over the fireplace, adjusting his cravat.

  “Good day, Hadshire,” said Matilda.

  He held up one long, thin, almost transparent hand for silence, and Matilda waited with impatience as he studied his cravat and finally tweaked a pleat into place.

  The duke was a collector of objets d’art, and he had added Matilda to his collection. Her fragile daintiness had roused his collector’s zeal when he had first seen her at a country assembly. Her parents were of the gentry, not very rich, but comfortably off. Like Emma’s parents, they, too, had a large family and were delighted at the prospect of such a glittering marriage for their eldest daughter. And so the duke was given Matilda’s hand in marriage, and he felt the same thrill at taking her away from the church as he did when he bought a beautiful piece of china at an auction.

  He was a tall, thin man, not ill-favored, with large black eyes, a thin, straight nose, and a small, pretty mouth. The shoulders and chest of his coats were padded with buckram, and he wore false calves under his stockings. He was fastidious to a fault. He had quickly found a fatal flaw in Matilda. Despite her prettiness, she had a tough, almost masculine mind and a distressingly direct manner. It was as if his rare piece of china had proved to have a crack in it. He could not regulate her to the basement, and so, as he put it to himself, he made “the best of a bad job.” So long as Matilda was dressed exquisitely in the latest fashions and did not try to converse with him on any subject that might be regarded as serious, he was able to tolerate her. They had been married for three years and had slept together as man and wife on only two occasions.

  He swung round. “You may speak,” he said.

  “My friend, Lady Wright, is in distress,” said Matilda in that irritatingly strong and commanding voice of hers. “Sir Benjamin has been murdered, shot through the heart in his locked study. It is a mystery how the murderer got in. Emma’s fan was found on the floor near the body, and Sir Benjamin was shot with his own pistol which he kept loaded in the desk. Fortunately, Sir Benjamin had commanded the servants to lock her
in her bedchamber last night or she would most certainly have been charged with his murder. I would like to travel to the country with her and be of support to her during the funeral.”

  The duke took out a snuffbox and with maddening deliberation helped himself to a delicate pinch. Then he said, “No, you may not go. I have heard all about the murder from Rougemont.” Rougemont was the duke’s valet and henchman. “A most noisy and distasteful affair. You will have nothing more to do with Lady Wright. That is final.”

  “Look, here…” began Matilda wrathfully. The duke held up his hand for silence.

  “That is all,” he said coldly. “You may leave.”

  Matilda glared at him in frustration. At that moment she envied Emma the devotion of her servants. The duke’s servants were all hand picked by the duke. She had not even been allowed to choose her own maid. And Rougemont, with his brutal looks and veiled insolence, frightened her. The duke had threatened before that if she disobeyed him, then he would send Rougemont to “guard” her until she came to her senses.

  “I wish someone would shoot you,” Matilda thought, as she turned and ran from the room.

  In a less fashionable quarter of the town, Annabelle, Mrs. Carruthers, was faring no better. The handsome ruin that was her husband shouted that they were not going to give up one social engagement of the Season simply because she wanted to dance attendance on a murderess.

  A week later Emma stood in the churchyard in a thin drizzle as her husband’s coffin was lowered into the grave. She had never felt more alone in her life. Sir Benjamin’s relatives were there in force, his brother and sister and their children, and various cousins. The coroner in London had returned a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown and the interest in Emma had died down to a certain extent, but here, in the country, where Sir Benjamin had been so much admired, she felt she had been tried and found guilty. What her parents and brothers and sisters thought of the murder she did not know, except she did realize that she was a great embarrassment to them. Her younger sister, Jane, had just become engaged to Mr. Worthing, a local gentleman, and they feared “Emma’s disgrace” might make Mr. Worthing cry off.

  But there was no outright hostility until after the reading of the will. It was a simple will. Sir Benjamin had left everything to his wife. But the size of his fortune drew gasps from everyone. As the outraged and disappointed relatives rose after the reading of the will to take their leave, Sir Benjamin’s sister, Mrs. Trowbridge, rounded on Emma. “Murderess!” she cried, and was led weeping from the room.

  To Emma’s distress, her own mother and father said hurriedly that they must also take their leave. Emma had hoped they would stay with her for a little.

  “It is better we go,” said her father, looking anywhere and everywhere except at his daughter. “This is a bad business, Emma. Your husband was the finest man that ever breathed. A sad loss.”

  “My husband,” said Emma in a thin voice, “was a tyrant and a monster.”

  “Hush, dear,” said her mother, appalled. “You must not talk so until the cloud over you has lifted. I would return to town if I were you, my love. Your presence here is making life awkward for poor little Jane.”

  Emma looked at her mother’s frightened, worried face and tried to remember just one occasion where her mother had hugged her or shown her any affection, and could not.

  “I am now a rich woman,” she said bitterly. “You can have anything you want.”

  “Well, now, Emma,” said her father, dropping his voice to a whisper in case any of Sir Benjamin’s relatives might have returned and been listening at the door, “it would not be fitting. We are comfortable enough as it is. Leave things for a little, my dear. How Londonized you look! The country must seem tedious to you now.”

  “Father, I am in need of love and support,” begged Emma. “You know I did not kill my husband.”

  “Yes, dear,” said her mother. “But people do talk so, and poor little Jane. What if Mr. Worthing should cry off!”

  Emma sighed. “Very well, you may go.” She sat down wearily and rested her head on her hand.

  Then she felt a touch on her shoulder and looked up. Her mother’s eyes were swimming with tears. “Have courage, darling,” she said. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Forgive us. We are not very brave.…”

  Emma sat very still until she heard the door close, and then she began to cry. Matilda and Annabelle had sent sorrowful letters to Emma to say their husbands had forbidden them to have anything to do with her. Emma cried because she felt alone in the world, because she felt guilty for having hated her husband so much, and because the stigma of murderess was clinging to her.

  Her parents appeared to have had a change of heart, for on the following day they sent their carriage with a request that she should live with them until she felt stronger.

  Thanking God for this unexpected support, Emma packed up and moved into her parents’ home. But her family was shy and awkward with her and obviously wished she had not come. For Emma was cut by everyone in the village. When she went out driving with her parents, some louts shouted, “Murderess,” and threw stones at the carriage and Emma’s mother had strong hysterics.

  And then Jane’s Mr. Worthing broke off the engagement, leaving no one in any doubt that it was because of Emma. “Under the circumstances,” he wrote, “you can hardly expect me to ally my name with that of yours.”

  It was the last straw. Past crying, Emma grimly sent for the lawyers and settled a handsome dowry on Jane and on her other remaining unmarried sister and asked for a large sum of money to be paid to her parents.

  Then she told her servants she would be returning to town, and as she left the village of Upper Tipton, she felt it would be many years before she could bear to return.

  Shrouded in black, she entered her town house and saw to the unpacking of the trunks. The study door had been repaired, and the door was closed. Emma did not think she could bear even to look inside that room.

  “Perhaps we should travel, my lady,” said Austin brightly as she shook out dresses and hung them away.

  “Travel, Austin? I am weary enough from traveling as it is.”

  “Might be cheery, seeing all them foreign parts,” said Austin. “You know, my lady, we’d be away from anyone what knows us.”

  “I know what you mean, Austin,” said Emma. Then she stood still and said, “Who murdered Sir Benjamin, Austin? In all the shock and misery, I have overlooked that main question. No, not overlooked it exactly. How could I? But now, being back here, it has struck me with a great force. Someone shot him, Austin. Someone who tried to have me blamed for his murder.”

  “It’s them Irish,” sniffed Austin. “Them with their shootings and bombs. Cunning devils. They probably came down the chimney.”

  “I don’t think it was anybody Irish,” said Emma. “Indeed, I had heard Sir Benjamin speak most strongly on the tyranny of the English in Ireland. When the Duke of Wellington said that there could never be peace in Ireland unless Protestant and Catholic children were educated at the same schools, he supported him. Sir Benjamin had no enemies.”

  “None that you know of, my lady,” said Austin. “People are cruel, my lady. Believe me, after a week in London you’ll be glad to take your old Austin’s advice and travel.”

  And Emma very nearly did. She had vaguely hoped to be able to meet either Annabelle or Matilda at some function, but she was invited nowhere, and when she went driving in the Park, she was shunned.

  She bought some books on Italy and began to dream of sunny skies and the friendly faces of people who had never heard of the murder of Sir Benjamin Wright.

  And then one afternoon at the end of the following week when she was sitting in the drawing room, fighting with a black depression which was making her feel perpetually exhausted, Tamworthy brought up a card on a silver salver.

  “A gentleman to see you, my lady,” he said.

  Emma read the card. The Comte Saint-Juste was inscribed on it in c
urly script. It had one corner turned down to show that he had called in person. Emma remembered that waltz with shame. How could she have lost her senses in such a way? How could she have performed that solo dance with him and started tongues wagging?

  “Tell the comte I am not at home,” she said wearily.

  Tamworthy bowed. She heard his footsteps going down the stairs, the sound of a conversation, then rapid steps on the stairs, and the comte strolled into the drawing room followed by a much-flustered Tamworthy. “Milord would not take no for an answer,” said Tamworthy.

  The comte smiled and bowed low. “I will take only a few moments of your time, Lady Wright.”

  He had swept off his hat, and the sun shining in the window glinted on his golden hair. He seemed to bring life and color into the room.

  “Very well, Tamworthy,” said Emma. “You may leave us. Pray be seated, Monsieur le Comte.”

  He sat down gracefully and said, “I have only just returned to town. Sad news.”

  “Yes, shocking,” said Emma wearily.

  “Who murdered your husband, my lady?”

  “Have you not heard the gossip?” demanded Emma bitterly. “I am supposed to have flown through a locked door on my broomstick and shot him through the heart.”

  “That is because you are so very beautiful, vous voyez. Had you been Friday-faced, no one would have credited you with sinister motives. But me, I am intrigued. Your husband was a Tory. He spoke passionately on all sorts of causes which did not mean very much to anyone. At one time he wished Britain to take back the colonies of America by force, but that did not rouse any ire in anyone. There is too much sympathy for the Americans on both sides of the House. He wished fox hunting to be taxed. Ah, that did cause near apoplexy in some members but was soon forgotten. In other words, Sir Benjamin was a typical Member of Parliament—choleric and quite mad.”

  “My husband appears to have commanded a great deal of respect, and yet you call him mad!” exclaimed Emma.

  “Now, the gossips also say that you were locked in your room the night of the murder because your husband wished to have the pleasure of whipping you in front of his servants in the morning. Of course, the malicious say that the servants were in your pay, or, rather, were promised a bonus when Sir Benjamin’s fortune passed to you.…”