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

by M C Beaton

  His voice droned on.

  The comte heard the commotion before the governor did, and his heart sank.

  He held up a hand for silence, and the governor threw him an offended look which, as he, too, heard the growing noise outside, changed to one of alarm.

  His servant burst into the room, his eyes starting from his head.

  “She’s gone!” he shouted. “The Frenchie’s gone. Her guards were lying outside her cell, drugged!”

  Guards crowded in behind the servant.

  The governor drew himself to his feet and pointed at the comte. “Arrest this man,” he commanded. “I know now why you came here, my lord. It was to keep me occupied while your collaborators released the traitor!”

  “My dear governor,” said the comte, striving for calm. “Only think! Had I not called, you would have been asleep. On what grounds do you accuse me?”

  The governor said contemptuously, “You’re French, ain’t you?” And as far as everyone but the comte was concerned, that seemed to clinch the matter.

  Chapter Eight

  Matilida, Duchess of Hadshire, had defied her husband by calling on Emma the day following Emma’s escape, only to be told by a solemn Tamworthy that my lady had retired to a place of safety in the country and had left strict instructions not to tell anyone at all where she had gone.

  And so Matilda returned home, wondering about Emma’s welfare but glad to be informed when she entered the house that the duke had left for the day with some sporting friends.

  She had just removed her bonnet and gloves when a footman came to tell her that Mrs. Carruthers had called and was waiting in the saloon.

  Matilda went quickly downstairs to find a pale and distraught Annabelle.

  “What is it, my dear?” asked Matilda anxiously. “You look dreadful.”

  “I think my husband is a traitor to his country, and I don’t know what to do,” said Annabelle, and burst into tears.

  “Shhh, now,” said Matilda, sitting down beside her on the sofa. “Compose yourself and tell me about it. There must be something I can do.”

  Annabelle continued to cry. Matilda handed her a dry handkerchief and waited patiently.

  At last, in a halting voice, Annabelle told her of the abduction of Emma and how her husband had suddenly come into a very large amount of money.

  “But was he questioned?” exclaimed Matilda. “What did he say?”

  “He said nothing of the money. He merely said he had unfortunately told Fletcher the night before that he had invited Emma to stay with us. Everyone believed him, for he is accounted no end of a good fellow. But I… I do not.”

  “I know he is feckless,” said Matilda. “But treason!”

  “But why does he look so guilty when I question him?”

  “Where does he say he got the money from?”

  “He said he had a lucky win at cards, but I cannot believe it. I once heard that when he wins a great deal at cards, he simply stays at the table until he has gambled it all away again.”

  Matilda drew a deep breath. “Let me have the whole story over again, and slowly this time.”

  Annabelle dutifully repeated as much as she knew, how she had been awake early preparing for Emma’s arrival and by ten o’clock had wanted to send the page to find out what had happened to Emma, but her husband had said he had already done so and Emma was not at home.

  “If he is guilty of having aided Lord Fletcher,” said Matilda, “perhaps he merely thought he was helping in a romantic plot. Fletcher would not risk telling Carruthers the real reason for the abduction.”

  “Perhaps you have the right of it,” said Annabelle, cheering visibly. “My husband is weak and… and… often thoughtless, but I am sure he would do nothing to betray his country.”

  Matilda continued to enlarge on the theme of Annabelle’s husband’s innocence, and at last Annabelle left feeling and looking considerably better. When she had gone, Matilda walked to the mirror and stared at her reflection in the glass. “You didn’t believe a word of what you said,” she told her reflection severely. “But what would happen to my poor Annabelle should she denounce her husband as a traitor? No one would believe her innocence. Perhaps she would be tried along with him if proof could be found. And how would she live? She has no money of her own and he has none to leave her and my husband would certainly not let me help her. I shall keep a sharp eye on Carruthers in the future, and if I can find a way of ruining him without ruining Annabelle at the same time, I will do it!”

  After the rest of the night and a whole day in prison, the comte was finally released, thanks to the intervention of his friends, led by Jolly.

  “The hour is late,” said the comte to Jolly, “but I must see Lady Wright.”

  “Can’t see her tonight!” said Jolly cheerfully. “She’s in the country.”

  “Where? At her home? That is the first place they will look if they want revenge.”

  “No, I sent her to m’mother. Great sport, m’mother. Lady Wright will have no end of a time.”

  The comte felt sad and irritable. He had made up his mind to marry Emma. He felt sure had he struck while the iron was hot—that is, right after his rescue of her, then she would have accepted him. But he feared that Emma, with all her bad experience of marriage, would now not welcome his proposal. Jolly’s mother lived in Surrey, a day’s drive from London. But the comte was to be questioned at length by several gentlemen at the War Office and had been told to remain in London. They were eager to learn all he could tell them about the traitors. He groaned inwardly. It might be several days before he could see Emma again, several days in which that lady had time to forget his existence. He had not met Jolly’s mother and did not like to hear her described as a “great sport.” That conjured up visions of endless entertaining with Emma being courted by every available man in the county.

  Mrs. Simpson, Jolly’s mother, adjusted her muslin cap and said sharply, “Continue reading, Lady Wright.”

  Emma stifled a sigh and picked up the book that she had let drop to her lap. “‘Count Florimund seized Angela’s fainting body in his strong arms and rained kisses down on her pallid face.’” While Emma continued to read, only half taking in the words of the novel, she turned over in her mind ways to escape—politely—from Mrs. Simpson.

  She had expected Jolly’s mother to be someone like her son, bluff and hearty and easygoing. But Mrs. Simpson had turned out to be a querulous lady, very small and slight, with a withered face covered with strong gray hairs, making her look like some bad-tempered animal aroused from winter hibernation. Her hands were small and fat and red and encased in string mittens like small joints of meat prepared by the butcher for the oven. Her small feet were fat also and jammed into shoes much too small for them. Her body, in contrast, was thin and smelled strongly of camphor, violet scent, and various other nasty odors caused by a reluctance to wash. Her gowns were of the finest, but covered with food stains and snuff stains and wine stains.

  She lived in a large house on the top of a knoll, surrounded by lawns on which dejected-looking sheep tore at the short grass. The weather was bad, and sheets of rain lashed the long windows of the drawing room. Rain gurgled in the gutters and rain dripped down the chimney onto the empty hearth. The house was cold and damp.

  Mrs. Simpson appeared to regard Emma as an unpaid companion and was constantly ordering her to read or to fetch silks from the work basket or go for walks across the dismal lawns, holding an umbrella with great iron shafts.

  Contrary to the comte’s expectations, Emma, cold and miserable and bored, thought of him constantly. The passionate scenes in the novels which Mrs. Simpson loved only made Emma’s body ache with longing. But she was not afraid. From a day-old newspaper she had learned of Madame Beauregard’s escape, but felt that even such a formidable enemy would never trace her to this dismal house, where nobody called except the vicar on Sunday evening after evensong.

  Mrs. Simpson evinced no curiosity about the traitors or t
heir murderous activities. The carrier delivered to her door large supplies of all the latest novels. Mrs. Simpson preferred illustrated novels, and when Emma came to a picture she would creep to her feet and lean over Emma’s shoulder, studying the illustration, her mouth a little open, and breathing heavily through her nose.

  Like most English people, Mrs. Simpson detested the French and credited that nationality with all sorts of horrible practices. She told Emma quite solemnly that it was well known that Napoleon ate newly born babies, well-roasted, for his breakfast.

  Her servants were old and frail, and Emma could only be glad of her conviction that the Beauregards would never find her because there would certainly be no one to defend her. Giles, the footman, was old and toothless. While Emma was reading, he entered with an armful of logs and slowly subsided on the carpet and lay there panting. Emma made a move to help him, but Mrs. Simpson snapped, “Pay no attention. Giles is like a spoilt child. He will rouse himself eventually.” Emma continued to read nervously while the footman wheezed creakily to his feet and carried the spilled logs one by one to the log basket by the fire, although why he should even bother to go to the effort of filling the basket when no fires were ever lit seemed a waste of time to Emma.

  Then there was the butler, Jensen, a tortoise of a man, never quite drunk and never quite sober. He was very old, and wore a wig of spun glass to conceal his baldness and false wooden teeth, of which he was inordinately proud. The housekeeper, Mrs. Grant, was also old, and had the knack of apparently being able to fall asleep standing up, like a horse. There were two chambermaids, a parlor maid, three housemaids, and a cook. Emma was sure there was not one of them under the age of fifty. They did not talk. She doubted whether they even conversed when they were in the servants’ hall. At night, when Mrs. Simpson retired to bed at nine o’clock, the house settled down into black silence, except for the noise of the clocks. There were a great many clocks—grandfather clocks, ornamental clocks, clocks housed in black marble temples, clocks supported by frivolous shepherds and shepherdesses—all set at different times and all ticking and tocking and chiming out the hours.

  Mrs. Simpson did not read the newspapers, but the butler did, and one morning Emma waylaid him and asked him if she might have a look at a paper.

  As usual, Jensen did not reply, but he shuffled off and returned an hour later carrying a copy of the Morning Post. Emma read it quickly, eager to get through as much of it as possible before Mrs. Simpson came downstairs and the day’s reading of novels began.

  There was still a long story about the hunt for the traitors. They were believed to have escaped to France. Emma turned to the social column, and the comte’s name seemed to leap up at her out of the page. “At Lady Harvey’s ball,” she read, “the Comte Saint-Juste delighted the company with a clever display of card tricks.”

  A leaden feeling stole over her. She forgot the comte’s bravery; she remembered only how frivolous he was. Here she was, immured in this dreadful house, while he made a fool of himself at the Harveys’ ball.

  Her lips set in a firm line. Enough was enough! She looked out the window. The sun was actually shining, turning the raindrops clinging to the ivy at the window into diamonds.

  She ran lightly upstairs and changed into a walking dress and a serviceable pair of half boots. She knew there was a town some two miles away beyond the lodge gates of the Simpson estate. She would walk there and order a post-chaise to take her back to London on the morrow. She bitterly regretted having allowed Jolly to talk her into leaving her carriage behind, not to mention the faithful Austin. Jolly distrusted all Emma’s servants because of the treachery of the housemaid.

  Emma’s spirits began to lift as she walked down the long drive between the sodden lawns. The sky above was pale blue, and a gentle breeze ruffled the pools of rainwater on the grass.

  Feeling much better than she had done in a long time, she walked out of the estate and along a country road where high hedges bordered either side, turning the road into a long green tunnel.

  She had been at Jolly’s mother’s for only a little over a week, but the sight of the market town of Tadminster was a delight. To see relatively young people moving about the streets was a joy. The air was full of the chatter of voices. She asked directions to the livery stables, made her way there, and ordered the post-chaise and paid in advance. She was turning around, ready to return, when she felt she could not bear to leave all this light and color and noise behind to become immured once more in that gloomy, cold drawing room with Mrs. Simpson. Emma realized she was hungry. There was a prosperous-looking posting house in the town. She opened the door, went into the coffee room, and ordered a pot of coffee and hot rolls and jam, and feeling pleasurably guilty, like a child playing truant from school, she demolished the lot.

  Madame Beauregard was sitting in a closed carriage at a corner of the town square with Lord Fletcher. Their appearances were greatly altered. Madame Beauregard had dyed her hair black and Lord Fletcher wore plain clothes and had stuck a fine false pair of military side whiskers on his face.

  “Let’s hope Beauregard finds word of her,” said Fletcher peevishly. “This is madness with the whole of England looking for us. Why did we not just escape to the coast when we had the chance?”

  “They must be shown that we, Napoleon’s still-loyal followers, are a force to be reckoned with,” said Madame Beauregard. “I will never forgive Saint-Juste. And what better way to punish him than to destroy his lady love.”

  The carriage door opened and Beauregard slipped inside. “She is sitting in the coffee room of that inn,” he said. “I went there to see if I could find out if anyone knew anything about the Simpson house and who was staying there. Before I went into the inn, I looked in at the coffee room window and there she was!”

  Madame Beauregard’s eyes shone. “Good!” She drew up the carriage blind and looked out. “We will watch and see when she leaves. There might be some way we can waylay her on the way back.”

  She waited impatiently and then at last saw Emma’s slim figure leaving the inn.

  Emma was just crossing the square, very near the carriage that held the Beauregards and Lord Fletcher, when she heard a female voice calling, “Lady Wright?”

  She turned round. An open carriage carrying three young ladies was standing in the square, and the one who had called to her was getting down. She was a bouncing girl with red ringlets and a saucy hat. She came up to Emma. “It is Lady Wright, is it not?” she asked eagerly.

  Emma smiled in assent and curtsied. “I am Miss Johnson,” said the girl, holding out her hand, “and these giggling reprobates in the carriage are my sisters. The vicar told us of your arrival, and we have been dying to hear all about your adventures, but it is well known that Mrs. Simpson don’t receive anyone. Are you walking back? May we take you up?”

  “Thank you, Miss Johnson,” said Emma. “I would enjoy your company. It seems a long time since I have talked to anyone under the age of fifty. How did you recognize me?”

  “Oh,” giggled Miss Johnson. “Our good vicar’s description was most detailed.”

  Emma climbed into the carriage with the girls and answered their eager questions as best she could on the road home.

  “You had better drop me at the lodge,” said Emma finally. “I shall be in trouble enough with Mrs. Simpson when she finds I am leaving.”

  Emma climbed down and then reached up to shake hands in farewell with the Johnson girls. She then turned her head as if aware of being watched. There was a closed carriage waiting at the bend of the road. The driver on the box had a muffler around the lower half of his face and a hat pulled down over his eyes. Emma felt a sudden shiver of dread and then mentally shook herself. The carriage was waiting for the Johnson girls to move on because the road was too narrow to allow any carriage to pass them.

  She walked past the lodge gates and up the long drive, turning after a little while and looking back. But the high hedge in the road screened any carriage from
view.

  Mrs. Simpson did not receive the news of Emma’s going at all well and spoke for almost the first time of the real reason for Emma’s visit. “You are very silly, Lady Wright,” grumbled Mrs. Simpson. “I had a letter from my son to say that he and that Frenchman will be calling any day now.”

  “Why did you not tell me?” cried Emma. “Did they say exactly when they would arrive?”

  “No, and you will take my advice and have nothing to do with a Frenchman. Your late husband was a good, solid Englishman.”

  “My late husband, madam, was a traitor.”

  “Oh, so he was and more fool him. Never mind. You are young and flighty and will change your mind on the morrow.”

  But Emma was determined to go. If the comte came and missed her, then it was his own fault. He might at least have written to her.

  That afternoon she wearily read to Mrs. Simpson and, as if to match her mood, the day grew dark outside and the rain began to fall.

  Before supper that evening, Emma, with the creaking help of an elderly chambermaid, packed her trunks. Mrs. Simpson considered the employment of lady’s maids frivolous.

  Now that she was ready to leave in the morning, Emma began to feel almost affectionate toward her odd hostess and volunteered to read to her after supper for a little.

  Mrs. Simpson had a new novel called Lord Randolph’s Revenge, or, How Purity and Simplicity Can Melt a Heart of Stone. It was well illustrated with lurid steel engravings.

  Emma was well launched on the first chapter when there came a furious knocking at the door. She sprang to her feet, pink color staining her pale cheeks. He had come! All her doubts and worries about the comte fled. She took a half step to the door, but Mrs. Simpson snapped, “Sit down, girl. I don’t have callers.”

  “But your son…?”

  “My son arrives tomorrow with that Frenchie.”