Once alone, he sank down on a chair and bit his knuckles, his eyes darting this way and that like a cornered rat.
Then all at once, he rose and began to pack feverishly. He prised up a floorboard in the dark corner of his sitting-room and pulled out a heavy wash leather bag of diamonds and thrust them into a corner of his portmanteau.
He had very little time.
Blewett’s servants would have set out after him as soon as they got their wits together.
He heard a quick, light step on the stairs as he fastened the clasp of the portmanteau. His servant had been quick. The door opened.
‘Well, don’t stand there like a fool. Take this bag,’ snapped Silas.
And then he looked up.
Guy Wentwater stood framed in the doorway, a pistol in his hand.
‘So Desire is to be married,’ said Guy Wentwater, ‘and you are going to blab all over London. You are going to ruin me, heh?’
‘No,’ screamed Silas. ‘Not I. Sit down, dear boy, and put that pistol away.’
‘Very well. I’ll hear what you have to say.’ Guy Wentwater strolled forwards.
‘I knew you would see sense,’ said Silas mopping his brow. ‘A drink. That’s what we both need.’
He crossed to the sideboard and seized a decanter of brandy.
Guy took careful aim and shot Silas Dubois through the head, quickly averting his eyes from the subsequent mess. Then he coolly put his smoking pistol away in one of his capacious pockets and made for the door.
All at once, his legs seemed to give way from under him and he collapsed in a heap on the floor. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed bitterly for the wreck of his life and ambitions. He would never become the honoured figure of society he had longed to be. He would be a fugitive, travelling the Continent, living on his wits. He had not even tried to disguise himself and several people must have seen him enter the lodgings.
Damn those Armitages to hell, the whole pack of them.
He finally dried his eyes and crawled to his feet. And then he heard the cries of ‘Murder! Murder!’ from the street outside. How could anyone know so soon?
Heavy feet sounded on the stairs and two Bow Street Runners backed by Mr Blewett’s servants appeared on the landing.
‘Mr Dubois?’ asked one. Guy waved his hand in the direction of Mr Dubois’ body and stood, waiting for his arrest.
‘Well, you’ve saved the law a hanging,’ said one of the officers, straightening up. ‘Did he attack you?’
Guy had not the faintest idea what was going on but he began to see a glimmer of hope.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I came to call on him and he cursed and flew at me, and I shot him, for I feared he was about to kill me.’
‘Don’t look so put about, master,’ said the Bow Street Runner who stood next to Guy. ‘He deserved what he got. Trying to kill an old man. Shameful. Now, if you’ll just step along o’ us to Bow Street, we’ll put all the facts before the magistrate. You’ll feel better when you get some fresh air. Come along, now.’
By the time Lord Harry arrived to call on Mr Blewett it was much later that day. Mr Blewett was in a high state of excitement over his own cleverness. The minute he had felt the pillow over his face, he said, he had decided to fake dying, relying on the fact that Dubois would obviously think him weaker than he was.
‘And I fooled him!’ crowed Mr Blewett.
‘And you sent him to the gallows or transportation by playing on his greed,’ sighed Lord Harry.
‘He’s dead. Marvellous thing. Chap called Wentwater shot him. My servants told me,’ giggled Mr Blewett.
‘What!’ Lord Harry was shaken out of his usual urbane calm.
‘Yes, seems this young friend called at his lodgings and Silas attacked him, no doubt thinking this Wentwater knew about the attempted murder. So Wentwater shot him.’
Lord Harry sat deep in thought, deaf to Mr Blewett’s voice. Minerva had told him of the duel between Dubois and her husband, fought because Dubois and his friends had tried to ruin her. Deirdre had told of the strange man who had looked so closely at her on the day she had gone out walking alone and had then met Guy Wentwater in Green Park. It seemed as if Guy Wentwater and Silas Dubois had been joining forces to attack the Armitage family. That Dubois and Wentwater knew each other came as no surprise to Lord Harry after some more thought. Dubois seemed to have known every weak and shiftless wastrel on the fringes of society.
Lord Harry suddenly decided to call at Bow Street and find an address in London where he could reach Guy Wentwater. That young man had a great deal of explaining to do.
He left Mr Blewett, who was still chortling and chattering over his escape from death, and rode back into London.
But at Bow Street he was informed that Mr Wentwater had announced his intention of leaving the country on business. There had, naturally, been no charges against him. The Runners appeared to think he had acted promptly and bravely.
Lord Harry returned to his own lodgings and told his Swiss to re-hire the watchdog to look after Miss Deirdre Armitage; then he took himself off to see the vicar.
But the vicar was in a bad mood. He said he could not understand any of it, and then glared at Lord Harry and remarked acidly he trusted he was not leaving London since his wedding was in two weeks’ time and by special licence.
‘For you’ll have to marry her now,’ said the vicar crossly, ‘after what you did to her.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Lord Harry sadly, and Deirdre who was sitting on the other side of the drawing-room looked at him with troubled eyes and wondered if he felt he had been coerced into the marriage.
‘Papa,’ she said suddenly, ‘nothing happened between myself and Lord Harry.’
‘How would you know,’ said the vicar gloomily. ‘Just be guided by your father, and we’ll have a respectable matron made of you as soon as possible.’
Deirdre looked pleadingly at Lord Harry but he only smiled blandly back at her.
‘Nonetheless, sir,’ said Lord Harry, returning to the subject of Guy Wentwater, ‘I feel none of your family is safe until we find out exactly where he is. I suggest we get all our servants, that is, mine, the Comfreys’, the Brabingtons’ and Lady Godolphin’s, to search the whole of London.’
‘He’ll not dare show his face again,’ said the vicar.
‘On the contrary, I think he will. He is by way of being a sort of hero over the shooting of Dubois.’
‘Just think about your marriage,’ growled the vicar. ‘I am disappointed in you, Desire. Now, I’ve got the cost of a wedding on my hands, not to mention Mrs Armitage and the girls arriving. Then, there’s the boys to fetch from Eton. And the whole world and his wife speculating about the speed of the marriage.’
‘It is all very sad,’ agreed Lord Harry amiably.
Deirdre studied Lord Harry covertly. All these marriage arrangements were bursting about her head. He had bitten her. Bitten! What other unknown horrors lay waiting for her on the marriage bed. She did not know this man at all.
Squire Radford was brought into the discussion, Lord Sylvester arrived, and soon everyone seemed to be speculating about the connection between Guy Wentwater and Silas Dubois.
At last Lord Harry rose to leave. Deirdre stood up as well.
‘I would like to have a few words with my fiancé, Papa,’ she said, ‘in private.’
The vicar scowled awfully. ‘I s’pose you’re both beyond needin’ a chaperone. You may go to the library, but leave the door open, mind!’
Lord Harry held the door open for Deirdre and she walked towards him, aware of the accusing eyes of her father.
‘What ails you?’ asked Lord Harry, leading her into the library and absent-mindedly closing the door.
‘The shame of it ail,’ said Deirdre breathlessly. ‘We did nothing, and yet you allowed everyone to think you had.’
‘I knew they would not believe otherwise,’ he said, looking down at her. A red curl had escaped from its moorings and he carefully tucked it back int
o place on the top of her head. ‘Don’t you want to marry me?’ he asked, noticing the way she flinched from his touch.
‘I am afraid, sir,’ said Deirdre, hanging her head.
‘Of me?’
‘You shocked me. You bit me.’
‘Ah, shameless that I am.’
‘It is not a joking matter,’ said Deirdre, raising anxious, worried eyes to his. ‘It is just that there are a lot of things I do not know about you.’
‘It is our wedding night,’ he said. ‘That is what troubles you.’
Deirdre hung her head again.
He took her gently in his arms. ‘I am a very wicked man,’ he said huskily. ‘There is something I must tell you . . .’
‘Ho!’ said the vicar, wrenching open the door and glaring at them with his hands on his hips. ‘You’ll now wait until you’re married, the pair of you. Deirdre! You are coming back with me to Hopeworth and you will return with your mother in a week’s time.’
‘My dear sir . . .’ began Lord Harry, still keeping his arms about Deirdre.
‘No, that’s final,’ said the vicar. ‘I’ll not rest in my bed o’ nights until I see you two legalized.’
He stood there glaring until Lord Harry left. Deirdre wondered miserably what wickedness Lord Harry had been about to confess to.
Deirdre was to look back on the days before her marriage as a rushed series of comings and goings between Hopeworth and London.
The fact that she did not seem particularly elated about her marriage was, this time, firmly ignored by the Armitage family. She should consider herself lucky she was to be married and not parcelled off to the Continent to live out her shameful days in the obscurity of some genteel spa.
Even Minerva and Annabelle, who should surely have been the ones to be tolerant of pre-marital experiments, privately felt that in their case, it had all been different.
The wedding was to be held in a small church in Islington. Only members of each family were to be present with the exception of a very few close friends.
The newspapers had broadcast the bravery of Guy Wentwater in shooting down Silas Dubois. But a diligent search of London by the staff of the various households had refused to unearth that young man.
The vicar was heartily weary of daughters and marriage. He washed his hands of the whole messy business, he said loudly. The rest could all die old maids for all he cared.
Daphne was secretly disappointed in Deirdre. Deirdre was the last one of them, thought Daphne, that one would ever have thought would allow herself to be rushed into marriage by any man.
She added to Deirdre’s uncertainty and distress by treating her like an invalid, talking softly in her presence, and getting cook to make nourishing broths and possets.
Numbly, Deirdre listened to the gossip about the wedding preparations. She was to wear Annabelle’s wedding gown which had been refurbished for the occasion and her younger sisters were to wear the bridesmaids’ gowns they had worn for Annabelle’s wedding.
The boys’ silk suits were sent to the tailors to be altered to fit their increased size.
A simple wedding breakfast was to be served at an inn near the church.
By the time the whole family set out for London, Deirdre felt crushed. All those tumultuous feelings Lord Harry had caused seemed a vague memory. At times, she was hard put to remember his face. She had feared him and hated him, then she had loved him, and now she was frightened of him again. But this time, no one seemed to care. Her down-cast looks were judged to be entirely suitable in a maiden who had fallen from the pinnacle of virginity before her marriage.
Lady Godolphin did not help matters by being eaten up with jealousy because Colonel Brian had finally turned his attentions elsewhere and was reported to be courting a buxom matron, widow of a City merchant, who was only forty years old.
‘Men are disgusting,’ said Lady Godolphin to Deirdre. ‘I should have warned you. When you asked me about having babies, I should not have told you, but how was I to know you would go and lose your virginal? Well, I shall attend your nipples, but if you was expecting Colonel Brian, you will be disappointed. He is flirting with a Cit. Horrible great fat thing. What can he see in her? Oh, follicles!’
And with that Lady Godolphin burst into tears and turned a deaf ear to all Deirdre’s pleas of innocence.
Betty was small comfort. The maid shook her head over Deirdre’s shame.
‘But you are not waiting until you get married,’ said Deirdre.
It’s different for such as me,’ said Betty. ‘I had to do it.’
‘Well, I did not!’ howled Deirdre, breaking the sticks of the fan she was holding in her agitation. ‘Yes, I went to his lodgings but nothing happened!’
‘Oh, come, miss, and you with that great bruise on your neck.’
It just happened. He just . . . oh, what’s the use?’ said Deirdre wretchedly. ‘Everyone is creeping about me as if I am going to a funeral, and then there is this havey-cavey wedding, tucked away in the fields of Islington. And now with everyone in the family being so shocked, it has got about London, and this was in a print shop in Bond Street.’
She reached over to a small table and held up a coloured cartoon.
Betty looked at it, her eyes wide with horror. In it, Deirdre Armitage in a state of undress was sitting on Lord Harry Desire’s knees.
Underneath there was a poem. It read:
The wedding’s on, the wedding’s off,
Says capricious Miss D.A.
But Desire by name
Desire by fame,
Must needs go have his way
Now whether she desire it,
Or whether she say nay,
Our flighty miss,
Needs wedded bliss,
For Desire has had his way.
‘Oh, miss,’ said Betty. ‘It’s a mercy he is going to marry you.’
‘I cannot understand why he should not make an effort to convince Papa that nothing happened,’ said Deirdre fretfully. ‘Oh, God. Would that I had never met him!’
‘Well, there’s nothing you can do about it now,’ said Betty, picking up the hairbrush. ‘Them gossips will have forgot the whole thing in another few weeks.’
But Deirdre worried and worried. Her father seemed to think that if she saw her fiancé at the wedding rehearsal, then it would be soon enough.
She could not talk openly about it, for the scandal had to be kept from the twins and from Frederica and Diana. Also, it was as if she were to be punished by the parsimony of the wedding arrangements, and she was kept busy, endlessly making and stitching petticoats and handkerchiefs.
The wedding rehearsal was a solemn affair, more like a funeral.
The church was small and dark and smelly. The vicar who was to perform the service was an old University friend of Mr Armitage.
He was one of those muscular Christians who pride themselves on the ease with which they can talk freely on all sorts of delicate subjects, and he teased the young couple jovially about their haste to be married, and was only silenced when Lord Harry Desire roused himself from his reverie and threatened to call the parson out.
‘Thank goodness that part’s over,’ sighed the vicar, after Deirdre had been firmly marched away from Lord Harry and into the family carriage. ‘Now we’ve only got tomorrow to worry about.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Mrs Armitage. ‘It is all very unfortunate. We had two grand weddings already, Mr Armitage, and that is something to be grateful for. Town depresses me these days and I have a monstrous severe pain in my hip. I confess I shall be glad to return to Hopeworth when this is all over.’
‘Why are you getting married in such a poky church?’ asked Diana, after a whispered consultation with Frederica.
‘Shh!’ reproved Mrs Armitage. ‘There are things it is better you should not know.’
Suddenly a fit of rebellion assailed Deirdre. She was not going to be meekly marched to the altar on the morrow and handed over to Lord Harry Desire. She must know what he
had been about to confess. What if it were something terrible? There was still a chance to escape. The only way to escape was to ask him.
And, if it were something too terrible, then she would escape this time by facing up to her family.
There was no Guy Wentwater to elope with. What a fool she had been over him. At least she wasn’t going to be married to him. Deirdre briefly wondered where he was.
At that moment, Guy Wentwater was sitting in a hostelry in Bristol waiting for the tide. He signed his name to the foot of the letter he had just written, and then read it over to make sure there were no mistakes in grammar or spelling.
He read: ‘My dear Miss Emily, By the time this reaches you, I shall be on the High Seas, bound for the West Indies. I have a certain deal of Business there. As you will have perused in the journals, I am accounted as something of a Hero, by virtue of having struck down one Silas Dubois. They praise me more than I deserve since I was merely protecting my person from a vicious, savage, and armed murderer. He was great and powerful and quite brutal in his madness and I am relieved to have defended myself so ably.
‘Give my warmest regards to Yr. Family. I hope to return to further our acquaintance. Meanwhile, I remain, Yr. Humble and Devoted Servant, G.W.’
Guy looked at what he had written and frowned. Should he, perhaps, have said something about hoping she would wait for him? Then he laughed. With such a face, Miss Emily would still be unwed by the time he returned.
TWELVE
Deirdre found herself more worried and agitated than ever as evening arrived. At last she summoned Betty.
‘Betty,’ said Deirdre, ‘I wish you to do something for me. Pray put on your bonnet and cloak and take one of the footmen with you and call on Lord Harry and tell him I must speak to him.’
‘Mr Armitage won’t like it,’ said Betty. ‘Nor will Lady Sylvester.’
‘Papa is at some coffee house with Squire Radford, Mama, the girls, and the twins have gone to make a brief call on Lady Godolphin, and Minerva and Sylvester are gone to the play. Please, Betty. You will be ruining my life if you do not.’
Betty hesitated. In truth, she was sorry for Miss Deirdre. The wedding was to be a poky little affair.
Deirdre and Desire Page 20