by Joan Smith
She took her revenge by not appearing to take leave of the duchess and Miss Gower. She left word with Snippe to tend to their wants, whatever they may be, but Her Ladyship was lying down and did not wish to be disturbed. She had her view of the departing carriage with very little disturbance, as her window looked on the drive down to the main road. There was a bad moment when it seemed the carriage was bogged down, but Bertie implored the Almighty, and her prayer was answered. The grooms got out and pulled the carriage over the rough spot.
Bertie’s attention span was not long. Within ten minutes there were other occurrences to distract her from the broken engagement and the duchess’s huffy departure. There was Uncle Cottrell and a few of the other guests deciding to leave too, in case the storm blew up again. There were cooks and housekeepers and other servants to consult with, for the remaining guests still had to be fed and entertained, even if the duchess had gone pelting off in a great pucker.
Pronto Pilgrim had taken the decision he would be jogging along to London, if the party was over. Neither guest nor hostess found anything ridiculous in his telling her he had had a wonderful time, the best party he’d been to in years, by Jove. Chamfreys was stomping around in an ugly mood, and Lady Lenore was pestering her for a timetable for the mail coaches east to Dover. Through all her turmoil she was visited, from time to time, by the sad-eyed image of Deirdre Gower, who sat twisting her fingers silently in the background while old Charney ripped up at her. And just at the end, Deirdre had accompanied her to the door and said ever so softly, “I’m sorry, Bertie.” That was thoughtful of her. Perhaps that was the quality Dick had seen in her. He had said she was cold, but he had begun warming her up.
Chapter 17
The duchess’s diamond was returned to her by Lord Belami, accompanied by a Bow Street Runner. By a quick stop at the Morning Observer before ordering her carriage to Belvedere Square, Her Grace had ensured that the announcement of her return to London appeared in the next morning’s paper, where Dick had read it with considerable surprise. Mrs. Morton also read it with surprise, but with more glee than anything else. She immediately called her carriage and had it slog through the streets, to relay her findings at the traveling agent’s office.
The only course open to a proud duchess in defeat was ennui.
“So kind of you to call, Mrs. Morton, but it is stale news to me. It is precisely the reason I have decided to terminate my niece’s betrothal to him. A sad rattle of a fellow. Even his own mother can do nothing with him. There is half the problem, to tell the truth. Lady Belami is not fit to run a house.”
It was a keen disappointment to Mrs. Morton, but she assuaged it by a quick call on half a dozen other friends, who were not so well informed.
When Belami entered half an hour later, he found Her Grace pouring over Debrett’s Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland in search of fresh quarry.
He sat at ease in Her Grace’s mustard-colored saloon, on a puce—her favorite color—sofa. “I was having my bags packed to return to Beaulac when I read of your arrival. Why did you not send me a message?” he asked, all unaware that he had sunk to new depths of disgrace. He directed his remark to Deirdre, but it was her aunt who replied.
“I have explained all that to your mama,” she said in her stiffest tone. “We have terminated the engagement, Belami. Thank you for returning my diamond. I shall take it to Love and Wirgman’s to make sure it is genuine. I never caught on the other was glass; I shan’t be so credulous again.”
“Terminated the engagement?” he asked, dumbfounded. So dumbfounded that he did not recognize even a trace of infamy in her decision to have the diamond authenticated. She had intended a prime slur in that remark, intimating that he had stolen it and replaced it with more glass.
“Deirdre, what is the meaning of this?” he asked, staring across the room to Miss Gower, who had seated herself in the shadows—no difficult place to find in that gloomy chamber.
“You heard my aunt,” she said in a small voice devoid of expression.
“But why?” he demanded, wheeling to stare at the duchess. “What caused this turnabout? You were eager enough to have me a day ago.”
“Eager?” the dame asked. “It comes as news to me that accepting an offer constitutes eagerness. I was most reluctant to give my consent and only did it conditional upon your behaving yourself. I may not have said so explicitly, but any man of sense knows that he must be on his best behavior during the period of betrothal.”
“But I have been on my best behavior.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” the lady said tersely. “When your best behavior includes what yours has included, Lord Belami, there is no point in thinking you will make a fit husband for a Gower. One trembles to think what your worst might encompass.”
“I had nothing to do with stealing the diamond. I got it back for you. I have apologized for being late for the party. Deirdre accepted my apology,” he said, looking to her for some verbal reinforcement. But she only sat pleating the skirt of her gown into neat folds with her fingers. She didn’t even raise her head to look at him.
“There are other things not necessary to be mentioned before young ladies,” the duchess said, and arose to see him out.
“May I see Deirdre alone?” Belami asked.
“No, sir, you may not. I do not run the loose sort of establishment your mama runs at Beaulac.”
“Deirdre!” Again he turned to her. She looked at him this time, but her cool glance gave him no pleasure, and no hope.
“I’m sure you have arrangements to make, for Paris,” she said, and rising up, strode past him into the hall.
“I’m not planning to go to Paris,” he called into the hallway.
She ignored him. She climbed the stairway sedately, with her head high and her hand trailing along the banister, as though she were only going up for a shawl or a book. Her lack of undulation might have given him a hint she was holding herself in, but he was too upset to notice it.
“What lies have you told her?” he demanded, turning a black eye on the duchess.
“Are you daring to call me a liar, sir?” Charney gasped.
“Yes, madam, I am. A liar and a cheat, and a damned ungrateful guest, to cast slurs on my mother’s house.”
“I am not casting slurs. I tell you to your bold face you are a blackguard, and your mama a peagoose, to have that licentious woman under the same roof as innocent girls. You have wanted out of this betrothal from the moment it was contracted, and you have gotten your wish. Now go, and don’t darken this door again.”
“By God, I wouldn’t come back if you paid me!” he shouted.
He turned sharply on his heel, grabbed his coat and hat from the butler’s outstretched arms, and stalked out, without waiting to put either of them on. The quantity of heat radiating from his collar made them quite unnecessary.
Alone in his closed carriage he argued with the squabs, saying all the nasty, clever, satirical things he regretted not having said to the duchess, till he had cooled down. When he was halfway to his own home, he pulled the check string and told the driver to return to Belvedere Square, but not to draw up the door. He was to stop the carriage half a block away from the house.
The duchess was so enthralled with the visit that she sat smiling to herself, instead of going abovestairs to pester Deirdre with the details. This left the niece alone with her bitter reflections. Her aunt was right. Dick was a confirmed liar. He would never do for her. Oh, but neither would anyone else, after having been in love with him. Very well, then, she would be a spinster. She was gazing with unseeing eyes at a book in her lap, with her mind far away, occupied with what might have been, when a smiling maid came tapping at the door.
“A billet-doux, miss,” she tittered. “He’s ever so handsome, your fellow.”
With a wildly beating heart, Deirdre twisted the knot of paper open and read Dick’s scrawl, not noticing it was written on the back of a betting sheet from Tattersall’s. “I’ll
be at the circulating library at four this afternoon. If you still love me, be there. If not, please send a note to assure me this jilting is of your doing, and not your aunt’s. Sincerely, Dick.”
She promptly sat down and wrote a bleak note assuring him that it was entirely her own doing, then tossed the note into the blazing grate and went to tell her aunt she would be going to the circulating library that afternoon, if there was anything she could pick up for her.
The duchess nodded with satisfaction. Deirdre was behaving very properly, going about her business as usual. The heretical thought flitted through her mind that a little fit of vapors would not be out of place upon losing such a fiancé as Belami, but she could not condemn her niece for behaving as a lady ought to. The duchess, however, was busy with other matters: sending off for a jeweler to come and authenticate her stone, and reattach it to its chain. It must be returned to the vault, and before any of this, it must be reinsured immediately, before Carswell heard of the theft and increased his rate.
At three-thirty, Deirdre climbed into the carriage with the strawberry leaves and was trundled to the circulating library, where she arrived at three minutes before four, to see Dick pacing up and down in front of the door, looking out for her carriage.
Her heart flipped in her chest to see him, so tall and handsome, so dashing in his curled beaver and many-collared great coat. He hurried to the carriage and helped her to descend.
“You came!” was all he said, but the way he said it made up for the stilted words. His dark eyes glowed brightly and his head inclined involuntarily toward hers, till she feared she was to be kissed in the middle of the street.
“Yes. I—I wanted to hear what you had to say.”
“What I have to say is, what’s going on? What put this bee in your aunt’s bonnet that I’m suddenly beneath contempt?”
“Let us go into the library,” she suggested as a few heads turned to look at them.
“The carriage will be more private,” he countered, and opened the door to enter with her. “It has to do with Lennie’s going to Paris, I know. That was a ruse to get her to open up and tell me what she knew. I’m not going with her, Deirdre. Surely you knew that.”
“You bought two tickets. Don’t lie, Dick. A friend overheard you, and she heard you give Lady Lenore’s name for one of them too. ‘The very best rooms at the very best hotel,’” she charged, verbatim.
“Did she not hear me give Belfoi’s name as the other occupant? He’s staying at Boltons’, near Beaulac. My groom spoke to him and arranged the whole. Lennie’s not particular. She’ll be happy to go off with anyone, even her husband. She’ll take it as a famous joke, once she finds him there.”
“Dick, you didn’t! What a trick to play.”
“Of course I did. I’m all in favor of marital fidelity, now that I am about to be leg-shackled myself. Darling, we must talk the old lady over. Or rather, you must. My vile frame is not to darken her door. Can you explain it to her?”
“She’d think it was monstrous, what you’ve done. She’s so very dogged when she takes a notion into her head. Besides, she’ll think you only made up the story about Belfoi going to con her. She’s very suspicious.”
“Hmm,” he said, tapping his fingers on his knees. “I can’t really count on Bertie to help me either, as she’s dead set—that is—she’s not completely convinced . . .”
“Keep on. There’s room for another toe or two in your mouth. I know she doesn’t like me, and even less after my aunt was through with her.”
“I don’t want to hear what she said. One problem at a time. Do you think it will put her in a better mood, having her diamond back?”
“It doesn’t seem to have. Ripping up at Bessler might help.”
“Good God, don’t tell me she’s going down to Newgate to see him?”
“No, she’s having him brought to the house, to revile him there. If he’s sufficiently self-abasing, she might plead for leniency. He was always so obsequious to her that she rather likes him. Bidwell hasn’t a hope of her clemency. She isn’t even having him hauled to the house for a scold,” she said, slipping her hand through the crook of his arm.
He smiled down at her, patting her fingers. “Bessler, eh? Too bad we couldn’t have him . . . Why not?” he asked, and a beatific smile took possession of his features.
“When is he going to see her?” he asked.
“Tomorrow morning. Why?”
“Good, then I’ll nip down and visit him now. Pronto has landed in town. I’ll have him call on your aunt and you. What time is Bessler arriving?”
“Eleven, but what—”
“Right, eleven. If Pronto behaves even more foolishly than usual, just go along with him. Do whatever he suggests, outside of suicide.”
“I wish you will tell me what you’re planning.”
“I am planning to marry you, dear heart. What strange capers love leads us into. Go home and have your summer gowns aired. It will be warm in Italy.”
“Dick, she won’t agree, and I cannot like to run off to Gretna Green, to be married over the anvil, like a runaway seamstress.”
“They prefer a Fleet wedding,” he answered, and pulled the check string. When the carriage stopped, he placed a quick kiss on the side of her mouth and opened the door.
Before he got out, he turned to her with a quizzical smile. “Whoever thought it would end like this? Going to Newgate, a little tinkering with the spirit, if not the letter, of the law, clandestine meetings—I had no notion you were so ramshackle, Miss Gower, or I would have married you sooner. Does it bother you much?”
“Oh, Dick, you’re not going to do anything horrid, are you?” she asked fearfully.
“Don’t ask. Do you want to go back to the library?”
“I suppose so, but what—”
“Don’t start any long books. You won’t have much time for reading after tomorrow. I love you.”
He was gone, running after a hackney cab. He was going to see Bessler in prison, but for what purpose, she had not figured out. Did he plan to smuggle him out of prison? And if so, what good would that do? She was baffled, but confident that Dick would think of something to bring her aunt around his thumb. He always did.
In her turmoil, she forgot to pick up a pair of kidskin gloves for her aunt’s dresser. Hers had mysteriously vanished at Beaulac. Deirdre suspected they were in Dick’s laboratory, liberally grimed with soot from the flue.
Chapter 18
Pronto frowned heavily at Lord Belami, and shook his head.
“Include me out,” he said. “I’ll be demmed if I’ll go visiting the duchess when I don’t have to.”
“You won’t have to spend two minutes with her. I want you to get Deirdre and the prison guard out of the room, so that Bessler has a few minutes alone with her. Just a few minutes, that’s all I’m asking.”
“And you’ll give me the first foal Diablo sires for free if I do?”
“Absolutely gratis.”
“You said free.”
“That too. I’ll even let you use my Marabel as the mare. It’ll be a perfect match, Pronto. He’s a long-legged, deep-chested goer, and she’s big and sweet-tempered. A nick of the right bloodlines.”
“Who’s to say the foal won’t get his hot temper and her ungainly size? A wild big brute is what I’ve already got. Took a bite out of me last night.”
“Then we’ll match them again, till it comes out right. Or you can use him for stud with one of your own mares. Now, after you leave the duchess’s place, come directly to me and tell me how it went.”
“I don’t like it. Demmed if I do. Daresay it’s illegal, if the truth was to be told.”
“It won’t be—ever.”
“You won’t get Bessler off scot free, to send him off to Austria, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’ll do time right enough. Bidwell as well.”
“Bidwell can hang for all I care. He’s the cause of half my woes.”
“No, you’re the cause, Dick
. Of more than half. Might go so far as to say Bidwell is the cause of a quarter. So you mean to settle down with Deirdre Gower after all, then, do you?”
“No, I mean to go on exactly as I always have, but with Deirdre beside me.”
“Hmph, I wonder how she’ll like your Widow Barnes.”
“Naturally that part of my life will have to be curtailed.”
“Curtailed? It’ll be abandoned, my boy.”
“That’s what I meant, naturally.”
“Won’t be natural to you. Then there’s your gambling. Can’t stay out for two or three days and nights handrunning, with a wife at home waiting for you. Squalling kids, bills . . .” He shook his head in dismay.
“I’m sick to death of gambling, if you want the truth. I’ll be happy for an excuse to decline such offers.”
“Decline them? They was always your own idea!”
“Well, I have better things to be doing now. It’s time I settled down. I feel ready for it, Pronto. There comes a time in a man’s life when he’s fed up with squandering his time and money, and wants a more settled life.”
“Aye, it’ll be settled all right and tight. You and Deirdre and Charney.”
“She won’t be living with us.”
“Then there’s the investigating that’ll have to go as well. Deirdre won’t care for that.”
“Yes, she will. She won’t mind that,” he said with a soft smile. “She’s not the sort of girl you think she is at all, Pronto. She’s very easy to get along with. Has a good sense of humor, and such pretty eyes—did you ever see such long lashes? The way she walks, too.”
“Believe I’ll be toddling along now. When you start on the eyes and the undulating, it’s time to go. Eleven tomorrow morning at the duchess’s place. Draw off Deirdre and the guard. See what I can do.”
“Come directly back here after. I want to know how it goes before I barge in on them. Remember, now, you tell her Lord Belami is very upset with the broken engagement, and note carefully what she has to say. Have you got that all straight?”