by Mary Nichols
Adam looked at Maryanne, huddled in the corner of the carriage. ‘Well?’
‘No, no, I cannot be seen in public like this; it would be too mortifying.’
He understood her reluctance. Three days on the road staying in rudimentary accommodation and with only one change of clothes had left her looking exhausted and bedraggled and she was in no state to pass off her predicament with any degree of confidence. And it would need more than confidence, it would need defiance to explain away leaving home so suddenly and travelling for three days alone with a man who was not her husband. He had pretended to be her guardian when they had stopped for the night, but that had fooled no one and she had been only too aware of the smirks of the inn servants when they thought she wasn’t looking.
It would not have been so bad, she thought, if he had made some effort to be entertaining, but he had said very little, sitting in brooding silence in the opposite corner of the carriage for mile after mile, not even finding the energy to quarrel with her, for that would have been better than nothing and, at least, let her know he was aware that she was there. But it was no good complaining; she had brought it on herself and must put up with it.
She had been more than relieved when, on the second day, he broke the silence to tell her he intended to take her to Beth Markham and seek her advice. ‘She helped once before and I think she understands,’ he had said. ‘She might agree to put it about that you had planned to go back to visit her all along.’
‘With you as my escort?’ There had been a quirk to Maryanne’s mouth that was almost a smile.
He had grinned and the brown eyes had softened. ‘How you arrived will have to remain a mystery.’
‘And do you intend to leave me with her?’
‘What else do you suggest?’
What else, indeed, short of marrying her? But he apparently had not even considered that and she was not even sure that was what she wanted, if marrying him meant taking a husband who spoke in monosyllables and gave every appearance of being irritated by her presence. ‘Nothing,’ she had said. ‘I don’t know why I did not think of her ladyship myself.’
Adam put his head out of the coach door and called up to the driver, ‘Drive on to Adelphi Terrace.’ He turned to Maryanne as the vehicle manoeuvred its way between the waiting carriages and set off again. He wanted to take her in his arms and offer another suggestion, but she seemed absorbed in looking out of the window at the long line of carriages and their glittering occupants and even managed a little laugh as she caught sight of a bright pink landaulet. The words stuck in his throat and all he could say was, ‘I’ll send a message to Beth Markham to come as soon as she is free.’
‘Yes,’ she said, in a very small voice, wondering what mischievous devil had made her get into his carriage in the first place. He had not wanted her; his kisses had meant nothing. Her pride had been badly dented but she still had enough spirit to know that she could never have married Mark and her reasons for leaving were as valid as ever; it was only the way she had left that she regretted.
‘I will go and make sure he’s alone,’ Adam said when the vehicle drew up at Robert’s house. ‘If he is entertaining too, then we will have to think again.’
Passing the drawing-room window on the way to the door, he could see Robert sitting in an armchair with a glass of brandy on the table at his elbow, studying some papers. Relieved that his friend was alone, Adam tapped lightly on the glass.
It was a moment or two before the man inside heard him, but when he did he moved quickly to the window and opened it. ‘Adam! What in heaven’s name are you doing here?’
‘If you let me in, I’ll tell you.’
Robert Rudge flung the window open wider. ‘Better come in this way, don’t you think?’
Adam scrambled over the sill and shut the window behind him, while the lawyer poured another glass of brandy, which he handed to his visitor. ‘You know there is a warrant out for your arrest?’
‘It doesn’t surprise me.’
‘On a charge of murder?’
‘Not that old chestnut...’
‘No, not that. The new Duke of Wiltshire was stabbed to death in his library three nights ago.’
Adam sank into a chair, drained his glass and held it out to be refilled. He did not speak.
‘You are the prime suspect and...’ Robert paused. ‘The girl.’
‘Maryanne, you mean?’
‘Yes, Miss Paynter. How did you come to involve her? Haven’t you got enough to contend with?’
‘I didn’t exactly involve her; it was the other way around.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Outside in the chaise.’ He sounded exhausted.
‘Get rid of her. She will hamper you no end.’
Adam took a mouthful of brandy, savouring its warmth on his tongue. ‘She already has, but, as for getting rid of her, I can’t.’
‘Why not? You haven’t gone and fallen in love with her, or anything as foolish as that, have you?’
‘Now there’s an interesting question,’ Adam said, tipping back his head to empty his glass. ‘It’s one I shall have to give some serious attention to.’
‘Send her away, you are best alone, at least until this matter is settled.’
‘I cannot. Robert, she is very tired and has nowhere to go.’
‘What does she know?’
‘Nothing that I am aware of, but I haven’t questioned her on the subject.’
‘Don’t you think you should?’
Adam shrugged. ‘It would make no difference and it has nothing to do with falling in love, fascinating as that prospect might be.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘I’ll do that, but first may I fetch her in?’
‘Very well. I can hardly refuse a lady in distress, but I can’t help feeling I am going to regret it.’
As soon as Maryanne was fetched, she was bustled up to a guest room and Jeannie Clavier sent to help her undress and bath. The girl made very little effort to hide her disapproval. ‘A lady shouldn’t travel without her maid,’ she said, pulling the hairbrush through Maryanne’s hair with more vigour than finesse. ‘I wonder the captain agreed.’
‘He didn’t,’ Maryanne said. ‘I made him.’
Jeannie laughed. ‘The captain can’t be made to do anything.’ She paused. ‘Though he’s changed since he met you. Gone soft, he has.’
‘There, Madame Clavier, you are wrong. There is nothing soft about the Jackdaw.’
‘How did you come to know that name?’ Jeannie asked sharply.
‘He told me it himself and, besides, you called him Captain Choucas.’
‘‘Tain’t the same thing.’ She paused. ‘He don’t need your problems on top of his own, so why don’t you leave him alone? You’ll get him killed.’
‘I never heard such nonsense,’ Maryanne said angrily. ‘I wish him no harm and tomorrow, as soon as Lady Markham arrives, I shall leave. Will that satisfy you?’
‘How do you know she will have you?’
‘She is a friend, she helped before...’
‘That was before. Jeannie stopped suddenly. ‘Before what?’
‘Before the Duke’s death, before they started blaming the captain for it. Friends!’ she said contemptuously. ‘They don’t know what the word means.’
‘And you do?’ Maryanne asked.
‘Indeed I do. It’s all about trusting someone, knowing them inside out, being sure, deep inside you, that, however black they’re painted, inside they are good and true. Do you feel like that about the captain, Miss Paynter? Can you put your hand on your heart and say you never doubted him? If you loved him, you could.’
Realising she had said more than she ought to have done, she picked up Maryanne’s discarded clothes and left the room, saying she would send someone up to take away the bath water and bring her clothes back after they had been pressed.
Half an hour later, feeling a little more refreshed and dressed in the best of her two gowns
, Maryanne returned to the drawing-room, where Adam and Robert were deep in conversation, brandy glasses in their hands.
‘I have only been partly successful,’ Robert was saying. ‘The difficulty is trying to tie up events that took place in two different countries, and, what with the war and records being lost... You must be patient.’
‘It’s not a question of patience, Robert, it’s one of keeping out of gaol long enough to prove it.’
‘And having Miss Paynter with you doesn’t improve your chances.’
‘Agreed, but it cannot be helped.’
‘I will soon be gone,’ she said, coming into the room. ‘The minute we hear from Lady Markham.’
Adam turned and took a step towards hers. ‘Things have changed, Maryanne. Come and sit down; I have something to tell you.’ He took her hand and led her to a sofa where he sat beside her. The gesture was so unexpectedly gentle that she was taken aback. She looked up into his face; his expression was sombre and his eyes darker than usual; they seemed to have lost their gold flecks, as if they were only there when he was laughing, and he was certainly not laughing now.
‘Lady Markham will not have me,’ she said. ‘It is not altogether unexpected. You need not concern yourself; I can find a position as a companion or a governess.’ She turned to Robert. ‘If I might presume upon your hospitality just for tonight?’
‘Maryanne,’ Adam began, cutting off Robert’s answer, ‘Beth Markham was here earlier today and she brought news...’ He paused to put a glass of cognac into her hands. ‘Bad news. The Duke of Wiltshire has been murdered.’
‘But that was an accident,’ she cried. ‘And why bring that up now?’
‘I mean James,’ he said. ‘The new Duke.’
It was a full minute before she could reply, then all she could say was, ‘I don’t believe it,’ over and over again.
‘I am afraid it is true,’ Robert said. ‘The news reached London ahead of you, I imagine, because you went first to Portsmouth.’
‘But when? How? Why? Who would want to murder him?’
‘He was stabbed to death in the library the night you left and papers and money stolen,’ Robert said, because Adam was too busy watching her face to speak. ‘Beth had it from Mark Danbury himself, when he came hotfoot to London to see his lawyer.’
‘We must go back,’ Maryanne said, putting down the half-finished brandy and jumping to her feet. ‘Now, At once. . .’
‘No!’ Adam grabbed her wrist, making her sit again. ‘You have not heard all of it. You left on the very night His Grace was murdered and...’
‘So did you!’ In her agitation, she shouted the words. ‘You did it!’ Everything came rushing back: the way he turned up on Danbury land, his dislike of the Danbury family, Henry’s death in the curricle race, his haste to leave that last night, his dark mood ever since. What an impediment to his flight to freedom she must have been! But why hadn’t he just left her in the empty cottage and sailed away, why come back for her? Did he think she knew more than she did? Enough to condemn him?
‘Rubbish!’ Robert said, because Adam seemed incapable of speech; he was staring at Maryanne as if she had struck him. ‘You are distraught.’ He smiled slowly but it did not lighten the atmosphere. ‘And you are not above suspicion. The story going about is that you did it together and then fled.’
‘No one would believe that,’ she said, trying to smile at the idiocy of it. Inconsequentially she wondered if James had seen the note she left her him on the hall table, but then realised that if he had never come out of the library alive he could not have done. ‘We must go back and tell them the truth.’
‘And if all they want is a scapegoat?’ Adam asked. ‘What if we cannot prove our innocence; what then?’
‘In English law the onus is on our accusers to prove us guilty.’ She glanced at his belt and wondered when he had stopped wearing his little dagger. Its absence confirmed her worst fears. ‘Can’t you see, it’s the only way?’
‘But you do not believe in my innocence, so what chance have I of convincing anyone else?’ He was deliberately forcing her to think about the conflicting emotions which beset her.
‘What I believe does not matter.’ Unable to face his searching eyes, she turned away. ‘You are not answerable to me, but to the law and, in the end, to your Maker.’
‘My Maker I can trust; the law I do not, especially when it is manipulated by Mark Danbury. If you will not listen to me, please listen to Robert.’
She did not answer and Robert said, ‘In any other circumstances I, as a lawyer, would advise you to stand trial and let them prove your guilt, but I am afraid justice would not be done. Beth Markham says Mark is angry enough to kill you both on sight.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ she said. ‘He would never do such a thing.’
‘I wish I had your faith,’ he said. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I have things to attend to.’
The silence he left behind was unbearable. Maryanne hardly dared look at Adam for fear of weakening. He uttered a sound that was very nearly a groan and began pacing the room, head down, deep in thought. He could not understand why, knowing Maryanne and professing to love her, Danbury had already condemned her publicly, unless it was because he thought she knew more of the truth than she really did and wanted to silence her. It was the first time the idea had occurred to him and it put him in a cleft stick. Filled with helpless anger for the first time since he had been forced to witness his father’s execution, he was unable to decide what to do.
He turned when he reached the window for the second time and came back to where she sat, searching her face as if etching it on his memory. ‘Do you think you could convince everyone of your innocence?’ he asked. ‘Do you think they would believe you?’
‘It’s not just my innocence, but yours too.’
‘Forget me, we are talking of you,’ he said sharply. ‘You must lay the blame on me, tell them you witnessed the killing and I forced you to come with me, to save myself. You will be the little heroine and your reputation will be intact.’
‘I couldn’t do that,’ she said quickly. ‘It is not true. You didn’t force me and I saw nothing.’
‘It is the only way you will get them to believe you,’ he insisted.
‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘I must tell the truth.’
‘And if the truth will not serve, what then? Mark Danbury has set his heart on seeing me hang.’
‘One man alone cannot condemn you,’ she asserted. ‘It takes a jury.’
‘But one woman can,’ he said softly. ‘You are in this with me, my sweet Maryanne, right up to your pretty little neck.’
‘You know I had nothing to do with it.’
‘Then save yourself.’
‘With perjury?’ She turned from him because she could not look into his face without wanting to cry. He had not murdered James, not deliberately in cold blood, she was sure of that, but had he killed him in the heat of passion? Had his hate and anger got the better of him? His military training would have done the rest. She remembered how he had reached for his weapon when she had surprised him in the vestry. ‘We go back together or not at all.’
‘Then it is not at all,’ he said, suddenly making up his mind. ‘If you will do nothing to save yourself, why should I sacrifice myself trying to help you? You forget that before all this happened I was on my way back to France.’ His voice was clipped as if the words themselves were painful to him. ‘We will leave as soon as the arrangements have been made.’
‘We? You mean you and I?’
‘That is exactly what I mean.’
‘But I can’t come with you.’
‘Why not? Was that not what you had in mind when you hid in my coach?’
‘That was before...’
‘Before you learned I was a murderer?’ His laughter was harsh.
‘No, I wasn’t going to say that.’
‘There is no alternative,’ he said flatly. ‘And you need not worry about your reputat
ion; we will be married just as soon as it can be arranged.’ The words were out before he had considered how they might sound to her. It was certainly not the way he had wanted to propose. He watched the look of horror cross her face and knew he would never be able to mend that particular piece of clumsiness. But, if it made her see the precariousness of her own position, so much the better.
‘I told you before I would not marry you however compromised I had been,’ she retorted, angry for the first time. ‘And I would have to be desperate indeed to accept such a proposal.’
‘Then you will come with me unwed, for I am determined to take you.’
‘Against my will?’
‘If necessary.’
She blinked away tears of self-pity; they were out of place. She had brought this on herself and had only herself to blame. ‘Then I am in your hands.’ The words were wrung from the depths of her despair. To want someone so badly and then to find, when what you most desired was yours, that it was completely joyless was the height of irony. ‘Do what you will.’
His grim expression did not change; he seemed neither relieved nor sorry. ‘I’ll go and fetch Jeannie,’ he said. ‘We will need her.’
Maryanne was persuaded to go to the bedroom she had used earlier and try to rest, while the men and Jeannie made what preparations were necessary. She could find no peace and instead sat numbly on a chair by the window, staring out at the dark water of the Thames. There were ships moored near by, frigates with sails furled, merchantmen, laden and unladen, rocking on the swell. Two coal barges made their way slowly upstream, and, away to her left, a ferryman was rowing his passengers across to the other side where a sprawl of urban buildings covered what had once been green fields. But wherever she looked, whatever her eyes saw, she was confronted with an image of James.
He had not been quite a second father, but certainly like a favourite uncle, and she mourned him and condemned his murderer. Could it have been Adam? She remembered how gentle Adam could be, how easy she was in his company, how he made her laugh, how his soft brown eyes looked at her, how his kisses felt on her lips. He had kindled in her a feeling of her own worth, when everyone else diminished it. She desperately wanted to believe in his innocence, when all the evidence pointed to his guilt. She found herself murmuring, ‘Why? Oh, why?’ and, finding no answers, flung herself across the bed and sobbed herself into an uneasy sleep. She did not hear the door open, nor the quiet footsteps crossing the room to her bed.