“My interest is in the man. I want to know what sort of man is capable of pushing through a bill that permits men to be stuffed into the stinking hold of one of His Majesty’s frigates like animals—”
“My dear Alec,” the Duchess scoffed, “they are but savages after all.”
“All men have a right to their dignity, to—”
“Your uncle’s radical ideas won’t wash with me,” the Duchess said haughtily, waving a bejeweled hand in dismissal. “And I won’t have either of you force Cleveley to shoulder the blame for what occurs on His Majesty’s frigates. Unlike your uncle, I, indeed the majority, believe the Duke has the country’s best interests at heart. He is one politician who prides himself on working within the framework of what is legally possible for the good of the Kingdom. He is not one of these self-serving placemen who will stoop to any means to gain a political advantage.” She struggled to sit up, restless, and looked at Alec critically. “To suggest that he had his liveried servants attack a ridiculous personage dressed in canary yellow to seize the last will and testament of a nobody vicar is fanciful nonsense!”
“Your Grace, I—”
“After all, what does Cleveley gain by employing such spineless tactics? He can’t rise any higher.”
“There is always the prospect of a fall…” Alec suggested lightly, pretending to brush lint from a crossed-legged, satin-covered knee, an oblique eye on his godmother.
“I suppose there is that,” the Duchess grudgingly conceded. “Though, and you will think this strange, your uncle would certainly scoff, I don’t believe Cleveley has ever contemplated such an eventuality. Call it sublime arrogance, if you will, though I prefer to think it merely an over-abundance of self-confidence. You laugh! But there is a distinction.”
Alec kissed her frail hand. “I missed you while I was in Paris.”
“Liar,” she chided playfully, yet turning pink with pleasure. “I have it on good authority you spent your entire visit in a Parisian bed.”
“Shame on you, Olivia,” Alec murmured at her ear. “There are some remarkable Da Vinci etchings in the Louvre…”
“Devil you cared,” the Duchess replied with a girlish giggle, a glance at the adjoining boxes, gratified their flirtatious antics were attracting attention. “You knew of course that Selina stayed behind in Paris while Emily and Cosmo ventured on without her?” she added, fluttering her fan across her bosom and with a smug smile directed at Frances Rutherglen who was glaring at her in disapproval.
Alec was surprised. “But I presumed you knew—that Mrs. Jamison-Lewis had told you—I went to Paris at her invitation.”
The Duchess’s head snapped round. “Her invitation?” She removed her hand from his silken knee and shifted uncomfortably against the tapestry cushion. Cavorting with an unnamed Parisian whore was all well and good for her rakish godson’s reputation, but resuming a passionate affair with her niece, a wealthy English widow still in mourning, was not only detrimental to her efforts at rehabilitating her godson’s character but was likely to have devastating consequences on Selina’s fragile emotional wellbeing. “No. I did not know,” she stated with annoyance. “I suppose she failed to tell you why she remained in Paris?” His look of total confusion answered the question for her. She took a deep breath. “She appeared—well?”
Alec was still frowning. “Selina’s never been ill a day in her life.”
The Duchess merely nodded in a preoccupied fashion. “She’s not one to complain, is she?” and abruptly changed the topic. “I wish you’d do something about Letitia Strangways. The pathetic, doe-eyed creature has done everything imaginable but shown you what she has on offer under her petticoats, and you continue to ignore her.”
Alec wondered to what the Duchess was alluding regarding Selina but did not feel the theater the place to seek enlightenment, so kept his questions for later and returned to the subject of the Duke of Cleveley, a shoulder turned away from the overtly-eager Lady Letitia Strangways. “Tell me about Cleveley the man, not the politician.”
“Why this sudden interest in Cleveley?” asked the Duchess, relieved Alec had the good manners not to question her further about Selina. She would never break her niece’s confidence, not even for her godson. But it bruised her heart that he was to be left ignorant of the truth.
“I value your counsel, and frankly, there is no one else I can ask without stirring up a hornet’s nest, which is the last thing I want so early in my enquiries—”
“Enquiries? Surely not to do with the death of that vicar at Weir’s dinner party?”
“One can only hope the physician got it right.”
“You’re not suggesting Cleveley had anything to do with that? Your uncle may believe Cleveley capable of poisoning the entire clergy, but that’s sheer prejudice!”
“There is more to this than my uncle’s bias,” Alec said seriously.
The Duchess thinned her painted lips. “Am I to give you this picture here and now?”
“If you would be so kind.”
The prompter’s bells were vigorously ringing, signaling the performance was about to resume, but the Duchess of Romney-St Neots ignored the jarring jingle, saying impatiently as she smoothed out her voluminous silk petticoats with an agitated hand,
“I suppose that’s why you accepted this old lady’s invitation to the opera,” she grumbled, but was somewhat mollified by his engaging smile; she never was able to resist a handsome rogue, particularly when that handsome rogue happened to be her favorite godson. “If I’m to give you Cleveley’s history then let us sit further back with a good claret, if such a thing exists in this chatterbox of a theater. Sybilla? Sybilla!” She made to rise and Alec had taken her elbow before Lady Sybilla was on her feet. “Damn! I wish I’d never taken a fall on that wretched horse. Pass me my stick, dear boy. Sybilla?” When her daughter emerged from her quiet corner she said, “Send Peebles to the carriage for a bottle of claret and two glasses. You can pay your respects to your sister-in-law. Frances has been staring daggers at me these past fifteen minutes.”
“But—Mamma.”
The Duchess waved her away. “Tell her you’re breeding again. She’ll be delighted to know her brother’s wife is with child. It will give her a legitimate excuse to be miserable. Not that Frances Rutherglen ever needs one.”
Lady Sybilla glanced at Alec, cheeks inflamed. Her mother could never be made to understand how uncomfortable she felt at having her pregnancy openly discussed, and before a gentleman who was so swooningly virile that it was no surprise he had spent an entire week cavorting under the sheets with her cousin Selina. Oh, to open her knees to such a man…
“Yes, Mamma, of course,” Sybilla managed to whisper, averting her gaze, face burning bright with shame at having such lascivious thoughts and at the opera! “I shall tell her how happy I am.”
“Yes! Yes! How happy we all are. Now run along.”
Lady Sybilla was admitted to the private box occupied by the Rutherglens and found it overflowing with callers. She wondered what had induced four young gentlemen of marriageable age to bother calling at interval on an old couple without any daughters. She then spied the Countess Russell and her pretty but exceedingly silly daughter, Lady Henrietta, an heiress with a dowry exceeding thirty thousand pounds, seated with the Rutherglens. This discovery made her sigh with relief. Her sister-in-law Frances Rutherglen frightened her and Lord Rutherglen was quite deaf and senile, so the presence of the Russells, with whom she was well acquainted, made her feel more at ease with the task she had been sent to perform.
The four gentlemen surrounding Lady Henrietta and her mother politely shifted along the bench to allow Lady Sybilla’s wide petticoats unhindered passage to their hosts. A fop in apple green silk breeches and a purple flowered waistcoat was obliging enough to fetch her a glass of Madeira, he having all but given up on his chances with the heiress. She who had giggled incessantly at his witticisms at the Talbot turnout was this night as responsive as a doorknob, and eve
n that, being brass, had more shine. Lady Henrietta looked miserable. Whatever pains her mamma and lady’s maid had taken to apply cosmetic over the circles under her exquisite brown eyes, it was obvious to anyone with even partial sight in one eye that the girl had spent the previous evening crying into her down pillows.
Lady Rutherglen took one look at Lady Sybilla standing in the middle of the box and shooed her aside. She was blocking her view of the performance. The green curtain had risen to a thundering crescendo of noise from orchestra and chorus. The voices in the pit were drowned down and conversations in the boxes lowered to an inaudible hush for the smallest of pauses while they took in the scenery before conversations started up again, regardless of the performers and their vocal abilities. There was nothing for Lady Sybilla to do but retreat to sit beside the Countess Russell and wait her opportunity to speak to the Rutherglens.
The four beaus made good their exit, deflated at not having made an impression on the gloomy-faced Lady Henrietta. As for their ordeal in making polite conversation with Lady Rutherglen, the young gentlemen were incapable of putting into words their relief at what could only be described as having survived a spider in her sticky web. It was beyond their comprehension how such a vile old woman could be sister to an Admiral of the Fleet, who was not only a war hero but also the most amiable and good-natured fellow of their acquaintance.
The Countess Russell seemed oblivious to her daughter’s distress and the distress suffered by the young gentlemen at the spidery hands of Frances Rutherglen. In fact, she smiled serenely on everyone, even on her hostess when that woman condemned her towering headdress of feathers, bows and strategically placed miniature ship with sail as resembling refuse clogging the gutters.
Nothing could shake Lady Russell’s smile. After all, her youngest daughter, who was plumpily pretty but not very bright, had just made the match of the season, and this despite compromising her virtue. She had despaired of ever marrying off her youngest daughter after she had confessed to drinking to excess at the Cavendish turnout and waking up to find her petticoats up over her navel, her hindquarters exposed to the cold night air and Lord George Stanton buttoning his breeches. That horror was now extinguished knowing Henrietta was to marry, and marry far beyond her mother’s wildest expectations.
Lady Sybilla, who was breathing a sigh of relief that her sister-in-law had shooed her away, which meant she could postpone the inevitable for at least another half an hour, suddenly had her lace flounce tugged by Lady Russell.
“Tell me: What is he like?” she whispered hurriedly from behind her stiff-lace fan, a fervent glance down the row of boxes to her left, disappointed the Duchess of Romney-St. Neots and Lord Halsey had disappeared out of her line of sight.
Lady Sybilla followed the direction of Lady Russell’s veiled glance and her eyes widened but she remained mute.
“Halsey,” Lady Russell enunciated with annoyance, thinking Lady Sybilla’s mind impenetrable. “It’s been confirmed in more than one boudoir that he is most considerate to a lady’s needs as to be worth breaking the seventh commandment.”
“But he’s not—not a libertine,” Lady Sybilla protested, cheeks burning scarlet under her white lead cosmetic. “I me… Naturally, I have no idea about his—about that, but he—he is—he is everything a-a gentleman should be.”
“Precisely,” purred her ladyship and shivered, entirely forgetting in whose box she sat. She pulled Sybilla closer. “I saw him in Paris, at the Louvre, in company with Selina Jamison-Lewis. God knows what wiles your cousin used, but it was obvious from her vulgar displays of affection that he’d been rutting her senseless. But when one considers why she fled to Paris in the first place I’m surprised she allowed any man between her thighs so soon. Then again, for Halsey I’d have risked it.”
“Fled to Paris?” Lady Sybilla repeated with a blink.
Maria Russell’s eyes widened and she pursed her painted lips. “Come now, Sybilla. You’re her confidante. I need not elaborate for you, surely?”
Lady Sybilla frowned down at the sticks of her ivory fan. “I don’t know what you mean…”
Lady Russell pulled a face and whispered in Sybilla’s red ear. “You never were a good liar. I shan’t blather about Selina ridding herself of the brat. Truth be told, it must be a huge relief not to bring it to term. Farming out a bastard of indeterminate color and lineage would be a fatiguing business. Now let me tell you my news. You’ll never guess who called on Russell very late last night…”
Lady Sybilla placed a comforting hand on her sizeable belly and schooled her features to remain stagnant. But her mind was reeling. She wondered how Maria Russell had come to find out about Selina’s miscarriage. It had never occurred to her that the baby had not been wanted, and for the reasons alluded to by Maria Russell. She did not believe for one moment the persistent rumor that Alec was the product of his mother’s affair with a mulatto servant, and yet from where had those blue-black curls and olive skin originated? Lord Halsey’s brother had been sandy-haired; his mother a pale blonde. And why had Selina not told Alec about the baby, for surely he was the father, if she too did not harbor reservations about giving birth to a colored child? Sybilla mentally shook herself; shocked by her own fickleness about a man who had always been kind and considerate and deserved only her loyalty. Of course she had no idea who had called on Lord Russell.
“Cleveley,” was Lady Russell’s breathless answer and mistook Lady Sybilla’s silent preoccupation for astonishment that the Duke of Cleveley had graced the Russell household with his presence. She added that the two great political rivals had spent several congenial hours in Lord Russell’s library and then hinted she was in hourly expectation of her dear Henrietta receiving an offer from his Grace of Cleveley. She then had the satisfaction of watching Lady Sybilla’s eyes grow very round.
Lady Sybilla could only peer anew over the pleated rim of her fan at the Duke of Cleveley and inwardly shudder for poor Henrietta. No wonder the girl looked wretched. A great match it certainly was, a great honor done Henrietta, too, but the girl was barely twenty, and despite the rumor she was soiled goods, an indiscretion or two while drunk at a ball, the Duke was on the other side of forty as to be considered a cradle snatcher. Besides, Sybilla was inclined to forgive Henrietta her drunken mistakes for she was not mentally acute and thus was easily led, and she was warm-hearted and kind; the Duke had about as much warmth as the bleakest of January days.
“Naturally, I’ve not mentioned any of this to Frances,” the Countess Russell was saying, a sidelong glance at Frances Rutherglen. “It will break her heart. Not that she won’t be happy for Henrietta; she will, given time. But one must not forget the tragic loss of her little Mimi.”
Lady Sybilla had not forgotten about Lady Rutherglen’s only child. After all, the girl had been Sybilla’s niece and a great beauty from a young age. She had died less than five years ago, and in the same week that she, Sybilla, had given birth to the Admiral’s second son. Her death had indeed been heartbreaking.
Lady Russell was all too eager to relive the tragedy.
“You remember Mimi. The poor child died of pneumonia just days short of her fifteenth birthday. Her constitution was never strong. Reason she rarely if ever left the schoolroom. Frances was so afraid for her health. The malicious gossips would have you believe it was jealousy of her daughter that kept Mimi shut away; that after one of Frances’s parental rages Mimi bolted only to catch her death for her truancy.”
Lady Sybilla could well believe it. Her sister-in-law Frances possessed a heart with the temperature of an icicle and was as plain as a bowl of cold custard; Lady Rutherglen’s sister Ellen, Duchess of Cleveley was prettier but not considered a great beauty. What beauty there was in the family had gone to the sisters’ younger brother the Admiral, Sybilla’s husband. And as much as Sybilla loved her dear Admiral she was not blind to his physical imperfections; he was no Adonis, no Alec Halsey by any stretch.
“What nonsense,” Lady Russell
continued scornfully. “Mimi did not bolt. It was all the fault of her country cousin, a wafer-headed creature who had as much sense as a bee in a bottle! She led Mimi astray and what should have been a quiet stroll up the Mall ended in both girls missing for hours, improperly dressed for the inclement weather, and the poor Rutherglens out of their minds with worry fearing Mimi had been abducted. Then their relief at the news Mimi had been found safe only to be told she had collapsed and died. Poor Rutherglen had a stroke at the news and what you see before you is the result!”
Lady Sybilla glanced at Mimi’s elderly papa; spittle bubbled at the corner of his slackened mouth. She quickly returned her attention to Lady Russell.
“I seem to recall that the cousin, she did not—”
“—return? How could she? Why would she? It was her fault Mimi died. Wretched evil creature. No, Sybilla, you must not believe the gossipmongers. Frances was devoted to her only child. There was a pact between the sisters that Ellen’s son George and Frances’s Mimi would wed; that one day Mimi would be the next Duchess of Cleveley. Then she passed away and so their dream came to nothing.”
This was a revelation to Lady Sybilla, but she thought it typical of her sister-in-law to scheme for such an outcome. Her eyes widened as her glance took in the stocky figure of the Duke of Cleveley. Marriage to the Duke was enough of a repellent notion, being wed to the Duke’s errant corpulent stepson Lord George would be much worse. She would not have been at all surprised had poor Mimi up and died just to get out of such an atrocious arrangement; the country cousin may have done her a favor after all.
“So you see my dilemma,” Lady Russell was rattling on. “Henrietta is to gain what Mimi did not live to take.” She smiled her delight and satisfaction, gloved hands flexing about the handle of her fan. “I wish Ellen was alive to see the day.”
Deadly Affair: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) Page 9