by M C Beaton
“Well, don’t you know, I’m fond of him,” he said, adopting a judicious air, “and I ain’t around when he’s getting up to the worst of his capers. I’ve heard about them, though. I cannot describe them to you, for they are not fit for gentle ears.”
Lucy let out a slow breath of relief. This man was Wardshire’s closest friend. She had done the right thing.
And then, like some matriarchal jungle animal, Mrs. Bliss’s fat face appeared between the palm leaves. “Why, Mr. Graham!” she cooed. “How naughty of you.”
“Only talking, madam,” Mr. Graham hurriedly said, and made his escape. He planned to ask Mrs. Bliss if he could take Lucy driving again, but wanted to do so when she was engaged with other company so that he would not have to listen to her going on and on.
On emerging from the palms, he bumped into Lady Fortescue. She was looking magnificent in a gown of gold tissue, damped to reveal the curves of her body. “Where is your friend Wardshire?” she asked.
“Gone to the country,” said Mr. Graham.
Her face fell. “When does he plan to return?”
“Any day now. Means to do the Season.”
She linked her arm in his and said, “Walk with me for a little. I would ask your advice.”
“By all means,” said Mr. Graham, although he wished he could escape.
“I wonder if you could explain Wardshire’s odd behavior. He called on me. He is still in love with me, you know, and yet at the Harbys’ ball, he affected to pay court to the daughters of that vulgar woman.”
“She is vulgar,” agreed Mr. Graham, “but there is no denying that her daughters are charming.”
“But so unsuitable. Even Wardshire cannot be contemplating marriage with a girl half his age.”
“No knowing,” said Mr. Graham, tugging at his cravat.
She sighed. “I was so much in love with him.”
“Then why did you marry Fortescue?”
“Alas, that was the fault of my parents.”
“Really?” Like the duke, Mr. Graham recalled the Bellinghams as a small, faded, timid couple. Had there not been some gossip that Clarinda Bellingham had behaved disgracefully during her first Season and that her parents had heaved a mighty sigh of relief when she had announced her intention of marrying Fortescue?
“I have never forgotten him,” she said. “He may think I did not wait for him, but I have been cruelly punished, for I have waited all these years.”
“I do not know what to say.” Mr. Graham looked wildly around. “He does not confide in me.”
Her large blue eyes seemed to swallow him up. “But you could confide in him. Tell him, dear Mr. Graham, that I am ready to marry him.”
“Um, of course… delighted. If that’s what you want.”
Her grip on his arm grew tighter. “And you will call on me and let me know what he says?”
“Yes, ma’am. Must go. Someone looking for me.” Mr. Graham made his escape. He could not see Lucy anywhere, but her sister was talking to several gentlemen, and so he joined the group about her. How refreshing the Bliss girls were after Lady Fortescue, he thought as Belinda gave him a warm smile. Emboldened by that smile, he asked her to promenade with him and felt very proud when she accepted and left her little group of courtiers to move off with him.
“Where is Lucy?” she asked.
He twisted his neck this way and that. “Disappeared somewhere,” he said.
“I am very fond of her, you know,” confided Belinda.
“As we all are, Miss Belinda.”
She peeped up at him. “Even Wardshire? After that terrible drawing? Did he tell you about it?”
He gave a reluctant laugh. “Yes, he says he is going to have it framed.”
“Lucy is a very clever artist,” said Belinda. “I should think Wardshire is a very clever man, too. Such a pity about his reputation. But it is said he will probably marry Lady Fortescue.”
“Perhaps not,” said Mr. Graham cautiously.
“You were telling Lucy that Wardshire plans to hold a black mass this Sunday.”
“Was I? Well, I may have said something like that.”
“An odd thing to say about your closest friend even if it were true.”
Mr. Graham looked about. “I say, look at Anstruther’s coat. Quite disgraceful.”
“We were talking about the duke’s black mass,” said Belinda firmly. “Had you not considered it might be a rather dangerous thing to tell such a high-spirited lady as my sister? Did it not occur to you that she might go to the authorities?”
Mr. Graham stopped dead and gave her a stricken look. “She didn’t!”
“I am not saying she did.”
“Oh, but she wouldn’t.”
“Could it be that you were lying, Mr. Graham?”
Mr. Graham thought rapidly. If Lucy had gone to the authorities, then surely he himself would already have been questioned. He felt himself relax. “Oh, Wardshire did say something about it. Wicked man! Don’t bother your pretty head. Talk about something else.”
And so Belinda dutifully talked about her impressions of London, and Mr. Graham began to find her much more attractive than Lucy, until Lucy came to join them and he realized with a shock that he was falling in love with her.
He thought guiltily about that black mass, but then mentally shrugged. He would tell Wardshire on his return what he had said, and they would have a laugh about it.
Mr. James Benson, reporter on the Morning Bugle, stood uneasily outside the gates of Sarsey with two Bow Street Runners. “You know why they gave me this job?” he demanded. “It’s because they think I’m expendable.”
“We’re just here to do our duty, sir,” said one of the Runners impassively.
“Yes, it’s all very well for you,” said Mr. Benson.
“But I’m not bursting into that chapel.”
“Then how,” demanded the other Runner, “do you expect us to find out what’s going on?”
“Let me see if there’s any way I can have a look in first,” pleaded Mr. Benson. “Now, where’s this ’ere chapel?”
“Next the house,” said one Runner, “and we’re in luck. All the servants go, which means the lodge keeper and his family as well, so we just walk in.”
Mr. Benson, sweating lightly with nerves, walked with them up the long, long drive. Daffodils were blowing in the tussocky grass, and forsythia bushes blazed in all their golden glory. It was a perfect spring day. Black mass, indeed. But the editor had told him that the information came from a young society lady, a Miss Lucy Bliss, so surely there must be something in it. On the other hand, society ladies read a great deal of Gothic novels. His thoughts churned round and round.
When they came to the chapel, he heaved a sigh of relief. At some point in the seventeenth century, the chapel had obviously been visited by Cromwell’s soldiers, for several statues of saints on the outside of the small building had been defaced, and most important of all, there was only plain glass in the windows, and better and better, a ladder lay in the grass beside the chapel.
“Here,” he said, “I have an idea. Help me put this ladder up against one of the windows and I’ll have a look-see. If all’s normal, we can just go quietly away.”
They propped the long ladder against the ivy-covered wall, and Mr. Benson climbed slowly up until he could see in at the window.
The church was full of tenants and servants of the duke’s estate, a sober, ordinary group of worshipers. The duke himself was reading the lesson, standing behind the great brass eagle which supported the family Bible. The vicar, a cherubic young man of patent respectability, stood beside the altar, on which the cross was definitely the right way up.
And as Mr. Benson from his perch looked down, the duke looked up and saw him. He shouted something and pointed at the window. Mr. Benson let out a cry and tried to nip down the ladder, missed his footing, and fell with a crash to the ground as the chapel doors opened and the congregation came streaming out.
H
e felt sick and dizzy as he sat up and looked blearily at the ring of faces around him. And then, there, glaring down at him, was the satanic Duke of Wardshire. The duke jerked the unfortunate reporter to his feet and shook him hard. “Explain yourself,” he roared.
“Here’s two Runners, Your Grace,” shouted a voice.
The duke dropped Mr. Benson, who sank down on the grass with a moan, and marched toward the Runners, who doffed their wide hats and bowed.
“It’s like this, Your Grace,” said one. “The editor of the Morning Bugle called at Bow Street and says how there’s a report that you were to hold a black mass here. Had to investigate.”
“I think you had better come indoors, and bring that churl of a reporter with you,” snapped the duke.
Mr. Benson found himself sitting on a chair in one of the state rooms of Sarsey. The grandeur of the surroundings was intimidating and he gratefully seized the glass of brandy being held out to him by a footman and drank it in one gulp.
“Now, young man,” said the duke. “Out with it. Who started this slander?”
“It was a Miss Lucy Bliss,” Mr. Benson bleated, and cowered as the duke’s face appeared to grow dark with rage. “She came into the editor’s office and told him, and he went to Bow Street. Your Grace, I felt sure it was all lies and they were only sending me because I’m new and so it wouldn’t hurt to get rid of me. So I suggested to the Runners that I should climb up to the window of the chapel and have a look, and if all was normal, we could leave quietly. But… but… you saw me and I got a fright and fell off the ladder.”
The Runners, stolidly drinking ale, seemed indifferent both to their surroundings and the reporter’s plight.
Mr. Benson looked pleadingly toward the footman who refilled his glass. The duke strode up and down. His temper was cooling. After all, had he not brought all this on himself? Had he not fostered such a black reputation, then Bow Street would simply have laughed at Miss Bliss’s story.
But the Bliss family deserved to be punished, and punished they would be. They were at fault, not this young man.
He swung round and said in a mild voice to Mr. Benson, “I would like you to write something after all.”
“Anything,” gasped Mr. Benson, who had been fearing a horsewhipping.
“Then go over to the desk and take down what I dictate.”
The duke waited until he was ready and then began to ruin the Bliss family. He explained he had built up a bad reputation for himself to protect himself from encroaching mushrooms like Mrs. Bliss. He had not expected that disgraceful family would perpetrate the ultimate vulgarity on him of sending the Runners to disturb his morning service.
By the time he had finished writing, Mr. Benson was praising God more fervently than anyone in the congregation had done earlier. What a story!
Three people were relieved when Sunday passed without incident-Mr. Graham, Lucy, and Belinda. Lucy came to the conclusion that the editor had damned her privately as a silly, hysterical female and had done nothing about it. She began to feel silly herself and could only be grateful that the sinister duke would never know of her folly. Meanwhile, Almack’s opening ball, to be held on that Wednesday, was looming.
And then Black Monday dawned.
Lucy started from sleep as scream after scream rent the house.
Mrs. Bliss did not read the Morning Bugle, but her butler did. He carried the paper up to his mistress’s bedchamber, opened it, and pointed solemnly to the duke’s story.
That was when Mrs. Bliss started to scream.
Lucy ran to her mother’s bedchamber. Feathers was already there, holding smoking brown paper under her mistress’s nose, which made the screaming Mrs. Bliss subside into coughs and splutters. Belinda, pretty in a rose pink wrapper, was hovering anxiously by the bed. Mr. Bliss in his undress was urging his wife to calm herself.
With a shaking finger, Mrs. Bliss pointed to the newspaper on the bed. All gathered round and read it.
“Goodness, he really is wicked after all,” exclaimed Belinda. “What a revenge. We are socially ruined.” She sounded quite cheerful.
“There, now,” said Mr. Bliss. “It is no great matter. We will retire to the country and wait until everyone forgets this scandal.”
“All my work, all my hopes,” moaned Mrs. Bliss. “Lucy, you arc a wicked, wicked girl and I will never forgive you.”
“But Mr. Graham told me he was holding a black mass,” shouted Lucy, white with anger and despair. “He told me!”
“And you fool, you listened to him,” declared Mrs. Bliss. “Get out of my sight.”
It became a house of mourning that day. The shutters were closed and the blinds drawn down. And then a message arrived from Almack’s to say that the vouchers for the Bliss family had been canceled “under the circumstances.” Mrs. Bliss’s humiliation was complete.
Lucy could have borne it if her mother had continued to shout and accuse. But Mrs. Bliss had fallen silent for the first time anyone could remember. She shut herself in her room for two days, seeing no one but Feathers.
On Wednesday afternoon she emerged and summoned her daughters. “There is only one thing to be done,” she announced.
“Go back to the country?” suggested Belinda hopefully.
“Not like this. Not in disgrace. We must throw ourselves on Wardshire’s mercy.”
“He will just laugh at you, Mama,” said Lucy.
Mrs. Bliss crossed to her desk with a firm, determined tread. “I shall not retreat without fighting. He will come, you’ll see. I will ask him to present himself here and beg his forgiveness.”
Belinda drew her protesting sister from the room. “Do not become exercised over it,” she whispered. “He will not even deign to reply.”
And the duke did not mean to. He read the letter as he was preparing to go to Almack’s and then dropped it in the fire.
He would not admit to himself that he was still furious at Lucy Bliss.
And then Mr. Rufus Graham called to accompany him to Almack’s.
“See you’ve been making a splash in the news paper,” said Mr. Graham awkwardly. “Deuced hard on the Bliss girls.”
“The article was directed against Lucy Bliss in particular. That minx was out to try to ruin me, so she got ruined instead.”
Mr. Graham looked miserable. “It’s all my fault.”
“How so?”
“Well, you know how you’ve always asked me to help blacken your reputation. Well, I took Miss Bliss, Lucy, out for a drive and she asked me if you were as black as you had been painted. So I told her you were holding a black mass on Sunday and threw in a possible human sacrifice for good measure.”
“And the silly little fool believed you?”
“Why not?” demanded Mr. Graham defensively. “Ain’t you gone on for years as if you were Lucifer himself? And have you not realized that Miss Bliss will do anything to protect her sister, Belinda, from the likes of you? Now, with most other ladies, your reputation wouldn’t matter any more than it does to Mrs. Bliss, but these are good girls. I know Mrs. Bliss is vulgar, but she is simply more open about things than most other mothers at the Season. She is of no account. But you are a duke, and your revenge was more than even such as Mrs. Bliss deserved—a cannon to slaughter a gnat.”
“What’s done is done,” said the duke quietly. “You may restore the Bliss fortunes this evening by dancing with Miss Lucy Bliss, but I, thank goodness, am finished with that family for good. Mrs. Bliss even had the temerity to write to me, asking me to call.”
“Stands to reason. You’ve not only got your revenge on her and Miss Bliss but on poor Belinda and that quiet little Mr. Bliss.”
“The matter is closed,” said the duke harshly. “Let us see what Almack’s has to offer.”
Chapter Five
It should have crossed the duke’s mind that his famous newspaper interview had given the patronesses of Almack’s the opportunity they craved—that of spurning the Bliss family—but it did not. He t
ried to put the fragile and elfin figure of Lucy Bliss from his mind, but his eyes kept ranging around Almack’s looking for her, and every time he looked, he only noticed that Lady Fortescue was trying to get his attention.
He began to feel himself becoming angry and would not admit that his growing anger was prompted by guilt. How could he ever have indulged in such folly as encouraging either Lady Fortescue or the ambitions of such as Mrs. Bliss?
He suddenly had no interest in Lady Fortescue whatsoever. He did not want revenge on her. He had been a green youth when he had proposed to her. It was not her fault that he had not at that time recognized the shallowness of her character. He had come to the Season with the express purpose of finding himself a bride, but all the debutantes looked the same: same plump arms, same white muslin dresses, same simpering expressions. Not one of them had the wide, direct gaze of Lucy Bliss.
Damn Lucy Bliss!
Yet he made his way to Mrs. Drummond Burrell’s side, although still convincing himself that it was only polite to pay his courtesies to this formidable patroness, and found himself saying, “It is nearly eleven o’clock. The doors will soon be closed. If Mrs. Bliss plans to make one of her entrances, she had better be quick about it.”
“My dear Wardshire!” Mrs. Drummond Burrell raised her eyebrows. “After what you revealed to the newspapers! The first thing I did was to withdraw her vouchers. And,” she added with satisfaction, “I should hope the Bliss family will be clever enough to leave town very soon, for all are withdrawing their invitations.”
“That is a trifle harsh,” he murmured.
“Harsh? My dear duke, we all share your views. These pushing mushrooms and counter-jumpers must be kept in their place.”
“But Bliss is of the untitled aristocracy, and Mrs. Bliss of the gentry,” he pointed out.
“Then Bliss should control his wife, and his wife should behave in the manner of the gentry,” she said severely. “But I must not keep you.” She looked at him slyly. “Here comes one who is of more interest to you.”