‘What about?’
‘About your intentions.’
‘My intentions? Why, to marry you, my love.’
‘Why did you only book one bedchamber?’
‘We are to be married, so there is no harm in . . . er . . . getting to know each other better.’
‘I am sure you can wait a few days,’ said Fiona calmly. ‘It is not as if you have evinced any signs of mad passion.’
‘As you please,’ he said hurriedly. He could feel his boyish mask slipping and hurriedly straightened it. ‘What you must think of me!’ He laughed. ‘The fact is the inn had only one bedchamber left and so—’
‘I pushed open a few doors as I came along here,’ said Fiona, ‘and the bedchambers were empty.’
‘That curst landlord!’ exclaimed Sir Edward. ‘He has lied to me. Of course, guests may be due to arrive later. Hark! Someone is arriving now.’
The sound of a carriage being driven at great speed sounded from the road outside the inn. But whoever it was had evidently decided to stop their mad ride and after a little the vehicle could be heard turning into the courtyard.
Sir Edward thought quickly. He should have drugged the wine. Too late and too difficult. He studied Fiona’s neat head. One good blow should suffice. Get it over with and have her on the floor. All he wanted to do was sleep and sleep. ‘Go and see who it is,’ he said, hoping to catch Fiona off guard.
She went to the window and looked out. But, like the bedchamber, it overlooked the pond at the back of the inn. She turned back – and then jumped to one side with the agility of a cat. The bottle Sir Edward had been going to bring down on her head smashed against the window frame. Drops of red wine stained the muslin of Fiona’s gown.
She ran to the door, but he caught her by the shoulder and spun her back. She seized a ripe peach from the bowl on the table and threw it full into his face. As he clawed at the pulp, she ran again for the door, but he dived after her, seizing her legs and bringing her crashing down.
He pinned her to the floor. Stunned and winded, Fiona tried to summon up all her strength to escape as she felt greedy hands fumbling in her gown. The weight of his body was suffocating. Her head hurt. She could not move.
The door opened and jarred against their bodies. Fiona had one glimpse of the Earl of Harrington’s tortured and furious face. Sir Edward was plucked from her as if he weighed no more than a child. Both casement windows had been opened to let in the maximum amount of air.
Lord Harrington held Sir Edward by the seat of his breeches and the scruff of his neck. He swung him back and forth several times while Sir Edward fought and kicked helplessly. Then he flung him clean through the window. There was a long descending wail and then an almighty splash.
From the kitchens downstairs the landlord watched Sir Edward fall and wrung his hands. ‘Oh, he’ll kill me, too,’ he moaned, meaning Lord Harrington, before whose stormy arrival and imperious demands he had just fled after telling him where to find Fiona. ‘All I can do is swear to my innocence.’
Lord Harrington came back and knelt on the floor beside Fiona and took her in his arms. ‘Marry me,’ he said huskily.
‘I can’t,’ said Fiona shakily. ‘I am a nameless orphan. I do not know the names of my parents. It is doubtful if my mother, whoever she was, was ever married to my father.’
‘I know,’ he whispered, holding her close. ‘I know and it does not matter. I drove you into running away with that lecher, did I not?’
Fiona nodded dumbly.
‘Has he touched you? Has he harmed you?’
Fiona shook her head. ‘He tried to stun me. I was so silly. I did not think he would resort to violence. I thought I could handle him.’
‘Wait here until I deal with him further.’
Fiona wound her arms about his neck. ‘You want to marry me?’ she asked dizzily.
‘Oh, yes, my heart, my life.’
And Fiona kissed him.
And the Earl of Harrington promptly forgot about Sir Edward and everyone and everything else in the whole wide world as he returned her kiss with savage ferocity, which gradually calmed into dreamy, caressing passion.
Sir Edward struggled frantically from the mud of the pond. He would gain the front of the inn, call for his carriage, and escape from the hellish terror that was the Earl of Harrington. He stumbled around the front of the inn, wiping the mud from his face with his sleeve.
But his nightmare had only just begun.
Into the inn courtyard came an open carriage that was crammed with people who all screamed and pointed at him. He recognized Fiona’s butler.
He dived past them, across the road, and into the fields beyond, sobbing his way through the darkness as the whole staff of Number 67 Clarges Street bayed at his heels like hounds.
Upstairs in the private parlour, Lord Harrington had finally left off kissing Fiona to explain how he had learned of her elopement, how he had reorganized her past, how nothing in the world mattered except that she be his wife.
Fiona listened to him, her eyes shining. The earl went on to say he had old friends who lived close by. They would travel there that very evening, and, if his friends were willing, as he was sure they would be, they would be married in their family church.
‘I will send my servants back to London to fetch Mr Sinclair,’ said the earl. ‘When we are married, we will go to my home in Kent. I am weary of London. I never want to see the place again.’
Fiona raised her lips to his, but, before he could kiss her, there came a terrible row from the staircase outside. The earl set her aside and went and opened the door.
Stumbling up the stairs with MacGregor’s blunderbuss in his back and with the rest of the servants crowding behind came the sorry figure of Sir Edward Kirby.
‘Oh, my lord,’ cried Rainbird thankfully. ‘I am glad you are here. We caught him as he was escaping. How is Miss Fiona?’
‘Well,’ said the earl, grinning. ‘We are to be married.’ He backed into the room as the servants pushed Sir Edward in front of them.
‘He is so muddy,’ said Lizzie, looking at Sir Edward.
‘I had finished with him,’ said the earl, smiling down at her. ‘I have no more time for him.’
‘What did you do with him, my lord?’ asked MacGregor.
‘I threw him through that window.’
‘Oh, weel,’ said MacGregor cheerfully, ‘seeing as how you don’t want him ony mair . . .’
He nodded to Rainbird, and together they threw Sir Edward back through the window and into the pond.
‘You are brave and courageous servants,’ said the earl. ‘Toby! I did not see you. You shall attend our wedding.’
‘And all the servants,’ said Fiona. ‘They must never go back to work for that awful Palmer again.’
‘As to that,’ beamed Rainbird, ‘I, too, have a surprise. With the money you gave us, I am going to buy a little inn at Highgate village. We will all work together to make a success of it. We will all be one family.’
Lizzie burst into tears of joy as the rest, with the exception of Joseph, cheered. Joseph could not envisage living anywhere else but in the West End of London.
‘Maybe Alice won’t want to come, Mr Rainbird,’ said Mrs Middleton, ‘her being so keen on young Luke.’
‘I ain’t keen no more,’ said Alice in her slow, country voice. ‘He hurt little Lizzie. Just think what he would do to a wife!’
‘Yes,’ murmured Miss Fiona Sinclair, looking up at the earl under her lashes. ‘Those brutal men are so untrustworthy.’
Two days later, Mr Percival Pardon looked about the room at his guests. They were all so sour, so down in the mouth, that he longed to see their faces lighting up when he made his announcement.
At last, he could wait no longer and held up his hands for silence. ‘Listen!’ he cried. ‘Great news. Fiona Sinclair has fallen mercy to the wiles of Sir Edward Kirby. See, I have his letter. Let me read it to you.’
Bessie Plumtree burst into an
gry tears and Harriet Giles-Denton stared at him with contempt. Lady Disher walked forward and plucked the letter from Mr Pardon’s hands. ‘You utter fool,’ she said. ‘Did you not read your newspaper? It was in the social column this morning. Fiona Sinclair is to wed the Earl of Harrington and rumour has it that Sir Edward has left the country a broken man. We all knew. We thought you knew and were trying to make up for your ineptitude by entertaining us. Faith, Pardon, you always were a weak and useless fop!’
And so the Earl of Harrington and Miss Fiona Sinclair were married and all the Clarges Street servants were guests. Only Mr Sinclair was absent, being confined to bed with what was diagnosed as Flying Gout.
Joseph had become reconciled to the idea of being a publican. It had been a wonderfully lazy life for them all the few weeks before Miss Fiona’s wedding. Although they were put up in the servants’ wing at Lord Harrington’s friends’ mansion, they were not expected to work.
Joseph, bored at first, had discovered a very sympathetic listener in Lizzie and he often went for long walks with her, bragging of what he meant to do in the future while Lizzie looked up into his face, her eyes like stars.
But even as she stood at last in the church and watched Miss Fiona being married, Lizzie still had that same nagging fear at the back of her mind.
Before she left with her new husband, Fiona sent for Rainbird, looking affectionately at the butler with his acrobat’s figure and comedian’s face.
‘Well, my Rainbird,’ she said softly, ‘all’s well that ends well. Are you sure everything will go smoothly with you now? My lord and I are going to be travelling abroad for some time after we have left Mr Sinclair in Kent, where he can be cared for by a competent physician. I do not wish to leave the country if I feel you still need my help.’
‘No, my lady,’ said Rainbird. ‘Thanks to you, we shall all do very well.’
‘Then hug me, Mr Rainbird, as you have done when I was upset and miserable. Hug me, now that I am glad.’
Rainbird opened his arms, and Fiona threw herself into them.
‘What is this?’ demanded a voice from the doorway. The Earl of Harrington stood surveying the scene, his arms folded.
‘I was only saying goodbye to Mr Rainbird,’ said Fiona.
The earl looked at Rainbird and jerked his head in dismissal.
‘Never let me see you with your arms around another man again,’ Rainbird heard the earl say as he went down the stairs. ‘Do you want to kill me with jealousy?’
Rainbird began to whistle.
He, Rainbird, had made an earl jealous.
EPILOGUE
The November wind whistled down Clarges Street, a biting bone-chilling wind. It rushed down the area steps of Number 67 and moaned under the kitchen door.
‘Faith, ’tis cold,’ said Rainbird gloomily. ‘What’s for supper, MacGregor?’
‘Naethin’ but bread and cheese,’ snapped the cook.
‘I kent stend it,’ wailed Joseph. ‘We’re all cold and miserable and hungry again. Next time anyone wants meh help, they can whistle for it.’
‘I will never regret helping Miss Fiona,’ said Rainbird severely. ‘Never.’
‘I know Palmer took the money,’ said Jenny fiercely. ‘Mr Blenkinsop told Mr Rainbird Palmer knew the house had been left open. Besides, Mr Sinclair’s money wasn’t touched.’
‘We can’t prove it,’ said Rainbird with a pessimistic shrug. ‘He was seen going in. He said he discovered the robbery and called the watch, which there is proof he did.’
‘It’s as if we’re taking care of ghosts,’ said Alice with a shiver. ‘Every day we take down the shutters and clean and scrub the rooms, but there’s no one there.’
‘I still keep thinking of that dear little inn,’ mourned Mrs Middleton, who had been sure Rainbird would propose to her once they had thrown off their servants’ shackles, hope springing eternal in the spinster breast.
‘Can’t yer write to Miss Fiona – I mean ’er ladyship and ask ’er to ’elp?’ said Dave.
‘We don’t know where she is,’ said Rainbird. ‘I waited too long, thinking Mr Sinclair would have told her all about it, but evidently he did not. He was so ill at the time, he probably thought it all part of a dream.’
‘We’re all together,’ said Lizzie stoutly. ‘That’s very important. If you love people, it’s more important than money.’
Joseph sniffed and looked away. He felt he had paid too much attention to Lizzie while they were in the country and had given her ideas.
‘P’raps,’ said Alice slowly, ‘somewhere there’s another tenant, looking at the advertisement. Give us a tune, Joseph. Ain’t no use bein’ miserable as I can see. Waste o’ time.’
Joseph brightened and went to fetch his mandolin.
Lizzie was right, thought Rainbird. They would survive, just so long as they all kept together.
Mr Sinclair climbed stiffly down from the mail coach outside the post office at the west end of the North Bridge in Edinburgh. He was feeling much fitter than he had done for many years.
Fiona had frightened him with a lengthy lecture on the perils of drinking too much. After the happy couple had left for abroad, Mr Sinclair had stayed on at the earl’s home in Kent until he had felt strong enough to make the long journey home.
His determination to remain teetotal had been further strengthened by the shocking death of his old friend, Sir Andrew Strathkeith.
He breathed in a great gulp of sharp, sooty Edinburgh air, then left his trunks at the post office and decided to amble forth in search of accommodation.
His steps bore him across the bridge to the towering black tenements of the Old Town. His eyes filled with sentimental tears. The Royal Mile, with its bustle and filth, its dangers of being hit with the contents of refuse pails or chamberpots thrown from above, might make the genteel Londoner shrink, but it was like heaven to the returning Mr Roderick Sinclair.
In front of St Giles Church were the rows of sheds called lucken booths where the traders sold everything imaginable. The air rang with their cries, resounding with Scottish voices.
And then sweet and clear above his head rang out the ‘meridian’.
His steps led him to John Dowie’s tavern. All good resolutions were forgotten. But he paused with his handle on the door. He suddenly thought the whole episode of going to London had all been a dream. Had he really met the top ten thousand on an equal footing? Had Fiona really existed? Had he really been called the Miser of Mayfair?
Then he heard Fiona’s voice inside his head, saying, ‘Do you want to die? Your death is in each bottle. Oh, it may not kill you. But what of the insanity of trying to hang yourself?’
‘How did ye ken ah was going to hang myself,’ said Mr Sinclair sulkily. A passerby looked at him nervously.
Mr Sinclair turned and walked rapidly away from the tavern door, and the further away he walked, the lighter he felt.
There were a good few years left to him.
And, after all, he was home.
Miser of Mayfair Page 16