Lady Beware

by Jo Beverley

  Van smiled, but said, “Then I could ask why I haven’t seen you sooner. Until I heard you were at the Yeovil ball last night, I didn’t know you were in Town.”

  “Settling in,” Darien offered as a vague excuse. “Shall we attempt the drawing room? There is one, but it’s still under wraps.”

  “Then why disturb the shrouds?” Van took one of the saggy-seat chairs by the empty fireplace. “How are you?”

  Darien took the other chair, beginning to be wary. Van would be here out of friendship, no question, but he could still be on business connected to last night. Van had his own connection to the Rogues.

  “Well enough, all things considered,” he answered. “And you? Marriage suiting you? And fatherhood?” Darien had been astonished last year to hear that Van had married a wealthy, and older, widow. Widow of a merchant, no less. But he’d inherited estates in even worse state than his own.

  “Excellently,” Van said. “I recommend both.”

  Before Darien could continue with such distractions, Van asked, “Did you deliberately avoid me last night?”

  “Direct and to the point as always. Of course I did. I was the leper at the feast and I’d no mind to contaminate you.”

  “I never thought you quixotic. But if you were a leper, you’re cured. You’re the Duchess of Yeovil’s darling. Except that you didn’t linger to be crowned with glory.”

  “Put her nose out of joint, have I?”

  Van’s brows twitched. “Only puzzled her. Why?”

  “I don’t care to be blubbered over.”

  “What precisely is going on?”

  Darien was tempted to tell Van everything, but only for a moment. He truly didn’t want any friend tangled in this, and there might be aspects that he didn’t want Van to know about at all.

  “For my sins, I’m Viscount Darien. When the regiment ended up back in England and enforcing the Riot Act on a bunch of desperate Lancashire weavers, I realized I was serving no useful purpose in the army. I hoped to be more useful by managing my estates, sorting out the finances, and deciding what to do with it all. Including this damned place.”

  “It’s seems a perfectly normal house.”

  “The hell it is. It’s Mad Marcus Cave’s lair.”

  “Good Lord, I suppose it is. Sell it?”

  “It’s been available for sale or lease for over a year.”

  “Not part of the entail, then?”

  “There is none.”

  Prussock came in, carrying a tray bearing a tall china coffeepot and other necessities. There was even a plate of biscuits of some sort. Interesting, as Darien had never seen a biscuit here before. He wasn’t particularly fond of sweet foods so he hadn’t missed them.

  He should probably scrutinize Mrs. Prussock’s expenditures, especially on the servants’ food, but that seemed low on the list. If they required some indulgences to stay on here, that would be cheap at the price.

  When coffee was served and Prussock left, Van said, “So there was actually something of value to inherit. You did better than I there.”

  Darien relaxed into safe subjects. Van might even have useful experience of property law and management. “Astonishing, isn’t it? Some of the more valuable items have been sold over the years, but the three estates are intact with only small mortgages. They’ve been poorly managed, but they bring in a quarterly income that exceeds the essential outgoings, which is more than I expected. Your family’s estates were in terrible shape?”

  Van smiled wryly. “Drowning in debt. I solved my problems by marrying money. You might want to consider it.”

  Darien laughed. “What heiress would marry a Cave? I’d find it hard enough to find a healthy, sane female of any kind.”

  “That’s nonsense….” But then Van seemed to accept the truth. “Then last night was fortunate. With the Debenhams’ patronage you’ll soon be in better shape. Fighting off the ambitious young ladies, in fact. With a title, you’ll be like a ten-pointer in stag-hunting season.”

  Darien laughed. “Is that supposed to encourage me?” He saw another chance to deflect the conversation. “Done any hunting since you got back?”

  “Spent a few weeks in Melton over the winter. It’s become a world all of its own.”

  They talked a while about the mecca of fox hunting, making vague plans for the next season. Then Van took another biscuit and asked, “Why did you speak up on Dare’s behalf last night?”

  Darien recognized that they’d arrived at the subject that had brought Van here, but why?

  “Is it so surprising?” he countered.

  “Had the impression you hated his guts. In Brussels you avoided him whenever you could.”

  Darien had hoped he’d hidden his feelings better back then. “We didn’t get along at school, and I wanted to avoid discord. With the battle coming.”

  “We were all trying to be cheerful, weren’t we? Sucking life’s pleasures while we could. Dare was good at that. What did lie between you?”

  “Old story.”

  Van’s look was searching, but he didn’t insist. “Generous of you to go out of your way to help him, then. It did help. He’s off now to stop opium for good, and the fewer burdens he carries the better.”

  Darien wanted to say something sour, but he’d known other men left with that demon on their backs after lengthy pain. “I hope he wins.”

  Van nodded. “You have a fight on your hands, too. You want to be accepted in London society?”

  “Don’t I deserve to be?”

  “Of course.” But Van’s expression didn’t deny the challenge. “How can we help?”

  “We?” Darien asked.

  “Maria and I. You must come over soon. She’s keen to meet you.”

  Darien doubted that. “Not yet. I appreciate it, truly, but I have few enough friends. I’ll not embarrass them.”

  “Instead, you’ll insult them? God knows what our social commitments are—women’s work—but come to dinner next Wednesday. In the meantime, we’ll support you at any public event.”

  “Your wife—”

  “Will agree.”

  “Have her so firmly under your thumb, do you?”

  Van laughed. “You have no idea how absurd that is. She’s already agreed to do anything she can. Suggested it, in fact.”

  “Perhaps she doesn’t understand. She’s a merchant’s widow, isn’t she? A foreign merchant.”

  Van laughed again, throwing his head back. “You really have no idea, do you? Maria, my lad, was born a Dunpott-Ffyfe. That may mean nothing to you, but the very top of the trees, I assure you. She’s cousin to the Duchess of Yeovil and linked on the family tree to just about anyone else of importance, including, I gather, the royalty of at least four countries. She’s over at Yeovil House now, weaving plans.”

  Darien went cold. Van’s wife was cousin to Lady Theodosia Debenham’s mother? And they were all three in the middle of a web of almost limitless social power? The discovery was like charging down on a vulnerable troop of soldiers and having the entire enemy army come over the crest of a hill.

  “I’ve assured Maria that you’re a sound ’un, top to toe,” Van said.

  Darien put down his cup. “You sound as if you have doubts.”

  Van’s eyes were steady. “No, but you’re up to something.”

  “I merely wish to be accepted in society as a reasonably normal human being.”

  “Then there should be no difficulty. Leave it to the women. That’s my advice.” Van rose. “I have an appointment, but Maria will come up with the right invitations for you to accept. Routs and such, I suspect. They’re just a matter of entering the house, greeting a few people, and leaving. You’ll have cards for those.”

  “I do. I’m surprised to receive invitations of any kind.”

  Van waved a hand. “There are all kinds of arcane rules, but all peers of the realm are invited to any gathering that can’t claim to be select. Then there’s the theater and perhaps some exhibitions. Being seen wi
th Maria will carry weight.”

  “It’s very kind of you,” Darien said, trying to decide if he should accept this sort of help.

  “Do you still box?” Van asked.

  “Why? Itching to fight me?”

  “Always,” Van said with a smile. “But it’s an activity where you’ll mingle with some of the men. Friday afternoon? We could go to Jackson’s.”

  “I’d like that.”

  Van grasped Darien’s arm briefly. “It’s good to be back together, Canem. And this time with death unlikely in the near future.”

  Darien showed Van out, hoping that was true.

  He was warmed by friendship but concerned about the new alignment of the chessboard. Three queens in play, and they could be three Fates, deciding if he would live or die.

  A moment’s consideration told him that he could no more affect that than he could affect the Fates, so he returned to the office and the incomprehensible ledgers. He’d not completed the comparison of two pages before there was another knock.

  What now?

  Something normal this time—Prussock brought the afternoon post. Darien scanned the three letters, hoping one was from Frank. No. One from his solicitor, another from his new agent at his Warwickshire estate, Stours Court, and a third with no indication of the sender.

  He snapped the seal and unfolded the paper to reveal an enclosure—a printed sheet of some sort. When he unfolded that, he found a cheap print of a satirical cartoon, the sort of thing displayed row on row in any printer’s shop. He knew this one, however. He’d received another copy, also anonymously, in France within a week of the deaths of his father and brother last year.

  In neat engraving, two rotund men sprawled upon a hillside with the mouth of hell open below them. Imps had hold of their booted feet to drag them down to where flames, Lucifer, and a bloated monster of a man awaited.

  In case anyone missed the points, the monster was labeled “Mad Marcus Cave” and the two men were labeled “The Unholy Christian Cave” and “Vile Viscount Darien.” From thunderclouds above, God hurled a thunderbolt from each hand, with the captioned word, large and bold, “Cave!”

  At the bottom, the picture was titled The Wrath of God.

  “Well,” he muttered to the sender, “and damn you to hell, too.”

  The cartoon was accurate in the essentials. His father, the sixth Viscount Darien, and his other older brother, the very unholy Christian Cave, had been found dead on moors near Stours Court. They’d been out shooting and were killed during a thunderstorm.

  When he’d heard the news Darien hadn’t felt a twinge of grief, but he’d wished they’d died less obtrusively. He wished it even more now. Marcus’s foul crime had been six years ago and he’d been dead for five, but the Wrath of God had occurred only last year.

  Was this cartoon being reprinted and displayed again? At whose instigation? As he crushed the image in his fist, the knocker hammered again. “God Almighty! What now?” he exclaimed, rising to his feet. Bad things, he remembered, came in threes.

  He strode to the door to meet his fate, but it opened to show Prussock again, looking even crosser. “You have a guest, milord,” he accused.

  “You mean a visitor, Prussock.”

  “No, milord. The gentleman says he has come to stay.”

  “Who—”

  But the gentleman in question appeared behind the butler, large, round, beaming, and as always resembling a six-foot-tall cherub. “Nice house, Canem,” said Pup Uppington, erstwhile lieutenant in Darien’s regiment. Darien stared, wondering what he’d done to deserve this.

  Pup had been christened Percival Arthur Uppington by parents who’d hoped for a mighty warrior. When he’d turned out to be short of a full dozen they’d sent him into the army anyway. By some miracle he’d survived long enough to make it from cornet to lieutenant, being passed around regiments until he’d landed, confused but willing, under Captain Cave’s command.

  It had seemed that the whole army had agreed that Pup fit beautifully there, by name if for no other reason. He’d acquired the nickname “Pup” in school, but the prospect of making him Canem’s Pup had been too much for anyone to resist.

  That might have been why Darien hadn’t tried to shuffle him off, and why he’d kept Pup alive over the Pyrenees, through France and the false peace, and even through Waterloo. The unfortunate consequence was that Pup was as devoted as a puppy. Darien had thought he’d shed him when Pup had inherited a godfather’s money late last year, but Pup had stayed in the army, devoted as always.

  When Darien himself had sold his commission, he’d assumed that would sever the cord, especially as Pup had left at the same time to claim his modest fortune. What in Hades was he doing here?

  “Thank you, Prussock,” Darien said, rather dazedly.

  When the butler stepped to the side and worked around Pup to leave, he revealed an astonishing waistcoat curving over Pup’s belly, one composed of blue and yellow paisley. Pup’s clothing was all disastrously in the absolutely latest style, including collar points that rose over his ears and a mass of cravat at the front that was probably supposed to be something fanciful like the waterfall knot, but reminded Darien of a cauliflower.

  “What are you doing here, Pup?”

  “Fancied a bit of London,” the young man replied. “Thought, Canem has a house. No wife, no family. Must want some company.” His beam showed his certainty of doing a saintly deed.

  Yes, indeed. Trouble did come in threes.

  “You won’t like it here, Pup. I’m persona non grata.”

  “Persona what?”

  “Not welcome. No invitations. No parties. No anything.” Hell, he was starting to talk like him. “You’ll be more comfortable at an inn. Or a hotel,” he quickly amended. The restrained propriety of a hotel would be much safer.

  Pup, loose, unaccompanied in London.

  Double hell.

  “This is fine, Canem. Better than many billets we’ve had, eh?”

  Why the devil hadn’t he let Pup drown in the Loire when he’d had the chance? Darien was assembling new arguments when there was another knock.

  “Come!” he yelled. This was against the rules. There couldn’t be four.

  Prussock bore a single letter—on the salver this time, and with an air of portent. “From the Duchess of Yeovil!” he declared, loud enough for the residents next door to hear.

  Darien took the letter, braced for the judgment of the Fates. He snapped the large crested seal and unfolded the expensive paper—to find a warmly phrased thank-you for his assistance to her son.

  Not four. Instead, the first step to victory.

  “Duchess, eh?” Pup chortled. “Knew you were funning about grata stuff! Canem Cave, after all. Welcome everywhere! Which room shall I have?”

  Perhaps it was the sweetness of the minor victory, or simply that he couldn’t toss the moonling out to fend for himself in one of the wickedest cities in the world, but Darien didn’t struggle. Pup could have Marcus’s old room. His innocent cheer might fumigate it and scare off the ghosts. He carried Pup’s valise upstairs while the young man shouldered his trunk without strain.

  “No valet, Pup?”

  “Had one. Frightened me.”

  “Use mine while you’re here. He’s not frightening, but he does drink.”

  As he put Pup’s valise down in the room, an idea stirred. Was it possible to hire the equivalent of a lady’s companion for a man? Young men traveling for their education had bear-leaders to guide them and keep them out of harm. Why not a combination of valet and tutor to guide Pup through life?

  Have to be just the right person. Someone who wouldn’t take advantage.

  Van might know. Or his Fate-full wife.

  He turned to leave, but Pup said, “So, what’ll we do now?”

  “I’m busy, Pup. Lots of paperwork with a title.”

  “Tonight, then. I want to visit a London brothel, Canem. The best brothel in London.”

  Darien closed
his eyes briefly. “We’ll go out and see the sights,” he promised and escaped.

  He stopped by the drawing room. At this rate, he might need it. He raised one white cotton cover and saw an old-fashioned heavy sofa. Beneath the cloth on the floor was an adequate carpet. The walls were painted a rather depressing buff, but probably with minimum work the room could be usable.

  He wondered when this room had indeed last been used. Hard to imagine his father hosting a drawing room affair, and his mother had stopped coming to London early in her married life, unwilling to fight the arctic ton. He himself had never come here. Before going to school, he’d been trapped at Stours Court.

  His grandmother? Equally unlikely. Devil Darien’s wife had sued for separation on the grounds of intolerable cruelty, and got it. So her rule here could only have been in the early years of that marriage, long, long ago.

  He wondered about the shrouded pictures on the walls and pulled off one cloth. A gloomy landscape with towering mountains and small figures. Another revealed a blank-faced woman in the fashion of the last century. Probably Devil’s wife, before escaping hell.

  Was there a picture of his mother here? He’d never seen one and his own memory of her was faint. He pulled off more shrouds and found a portrait of his father.

  It was a reasonably good oil of a coarse-featured man who looked to be in his thirties. It had probably been painted when he’d inherited the title, long before he married. If the artist had been a flatterer, God help them all.

  Even then, the Vile Viscount’s heavy face had been blotched and ruddy, his nose bloated, his brown hair thin. Chins hung over a sloppily tied neckcloth and his round belly strained the buttons of a plain waistcoat. All the same, he sat straddle-legged and confident of his power.

  The image resembled the older man Darien remembered, including the slack, reddish lips and pouched, cruel eyes—eyes that seemed to look at him now and say, Think you’re better than me, lad? You’re a Cave, too, and no one will ever forget it.

  “Who’s that?”

  Pup’s voice startled Darien. Of course he’d come to find him. Would he know a moment’s peace?

  “You don’t see a resemblance?” he asked.