The Lies of Lord John (Bonnie Brides Book 5)

by Fiona Monroe

  "Though, not well. That was a queer set. Irregular, even for my tastes."

  "You have irregular tastes, sir?" She said it teasingly, but her heart started to beat faster. Anything pertaining to Venice was promising.

  He appeared to consider the question seriously, rotating his wine glass in the candlelight. The glassware had arrived across the bridge from a merchant in Old Town, just that morning. "No, actually. I do not. That was why Byron and I did not see eye to eye. I have simple, natural tastes, you know, even though my family think I am a reprobate. Good books, poetry, music, sometimes, and—I suppose—domestic comfort, though that has always eluded me."

  "But no longer?" she asked tentatively.

  They were in a pool of candlelight, in their own little home, and Lord John's long fingers were fiddling with the sparkling cut glass. Margaret tried to read his expression, and instead became intrigued by how long and heavy his eyelashes were. They were dark, in contrast to his blond hair.

  "Well, shall we open some of that port Sir Duncan sent round?" he suggested.

  Margaret breathed out. She declined the port and, shortly afterward, instead retreated to their bedroom, where she changed into her nightgown and spent some time brushing out her hair into a long, silky, luxuriant cloud of curls.

  It was chilly in the bedroom. She had not thought to ask for a fire to be laid, and the dim-looking new housemaid had not done so on her own initiative. She was going to have to get used to thinking of such things and giving servants orders, since they had no housekeeper in their modest establishment.

  She climbed into the rather damp-feeling sheets, warming them with the heat of her own body, and waited for Lord John to come to bed.

  She was still waiting, though in her dreams, when the clattering sound of shutters being opened by the housemaid woke her, and cheerful morning sunshine fell across her face.

  "Where did you sleep last night?"

  Lord John was already eating bannocks and kippers when Margaret came into the parlour, now laid for breakfast. He looked up and said pleasantly, "There's a winged arm chair in the study. It was very comfortable."

  "The bed would have been more comfortable."

  "I did not want to disturb you. Besides, I hate damp sheets."

  Margaret swallowed down her retort, sat at the table, and said, "I shall see that there is a fire in the bedroom tonight and that the sheets are warmed. If we do not have hot water bottles, I shall send the maid out to buy some this morning."

  "No need, or not on my account." He shook open The Scotsman.

  Margaret watched him unhappily. Was this to be their life, then? She found herself tempted to speak insolently to him again, simply to provoke the physical and emotional intimacy of chastisement. Only the still-fresh memory of the ferocious sting of his hand on her bare backside stopped her, although at the same time, a different and tingling pleasant warmth spread unexpectedly through her nether regions.

  The entrance of the housemaid with fresh tea and coffee stalled conversation. Margaret sat quietly while the maid replenished the table and reflected that in such a small home as this, they were always going to have a servant just behind the next door. It would be hard to get much privacy, for conversations if nothing else.

  Once the girl had gone again, she began tentatively, "Lord John, I think it would be better if you slept in our bed. It cannot be good for your health, to spend your nights in a chair—think how cold that will be in the winter. Besides, what the servants will think."

  He appeared not even to be listening. Something in the paper seemed to have engaged his attention. He made a soft exclamation under his breath, looked over what he was reading again, and pushed back his chair. "Has the first post been delivered?" he asked, in a completely different tone.

  "I do not know. I have only just got—"

  "I'm going out. If anything arrives for me in the post—well, no matter, I shall see it when I return."

  "Where are you going?"

  "Out on business." He strode from the room.

  When he returned, briefly, he was wearing his greatcoat and hat. "Margaret—"

  Margaret guiltily pushed aside the paper, as if she had not begun to study it to see what it was he had been reading.

  "If anyone comes to the door, asking for me, who appears to be foreign—not British, at any rate—I am not at home."

  "Foreign?"

  He was gone.

  As soon as she heard the front door of the common staircase close behind him, Margaret pulled the paper back toward her and looked over the page he had been reading. Somewhat to her surprise, it was the foreign news page.

  She could make nothing of it. Spain had ceded some land to the United States. A Russian province had freed all its serfs. A German dramatist had been murdered. A German king had died. All of these faraway events, reported in tiny crowded print, had no relevance to real life here in Scotland. She flicked forward and backward in the newspaper but could make nothing of it.

  She looked out of the window, down toward Princes Street, and was in time to see the tall handsome figure of her husband striding away, swinging his cane. He crossed behind a carriage and was gone from sight.

  At least she knew that he was gone from the house, however maddening and mysterious his mission. She could proceed with her investigations without fear of interruption.

  The movers had brought along several boxes from Sir Duncan's house, despite Lord John claiming to have no possessions worth speaking of to his name. Two of the boxes had been deposited, at his direction, in the small narrow room that was fitted out as a study, and he had issued strict orders that they were not to be opened or disturbed in any way. Margaret had taken note of that and determined to investigate as soon as she could.

  The boxes were still on the floor where the carters had deposited them and did not appear to have been opened.

  Margaret took the precaution of shutting the door, then she opened the first of the boxes. Its wooden lid had been lightly nailed down and yielded to the leverage of a metal ruler she found in the desk drawer. She quickly established that it was full chiefly of books, despite Lord John's assertion that he had none with him. She lifted a few out, just to check that there was nothing more interesting hiding underneath, and found some volumes in Italian, including a work by Casanova and the first volume of a novel in English called Fanny Hill. There was also a book in French, filled with beautifully coloured plates depicting men and women in the act of sexual congress. Some of the illustrations even showed ladies entertaining more than one gentleman simultaneously or the opposite arrangement. Margaret spent some time kneeling on the rug, turning the increasingly lurid pages of this tome in fascinated disgust.

  A knock on the door startled her. She snapped the French book shut and called out, "Yes?"

  "'Scuse, madam." It was the clumsy, raw-looking housemaid. "Cook says are you wanting tea?"

  "No. Please do not disturb me again—Paterson?"

  Paterson made her fumbling bow and departed, but Margaret was reminded that time was not infinite and privacy lacking. She rummaged about a bit more in the box of books and found nothing but more material of a like nature and some old copies of The Spectator.

  The pictures in the French illustrated volume had rendered her rather short of breath and intensely curious. Was it really possible, what the young lady with the voluminous petticoats had been doing with those two gentlemen while wearing an undisturbed wig and a calm smile?

  She investigated the other crate. It moved under her hands and was evidently much lighter than the first. When she had removed the lid, it proved to be full of papers. There was a foolscap-sized sheaf tied up with a ribbon and several packets of letters crammed in as if hurriedly packed.

  This was potentially more like the sort of thing she was looking for, but Margaret sat back on her heels and thought for a moment. To look into someone's private correspondence was a very serious breach of trust. She shuddered at the thought of someone invading her ow
n cache of letters, ribbon-bound bundles which filled a whole trunk and contained evidence of her various follies and flirtations.

  But she had no choice. Emmeline, who had always been her guide on what was acceptable if not what was right, had urged her to put her own best interests first. Her reliance on Emmeline's judgement had taken a severe blow, but despite her friend's disgrace, Margaret had seemed unable to turn her back on her. She could not give up the habit of relying on Emmeline's advice.

  She lifted up the larger bundle of sheets first and leafed tentatively through them. Her alarm that she was about to discover something deeply personal ebbed as she found that the papers were poems, or rather, drafts of poems. Line after line, with many crossings-out and additions and repetitions, so that some pages were an incomprehensible patchwork of disconnected, random words and phrases. Some were scored right through, with a pen so harsh and angry, it had split the paper. It was impossible to distinguish a completed coherent poem amid the mess.

  After a while, Margaret gave up the attempt and put the pile aside. These must be his earliest jottings, his completed poems, and fair copies must be elsewhere. She knew she had to tackle the letters, but it was more than her own sense of honour that she had to overcome. She was afraid of what she might find.

  Her own letters, in that trunk, were neatly organised by correspondent and tied into bundles by year. Lord John's letters, or the portion of them to be found here at any rate, were simply dumped into the box higgledy-piggledy. She picked up one at random, which looked as if it was written in a lady's hand, and read:

  You will be happy to hear that Louisa is safely delivered of a son and heir to Lord Drummond. We have not yet seen the child but have received a very satisfactory report from your sister's own hand, and hope that she and dear Lord Drummond will visit after Easter. Less happy is the news that your nephew, Robert, has yet again been served a writ for breach of promise, in Exeter this time, of all places, and Charles has been obliged to travel there to intervene. We certainly hope that young Henry, named for your honoured father, of course, will be of less trouble to his parents when older.

  Dull, complicated family news, nothing more, despite the momentary excitement engendered by the reference to a breach of promise suit. Margaret glanced at the date on the letter—1804, nearly fifteen years ago—and at the signature, which was uninformatively Mary.

  She found another letter in a female hand.

  I wish you would come home. Why must you stay away? James is being insufferable; he is making my life a complete misery. He thinks he is my father when he is only my older brother. If you were at home and you were James, you would not forbid me to go to the Muirtons' ball, would you? He says I am too young but I am sixteen, nearly seventeen. I think he intends to keep me locked up at Dunwoodie till I have withered into an old maid.

  This letter was signed Your affectionate but afflicted and oppressed sister, Elspeth.

  Margaret's head was beginning to feel fuzzy. She would never, she thought, understand the complexities of Lord John's family, all the Louisas and Marys, Henrys and Roberts. She felt the paucity of her own connections, with only an uncle and a distant cousin to call her own.

  She pulled out another, much shorter letter, prepared for a further glimpse into the tangled web of family affairs at Dunwoodie, and gaped.

  My lord,

  I must thank your lordship for the honour of your letter, which arrived so unexpectedly yesterday morning. I am replying as soon as I find myself able, to entreat your lordship not to trouble yourself to enter into further correspondence with a person as undeserving of the distinction as myself.

  I will always remember with pleasure the kindness your lordship bestowed upon me while I was in the service of your sister-in-law, the Marchioness, but now that I am married and settled in a far distant country, I do not think it likely that our paths will ever cross again. I am very sorry for the perturbation and indisposition your lordship is suffering, and I am convinced that the best remedy is distance and a complete cessation of all intercourse.

  Indeed, my lord, you must not try to write to me again. It is only by chance that I opened Lady Crieff's letter while I was alone and discovered yours without it being observed. Think what distress you would have involved me in had others seen it. You say you love me; if you mean that, spare me this vexation.

  I remain your lordship's sincere friend,

  Bridie MacAllister

  With a thumping heart and a sick feeling, Margaret looked at the date on the letter. It was only two years before.

  Was this Bridie MacAllister—a married woman, from what she had written—the hopeless lost love for which Lord John was pining? Margaret rummaged desperately for more letters in the same hand that might allow her to piece together more of the story. She could find nothing similar, but she came across a much more exotic-looking missive directly underneath.

  It was written on a thin, lavender-coloured paper that was unlike anything Margaret had ever seen before, and the handwriting, too, was spiky and strange. The broken seal had crumbled but looked as if it had once been impressive. As Margaret unfolded the envelope, a skein of dark hair, bound at one end with a golden thread, fell from inside.

  She started to read the whole.

  Amica mea...

  It was not Italian, which was her first thought. After a moment's baffled contemplation, she realised it was in Latin.

  Margaret knew a little Latin, but nowhere near enough to have any hope of understanding even the gist of a complex letter written in spidery copperplate. The signatory was simply a large, elaborately styled letter L.

  A crash of crockery coming from somewhere within the house brought her back to her senses. She packed away the papers as best she could, including the letter from Bridie MacAllister, but the letter in Latin and the lock of hair, she hid about her person.

  There was a Latin dictionary amidst her own library, bought in a brief fit of enthusiasm for classical learning two years ago. It was time to put it to use.

  Margaret found she had ceased her investigation only just in time. Once she had helped clear away the broken crockery in the scullery, a disaster caused by Paterson attempting to carry too many dishes at once, Lord John arrived home. He seemed preoccupied and immediately went into the study and closed the door.

  Margaret spent the next hour or so alone in the drawing room, pretending to work, hoping desperately that she had left behind no evidence of her interference with his private papers. The Latin letter burned against her bosom as the memory of the letter from the girl called Bridie burned in her heart, and occasional irrepressible mental flashes of images in the French book burned between her thighs.

  Lord John emerged from his study for dinner, but he ate it mostly in silence. Margaret was relieved that he did not appear to have noticed anything amiss in the study and was content to be quiet in her turn. She feared that if she spoke at all, everything that was bubbling within her would come pouring out in a torrent of unwise questions.

  She had already smuggled her Latin dictionary into the bedroom and hidden it under her pillow. The precaution was unnecessary, as once again, Lord John did not follow her there. By candlelight, late into the night, Margaret worked word by word to decipher the letter.

  The clock tower of St. Andrew's in the distance had struck three, and the candle had almost guttered to its end before she finished.

  My love,

  It is late, very late, and my heart is filled with doubts. Not doubts of your love or mine, but of whether we ought, after all, to fulfil the pledge (promise? vow?) we made (to each other?). The hour approaches, and I am filled with fear. Sometimes I think that the fear is more powerful than the love, but then I pray to our Blessed Mother for courage, and I think of your sweet face, and I am (become) strong once more.

  Yet (even) in that prayer, there is doubt and pain. For when I appeal to the Blessed Virgin, I think, how can I not think, of your disbelief in her special graces? O, my beloved, how I wish
you would throw off the heresy (?) that imprisons your (royal? Makes no sense) reason and return to the arms of the Mother Church.

  I will not return to this argument, not now. I accept that you cannot do this and that your high position in this world makes it an impossibility. I ought to be happy that you are—

  At this point, the syntax of the sentence grew too complex for Margaret to make sense of it. It was something about 'accept', 'lowly social position', 'responsibilities', 'royal' again—perhaps the word could also mean 'aristocratic'—and 'love', but she could not work out how the words related to each other. The writer of the letter was evidently an advanced Latin scholar, to be able to express herself so fluently in the language. She took it overall to mean that 'L' was happy that Lord John could put aside his own lofty station in life, to love such a lowly creature as herself.

  Do not be afraid, my love. I will keep my promise. I will be there, on the night with no moon, at the Chapel of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, on rio dei Miracoli. Whatever happens, I will be there. I send you the lock of my hair.

  With all my love, L.

  Margaret sat up in her lonely bed for some time, hugging her knees, looking over the beautifully-written original and her own scrappy, scrawled translation, with its many revisions, blots, and question marks. And she fingered the lock of hair, which was soft and glossy, and much darker than her own. It was almost blue, it was so black. She had always been rather proud of her own coppery-brown, copious, curly hair, but now she felt that its colour was dull and muddy compared to the rich, exotic sheen of L's. She held the lock against her own, making the hairs intertwine, comparing the two by the last spluttering light of her almost-spent candle, trying to work out whether he would really prefer it over hers.