by Fiona Monroe
"It is not as bad as it might seem. I did not seduce Singorina Contarini—"
Before he could make his point, the door to the room opened again, and Lord John's heart sank. The one addition this scene did not need was the presence of his sister-in-law, the Marchioness of Crieff.
Her ladyship had clearly been recently roused from sleep, presumably by the hullabaloo in the house, and had hurried downstairs to interfere without troubling to dress first. She wore a lace-trimmed gown wrapped around her nightdress and not quite meeting over the swell of her stomach. Her golden hair was loose over her shoulders, with curl-papers bouncing still around the temples.
"Gordon!" she exclaimed in her clear English voice. "Mrs. Swankie said it was you, but I scarcely believed—oh, you are hurt! James, have you called for Mr. Arbuthnott? Let me see—I have some knowledge of these matters—"
That Arabella, Lady Crieff should have knowledge of medical matters, or even of surgery and anatomy, did not astonish Lord John. Arabella seemed to have knowledge of any subject that came under consideration. How such a young lady, of such distinguished birth, should have had either time or opportunity to acquire so esoteric a range of accomplishments baffled him. More puzzling still, had been her lapse in judgement in accepting James, a man twice her age and neither handsome nor clever. She could hardly have done it for his title, for as the heiress of a duke, she had outranked him. And the existence of the infant Earl of Kendal in some far-off nursery wing and the evidence of her ladyship's present figure suggested that the marriage was not one of convenience only.
Gordon submitted with a better grace to her ladyship's ministrations than he had to John's and allowed her to release his injured arm gently from his coat sleeve and began to unwrap the bindings.
John had seen a man killed in a duel once. It had been his only close encounter with bloodshed, and that one occasion had sufficed him for life. The sight of the long, purple gash sliced into his brother's pale forearm made him wince and turn aside.
Arabella appeared to have no such squeamish qualms. She cooed and tutted over the wound and said, "We must put a poultice on this until Mr. Arbuthnott arrives. I don't think there is any infection, but it has been neglected."
"It has been neglected," James spluttered, "because Gordon drove night and day to reach here, to warn him of the assassin."
"Assassin!" Arabella looked around, her eyes wide. Her hand went protectively to her waist.
"Aye, but of course, our dear brother John knew of it all along! It turns out that everything I said a year ago was true. You thought me unjust, Arabella, but it is as bad as I feared—he is pursued for his life by a Venetian noble house, and Gordon was near as damn murdered in his stead in front of the Prince Regent and the Lord Mayor. For all we know, there are agents lurking in the shrubberies right now." James gesticulated wildly in the direction of the window.
"Oh, my dear," said Arabella mildly. Nonetheless, she got up and moved to the window, as if to check for banditti in the topiary.
"He ravished the count's sister," James went on in the same choked tone.
"Excuse me, sir, I did not ravish Signorina Contarini! The truth be told—"
"Truth!" cried James, advancing on him. His face was redder than ever. Beads of sweat, John noticed suddenly, stood at his temples. "What do you know of truth, John Dunwoodie? You have lied like a simpering knave since your fifth birthday. You told us you left Venice because you were weary of the place—"
"So much was true."
"And you promised us there was no scandal. God knows we have had enough of trouble in this family."
There was a potent silence. "If," said John coolly, deliberately provocative, "you refer to my sister—"
"Not one word, sir! Not one word more! Her name shall never be mentioned under this roof again, and by no means—not by your lips—"
"My dear!" Arabella ran to her husband and took his arm. "Please do not."
"What did you do to her, James?" John persisted. He felt untethered, reckless. "Why did Elspeth flee her home? Where is she now? Is she even alive? You talk of my folly and my lies, but what are you hiding? What did you do to my little sister?"
"John!" Arabella cried.
James gave only an inarticulate growl of rage and made a lunge toward him.
Arabella still had hold of her husband, and her grip was partially effective in restraining him.
But the howl of anger turned into a grunt, as if of pain, and suddenly, James's accusing stare became unfocussed. The Marquess stumbled and folded forward onto his knees. He began to pant, heaving, clasping both hands against his chest.
"I cannot—" he wheezed. "Arabella, I cannot—help me—"
Arabella fell to her knees beside him and said in a sweet and firm tone, "My love, my love, sit up, sit by the fire. John, come help me—"
Aghast, John helped her lift up the Marquess into the other fireside chair. He was a sagging weight, barely conscious. His chest was labouring and his breath was coming in ragged heaves. His eyes were rolling back in his scarlet face.
"Good God," said Gordon, rising from his own chair. "It is an apoplexy."
"No," said Arabella firmly. She took the glass of spirits and cradled her husband's head, trying to force the liquid past his lips. John noted with numbed distaste that the brandy dribbled uselessly over his chin. "James, my love, drink a little brandy, and you will be well presently. He will be well presently."
John had already tugged the bell pull. It seemed only moments until Mrs. Swankie appeared at the door, disappeared rapidly, and re-appeared with two footmen. As James was carried upstairs to the great bedchamber, Mr. Arbuthnott, the apothecary, was arriving to tend to Lord Gordon.
His first noble patient was forgotten, in favour of the fourteenth Marquess of Crieff. But it was not more than an hour before the curtains around the ancient oak bed were drawn closed, and in the nursery wing, the fifteenth Marquess of Crieff kicked off his blankets and cried unheeded for his mother.
Chapter 5
The suddenness of the catastrophe threw the whole world into chaos. Dunwoodie was the only great house in their particular corner of Aberdeenshire, Kirkton the only village of any size. For miles around, the land belonged to the estate, and the Marquess—although he had held the title for less than two years—had reigned over all for more than a decade, since his late father had become an invalid.
The fourteenth Marquess was at once still 'his new lordship' and the only laird who most younger inhabitants of the estate could well remember. He had a new, young wife and had, at last, an heir. As far as anyone knew, the Marquess had been in good health, and there had been no sickness abroad. It seemed scarcely believable that he should be no more.
"A violent attack of apoplexy, brought on by a constitutional excess of choler," was Mr. Arbuthnott's pronouncement. "I have seen it often, in gentlemen of his lordship's time of life. The heart itself contracts and ceases to function with terrible swiftness. There was likely nothing to be done, even had I been in attendance when the fit took him. Well, well, Providence calls us all home sooner or later."
The apothecary delivered his post-mortem diagnosis in the morning room to Lord Gordon and Lord John, as the only two male representatives of the family in residence. He would not have spoken so freely in front of Lady Crieff, who, at any rate, had not yet left her dead husband's wretched bedside. What consolation Arabella could possibly derive from keeping company with a rapidly cooling corpse, John had no idea. It made him shudder even to think of that morbid room, dark and shuttered like the tomb, where his father also had died not two years ago.
"So," John said, glancing at his brother, "it could have happened at any time?"
"If the patient is subject to a severe shock or agitation, in particular."
"My God," Gordon groaned and doubled forward. "I should not have come. I am responsible; I overset him."
John stood abruptly and left the room without a parting word to the respectfully waiting apothe
cary. He did not want to give anyone the chance to say what must follow on from Gordon's appropriation of responsibility for the outrage that had killed James; that he, John, was the true culprit.
He retreated to his apartments and sought refuge there. He flung himself back on the bed, which had been neatly made by the implacable operation of the household domestic machinery in his absence, and listened to all the distant bangings and hurryings and hooves.
When he heard a horse on the gravel driveway below his window, he got up to ascertain that the arrival was merely the old minister, and then closed the shutters. It was as if two locked doors and drawn slats of wood could keep out the world and all its sorrows. If he stayed within, staring at the canopy above his bed—and eventually, for his restless mind bored easily whatever the calamity, reading—then nothing would concern him, and no trouble would come to claim him.
There was a lot to be said for growing up fifth son and seventh child of a family of ten, with a second, more conscientious self always to hand. Nobody had ever relied on John for anything, nor expected anything much of him, and Gordon had always been there, in childhood, to take over any responsibility that did threaten to come their way. Presumably, Gordon was dealing with matters now—receiving the wretched minister, talking funerals, treating with the steward, writing to their many siblings with the melancholy news, ordering the week's dinners from the housekeeper, for all he knew.
Good God, the baby who was presented every evening in the drawing room and who could as yet do nothing but pull himself up against tables and threaten to topple workbaskets and wine glasses was now lord and master of them all.
"Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child and thy princes eat in the morning!" John said aloud then tried to remember where the quote originated. Was it the Bible, or was it Shakespeare? Bridie MacFarlane would have known, but she was now Mrs. something-else he did not care to recall, and she had told him in writing to go to the devil.
He shifted restlessly, the old wound in his heart giving a sudden throb at the memory. Why could he not fall in love with a proper object? Why was he drawn, always, to women so far below his station? James had lectured him over and over on his lack of charity toward the girls with whom he dallied, but really, it was not his fault they were beneath him. Bridie was a case in point. He would have married her if he could have, but of course, he could not. He had offered her a generous establishment, but she was a girl of rigid and obstinate virtue and had refused him, though he was convinced she had loved him.
Well, Bridie was far away, and James would lecture him on nothing more, ever again.
Another memory stirred. He had been at home, unfortunately so, when his mother had died. He ought to have been at Oxford, but he had been sent down in disgrace for fighting a duel over a barmaid. He had left his mother apparently well at the end of the summer vacation and returned only a few weeks later to find her confined to bed by an illness that had been creeping up on her for some time. His father's rage at his dismissal from college had blazed with a peculiar intensity that John dimly recognised was more to do with his mother's state of health than his own misdeeds. Then, too, he had barricaded himself in his room and listened to the bangings and hurryings and horses' hooves, all the time oppressed by a sense of guilt.
Nobody brought him the news. He knew for sure that his mother was dead only when his little sister, Elspeth, pounded on his outer door, screaming that nobody would let her see Mamma. He'd let her in and told her that he would make sure she saw Mamma in the morning if only she would be a good girl and go to sleep for now, and he had held her close until she relaxed into unconsciousness. He remembered tucking her under the covers of his own bed to keep her warm, so that only the top of her small golden head showed above the counterpane, then leaving the safety of his room and walking with a candle through the cold and dark corridors of Dunwoodie House under a palpable pall of dread. In his mother's room, all was silent. Only an older maid of a superior sort, exhausted and drawn, sat in attendance. He knew later that his father had collapsed and been carried to his own chamber, and that the doctors and his older brothers were gathered around the still-living sufferer.
One glimpse had been enough. John had gazed on the pale, waxy face surrounded by a fan of dusty fair hair, on the shell that had been his warm, laughing mother, and he had turned from it aghast. He had hurried back to the sanctuary of his room and curled up in the armchair by the cold fire, letting little Elspeth sleep on peacefully in the bed. He could not now remember if he had fulfilled his promise to take her to see her mother when the morning came. He rather thought that, in the end, he had contrived to spare her that horror. He had not thought about that night for years.
What had become of her, his lively and passionate baby sister? It suddenly seemed to John that he must know, though he had been content to leave the subject alone since his return from Venice. James had died, choking on his anger with her. His heart ached now for her, too.
The light had grown so dim that John was thinking he must ring for candles when a footman rapped respectfully on the outer door.
"Excuse me, my lord. I'm very sorry to disturb you, but his lordship wished to enquire whether you were feeling unwell."
There was only one other lordship left alive in the house, not counting the one trying to eat his own fingers in the Wester Wing nursery. "His lordship might deduce that I am in a state of nervous distress, Souter. Does he want me?"
"His lordship wishes to know whether you will be joining him at dinner, my lord."
"The blazes. No. Get something sent up to me. And some candles. Her ladyship, how is she?"
Souter's passive expression flickered. "I'm not sure what to say, my lord. I believe her ladyship has not—she is still in attendance on my master, my lord."
"God." John laid his forehead briefly against the frame of the door. The thought of Arabella still shut up with her deceased husband disturbed him deeply.
He waited until Souter had cleared off, then he took a few steps along the gallery toward the passage that led to the great bedchamber. The very last thing he wanted to do was to enter that room and look upon his dead brother, but he felt he ought to take Arabella away.
A door in the passage opened, and a small figure slipped out.
John halted in his tracks.
It was Rosie, his near-conquest of that morning, so long ago now. She was carrying a coal scuttle against her apron and had probably been making up the fire in that bedroom in readiness for night.
Servants would never raise their eyes when one passed them; they looked down and curtsied or bowed. Rosie, turning and catching sight of him unexpectedly, did neither at first. She stared, started, blushed like fire, and stumbled into a clumsy bob.
And then, before John could react to stop her, she scuttled away and disappeared along the end of the corridor. The house was full of secret doors and hidden passageways, mouse holes that let the servants scurry about unseen. He had explored them all in his youth, but to pursue her through the backstairs realm now would make himself conspicuous. He cursed and stood irresolute for some moments.
The impulse to rescue his sister-in-law had passed. Let Arabella wallow in useless sorrow. He had no desire, either, to return to the prison of his own room. He was sick of hiding and self-reproach. Life went on regardless, and he would choose to drink its delights.
The concealed door at the end of that particular bedroom corridor hid a staircase that led down to the west end of the servants' floor. Dunwoodie House did not, like more modern and commodious great houses, have a separate service wing. The old pile had been little altered since its construction by the third Marquess in the mid 1600s, and its domestic offices were crowded into a vast labyrinth of passages and cubbyholes on the lower ground floor.
Most of the lower female servants slept up amidst the rafters of the South Wing, a lofty and forbidden realm he had penetrated only twice as a young and lusty lad. He had soon discovered that it was far more comfortable, an
d less risky, to bag the bird somewhere other than her nest. In those days, the old housekeeper had not scrupled to warn him off with a boxed ear and had threatened to set the old butler on him. If Rosie had retreated to her own quarters, he could not very well reach her there.
But he did not think she would have, not yet. He had seen her only minutes before, still engaged in her evening duties, and she would have to return her cleaning apparatus downstairs if nothing else.
He could not pursue her the way she had gone for fear of making himself conspicuous, but he knew another route. Nearby, were some back stairs that led to a boot room and gun room and an outside door convenient for the stables. He often went out that way when going out hunting or riding alone. From there, it was easy to get to another back door that let into the servants' floor without having to go through the kitchen corridor, which at the dinner hour would be busy with cooks and kitchen maids and footmen.
With a light step, he tripped down those stairs, two at a time, and was in time to catch a glimpse of her coming out of the back door and heading for one of the outbuildings. She had divested herself of her scuttle but was carrying, instead, some species of basket.
John concealed himself against the outer wall of the kitchen yard and watched as she made her way across the cobbles toward the laundry block.
This was perfect. He had no idea what business she had in the laundry with her basket, but at this time of the day, she would have a chance of being at leisure. Housemaids had nothing to do with the preparation or serving of dinner, so once her share of the work in turning down the bedrooms for night time was done, Rosie could probably please herself until the servants' supper was served in the lower hall.