Don't Tempt Me (24 page)

“He was a bully, as I knew,” Zoe said after the last of the servants, a scullery maid, had left the study.

“I didn't,” Marchmont said. “I never noticed anything amiss. I had no idea that most of my servants lived in fear of him. Even if I had noticed, I probably
would have thought that was as it ought to be. But fear and respect are not the same thing. Gad, Zoe, what a mess.”

He got up and walked to the fire and gazed into the grate, his hands clasped behind him.

It was the way her father so often stood, thinking as he stared into the fire.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “You trusted these people and they betrayed your trust.”

He shook his head. “Not everyone can resist temptation. If I had taken responsibility, they wouldn't have been tempted. I set a bad example. I was not the master of the house. Someone had to be. And it's too tempting, when one has great power, to abuse it.” He turned back to her. “What would happen in the harem, in such a case? Off with their heads?”

She nodded. “No one would care whether they were truly innocent or guilty.”

“I know I ought to have the lot of them—Harrison, Cook, Dove, Dunstan, Hoare—taken up and prosecuted. But they'll hang—and then I'll always wonder whether, if I'd behaved differently, none of this would have happened.”

“If Harrison and the housekeeper have any sense, they'll be on their way out of the country by this time,” Zoe said. “It doesn't seem fair that they should escape and the others hang.”

“The others are equally guilty. We can add to that the crime of stupidity for lingering in the house a minute after you'd opened the ledgers.” He still studied the burning coals.

“It wouldn't be the first time servants have under
estimated my obstinacy,” Zoe said. “When you came to the library last night and told me to come to bed, I wanted to. I wanted us to kiss and make up. I didn't want to keep staring at those columns of numbers. You know I never liked sums.”

“I know.”

“But I'm like the dog with the bone. As soon as I saw something wasn't right, it became a challenge, to find out exactly what was wrong and how and where. It was the same in the harem. If I weren't so obstinate, I should never have got away. But I was determined to master the place. And because I mastered it, when the time came, I found the way out.”

“Oh, Zoe.” He turned to look at her, but she didn't need to read his face. She heard it all in his anguished voice. She went to him. It was instinctive. She put her arms around him, the way she'd done this morning, because she loved him—she couldn't help it—and she wanted him to be happy.

His arms went around her, the way they'd done this morning, warm and strong and reassuring. He kissed the top of her head, and the tenderness of that small touch made her heart ache.

“Your mother and father never gave up hope, but I did,” he said tightly. “I gave up on you, on everything. You never gave up.”

“I'm stubborn,” she murmured against his chest.

“Don't give up on me, Zoe Octavia. Don't ever give up on me.”

“I won't,” she said.

And
No
,
I won't
, she thought.
I'm afraid I never will.

Only a few short weeks ago, the Duke of Marchmont couldn't be bothered to decide which waistcoat to wear.

Now he found himself holding the power of life and death over his felonious servants.

He had to make a decision, and he had to do it quickly. Dove, Hoare, and Cook were locked in Harrison's parlor, guarded by an army of footmen and maidservants.

Marchmont wanted to seek Lexham's advice, but that seemed like passing off responsibility.

He wanted to seek Zoe's advice, but that would be cheating, too.

He sent Osgood and Zoe out of the study.

He paced. He stared into the fire the way Lexham always did, hoping to find the answers there, as Lexham so often seemed to do. The coals produced only the usual glow and heat, smoke and ashes. They offered no solutions.

Finally he returned to the writing table, where he'd laid out the various pieces of evidence. He looked at Harrison's records. He looked at Osgood's. He skimmed the diaries. He traced the expenditures. Osgood's accounts included a great many wagers. The totals the duke had lost must easily match, if not surpass, the servants' pilfering, outrageous as it was.

Marchmont didn't care about money. Or he hadn't, until today. Yesterday Zoe had spoken of his “family,” and he knew she wasn't referring to the mad aunt and indigent relations he supported, fully or partially.

She referred to the children he and she hoped to have.

Suppose they had eight, as Lexham had done. Or more. King George and Queen Charlotte had produced fifteen children. The fourth Duke of Richmond had fourteen. Worcester's father, the sixth Duke of Beaufort, had ten.

Marchmont's eldest son would inherit everything. But the duke must pay to care for and educate them all. He must find places for the younger males and pay for the girls' come-outs and weddings and the wardrobes that went with these. He must provide dowries as well.

He didn't care about money. A gentleman didn't.

But a gentleman was honor bound to care for his family, and a family needed money. A duke's family needed pots of it. He had pots of money, so much that ten years' steady and zealous thieving had not attracted anybody's attention.

He continued scanning Osgood's neat entries: some thousands to found an Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye. A subscription to a Samaritan fund. A contri
bution to a society for the deaf and dumb, another for the indigent blind. He gave money for the relief of wounded soldiers and sailors. He contributed to funds for widows and orphans. He gave to churches and hospitals and asylums.

He'd presided over any number of dinners devoted to one charity or another. To him these were social obligations, more or less like appearing at court. Most of his friends attended. Such an event was merely another dinner, where one must endure too many speeches.

At least he hadn't spent all his money stupidly or selfishly. The wretches below, locked in Harrison's room, had not, after all, stolen more than he'd given away or squandered unthinkingly.

Marchmont thought of the money thrown away on great dinners for his friends, where he'd drunk prodigious quantities, and spouted Shakespeare, as he was wont to do when three sheets in the wind.

I can see you're rapidly approaching the point where you start quoting Shakespeare and falling into the fire
, Adderwood had said at the dinner where Marchmont had become so stupidly jealous of his friends' interest in Zoe.

Though he wasn't drunk at present, Shakespeare wandered into his mind:

He rang, and a footman came.

Which one was this? There were so many of them. Perhaps it was time to start learning who these people were.

“What's your name?” said Marchmont.

“Thomas, Your Grace.”

“Thomas, I shall want my cook, butler, and valet brought to this room. But first ask the duchess if she would be so good as to return here.”

Thomas went out.

 

When the trio entered, Marchmont had taken his place behind the handsome French desk a previous Duke of Marchmont had acquired during the time of Louis XV.

Zoe sat by the fire, her hands folded in her lap.

“You must be here,” he'd told her. “They all need to understand that you and I are united in this.”

“If you cut off their heads, I'll watch, if I must,” she said. “But I'll throw up afterwards.”

“I'm not going to cut off their heads. This is England, not Egypt. And certainly not France.”

He'd made a joke of it because that was what he always did. Whatever else he changed, he refused to become too boringly serious.

He hadn't told her what he did mean to do, and she hadn't asked.

No one had any idea what he meant to do.

During the time locked up in Harrison's room, the larcenous trio must have realized they were headed for the gallows. Dove, who'd previously spent most of his time proclaiming his ignorance of all wrong-
doing, looked pale. Cook, who'd been truculently unforthcoming, was looking worried. Hoare's eyes were red with weeping, and he trembled.

“I've decided to let you determine your fate,” said Marchmont.

They all looked at one another, then up, though not enough to meet his gaze directly.

“You may continue to assert your innocence,” he continued. “In that case, I shall turn you over to the authorities with the evidence we've amassed and let a judge and jury decide the matter. If they find you innocent, you'll go free. If they find you guilty, you'll be transported or hanged.” He paused to let this sink in.

The miscreants looked at one another, then at the floor. But not at him.

“The alternative is to admit what you've done and give us the names of all your confederates, both in this house and outside of it,” Marchmont went on. “In that case, you'll be spared criminal proceedings. You will not be spared punishment, however.”

Another pause.

He was aware of Zoe watching him in that intent way she had, as though she'd peer into his soul.
Good luck
, he thought. He might have one, but he doubted she'd find in it anything worth the trouble of examining.

“You'll perform ten years' penance,” he went on. “You will do this in London, where we can keep an eye on you. Each of you will toil for ten years in one of the charitable enterprises I support. You will receive no pay but your room and board and whatever
clothing is necessary to perform your duties. Should the enterprise come to an end or the establishment burn down, as often happens, you'll be assigned another situation. You'll do penance for a full ten years. Not a day more or less.”

He looked hard at each of them in turn. “That is how long you worked for me and abused my trust. For the allotted time, you'll do, to the best of your abilities, the work required of you. At the end of this time, if your performance merits it, you'll receive a letter of commendation bearing my signature.” One last pause. “If you break the terms of our agreement, I shall leave you to the official system of justice.”

 

The three servants decided against testing the mercy of the English judicial system and accepted the duke's brand of justice.

This left Marchmont two extremely tedious tasks: First, he must make arrangements for the trio's dispersal among appropriate charitable establishments. Second, he must fill five crucial positions in the household.

“Here's responsibility with a vengeance,” he told Zoe after the three were led out of the room. “We've no one to supervise the lower servants, no one to prepare the next meal, and most important, no one to dress me.”

“I shall dress you,” said Zoe.

“Do you know a day coat from an evening one?” he said.

“No,” she said.

“Do you know whether a waistcoat for day ought to be embroidered or plain?”

“No.”

“Have you any idea where to find my stockings?”

“No.”

“Come here,” he said. She went to him, and he wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on the top of her head. “You are the silliest duchess there ever was.”

“I know where you keep your
membrum virile
,” she said against his coat.

“You don't need to know that, so long as I do,” he said.

“Then find it,” she said, “and let us go to bed and make love and sort these matters out afterwards, when we're happier and calmer.”

“Make love?” he said. “You want to make love now, while the house is tumbling down about our ears?”

“The house is not falling down,” she said. “We merely need servants. But you've been so brave and clever and wise and frighteningly ducal today that I'm on fire with lust. If you don't wish to go up to bed, then throw those papers and books on the floor and ravish me on the desk.”

There was not another woman like her in all the world, he thought.

“Very well, if it pleases Your Grace,” he said.

“I think it will.”

He pushed everything off the desk.

“Perhaps you should lock the door,” she said.

“If anyone interrupts, I'll cut off their heads,” he said.

“It excites me when you're masterful,” she said.

He picked her up and tossed her onto the desk. He unbuttoned his pantaloons.

Later

Zoe put the undercook in the cook's place and had Jarvis, as the highest-ranking woman servant, supervise the female staff. After talking to the men-servants, Marchmont decided not to promote the under-butler—whose greatest skill seemed to be obsequiousness—but to make Thomas, the most experienced of the footmen, his butler and valet.

All of this was for the time being only.

Other households might make do with a combination butler-valet or housekeeper-lady's maid. Other households did not have porters or under-butlers or steward's boys. The Duke and Duchess of Marchmont did not make do. They had everything and more. It was their patriotic duty to be waited upon by scores of servants, whether they needed them or not, and the servants were as well aware of this as they were.

Still, the staff performed admirably in the circumstances, and Zoe and Marchmont were able to go out to the theater as they had planned, and afterward to a ball at Hargate House, where Zoe danced with the Earl of Hargate, three of his five sons, and most of Marchmont's friends.

The duke and duchess knew rumors would start circulating soon, regarding the sudden disappearance of their senior staff, but that was for tomorrow and the days to come. For this night, all people talked about was what a handsome couple the Marchmonts made and how amiable and witty the duke was—wittier and in better spirits than anyone could remember seeing him before.

The happy couple returned home at half past two in the morning.

They did not see the shrouded figure skulking in the shadows of the square.

Wednesday, 6 May

April showers, the wags said, came in May, the result of what some still deemed the misguided change, several generations earlier, from Julian to Gregorian calendar.

A glance out of the window told Marchmont that one April shower was in the offing this morning. Black clouds were massing overhead, and an un-May-like wind blasted through St. James's Square.

It was not the most inviting day to go out, but the Duchess of Marchmont needn't worry about bad weather. He'd ordered a closed carriage for her. Servants would hold an umbrella over her head when she walked the few paces between vehicle and door. Furthermore, as she pointed out to him, she wasn't sweet enough to melt.

She needed to visit her parents, and that errand oughtn't to be put off. They already knew she was happy and well, because they'd seen for themselves—at Lexham House and various social gatherings. But she wanted to seek their advice regarding the servant problem, particularly the matter of finding a housekeeper.

Marchmont couldn't go with her. He'd sent for his solicitor, to work out the details of Cook's, Dove's, and Hoare's philanthropic servitude. It was a tedious
process, sifting through all the possible situations, and deciding where the miscreants would do the most good. This matter couldn't be put off, either. He could hardly keep them locked up in Harrison's room indefinitely.

He did leave his solicitor for long enough to see his wife off, though.

“This is exciting,” she said as they crossed the entrance hall. “It's my first time out alone as a married woman.”

“Not entirely alone,” he said.

Jarvis trailed behind her mistress, umbrella in hand as always.

“I told her she needn't come,” Zoe said. “I told her there would be two big, strong footmen standing at the back of the coach and a burly coachman driving, and we're only going a short distance.”

“We must hope that the housemaids don't run amok while she's away,” he said.

“What do housemaids do when they run amok?” Zoe said.

“I don't know,” he said. “Excessive dusting?”

She smiled up at him, and he could actually feel his heart melting. Marriage had a deleterious effect on a man's dignity. If he didn't watch out, he'd be giving her idiotish smiles in return.

He pretended the feathers of her bonnet needed straightening. Then he had to adjust the satin puffs at her shoulders. Then he had to step back and regard her critically.

Then she had to laugh at him and step closer and grasp his lapels.

“Zoe, you're
wrinkling
me,” he said reproachfully.

She tugged.

He bent and kissed her, there, in front of the servants. When he straightened, he noticed with amusement that Jarvis was pointedly looking the other way and the footmen and hall porter were carefully looking at nothing.