A Most Unladylike Adventure (17 page)

‘Why?’ she asked unoriginally, but she didn’t think he would be marking her for varied conversation when all he cared about were his own words.

‘Apparently she felt guilty about marrying him, but not about me or any of the unsuspecting fools she took as lovers afterwards. She told me she should never have wed him, which was quite true, of course; she should have sought employment in the nearest brothel, since she had such a natural talent for whoring.’

‘It sounds more like a sickness to me,’ she said, at last feeling compassion for the obviously very damaged woman Hugh had wed.

Hearing what had horrified this self-serving monster the most, she almost forgave Ariadne for the terrible damage she had inflicted on Hugh. Under all her vanity and frenetic flirting and that parade of lovers, the poor soul had obviously possessed something her murderer so signally lacked: a conscience.

‘It was stupidity. I would never have had to kill her if she’d agreed to keep quiet as she promised to do before I agreed to bed her.’

‘You’d never have had to kill her at all if you
had resisted the urge to betray your wife in the first place,’ she pointed out rather rashly, but having recalled how this man was leading a campaign to cleanse the Haymarket of prostitutes and banish them to prison or houses of correction, she simply couldn’t keep a still tongue in her head in the face of his hypocrisy.

‘Why not seek pleasure in her bed when I had precious little in my own?’

‘I suppose you dared not beat or half-strangle the daughter of such a powerful man for your own sick gratification?’ she scorned and realised her mistake when an insane gleam of excitement lit his water-colour eyes.

‘I see you truly are a child of the streets for all that much vaunted coldness, my dear,’ he said with dawning excitement in his fishy gaze and Louisa fought the urge to retch at the very thought of all he wanted to do to her, before he inflicted the same grim death as he had on her predecessor to silence her and torture Hugh.

Fighting her fear and revulsion at what he’d done, and what he wanted to do, she backed a little further away and closed her hand on a pretty little French clock on one of the pier tables behind her.

‘What about Hugh’s brother?’ she made herself
ask, in case the maid was still listening and this revolting little man actually did put a bullet in her, because that was what he’d have to do if he wanted to kill her. She wouldn’t let herself be violated and cowed at the point of a gun.

‘He always was an idiot—it’s a family trait, you know? Service to your country and honour and duty and a lot of other nonsense. Apparently he wanted his precious brother to divorce that woman, too, so he’d been keeping a list of all her lovers to be used in court whenever he finally managed to persuade his father the woman was a blot on that precious honour of theirs and must be got rid of.’

‘So you snuffed out two far-better people than you could ever be that night,’ she told him recklessly.

‘How dare you? How can you compare
me
to a whore and a fool?’

‘Discreditably,’ she told him fiercely and hefted the clock at him, but then had to hunch her shoulders in an instinctive move to protect herself from flying debris, as the little clock shattered in midair when he shot it to save his gun hand, and proved a far better shot as well as even more instinctively cunning than she’d credited.

‘Did you think I only had the one?’ he asked with a sneer, as he took the second of the pair from his coat pocket and sited it at her heart.

‘I thought I could damage your gun hand so badly that it wouldn’t matter,’ she said just as coolly, but there wasn’t the slightest chance it would work twice.

He waved the stocking at her as he moved towards her. ‘You forget, my dear, it’s important that Kenton’s second wife go the same way as the first so there can be no doubt left in anyone’s mind to his guilt.’

At last she saw the door behind him open wider and a huddle of shocked faces behind Hugh’s agonised one as he focused on the deadly weapon so steadily targeted at her heart. Remembering their last conversation, she did her best to blank all expression from her face as she met Hibiscombe’s dead eyes to keep his gaze solely focus on her—better to die herself than watch him kill Hugh, then have to live without him.

‘Do you think these rooms are altogether soundproof?’ she asked to try to keep his attention solely on her.

‘Who cares? They’re making enough noise at your nuptial dance to drown out cannon
fire,’ he said with a dismissive shrug. ‘It will be your wake as well.’

‘I think not, Fulton,’ Lady Calliope declared as she opened the main door into the room and stepped into his line of fire before he could even react to her presence. ‘And I care that you risk our children’s future; I care that I made those poor children with a monster; and I care far more that they will have to live with the knowledge of what you’ve done for the rest of their lives.’

‘Why?’ he said blankly. ‘I’ve got it all under control now, so nobody will ever find out. If you will just stand out of the way for a few seconds, my dear, I’ll kill her and all will be well again. When it’s done we can go back to the ballroom and announce that the bride has been killed and let everyone reach the obvious conclusion that her husband has killed again.’

‘No, you won’t. Even if I were as mad as you clearly are and agreed to your ridiculous scheme, do you think they’re all going to keep quiet and go away, just because you tell them to?’ Lady Calliope demanded as she waved rather theatrically at the group of spectators behind him.

By now there was such a gleam of insanity
in the man’s once-blank eyes that Louisa wondered if he might even shoot his wife and be done with it. Instead, he twisted round very suddenly and aimed at Hugh instead. He was actually in the act of pulling the trigger when Louisa’s next weapon hit him on the shoulder.

In the shocked silence that followed Hugh inspected the tear on the sleeve of his once-immaculate wedding coat of darkest blue superfine and raised one eyebrow at his bride. ‘Just as well there was nothing in it,’ he said blandly as he eyed the shards of demure white pottery now scattered on the carpet.

‘Well, there was nothing else handy that might have done the trick,’ she explained coolly, as she eyed the broken remnants of the impromptu weapon she’d found in the pot cupboard nearby.

Complicity and laughter and such warm relief that neither of them dared explore it at present shone in his eyes as they met hers over the top of their enemy’s head.

‘Catch hold of him for me, will you, Rory, before he weasels out of here?’ Hugh asked the Viscount, who was standing inside the door by which his sister had entered the room with his mouth open.

‘He was going to shoot my sister,’ Lord Rarebridge said as if they might not have noticed.

‘And murder mine,’ Kit said grimly as he seized one of Hibiscombe’s arms very roughly and the Viscount grasped the other.

‘Since he actually murdered my brother and Ariadne, I hope you’re not planning to provide him with a purse full of guineas and a swift passage to the Americas so he can disappear?’ Hugh warned before they bustled the loudly protesting Hibiscombe out of the room and into the Earl’s library where they could hold him more easily, and privately, while they decided what was really to be done with him.

‘Y
ou have my very sincere sympathy, Lady Calliope,’ Hugh observed as he made a coolly composed bow to the visibly shaking woman, ‘and my profound admiration for your courage,’ he added and kissed her hand.

‘I’ve been a fool,’ she said with a sad shake of her head as she squeezed his hand and took a moment of comfort from a very old friend before she let it go.

Looking round for someone to support such a brave woman in her hour of need, Louisa shot the assembled spectators a look of contempt and tentatively offered Lady Calliope her own arm, since no other was forthcoming.

‘I don’t think so,’ she argued. ‘Nobody suspected what he truly was. Not one single
person here tonight can put their hand on their heart and honestly declare they had even the shadow of a doubt about Mr Hibiscombe’s actions or indeed his sanity until tonight,’ she lied, because she had a very shrewd notion Hugh and her brother had begun to suspect both.

‘He is a very plausible villain and I certainly never suspected him of anything more than being a sanctimonious young upstart,’ one of the piano-playing ladies observed and stepped forwards to take Lady Calliope’s other arm and her sister came out of the crowd to guard her flank.

‘And whatever happens, you will always have the support of your family, my dear,’ a gentleman Louisa vaguely recalled being introduced as a cousin of the Earl’s stepped up to say as if he really meant it.

‘Yes, indeed, it is quite obvious you knew nothing of what he was up to, now or in the past,’ his wife said rather less sincerely, but she gave Louisa a nod that said,
This is my job
, as she ousted her from Lady Calliope’s side, ready to escort her from the room and offer that support privately as well as in public.

‘Will you see that all our guests go home
safely?’ Lady Calliope asked rather helplessly, before leaving the room with her attendants.

So Louisa and Hugh went back into the saloon and offered vague explanations about a sudden family crisis and Mr Hibiscombe being taken ‘really rather ill’ that nobody truly believed, but found it impossible to argue with. At last even the most persistent gossip of them all gave up and ordered her carriage before she could find out what had really gone on tonight, and they listened to the wheels of her ancient town chariot rumble away across the square and exchanged a look of profound relief with the much-tried butler. Wrapping her thickly lined velvet cloak more closely round herself against the chill that was probably more in her head than on the surprisingly soft April breeze, Louisa turned to look up at her new husband, and reassure herself again that he was nearly as unhurt as she was by Hibiscombe’s best efforts to kill them.

‘We will find out what your brother and Rarebridge are planning to do with the rat and then go home, shall we, love? I don’t know about you, but I think I’ve had more than enough excitement for one day,’ Hugh said with a rueful smile.

‘I thought he’d killed you,’ she confessed
shakily and he ignored the presence of Lord Kinsham’s staff to pull her into his arms and lead her inside, snuggled against the reassuring warmth of his side like the cherished new bride she was, rather than at the proscribed distance for a politely allied pair of aristocrats.

‘And if not for that brave woman, he would have done his evil best to kill you in front of us all,’ he said and tugged her into a quiet ante-room so they could embrace and soothe and marvel over each other in relative privacy for a few moments. ‘Poor little Callie, and to think we all laughed when she wed that vermin and told ourselves he must possess hidden depths only she could see.’

‘Yet they must have been happy enough to have produced the tribe of children your friend is always complaining about,’ Louisa said as she marvelled at how little Lady Calliope could have known her repellent spouse to have embraced motherhood so enthusiastically.

‘Looking back, I can see now that she only wed him in order to produce children and love them. She was brought up to think herself unlovable because she was the first-born and happened to be a girl child, instead of the heir everyone wanted. Isn’t it astonishing
how much harm we do our children with our expectations and faulty priorities?’

‘Since all we were ever expected to do was stay alive at little cost to our father, I have no idea how you aristocrats bring up your progeny.’

‘There you are, you see? You thought you were underprivileged, but how we poor downtrodden second sons and irrelevant daughters would have envied you such astonishing freedom from expectation,’ he said with an expression of saintly resignation and hint at hardships borne so patiently that she hit the battered shoulder of his wedding coat and saw him wince.

‘He did hurt you,’ she said desperately, trying to rip the already-damaged cloth off his shoulders so she could examine him for damage, her heart racing and breath threatening to step up into panic as it seemed to her he was gallantly hiding some terrible injury he hadn’t wanted to reveal in front of the curious.

‘It’s nothing, Louisa, just a graze and a slight bruise. I doubt there’s even any blood on me for you to fuss over; if you undress me here and now to make sure, there will be no preventing me from doing the same to you. We don’t need to get ourselves caught out in a
scandalous liaison to add to the other eventful happenings this evening, love,’ he protested and tugged the once-beautiful tailored garment back on to his shoulder as he gave her an exasperated look. ‘And I really thought you Alstones were made of sterner stuff than this.’

‘I’m not an Alstone any more though, am I? So how should I know how you Kenton/Darkes go on? I’m new made, Hugh. Mrs Hugo Kenton apparently to be of Gracemont Priory has a lot of self-discovery to endure over the next few weeks and I think I would far rather have been Mrs Darke of the high seas.’

‘You’ll cope, Mrs Kenton, with everything else you’ve survived up to now; a surly father-in-law, a few hundred tenants and a crumbling old barn of a house in the middle of Somerset should pose you few enough problems.’

‘Thank you, I feel so much better now,’ she said ruefully.

‘I would have found it far more demanding to be Captain Darke, who had to endure the terror of knowing his wife was aboard every time he saw an enemy sail on the horizon. You have no idea how terrified that would have made me for your safety, my darling, and what
my father has inadvertently spared me by deciding to want his errant son home after all.’

‘Shall you miss the life though, Hugh?’ she said seriously, knowing that she would hate it if he was forever longing for a freedom that was now over.

‘Not really, life at sea is nine-parts tedium to one-part frantic action much of the time and you really have no concept of how terrified I was every time we cleared for action and waited for the enemy to fight.’

‘But you haven’t been in the Navy these last three years,’ she pointed out, still doubtful he wouldn’t grow bored with her and rural contentment.

‘And the occupation your brother and his best friend offered me was exactly what I needed at the time, but we’re agreed that becoming a full partner in their enterprise will keep me out of mischief once I’ve got the Gracemont estates under control. Any longing I ever had for adventures on the high seas has long faded away, Louisa, and I would far rather be ashore with my beautiful bride and a growing band of nigh-ungovernable brats in our image.’

‘Good, then perhaps it’s high time we went
home and got on with making them, husband,’ she reminded him demurely.

‘No perhaps about it,’ he assured her huskily, ‘but first we must tie up one or two loose ends,’ he added more soberly and her thoughts turned to the unfortunate woman upstairs and the hard life she must now face as sole parent to her own tribe of children.

‘They can’t gossip and snigger and pillory Lady Calliope as they did you, can they, Hugh? Like you, the worst she’s guilty of is misjudgement about the person she married and she’s paid heavily enough for that already. I don’t think she’s been at all happy with him, do you?’

‘No, I think she made a mistake and lived with it as well as she knew how, but her family will stand by her now you’ve shamed them into it. There will still be gossip though, love—it’s in the nature of dragons to gather and broadcast that as eagerly as they possibly can.’

‘It must be very noisy as well as deeply unpleasant in their lairs, then.’

‘Oh, deeply,’ he said and ushered her out of their temporary sanctuary and along the wide corridor to knock on the library door without even trying to leave her behind, so at least
he’d already begun to include his wife in his life, or decided there was no point in trying to exclude her.

‘I’m so glad you’ve finally realised I’m not a die-away miss to be sheltered from the uncomfortable realities of life,’ she said with a provocative sideways glance at him as they heard Kit’s invitation to enter and opened the door.

‘I may be an idiot, but even I know when I’m flogging a dead horse, and don’t forget you’re not a miss of any sort any more.’

‘I know,’ she said with great self-satisfaction and made him grin boyishly at the idea that she eagerly embraced marriage to him.

The reminder of all that was to come for them as man and wife was the antidote he probably needed for the sight of the repellent Hibiscombe, hunched over the Earl’s desk, frantically scribbling. The Viscount was standing over him like the sternest of schoolmasters, looking as if he was about to correct his spelling and handwriting in no uncertain terms if he strayed from the straight and narrow lines he’d drawn up for him.

‘We offered him a choice between a convenient shooting accident while he was cleaning those guns of his and writing a signed confession
then submitting to the madhouse, and d’you know what?’ Rory asked incredulously. ‘The little rat’s plumped for the madhouse.’

‘Dear, dear,’ Louisa observed sympathetically, suddenly fighting what must be hysterical laughter at the flummoxed expression on his lordship’s face. ‘Some people really are totally outside the pale, are they not?’ she added for good measure and felt Kit’s glare at her facetiousness from across the room.

‘You may trust us to deal with him from now on,’ her brother informed her and Hugh sternly and directed the little rat in question to keep writing and not leave anything out.

‘Yes,’ his lordship replied simply to her question, with a fearsome frown that told them exactly what he thought of his brother-in-law. ‘Alstone and I have sent for one of the magistrates from Bow Street, whom he assures me is discreet and not liable to broadcast the tale when we explain about my sister and the children. Then my man will go and fetch whichever lunatic doctor he recommends, so that we can have this vermin officially declared insane and remove him from poor Cal’s life for ever. Sorry about such a hole-in-corner end to this miserable business, Kenton, but there’s my sister
and her brats to think of now, and a trial wouldn’t have brought anyone back, would it?’

With those rare words of wisdom from his lordship echoing in her mind, Louisa meekly allowed her new husband to guide her out of the house and into the waiting carriage and even managed not to mind very much when the release of so many years of tension meant that all they did that night was sleep in each other’s arms, even though it was their official wedding night.