Charlotte Louise Dolan (17 page)

Lucy could feel the mood of the crowd shifting and turning against her sister-in-law, and she hurried to press her advantage. “Why, Bertram, you should not say such an unkind thing. I’m sure that Mrs. St. John’s friends would not dream of cutting the connection simply because she remains a mere soldier’s wife. That would be too unkind for words.”

The murmurs from the crowd were unintelligible, but Lucy knew what they signified. No one would now dare risk being the only one not to cut Mrs. St. John if the child was a boy.

Smiling sweetly at the people around her, Lady Vawdry continued on down the path, her mind already engaged in plotting the downfall of Mrs. St. John should the worst happen and she become in truth a duchess.

* * * *

Simon Bellgrave was in alt. It was all he could do not to declare himself on the way back to the Donnithorne residence, but he could not, of course, speak of such things in front of a third party.

That Elizabeth would seize upon any chance to be unfaithful to her husband must be obvious to the least observant, of which Simon was not one. To cut her husband’s sisters like that! What contempt she must have for her husband, to insult his family in such a way! How eager she must be to end her marriage!

And what an opportunity for him to aid her—to have her fly into his arms, where he could comfort her. Who else, after all, would she turn to? She had been head over heels in love with him once, and how desperately she must now be wishing she had not jilted him.

He was all relaxed smiles as he escorted the two women to their  door,  but  his  mind  was  whirling  with  ideas  for implementing their flight from London.

* * * *

The handwriting on the letter was unfamiliar, so after breaking the seal, Major St. John glanced first at the signature, then swore to himself. Never in his life had Lucy—or Cecily, either, for that matter—taken it upon herself to write him, not when he had been away at school as a boy nor since he had joined the army.

With great difficulty he deciphered her flowery handwriting. “My beloved brother ...” he snorted in disbelief, causing Munke to look up from where he was polishing a sword. “It grieves me severely to write you, but I feel it is my duty.”

He read on through more drivel about family loyalty and “our good name” until he came at last to the reason for this unlikely letter.

Your wife, I am devastated to inform you, has succeeded in winning back her former fiancé and is seen everywhere in his company. You must not blame her, of course, for Bellgrave is quite a catch, and no one can understand how she came to lose him in the first place. I am sure you would be the first to wish her happy, now that she has her own true love back, but do, pray, request her to be a little more discreet. I vow, it is very embarrassing for me—and for Cecily, too—to have your wife flaunt her affair so openly.

Darius crumpled the letter without reading the rest of it, then stalked out of the tent, so angry he did not trust himself to respond to any of the greetings and remarks made to him.

He was angry with his sister for writing the letter—a deliberate act of maliciousness, of that there was no doubt—and angry with his wife for her betrayal, but most of all angry at himself for having been so foolish as to have had expectations.

How long would it be before a duel was fought over his wife’s honor? How long before he heard that she was with child—a child not of his begetting, a child who would be born too many or too few months after he was last in England?

History had a damnable way of repeating itself, but of one thing he was certain—like his father, he would never fight a duel for any woman’s pretended honor, not even if she was his wife.

In spite of his resolutions, a vision appeared in his mind—an image of Simon Bellgrave sprawled in the dirt at his feet, his life’s blood spilling out of a black hole in his chest onto the ground. It was followed by the vision of his wife cringing on her knees, tears streaming down her face, reaching up to him, begging for his forgiveness.

He tried to picture himself turning and walking away from her, telling her he never wanted to see her again, but the image refused to form. He kept seeing instead the way she had looked with her cheeks reddened by the wind after a ride, the way her face lit up whenever he came into the room, the lazy way she smiled at him after they made love ...

Hellfire and damnation! The only way to rid himself of these memories was with brandy. Abruptly he turned and strode back toward his tent, where he caught Munke in the act of reading the wrinkled letter.

Wordlessly he snatched the offending missive out of his batman’s hands and stalked out of the tent, where he crumpled it again into a ball and cast it into the campfire. Impassively he watched it burn until nothing was left but the words etched on his soul, “She has her own true love back.”

“I apologize, Major. That was wrong of me.” Munke came up behind him. “I should not have—”

“Fetch me some brandy, Munke, and do not ever speak of this to me again.” Darius returned to his tent and threw himself down on his cot. He wanted desperately to be back in England—not so that he could control his wife’s actions, but so that he could have the freedom to ride like the wind across the countryside until his anger was spent, until he was too tired to think about what a fool he had been to put any trust in a woman’s honor.

Five letters he had gotten from her since she had gone to London, and not a word had she mentioned about Simon Bellgrave or any other man. All she had written about were her expeditions with Dorie—to Astley’s Ampitheater and the Tower and other such innocuous places.

“Here’s your brandy, Major, but I think you’re the one what’s wrong to believe that poison your sister wrote. She ain’t one to tell the truth if a lie will serve her better.”

Darius took the brandy and tossed it off in one gulp. It burned on the way down, but not as much as the rage in his heart.

“Mrs. St. John is not the sort to cuckold you, sir.”

“She’s a woman, isn’t she? That means she’s the sort.”

“I think you’re doing her an injustice, Major.”

“Another word in her defense, and I’ll assume she has seduced you also.”

“Then drink yourself into a stupor like a damned fool, see if I care.” Muttering to himself, Munke returned to polishing the sword.

He was a damned fool, of that there was no doubt. Darius flopped back down on the cot and put his arm across his eyes to shut out the light. Would that it were so easy to shut out his memories. As he lay there, he was gradually able to force the unwanted thoughts out of his mind, and by the time the mess call sounded, his anger was gone and with it all the softer emotions that made a man weak and at the mercy of a woman.

Miss Dorothy Hepden so far forgot herself as to run through the hall and dash down the back stairs, taking the last two at one jump, in the way she had not done since she was a child. Grinning from ear to ear, she knew that so far as the lower servants were concerned, if she were to be seen behaving in such a hoydenish manner, it would destroy forever her carefully guarded image of dignity and propriety. But she didn’t care—she was too eager to relate the wonderful news.

Bursting into the servants’ hall, all eyes were upon her—and there were many more eyes than normal, for virtually every house servant was gathered there, most of them making not even the merest pretense of properly earning their wages—but she was so out of breath, she could not talk for several minutes. Finally she was able to gasp out, “It’s ... a ... girl,” and a cheer went up.

Mr. Kelso quickly shushed the servants’ exuberance and then with stately manner decreed, “I do believe this calls for a toast. Jenkins, would you be so kind as to fetch two bottles of wine? No, better make that four bottles.”

“Fetch a ‘alf dozen bot’les, Jenks,” cried out Billy, and received not the slightest scolding from his superiors.

When all the servants were gathered around the long table—including Gorbion, who was summoned from the stables with his contingent of grooms, undergrooms, and stable boys—and when everyone had his allotment of wine before him, Mr. Kelso rose to his feet and lifted his glass.

“To Major Darius St. John, the tenth Duke of Colthurst!”

With cries of “Hear! Hear!” the new duke’s health was drunk to repeatedly until not only were the first six bottles emptied, but also six more that were fetched and cracked open.

It was a very jovial group of servants who were sent back about their tasks by Mr. Kelso, who then joined the three other upper servants in his own sitting room.

“Well, Miss Hepden, are you not happy now that you turned the other cheek, so to speak?” Mrs. Mackey enquired.

Miss Hepden wiped a tear from her eye. “There, I am so happy, I am crying. I cannot tell you what absolute terror I endured that last hour of waiting. I declare, if the labor had been much prolonged, I would have expired from anxiety.”

“Let us hope his Grace will be just as quick to return to take up his dignities,” Mrs. Kelso added. “How long do you estimate it will take, Mr. Kelso?”

“Ah, there is no way of telling. It depends on the weather in the Bay of Biscay, on what quality of horses the messenger finds available for hire in Portugal, and on exactly where in Spain his Grace’s regiment is presently stationed. Then, of course, there is the return trip to be made.” He did not add that this was assuming the major was still in good health and unwounded—a consideration he thought better not to mention to the three women, who deserved to enjoy their present state of carefree euphoria.

“Mr. Kelso?” Miss Hepden’s forehead was wrinkled with evident puzzlement. “Who is responsible for sending the message?”

“Why, Mr. Leverson, the late duke’s man of affairs, of course.”

“No, no, I mean whose duty is it to notify Mr. Leverson?”

There was dead silence in the room, as each of them considered the possibility that the woman upstairs might choose to delay as long as possible announcing to the world her failure to produce an heir to the dukedom.

“Mrs. Kelso, fetch some stationery from the duke’s study, if you would be so kind.” Mr. Kelso’s daring order produced gasps from the three women, but in moments they recovered and the crested notepaper was fetched.

“Miss Hepden, you write the best hand. Please take down the following.” He cleared his throat, then dictated. “To Mr. Leverson, Queen’s Court, London. This is to inform you that Her Grace the Duchess of Colthurst has this day been delivered of a daughter.”

“Who is going to sign it?” Mrs. Mackey asked.

“I have already considered that matter.” Pulling on his white gloves and placing the letter carefully on a silver salver, Mr. Kelso quitted the room.

He stationed himself in the entrance hall, where he had not long to make sure the necessary props were in readiness and to consider exactly how to phrase his request, before the doctor descended with great dignity accompanied by his assistant carrying his bag.

“If I might have a word with you, Sir Henry, before you take your departure? Perhaps you would be so kind as to step in here?” He motioned to a small anteroom near the front door. “I shall not take up much of your valuable time.”

“To be sure, you will be wishing to know how the duchess goes on. Quite well, considering this is her first child.” The doctor preceded the butler into the indicated room.

With no sign of his inward disquiet, which was great, Mr. Kelso proffered the letter on the tray. “Lacking a male relative in attendance, it would seem best ...” He let his voice trail away, and was gratified when the doctor retrieved his glasses from his breast pocket, adjusted them properly on his nose, and picked up the indicated piece of paper.

Mr. Kelso could feel his heart pounding in his ears, but years of training stood him in good stead and he knew that no hint of his trepidation could be read in his demeanor.

“You wish me to sign this?” Sir Henry peered over his glasses at him, and the butler could read nothing in the doctor’s expression to indicate whether or not he was about to receive a dressing-down for his impertinence, but he faced the danger as bravely as if he were standing beside Major St. John, facing French guns.

“In the absence of a male relative,” he merely repeated impassively.

The doctor glanced down at the paper in his hand, then looked around the room, and Mr. Kelso, realizing he had achieved his objective, hurriedly produced the pen and ink he had strategically placed on the small table by the door.

The doctor scrawled his name at the bottom of the letter, then left without another word.

Having succeeded thus far, Mr. Kelso went the entire distance. Carefully folding the missive, he went directly to the duke’s study, where he sealed it with wax and the ducal seal.

Returning to his own quarters, he sent for Gorbion. “Pray, send your most reliable groom to London with this message.”

“If that’s what I think it is, I’ll not entrust it to anyone but meself,” the head groom said, eyeing the now-impressive-looking document. “I’ll not be tempted to delay even a minute to hoist a few or flirt with a pretty barmaid along the way, and Kerkwich can be looking after the stables in my absence. Not but what I’d be uncomfortable in my mind leaving him in charge if there was a chance
she
would be coming ‘round flaunting herself and countermanding my orders, but I think I need have no worries on that score.”

“No, indeed, the way
she
carries on about a nicked finger, I misdoubt she’ll even rise from her bed in the next fortnight. I wish you pleasant journey.”

“Aye, leastwise the weather’s favorable, though I think on a noteworthy day like today, even were there a mizzling rain, I’d not complain.”

There was a slight scratching at the door to the butler’s sitting room, and Mr. Kelso opened it to find a very worried Miss Hepden.

“I have had further thoughts, Mr. Kelso, that perhaps we had better tell the duchess.”

“Hah, we don’t owe that woman nothin’,” Gorbion barked out.

“No, no, I meant the new duchess, Lady Darius.”