Deadly Affair: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) (14 page)

The Duchess gave a shrug of indifference, but Alec detected a wisp of emotion in her reply. “I imagine she wanted to confide her predicament in someone, and who better than the wife of her lover; the one person who was unlikely to bleat it about drawing rooms. But I did have some sympathy for Ellen...”

“Your forgiveness is boundless, my dear Olivia.”

“Stop funning! Her marriage was barren. And she was desperate to have a child and here she was pregnant with my husband’s bastard and couldn’t tell a living soul. And then she miscarried, which was a far better outcome than had she brought a bastard to term, not that I told
her
that, because she had made me her confidant!
Me
.”

Alec looked down at his long fingers. “A difficult time for you both.”

“Difficult? That doesn’t begin to describe it. Not three months after her miscarriage she came to me with the most astounding news. She was
in love
. Can you believe it?
In love
, and by all accounts for the first time, too! Silly goose of a woman. And at her age.”

“Age is no barrier to falling in love, Olivia.”

The Duchess shrugged, as if made uncomfortable by this simple truth and said flatly, “Well, age was no barrier to Ellen falling with child either!
Again
, Ellen found herself pregnant, and
again
not by her husband, and
again
I found myself not only her confidant but colluding with her to hide the fruits of her adultery from Cleveley.”

“She never thought of passing the child off as Cleveley’s?”

“Couldn’t. He would know. The timing was all wrong.”

“So she did think about duping her husband.”

The Duchess eyed him resentfully. “We both thought about it.”

Alec kept his opinion of such conniving and betrayal to himself and said calmly, “I presume then that she managed to keep this pregnancy a secret from him. How did she manage it?”

The Duchess smoothed out an imaginary crease in her petticoats. “Ellen’s unwanted pregnancy isn’t the first to ever make it to term without anyone, including a husband, being any the wiser. Women go into the country to visit relatives; come down with all sorts of imaginary illnesses that require complete bed rest and solitary recuperation. The fact is she had the brat, farmed it out in the depths of the country, to God knows what impoverished couple only too willing to take on an extra mouth to feed, in return for a guaranteed annual income, and returned to London, Society, and Cleveley oblivious.”

“Except to you.”

“Yes. Except to me.” The Duchess sighed. “I don’t think Ellen ever recovered from giving up that child. Her loss was made worse by the fact her sister the serpent had just given birth to a daughter. Ellen wasn’t able to sufficiently harden her heart. Her marriage remained barren. The myth is she was devoted to Cleveley, and yet she got herself pregnant twice and one of her lovers was my husband.” She tapped Alec’s silken sleeve with her fan. “Do you know, I really think
he
was devoted to her for the first half of their marriage. Sad. She spent her final three years bedridden and bitter, goading him at every opportunity about his inability to beget a child, even out of wedlock. I witnessed several of her outbursts. Is it any wonder he was not at her bedside when she died?”

Alec pulled a face. “Dear me. Pride poked and prodded but surely not deflated?”

The Duchess’s face tightened. “You have no idea.”

“Forgive me. That was uncalled for.”

“Their barren marriage was a living hell for a proud man like Cleveley, particularly when he has a genuine fondness for children. He was a very caring uncle to Mimi, Frances Rutherglen’s only child. A surprisingly beautiful girl, no
astonishingly
is a better word given her lineage, and with such poise for one so young. I saw her only the once. It was not many months before her tragic death. She was brought down from the schoolroom to play at the pianoforte at one of Frances’s excruciatingly dull afternoon teas. Cleveley turned the sheets of music for her while she played. The child’s death was a great blow to him. I will always remember Cleveley’s expression when he told me that, at the Rutherglens’ request, he identified Mimi’s body. He looked so ill I thought he’d stop breathing...” The Duchess mentally shook herself and squeezed Alec’s silken sleeve. “I knew that sliver of Cleveley’s humanity would surprise you. Makes him less the uncaring brute, doesn’t it? And any man who is willing to own that drunken buffoon George Stanton as his son must have a strong paternal instinct.”

“Strong enough to want to protect Stanton from the folly of a youthful indiscretion?”

“What is a youthful indiscretion in the scheme of things? And what father wouldn’t protect his child? The Duke will not allow anything or anyone to stand in the way of George inheriting the Cleveley dukedom.”

“And count no cost?”

The Duchess of Romney-St Neots did not hesitate. “And count no cost.”

Such petty details, and the vicar kept waiting…

Alec had never set a buckled shoe inside the Hanover Square mansion Selina shared with her loathsome husband. He hoped never to do so and wondered why she continued to reside in a house that held so many painful memories of an abusive marriage. Alec wanted her to sell it, not merely lease it out, so there would be no lingering ties, material or otherwise, with her deceased madman of a husband. His townhouse in St. James’s Place was more than adequate for their needs. It at least was a comfortable warm place to call home, unlike this monolith of cold marble and opulence that resembled its dead master: a façade of wealth and privilege that lacked a heart and soul.

He glanced at the pearl face of his gold pocket watch a second time, reading the numerals at half an arm’s length. The footman who showed him to the anteroom off the library said the mistress had visitors but that it would not be many minutes before she would be free, as the Duke’s travelling coach was waiting in the street. Alec had already been kept waiting fifteen minutes.

When the butler emerged from the library with a footman in tow they left wide the door giving Alec a clear view into a long book-lined room with its central massive mahogany desk. Here sat two men of business surrounded by parchments and papers. Selina, hair brushed up off the nape of her neck and dressed in her customary black velvet, was pacing the space between the desk and the warmth of the fireplace with her slender arms folded behind her back. She was listening intently to the conversation between the two men of business and the Duke. His Grace of Cleveley appeared at home, propped on an edge of the desk. He was swinging a stockinged leg with his ever-present gold snuffbox at the ready.

It was to the Duke Selina spoke and it was he to whom she listened. When she stopped and faced him, clearly agitated by a comment made by one of the men of business, Cleveley pulled her to him and lightly held her by the upper arms as he spoke. When she finally dropped her chin and nodded, he kissed her forehead and slowly let her go, hands running down the length of her arms to briefly squeeze her hands. At that familiar action, Alec retreated to stare out of the window, annoyed that a simple light kiss and caress given by a man old enough to be her father should arouse feelings of unease. But in spite of a pleasurable week spent together in Paris, matters with Selina had not gone to plan and he did not know why and so he felt he had every right to his apprehension.

When there was movement at his back he pretended an interest in the Duke’s magnificent travelling coach standing idle in the square below, the Cleveley coat of arms emblazoned in gold leaf on the black door. Two pompous-looking footmen in livery stood up on the box, another waited patiently between the horses’ heads while the driver sat back in his duffle coat holding the reigns in his gloved hands. Four armed outriders remained mounted, walking their horses up and down the street and circling their master’s coach, impatient to be off. By the mountain of luggage strapped to the roof, it was to be a considerable journey. When he finally turned into the room he found the Duke watching him.

“I wonder who has disturbed whom?” quipped Cleveley as he drew on his kid gloves. “Unfortunately, I can’t stay to find out. So, you will excuse me—”

“Do you make a habit of disturbing this widow, your Grace?”

The Duke raised his graying black brows. “May one ask what prompts such an unexpected question?”

The muscles about Alec’s mouth set hard at the smirk that accompanied the Duke’s remark. “Mrs. Jamison-Lewis and I are betrothed.”

“Indeed?” said the Duke with no hint of surprise. “I received the strongest impression from Mrs. Jamison-Lewis that she was in two minds. Now, you must excuse me. The horses...”

In a rash move prompted by a moment of intense jealousy, Alec thrust the silver button belonging to the Cleveley livery at the Duke. “This, I believe, is yours, Duke.”

His Grace held the small button between gloved thumb and forefinger to the light of a branch of candles on the mantelshelf. “It is?”

“That button is part of your livery, is it not?”

The Duke blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“I thought perhaps you could tell me how two of your liveried servants came to be involved in a scuffle in a laneway beside the Stock and Buckle Coffeehouse.”

The Duke remained blank-faced.

“It never occurred to you to wonder why my uncle was not at the Commons’ vote yesterday?”

“I don’t make a habit of concerning myself with Plantagenet Halsey’s whereabouts,” the Duke said coldly, all urbanity at an end.

“Had my uncle made his speech condemning the Bristol Bill, he might possibly have persuaded more than one member to vote it down. As it happened there were a surprising number of abstentions. The bill passed by the narrowest of margins.”

The Duke was incredulous. “Plantagenet Halsey’s emotive ravings wouldn’t have made one tester of difference to the outcome of that vote.” He frowned his distaste. “His speech would only have held up proceedings; an annoying habit he has claimed all his own.”

“My uncle was bashed unconscious. His head is wrapped in bandages.”

The Duke frowned. He stared again at the button in the palm of his gloved hand and then at Alec. He seemed to require further explanation.

“He went to the aid of a gentleman who had been set upon by two of your liveried servants, and for that he, too, was assaulted.”

The Duke looked very hard at Alec. “Who was this fellow?”

“Perhaps you should ask your servants that question, Duke.”

“You think
I
would enlist my servants to use such tactics?”

“I would not have thought so,” Alec answered with remarkable composure. “However, if it comes to protecting one’s pride of place at the expense of decency and honesty—”

“How dare you,” hissed the Duke, taking a step forward, face livid with indignation. “You—
you
—have the effrontery to—to... Are you
drunk?
”

“You deny sending Weir to enlist my help on your behalf?”

The Duke’s anger melted into bewilderment. “On my behalf?
Weir
?”

“A small matter of your stepson’s deplorable past, your Grace,” Alec stated with dangerous politeness.

“Weir visited you about
George’s
conduct?” The Duke’s bewilderment turned to impatience when his valet slipped into the room unannounced and motioned to the window with a jerk of his head. “I have no notion of what you’re blathering about.” He gave a sealed parchment to Molyneux. “See this is given to Mrs. Jamison-Lewis.”

Alec decided to change tack because he was beginning to wonder if the Duke did indeed know of his servants’ violent behavior or, for that matter, about Weir’s visit. Either that or the man was a consummate performer. “Perhaps your Grace would care to comment on the possibility that the Reverend Blackwell was poisoned?”

There was the slightest of pauses before the Duke answered, but it was not his hesitation that convinced Alec that Cleveley considered it a very real possibility, it was the way in which the valet, Molyneux, flinched and looked swiftly at his master, as if to say,
I told you so
.

“Blackwell suffered a heart attack—”

“—leaving his considerable fortune to one Catherine Bourdon,” Alec interrupted him. “Your Grace was a signatory to his will.”

The Duke did not try to deny this and it was evident he was momentarily startled that Alec should know the contents of the dead vicar’s will. He made a swift recover, however, saying with icy composure, “A man may make as many wills as he pleases.”

“Wills?” Alec repeated. “He had another, earlier will?”

The Duke stiffened. “That is not an unusual circumstance in itself.”

“Indeed not. What is unusual is the fact Blackwell died the day after making this, his last, will. This will was in the possession of the gentleman who was accosted by two of your liveried servants. My uncle went to the gentleman’s aid and in the
mêlée
, Blackwell’s will was shoved into my uncle’s pocket. That will is now in my possession and I intend to see that it is put into the hands of Blackwell’s lawyer Thaddeus Fanshawe. You look surprised, your Grace…”