Deadly Affair: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) (29 page)

He wondered if Miranda Bourdon had any idea that Blackwell was dead. He wondered what had brought her to Bath when such a journey must be twice as hazardous in her advanced stage of pregnancy. He wondered about Mr. Ninian Bourdon and if that gentleman was the reason she had left Ellick Farm to come to Bath. Not least that she may be in Bath for her lying in. And then there was her distress just now in the Abbey...

But he was unlikely to find the answers standing in the churchyard and so he was about to suggest they head on their way when a smooth, insolent voice grated on his ear. He knew at once to whom it belonged and it was no surprise that the man had doubled back to confront him; in fact, he was glad he had.

“Dear me, Halsey! I can’t decide what boggles the mind more: Seeing you emerge from a church, or the fact you have on your arm the most beautiful creature I have ever laid eyes on.” His brows rose slightly at Miranda’s obvious pregnancy but his gaze remained riveted to her face. “May I say how well you’re looking, ma’am?”

Before Plantagenet Halsey could unleash a torrent of abuse at the man’s forwardness, Miranda put out a gloved hand. “How do you do, Mr.—Weir?”

Sir Charles Weir bowed over her hand, a smug smile at the old man. “How good of you to remember, ma’am. It’s Sir Charles now.” His gaze again dropped to her belly. “And to see you looking as bonny as the last time we met is a joy to behold...”

“Thank—Thank you, Sir Charles,” Miranda replied politely and withdrew her hand, and knew not what else to say.

“May one enquire where you are lodging?” asked Sir Charles.

“At-at Barr’s—”

“—in Trim Street? A most respectable establishment and one that offers quite a good dinner...?”

“You are welcome to call upon us there if you so wish, Sir Charles,” Miranda answered, well-aware the invitation was being forced upon her, yet not feeling up to inventing an excuse to rebuff him. She hoped the old gentleman was keen enough to take the hint at her joint invitation.

Sir Charles inclined his powdered head. “And under what name should I enquire for you, ma’am?”

The old man felt her tremble and lean in against him.

“Name?” Miranda repeated, even more flustered. “Yes, of course. It’s Bourdon. Mrs. Bourdon.”

“You’re not to out-stay your welcome, Weir,” Plantagenet Halsey lectured, adding as if it was the most natural thing in the world, “My niece needs her rest.”

The politician’s eyebrows shot up at this piece of interesting information but he made no comment and bowed to Miranda with a crooked smile. “I shall call upon you this evening, Mrs. Bourdon.” And wandered off to rejoin the others surrounding Lady Rutherglen’s chair as it continued its slow progress to her lodgings.

“Thank you, Mr. Halsey. I am most grateful to you,” said Miranda, eyes on Sir Charles Weir’s back. She looked up at the old man, a slight flush to her porcelain cheeks. “Forgive me for ill using you in that way, sir, and if you have no wish to join me for—”

“I’d be honored, ma’am,” he answered, patting her hand in a fatherly way. “And my apologies for being so forward as to own you as my niece, but it was the quickest way of being rid of him. You should know that Weir and I are bitter political rivals.”

“Oh? I am quite ignorant of the world beyond my little corner of the Mendips; a circumstance Mr. Bourdon assures me he counts as one of my most endearing qualities,” Miranda confessed with a shy laugh. “No doubt Sir Charles is somebody very important in the government by now. It was remiss of me not to have congratulated him on his knighthood.”

Plantagenet Halsey stopped abruptly on the corner of Trim and Queen Streets and faced her. “Weir was knighted some five years ago, ma’am.”

“Is that so? Yes! It must be so because I have not seen him since before his elevation. How odd he was in the Abbey with Lady Rutherglen...” she mused, then suddenly came to life with a smile and put out her gloved hand to the old man. “If you will excuse me, Mr. Halsey, I have an errand that cannot wait. And I have walked quite enough for one day. I look forward to continuing our acquaintance at dinner.”

The old man watched her walk a little way down Queen Street before hailing a sedan chair, which took her up and disappeared from view into Quiet Street. To Tam, who stood at his shoulder, he said quietly, “My boy, see where’s she’s headed. And mind you keep your distance.” He then went off to Barr’s with a spring in his step, hoping Alec had returned from his playing the knight errant, for he could hardly wait to tell him he had spent the morning in the Abbey in company with the elusive Miranda Bourdon.

“
Harlot
,” Lady Rutherglen spat out, shoving aside her hovering maid who was attempting to put a burnt feather under her nose. “Out, woman! Out!” she screeched. “I’ve not fainted, you dim-wit!” She struggled to sit up amongst the silk cushions and threw off the tasseled rug covering her voluminous petticoats, ignoring the glass of claret Sir Charles was patiently waiting to hand her. “How
dare
she show herself amongst respectable persons, and in the Abbey of all places! And flaunting the fruits of her wantonness in God’s temple. Whore. Harlot
. Witch
.”

“Your wine, my lady,” Sir Charles reminded her.

“To think she took the sacrament...!” Lady Rutherglen breathed, lace handkerchief pressed to her cracked pale lips. “Brass-faced. Wanton.
Wicked
.”

“Halsey had the stupidity to own her as his niece.”

Lady Rutherglen’s jaw swung open and outrage turned to mirth. She let out a loud watery cackle of disbelief, falling back against the silk striped sofa, wheezing. “Did you hear—hear that, George? George!
His
niece? That old fool’s
niece
?” She cleared her throat of phlegm and stuck out a hand for the glass of claret that Sir Charles was only too pleased to relinquish. “Well! Two people couldn’t be better suited than an old cunny-hunter and a mistress cunny-warren!”

A series of loud laughing snorts issued forth from behind the outspread pages of the
Bath Chronicle
before the newssheet was ruthlessly crushed in Lord George Stanton’s crossed-legged lap. “Mistress cunny-warren? Now that’s a great joke, Aunt! Cunny-warren! Ha! Ha!”

Sir Charles took a turn about the drawing room; to distance himself from Lady Rutherglen’s repellent person, a decaying corpse had more life to it than her husk of wrinkled flabby flesh and brittle bone, and Lord George, who smelled of horseflesh and sweat. He had ill-manneredly gone riding to escape accompanying his aunt to the Abbey, as he had done the day before in preference to attending a recital in the Assembly rooms, leaving the old serpent in Sir Charles’s care; who wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that Stanton was still wearing the riding raiment of the day before such was the pungent odor pervading his bloated person.

“A pity she isn’t Halsey’s niece, then we wouldn’t be in this predicament, would we, my lady?” Sir Charles commented wryly, looking out the window at the meandering river Avon beyond the Green.

Lady Rutherglen grimaced. “Think she’s told him?”

Sir Charles shrugged and took snuff. “No. Or he wouldn’t have made such an outrageous claim as to own her as his kinswoman.”

“Did you discover her direction?”

“She is staying at Barr’s in Trim Street.

“Barr’s?” Stanton pulled a face. “How can she afford it?”

“More to the point,” mused Sir Charles, “why such an exclusive lodging house would permit one such as she to stay under its roof. I wonder if she’s brought her bastard in tow?”

“Egad! I hope not!” Lord George shuddered. “Not sorry I missed the service. Coming face to face with her in the Abbey would’ve been unbearable.” He appealed to his aunt in a pleading whine, “She won’t try and foist the brat on me, will she, dearest Aunt?”

Lady Rutherglen’s watery yellowed eyes narrowed. “With another bastard on the way? She wouldn’t
dare
.”

“Eh?
Another
?” Lord George asked, as if this information had just penetrated his brain. He stared at Sir Charles. “She’s carrying another bastard?”

“I agree with you, my lady,” Sir Charles answered, ignoring Stanton’s whine. “Her present—er—condition must surely preclude any further attempts to blackmail Lord George; for how can she cast blame in his direction when this second pregnancy must forever damn her as deplorably base? I wonder if the painter will own to being its father?”

“Well this one ain’t mine!” Lord George declared with a snort and retreated behind the crinkled newssheet.

“I invited myself to dine with her this evening,” Sir Charles informed them with a self-satisfied smile.

The crumpled newssheet was ruthlessly crushed once more in Lord George’s lap.

“
Dine
with her?” Lord George scrambled to sit up straight, his bottom lip stuck out in a sulk of incomprehension. “Dine with a harlot? To what purpose? After what she’s put
me
through? Are you mad, Charlie?”

Lady Rutherglen extended a thin hand to her nephew and was pleased when he took it. She tugged at him until he got out of his chair and knelt beside hers. “You’re a good boy, Georgie,” she whispered, pinching his fleshy cleft chin a little too hard. “If you continue to be a good boy your Aunt Frances will see to it you are the next Duke of Cleveley. But you must leave Charles to do the thinking. Do you understand me, dear boy?”

“Yes, Aunt,” he answered docily, staring into her yellowed eyes with an equal measure of revulsion and fear. He pulled a face at Sir Charles. “You’re welcome to the whore, Charlie!” for which he received a severe tug on his thick earlobe. “Ow! What-what did you do that for, Auntie?”

“Insolent boy,” Lady Rutherglen hissed at him, cursing the memory of her dead sister who had been a sentimental fool yet managed to produce a son who would one day succeed to a dukedom when she Frances, the younger and far more intelligent sister, had produced one sickly insignificant and recalcitrant daughter who had been nothing but a disappointment and then had had the bad manners to die before she could marry her off. She let go of her nephew’s reddened ear saying in a deceptively sweet voice, “Treat Charles well. He has our best interests at heart. Now help me up.”

Begrudgingly, Lord George did as he was told. Unable to help himself he glared over his aunt’s powdered wig at Sir Charles. “Are you sure he has
my
best interests at heart and not his own?”

Lady Rutherglen regarded Sir Charles from under half-closed lids devoid of eyelashes. “By serving us he serves himself, George. Is that not so, Charles?”

Sir Charles bowed politely, his face masking his feelings, and ignored Lord George’s snort of contempt, as did Lady Rutherglen who said to Sir Charles,

“Maria Russell and her daughter are due in Bath today. I don’t want that whore within five miles of town.”

“As you wish, my lady,” Sir Charles replied obediently, a glance at Stanton. “It would be too bad if Lady Henrietta was to—”

Lord George took an angry stride toward Sir Charles. “Don’t say Hatty’s name in my presence! Ever,” he bellowed. “I know your game,
secretary
.”

“—come face to face with Mrs. Bourdon,” Sir Charles enunciated, ignoring Lord George’s tantrum. His brows contracted over his snub nose. “What do you mean
game,
my lord?”

Lord George gripped his aunt’s thin arm convulsively. “Auntie told me about your designs on Hatty Russell. As if her father would ever allow you to touch one hair on Hatty’s head least of all
marry
her! Ha!”

“And does his lordship have any notion of what you’ve touched, my lord?”

“Enough! Enough!” growled Lady Rutherglen, fending off both gentlemen with outstretched arms when they bristled at each other. “I won’t have Cheltenham tragedies here!” She gave Lord George’s puffed out chest a contemptuous little push. “Sit down and read your newssheet, Georgie, and let Sir Charles and I do the thinking.”

“Any notion why Mrs. Bourdon, as she calls herself, has suddenly decided to pester us from the grave after all these years, my lady?

“I’ve no idea why the trollop has shown herself in good society at this time, but she is mistaken if she thinks she can outwit me,” Lady Rutherglen ruminated, grinding her few remaining teeth, gaze fixed beyond the window on a memory. “She thought herself so very clever, seducing Georgie under my roof, and even cleverer when she got herself with child by him. Pshaw! As if a bastard amounts to anything! Polluted creature! Like begets like. I blame Ellen.”

“Blame Mamma?” Lord George blinked, expression suitably vacant as he looked over the spread newssheet, at his aunt then at Sir Charles and back again. “Auntie? Charlie? What’s Mamma got to do with this damnable pickle we’re in?”

Lady Rutherglen regarded her nephew, not at all surprised. She opened her dry mouth to answer him, then thought better of it and fixed her gaze on Sir Charles.

“I won’t allow that ungrateful hedge-whore to jeopardize our future, Charles. Find out if she knows about the vicar’s demise. If she’s ignorant: Tell her. It may yet persuade her to skulk back to the bushes from whence she came. And Charles: By dusk.”