Deadly Affair: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) (44 page)

“Pardon, your Grace, but how did you discover the truth? Did his Grace—”

Miranda shook her head.

“No. I overheard my mother and the Duchess in heated argument.” She looked steadily at Alec. “It is not easy for me to say this, but it is a truth I have known since a little girl: Lady Rutherglen, my mother, is a nasty, mean-spirited woman capable of great cruelty. I was not the boy she so desperately wanted and so I was considered of no value and was locked away, as one puts to the back of a dusty cupboard an ornament one is given but considers worthless. She spent years encouraging my cousin George’s worst traits, seeking his approval and lavishing what love she possessed on his welfare, much to the detriment and sadness of my aunt, who could not persuade George away from Lady Rutherglen’s corruptive influence. And then, when Lady Rutherglen realized George was interested in Miriam she gave my natural cousin to him as one gives a boy a puppy; Miriam was to be George’s plaything. What Lady Rutherglen could not understand and never comprehended was that George fell in love with Miriam; he truly loved her.

“Naturally my poor aunt was horrified to learn George was bedding Miriam; she was even more appalled when Lady Rutherglen laughed at her. Yes, my lord, she laughed most cruelly when the Duchess begged her to spirit Miriam away before more damage was done. And what did my mother say? She said it was God’s punishment for her sister’s wickedness in marrying a penniless nobody and yet she paraded about society as a duchess, to which she had no right. What did my mother do? She encouraged George and Miriam, giving them every opportunity for the calamitous outcome that was to come. I believe Lady Rutherglen hated Miriam all the more because George loved her. My poor aunt’s health deteriorated rapidly after that. She became bedridden and never recovered.

“My lord,” Miranda added, blinking back tears, “it has always been my fervent wish that George never discover the true nature of his connection to Miriam...”

Alec voiced what Miranda could not and never would.

“That he and Miriam are in truth brother and sister, and Sophie their child?”

“Mr. Bourdon and I will never allow Sophie to know the hideous truth. She is inked in St. Jude’s parish register as my daughter; Mr. Blackwell saw to that. Sophie will never suffer from lack of love and will know every advantage we can provide her. But George must never know...”

“I fear there is more certainty in keeping him ignorant of Sophie’s parternity, your Grace,” Alec said with a small smile, “than there is in knowing what his reaction will be to the news his father has remarried and that you, his cousin, have delivered the dukedom a legitimate heir.”

“Oi! You can’t go bargin’ in there as if you own the place, just because you think you’re His Grace Lord-Bloody-God-Almighty! Have some manners! Give the woman her peace! She’s just given birth...”

It was Plantagenet Halsey, and Alec had bowed to take his leave of Miranda when his uncle’s shouts penetrated from the sitting room and he turned to the door in expectation of the old man storming in brandishing his cane. The other occupants continued on with their duties, two maids under Janie’s direction were clearing the servant bedchamber of clutter, Tam was fossicking in his apothecary’s cabinet for a salve or some such medicinal balm for the new mother, while Miranda catered to his little lordship’s immediate demands for nourishment.

Into the bedchamber strode His Grace the Duke of Cleveley and on his heels was the old man holding his cane aloft and repeating his threat. The Duke was as one deaf and blind to all else, his attention wholly on the four-poster bed. Disheveled in woolen frockcoat and dusty jockey boots, thick brown hair streaked with gray cut short above the ears and in wild disarray, he came to an abrupt halt at the undraped foot of the bed. Alec blinked, as if to assure himself that this panic-stricken countrified gent was indeed one and the same as the self-possessed nobleman in velvet and powdered wig magnificence he had studied at the Opera.

Cozily propped up amongst down pillows, Miranda looked up from watching her newborn son suckle at her breast and her blue eyes brightened. She smiled and said as if it was a most common place thing,

“Mr. Bourdon! You are here at last. Come and meet your son Thomas.”

The Duke swayed and slumped against the bedpost, Alec at his back in two strides lest he faint. It was Plantagenet Halsey’s turn to blink and his jaw fell open in amazement, not only at the change that came over his political nemesis but at the discovery that this most despised of noblemen,
the great man
, a man whose politics he reviled, was none other than the husband of sweet-tempered Miranda Bourdon. It made no sense to him. He must have misheard. He retreated to the windowseat and sat there, leaning on the Malacca handle of his cane as if the wind had been knocked out of him.

“I’ve been half way to London and back in search of you and Sophie,” the Duke finally said as he gingerly inched his way up the bed, a leg pressed to the mattress as if needing support to remain upright. “Robert’s been at his whit’s end, riding the length and breadth of Somerset as well as losing shoe leather up and down Bath’s streets. Why is Sophie not at the farm? I thought we had agreed—But none of that is important. You’re both safe and so is—so is our son. A son! Oh, Mimi! My precious, darling dear...”

“Please—Mr. Bourdon—
Ninian
—you must not upset yourself,” Miranda chided him playfully, her free hand extended across the coverlet for him to take. “We are both safe and very well indeed thanks to the efforts and care of Thomas, Janie and Lord Halsey. Oh! And Mr. Halsey, whose fine name I have also saddled on our son. And we will add your name too. Thomas Plantagenet Justinian Beaumaris. It is such a mouthful for one so tiny.” She glanced down at her now milk-drunk sleeping son and then smiled up at her husband. “But not for a Duke. Until then, shall we call him Thomas Bourdon?”

“As you wish... Thomas... A fine name...”

It was all the Duke could utter as he stared down at his wife and newborn son. And then emotion took hold and would not let go. The reality that the woman he loved beyond reason and their son, he had a son! were alive and well, safe and unharmed, hit him in the chest, and so hard that he was utterly undone. He shuddered in a great breath, crumpled to his knees and sobbed into the coverlet.

Plantagenet Halsey thought he had seen it all until now. If he was struck speechless to discover that the Duke of Cleveley was the elusive Mr. Bourdon he was now shocked rigid to see a man he thought devoid of sentiment and possessing the temperament of a cold cod reduced to quacking emotional wreckage. He did what any decent human would do in such a circumstance: He offered the nobleman his clean white handkerchief and, with a perfunctory pat to the stooped shaking shoulders, his hearty congratulations before making Miranda a bow befitting her station as her Grace the most noble Duchess of Cleveley. He then turned to his nephew, and taking his arm, walked with him out into the sitting room, still in a daze of new knowledge and much subdued.

“I’m not entirely certain I believe what’s goin’ on in there and if you told me to pinch m’self and I’d wake up, I’d do it! But I can see by that grin that you are perfectly reconciled to it. I need a brandy. There’s one to be had in the drawing room where you won’t be surprised to discover an assortment of interestin’ individuals. And kickin’ their boot heels in the servant corridor and waitin’ your instructions is a handful of militia under direction of a pompous git named Rawlinson who tells Barr he’s the local magistrate.” He glanced over his shoulder just as Janie closed over the bedchamber door and caught a glimpse of the Duke sitting on the edge of the bed cradling his newborn son. “Oh, and this here,” he added, joining his nephew in the passageway, a nod to Bear Brown who still stood at his post, pointing his cane at a stout little man in dark cloth and brown bob wig who waddled up to them, round cheeks diffuse with blood, “is the sawbones Ketteridge with his black bag and bottle of leeches. I’ve told him he’s not wanted but he won’t go away.”

“Sir! My lord! I must be permitted access to the woman in that room. If she has indeed given birth to a live child then it is the law that she, the baby and the afterbirth, be examined...”

Plantagenet Halsey stopped listening to the physician on the word afterbirth, leaving him in his nephew’s capable hands. But as he slowly descended the stairs with the aid of his Malacca cane he heard the physician list off his qualifications, experience and the letter of the law, and shook his grizzled head in sympathy for his nephew. He hoped Alec would soon join him in the drawing room so there could be a swift resolution and application of justice. He had had enough excitement to last him out the month. And after what he had witnessed upstairs he wasn’t up to any more surprises. He was to be disappointed.

Alec slid into the Chinese drawing room of Barr’s of Trim Street and into a conflagration of argument. The room was so designated because of the crane and lotus blossom wallpaper, elaborate Chinoserie black-lacquered sideboard and the
toile du jouy
covered sofas depicting the French ideal of a Chinese landscape with pagodas, lanterns and bamboo bridges. The effect would have been charming in a room four times the size, but in its present space occupied by half a dozen fractious individuals Alec wasn’t at all surprised by their irritability. He immediately wanted to push up the window sash for fresh air, to clear his head and to gather his thoughts for he was about to reveal a murderer, but being a cold night and a fire in the grate, he curbed the desire and went straight to the sideboard, poured himself a brandy and surveyed the occupants.

Lady Rutherglen and Sir Charles Weir sat side by side on a sofa, both straight-backed and each nursing a half-glass of spirits. Talgarth Vesey was sprawled out in a wingchair, thin long legs crossed at the ankles, head leaning on his fist and eyes closed. Selina held his other hand, propped on the chair’s rounded arm, and was fanning herself with an ivory and blonde lace fan while deep in low conversation with his uncle. No need to guess their topic of discussion: both were united by mutual incredulity and affront at the Duke of Cleveley’s clandestine marriage. The final occupant, bar one, Alec was relieved had accepted his invitation, was also sprawled out in a wingchair by the fireplace. Lord George Stanton had his chin in his stock and a hand deep in the pocket of his silver threaded velvet waistcoat and was swilling brandy in a glass, brooding gaze on the little leaping flames amongst the burning logs in the grate.

It was at Lord George that Hadrian Jeffries, the only other occupant of the room, directed a significant sidelong glance when Alec came up to the sideboard. He continued to pour drinks for the guests and deliver them on a silver salver with a suitably blank face but, Alec suspected, very much with ears wide open. Alec savored his brandy and casually directed his attention to Lord George, wondering what there was about the brooding corpulent nobleman that warranted his valet’s particular look of alarm, and then he noticed his lordship was still wearing his sword.

“Halsey! Attend! Why are we here?”

It was Lady Rutherglen and to add emphasis to her pronouncement she rapped the side of her glass with the closed ivory sticks of her fan.

“Did you not come to see a ghost, my lady?”

“Ghost? Fanciful rot!” Lady Rutherglen sniffed. “I do not believe in specters.”

“And yet, when Sir Charles told you there was a ghost here at Barr’s you could not get here soon enough. In fact you demanded of Barr to be shown the ghost.”

“In actuality I did not tell her ladyship that there was a ghost,” Sir Charles corrected, “but that I had seen the dead.”

“Caught your reflection in a looking-glass, more belike, Charlie,” Lord George grumbled, not taking his eyes off the crackling fire.

“Seeing the dead or seeing a ghost. Surely an exercise in semantics?” Selina teased. “Though I think her ladyship and Sir Charles saw neither.”

Lady Rutherglen and Sir Charles opened their mouths to refute this when Lord George suddenly sat up and rounded on Selina with a sneer.

“Don’t pretend you know what’s bloody-well going on here,
Mrs
. J-L, because you don’t!”

“Oi! Watch your language, Stanton!” Plantagenet Halsey growled, Malacca headed cane up and pointing menacingly.

“Ghosts and specters and the dead! Ha! You and your opiate-soaked brother are so bloody smug! You don’t know the half of it,” Stanton ranted as if the old man had not spoken. “And you can take out that earring! Only the Duchess of Cleveley has the right,
the right
to wear the Beaumaris diamonds.” He sat back in his chair and waved a lace-covered wrist at Alec. “Just get on with it, Halsey. The militia are waiting and you look fit to burst with smugness at wanting to show us all up as frauds, fiends and fopdoodles. Go on, get on with being so damned bloody clever!”

There was an embarrassed silence and no one dared speak. All eyes were on Alec who drained his glass and set it aside.

Lady Rutherglen sat forward and put out a hand to her nephew.