The Desirable Duchess (13 page)

And as she walked back to the picnic, she almost stopped dead at the scene before her eyes. Her husband was sprawled on a pile of cushions next to Lady Macdonald and was smiling up into her eyes. The day was warm or, thought Alice waspishly, Lady Macdonald might have died of exposure, her gown was so thin.

Feeling small and dingy, Alice sank down beside Mrs. Duggan.

“What were you after doing a thing like that for?” demanded Mrs. Duggan. “Faith, that husband of yours arrived just in time to see yourself promenading with Sir Gerald. And if you wonder why he is flirting with that trollop, you have only yourself to blame.”

Alice watched miserably. A Highland servant of
Lady Macdonald’s was crouched over a spirit stove making toast and looking as if he thought the whole business beneath him. The maid fetched the jar of pâté. The duke looked delighted. Lady Macdonald took a slice of toast from the Highlander and spread pâté on it, then held it, laughing, up to the duke’s mouth.

But at the same time, a scabby cur ran up, a mangy half-dead creature. With a muttered curse, the Highlander went forward to boot it away, but the duke laughed and held out the toast covered in pâté to the animal, who gulped it down. Alice saw Lady Macdonald pout prettily and say something, saw the duke laugh again as he covered another piece of toast with pâté and give it to the dog.

And then the poor animal began to shiver and shake and roll its eyes. Convulsions tore at its thin body. It was dreadfully sick and stretched its length on the grass, its eyes closed. Sir Gerald had laced the pâté with enough arsenic to fell an ox.

There was a startled silence. For everyone had seen what had happened, everyone’s eyes traveling avidly from Alice’s face to her husband’s.

“I really don’t think we should eat this,” said the duke. “The animal was on its last legs, but still…”

Servants had built a large bonfire at the edge of the picnic field. Sir Gerald sped up and seized the jar of pâté. “I wouldn’t trust anything that comes out of France,” he cried. “Let’s burn this nasty stuff.”

Alice, very still, watched as he walked through a cheering crowd and hurled the jar of pâté into the center of the bonfire. Servants carried the dog to the edge of the field and threw it down. She shivered.
Something was badly wrong. She could not explain it.

The duke noticed her white, set face. He said quickly to Lady Macdonald, “I am behaving disgracefully, you know, giving the gossips fuel by staying here with you. I beg your pardon.”

Mrs. Duggan saw him striding toward them and said to Donnelly and Dunfear, “Up with you, lazybones, and let us go and get some champagne.”

“I can call a servant,” said Lord Dunfear lazily, and then yelped with pain as Mrs. Duggan pinched his arm.

They left as the duke arrived.

He sat down next to Alice. She bent her head, the wide brim of her Lavinia hat shading her face.

He was about to berate her for talking to Sir Gerald, for having
dared
to talk to Sir Gerald, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he considered his own behavior.
She
had merely walked and talked with Sir Gerald who was, after all, an old friend. She had not flirted with him or smiled on him. So instead, he said, “You overset me. I arrived in time to see you walking with Warby. I have already had to threaten gossips who are circulating a tale that you and Warby are having an affair.”

“Lucy came to see me,” said Alice in a low voice. “She had heard the rumors, too, and had sent for Sir Gerald to say they must be scotched. He begged her to see me. He wanted to talk to me for one last time. He—he said my parents had called on him and lied to him, saying I was in love with you. That was the reason he went away. All he wanted to do was explain and say good-bye.”

The duke sighed, threw his hat on the grass, and ran his hands through his thick hair.

“Why do you think I flirted with Lady Macdonald? I asked my secretary where you had gone and he was under the impression that you had simply gone for a drive with your friends. Lady Macdonald had written to me, asking to see me for old times’ sake. It has been a misunderstanding. I must believe you, and you must believe me.” He wanted to take her hand and draw her to him, but that phrase of hers—that her parents had told Sir Gerald that she was in love with him, with all its implications that she had
not
been in love with him at all—hurt him dreadfully. She had kissed him dutifully because she was trying to be a good wife. They would need to put these scandals behind them and try to get to know each other.

“We must start again,” he said. “We are still strangers to each other, are we not?”

“Yes,” whispered Alice.

A tear rolled down her nose and plopped on her dress.

“No, don’t cry,” he said quickly. “You make me feel like an angry father rather than a husband. Let us walk together and look as affectionate as we can manage to try to repair some of the damage we have done.”

He helped Alice to her feet and they walked off together. He began to ask her about the changes to the drawing room; Alice answered shyly at first and then in a more relaxed manner. It would be all finished in a week’s time, she said, and he must not look at it until then. It was to be a surprise.

They reached the corner of the field and Alice stepped back with a cry, for the dead dog lay in front of them. “Don’t look at it,” he said. “I shall send some of Lady Markman’s servants to bury the creature. Well, we shall never know what killed the animal, for Warby threw the whole pot of stuff into the fire.”

“I wish he had not,” said Alice, “for we could have taken it to an apothecary and gotten him to look for poison.”

The duke laughed. “My mad behavior has really overset you. That poor dog was near death and had probably been eating all sorts of rubbish.”

“Of course,” said Alice, looking relieved. “Oh, here is Lucy with Edward.”

The Veres joined them. The duke asked Lucy how she was feeling and walked with her while Edward fell into step beside Alice.

“I gather you were at a curricle race at Hammersmith yesterday,” said Alice.

“Yes, and lost a packet of money, but don’t tell Lucy that. I feel such a fool.”

Something prompted Alice to say, “I believe Sir Gerald was there.”

“Hey, what? Oh, yes, him,” said Edward, with a scowl. “Fact is, Alice, he’s not very good ton and can’t take a snub. Ran around bowing and scraping and talking to people who would rather not know him. And then right at the start of the race, he rode off hell-for-leather.”

Alice felt a lurch of fear. “I wonder why he did not stay to watch,” she said.

“Demme, who knows or cares? Probably off to shoot something. Had a ratty canvas gun bag with him.”

Alice felt very cold. Everything looked suddenly threatening. There was no sign of Sir Gerald. Even Lady Macdonald was walking toward her carriage. There had been that pâté, thrown so conveniently in the fire. But such things did not happen outside the pages of romances. Had Gerald appeared mad with thwarted passion? No, there had been something stagy about him. But the Gerald she had known, the Gerald she had been looking forward to marrying, would never have hurt a fly. She should voice her suspicions of Gerald to her husband and let him handle it. But what if she were wrong? The scandal! The hurt to Gerald! It did not bear thinking of. But why had he left that curricle race carrying a gun bag, a canvas gun bag? The man she had seen near those bushes had been carrying an empty canvas gun bag!

She would need to wait and watch and pray that nothing else happened. Gerald had, in his way, been wronged by her parents. If only he would go away!

Lucy came up to her. “What is the matter, Alice? You are looking quite pale.”

Alice forced a smile. “A harrowing afternoon, Lucy. I did not expect Ferrant to be here, and neither did he expect to see me. It is like one of those comedies at the Haymarket—or would be if one were not involved in it oneself. But Ferrant and I have resolved our differences.”

Lucy looked relieved. “Oh, I would give anything to see you as happy as I.” She looked cautiously over her shoulder. Edward had dropped back to talk to the duke, exchanging places with his wife. Both men were deep in conversation. She whispered to Alice, “Sad as it all has been, would you not say that your parents did you a favor? I never knew Sir Gerald really well, but he has changed I think.”

Again Alice experienced that stab of dread. “We all change as we grow,” she said. “Gerald was left only that small estate and the house when his parents died. He is a brave man. He was knighted when he was only twenty!”

“I remember the excitement of that,” said Lucy. “His Majesty was traveling through the county and his horses ran away with the carriage, and it was Gerald who rode to the horses’ heads and subdued them. He was such a hero to us all. Do you remember, Alice? When we knew he was going to be in the village, we would all find some excuse to be there as well so as just to look at him.”

And Alice remembered, standing with her governess and looking in awe at the young man who had been knighted by the king. How brave and noble he had seemed, the very stuff of romance.

Then her first ball, and Gerald asking her to dance, and how she had felt the world had not more joy to offer. Life had seemed so innocent and simple then. She loved Gerald and would marry him, and they would live happily ever after. Her father’s mutterings that Gerald had done nothing to improve the poor condition of his estate went unheeded by Alice.

To add to Alice’s bewildered thoughts as she walked along beside Lucy was the nagging fear that her husband might not be so disinterested in Lady Macdonald as he claimed to be. How neatly he had explained away his flirting.

They were joined by Mrs. Duggan, Mr. Donnelly, and Lord Dunfear. “Is everything well?” asked Mrs. Duggan, her small periwinkle eyes searching Alice’s face.

“Oh, yes,” said Alice.

“You haven’t eaten anything,” said Mrs. Duggan.

“I do not feel very hungry.” Alice looked about her and shivered. “Besides, the sun has gone in.”

The duke came up to her. “We’ll go home,” he said. “You may have an hour’s rest before we go out this evening.”

“Where are we going?”

“Alas! A duty supper party at Lord Werford’s. We need not trouble about the nasty old man after this one event.”

Gerald found Lord Werford and Percy waiting for him at his rooms and scowled horribly. “I thought the whole idea was that I was not to be associated with you,” he said, flinging himself into an armchair.

“Extreme measures,” barked Lord Werford. “So far you have not been successful. Now we are going to try our hand, and if we succeed, you may hand back that advance we gave you.”

Gerald eyed them narrowly. If they succeeded, then they would not hesitate to kill
him
, for he could always blackmail them, and he was sure they had thought of that.

“How do you plan to do it?” he demanded scornfully.

“Ferrant and his duchess are coming to supper tonight. Turtle soup. Shake of arsenic and the deed is done.”

“And how do you get the arsenic into the soup without your servants knowing about it?”

“I keep old-fashioned ways,” said Lord Werford. “Serve from the head of the table. Plates passed down. Poison in the duke’s plate.”

Gerald thought furiously. If they did it, then he would lose all chance of any money, and, what was more important, possibly his life. He, Gerald, had arsenic left over after his abortive attempt this afternoon, an attempt he had no intention of telling them about.

“I’ll do it,” he said abruptly. “Plate passes in front of me, I calculate which is the duke’s plate, nod to you, you create a diversion, I pop in the poison, and that’s that. What about the death certificate?”

“Our doctor will do what he is told.” Percy studied Gerald for a few moments and then said, “Very well. But make sure you do not fail. We’d better get Lady Macdonald along as well. The unhappier we keep our little duchess, the better, just in case. You go to Lady Macdonald and get her along.”

“She may have other arrangements.”

“When there’s a chance of her keeping her claws in Ferrant?” sneered Percy. “She’ll come.”

“Who else?” asked Gerald. “I mean, who else is coming?”

“Old Mrs. Tregader and her granddaughter, Miss
Isabella, Mr. Fawley and his father, the duke and duchess, Lady Macdonald and yourself, and Mr. and Mrs. Tumley.”

“Sounds awful,” said Gerald, with feeling. “Now try to leave my quarters without being seen by anyone and I will call on Lady Macdonald.”

It was, thought Alice, as they all gathered in Lord Werford’s gloomy drawing room before supper, a party surely arranged in hell. First there was Lady Macdonald, seductive and blooming and witty, then there was Gerald, who kept smiling at her in a way her husband obviously did not like, while the gossipy Tumleys avidly watched everything. Then there was the walking tragedy of Isabella Tregader. Her parents had died and she was being brought out by her horror of a grandmother. Isabella was quite beautiful, but in a washed-out way, as if someone had taken a sponge over a fine painting. Everyone in society knew her grandmother had high ambitions for her. Isabella had been in love with an army captain who had been sent packing by old Mrs. Tregader. Mr. Fawley, thin, effeminate, waspish, and rich, had been chosen for her. Mrs. Tregader was very wealthy but a miser—and wanted more money for her coffers through her granddaughter. Mr. Fawley sat next to Isabella, and she listened to his compliments with her face averted.

Lord Werford approached Gerald and drew him aside. “In the pudding,” he hissed.

“Why not the soup?” muttered Gerald.

“Because I want to enjoy my supper first,” said Lord Werford, with mad logic.

“And how is our little duchess?” Lady Macdonald was asking Alice.

“Very well, I thank you,” said Alice. “And how is our large Lady Macdonald?”

Lady Macdonald laughed merrily. “Ah, my child, I know that jealousy prompted that remark.”

“Really?” said Alice, moving away. “And what prompted yours?”

“If I had known that woman was going to be here,” said Gerald suddenly, next to Alice, “I would have warned you.” He reflected grimly on the amount of persuasion he had to bring to bear on Lady Macdonald to get her to come, Lady Macdonald complaining that the way Ferrant had fled to his wife’s side at the picnic had been humiliating.