The Paper Princess (6 page)

He climbed up on the box and set off into the night. The snow had changed to sleet and drove into his face. But the madness of fear was on him, and he felt no discomfort.

He was grateful that the port of Falmouth was not many miles away.

In Falmouth, he went straight to a tavern he knew was frequented by sea captains and soon found the sort of character he wanted.

Captain Ferguson was only too pleased to have the “present” of a fine, strong housemaid whom he could sell in America as a bonded servant. When Mr. Palfrey also gave him one hundred guineas, the captain swore lifelong friendship.

He saw nothing very odd or criminal in receiving a drugged body on board. In these days, when press-ganged victims could arrive bound and gagged, it was nothing much to take on the body of a drugged maid.

Luck was with Mr. Palfrey. The wind was fair, the good ship
Mary Bess,
would set sail before the morning, and when Bessie came out of her stupor—
if
she came out of her stupor, for he might have broken her neck dragging her down the stairs—she would be well on the way to the New World.

Anxious to remove himself from the vicinity as soon as possible, Mr. Palfrey did not stay at the comfortable inn, but set out on the road home, singing snatches of song as he bowled along the Cornish roads.

Once back, his long-suffering valet prepared his master for bed again. Mr. Palfrey kept having fits of the giggles, for all he had drunk, both with Mr. Pulkton and the sea captain, had finally gone to his head.

The bed seemed to have a tendency to run about the room. He glared up at the canopy, willing the room to stop spinning.

All at once he was stark, staring sober.

The will!

The will was still somewhere in Bessie's capacious cleavage.

His mind raced and spun as the drunken room had done only a few moments before.

And then he gave a deep sigh. What could a bonded servant do about anything? If she survived the journey, which was unlikely, she would be sold. She would not be paid a groat until her seven years of slavery were over. Surely no American was going to listen to a mere housemaid's babbling about some will. Salt water, or rats, or sweat, or any of the hazards of the journey would probably destroy that paper before Bessie ever reached America.

Felicity was crossing the hall the next day when she saw a woman dressed in black bombazine standing with her face to the wall.

“It is I, Miss Felicity,” she said impatiently. “You may turn around, Mrs. Jessop.”

Felicity thought Mr. Palfrey's treatment of the servants was disgraceful.

The housekeeper bobbed a curtsey. “I heard the footsteps,” she said, “and thought it was the master.”

“Has Bessie left yet?” asked Felicity.

“Yes, but it's ever so strange. She did not take a thing with her, and she even left fifteen pounds on her bed.”

“I gave her that money. I was sorry for her,” said Felicity.

“You shall have your money back, miss. Mr. Anderson has it in safekeeping. I would not feel too sorry for Bessie. She could be lazy and a bit cruel with some of her remarks.”

“But if she left the money and her belongings, something may have happened to her,” cried Felicity.

“That's what I thought. But Mr. Palfrey told me he saw her slipping out of the castle last night, and he says as how one of his silver snuffboxes has been taken.”

“And did he inform the parish constable?”

“No, miss. He said he didn't want any scandal.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Jessop.” Felicity went up the stairs, wondering a little about Bessie's sudden turn to crime. Then her thoughts moved to her prospective marriage. She felt tired and beaten down, and weary with grief. She had not made any further protest about the marriage.

A little glowing image of Lord Arthur Bessamy's handsome face rose before her eyes.

She gave a resigned shrug. Dashing and handsome and tantalizing men were for more fortunate females.

Best put him completely out of her mind. She had not really liked him very much, so it was odd how much the memory of him kept returning to plague her. She would, in all probability, never see him again.

But Felicity was wrong.

“Got a letter from that old rascal in Devon,” said Mr. Charles Godolphin to his friend Lord Arthur Bessamy.

Both men were strolling along the pebbly beach at Brighton, having followed the Prince Regent to that famous resort after the Season finished in June.

“Your uncle?”

“Yes, him. A most odd letter. He wants me to go there.”

“Has he decided to leave you his moneybags after all?” asked Lord Arthur.

“No, he's going ahead with this marriage. Wants to marry the girl in September.”

“Miss Felicity Channing is the lady, if I remember correctly. Is she proving difficult?”

“Well, this Felicity has, quite rightly I think, demanded a look at the goods first, or, to put it less vulgarly, she wants to see her intended.”

Lord Arthur looked amused. “Do you mean they have never met?”

“Not even for a cup of tea. Whole thing was arranged by the girl's stepfather, Palfrey. The mother died last November and one would have thought they'd have waited until a year of mourning was over.”

“So why does Uncle Baron need Dolph?”

“He needs me because he says he's fallen madly in love with the chit.”

“A chit whom he has never set eyes on?”

“He's got her miniature,” said Dolph, “and gazes at it night and day. He says he feels like a lovesick schoolboy.”

“Touching.”

“It would be,” said Dolph, stooping down, picking up a stone, and shying it out to sea. “Only trouble is he's a satyr, a lecher, and a boor. Nevertheless, he wants me there to hold his paw and put in a good word for him with Miss Channing. I am to present myself at Dawdy Manor in two weeks’ time.”

“My dear Dolph, if you intend to go, you had better set out now. It will take you all of that to get there—with your driving, that is.”

“Hoping you would drive me,” said Dolph.

Both men came to a stop. The sun was setting, and a sea gull called mournfully over their heads.

Lord Arthur gave a slight shrug. “Why not, my friend? Why not? Nothing at all amusing has happened to me since I was last in Cornwall.”

Although it was quite cool within the thick walls of Tregarthan Castle, Mr. Palfrey was sweating profusely. He had just endured a terrible scene with his stepdaughter.

He had arranged a meeting for her with the baron, he had sent her measurements to London's finest dressmaker so that she might appear to advantage in the baron's eyes— and then he had commanded her to dye her hair brown, hoping to make her look as much like that miniature of Maria as possible.

And Felicity, who until that point had been meek, crushed, and biddable, with the one exception of demanding to meet her intended, had thrown back her head and let rip. She told him what she thought of him. She accused him of destroying her mother's health. The Holbein he had lately purchased would have repaired the tenants’ cottages on the whole estate and have left plenty to spare, Felicity had raged.

The whole unsettling scene had brought all Mr. Palfrey's fears about Bessie rushing back. What if Bessie had shown that will to the captain or to anyone on board? The cunning captain would soon see the value of it. Why had he not killed her?

But Mr. Palfrey realized that, although he did not mind a rap if she died on board of cholera or typhoid, he could never bring himself to directly take away another's life.

And those jewels! He was weary with searching the castle from cellar to attic. There was a long portrait in the morning room of the late Mr. Channing's mother. She was in court dress and had a diamond tiara on her head and a fine diamond collar about her neck.

Where were the Channing jewels?

He was so upset, he decided he would have to brave the baron's possible fury. The marriage settlement had been signed. Surely the baron would not back out of the marriage just because Felicity had red hair and was not precisely handsome.

All his worries swirled about his head and settled down to focus on Felicity. With that redheaded jade out of the way, he could begin to lead an orderly and carefree life. He had not worried so much about Bessie for some time. It was Felicity's vulgar scene, which had rattled him so much, and brought all the fears rushing back.

Felicity, on the other hand, felt better than she had since her mother's death. That scene, that angry release, had brought all her confidence rushing back. She rode out with Miss Chubb, contemptuously dismissing the escort of a groom as “one of Mr. Palfrey's more harebrained ideas.’

After they had gone a little way from the castle, Felicity slowed her pace to an easy amble and told Miss Chubb all about that splendid confrontation. “I know red hair is not fashionable,” said Felicity, “but to ask me to dye it!”

“He is very anxious for this marriage to take place,” said Miss Chubb.

“Pooh! It will not take place should I take this baron in dislike.”

“Have you thought, said Miss Chubb cautiously, “that should you decide not to marry the baron, and tell Mr. Palfrey about those jewels, he might simply claim them. He has every legal right.”

“John will swear to the codicil.”

“John Tremayne cannot read or write and has already sworn he did not sign anything. And Bessie has disappeared.”

Felicity frowned. Somehow, she had always regarded those jewels as an investment, as a dowry, as a trump card to slam down in front of her stepfather. How could she have been so naive?

Of course, she could take the jewels and run away. But what respectable jeweler was going to buy gems from a slip of a girl? And an unrespectable jeweler would belong to the criminal class and would no doubt pay her only a fraction of their worth.

“If I were a man!” she cried suddenly to the uncaring summer sky.

She thought of Lord Arthur Bessamy. He had probably never known what it was like to be pushed around in the whole of his pampered life. That was what gave him his great air of arrogance and command. That was why he chose friends of a lesser type of man, thought Felicity, her lip curling in contempt as she remembered the gentlemen who had stared at her through their quizzing glasses and had dismissed her as a bumpkin. Lord Arthur was no doubt as bad as Mr. Palfrey—only happy when in the company of toadies. She wished for a moment that she could see Lord Arthur again so that he might not go happily into his dotage without knowing how much she utterly detested him.

And yet ... and yet, was he so very detestable?

He had kindly treated them to wine and had not turned a hair when she had said she was a tailor's apprentice. Damn Lord Arthur. Every time she thought of him, she became upset. Better to think of the baron.

Felicity, in her mind, had turned Lord Dawdy into a genial sort of fatherly man, a bluff, rough traveler who would no doubt be content to have her company during his declining years. Miss Chubb had, unwisely, done nothing to explode these dreams, thinking sadly that it was as well Felicity used her imagination to resign herself to her fate.

“Gad! Is this the place?” Lord Arthur slowed his team to a halt on a ridge and looked down in awe on Dawdy Manor.

It had started life as a single-storied Tudor dwelling. One hundred years later, a prosperous ancestor had tagged on a second story, much higher than the bottom one and with large windows ornamented with fussy stonework. It made the bottom of the building look as if it were slowly returning to the earth, an impression heightened by the vast quantity of ivy that clung to its walls.

“That's it,” said Dolph. “Drive on, there's a good chap. I'm mortal sharp-set.”

Lord Arthur began to wish he had not come. He sensed bad cooking and worse drains waiting at the end of the road. It was folly to indulge a whim, to run off to Cornwall because a certain Freddie Channing and his peculiar uncle had sparked his curiosity and imbued the whole of the duchy with an air of novelty, which he now thought it probably did not possess.

“If your uncle is as clutch-fisted as you say he is,” said Lord Arthur, “and keeps country hours, then you will not have any dinner until four in the afternoon, and it's now only twelve noon.”

It transpired that Lord Arthur was right. To Dolph's plaintive request for food, the baron replied sourly that they should have stopped for something to eat on the road. This business of luncheon was newfangled nonsense, and he would have nothing to do with it. But they would only have to wait a couple of hours to break their fast. Tea would be served at two o'clock when Miss Felicity arrived with her stepfather.

“It is as well I have arrived ahead of time,” said Dolph. “Three days early, in fact.”

“Decided I didn't need your help,” said the baron. “Anyway, you don't like me, and you're only here because you hope I'll leave you something in my will.”

“Yes,” agreed Dolph with what his friend, Lord Arthur, considered a singular lack of tact.

But the baron seemed not in the slightest put out. He fished in his pocket and pulled out a miniature.

“Here,” he said, “cast your peepers on this beauty. That's my Felicity.”

“Very beautiful,” said Dolph. He glanced up at Lord Arthur to see his friend's reaction and was surprised by an odd sort of look of—could it be disappointment?—on that gentleman's face.

“Is it possible to have a tankard of something wet, baron?” asked Lord Arthur. “The roads were dusty, and I've a devilish thirst.”

“There's water outside in the pump,” said Lord St. Dawdy ungraciously. “My housekeeper will show you to your rooms, and I'll see you back here at two o'clock.”

While they waited for the housekeeper, Lord Arthur studied his host. He was a wreck of a man. One swollen leg, encased in bandages, was propped up on a footstool. He wore a grubby stock and an old-fashioned chintz coat covered with wine stains and snuff stains. He had a large round head covered in a Ramillies wig, a relic of his youth that had not been powdered or barbered for some time and had lost a great deal of its curl. Wisps of it fell about his bloated face, which was covered in angry red pustules.