The Savage Marquess (13 page)

“Gone away!” cried the marquess, setting off in pursuit. But he tripped over something and fell in the hall. He whipped about, suspecting Chumley had stuck out his foot, but the valet was standing with his arms folded, looking at the ceiling. The marquess leapt to his feet and shot off up the stairs after his wife.

Lucinda ran into her room, remembered she must lock the door, and was just about to do so when the door crashed open and her naked and grinning husband stood on the threshold.

Lucinda seized a warming pan that was propped on the end of the bed and, holding it like a broadsword with both hands, she swung it around and let it fly, straight at her husband. He ducked and darted back into the corridor. Lucinda fell against the door, slamming it shut and turning the key in the lock.

There came a furious kicking and pounding at the door.

“Your dressing gown, my lord.” Chumley’s voice came faintly to Lucinda’s ears.

“Who put this lock on the door?” the marquess shouted.

“Possibly you did so yourself,” Chumley said. “I think there always was a lock on this particular door. A letter came today from Mr. Rendell, one of your tenant farmers. It appears he is going to shoot Mr. Kay, one of your other tenant farmers, over a matter of boundary rights.” Chumley was expected to open and read all his master’s post.

“I know them both well. What am I supposed to do about it in the middle of the night?”

“It is nearly morning and we set out for the country in a few hours, which is why I brought up the matter of the farmers’ dispute.”

“Chumley, I do not recall making arrangements to go to the country. When did I tell you?”

“Why, the night, my lord, when we were returned from Paris.”

“Can’t remember anything about last night.”

“Exactly, my lord.”

There was a long silence. Inside the bedroom, Lucinda waited, trembling.

Then she heard her lord say in a puzzled voice, “What am I doing standing in this corridor dripping wet?”

“You walked in your sleep, my lord. If you will come this way, I will proceed to barber you. You will agree, my lord, that since you have already had a good night’s sleep, there is no reason to delay our departure.”

Lucinda let out a slow breath of relief as she heard their footsteps going away.

She pulled off her wet nightclothes, toweled herself dry, and put on a fresh nightdress. She was just about to get into bed when there came a scratching at the door.

“Who is it?” she called sharply.

“Chumley, my lady.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes, my lady.”

Lucinda slid out of bed and crossed the room and unlocked the door.

She stood on tiptoe and peered over Chumley’s shoulder as if expecting to find her husband crouched behind his valet.

“I am no Trojan horse, my lady,” said Chumley in hurt accents.

Despite the upheaval of her emotions, Lucinda began to giggle. “A Trojan horse carries the enemy inside, Chumley. Come in and state your business. But first: can I expect another visit from my lord?”

“No, my lady. He is now convinced he has enjoyed a good night’s sleep and we are about to set out for his country home.”

“He is surely mad!”

“No, my lady. Like most of our
ton
-nish gentlemen, my lord cannot remember anything that happens when he is drunk.”

“So it was you who persuaded him that he had made arrangements to leave?”

“In a manner of speaking, my lady. I am accustomed to anticipating my master’s wishes.”

“And you are about to anticipate another, which is why you are here?”

“Yes, my lady. I think my lord would like the direction of Lord Chamfreys.”

“Why, pray?”

“To call on Mr. Westerville. It is only fitting that he should pay his respects to his father-in-law.”

“A most worthy thought, Chumley, but spare my poor sick father such a visitation.”

Chumley stared up at the cornice as if it were the most fascinating thing he had ever seen.

“My lord is very quiet and hardworking in the country,” the valet said. “He drinks only water and attends to matters of the estate. Much better to have such a visit over and done with, my lady, then to risk Mr. Westerville’s paying a surprise visit to town.”

“Very well,” Lucinda said reluctantly.

“Wait until I write a letter to my father.”

Chumley cast an anxious look in the direction of the door. “Perhaps just the address will do, my lady. My lord may come in search of me.”

Lucinda hurriedly scrawled down the address and handed it to him. Chumley scurried off.

I wish I could go to the country with him to see this husband of mine in a virtuous mood, Lucinda thought wistfully, and then immediately scolded herself for being a fool. Rockingham was a monster. She wanted to see how
he
would like being married to a philanderer. And what would he say if
she
behaved like him, roaring and shouting and smashing things?

Then she remembered her engagement with Mr. Dancer. She wondered whether to cancel it now that Rockingham was not going to be about to be made jealous—if he could be made jealous.

But perhaps it would be as well to lay a little groundwork. She could not turn into a rake overnight. But women were not called rakes; they were called sluts and worse names. Lucinda thought of Mrs. Deauville and her face hardened. Society could call her any name it pleased just so long as her infuriating husband received a taste of his own medicine.

Mr. Dancer had no thought of seducing Lucinda as he set out to take her for a drive. Although he was physically well-built, it was vanity which made him keep his body trim rather than any desire to excel in manly sports. Rockingham was too formidable a man to cross and Mr. Dancer had no desire to end up stretched out dead on a dueling field in Chalk Farm or Hampstead Heath.

But he was bored, and the idea of driving Lucinda added a little spice to life. One drive would surely not rouse Rockingham’s ire.

As Lucinda climbed into his carriage, he reflected that a great deal of her charm lay in the fact that she was not precisely beautiful by fashionable standards. Her generous mouth seemed made for passion and he found the unfashionable slenderness of her body enchanting. For although Lucinda had put on some much-needed weight, she was still considered too thin in an age that appreciated large bosoms and plump, rounded arms.

He had to confess that Lucinda’s seemingly artless statement that her husband was gone from town did ease a certain trepidation in his breast.

The day was fine and warm although a mass of black clouds piling up in the west did not augur well for the rest of the day.

Everything in the park was very still and bright. Trees were emerald green, and masses of roses in the flowerbeds by the Serpentine a gaudy blaze of pink and white.

“And how does married life go with you?” asked Mr. Dancer.

“I do not know yet,” said Lucinda. “I do not see much of my husband.” Then she remembered his naked body stretched out in the bath and a deep blush suffused her face.

“Ah, well, there is great freedom in London society for a married woman,” said Mr. Dancer.

“I do not think women have much freedom,” Lucinda said. “Even being rich appears to mean one is locked in a cage of idleness, and it does not suit me to be idle.”

“Most ladies have their amours.”

“They are welcome to them,” said Lucinda, forgetting she was supposed to be attracting Mr. Dancer. “You see, I should think that to have an affair would involve a tedious amount of intrigue and dread.”

“But if the heart is engaged, why then it can be heaven!”

“I do not think infidelity is considered one of the qualities necessary to get through the pearly gates.”

“Ah, a Puritan.”

“Not I,” said Lucinda. “How well you drive, Mr. Dancer.”

“I am reputed to be quite good,” he said. “Of course, I could not hope to outclass your husband.”

A strong feeling of resentment toward her absent husband welled up in Lucinda’s breast and she said tartly, “Mr. Dancer, even the respectable Lord Freddy does not drive me in the park to prose on about my husband.”

“Pomfret! I have competition for your favors.”

“Sir, I did not know you were interested in gaining my favors.”

Mr. Dancer had all the practiced seducer’s capacity of being able to fall violently in love for a short time. He looked at Lucinda and felt a longing to take her in his arms.

“Why do you frown?” he asked.

“Someone is approaching whom I detest,” said Lucinda in a low voice.

Mr. Dancer looked with interest at the advancing carriage and recognized the occupants as the Countess of Clifton and her daughter, Lady Ismene. As both carriages came abreast, Mr. Dancer bowed but Lucinda dipped her parasol to hide her face.

“Did you see that, Mama!” exclaimed Ismene, twisting her head around to look back at Mr. Dancer’s retreating carriage. “That slut, Lucinda! Not content with marrying one rake, she must needs take another as lover.”

“It is a brave man who would risk Rockingham’s displeasure,” said the countess. “Either Mr. Dancer is deeply in love at last or Rockingham is gone from town.”

When Lady Clifton and Ismene returned home, Ismene sent her new maid around to Berkeley Square to see if anything could be found out about the whereabouts of Rockingham. The maid returned after a while to say that a kitchen maid had said my lord was in the country at Cramley, his home in Wiltshire.

“Then he shall hear from me how she behaves in his absence,” said Ismene. “Wait there, and I shall give you a letter for the post.”

Lucinda returned home after a pleasant drive. But she had no interest in seeing Mr. Dancer again until the presence of her husband should make that necessary.

In vain did Mr. Dancer try to take her to the opera or the theater. Lucinda replied she was much too busy completing the renovations of the house. Had she immediately accepted just one of his invitations, then it is possible that Mr. Dancer’s interest in Lucinda would have withered away.

But adversity is a great aphrodisiac and the path of the true philanderer never did run smooth. By the time he reached his own home, Mr. Dancer was convinced he was in love with Lucinda.

Lucinda was surprised to find Kennedy still absent, for it was getting on for six in the evening.

Kennedy had found out Mrs. Deauville’s address from Humphrey, the butler, who, unlike Kennedy, knew a great deal of gossip about the
ton.
She had hung about Montague Street, waiting to see if Benson would emerge.

At last she saw a carriage being brought around to the front of the house. Mrs. Deauville came out accompanied by a lady’s maid. But this maid was a thick-set middle-aged woman and definitely not Benson.

Waiting until Mrs. Deauville’s carriage had turned the corner of the square, Kennedy went forward to the house and made her way down the area steps at the side of the front door.

A kitchen maid answered the door. Kennedy asked for Benson. The kitchen maid looked at Kennedy with disapproval and said, “I shall tell Mr. Quinton you are here.”

After a few moments, a butler came to the door and said sharply, “Why do you want to know about Benson?”

“Miss Benson is by way of being a friend of mine,” said Kennedy.

“In that case, we don’t want your sort around here. Be off with you!”

The door began to close.

Kennedy jammed one of her large feet encased in a serviceable half-boot against the door.

“What do you mean?” she cried. “You must tell me. I am a respectable woman. I am lady’s maid to the Marchioness of Rockingham.”

The butler thought quickly. Like the rest of Mrs. Deauville’s servants, he was well aware of the affair that had gone on between the marquess and Mrs. Deauville. He had also heard of the marquess’s marriage and knew that his mistress had gone to Paris in pursuit of Rockingham, only to return alone and in a furious temper.

He made up his mind.

“You had best come in,” he said, standing aside and holding open the door.

He led the way into the servants’ hall, pulled out a chair for Kennedy, and sat down next to her. “It’s like this,” Quinton said. “Benson went out driving with Mrs. Deauville the day madam came back from Paris. Mrs. Deauville returned alone and set up an alarm that Benson had stolen a valuable necklace. I suggested calling the Bow Street Runners, but madam wept so bitterly and said she could not bear the scandal.”

“Where was Benson last seen?” asked Kennedy.

“At some inn on the Richmond road. She ran away there, the coachman said, although he said it was odd, for he did not see her emerging from the inn.”

“And what is the name of this inn?”

“I do not know,” said Quinton. “If you are not in league with Benson—and you look like a respectable lady to me—then it is well to leave things as they are.”

He leaned closer to Kennedy. “Things have been mortal bad in this house ever since the Marquess of Rockingham got married.”

“Why? What has his marriage to do with Mrs. Deauville?”

Quinton looked nervously about and then whispered, “Madam was the mistress o’ the marquess—and a mort o’ money he spent on her.”

“Oh, my poor lady,” cried Kennedy, putting her hands up to her hot cheeks.

“Can’t see it’ll bother her,” said the butler cynically. “These lords always have a bit of pleasure in keeping, married or not.”

Kennedy took her leave, determined to forget about Benson. But before she left the street, it hit her that Benson might have been trying to elicit gossip on the instructions of her mistress. What had once seemed like friendly, curious questions from one lady’s maid to another now took on a sinister cast. For this ex-mistress had no reason to feel charitable toward the Marchioness of Rockingham.

Kennedy wheeled about and took up a position at the corner of the square, waiting for Mrs. Deauville’s return, hoping that lady had only gone out on a call.

A half-hour later, Kennedy saw Mrs. Deauville arrive back, waited until she saw her go inside, and then followed the carriage around to the mews.

The coachman was just heaving himself down from the box when he found Kennedy waiting for him. He watched Kennedy’s face curiously as the maid asked for the name of the inn where Benson had disappeared. “I am the Marchioness of Rockingham’s lady’s maid,” ended Kennedy, “and a respectable body.”