The Scandal of the Season (31 page)

Lord Petre struggled to comprehend what was happening. Could John Caryll be one of the agents involved in the plan? But if he was here to reveal that fact, why did he speak so coldly—and why had he said nothing before? And what of his mother? It was inconceivable that she could be complicit. She had a horror of the Jacobites. Lord Petre shuddered. What was going on?

“It is not customary to have such a large sum upon one's person, my lord,” Caryll said. His calm was menacing.

“I was not aware that my private affairs were subject to scrutiny,” Petre answered. “The money is to pay a gambling debt.”

“To whom do you owe this sum?” Caryll asked with a cold smile. “Perhaps I can assist in delivering it more promptly.”

“I pay my debts myself,” Lord Petre replied. He paused, uncertain, wondering how he might force Caryll to show his hand. “I owe the money to James Douglass, a gentleman with whom you are not acquainted.”

“Douglass!” John Caryll exclaimed in a mocking voice. “Your taste is not so nice in point of friendships as in other matters, I perceive. Why do you owe James Douglass five hundred pounds?”

So Caryll knew of Douglass.

“As I have said, it is a gaming debt,” he said, playing for time. Caryll still stared at him. He even seemed to be enjoying the exchange, smiling as he drew taut the line of Lord Petre's nerve.

“I must ask you not to lie to me, my lord,” Caryll said. “Let me speak more frankly. We know that you are involved with the Jacobites.”

Lord Petre felt his heart drop into his boots. His mother knew. How had they found him out?

“You start at the news, as well you might,” said Caryll. “Indeed it is a foolhardy plan. But there is worse to come. We have learned that you are in a plot to kill the Queen. I can hardly believe it possible.”

“May I ask how you acquired this information, sir?” Lord Petre said, doing his best to remain calm. “Are you still with the Jacobites?”

“Certainly not,” Caryll answered. “Your footman told me.”

Jenkins! He had betrayed him. But Jenkins was a Jacobite, too—he would not abandon the cause, least of all at such a moment. Lord Petre began to stammer. “My footman! He is a loyalist. I cannot believe it! And the day at White's coffeehouse…” Lord Petre continued to murmur. It must be connected to the business with Molly. But he had already given Jenkins money. “You knew about Francis Gerrard. I took it for a warning to our men. Are you not an agent, sir?”

At this, Caryll's eyes lit up with anger. “
I
an agent?” he spat out. “You have witnessed the misfortunes that fell upon my family because my uncle was suspected—merely suspected—of treason,” he said. “The circumstance has blighted my children's whole lives, not to mention my own. I would be a madman to associate with them. And yet you have done this to your own family. You have subjected your mother and sister to the worst of dangers.”

“Then how did you know about Gerrard?”

“You were always naive, Robert. My connections with the Jacobites are historical. They are men of my uncle's generation. My oldest acquaintance—my friends. I am no traitor, sir.”

Lord Petre said nothing.

“You have imperiled every possession in the Petre family's name,” Caryll went on. “And you were a fool to trust your man Jenkins.”

Lord Petre was still reeling from this discovery. “I cannot understand why my servant deserted me,” he said.

“Jenkins is considerably more astute than you have been,” Caryll answered. “Had he blackmailed you alone, he was afraid of what you might do to silence him. By coming to me, he has assured his own safety, as much as his sister's protection.”

“But he will destroy our hopes for rebellion.”

“Jenkins put the interests of family ahead of political ambition,” Caryll answered. “You can be in no doubt as to what he told us regarding his sister.”

“The child is not mine!” Lord Petre exploded. “It is an unscrupulous falsehood!”

“That is the one aspect of this affair in which I take your part,” Caryll said. “But as Molly Walker has rightly perceived, the child's real paternity is neither here nor there. Jenkins will expose the plot, and your part in it, if you fail to assume financial responsibility for Molly's child.”

“The action is embarked upon, sir,” said Lord Petre. “I will not betray my men.” His voice was hoarse with emotion.

Caryll was unmoved. “I am sorry to say that you will have to,” he replied dryly. “To save your family, I will not hesitate to expose you.”

Lord Petre was silent. He began to see that Caryll had outmaneuvered him.

There was a pause, and Caryll said as though it were an afterthought, “Your mother has one demand to make of you.”

Lord Petre looked at him, dread in his heart.

“She has chosen you a bride,” Caryll said.

Lord Petre was incredulous. “A bride?”

His mother entered the room. She had been a beautiful woman in her youth, and she now carried herself with the distinguished, imposing manner of a person accustomed to wielding power. With her son she had always been distant. But she was attached to her daughter, Mary, and Lord Petre knew that the risk to his sister's reputation and marriage portion would be uppermost in Lady Petre's thoughts.

Both men had risen when Lady Petre entered, but now they were seated again, and Caryll continued.

“The marriage is to be with a person whose family connections will withstand the most scrupulous examination,” he said.

“How do you imagine that you will bring such a match about?” Lord Petre asked.

“We have already done so, Robert,” his mother replied. “It has been arranged.”

He blanched. “May I enquire as to the lady in question?”

“Her name is Miss Catherine Walmesley,” she said. “She is fifteen years old, and very devout. She also has a fortune of fifty thousand pounds.”

“Catherine Walmesley! You cannot be serious,” he cried, real despair in his voice.

“I was never more so in my life,” his mother replied.

Until he heard his intended named, it had not occurred to Lord Petre that his relationship with Arabella might be affected by all of this. Caryll and his mother meant to strip everything from him. The discovery made him recoil.

“The match is objectionable in every particular!” he appealed. “Her family is barbaric. Miss Walmesley herself—hardly more than a child—a girl of no education, no cultivation, no personal charm.”

“She is somewhat unfortunate in her appearance,” said his mother. “But that merely worked to our advantage in securing the arrangement with her guardian.”

“William Dicconson!” Lord Petre snarled. “Everybody knows what sort of a man he is. Madam, you and Mr. Caryll have played a low trick upon me tonight. You have engineered this match for Catherine Walmesley's fortune, and you are using my helpless position to force me into a marriage to which I would not otherwise submit.”

His mother looked at him in silence. It was not necessary to affirm this description of their actions.

“This is intolerable,” Lord Petre moaned.

Neither party replied. “There is a rumor,” Caryll began instead, “though not one that I have heard, I hasten to add, that there has lately been an involvement between you and Miss Arabella Fermor.”

Lord Petre flushed. “There has been nothing improper in Miss Fermor's relation with me,” he said. “It is a malicious slander, put about by those who envy her.”

“That was naturally our assumption,” said Lady Petre. “But Mr. Dicconson has asked that some public measure be taken to make clear that the relationship will not continue after your marriage.”

“Public measure!” Lord Petre exclaimed. “What do you mean? Does he intend that I should embarrass Miss Fermor?” He remembered Dicconson's loud, leering voice at the masquerade ball. “Your daughter whores too much, I said.” He had been describing his own wife. Pure malice was pushing him to this, Lord Petre was sure of it—he was jealous of Lord Petre's own successes.

But he was deeply shaken nonetheless. “What does he propose that I should do?” he asked.

“A trifle!” his mother said with a laugh that grated on Lord Petre's ear like steel. “A mere gesture to show that you are not intimate, nor ever likely to be. Something playful. Miss Fermor will think nothing of it, if you are not in fact lovers.” She smiled at her son.

“I refuse to compromise Miss Fermor,” he said.

“But I fear that you have already done so,” Caryll said. “There is a circumstance…an unfortunate circumstance. Your servant has admitted that he is in possession of certain items that would place you in a most difficult position were he to show them to Dicconson.”

“What the devil are you talking about?” Lord Petre returned.

“I have not the faintest idea as to its significance,” Caryll answered smoothly, “but your man has shown me a parcel of feathers, which he claims to have found in your bed and on the floor around it. I know not what to make of them. They have the appearance of swan's down.”

Lord Petre dropped his head into his hands. It had been promise of gain that made Jenkins abandon the Jacobites and turn to Caryll. He thought of the hundred pounds, of his footman's anger as he took it. Who knew how long Jenkins had planned this?

“God damn him,” Lord Petre hissed. “God damn you all.” He got to his feet. “I will do nothing to harm Miss Fermor,” he declared.

“You are not being asked to harm her,” his mother said. “A public act cannot tarnish her reputation if there is no arrangement existing between you.”

He banged his hand down on the mantel and cried, “I will forsake my commitments to the Jacobites in an instant! But I cannot marry Miss Walmesley. I am bound in honor to Arabella. We are all but engaged; if I fail her she will be ruined.”

His mother was manifestly unmoved. “It is rather too late in the day for such sentimental considerations,” she observed.

“But I am devoted to Arabella, madam. I love her!” he wailed.

“What do you mean, you love her?” his mother replied, real surprise in her voice. “That has nothing to do with the matter. A baron does not marry for reasons of affection, as you perfectly well know. Your father and I could not abide the sight of each other, but we married nonetheless.” With this remark she brought the exchange to a close, and Lord Petre was left alone with his thoughts.

Toward ten o'clock the next morning, he asked his mother and John Caryll if he might speak to them.

“I have considered my situation,” he began, with an attempt at hauteur, “and I see that there is no choice but to submit to your demands. I will sever relations with the Jacobites and marry Catherine Walmesley. In return for this, will you allow me to manage matters with Miss Fermor in my own way?”

“That was not our design, Robert,” his mother replied. “Your own way has not been particularly effective thus far.”

John Caryll spoke. “There is one other matter on which I should like to offer a word of advice,” he said, “and then my offices as your guardian will be over. How much money have you given to Mr. Douglass?”

Lord Petre went white, but said quietly, “About—I have given him seven hundred pounds.”

“I hint to you that it would not be wise to give him any more,” said Caryll. “You are unlikely to see a return.”

Lord Petre laughed scornfully. “I hardly imagined that I would,” he said. “The money is to pay a standing army in support of the King.”

Caryll appeared not to have heard him. “I told you that Francis Gerrard knew of traitors among the Jacobites. He had heard that they were losing money to a group of their own, men posing as loyalists. Such thefts cannot be prosecuted, of course, because Jacobite operations are clandestine. It is a cunning arrangement. I would guess James Douglass to be involved in something of the kind.”

Lord Petre denied it. “James Douglass is not a thief, sir! He was as shocked to hear about Gerrard as I was.” But Caryll gave him a brief paternal squeeze around the shoulders, and departed in company with Lady Petre.

When they were gone, Lord Petre paced around the room for several minutes, righteous indignation boiling in his breast. His dreams of heroic distinction were dashed. Terrible enough, but when he thought of losing Arabella, tears came to his eyes. Why must he be doomed to forsake the lady he loved, compounding all his other woes? He remembered the happy picture that had sustained him as he had thought of the battles that lay ahead: the vision of Arabella by his fireside, looking up from her needlework to welcome him home. He had lost everything, but he knew that he was right to defend Douglass against Caryll's charge.

He took the bank bills in his desk and turned them over in his hands. He was determined to discharge this one action left to him. This much, at least, he could do. As he looked at them, he thought back to the night of the masquerade, when he had met Douglass and given him the first five hundred pounds. He had told Douglass to put out the lantern, but he had not finished counting the money. Lord Petre had always kicked himself for opening the carriage door a moment too soon; their light might have been seen.