The Wicked Marquess Read online

  Miranda pressed her fingers into the warm earth, gently so as not to bruise the rhubarb stalks. Both the abbey and its gardens would have pleased her well in circumstances other than these. The gardener — a wiry, swarthy, dark-haired man named Colum – dared ventured closer. Would miss like to be shown around the grounds? he asked.

  Miss would. The tour took no little time. Miranda was impressed by a maze planted with clipped hyssop, lavender cotton, marjoram, privet, savory and thyme; a magnificent topiary garden with yew and box growing thick and compact, trimmed in the shapes of birds and animals, pyramid and balls. The gardener admitted, shyly, that he was partial to bush-barbering. This led to a discussion of landscape gardening, complete with the various theories thereof. Miranda expressed a preference for Nature in her less docile moods, and Colum for Nature thoroughly crushed and tamed. From there the conversation progressed to Elizabethan horticulture. Colum had collected an extensive library on the subject, and Miranda knew a considerable amount about the topic from her studies. An Elizabethan gardener desirous of growing red or yellow apples bored a hole in the tree’s trunk with an augur, made water mixed with a pigment of the wished-for color, poured the liquid into the trunk, stopped it with a pin of the tree’s wood, and sealed the whole with wax. Scarlet apples were ensured by red roses growing by an apple tree.

  Miranda beamed at her companion. “You are most knowledgeable. I would consider it a privilege if you allow me to look through your library of books.”

  “The privilege would be mine, miss.” Colum pointed out the classical marble fountain, and the pretty sundial, and left her there.

  Miranda resumed brooding. She felt very much alone. If Mr. Atchison were present, he could tell her all about Cornwall, and she could make him a freckle ointment of the cowslips that grew nearby. Mr. Burton, were he here, might distract her from her dreary musings with further tales of his adventures with Colonel Wellesley in India. And Mr. Dowlin— Well, Mr. Dowlin could fidget and stammer all he wished and Miranda would not mind it, for she missed her friends.

  Friends they were, unlike her current companions, who were so unanimously determined to make her behave as a well-bred young woman ought. Toward Nonie, Miranda held no ill feelings. Nonie was only following instructions and had furthermore already demonstrated a distinct lack of resolution in the matter of her broken heart. With her uncle, however, Miranda was wholly out of charity.

  She wandered along a pebbled pathway. Miranda was also out of charity with her fiancé. She had not intended to become betrothed, but now that she was betrothed, the business was hardly what she might have hoped.

  At least here in the abbey gardens, she might indulge her horticultural enthusiasm. Miranda paused before a Rhododendron campanulatum that was not thriving as it should. “You should be ashamed,” she said, to the drooping plant, “of allowing yourself to fall into such a sorry state.” The same might have been said of Miranda, who wore garden dirt beneath her fingernails, and on her simple gown, and whose hair was coming unpinned. She supposed she might dose herself with two or three stalks of burnet, which when put into a cup of wine, especially claret, was known to quicken the spirits, and drive away melancholy, and refresh and clear the heart.

  “Do you often commune with plants, Miss Russell?” came a voice from behind her. Miranda spun around so quickly that she lost her balance and wound up sitting in the dirt.

  “Paul Hazelett,” the intruder said, and extended a hand to help her rise. “We met at Drury Lane. Blue-Beard, or Female Curiosity! ‘Once sighing, sick, dying, Sorrow hanging over me, Faint, weary sad, dreary, on the ground I lay…’ I would compare you to a goddess, Miss Russell, could I but remember which had the greenest hands.”

  Embarrassed at having been caught conversing with a rhododendron, Miranda brushed at the soil clinging to her skirts. “I have never heard that there is a goddess of garden dirt.” Colum emerged from the shrubbery. The gardener was probably concerned that she had bruised his precious plants.

  “Allow me to be of assistance.” Mr. Hazelett held out his handkerchief, which was made of linen, and very finely stitched.

  Miranda’s curiosity was pricked. What was this elegant gentleman doing so far away from Town? “If you have come to see Lord Baird, he is in the house.”

  Mr. Hazelett glanced quizzically at the abbey. “House?”

  Miranda shrugged.

  “I have no business with Baird,” admitted Mr. Hazelett. “You have caught me trespassing. I was visiting in the area and heard about the abbey gardens. No one told me the family is in residence.”

  Miranda doubted many people knew. “Would you care to join us? Colum has been showing me around the grounds.”

  Mr. Hazelett, she soon discovered, had a nice understanding of matters horticultural, particularly of hydroponics, the science of growing plants without soil by feeding them on solutions of water and natural salts. He spoke at some length about Nicolas de Saussure’s investigations into the need of plants for mineral substances in order to achieve satisfactory growth. Colum had his own opinions about how plants obtained their food supplies, and was undertaking experiments to discover whether water or solid soil particles nourished the crops.

  The discussion was animated. It was Mr. Hazelett who broke it off. “Forgive me. When I get to talking about hydroponics, I lose track of time.”

  “Oh, no!” said Miranda and Colum simultaneously. Miranda gave the gardener a sharp look. Colum tugged his forelock and effaced himself behind a yew hedge.

  “I have enjoyed our conversation, sir,” Miranda continued. “I am not often able to talk about such things.”

  Mr. Hazelett smiled. “Nor am I. Most of my acquaintances think posies are for plucking only and would be horrified by mention of manure. There! I’ve made you smile.”

  So he had. Miranda’s curiosity resurfaced. “You are a considerable distance from London, Mr. Hazelett.”

  “There is to be a prizefight in Launceston, between The Cornish Bruiser and The Black. The countryside will soon be overrun with pugilistic enthusiasts such as myself.” He pulled out his pocket watch. “Thank you for the tour. I hope that we may continue our horticultural discussions another day.”

  Miranda murmured her agreement. Pensively, she watched Paul Hazelett walk away.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Lord Baird was, during those same moments, escorting his other guests on a tour of the abbey. Thus far they had inspected an armory containing coats of mail and broadswords, a bleached skull, and a shield made of rhinoceros hide; a great hall complete with dark Gothic windows and hideous tapestries; a chapel graced with winged angels carved on every alternate beam.

  Sir Kenrick and Nonie paused with their host in the long gallery, a huge chamber that boasted two fireplaces and eleven windows, three of them bays. “The original monastery was founded in 1018,” Benedict explained. “Cistercian rules allowed for no luxuries or ornament. The monks followed a vegetarian diet, and wore habits made from natural undyed wool. Because the rule of silence was strictly enforced, sign language was used.” Days began with Matins and ended with Compline. The monks enjoyed a structured regime of honest labor and contemplation and prayer.

  They also enjoyed an existence devoid of the whims and vagaries of females. Were Benedict a monk, no runaway damsels would have crossed his path.

  “Henry VIII had the monasteries closed down because they were centers of ‘manifest sin and vicious carnal living’,” he continued, as Kenrick reflected on the irony of a rakehell sounding wistful about monastic life. “In other words, he coveted their properties and wealth. The king’s commissioners arrived in the West Country in 1539. Within four months, they had closed forty monasteries and delivered more than a ton and a half of gold, silver and gilt to the Tower of London. Five years later, one of my ancestors bought this property. Various members of the family have been redesigning the abbey ever since.”

  “And you?” asked Kenrick. “Have you plans to renovate?”
/>   “I am undecided.” Benedict’s voice was cool. “My brother had made certain plans regarding the kitchens, which are a source of some displeasure to the cook. This was his favorite residence. The accident that took his life occurred not far from here.”

  No wonder Baird spoke of the abbey in so detached a manner. “A terrible business,” Kenrick murmured.

  “So it was. I would prefer that the matter is not mentioned to my aunt.”

  Kenrick glanced over his shoulder. Easy enough for any number of people to go unnoticed in the sprawling abbey, but her ladyship was prone to make her presence felt. “Lady Darby is joining us?” he asked.

  “She is.” Benedict was not eager for his aunt’s arrival. Odette would have appreciated neither his summons nor its cause.

  Lady Darby here? Beneath the same roof as Miranda, who was alternately sulking and pitching fits? Nonie studied the fretwork frieze and painted cornice that joined a richly embossed ceiling boasting balls of burnished gold and leaves of gilt. This fascination with architectural detail was result of the circumstance that she couldn’t bring herself to look directly at her host. Though Nonie lacked sufficient experience to understand precisely what Sinbad had got up to with Miranda, what little she could imagine was enough to make her feel faint.

  Benedict was unaware of neither Miss Blanchet’s fluster nor its cause. “We shall be a merry family party,” he said ironically. “When Odette arrives.”

  They certainly were not a merry party now, thought Kenrick. At least here in Cornwall they were safe from his niece’s besotted swains. “Where is Miranda?” he asked.

  “In the gardens,” replied Benedict. “Colum has been told to keep her under his eye. Even if she manages to give him the slip, someone will bring her back. I’ve put the word around that she is prone to go off in strange humours.”

  Kenrick regarded his host with fascination. “You’ve said that she was mad.”

  “Mad as a March hare. Miranda will find no one to assist her if she takes it into her head to run away.” Benedict would not put it past her to do just that. One would think from her behavior that the girl was being forced to wed some scoundrel with a nasty communicable disease. If he were the Sinbad of legend, he might unwind the turban from his head and twist it into a rope with which to bind himself to the leg of a great Roc that would soar into the air and bear him far away, though hopefully not into a wild desert swarming with snakes as large as elephants.

  But he was not, and such adventures as he had once had, he would have no more. As Odette persisted in informing him, Benedict had certain responsibilities to the title. Only in his glummest moments did he contemplate chucking everything and setting out to discover the source of the Nile.

  This was one of those glum moments. He’d had no choice but to pack up and transport his entire household to Cornwall, at considerable trouble and expense. Or if not his entire household, such members of it as he could not do without, such as his valet and his coachman and his groom.

  Accompanying him as well was Jem. Left behind in London, that enterprising young individual would at the very least have turned the stables into an establishment for the reception and resale of stolen goods. “Have you had enough of the long gallery? There is something else I’d like you to see.”

  Sir Kenrick and Miss Blanchet professed themselves agreeable to viewing further wonders. Benedict suspected they were being polite. Visitors either loved the abbey or loathed it. Elizabeth, his first wife, had been among the latter. The abbey had belonged to Marcus then.

  He could have been, should have been, kinder to Elizabeth.

  The kindest thing he could have done would have been not to marry her, but she had admired him, and he had enjoyed being admired.

  For a time.

  Now, here was Miranda, who did not admire him at all. When forced to be in his presence, she was unfailingly rude. Benedict could hardly blame her for being out of temper; her uncle took every opportunity to scold. In Miranda’s place, he would have been cross as crabs himself.

  Unlike his host, Kenrick was not thinking of Miranda. Since he must be in Cornwall, he hoped to meet with Richard Trevithick, a Cornishman who was currently engaged in some interesting experiments with steam. Nonie, meanwhile, hoped Lord Baird did not mean to bear Miranda to the altar as he had to Sir Kenrick’s house, thrown over his shoulder and bundled up in a sack. No maiden should be forced into marriage in this modern day and age, not even a maiden so pig-headed as Miranda. If Miranda was still a maiden. And if she wasn’t, Nonie didn’t want to know.

  Her stomach ached.

  Benedict led his guests onto the battlements, which commanded a splendid panoramic view of the surrounding countryside. A regular alternation of merlons and crenels, cut-out portions through which stones or burning objects could be dropped down on attackers, marched along the wall. Grotesque gargoyles in pairs carried rainwater in the hollowed troughs of their stone bodies and spurted it down below. Nonie gazed along the parapet from tower to tower. The vista was magnificent, the ground very far away. Nonie was not fond of heights.

  “It was from here that Lady Dulcibella jumped,” remarked Lord Baird. “Or alternately was thrown. There are varying versions of the tale.”

  Kenrick frowned. “Lady Dulcibella?”

  “One of our resident ghosts.”

  “Ghosts?” Nonie echoed.

  “I’ve not seen her myself,” replied their host.

  Kenrick snorted. “Ghosts, is it? I don’t care for the sound of this, Baird. Of all your properties, why did you bring Miranda here?”

  “Not to hurl her from the parapet, certainly,” Benedict retorted. “For one thing, the abbey is the least accessible of my properties from London. For another, I believed Miranda would find the gardens to her liking, since she has a passion for horticulture.”

  All three of them considered Miranda’s passions. The marquess was first to speak. “I appreciate your concern, Symington, but it is unwarranted. I don’t want your niece to be made unhappy.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have shamed her!” retorted Kenrick. “Not that I hold you entirely to blame. Miranda has told us this business is her fault.”

  Miranda would barely speak to Benedict, yet she defended him to her uncle. The child was really quite annoyingly perverse. “I wonder what other confidences she may have made you,” Benedict remarked.

  There was a brief silence, while the participants in this conversation unanimously wished themselves elsewhere. Then Kenrick said, gruffly, “You’ll stand buff.”

  Lord Baird’s expression was as stony as any of his gargoyles. “I will. But if Miranda so desires, she must be permitted to cry off.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  As Lord Baird had anticipated, Miss Russell was among those who admired the abbey. The structure was so large and rambling that one might, at least in theory, avoid encountering another person for several days. In reality, Miranda was hemmed in by chaperones.

  She found a refuge in the library. This remarkable chamber was located on an upper floor. Here, one could enjoy the illusion of solitude so long as one overlooked the eagle-eyed footman posted in the hall.

  The room’s huge chimneypiece was Gothic in nature, white marble inlaid with scagliola plasterwork. The Gothic theme continued along the walls, where bookshelves creaked beneath the weight of dusty tomes, among them Sir Walter Scott’s The Discovery of the Large, Rich and Beautiful Empire of Guana, with a Relation of the Great Garden City of Manoa (which the spanyards call El Dorado) and the Province of Emeria, Arromaia, Amapaia and other Countries with Rivers adjoining, and a translation of Antonio de Torquemada’s The Spanish Manduela of Miracles, which recounted among other wonders a woman wrecked on an African shore who mated with an ape and produced two sons. Among the other curiosities which the chamber housed were old maps of the world featuring England and Scotland, France and the Low Countries; a perpetual almanac in a frame; a pair of scales, a foot rule, and a huge pewter inkstand; a fire screen w
ith a massive gold frame which enclosed a plate of glass so transparent that it was scarcely distinguishable from air.

  Miranda’s favorite perch was a chaire de femme fashioned of carved oak with semi-circular arms and seat. The high narrow single-paneled back was carved with a woman’s head set within a lozenge and embellished with flowers and leaf-tailed amorini. Two back legs placed close together rose to support the carved back. The two front legs were set at the widest points of the semi-circular seat, which had a scalloped apron-piece below. If the chair was not especially comfortable, it felt very grand. Miranda calculated how many people might have perched there in discomfort during the past two centuries.

  Piled beside her on an equally ornate and venerable table were a number of Colum’s treasured books: Thomas Tusser’s Points of Good Husbandry, which described in graceful verse the work that should be undertaken, month by month, in the garden and on the farm; Thomas Hill’s Profitable Art of Gardening, the second volume of which was devoted to medicinal recipes, a great many of which were directed toward cooling the blood or producing sleep; and Dr. John Caius’s A Boke or Counseill Against the Disease Commonly Called the Sweate or Sweating Sickness, which speculated that contributing factors might be eating too much meat, or drinking too much cider, or wearing too many clothes, and recommended that once in bed the victim should not be allowed to sleep, lest that sleep be his last. Miranda set aside these learned tomes for Pliny’s Natural History, wherein she learned that dragons in Ethiopia grew to be ten fathoms long, and that there were in existence wild dogs with human hands and feet, and that nothing rejoiced a dolphin more than to be addressed as ‘Simon’.

  As Miranda was considering where she might find a dolphin to test this theory, she heard a noise. A section of the chimney swung aside. Would a ghostly apparition emerge from the shadows? A mad monk from ages past?

  No otherworldly specter stepped out of the darkness, but the abbey’s owner. He was less impeccable than usual, and a trifle dusty beside. “This old place is riddled with secret passages,” he explained. “My brother and I explored them when we were children. A fact I neglected to mention to your watchdogs.”