The Wicked Marquess Read online

  Gems sparkled on his fingers. A great signet ring adorned his thumb. His long hair was tied back with ribbons. His beard was pointed, his moustache dashing, and his smile irresistible.

  The lady’s red-gold hair was drawn up into a top-knot. Riotous curls had escaped to cluster around her face. Her brows were plucked, her eyes a brilliant green. On her lower cheek, near her lips, she wore a beauty spot shaped like a crescent moon.

  Pearls gleamed at her throat, her ears, her wrists. She carried a silk fan. Her long-waisted gown of flowered tabby was worn over an underbodice, its long v-shaped stomacher open in front to display a petticoat decorated with metal braid. The sleeves were tied with ribbons into a series of puffs, the low wide neckline edged by a wide lace collar. Her waist was so small it might have been spanned by a man’s two hands.

  This lady would have had no need for false ringlets or curling tongs, applications of sugar and water or glue. She would have employed orange flower water and apricot cream and May dew to keep her skin so soft, maybe puppydog water too, which was made from wine and roast puppy meat, a fairly harrowing concoction, but the lady had lived in a fairly harrowing age. A depilatory of cat dung mixed with vinegar would have rid her of unwanted hair.

  On the silent music played. Miranda watched rapt from her position on the winding stair. The man appeared to be teaching the lady to dance. Short gliding steps to a count of eight, with a change of balance and a pause, toe turned out and the knees bent slightly outward every third or seventh beat. From time to time the woman ran around the man, and both gave a little jump. Or so the gentleman demonstrated, but his partner – could this be Lady Dulcibella? – lacked a certain aptitude. Her instructor – the unfaithful Robin? – was both patient and amused.

  The lady attempted a complex maneuver and tripped over her elegant red-heeled sippers. The gentleman laughed and caught her up in his arms. Miranda envied the dancers their happiness in that moment, and was saddened because she knew how the moment must end.

  A sudden noise shattered the dream. Miranda sat up in her bed.

  Her room was quiet and chill, the fire long since burned down in the hearth. She pushed aside the coverlet, lit the candle that waited on the bedstead table. The flickering light revealed nothing out of place.

  The noise came again, a creak, a groan. It seemed to issue from the depths of the wardrobe. Miranda picked up the candle and walked barefoot across the floor. The wardrobe was a massive piece, with two deep drawers set below the doors. Did it conceal another entry to the passages that honeycombed the house?

  Cautiously shielding her candle, Miranda climbed inside. The wardrobe was not empty. She didn’t want to set her clothes on fire.

  There were few places a latch might be concealed. Miranda’s fingers found an indentation. She pressed, and tugged.

  The back of the wardrobe swung inward. Candle held before her, Miranda peered into the darkness beyond. Benedict hadn’t told her of this entrance. Perhaps he hadn’t known. Or perhaps he had meant to surprise her with a nocturnal visit at some later time.

  What an intriguing notion. But it was unlikely to be Benedict who crept through the passages at this hour. Miranda slipped on a pair of shoes, flung a shawl around her shoulders, and stepped through the opening. Was that a ghostly figure in the distance, so far away that she could not clearly see? Did a ghostly voice call out her name?

  A prudent person would close and bar the wardrobe with herself outside. Miranda had never been a prudent person. It was furthermore unlikely that she would have another opportunity to interact with a ghost. She took firm grip on shawl and candle, and set out in pursuit of the figure flitting ahead. The specter lured her along a maze of passages that led not to the cellars, as she had feared they might, but through the attics and onto the battlements.

  Chimeras and gargoyles and great stone towers loomed above her in the moon’s dim light. Miranda drew her shawl closer around her shoulders against the night’s brisk chill. The battlements were so breezy that her candles immediately blew out

  A figure stood at the parapet, gazing out into the distance, as if searching the horizon. Lady Dulcibella was much more solid than one might have expected of a shade.

  Maybe shades acquired more substance when they manifested themselves in the material world. Miranda ventured closer. “Lady Dulcibella?” she asked.

  The figure turned toward her. Impossible to see its features in the shadows cast by the hooded cloak. “You are a very foolhardy young woman,” the specter said, in very human tones.

  * * * *

  Lord Baird dreamed that he was dreaming. A feminine voice was hissing in his ear. Unlike most of the feminine voices that had roused him from slumber during the course of his adventures, this one spoke in no dulcet tones. “Lollpoop! Nick Ninny! Plague take it, simkin, roust thee out of bed before ‘tis grown too late!” A faint scent of patchouli tickled his nose.

  Benedict sat up. The lady stepped back. She wore an old-fashioned long-waisted gown with a wide low collar and puffed sleeves. Her red-gold curls were in disarray, her lovely features cross. The green eyes that scowled at him were uncannily like his own.

  Benedict had played in the family portrait gallery as a boy. “Lady Dulcibella?” he cautiously inquired.

  His visitor dropped an irritated curtsey. “Art thy brains all in thy bollocks, dolt? If thou dost not wish to see history repeat itself, I suggest thee hie thyself to the parapet.”

  The parapet? Why the parapet?

  Benedict dared ask.

  She reached out and pinched his ear. “Let me perish if I lie to thee! Wilt thou pray make haste?”

  This was a most vivid dream. Brought on by his medication, Benedict supposed.

  Impatiently, Lady Dulcibella tapped her foot. Benedict snatched up his breeches. Chimlin, who had been snoozing atop them, sat up and yawned.

  So much for Odette’s contention that the cat would raise the household. Benedict pulled on his boots.

  Wraithlike, Lady Dulcibella walked through a wall. Benedict attempted to follow, and only bumped his nose. Pondering the perplexities of the dream state, he pressed the lever that opened the door hidden in the paneling, snatched up an oil-lamp, and entered the passageway.

  Lady Dulcibella’s voice drifted back to him, urging him to greater haste. The kindest of the things she called him was a great galumph. Chimlin padded alongside him, tail erect.

  The cat seemed to be enjoying the adventure. Benedict was not. By the time they arrived on the battlements, he was feeling very queasy. He bent over, trying to catch his breath.

  “Jesu Maria, is all this age bewrazed?” cried Lady Dulcibella. “Kick the varlet in his gingumbobs! Give his pillicock a pinch, thou silly twit!”

  Over the sound of his own labored breathing, Benedict heard grunts and scuffs. He raised his head to see Miranda struggling with a cloaked figure whose hands were fastened round her throat. The figure bent her backward, over the edge of the parapet. Another few moments, another few inches, and she would surely fall.

  “No!” cried Benedict, and launched himself toward the struggling figures. His feet moved as slowly as if they were mired in mud.

  * * * *

  Miranda heard voices, as from a great distance. Although ‘gimgumbobs’ and ‘pillicock’ were not words she knew, she grasped the gist of the advice. She jerked up her knee, sharply, and felt it connect with soft flesh.

  Her assailant grunted. His grip on her throat eased. She flung herself forward and smashed her head into his nose. He yelped, and cursed. Before she could escape, he caught her arm and twisted it painfully behind her back.

  * * * *

  Not a dream, a nightmare. Chimlin was, in the annoying way of felines, winding round his feet. Benedict snatched up the creature to get it out of his way. He drew back his arm, and flung—

  The devil. He’d meant to fling the lamp, but instead had hurled the cat. Chimlin yowled as he sailed through the air.

  The cloaked figure yowled in tu
rn as Chimlin landed atop him; hopped and twisted as he tried to unseat the demon whose fangs and talons dug so deep into his flesh that he nearly forgot the damage done his nether parts. Amidst all these contortions, he released Miranda. She fell to her knees.

  Benedict staggered forward. He derived considerable satisfaction from smashing his lamp over the bastard’s head, and regretted there was not enough fuel left in the lamp to set him afire.

  The villain collapsed like a discarded puppet. Chimlin leapt onto a gargoyle and set about giving himself a good wash. Benedict slid down the wall until he was sitting on the cold stone floor.

  Miranda crawled to kneel beside him. “Are you all right?”

  Benedict glanced over his shoulder. Would Lady Dulcibella think he was malingering and come pinch him again?

  Lady Dulcibella was no longer present. Benedict wondered if she had ever been.

  “I’m fine,” he said, with a nice disregard for truth. “Did that devil damage you, brat?”

  Miranda’s throat hurt. She was sore and bruised. However, the marquess appeared to be in even worse shape. “I should go for help before he wakens. He is going to waken, isn’t he?”

  Grimacing, Benedict got to his feet. “Set your fears at rest. The cur is very much alive.” He eyed the parapet, from which an intruder might easily plummet to his death. The logistics of the thing would have been much simpler if only he had back his full strength.

  Jem burst through the doorway, a lantern held before him; skidded to a halt. “Criminey! A secret passage. You wasn’t meant to leave your room, guv. If I hadn’t opened the door to take a look—” He noticed the crumpled body. “Who’s that?”

  “Damned if I know. Maybe it’s time we find out.” Benedict snatched Jem’s lantern, rolled over the unconscious body, shone the light on its face.

  Miranda peered over his shoulder. Brown hair, a face that would have been pleasant if not marred with bloody scratches— “Why, it’s Mr. Hazelett!” she gasped.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chaos reigned in the abbey kitchens, where the servants had gathered to marvel over recent events. The circumstance that no one knew the exact nature of those events deterred them not one whit. One footman claimed that Lord Baird had surprised an intruder and promptly cracked his napper; another that a ghost had tried to pitch Miss Russell off the battlements. Both agreed that Lord Baird and Miss Russell had for whatever reason been on the topmost level of the abbey, along with the cat Chimlin, who was so annoyed by the entire business that he was exercising his teeth and claws on anyone who came within range. Cook was forced to quell an imminent attack of hysterics by dashing a glass of water in the butler’s face.

  Lord Baird, and his houseguests, had gathered in his study. Though his footsteps were not entirely steady, the marquess was pacing the perimeter. Lady Darby kept a sharp eye on him from her seat behind the desk. On top of that same desk, Chimlin dozed, exhausted by all his recent unaccustomed exercise. Sir Kenrick stood beside the fireplace, wrapped in an exotic banyan and clutching a brandy glass.

  They were alone in the room. Lord Chalmondly had not yet come back from the Pig and Thistle. Miss Russell had been, despite her protests, dosed with syrup of poppy and sent back to her bed. Miss Blanchet was charged with ensuring she remained there.

  A knock came at the door. Lord Baird called, “Enter.” Two sturdy grooms dragged Paul Hazelett into the room and deposited him in a carved wooden chair. His hands were bound behind his back. He looked considerably the worse for wear.

  The grooms departed. Jem lingered just inside the door, quiet as a mouse lest the guv’nor recall his presence and send him away.

  Lady Darby squinted at the villain through her quizzing glass. “God strike me blind! Devries.”

  “Who?” inquired Lord Baird.

  “Devries!” Odette repeated, the glass still to her eye. “Your heir. Did you make off with Chimlin’s collar, knave?”

  “Chimlin? Collar?” Paul Hazelett – Devries – scowled at the cat. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

  Benedict could hardly be expected to recognize his heir, since he had never met the man. He might have been expected, however, to recall the man’s name. And what was this about a missing collar? Had they a thief in their midst?

  He studied the prisoner. “Why?” he asked.

  The man sneered. “You’ve never had to maneuver the Apostles, have you, my lord? To live on the charity of others, and rob Peter to pay Paul?”

  “You wanted to be wealthy,” translated Benedict. “And so you tried to dispose of me. But why harm Miss Russell?”

  “Why not?” In an excellently villainous fashion, Devries curled his lip. “I kissed Miss Russell in your gardens. I don’t expect she told you that.” Sir Kenrick flinched at this further evidence of his failure to instill virtue in his niece.

  A man of Benedict’s reputation could hardly quibble about a stolen kiss. “It didn’t suit your plans to have me marry,” he said.

  Odette broke off a bit of digestive biscuit and offered it to Chimlin. “How did you know about the secret passages?”

  Devries elevated an elegant, albeit tattered, shoulder. “This old pile holds great fascination for a student of architecture such as myself.”

  Lies, lies and buggery. The only study this knave had made was how to feather his own nest. “And my other nephew?” Odette persisted, as Chimlin inspected the biscuit crumb, and batted it aside. “The previous marquess?”

  “That was no doing of mine.”

  The varlet wasn’t like to admit it. “You’ve no remorse, have you?”

  “One becomes accustomed to a certain way of life.”

  “One may still take a tumble off the parapet.” Benedict stepped toward the chair.

  Jem broke in. “You’ve sent for the hornies, guv. This cully’s bound to hang. Or maybe his head will be chopped off, like is done in France. His body will be sold and carved into pieces to see what made him tick. Or hung at a crossroads where the crows will pick his bones. And if there’s any question, I’ll own up as he’s the jimmy fellow who hired Freddy and me to crack open your skull.”

  Devries stared at Jem. “I never saw you before in all my life.”

  Jem snickered. “Cleaned up good, ain’t I? Ripe for the plucking, you said the guv’nor was. But since he wasn’t like to come down with the derbies as easy as pissing the bed, we was first to smash his head.”

  Odette regarded the rapscallion whom Benedict had rescued from the streets. Bravery came in some surprising forms. “A clever tale, my lad, but you may keep it to yourself. Tonight’s work is more than enough to see Devries hanged. We’ll lock him in the dungeons until the, ah, hornies arrive to fetch him. He’ll find no secret passages there. He will discover rats.”

  Dungeons! Jem fair quivered with excitement. He had no fear of rats, four-footed or otherwise, having had a close acquaintance with vermin from a tender age. Devries, conversely, blanched.

  Benedict gestured. Jem opened the door into the hall. The two grooms removed the prisoner from his chair and dragged him, protesting, from the room.

  Jem could not bypass an opportunity to set eyes on a real dungeon. He trailed the grooms to the cellars and saw Devries safely locked away, then took himself off to meet little Mary, who gave him a hero’s reward.

  * * * *

  All was quiet in the study, save for the crackle of the fire burning in the hearth. Sir Kenrick took advantage of the moment to try and determine how he felt about his niece marrying into a family prone to such excursions and alarms. Before he arrived at a conclusion, voices in the hallway heralded the arrival of Lord Chalmondly. Phineas entered the room, with Lady Cecilia on his arm.

  Lady Cecilia crossed to Odette. “I believe this belongs to you.” Diamonds glittered on her palm.

  Chimlin still wore his collar of blue gems. Odette draped the diamonds also around the cat’s neck. Chimlin twitched his tail. He looked immensely regal and equally cro
ss.

  Gracefully, Lady Cecilia seated herself. Lord Chalmondly took up a position beside her chair.

  He placed a hand on her shoulder. She drew in a deep breath. “Percy had the collar. I grew suspicious when I noticed how badly his hands were scratched. I had coveted the rubies myself.”

  She faltered. Lord Chalmondly gave her shoulder an encouraging squeeze. “Coveting is one thing, and theft is quite another. You shan’t be held responsible for your cousin’s sins.” He met his host’s gaze. “There have been a great many of those sins. Pettigrew was compelled to confess.”

  Compelled how? Benedict didn’t care enough to ask.

  Ceci, too, addressed the marquess. “He hated you. I can’t guess when it all began, but he told me that Elizabeth—” She bit her lip. “The babe wasn’t yours.”

  Benedict would have preferred his ex-mistress hadn’t made so public an announcement. “Pettigrew?” he inquired.

  “I believe so,” said Ceci. “And that Elizabeth’s death was what inspired the later events.”

  “Pettigrew didn’t admit to causing the carriage accident that took your brother, but we may assume he did,” put in Phineas. “When he explored your family lineage, he discovered Devries. They have had an association for several years. Things started going wrong for Pettigrew when Devries began acting on his own.”

  “Percy was furious when he realized that you’d been poisoned,” Ceci added. “He meant your death to seem an accident. Devries would have inherited, and Percy would have blackmailed him for the rest of his life.”

  Odette blew out a breath. “The twiddlepoop must have needed money badly,” she said.

  Benedict needed badly to do bodily injury. “Where is Percy now?”

  Lord Chalmondly said, gently, “Gone. None of us needed further scandal. You needn’t fear that he’ll return.”

  Benedict assumed Phineas meant Percy was gone from England, not that he had shuffled altogether off this mortal coil. “You’ll understand if I do not thank you for your foresight. At the same time I am aware that we are in your debt.”