The Desirable Duchess Read online

  Mary liked to retire to bed at nine in the evening, after a shared supper of dry toast and tea. All he had to do was to say, in his usual way, that he would follow her upstairs.

  No sooner had she planted a cold kiss on his brow, no sooner had the light from her bed candle wavered past the first landing, than he was off and running to the stables.

  He slid into the warm mustiness of the tack room, lit an oil lamp, and set it on the floor. He found a coil of rope and fashioned it into a noose. He stood on a chair and fastened the rope competently to the hook and then tested the noose. Perfect.

  Now for welcome death. But first, he really ought to say his prayers and ask God for mercy on his soul.

  He knelt down in the middle of the tack room—beside the chair and under the shadow of the noose—clasped his hands, bent his head, and closed his eyes.

  “Have you lost something, you great ninny?” came Mary’s voice from the doorway. Surely to even the most insensitive woman the sight of her husband kneeling in prayer, under a gently swinging noose, would have told its own story. But Mary had been blessed with a hide tougher than that of the usual human being and only saw a bumbling and ineffectual husband who had dropped something.

  Superstitiously Humphrey felt that this was God’s way of punishing him for having tried to commit suicide. As he got to his feet, he said in a squeaky voice that he had dropped his ruby pin earlier and thought he might have left it in the tack room.

  “How could you drop something in the tack room when you have not been in it all day?” demanded Mary. “It’s a good thing I saw you go over here from the upstairs window or you might have been looking all night. And tell the stable boys to take that noose down. Playing hangman can lead to disaster. Come along, sir. You have been looking peaky all day and a good dose of paraffin is what you need to bring you to rights. Come along.”

  “Yes, dear,” said Humphrey.

  * * *

  The Duke of Ferrant was not looking forward to the breakfast at Lord Rother’s, but then he did not look forward to anything these days. He had made an appointment with his lawyers to discuss a divorce from Alice, but then he had canceled it at the last minute, for he thought that if Alice were free, she might immediately marry Gerald Warby, and he could not bear that.

  It was a fine sunny day when he drove to Streatham. When he arrived, the first person he saw after he had been welcomed by the Rothers was Lady Macdonald. He bowed to her but did not go to join her. He would not add to the gossip that surrounded him.

  He almost did not recognize his old friend, Humphrey Dogget-Blythe, in the careworn man who was plodding along behind his wife, carrying her fan and shawl. But Doggie saw him and his face lit up in a sweet smile.

  “Is it really you, Doggie?” asked the duke.

  Mary looked him up and down with cold eyes. “Kindly address my husband by his proper name,” she snapped.

  “My love,” quavered Humphrey, “this is His Grace, the Duke of Ferrant. Allow me to introduce you.”

  Mary simpered and curtsied. A duke was a duke. “You must forgive me, Your Grace,” she gushed. “I thought for a moment you were one of my husband’s rough army friends.”

  “I knew your husband in the army,” said the duke, looking at her with dislike. He turned to Humphrey. “Well, how goes the world? You are but a shadow of your former self.”

  “He ate much too much,” said Mary before Humphrey could open his mouth. “I put him on a diet of vinegar and potatoes.”

  The duke bowed and moved away, vowing to try to have a word with Humphrey in private later.

  He then met Lord Werford and Percy, but as he disliked them both, he only exchanged a few words before joining more congenial company.

  They were then told to take their places. High above the babble sounded Mary’s voice. “I cannot sit in the sun. This place card says I should sit here, but it is in full sunlight and my skin is amazingly delicate.”

  At the same time, the duke had just discovered that he was to be seated at the top table, in the shadow of the house, next to Lady Macdonald. He approached Mary. “You may take my place, ma’am,” he said, “and I will sit with your husband.”

  Mary looked gratified. Everyone would see her at the top table. To Humphrey’s relief, she thanked the duke and swept off.

  “Oh, God,” said Lord Werford to Percy. “It’s all gone wrong. You’ll need to get up to the roof and tell that fool Warby to leave the gargoyle alone.”

  Percy moved to the doorway of the house. He found his way blocked by Lady Rother, a sprightly widow with a hard, ambitious eye. “Where are you going?” she asked.

  Percy murmured something about needing to visit the “necessary house.”

  “A footman will conduct you there and bring you back,” said Lady Rother testily. “I would like everyone to be seated.”

  She summoned a footman and gave him instructions, and so Percy was conducted to the privy while the footman waited outside, and then the footman escorted him back to the guests. Percy looked across at his uncle and spread his hands in a gesture of resignation.

  “Horrible place, isn’t it?” said Humphrey to the duke. Both men surveyed the Gothic building, where gargoyles sprouted out at all angles from the roof.

  “Badly in need of repair,” remarked the duke. “A friend of mine was here last month and said a piece of masonry nearly landed on his head when he was walking in the garden.”

  “Do you believe in God?” asked Humphrey.

  The duke looked at him in surprise. Everyone in the beginning of the nineteenth century believed in God. “Yes, why do you ask?” he demanded.

  “Sometimes when one is in great pain,” said Humphrey, “one prays and prays for help… but nothing happens.”

  A look of pain crossed the duke’s own face, but he said soothingly, “Oh, whatever happens to us is meant to happen.”

  Up on the roof in the sunshine, Gerald chiseled happily away at the gargoyle, happy because he could not see his target, although knowing it would undoubtedly land on the duke’s head. Not seeing him made it seem more impersonal. There was nowhere else it could fall. It was a nasty gargoyle anyway, its head like a serpent, its huge, gaping mouth opened in a stone snarl.

  Underneath, Mary’s nose flashed its angry warning, but her husband did not seem to notice. He was talking to the duke. Humphrey should have told her he was friendly with a duke. How like him to be secretive! She would punish him for this!

  “I should not discuss my wife,” Humphrey was saying, “but I am at the end of my tether.”

  “Then get away from her,” said the duke. “Join the army again.”

  “I cannot. Mary holds the purse strings.”

  “Look, old friend, I cannot bear to see you like this. I shall buy you a commission. In fact, do not go home after this. Come back with me. You would be free.”

  “Free,” echoed Humphrey. And then his face fell and he shook his head sadly. “You don’t know what Mary’s like. She would follow me to the ends of the earth to get her revenge. I tell you what, Ferrant, I tried to kill myself last night, but she even stopped me doing that.”

  “Was she not appalled at the extremes she had driven you to?”

  “Would you believe that when she found me saying my last prayers on the tack room floor, with a noose swinging above my head, she thought I had lost something?”

  The duke looked across the guests to Mary and said, “Yes. But you must not do such a thing again. There is always hope.”

  “What hope? A bolt from heaven will strike her down?”

  Lady Macdonald was seated next to Mary but was confining her attentions to the gentleman on her other side. The gentleman on Mary’s other side had exchanged a few words with her and then turned away with relief, feeling he had done his duty for the meal. So Mary sat alone. No Humphrey to nag. Her temper was becoming worse by the minute.

  Humphrey looked across the garden; his eyes met his wife’s basilisk stare, and he trembled.

/>   The duke said something, and he turned his head.

  Then there was a rending scream and he looked across again. Where Mary had been sitting was a large gargoyle.

  He jumped to his feet and struggled through the milling, screaming, and swooning guests. It looked as if Mary had been swallowed up by the gargoyle. Its stone mouth had engulfed her, what was left of her crushed under that terrible maw.

  Humphrey began to laugh hysterically and was still laughing when the duke reached him and led him away.

  Alice wandered about the gardens of Clarendon followed by her maid, Betty. Her parents had tried to call several times but had been turned away by the efficient Mr. Shadwell. Alice turned her head and said impatiently, “There is no need to follow me everywhere, Betty. I wish to be alone.”

  “Don’t go doing anything silly, Your Grace,” said Betty gloomily. “I would lose my job.”

  “You will not lose your job,” said Alice testily. “I have no doubt His Grace will divorce me and then you will be in my employ as usual.”

  Betty reluctantly withdrew. Alice walked idly over to the stables. She usually walked about the grounds for most of the day, hoping to exhaust herself so that by nightfall she would fall into a deep sleep and forget about the duke.

  A small, wizened groom came staggering past, carrying a bale of hay. Alice started in surprise. “Sam?” she said.

  The groom stopped and put down the hay. “You are Sam, are you not?” asked Alice. “You worked for my parents.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “I remember, you took that letter to Sir Gerald for me.”

  “In a way, Your Grace.”

  “What do you mean, Sam?”

  He scratched his head. “You probably know now, Your Grace. Your parents called back the footman when he was on the road to the stables and read that letter—and went to see Sir Gerald themselves.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Alice bitterly. “And they told Sir Gerald that I was in love with His Grace.”

  “Not ’zactly,” said Sam, reaching for the bale again.

  “Stay. What do you mean?”

  “Shouldn’t be talking,” muttered Sam.

  “I command you.”

  “That footman, he went with Mr. and Mrs. Lacey. He heard them say they would pay Mr. Warby a large sum of money if he went away.”

  “Which,” said Alice in a small voice, “he accepted.”

  “That he did.”

  “Thank you, Sam.”

  Alice moved away, her heart heavy. The final confirmation of Gerald’s perfidy. Now she was trapped here in the country, and even now he might be trying to murder her husband.

  She looked back at the house. Mr. Shadwell was standing on the terrace, watching her.

  She turned away from the house and leaned her back against the branches of an oak tree.

  “Don’t look up,” said an urgent Irish voice above her head. “It’s me, Donnelly.”

  She opened her mouth, but he said, “Don’t speak. He’s watching from the terrace. Me and Dunfear and Mrs. Duggan are at the George and Dragon in the village. We tried to see you but were turned away. So here’s the plan. If you can get out of the gardens and as far as the wall of the estate, there’s a broken bit of wall about one hundred yards west of the south lodge. Be there at two this morning and we’ll be there in a closed carriage to pick you up. Now back to the house with you before they become suspicious.”

  Alice pretended to go to sleep that night, but she lay awake, listening to the rumble of snores from Betty, who slept in a little dressing room on a truckle bed adjoining the bedroom.

  At midnight, she rose and dressed quietly. She dared not take any luggage with her. She put a cloak on and raised the hood to cover her bright hair. She crept down the main staircase and then stopped on the first landing. A footman was sleeping in a chair in front of the door.

  Alice moved very slowly, down and across the hall and into the Yellow Saloon, which she knew had French windows opening onto the terrace. To her relief, the windows were not locked but simply bolted on the inside. She eased the bolt back and opened the window, her heart in her mouth as it gave an ominous creak.

  Outside lay a vista of moon-washed lawns—and freedom!

  She took to her heels and ran.

  By the time she reached the wall of the estate, she was feeling exhausted because the south wall was several miles from the house. She felt her way along the wall, Stumbling through briars that tore at her cloak and stubbing her toes on fallen bits of stone from the estate wall.

  At last she heard the gentle whinny of horses and could make out the black shape of a carriage through the broken section of wall.

  With a glad cry, she scrambled over the stones and wrenched open the carriage door.

  “And now,” said Mrs. Duggan, “you’d better tell us what you’ve been doing.”

  At breakfast in a posting house on the road to London, Alice wearily told her rescuers over again about the attempts on the duke’s life and how he had not believed her. “And I had to leave Oracle behind,” mourned Alice, “for the bird would have squawked and alerted the servants when I was escaping. I hope they treat it well, but Betty has a fondness for the bird and I am sure she will see that no one harms it.”

  “If it hadn’t been for that silly bird, your husband might have listened to you,” said Mrs. Duggan. “But all we can do is this. We’ll need to disguise ourselves and watch the duke’s house, and try to foil any other attempts.”

  “How can we disguise ourselves and wait outside his house?” demanded Alice. “The servants would come out and ask us our business.”

  “We’ll think of something,” said Mrs. Duggan.

  “I always do, at any rate.”

  Ten days later the duke stood at the window of the drawing room of his town houses staring bleakly out into the street. He had been to Clarendon and back looking for his absent wife. He had called on Sir Gerald and had threatened him. If Alice even approached him, he was to report to him immediately. Lucy had been distressed but said she had not heard anything from Alice. Alice’s parents were distraught, not helped by a lecture from the duke in which he had told them that they had destroyed their daughter’s life.

  Somewhere in England was Alice, without money, without luggage. Where could she have gone?

  Hoskins entered the room. “Those strolling players are back again, Your Grace. Shall I send one of the servants to move them on?”

  “No, leave them,” said the duke curtly. Yes, they were there again, that odd troupe. An old, fat woman banged a tambourine, a thin man in a slouch hat played the flute while the Pierrot and Columbine danced, the Pierrot in his harlequin costume with his face hidden under a black mask, the masked Columbine in ballet skirt and spangled top who reminded him achingly of Alice, despite her straggling red hair.

  In the street below, the Pierrot circled the Columbine and muttered, “Well, sure now, your husband’s at the window so he’s still alive.”

  “But for how long?” murmured Alice. “And he is bound to become suspicious of us sooner or later.”

  “Your own mother wouldn’t recognize you in that red wig,” said Mr. Donnelly, who was playing Pierrot.

  The duke went out in the afternoon, and Lord Dunfear, in his slouch hat, hired a hack and followed the duke’s carriage, then returned to Mrs. Duggan’s to say the duke was in the House of Lords.

  “That should keep him safe for a couple of hours,” sighed Mrs. Duggan, massaging her feet. “Do you know, I’m thinking we’ve been wasting our time following the wrong person.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Alice.

  “Why, we should have been following Warby to see what he gets up to. It’s proof we need.”

  “I’ll do that,” said Mr. Donnelly, rising and stretching. “Good idea. You all wait here.”

  He was lucky enough to find Gerald just leaving his lodgings, and, pulling his hat down over his eyes, he followed him. Gerald set out in the direction of th
e city with Mr. Donnelly in pursuit. He went into a coffeehouse in Cheapside, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Mr. Donnelly followed him in.

  A brief glance was enough to tell him that Gerald had joined Lord Werford and his son, Percy, in a booth. Mr. Donnelly slid into the next booth and strained his ears, breaking off only to order a tankard of Dog’s Nose.

  “I can’t do anything at the moment,” he heard Gerald say petulantly. “I am sure he is having me watched in case that wife of his turns up on my doorstep.”

  “But you can,” said Percy in his mincing voice. “We have managed to get a copy of the key to the back door of Ferrant’s town house. The maid who is walking out with our servant will leave the door unbolted. She thinks she is letting in her lover. You arm yourself, go straight to his bedroom and shoot him, and then let yourself out. Simple.”

  “Something will go wrong,” said Gerald, raising his voice and then lowering it so that Mr. Donnelly had to strain to hear his next words. “Have I not tried and tried? And what happens? Some dog eats the poisoned pâté at that picnic, Mrs. Tregader eats the poisoned pudding meant for the duke, and that gargoyle falls and kills someone else after I had spent hours up on Lord Rother’s roof hacking away. So what is going to happen this time? I tell you something will go wrong.”

  “You’d better do it,” said Percy silkily, “or it will be the worse for you.”

  Gerald groaned. “So what time?”

  “Two in the morning,” said Lord Werford. “He is not going anywhere tonight, so he has no reason to be in bed late. Here is the key. As soon as Percy here is duke, you’ll get your money.”

  Mr. Donnelly goggled. He must tell the others. The duke must be warned.

  But when he returned, despite her horror to learn that Lord Werford and his son were behind the attempts on the duke’s life, Mrs. Duggan was adamant in her refusal to tell the duke. “What if he doesn’t listen to us, the way he did not listen to his wife? No, we will catch Warby in the act.”

  The duke tossed and turned but could not sleep. Faintly, from down below, came the shrill sound of a pipe and the steady beat of a tambourine. Those odd strolling players and that Columbine who reminded him of Alice. How odd that they were still there. He had ordered his servants to pay them well. No doubt they felt they were giving him a free concert.