A Scandalous Secret (18 page)

But now there was Gwendolyn. There was no way around that piece of supreme folly. He was bound to her, well and truly. He could not, in honour, sever the connection. She would be an object either of pity or of scorn to the surrounding neighbourhood. He would be universally condemned - and so would Bess, if her involvement were known. There was no escape.

The idea of attending that damned ball when he returned home was about as pleasant as a cold bath in January. This visit to town was an all too brief escape from the reality he had created. A lifetime with Gwendolyn Thornwood.... He felt ill.

* * * *

The sights, sounds and smells of the city certainly should have driven away any thought of the placid rural scene he had left behind him. The filthy streets, crowded with every sort of human refuse, made him think rather of the previous year’s riots in Derbyshire, and of those poor wretches who braved the stormy Atlantic even now in search of a better life in far-off America. How long would it be before those in power learned to look upon poverty with compassion instead of scorn?

Over the next few days, he took his time meeting with the managers and labourers who were responsible for his carriage company and porcelain manufactory. He made it a point to become acquainted with as many of his workers as possible. Each day, many hours were spent inspecting machinery and discussing possible improvements, and he generally fell into bed at night in a state of complete physical and mental exhaustion.

Dominick had been in London nearly a week when he visited a building in Cheapside - not exactly one of the most fashionable districts. It was, in fact, his own venture - and one dear to his
heart. Here he had created a place to accommodate twelve families. They were all in his employ.

For a minimal rent, they were able to live in conditions of relative comfort and cleanliness. If they could not command the luxuries of life, at least they were saved from the hopeless squalor to which most were condemned who laboured in factories and other menial positions. Their children, too, were spared the cruelties they might have endured had they been left to the tender mercies of the parish.

His tenants bore much of the responsibility for maintaining the place in prime condition, but Dominick often came to look over his property and to ensure that there were no pressing needs among them. It was something on which he lost money, of course - a foolish whim, some might say; but he could afford his eccentricities, and the smile on the face of Paddy Bigworth as he greeted Dominick with, ‘‘Ow yer doin’, Mr Markham, sir?’ was worth every farthing.

Bess would have approved - of that he was sure. He could almost see the glow in her lovely violet eyes, the smile upon her lips - lips which were so sweet and warm and.... It was no use! He had been unable to forget her in eight years. He could hardly expect to banish her from his thoughts after Salisbury. God! How he missed her.

‘Gawd bless you, sir,’ Mrs Bigworth said as he took his leave, dabbing at her puffy eyelids with a bright new apron.

Dominick bid them farewell and began to descend the front stairs to the pavement below. As he did so, he glanced idly across the street - and halted abruptly.

The building immediately opposite belonged to a notorious money-lender whom one would rather not have dealings with if one could possibly avoid it. Yet a fashionably dressed gentleman was just then issuing forth from its doors. He looked up, spied
Dominick, and stopped with equal abruptness.

Without pausing to consider his actions, Dominick crossed quickly over to the other side, until he stood beside the tall, fair-haired man.

‘Good afternoon, Dominick,’ the gentleman said, rather too casually.

‘Good afternoon,’ Dominick replied, frowning. ‘I did not expect to see
you
here, Alastair ...’

* * * *

A sennight passed, with Elizabeth and Dorinda growing more miserable than ever. Neither Dominick nor Alastair had yet returned, and both women were feeling the loss of their lovers. Elizabeth was divided between relief at Dominick’s continued absence and a longing for him which was so intense that it frightened her more than her fear of exposure.

Even the children were restless and difficult to control. Only yesterday, both Nicky and Selina had been severely punished for pouring a jar of honey into Lord Maples’s polished Hessians. The bellow which issued from Oswald’s throat when he found his feet covered in thick golden fluid had brought the whole household running.

There was no doubt that the children were the culprits, for Selina - whom Nicky derided for being chicken-hearted - had crumbled under her mama’s scolding, and confessed all. Elizabeth did not doubt that the plan had been entirely of Nicky’s devising, and she had gone so far as to administer a spanking, which was more of a trial for her than for her son.

One benefit of this bumble-broth was that Oswald now spent as little time as possible at the house. When he was not out riding, hunting or observing cockfights outside of the village, he was generally to be found at the squire’s house. There, he was always assured of a sympathetic ear for the recital of his innumerable
tribulations at Merrywood.

It seemed an eternity before the day arrived when firm, masculine footsteps were heard in the hallway. Peering over her needlework, Elizabeth watched Alastair enter the drawing-room. He greeted her rather perfunctorily and asked where he might find his wife. Oddly enough, the frown and air of distraction that had been so apparent before he had left them had gone.

‘Dorinda is lying down,’ she informed him.

‘Is she not well?’ he queried in concern.

‘Gravely ill, I fear,’ she quizzed him. ‘The most shocking case of absent husband I have ever witnessed.’

‘You will never leave off roasting me,’ he said, smiling. ‘You will excuse me, I know, if I go up to her at once.’

‘I would advise you to lose no time, Alastair - lest her condition should prove fatal.’

A moment more and he was gone. He had come in good time, however. Somehow, she knew that for her sister, at least, things were about to improve.

* * * *

Dorinda heard the door of her bedchamber open without any preliminary knock. She raised her head the better to see who had so thoughtlessly disturbed her rest. Not that she had got much of that, for she was far too distraught. But at least she might be left alone to enjoy her misery in private.

Before she could voice the objection on her lips, her gaze fell on Alastair. He stood somewhat sheepishly beside the bed, a lopsided smile on his face. Her troubles vanished miraculously. In an instant, she was out of the bed and in his arms.

He returned her embrace with interest, and it was several minutes before he asked, ‘I assume from this greeting, Lady Barrowe, that you are pleased to see me?’

‘I have been pining away without you,’ she admitted. ‘So much has been happening here, Alastair, and I did not know what to do. I needed you.’

‘Well, here I am, my love. What would you have me do? Show me your dragon and I will slay it forthwith!’

She stepped back from him, recognizing that this was her golden opportunity to broach the subject that she was so afraid to mention. Lizzy’s dilemma must wait a while. Now, at last, she must have her answer from Alastair.

‘Before you hear my news,’ she said, mustering her courage, ‘I want you to tell me what you have been doing in London. This is not the first time I have asked you about your visits; but, as your wife, I think I have the right to an answer.’

‘Yes,’ he acknowledged, looking at her with such contrition in his gaze that she felt quite frightened. It was another woman. She was going to die. ‘Perhaps I should have told you at the outset,’ he went on. ‘Dominick certainly believes so.’

‘Dominick?’ she asked, unable to conceal her surprise. ‘Mr Markham? What has he to say to anything?’

‘That is what I am about to explain.’ He paused.

‘Ever since the war ended in ‘15,’ was the opening to his discourse.  Then he went on to describe how there had been problems with his West Indian estates - the once profitable legacy of his father. Sugar prices had fallen dramatically, and competition from other islands had increased. The previous year, the plantation had been devastated not - as one might have expected — by the usual hurricane, but by a fire that had destroyed not only the boiling-house, but also the great house. It was generally believed that the fire had been started by a discontented group of slaves.

‘You know,’ Dorinda reminded him, ‘Lizzy has always told you that you should let go of the West Indian property. She is a great supporter of the Abolition.’

‘I have had to do just that,’ he answered. ‘Indeed, wholesale manumission seemed the only solution - though not for moral reasons, I am sorry to say. I have given part of the property to the former slaves; the rest has been sold to a neighbouring planter.’

She eyed him curiously, still unenlightened. ‘But what has this to do with London and Mr Markham? And what of those letters that you have been receiving?’

That,’ he stated, a little shamefaced, ‘was my own fault, I fear. In addition to the other catastrophes, I learned that my overseer was not quite as honest as I had believed. I ought to have gone out there myself several years ago to inspect the thing properly. I blame myself entirely for neglecting to do so.’

‘Go out there?’ Dorinda asked, not really sure what she could say to all this. It made little sense to her, but it was plain that things had not been going at all well for her husband. ‘And very likely die of some outlandish fever? I am glad you never did anything so foolish.’

Alastair did not seem to view his actions as prudent, however. ‘The fact is,’ he continued, with dogged determination, ‘my position had grown so bad that I soon found myself under the hatches. I was persuaded to patronize a well-known ... money-lender. Just until my finances were more settled, you know.’

‘Oh, Lord!’ Dorinda cried, as understanding dawned. She sat down on a nearby
chaise-longue.
‘Even
I
know that one’s finances are never settled like that! Are we destitute, then?’

‘No, no,’ he reassured her. ‘It is not as bad as all that, my love - thanks largely to Mr Markham.’

It seemed that Dominick had discovered Alastair outside the offices of the infamous person from whom he had borrowed the money. Alastair had found it impossible - bless him! - to fob his neighbour off with an unconvincing lie, and had soon disclosed his difficulty. Thereupon, Mr Markham had taken control of
the situation most capably. He paid off the debt himself, contrived a more efficient arrangement for collecting money from the West Indian affair, and persuaded Alastair to lease some of his other properties in Wiltshire on very profitable terms. As a result, they should be able to continue to live quite comfortably.

‘I wish you had confided in me before, Alastair,’ she said, when he had finished. ‘I was afraid you were involved with a light-skirt or some such thing! I was almost on the point of going into a decline.’

‘My foolish wife,’ he said, looking at her with warm affection. ‘Forgive me for teasing you so. But I did not want you to fret yourself over your paper-skull of a husband.’

She readily accepted his apology, saying only, ‘Thank Heaven for Mr Markham.’

‘He is a good man,’ Alastair conceded, ‘and a good friend, as well.’

She nodded. ‘He is certainly uncommonly generous. To do so much for us on such a relatively brief acquaintance!’

‘I am sure he had his reasons,’ Alastair said slowly.

Dorinda looked sharply at him. Could it be that Alastair knew—?

‘Do you mean,’ she suggested, with some daring, ‘because he is Nicky’s father?’

Alastair stood stock-still, scowling fiercely at her. ‘Are you telling me that you knew of this?’

‘Do you mean that
you
knew?’ she retorted.

‘When did you learn of it?’

‘Only a few days ago,’ she confessed. ‘And you?’

‘I suspected as much the first time I met Dominick,’ he said, his anger subsiding. ‘Nicky is his image.’

‘How astute of you, my love!’ She viewed him with new respect. ‘I never guessed until I spoke with him the other day, and
even then I hardly dared to believe until I heard it from Lizzy herself.’

‘Well, you know,’ he told her, ‘I always wondered about Nicky. Gerald only married Elizabeth after his first son died. He desperately wanted another heir for the earldom so that the line would not die out with him.’

‘I know it,’ she said, nodding. ‘If poor Henry had not broken his neck in that riding accident, I do not suppose Gerald would ever have married again. His disposition was far too cold.’

‘You see,’ Alastair cleared his throat, as if trying to produce a delicate phrase for her benefit, ‘there were not many who believed that Henry was Gerald’s child either.’

‘What?’

‘His first wife had many fine qualities,’ he elucidated, ‘but I believe fidelity was not one of them. I’ve always felt that Gerald was incapable of fathering a child.’

‘So, you knew all the time,’ Dorinda said, wagging her finger at him accusingly.

‘No,’ he corrected her. ‘I wondered. No more. If Elizabeth had been a different sort of woman, I would have had no doubt. But she has always been so retiring, so strait-laced....’

‘She is absurdly modest for someone who is patently a diamond of the first water.’

‘Exactly so. She is certainly no
femme du monde.’

‘But she is, after all, a woman,’ Dorinda said, ‘with a woman’s feelings and desires. And Mr Markham is an uncommonly attractive man.’

‘Very well-spoken, too,’ Alastair commented. ‘The uncle of the man to whom his aunt was once betrothed was a clergyman, I believe, and saw to it that Dominick received a good education.’

‘Tell me truthfully, Alastair,’ Dorinda asked, ‘would you object to having Mr Markham for a brother-in-law?’

‘My dear, what are you saying?’ He looked quite shocked.

Dorinda then recounted all that she had learned from Elizabeth concerning their encounter eight years before. She felt no betrayal, since Lizzy knew that she always shared everything with her husband. Besides, Alastair already knew so much that it was foolish to keep anything from him. She also acquainted him with the particulars of the events of the past few weeks - including the incident in the cathedral.