Don't Tempt Me (25 page)

Marchmont walked with her to the door and out of it, and down the steps to the waiting carriage. He helped her in and closed the door behind her.

He watched the carriage proceed westward, round the fence enclosing the circular pond in the center of the square. When he saw the vehicle turn into King Street, he started back into the house. He'd scarcely crossed the threshold and the door hadn't yet closed behind him when he heard horses shrieking, people shouting and screaming, and a thunderous crash.

He leapt down the short flight of steps and ran through the square and into King Street.

 

Everyone about him was screaming and shouting, but it was all background noise. He was aware of people running out of buildings, but they were shadows. He saw bodies on the pavement and in the street. Blood everywhere. People crowded about the overturned carriage. He pushed them out of his way. He saw the crest. His crest.

Zoe was in there.

He saw her in his mind's eye, galloping ahead of him on a narrow bridle path, the sky grey, the tree leaves shining, the ground slick with wet. It was the last time she'd run away. The last time he'd chased
her, exasperated, as always, and afraid, as always. It had rained for two days and she was supposed to be safe at home, studying her Greek and Latin. She'd promised to study very hard, because she was going abroad, to visit Greece and Egypt and the Holy Land with her parents.

It was the last time she'd run away, the last time he'd chased her. Not a year later, she was gone. Forever.

Gone forever.

Someone was shouting at him, but the sounds made no sense.

He was climbing up onto the wreckage. He had to fight to wrench open the door.

The first thing he saw was the ostrich plumes. They didn't move.

Nothing moved.

His heart stopped moving, too.

“Zoe.”

Then, louder. “
Zoe.
”

A small movement. A feather quivering.

But the wind was whistling through the street on this dreary day—the same wind that had blasted through the square only a moment ago, ruffling the water in the basin.

He reached down, his hand shaking.

The feathers fluttered.

One slim, gloved hand moved, rose, and reached for his.

His heart gave such a lurch that he nearly fell off the vehicle. Then he was clasping her hand tightly, so tightly. “Zoe.”

“Lucien.”

She shook her head and looked up. The bonnet tilted over one blue eye. “What are you doing up there?”

 

He remembered little of what happened immediately afterward. He'd fallen into some kind of frenzy, and all the world seemed to have gone mad, too. People had crowded into King Street from everywhere.

He vaguely recalled the footmen helping him get Zoe and her maid out of the carriage. The footmen accounted for two of the bodies he'd seen. They'd been thrown or had jumped from their perch behind the carriage. They were bruised and their livery was torn and filthy, but that was the worst of their sufferings.

Marchmont carried Zoe back to the house in his arms. One of the footmen tried to carry Jarvis, but she wouldn't have any part of it, instead limping after her master and mistress, umbrella tightly clutched in her hand.

Bystanders helped carry the coachman back to the duke's coach house on a litter.

Some of the blood Marchmont had seen was the coachman's, apparently.

But most of it must have been the horses', given what the servants told him later.

It took a while to sort things out.

There were witnesses, as there usually are, but everyone told a different story, and all told it at the same time. In any case, Marchmont refused to wait about to listen.

John Coachman had had the best view of events. He was in no condition to be interrogated, though, even
had Marchmont wished to question him. He didn't. He left his servant in the physician's care, waiting only to be sure the man was not fatally injured.

Then he returned to Zoe, whom he'd carried up to his bedroom.

He wouldn't have left her, even to see about the coachman, but she'd assured him she was unhurt—and she wanted to bathe.

By the time he returned, she was clean and dressed in one of her pretty nightdresses, sitting up in his bed, propped up by a brace of pillows. If she hadn't sat there so quietly—too quietly for Zoe—wearing a small furrow between her brows, he might have believed the accident had not disturbed her in the least.

He went to the bed, sat down on the edge, and took her hand.

“It's no use,” she said. “I really don't know what happened. It's a great jumble in my head. I know Jarvis was talking about Almack's, but I was looking the other way. Before I turned, I heard noise—shouting and screaming—and then…” She frowned. “But I don't know what came next. One moment all was well. Jarvis was speaking. Then there was a dreadful noise.” She considered. “Did I think it was a riot? No, it was the horses. It was like Grafton Street. The cry they made because they were frightened and hurt. Then there was a great thump…I think. The next thing I knew, I was looking up at the carriage door and there you were, looking down at me. And I thought it was so curious that the carriage door should be up there and you should be looking down
at me.” She shook her head. “I am useless. You had better ask Jarvis. She saw something.”

He looked at the maid, who was fussing over the tea tray she'd carried up herself.

“Jarvis, can you enlighten us?”

She frowned as she placed the tray on Zoe's lap.

She looked from Zoe to Marchmont and back again.

“Tell him,” Zoe said. “Whatever you saw, tell him.”

“If the coachman was derelict, I want to know,” Marchmont said tightly.

“Your Grace, I don't think he was,” she said. “I was looking out of the window, and there was Almack's, and I said, ‘Your Grace, that's Almack's,' because I wasn't sure my mistress knew where it was. Then I saw a man run out from Cleveland Yard straight into our path. I screamed, because I thought we'd run him down. When the horses started jumping in the air and making such a noise, I thought that's what happened: They'd trampled him or he'd got under the wheels or something. But that's as much as I thought, because the next thing I knew, we were going over—and I don't remember much of that. I know I grabbed for my mistress. All I could think was she would hit her head. I d-didn't want her to hit her h-head.”

And then, to everyone's amazement, the stolid Jarvis burst into tears.

Late that afternoon

Marchmont having sent word to Lexham House, Zoe's mother came to look in on her.

The duke returned to his study. During the crisis, his solicitor had carried on without him. Evidently, Marchmont's directions were clear enough, because Cleake had narrowed down the selection to half a dozen charities.

The last thing Marchmont wanted to do at present was to find positions for untrustworthy minions. However, he'd played Solomon, and had to carry through his decision.

“Cook to the orphanage,” he said. “Dove to the home for aged and infirm soldiers. And Hoare to the school for the blind.”

Leaving Osgood and Cleake to make the arrangements, he proceeded to the coachman's quarters at the coach house.

John Coachman had a broken collarbone and a sprained wrist and many bruises. He was not happy about being immobilized, and furious about the accident, his first since he'd entered the duke's service.

“Your Grace, I never in all my time seen anything like it,” he said. “Like a madman he was—running out of the yard into the street and attacking the poor creature.”

“Attacking?” Marchmont said. “He went after the horse?”

“He had something in his hand, Your Grace. Didn't know what it was then, but it's clear it had to be a knife. What I knew was, he was making for the horse, and meant trouble. I went for him with the whip, the bastard, and took a strip off him, I'll warrant. He howled at it. I heard him howl. But I wasn't quick enough, sir.” With his good hand, the coachman
wiped a tear from his eye. “I reckon they had to put down the near side grey, did they, Your Grace? The one he was bent on killing? They took me away before I could look at the poor beast—either of 'em.”

“The second coachman and the others will do what's necessary,” Marchmont said. If the horse—or both—had to be destroyed, that would have been done promptly. “They are only waiting for me to leave before they speak to you.”

“Those fine cattle, sir,” the coachman said. He swallowed and went on more gruffly, “The sweetest-natured beasts. For Her Grace. I said she must have the sweetest, prettiest pair in the stables.”

“So she must,” Marchmont said. “Let's hope they survive. But whether they do or don't, we must get to the bottom of this. You say a man ran out of Cleveland Yard and straight at the horse and attacked it—he attacked the
horse
?”

“Oh, he did, Your Grace. I went for him, but he stuck her. Poor, innocent creature that never did him nor anybody any harm. We was going so slow she never had a chance. That bastard—begging Your Grace's pardon. If I ever get my hands on 'im—”

“Did you see his face?”

The coachman's expression became grim, indeed. “I saw. I won't forget it in a hurry. He tried to cover it up—burnt cork or some such. And he'd got some cloth wrapped about his head, like a turban, but he weren't no more Turk than I am. You ask Joseph and Hubert, Your Grace. They must have seen him, and they'd know him better than I do, seeing him every day.”

“Seeing whom?” Marchmont said. He knew the answer already but didn't want to know it, didn't want to believe it.

“Harrison, sir. I'd stake my life that's who it was. And I'll stake him, too, only let me get a chance.”

That night

Despite her travails of the day, the Duchess of Marchmont, resplendent in a ball gown of Clarence blue and white, appeared at Almack's Wednesday-night assembly with her husband.

The scene of the crime was the last place Marchmont would have chosen. But this was where Zoe wanted to be.

“If I keep away, the place will become too important in my mind, and I'll always be afraid of it,” she'd told him. “Better to go right away, the same day, before it can take hold of my mind. And what's the likelihood of someone trying to do exactly the same crime in the same place twice? Besides, I have a beautiful gown, special for my first time at Almack's. And I want to dance.”

“Oh, a special gown,” he said. “Well, that settles it, then.”

He was a great, besotted idiot, and he gave in, though he wasn't settled at all.

Still, he'd done all he could. He'd gone to Bow Street and spoken to the chief magistrate, Sir Nathaniel Conant. Tomorrow's news sheets and journals would carry descriptions of both Mrs. Dunstan and Harrison. Even now, Bow Street Runners and metropolitan patrollers were looking for them. If the two servants were still in London—which the runners seemed to think unlikely—they'd soon find them. If the pair had done the intelligent thing and fled, they'd be found eventually. Marchmont had offered large rewards for their capture, jointly or separately.

He didn't care about Mrs. Dunstan—unless she'd aided Harrison in this attack—but he wanted to see Harrison hang.

Though it was a short, easy walk to Almack's from Marchmont House, they'd driven in Marchmont's sturdiest carriage, with guards discreetly accompanying them.

He and Zoe arrived at the club without mishap, and when he saw everyone's head turn toward his wife, and the admiration and envy in those gazes, his heart swelled with pride.

Mine
, he thought. The finest female in the place, and she was his.

She did look splendid in the gown, though the blue satin bodice, as usual, showed a good deal more of her bosom than he deemed necessary—enough, he suspected, to constitute a threat to public order. But
it was the fashion, and he was the most fashionable husband in London, and so he must not break any fellows' noses for looking where she was so flagrantly inviting them to look.

After greeting the hostesses and making the few introductions still necessary—for the Countess Lieven and Mrs. Drummond-Burrell had not yet formally met Zoe—Marchmont said, “I must apologize for the little contretemps this morning, ladies. My wife had been told repeatedly that it was next to impossible to be admitted to Almack's. I never dreamed she'd try to
break
in.”

The witticism quickly made its way through the assembly.

The runaway carriage had suffered far greater damage than it caused. It had scraped a bollard and damaged a fence and nicked some brickwork. Had the accident happened later in the day, when the street was busier, the damage and injuries would have been considerable. At present, the worst he and Zoe had to deal with was the talk. It seemed as though the gossips and newspapers had hardly finished with one matter related to Zoe than another came along to tantalize them.

She would be plastered in all the print shop windows by tomorrow, he had no doubt. But the notoriety that would have brought social ostracism to the Harem Girl merely made the Duchess of Marchmont interesting.

“How brave you were to come out this night,” Lady Jersey told her. “The excitement would have prostrated me. I should have kept to my bed for a fortnight.”

“If I could not leave my bed for two weeks, I would have to try a variety of positions,” said Zoe. “Prostrate is all very well, but Marchmont would find it boring, night after night—or day after day.”

He whisked Zoe away, leaving Sally Jersey and her associates to debate whether the Duchess of Marchmont had actually said what they thought she'd said.

“That was droll, what you said about my breaking in,” Zoe told him.

“You're going to attract enough of a crowd as it is,” he said. “By tomorrow, everyone will know the lurid details, and I shall have the most popular wife in all of London. I thought a little humor this evening would give us some respite. Tomorrow the melodrama begins, I daresay.”

By tomorrow, everyone would know that the accident wasn't an accident and an attempt had been made on the Duchess of Marchmont's life. He'd kept the fraud quiet, but that would get out eventually, and so the circus would continue.

Tonight, though, most people knew only that there had been an accident. A few stories circulated about an anonymous madman attacking the duke's horses. A madman had killed Spencer Perceval almost exactly six years ago and another had tried to kill Lord Palmerston, the secretary of war, a month ago. One constantly read of murders attempted and committed by madmen.

Generally speaking, though—and with the notable exception of Lady Sophronia de Grey—the patronesses excluded lunatics from their list.

Tonight, all was well, and Zoe could flash her great lighthouse beacon of a diamond and dance to her
heart's content. She was alive, beautifully and fully alive, teasing his friends and astonishing the ladies, and living the life she'd wanted.

Late Wednesday night

Harrison was a London servant, born and bred. He knew every inch of the metropolis: the high, the middling, and the low. He'd made a great many friends among certain types of tradesmen and publicans. He had no trouble finding lodgings within easy walking distance of Marchmont House.

They were only temporary, he'd assured Mary Dunstan. As soon as he'd collected the money he'd secreted in various places, they would go to Ireland and start fresh. They had planned to become innkeepers in London. They would simply change locations, Harrison assured her.

On Wednesday evening, though, when he came back to the lodgings, and Mary Dunstan asked him if he'd got all the money, he said, “We want something better than money, my dear.”

Then he told her what he'd done that morning: how he'd lurked in the mews and learned the duke's coach was setting out for Lexham House.

“I knew the route they'd take,” he said. “Don't I know the routes they always take, wherever they mean to go? Don't I always know everything? Isn't it my job to know everything, even before it happens? I knew what would happen before it happened this morning. I knew it and I was ready, waiting for her when they turned into King Street.”

He'd been waiting, knife in hand—one of several he'd taken from the kitchen before he ran away. It was a beautiful knife, and Mary didn't blame him for taking it. She'd taken things, too.

But it was to be for their inn, for the cooking.

It wasn't for what he'd used it for.

She couldn't believe her ears when he told her. He was drunk. She tried to make herself believe he was simply drunk and boasting. But what man boasts of such things?

“I couldn't hang about to see the smash-up,” he said. “That's the devil of hiring the best. John Coachman saw what I was about, and I got a taste of his whip. The horses panicked and the carriage went amok and overturned, for all his care, but it wasn't as I pictured. No time to wait about to tally the damage. I thought she'd get the worst of it, but no. It was the horses and the coachman, curse her.”

He found a bottle and opened it. He filled his glass and drank, and stared at her. He slammed the glass on the table, and she jumped.

“Don't look at me like that!”

“I was only wondering whether you had time to arrange for the post chaise,” she said composedly.

Mary Dunstan had had years of practice acting calm no matter how she felt. A housekeeper always had to appear to be in complete control of everything. Other servants must never believe they could rattle her. She must always be as steady as a rock. She must always be sure of herself. Those beneath her must look upon her as omniscient and omnipotent, a version of the house steward, lower in status but equally formidable. Those above her must be able to take her competence completely for granted.

“What post chaise?” he said.

“The one to take us to the boat that will carry us to Ireland,” she said.

“Ireland.” His lip curled. “Savages. Bog trotters.”

“We can't remain in London,” she said.

“No, we can't,” he said. “Everything's ruined because of her. No London inn for us, thanks to her. No future here. No future anywhere. No
future
.”

“If you don't like Ireland, we can go to France,” Mary said calmly. “The English appreciate a proper English hostelry there. Good food and drink and clean, dry linens and spotless floors.”

He wasn't listening. He drank some more. “Ruined,” he said. “Twenty years climbing to the top. And then, all at once, there am I, on the bottom.” He snapped his fingers. “Like this she knocked me down. And I'll knock her down. I'll finish her, I will, like this”—another snap—“I'll finish her, because she finished me.”

He went on ranting and drinking, and Mary Dunstan pretended to listen calmly. But she was a paragon among housekeepers, and a good housekeeper saw ahead. It didn't take much looking to determine what she must do.

Saturday

It didn't take Marchmont long to replace nearly all of the upper servants. Everyone and their grandmothers, he found, wanted to work at Marchmont House.

And this time, determined to Take Responsibility, he interviewed everyone and their grandmothers.
Or so it seemed. Scores of applicants came from an agency. Scores more received word of the vacancies via the servant gossip grapevine, and came on their own initiative. Osgood proposed some candidates, as did Cleake and Zoe's sisters and sisters-in-law.

Sorting them out was tedious. It would have been unbearably so, had Marchmont done it alone. But Zoe was there, taking notes and occasionally asking a question. Mainly she left it to him until they were alone. Then she had a great deal to say, some of it hilarious, and some stunningly perceptive. Their one major dispute was about the butler. In the end, they agreed to keep Thomas in that position.

Since none of the house steward candidates satisfied them, the position remained unfilled for the time being. The household operated relatively smoothly in spite of the vacancy. Not as smoothly as it had under Harrison's despotic reign, but nothing like the chaos Marchmont had dreaded. He'd imagined servants pestering him constantly, asking questions he didn't know the answers to.

Evidently, they pestered Thomas and Osgood instead.

With their world restored to something like order, the duke and duchess were preparing to go out to a rout when Marchmont received a message from Bow Street: Mrs. Dunstan had been caught and was in custody.

Ten minutes later

Being well aware that Marchmont was protective to an extreme, Zoe wasn't at all surprised when he
told her she was not going with him.

She had no objection to being protected by a big, strong man when the occasion called for it. A woman in jail, however, could do her no harm. There was no rational reason for him to leave Zoe behind—and she had no intention of encouraging him to be irrational.

“There's no need for you to upset yourself,” he said as she followed him into his dressing room.

“I will not interfere,” she said. “This is your business. I only want to hear what she has to say.”

“I'll tell you what she has to say.”

“I want to see her face.”

“I'll describe it.”

She shooed away Ebdon, his new valet.

“I don't want to be kept in a cocoon,” she said when she and Marchmont were alone.

“With any luck, I'll be back in plenty of time to dress for the rout. There's nothing cocoon-like about going to a rout. You'll be surrounded by people. You'll have no protection from their elbows and feet and perfumes or lack of bathing.”

“If I'm present, the housekeeper might be more forthcoming,” she said. She advanced to help him out of his coat. “She might say more than she would when only men are present.”

“I don't deny you might be helpful,” he said. “You were immensely helpful in hiring new servants. You were especially helpful in finding me a valet who doesn't cry and faint. He is shockingly calm. I am not sure he breathes.”

“Only in the discreetest way,” said Zoe.

“He doesn't blink, certainly. But a valet is one thing and a lot of constables and lawbreakers is quite another. The Bow Street magistrate's house is no place
for a lady.”

“I know,” she said. “The place will be filled with drunkards and prostitutes and pimps and thieves and murderers. Just like Yusri Pasha's palace. Sometimes they made us watch when others were punished. I saw them strangle a slave girl, and I've seen slaves whipped many times. I know how they make a eunuch. What do you think I'll see at Bow Street to shock me?”

“That isn't the point,” he said. “Merely because you once lived among unspeakable people doing unspeakable things doesn't make it right for you to spend your time among the dregs of London. The point is, you're the Duchess of Marchmont, and she doesn't frequent low places.”

Having peeled off the snug coat, she started unbuttoning his waistcoat.

“You're the Duke of Marchmont, and you mean to frequent this place,” she said.

“I'm a man.”

Oh
,
I know
, she thought. The waistcoat undone, she let her hand stray over the front of his shirt. “A big, powerful man,” she said. “With big hard muscles and a godlike instrument of delight.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” he said.

“I'll be safe with you,” she said. “Who would dare to trouble me when you're by my side? Even at Almack's, everyone was amiable to me for your sake.” She let her hand slide over his muscled chest. She felt the heat begin, low in her belly, the snake of desire stirring.