Henrietta (16 page)

Henrietta was aware of Lord Reckford’s strong arms round her as he dragged her bodily back into the inn. She could feel a scream forming at the back of her throat. She wanted to scream and scream and scream until the very sound of her voice wiped that dreadful bloody picture from her mind.

Lord Reckford’s icy voice cut like a knife through her hysterical thoughts. “Don’t be so damned missish,” he snapped.

Henrietta gulped and stared but before she could say anything, he went on, “I am sure you’ve seen plenty bodies hanging from gibbets and people dying all over the streets of London, so what’s another body?”

His callousness had the desired effect. Henrietta forgot her shock and fright in a healthy outburst of rage. She called him every name she could think of, beating her fists against his jacket and trying to kick him in the shins. Then she collapsed into a chair and burst into tears.

“That’s my girl,” said his infuriating lordship in a mild voice. “Just what you needed. Now drink this.”

“What is… is it?” stammered Henrietta.

“Brandy.”

“Oh, but I can’t… I…” She stopped talking as the glass was forced against her lips by a firm hand and the fiery liquid poured down her throat.

After a few minutes, the brandy began to take effect, and Henrietta managed to say, “We must find the magistrate.…”

“My dear, dear girl,” drawled her companion. “There are magistrates and magistrates. Our local one unfortunately is that bumbling idiot, Sir Edwin. Can’t you imagine it? He will lumber in and start off ‘Sir Edwin wonders why my lord and Miss Sandford should have informed Mr. Holmes and party that they were returning to the Abbey on account of Miss Sandford’s indisposition and yet are found in a common inn with a pig and a dead body.’ Come now, Henrietta. Let us make our escape.”

Henrietta got to her feet. She felt suddenly exhausted. “Why is it, my lord, that you refuse to call in the authorities to solve this mystery?”

His lordship flicked the dust from his hessians with his handkerchief and then stood up and faced her. “Miss Sandford. Apart from bringing a lot of scandal and vulgar gossip down about our ears, I fail to see what else the Runners can do. Never fear, I shall catch the culprit.”

“And I shall be dead first.”

“No, my dear, whoever it is wants you alive and mad. As long as you accept my help, no harm will come to you. I should really have brought the carriage. It is a long walk to the Abbey.…”, he added doubtfully, looking down at Henrietta’s thin slippers.

“Oh, I shall survive, no doubt,” said Henrietta sweetly. “Are you sure, my lord, that you would not like to tether me to a stake as bait for the killer the way they use goats to entrap a tiger in India?”

“I may do that yet,” he said with a laugh, drawing her arm through his.

They set off down the road at a leisurely pace. Lord Reckford began to talk about the problems of running his large estate, the modern methods of farming he hoped to introduce, and how he intended to leave the London scene after this Season. He then asked her about her past life and whether she ever missed Nethercote. Henrietta began to describe her narrow life of church duties and visits to the poor. A very bleak picture emerged although she tried to make it sound amusing.

He looked down at her. She was staring unseeingly at the dusty road as she talked, swinging her bonnet in her hand. A curl had escaped from its mooring and lay like a question mark on the back of her neck.

He had a sudden impulse to bend down and kiss her on the nape of the neck and then was shocked at the intensity of his feelings. It was not because Henrietta was beautiful—and she had certainly changed into a beauty since she had lost weight—it was, he decided, that she seemed to carry with her an aura of heavy sensuality which revealed itself in small ways, in the way she turned her head and the way she moved when she danced.

She turned and looked up into his eyes, laughing at one of her own anecdotes and he caught his breath. He could not properly analyse his feelings but he felt in some obscure way that he would never think of Henrietta as a comfortable sort of girl again.

He was suddenly conscious of her hand on his arm and immediately released his own to brush away an imaginary fly. The sun was setting behind the woods as they wearily made their way up the long drive that led to the Abbey. Lights were shining from the windows and there was a smell of woodsmoke in the air. Although she had lived most of her life in the modest vicarage of Nethercote, Henrietta suddenly had the strange feeling of coming home. They paused outside the entrance to the hall and Lord Reckford bent his head and kissed her hand. The kiss seemed to burn through her glove and she could not bring herself to look at him. Lord Reckford stood for a long time looking after her until the rumble of carriages in the drive as the other guests arrived diverted his attention.

“I
SHALL NEVER SURVIVE THIS
S
EASON
.”

Henrietta looked mournfully down at her swollen ankles, the result of dancing all night and then accepting an engagement to ride in the Row first thing in the morning.

Her return to Town from the Abbey had been marked with outstanding social success. That arbiter of fashion, Mr. George Brummell, had been warned by Lady Belding to avoid Henrietta. “The girl is quite mad, you know,” she had informed him. “And no person of the
ton
should be seen in her company.” Mr. Brummell cordially despised Lady Belding and had made a great effort to be seen constantly in Henrietta’s company. He even went so far as to label Miss Scattersworth as “a truly charming English eccentric.” Poor Miss Mattie found that all her most ordinary remarks were treated as brilliant witticisms and all the attention went immediately to the spinster’s head. Henrietta rarely saw her and often had to rely on Lord Reckford’s sister, Lady Ann Courtney, to act as chaperone. Most of her social engagements were blessed with the presence of Lord Reckford but there never seemed a moment to talk to him alone.

There had been no more attempts on her sanity and all the past episodes leading up to the murder of the magician took on a vague dreamlike sense of unreality.

Still wearing her ridingdress of pale blue gaberdine, its severe lines flattering to her new slim figure, Henrietta crossed to the looking glass to adjust her curls.

Lord Reckford was announced and she swung round in surprise, a tell-tale blush creeping up her cheek.

He bent punctilliously over her hand and then straightened up and looked at her with unwonted severity. “You look tired,” he remarked dryly.

“Of course I’m tired,” retorted Henrietta. “These past weeks have been exhausting. I have been dancing and partying almost every night. I declare I am worn to a frazzle.”

“Is that all you have been doing?”

Henrietta stared at him in surprise. “Is that not enough?”

He sat down and stretched out his long legs and tapped his boot with his quizzing glass. At last he said very slowly, “You have not… by any chance… been gambling?”

“Gambling! Well, I suppose… a little faro and silver loo and things like that. Everyone does it.”

“Everyone does not however frequent the gambling hells of the demi-monde and behave in a raucous, drunken manner.”

Henrietta looked at him coldly. “Out with it, my lord. Speak plain.”

“I shall try to put it as simply as possible. Various members of my acquaintance have seen fit to inform me that you have frequently been gambling heavily and drinking heavily. Now, it is all very well for young men to frequent these establishments but any woman who does so is facing social ruin.”

“I have not been to any of those places,” said Henrietta outraged.

“I had it on good authority that you were at a certain Mrs. Slattery’s last night.”

Henrietta’s eyes were like agate. “I take leave to inform you, my lord, that I attended the Beauchamp’s ball last night chaperoned by your sister.”

He got to his feet in surprise. “Then what is the meaning of all this. You cannot be in two places at once…or can you?”

Henrietta stared at him wide-eyed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, it is starting all over again. Someone is out to discredit you. They hired the magician and then disposed of him. Perhaps they have now hired someone who looks exactly like you. I shall need to try and track this person down if that is the case. Unless you produce your double, all London is shortly going to think you have gone to the dogs!”

He walked forward and took her hands in his. “My dear,” he said in a softer voice, “if you would accept the protection of my name…”

“Never!” choked Henrietta, jerking her hands out of his grasp. “I do not feel for you in… in… that way, my lord.”

He studied her bent head thoughtfully. Then he put a long finger under her chin and raised it. “I could teach you to feel otherwise.” He said it, meaning to sound teasing, but his voice came out assured and arrogant.

“Oh, save your charms for little opera dancers,” snapped Henrietta, unforgivably. “You will find me made of sterner stuff. I bid you good day, my lord.” He caught her wrist as she stretched out her hand for the bell-rope and slowly drew her towards him.

She came towards him, weakly, as if mesmerised. His arms went round her slowly, taking an infinity of time.

Henrietta’s excellent butler was long to regret that that day of all days, he happened to be suffering from a cold. He had quietly opened the door to announce the arrival of Lady Belding and, taking in the situation, had meant to quickly retreat and inform her ladyship that Miss Sandford was not at home. But at that precise moment he sneezed. The couple broke apart and Lady Belding and Alice edged past him and made their way into the room.

“Ah, Lord Reckford,” declared Lady Belding, holding out her arm like the wing of a dying swan, “I saw your carriage outside. One of our horses has cast a shoe and I wondered if I could prevail upon you to escort Alice and myself to Bond Street.”

The Beau kissed the air above her fingers and murmured that he would only be too delighted. He left, reminding Henrietta that he would see her with his sister’s party at Raneleigh after the theater. She stood on the hearthrug, staring at the closed doors, long after he had gone.

That evening, Lord Reckford decided to forego the theater, and search for the fake Miss Sandford. She had been seen at three notorious gambling hells and he proposed to visit each one in turn. He enlisted the aid of Jeremy Holmes. “I do not anticipate any difficulty in gaining admission,” he informed his friend dryly. “My fortune is well known if my face is not.”

“What shall we do with the woman should we find her?” asked Mr. Holmes.

“Why, pay her,” remarked his lordship dryly. “Offer to pay her more than she is getting from her present employer. Then she’ll give us his name, I warrant you.”

“You think a man and not a woman is behind all this?”

The Beau shrugged his elegant shoulders, “Who knows? Someone, anyway, with enough money to hire people to do the dirty work. Shall we go?”

The couple decided to go on foot as the night was a fine one. Armed only with their swordsticks, they ambled towards an area of London where the distances between the parish lamps grew longer, leaving sinister shadows. “Here we are. This must be the place,” said Lord Reckford eventually, stopping in front of a narrow building. He rapped on the door with his stick and then popped a guinea and his card through the judas and waited for results. In a few seconds the door was opened by an enormous footman, his livery bursting at the seams.

“Members only, me lord, this being an exclusive place. But we allus does waive the rules for a gent like yourself,” remarked the footman, trying to divest the gentlemen of their hats and gloves.

“We shall, in all probability, not be staying long,” remarked Lord Reckford and strode into the club. He paused on the threshold of the first room… and caught his breath.

His friend looked over his shoulder. “My God! There’s Henrietta!” cried Jeremy. “Why, the little minx.”

And there indeed, it appeared, was that lady, much the worse for liquor. She was seated on a dandy’s knee and helping herself liberally to snuff. The game was about to recommence and she swung herself off her gallant’s knee and settled back into her own chair with the feverish light of the true gambler burning in her eyes. Her eyes!

“It’s not Henrietta.” Jeremy heaved a sigh of relief. “Henrietta’s eyes are hazel, hers are blue.”

Lord Reckford felt a momentary-twinge of irritation that his friend should have noticed the color of Henrietta’s eyes. They both watched the game in silence. The girl was certainly remarkably like Henrietta. Her heavy fair hair had been dressed in the same style, her jewellery had been faithfully copied, and she had Henrietta’s manner of turning her head. She was losing heavily. Lord Reckford went to stand behind her. He leaned forward and placed a rouleau of guineas at her elbow. She turned to flash a smile at her latest gallant, looked Lord Reckford full in the face, and turned white. Quickly she popped the rouleau down the front of her gown and rose shakily to her feet.

“Not so fast, my dear,” said Lord Reckford, holding her arm in a grip like iron. “If you do not wish me to make a scene, you will smile like the good little actress you are and accompany me.”

Her eyes wide and terrified, she nodded dumbly. He pulled her over to a quiet space beside the window and lowered his voice. The people in the room were all intent on their game. Smoke hung in heavy wreaths over the green baize tables and nothing could be heard but the click of the dice and the clink of glasses.

“Who is paying you to do this?”

“La, sir! I don’t know what you mean.” She made a desperate effort at coquetry and then winced as his grip tightened. “You’re hurting me,” she whimpered.

“And I shall hurt you a good deal more unless you tell me what I want to know.” Really, it was unnerving how like Henrietta this girl looked. “On the other hand,” he went on smoothly, “if you do tell me the information I desire, you will be paid handsomely, a small fortune, I assure you.”

A gleam of avarice nickered through the wide blue eyes. “How can I believe you?”