‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Lady Thornfalcon robustly. ‘What matters is that you will be very happy together, and I am excessively glad.’
‘And so am I!’ said Helena. ‘I like her enormously, and have from the very beginning. I mean to take credit for bringing you together, I must tell you!’
There was a flurry of embraces and kisses, and Judith and Helena were both crying a little. Marcus would not have sworn that there was not a tear or two in his own eyes as he left them. No doubt the next day would bring its difficulties, but he would face them. He had Amelia, and could face anything – even the difficult visit to Bow Street he must now make.
40
Amelia had not expected that her grandmother would still be up when she returned home, and indeed had hoped that she would not be, but when she slipped into her own bedchamber at last, having entered the house with the help of her disturbingly devious abigail, she found the Dowager Marchioness’s own maid, Marchand, waiting for her. The Frenchwoman was sitting silently in a chair, hands folded in her lap, and the sight was so eerie and so unexpected that she gasped and started, almost dropping her candle.
‘Madame La Marquise is awake, and awaiting you impatiently in her chamber,’ Marchand said composedly, as if such nocturnal conversations were entirely commonplace. ‘I beg of you, milady, remember her great age and do not tire her more than is absolutely necessary.’
‘I’d rather not tire her at all!’ Amelia said frankly. ‘I’d rather go to bed directly. But if she is waiting for me, I suppose I must come.’
A short while later, she was curled up at her ancestor’s side, holding her small, wrinkled hand. Delphine was fully alert, her wise old eyes glittering in the candlelight. She didn’t appear to be tired in the least, but full of life and sparkling irresistible curiosity, and she listened intently and without the least appearance of shock when her granddaughter described Lavinia’s arrest, and the dreadful crime of which she had been accused Possibly she had known so many women who murdered their husbands in her long life that she took it as a mere commonplace.
‘I had not the least idea you knew anything at all about my ridiculous situation,’ Amelia said resignedly at last. ‘But I should not be surprised. I suppose Sophie told you?’
‘Once she had told Rafe, she thought she might as well. And she was a little worried about you when she was obliged to go away at such a delicate moment, and thought quite rightly that a person of sense should have an eye on what you were about. Marchand has been watching you, saw you leave the house with such a parade of secrecy, and found that preposterous note, which she instantly brought to me. I, of course, seized the opportunity to write to your young man to make sure he was present at your sinister rendezvous. If you and he between you could not make good use of such a moment, bah! I would wash my hands of you. But I see from your whole manner that you did. Young Sophie will be forced to agree that she could not have managed matters better herself. I trust that all is now resolved between you, so that your engagement has become genuine at last?’
Amelia leaned over and kissed her grandmother’s soft cheek. ‘Yes! He said you had told him that I loved him, and insisted I admit if it was true. But I think – it’s all a little confused in my mind now – that I made him tell me first. And then he picked me up and kissed me in front of everyone and said we should be married next week. I believe many of them cheered, though I wasn’t really paying attention.’
‘Good!’ Delphine said with profound satisfaction. ‘I would have cheered too, if I had been there. I wish I could have been, you understand. That you have both come to your senses is all that really matters. The rest is mere detail.’
‘The fact that Lavinia Thornfalcon murdered Marcus’s brother is not a mere detail! It will be terrible for the family.’
The old lady shrugged and said ruthlessly, ‘They will survive it. One does, I have found. It is surprising, what one can survive.’
‘I know you have earned the right to say that, Grand-mère, in bitter experience, but there’s no denying the fact that there will be a great scandal that will be most unpleasant for Marcus’s family, and for hers.’
Delphine shrugged. ‘As for hers, bah! But you don’t care about scandal, and nor does Rafe. There is something to be said for being a Wyverne, after all. We will stand proudly by the Thornfalcons as another family might not. There will be no nonsense from us about blaming them for unknowingly having had a killer in their midst, which after all is an unlucky thing that might happen to anyone, nor about breaking off your engagement because of it.’
‘Of course not!’ Amelia said hotly. ‘I would marry him in my shift, and woe betide anyone who tries to stop me!’
The Dowager smiled and said, ‘I am almost certain that that won’t be necessary,ma petite.Perhaps now the two families are equal in terms of reputation – it is undeniable that at least your father never murdered anyone, or at least not that we know of. I do not wish to shadow your joy when it is shadowed enough already by circumstances, but I hope you do not end up having to look after that child. I have heard a great deal about her, none of it good. She clearly cannot be left with her mother, whatever happens or does not happen to that woman in the way of justice.’
‘Marcus was most worried about her. We cannot turn her away, and her grandparents brought Lavinia up to be what she is, so I am not sure they are fit guardians for Priscilla. We will have to discuss it.’
‘First fix the date of your wedding,’ Delphine advised. ‘There may not be time to go down to Wyverne Hall for it, if it is really to be next week. That will be most convenient for me, of course. I hope your Aunt Keswick will approve of your haste – is it not what she wanted all along?’
‘Oh God, Grand-mère, I had forgotten Aunt Keswick. She won’t approve at all of Marcus having a murderer in his family! Can you imagine her reaction? I am certain she will take it as a personal affront.’
‘Let her!’ said the old lady with a martial glint in her eye. ‘I am quite ready to put her firmly in her place, child, I assure you!’
41
When he arrived at Bow Street around midnight, the first person Marcus saw in the panelled vestibule was Sir Lionel Hall, and it was plain at a glance that he was a broken, bewildered man. Marcus, who had always disliked the pompous old fool, took him by the hand and said, ‘I’m so sorry, sir. I learned what had happened a short while ago, and came here as soon as I had told my mother. Is there anything I can do to help?’
The baronet, who seemed to have aged ten years in a couple of hours, said, ‘It’s very good of you, Thornfalcon. Your brother… I have never been so shocked in my life. This bumptious Runner fellow says he has all sorts of evidence, which he has laid before the magistrates, and they authorised him to arrest my poor daughter. Arrest her, like a common criminal, and bring her here!’
‘Will they release her on your recognisance, do you think?’
‘My lawyer fellow believes they will. A lady – a widow of a peer, and a mother of a young child, they surely cannot drag her off to some filthy gaol populated by the scum of the earth. He’s in there arranging matters now, and then I will be able to take her home where she belongs. My poor wife, and the innocent child – we must keep it from the dear little thing at all costs. But how? That’s what I ask myself, Thornfalcon: how? It will be all anyone can talk of! It will be spread across the newspapers, every gutter rag, and we shall be disgraced!’
Marcus could not fail to notice that Sir Lionel had made no great protestations of his daughter’s innocence; he seemed more horrified that someone of Lavinia’s rank should be arrested at all, rather than anxious to stress the fact that she couldn’t possibly have done any of the things she’d been accused of. Perhaps it was just shock and it was wrong to refine too much upon it… The man could hardly know what he was saying.
Sir Lionel’s eyes brightened suddenly and he said, reaching out and clutching Marcus’s arm in a fevered grip, ‘If you sit down with them and reason with them, it may help! You must tell them directly that you are positive your brother cannot have been murdered in this preposterous fashion they speak of, or if he was, they should look first at his servants and other such low persons rather than Lavinia! His own wife! Go in there, man, and tell them!’
‘I have no knowledge of what happened, sir, and they would doubtless tell me so directly,’ Marcus said a little stiffly, greatly disliking this assumption, however desperate the man was. ‘I was not even in the country at the time. I cannot believe they will pay any mind to a bare assertion of disbelief from me, if they do feel they have proof. And as you say, they must have evidence of some kind, or the magistrates would not have authorised Pennyfeather to arrest her. I am very sorry for it, but I cannot see that my intervention could do any good at all. I certainly shall not be slandering my own staff without a shred of evidence.’
