There were the morning newspapers lying on the breakfast table, like so many unexploded bombs, but he resolutely refused to look at them. He had never had occasion before to wonder exactly when the day’s early editions were printed, and whether they were able to include news that had happened late the night before, and he did not choose to enlighten himself now. If there was nothing there, as he thought there would not be, it would only be a temporary reprieve. The storm of scandal would break soon enough.
The natural and direct way from Half-Moon Street to Brook Street would have taken Marcus through the pleasant environs of Berkeley Square, but he felt an odd reluctance to pass Sir Lionel’s mansion today, and so set out on a circuitous route that led him down to Piccadilly, in the wrong direction, and then eastward along it and up New Bond Street. He was fortunate enough not to meet anyone he knew on his way, and arrived at the Wyverne home unaware of whether his brother’s murder and his sister-in-law’s very public arrest for it were yet the subject of common gossip.
He was shown into Lady Wyverne’s jewel-bright sitting room and found it occupied by his beloved’s aged grandmother, whom he wished at Jericho though she had every right to be there; Amelia, smiling at him in a way that made his heart leap; and a most unwelcome visitor: the terrifying Lady Keswick.
‘I hope, Lord Thornfalcon,’ she said, barely giving him a chance to greet the old lady and his betrothed, ‘that you have come to discuss very speedy arrangements for your marriage. My niece has implied that this is so, in fact.’
‘You’re right as ever, Lady Keswick,’ he responded promptly. ‘The blame for the delay is mine, but I am determined to set matters right, and we are to be married as soon as it may be arranged.’
Lady Keswick was no doubt about to tell him that it was about time, and read him a lecture on his previous unsatisfactory behaviour, when Mr Gastrell burst into the room unannounced, dishevelled and panting. He was unable to speak for a little while, and they all stared at him with varying degrees of surprise, concern and, on Lady Keswick’s part, strong disapprobation. ‘Forgive me!’ he managed when he had recovered a little of his breath. ‘Dashed bad ton, crashing in on you like this. Ma’am, Lady Amelia, Lady K, I do apologise, and your butler is most put out and will take a week to recover, but I thought you should know directly. Most extraordinary thing. They’ve gone – vanished from Berkeley Square! The whole lot of them!’
Lady Keswick swelled up like a pigeon, about to put this unmannerly intruder firmly in his place, but Delphine somehow stilled her with a sharp, imperious gesture very reminiscent of old Versailles. ‘Sir Lionel and his family?’ she asked sharply. ‘You are saying they have fled? How do you know?’
‘Yes,’ he panted. ‘That’s it exactly, ma’am. In the middle of the night, I suppose. Saw for myself what had happened. The whole house is in an uproar – none of the servants had the least idea what was afoot, apart from the one or two they took with them. Went to call to see if I could help in their trouble – couldn’t seem to stop myself from going along, despite everything I learned last night, for which I hope you’ll pardon me, Thorn, old man. Found the butler drunk and unconscious on the front step and the housekeeper and all the maids having hysterics in the drawing room, while knocking back Lady Hall’s ratafia by the half-pint and lamenting their back wages, which I’ll go bail they’ll never see now. Hideous scenes, I assure you. Neighbours can’t be ignorant of something dashed fishy going on. Bound to leak out, probably already has.’
‘Young man,’ said Lady Keswick in a dangerous tone, ‘I perceive that there are things you know – that all of you know – that you have not thought fit to share with me. I must insist that someone does so immediately, or I shall go off into strong hysterics myself.’
This was hardly Jeremy Gastrell’s tale to tell, nor should he be forced to relate it and do violence to his tender feelings. Marcus explained, in as few words as possible, that Lavinia had been arrested in public late last night for the murder of her husband – yes, his own brother – blackmail of someone whom he couldn’t name because he didn’t know, and attempted murder – yes, of Amelia. He thought it best not to mention Amelia’s presence at the masquerade, and Rosanna Wyverne’s involvement was also tactfully omitted. Though his love added nothing to his tale, she sent him a very speaking look of gratitude.
His terse recital of the facts left Lady Keswick speechless, opening and shutting her mouth like a stranded fish. It couldn’t last, but while it did, Jeremy prepared to take his leave, drawing Lord Thornfalcon aside for a moment’s private speech. ‘Thought you should know first,’ he said. ‘Went to your house from Berkeley Square; they told me you were here. Ran all the way like a bedlamite, devil of a thing, sweating like a horse. Not sure if they’ve had time to get overseas – probably not by normal means, not with the dashed war on, unless they simply bribed their way onto the next ship going who-knows-where out of the Port of London with the morning tide. In which case, they’re long gone and there’ll be no stopping them, not by the Runners nor anybody else. But wherever they are, they won’t be travelling under their own names. Matter for Bow Street, in any case, and rather them than me. Dashed quick work, didn’t know the old man had it in him.’
‘They had a Runner watching them,’ Marcus said suddenly. ‘Maybe more than one, but one for sure. I saw him leave Bow Street with them last night. Just a precaution, I suppose, but not enough of one, it seems.’
‘Well, he’s not there now. Bribed, or knocked over the head, or…?’
‘Let’s hope they bribed him a vast amount. I hate to think of the alternative. My God, whoever would have suspected such a sudden flight? I wonder now if Sir Lionel was as shaken as I thought he was. Maybe everyone underestimated the old fellow.’
‘It’s possible. He was certainly keeping secrets of his own. From what the housekeeper said in her lament, they’ve not been paying bills or wages for a good long while. Everything mortgaged to the hilt, I shouldn’t wonder. So perhaps this flight was planned, and it was just brought forward when the Runners came calling.’
‘You’re taking it all quite well,’ Marcus said, eyeing his friend consideringly. ‘I was worried about you when I left you yesterday.’
Mr Gastrell shrugged with a fair show of unconcern, and said with nonchalant understatement that no doubt cost him some effort, ‘It was a blow. Can’t deny it. But perhaps I’m not the marrying kind. Can’t trust my own judgement – thought she was an angel for ten years or more.’
‘She looks like one, but she isn’t,’ Marcus said. ‘I think that was a big part of the problem. No one alive is as perfect as she set herself up to be. And perhaps we all share the blame for that.’
As Jeremy left, Amelia slipped her hand into Marcus’s arm and said, ‘Let’s leave Aunt Keswick with my grandmother. She spoke with great enthusiasm of giving my aunt a set-down last night. I don’t think you need to hear any more of Aunt’s recriminations over something that scarcely concerns her at all, andwedeserve some time alone, it seems to me.’
‘It seems so to me too, my love!’
43
Amelia shut the door of the small sitting room behind her, turned the key in the lock and looked expectantly at Marcus, who had not moved very far into the room away from her. He must, she thought, be deeply shaken by this fresh revelation and its implications, but if so, he didn’t show it. He seemed surprisingly cheerful, as though he had finally resolved to put the past behind him and focus on the future.
‘Have I ever asked you to marry me properly, my love?’ he said, smiling. ‘Did I ask you last night, in front of all those people?’
‘I can’t remember,’ she replied, though of course she did, and thought he did too. ‘In any case, if you did, there is no harm in doing so again. I shall tell you when I become tired of it, if I ever do. I thought you were about to say something of the kind in my aunt’s presence, which I must tell you, Marcus, is not at all what I should wish for. I can’t imagine anyone would. But now we are alone.’
‘I had observed,’ he said, taking her up in his arms and holding her tightly against his heart. ‘Youhave asked me to marry you, though, let us not forget. On the occasion of our first meeting, indeed, which is a shocking thing.’
‘But that wasn’t real.’
‘This is, though, my love.’ To demonstrate this, he claimed her lips with a hungry urgency that she matched, and they were silent for a long moment, locked together, until at last he said unsteadily against her cheek, ‘Nothing in my life has ever been as real as this. As you in my arms, and your lips on mine. I feel we owe each other a debt of kisses that we must instantly set about repaying.’
She chuckled, and snuggled even closer in his arms. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you kissed me first, did you not? And then you offered to kiss me again, in Sir Humphrey’s garden – I do recall that I almost begged you to – but you did not do it. Do not think that I have forgotten. Now you owe me what you promised, and I mean to claim it, with interest.’
She remembered holding him in the scented night, his head between her breasts, his lips on her skin, his hands hard on her body, and she shivered. ‘We have kissed each other since,’ she teased him.
