“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 thehorse?”
“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.”
Sixteen
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 tobreakin.”
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.
