How to Master Your Marquis (17 page)

“What, by taking a lover?”

“Not any lover. You.” She was hot and blushing, but she went on anyway. “Don’t tell me you don’t want it, too.”

“Of course I do. My God. But it’s not right, you know it’s not. Not for either of us.” He put his hat on his head, as if placing a barrier between them, and edged past her to the window.

She turned and stared at his back while he slid up the window sash. “I suppose you think I’m improper. This. All of this, the disguise and the clerking. My mustache. The bawdy house, the brandy and cigars. My . . . my unchaste state. Throwing myself at you, offering myself as a lover. You’re disgusted. Any gentleman would be.”

He whipped around. “Don’t talk rot. When I’m barely holding myself together right now.”

“You look composed enough.”

“Because that’s what I do, Stefanie. I look composed. Everybody’s favorite chap, that Hatherfield, such a charming lighthearted fellow. Bloody hell. Disgusted by you? I want to strip you to your skin and take you to bed and make love to you until neither of us can stand. You incandescent woman. I’m blinded, I’m entranced, I’m . . . damn it all, I’m falling in love with you, the one thing I can’t afford to do. For my sake, for your sake. Don’t ask me again.” He gripped the window frame behind him, with such force she could count the bones of his knuckles, if she could have torn her gaze away from his face.

“Then why did you kiss me like that?” she whispered.

“Because I’m only a man. Because I had to do it, just once. To kiss you once.” He turned to duck through the window. “I’ll see you at breakfast. Sleep well.”

Stay. Please stay. I need you.

You need me.

But the old regal pride returned most inconveniently to stiffen her neck, and the words remained unsaid while Hatherfield slipped from her room to the roof, and she closed the sash behind him.

F
or the second night in a row, the Marquess of Hatherfield returned late and discomposed to his rooms at the Mansions. This wretched affair was going to be the death of him.

On this occasion, however, misery had company.

“Why, hello, Father.” Hatherfield tossed his hat on the stand before Nelson could stagger across the room to perform the office. The overcoat, however, was forced to endure a proper divesting. “What an unexpected delight. Does Her Grace know you’re here? I daresay she won’t thank me for stealing you away at such an inconvenient hour, when every chap in his right mind should be home in bed with his wedded wife.”

The duke remained in his chair, next to the fire. “Don’t be impertinent.”

Hatherfield shot a look to Nelson, which might best be interpreted as
Do yourself a favor, mate, and light on for the far side of the world.

Nelson hurried away through the swinging door to the dining room.

“I daresay a fellow’s got a right to be impertinent, at such an hour.” He yawned extravagantly.

“I suppose you were in bed with your lover.”

“My lover? I beg your pardon?”

“That boy. That . . . that clerk of Sir John’s. I could see it, all through dinner, the way you were looking at him. The way he looked at you, damn it all.”

The duke spoke in a fury of disgust. Hatherfield narrowed his eyes for a closer look. His father’s face, ordinarily a flushed sort of object, now presented itself with something of the aspect of a freshly plucked tomato. His hands fidgeted in his lap, of which the legs were decidedly crossed. Even his hair had come unhinged from its pomade vise, swinging down in a metal gray sheet to meet his cheekbone.

“My lover,” Hatherfield repeated slowly.

Southam jumped to his feet and rushed to the window. “I should have known. The signs were all there. Not a single whisker on your face. No desire for a wife. No mistress, not a hint of a doxy of any kind, high or low. This baffling obsession with physical exercise. Your bloody damned
beauty
.” As he might say
your weeping abscess
. He whipped out a slim gold cigarette case from the inside pocket of his tailcoat.

“I didn’t know you smoked.”

“And I wondered why you wouldn’t have her. Wouldn’t even entertain the idea. Ha-ha.” He lit a cigarette with shaking hands. “The prettiest girl in London, and two hundred thousand pounds to go with her, and you wouldn’t hear of it. My God.”

Hatherfield leaned against the wall, just beneath a framed engraving of the start of the 1876 University Boat Race—“
ARE YOU READY?
”—and crossed his arms.

“Of all the problems in the world. Of all the ways for everything to come undone. This. Damn it all. I can’t even look at you. Sodom and bloody Gomorrah. My own son.” The duke sucked on his cigarette and stared out the window.

“Come, now,” said Hatherfield. “There’s no need for melodrama.” A feeling was beginning to invade his chest, a lighter-than-air feeling, and he hardly dared to say a word for fear of disturbing it. Or laughing aloud. Or doing anything that might hinder his enjoyment of this extraordinary moment.

“Every plan, every hope. Ruined. My God. A dynasty, the great dukedom of Southam, brought to its knees because you—
my
son, mine!—because
my own son
prefers pretty young men to a pair of proper English tits.” His fist slammed against the window frame, making the panes rattle against the rain.

“The shame of it,” Hatherfield drawled. “Whatever will you say to the chaps at the club?”

The drizzle rattled softly against the window. Southam went on smoking in jerky little movements. Hatherfield pulled his watch out of his pocket. Eleven o’bloody clock. In another minute, he would fall face-first into the carpet.

The duke said, in a low voice, “Just tell me this, Hatherfield. Do you not think you can marry her at all? Bed her at all? Not at all? Just once a month, for God’s sake, a cock’s a cock, it just needs . . . needs a . . .” Words failed him. He stubbed out his cigarette on the glass and buried his face in his hands.

Hatherfield plucked his father’s coat and hat and cane from the stand, walked over to the bent figure at the window, and held them out.

“No, Father,” he said. “I really don’t think I can.”

TWELVE

Old Bailey

July 1890

T
he prosecution had rested its case the day before, winding up with a bravura performance by an inspector from Scotland Yard, who had reenacted a veritable Shakespearean swordfight to demonstrate his contention that the killing had been an act of passion, committed by a man with great strength, so gruesome and extensive were the wounds upon the Duchess of Southam’s deceased body when she was found by her maid at a quarter to eleven, draped across a chaise longue in her boudoir.

After that staggering drama, Stefanie was the one to suggest that the defense begin its case with a counterdemonstration of Hatherfield’s gentler side, his capability for tenderness. Witnesses had been duly shuffled about. But now that Eleanor, Viscountess Chesterton, sat in the witness’s box, her black mourning dress draped about her slender figure, her lace-edged handkerchief dabbing at her eyes, Stefanie wondered whether she should have left well enough alone.

“The dearest brother in the world,” she was repeating to Mr. Duckworth, in cross-examination.

“Indeed, madam. As you described earlier, in full detail. Pony rides, picnics, et cetera. Presumably your mother shared in this . . . this shower of attention he bestowed on you and your sisters?”

“Well . . . that is . . .” Her hands played about with her handkerchief. “My mother wasn’t the sort of mother who . . . What I mean to say is . . .”

“No, she didn’t?”

Lady Eleanor looked down. “She did not.”

“I see. Did she and Lord Hatherfield engage at all in an affectionate manner, common to happy families?”

“Not often.” A whisper.

Mr. Duckworth nodded thoughtfully. “I see. Despite his affectionate behavior to you and your sisters. How curious. And did you notice anything unusual about his behavior, in the weeks leading up to your mother’s murder?”

“Why . . .” She cast a quick glance at her brother, where he stood in the dock, watching her with a kind expression. “No more than . . .” She stopped.

“Yes, your ladyship? There was something?”

“Nothing of consequence.”

“May I remind you, your ladyship, that you are under oath? That your own mother’s murder demands justice?”

“But he didn’t do it! He couldn’t do it, not James!” She made a wretched sob against her handkerchief.

“Your loyalty to your brother does you credit, of course,” Mr. Duckworth said greasily. “But he was acting a bit out of character, wasn’t he?”

“A bit, but that was only because . . .”

Mr. Duckworth tilted his head and smiled. “Yes, your ladyship?”

She gathered herself. “He was a little less attentive to us, that’s all. To his sisters. He was in the habit of seeing me often, after my marriage, and when my little daughter was born, why, he was the most devoted uncle. He would read her stories and let my dear, sweet baby fall asleep on his shoulder. He . . .”

“Yes, madam. But in the weeks before the murder?”

Lady Eleanor twisted her handkerchief and cast another nervous glance at Hatherfield. “He didn’t visit as much.”

“How often?”

“Not . . . Well, not at all. But he had many affairs to attend to. His houses, and . . .”

Mr. Duckworth cupped his ear. “Yes, my dear?”

“And I don’t know.” She said it emphatically.

Mr. Duckworth lowered his hand and captured it with the other, twiddling his thumbs together as he paced across the courtroom. “I see. Let us turn, if you will, to the events of the night of the murder. You were in attendance at the house of your parents, in Belgrave Square, were you not? At the ball?”

“I was.”

“And how would you describe the behavior of Lord Hatherfield that evening?”

“He was . . . He was as he always is. Dear and charming. He danced with me.”

“And then what did he do?”

She wet her lips. “He danced with another guest.”

“And who was this other guest?”

“Why, I don’t know. None of us knew her.”

“Was she lovely, this mysterious lady of Lord Hatherfield’s?”

Another glance at her brother. “She was wearing a mask, of course. But yes, I would say that she was very beautiful.”

“Ah. Now then. Let me summarize all this, for the better understanding of the court. You say that Lord Hatherfield had appeared distracted, during the weeks previous to the night in question. In contrast to his earlier habits of frequent visitation, of attentiveness to you and your daughter, his infant niece, Lord Hatherfield did not visit you at all. And then, on the night in question, his lordship, the accused, spent much of his time dancing with a beautiful young lady, with whom you and your family were not acquainted.”

Stefanie’s cheeks burned. She didn’t dare look at Hatherfield. She turned her face down to the paper before her and pretended to scribble earnestly at her notes.

“Not all his time. They disappeared . . .” Lady Eleanor stopped short, and a flush, not dissimilar to that on Stefanie’s cheeks, spread across her face.

“Oh! They disappeared together. I see.”

“But not . . . It was well before my mother retired . . .” She checked herself again, and her blush grew even rosier.

“There’s no need to continue, your ladyship. I believe we have established the sequence of the night’s events to the satisfaction of the court.”

Lady Eleanor settled herself more comfortably into her seat. “Of course.”

“Oh. One further question, your ladyship, if you don’t mind.”

“Yes, Mr. Duckworth?”

“The purpose of this ball.”

“The purpose?” This time, Lady Eleanor stared directly at Mr. Duckworth, avoiding the sight of her brother with studied determination. “Why, to amuse ourselves, of course. That is what balls are for, Mr. Duckworth.”

“Yes, yes. But balls are generally held in honor of some person, some event, are they not, your ladyship? A birthday, a young lady’s coming of age.” He smiled faintly. “An engagement.”

“Yes, they often are.”

“And this ball. Did your parents have some particular object in mind, to your knowledge?”

Lady Eleanor drew in a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.

“Yes, your ladyship? What was the object of this particular ball, on this particular night? Some surprise announcement, was it not?”

She looked down in her lap.

“Your oath, your ladyship,” Mr. Duckworth said gently.

Lady Eleanor raised her head and looked helplessly at her brother. “They were going to announce his engagement. My brother’s engagement to Lady Charlotte Harlowe. They said he had agreed to it at last.”

THIRTEEN