Authors: Strange Bedfellows
“Take a
what?”
Carefully, Lord March set down his glass. “What in the blazes are you talking about?”
“Oh sir, have you forgot poor Dickon? Not that I should wonder at it, because if anyone was ever after forgetting anything, it’d be that he left someone floating facedown in the Thames! Not that I’m saying you
shouldn’t
have; it ain’t my place.” Jane presented an excellent enactment of terror. Had not a life of crime held out more appeal—and potential profit!—she might have done very well upon the stage.
“Good God!” Lord March’s voice was faint. “Are you saying I
killed
a man?”
“Not if you don’t want me to!” Jane responded promptly. “Do be a good fellow and hand over the sparklers, sir, so that I can give them back to the lads. Then you’ll hear no more of us, I swear it—no, or of poor Dickon either! Mayhap you don’t know what happens to thieves, but I do, and you wouldn’t like it above half!”
Nor did Lord March especially like his present fix. All the same, he was not disposed to meekly hand over the jewels. “Yes, well, I can’t!” he responded, with a flash of the imaginative reasoning that habitually inspired him in the wake of strong drink. “They aren’t in the house!”
Jane’s eyes narrowed. “That won’t fadge. I saw her ladyship wearing some of them last night.”
“Some
of them, Jane!” Having finally gained control of the situation. Lord March propped an elbow against his gaily painted wainscoting and prepared to enjoy himself. “Surely you don’t think me so very great a flat as to have them in my house.”
Jane had thought precisely that. No wonder her diligent searching had been to no avail! “Where then?” she inquired.
Lord March elevated a cautionary forefinger. “In a very secret place!” he replied. “So secret that I cannot tell even
you
about it, Jane! I will give you back the jewels, but first I must retrieve them. You must tell me where the transfer will take place.”
Did his lordship think her a pigeon for the plucking? Little did he know the shoe was on the other foot. “I’ll think on it!” Jane promised, and abruptly departed the solar.
Lord March was also thinking, so very hard that for several moments after Jane’s departure he stared broodingly upon the wainscoting. Then he became aware that the wainscoting was quivering in a highly suspect manner. Hastily, he removed his elbow and stepped back.
First to step through the secret opening was Lady Amabel, liberally festooned with cobwebs and clutching the ancient Toledo walking sword. Behind her came Lady March, who no sooner emerged than she flung herself into her husband’s arms. “We heard all!” she cried. “Oh, Marriot!”
“Nell, do hush!” Mab’s impatience resulted from the interval she had just endured, with Nell whispering laments in her unreceptive ear. “Do you not realize that the fox is on the run? Finally we are making progress!”
Lady March had scant interest in either foxes or progress. She clutched her husband so tightly that he found it difficult to draw breath. “Progress, indeed! Didn’t you hear what that odious female said about what happens to thieves?”
“I heard a great deal more than
you
did!” Mab retorted, brandishing her sword. “You spent most of the time muttering in my ear—and very difficult that makes it to concentrate, I must say! Oh Nell, we must not quarrel! Now is the time to put our heads together, so that
we will be ready for Jane’s next move. She will suggest a meeting place, depend on it! We must decide what we will do then. Go through with it, I think, and at least pretend to turn over the jewels, and then—”
“And then allow her to dispose of Marriot!” So indignant was Nell made by this suggestion that she released her husband, who inhaled a deep breath. “One might think it was
you
who had shot the cat, Mab!”
This suggestion found favor with its recipient, who helped herself to wine. “Come down off your high ropes, Nell. Our Jane is too shrewd to dispose of Marriot until after she has made certain he returned all the gems, which he will not. So long as Marriot alone knows the whereabouts of the jewels, he is safe. Now we need only determine the story we mean to tell, because there is bound to be a certain amount of notoriety involved with the thieves being brought to justice.”
Should she speak? Nell thought she must. “More notoriety than you might think, Mab.” Solicitously, Nell clasped her friend’s hands, regardless of walking sword and wineglass. “Prepare yourself, my dear. I am very much afraid that Parrington is involved in this business.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Business? Involved in what business? What the deuce
are you talking about, Mab?” Lord Parrington looked uneasily about him. “And why the deuce are we
here,
and at this hour of night?”
“Pray lower your voice,” Lady Amabel replied. “I shall explain everything. As for why we’re here, it is because Henrietta decided she must attend the theater with us, which has made Marriot late. Of all nights for her to grow suspicious! But Nell did not wish Marriot to come alone, so it has all worked out for the best.”
This latter optimistic assertion Fergus took leave to doubt. As for Henrietta’s suspicions, he could not blame her; anyone must be made very curious by the sight of four well-dressed people strolling about an unfashionable part of the city, one of them clutching an antique walking sword, in the midst of a dense fog. Fergus was only surprised that Henrietta had elected to remain in the carriage and await their return. Fergus’s own instincts for duplicity had been alerted by the extremely lame explanation of their untimely perambulations, to wit that Lord March had a personal errand to execute. Given his lordship’s penchant for disappearing, it was no wonder Lady March didn’t care to have him undertake his errand without escort.
Other instincts, however, had precedence, and Mab looked very lovely, a velvet evening cloak concealing her gown of sprigged muslin, and a handkerchief cap of muslin and lace ornamented with a wreath of roses upon her dark hair. “I wish you would explain,” he said, cautiously eyeing her walking sword. “What the devil are you doing with that thing?”
“Protecting you, dear Fergus!” Mab grinned and flourished the sword. “Don’t pucker up; I wasn’t calling you a dull stick! No, and I didn’t mean it even when I
did
call you one, but you had made me angry by hinting you didn’t wish to marry me. But we will talk about that another time. Right now, I must ask you— Fergus, is it true that you know about the jewels?”
“The what?” This odd question recalled the baron’s straying attention from their surroundings and the thick fog. No lack of appreciation of his companion had occasioned Fergus’s lapse, but the neighborhood through which they walked, an area of mean alleys and narrow courts—precisely the sort of neighborhood in which one might be set upon by footpads.
“The jewels!” Mab repeated, impatiently. “Do pay attention, Fergus! Did you or did you not tell Nell that you not only knew the wretched things were stolen, but that you were present at the time?”
“Stolen?” Fergus wondered if his hearing might have been affected by the dense mist. “Did you say
stolen,
Mab?”
“I did.” The baron looked positively toasty, thought Mab, in his ankle-length many-caped Garrick overcoat. With the intention of hinting he should share that warmth, she moved closer. Due to the resultant proximity of the Toledo walking sword, Lord Parrington backed away.
“Oh!” Mab’s pretty face was sad. “You
don’t
want to marry me! Or can it be you think I meant it when I said I didn’t wish to marry
you?”
Lord Parrington recalled Lady March’s comments on the topic of philandering spouses. “We’ll talk about
that
another time also!” he remarked. “Just now I am much more interested in these jewels.”
Fergus was more interested in jewels than in her? Briefly, Mab’s heart sank. However, she was of a resilient nature, and smack in the middle of an adventure, and tomorrow was time enough to decide whether or not she had a broken heart. “Are you trying to tell me that you don’t know about them? Then why did you tell Nell you
did?”
she asked.
“I didn’t tell her so!” Lord Parrington wondered if the lady whose forbearance he had so admired was in fact quite mad. “I said only that I understood why March had given her them, poor soul!”
“But if you understood that Nell was wearing the jewels to try and flush out the thieves,” argued Mab, “you must have known the jewels were stolen in the first place!” She observed his consternation. “I do not know what to make of this, Fergus!”
Neither did the baron. “Was that why you sent word that I should make up a member of this party? Because you thought I knew something about stolen gems?”
Mab wrinkled her pretty nose. “What a muddle!” she sighed. “I thought that if you were involved in this business somehow, I wanted you where I could keep an eye on you—and I will tell you frankly, Fergus, that I’m not certain you are not!”
Lord Parrington, in that moment, was not certain himself, a circumstance that led him to wonder if his own memory had lapsed. For assurance that it had not, he applied to Lady March. Rather, he tried to do so. Several paces ahead of Fergus and Lady Amabel, Eleanor was currently engaged in a heated discussion with her spouse. “I do not believe it!” she was heard to cry. “I
cannot
believe it! You could not have done away with someone, Marriot!”
“Done away with?” echoed Lord Parrington, aghast.
There was nothing for it, then, but that explanations be put forth. The party paused beneath a feeble street-lamp. “Marriot did
not
leave someone floating facedown in the Thames!” insisted Nell, adopting a belligerent stance. “And if he did, I’m sure he had an excellent reason for it. Perhaps you may acquaint us with that reason, Parrington, since you know so much about this business—perhaps you were present then as well!”
This was the female whose great good sense he had admired? “As well as
when?”
Fergus cautiously inquired.
“As well as—oof!” Recalled by Mab’s sharp elbow to her surroundings, Nell glanced nervously over her shoulder. “You know what I mean! You said yourself that you were there!”
Lord Parrington rubbed his brow. “I said I was
where?
We seem to be laboring under a certain confusion of ideas. The only jewels I know anything about are yours, Lady March.” He awarded Marriot an uncomplimentary glance. “Given you as conscience gifts.”
“Conscience—oho!” Mab clapped her gloved hands. “I believe I begin to understand!”
“Then pray share your enlightenment with the rest of us,” begged Lord March, who did not like to be regarded as if he were the fiend incarnate. “For your information, Parrington, I do not need to give my wife conscience gifts, not because I lack a conscience, but because I have done nothing wrong!” Recalling Jane’s assertions to the contrary, he frowned. “I think!”
“Oh, Marriot!” gasped Eleanor, clutching his arm. “I
know
you have not!” This single-minded devotion earned her a fond smile. “Darling Nell!” murmured his lordship.
“‘Darling’?” echoed Lord Parrington, staring puzzled upon this touching tableau. Lady March had not the least look of a person set on keeping up appearances, nor Lord March of a philanderer. Then he glanced at Mab. “I don’t understand any of this!” Fergus confessed. “I thought, from various things that Lady March said, that you and Lord March—Well!”
“Marriot and
me?”
Mab giggled at the notion. “You are thinking that you saw Marriot hug me, but I have known him all my life! Marriot has frequently hugged me—yes, and spanked me on occasion, as I recall! Don’t look so horrified; I’m certain I deserved it. But you mustn’t go on thinking I’ve been compromised, by either Marriot or yourself.” This was hardly a setting conducive to getting up a flirtation, but she did have Fergus’s undivided attention. Mab fluttered her long eyelashes. “You are not obliged to marry me, Fergus. However, if you still
wish
to...” The baron ignored this unsubtle hint, and Mab’s voice trailed off. She then discovered that they had attracted a small audience.
This neighborhood being neither haunt nor habitat of the Upper Ten Thousand, that audience was neither of the chosen nor the best. In point of fact, it was raucous and a little offensive. With a pointed flourish of her walking sword, Mab suggested they continue on their way.
“I think I understand how our misunderstanding came about!” said Nell over her shoulder to Fergus. “We must have been talking at cross purposes. When I was referring to the jewels, you thought I spoke of something else.” She frowned. “That has me in a puzzle! What could you think I was talking about?”
“Er!” responded the baron, too much of a gentleman—and also too embarrassed—to make reference to a supposedly errant spouse. “Shouldn’t we be getting back to the carriage? Your cousin will think we have got lost.”
“Not until Marriot has kept his rendezvous!” explained Mab, while Lord March voiced a pious wish that his cousin might herself get lost. “He is pretending to give back the jewels, you see! He isn’t going to, not really; but we’ve decided this is the only way to discover how he came by them in the first place.”
“In the first place,” echoed Fergus, his bewilderment abated not one whit. As if to mitigate that confusion, Lord March genially gestured toward the shabby valise that was largely obscured by his handsome fur-lined redingote. “The jewels
are
stolen, then?”
“Oh, yes!” said Mab, paying close attention to her skirts. The narrow street which they traversed was neither sweet-smelling nor in good repair. “It only remains to determine by whom!”
“It wasn’t Marriot!” inserted Lady March in a voice that was very grim. “Marriot never stole anything in all his life, no matter what anyone else may say!”
Fergus had no desire to argue with Lady March. “But if March didn’t steal the things—and I’m not saying he did!—then who was responsible for the thefts?” he whispered to Mab. His query earned him an approving glance.
“That,”
said Mab, “is what we are about to find out! Marriot, are we not almost there? Should we not wait while you proceed without us, lest Jane become alarmed? Do not go into the fidgets, Nell; ‘twill all be over soon enough. Anyway, you know Marriot is armed!”