Authors: Strange Bedfellows
“‘Dubber-mum’d’?” Lady March allowed herself one last sniffle. “What is
that?”
“Be quiet.” Lord March dropped a caress upon the tip of his wife’s nose. “That is, ‘dubber-mum’d’ means
to keep a still tongue in one’s head.” He frowned. “I wonder how I came by that queer phrase. There are more: to snack the bit means to share the money; hub and grub are food and drink—I fear, my darling, that the company I have been keeping is not quite the thing!”
“You must try even harder to remember.” As if to aid her husband in this enterprise, Lady March rubbed her nose against his manly cheek. “That is the only way we may make sense of this. No matter how little you may think of yourself, I know you have done nothing so dreadfully bad. Oh,
why
must you remain hidden away like—like some common thief?”
All that Lord March could think about while holding his adored wife so close in his arms had little to do with his mysterious forgotten past. Abruptly, he abandoned the bed and perched instead upon the chest. “I do not care to see my family plunged into some vile scandal,” he retorted. “Don’t argue with me, Nell! My mind is quite made up on this point. My return must not be made public until some reasonable explanation of my absence has been devised.”
Though Lady March was not all disposed to keep her distance, she temporarily acquiesced to her husband’s obvious intention of keeping her at arm’s length. Clearly, the quickest resolution to this absurd dilemma was to solve the perplexing problem of the stolen gems. “But no one even knows you have them!” Eleanor pointed out.
This happy notion had also occurred to Marriot, only to be regretfully dismissed. “We don’t know that. And much as I would like to tuck the blasted things away somewhere and forget their existence, I cannot do so. For my transgressions—whatever they may be!—I would not have
you
stand the consequence.” His mobile face was wry. “Poor Nell! You will wish you weren’t so eager to have me come home.”
“Bosh!” In lieu of a husbandly embrace, Nell burrowed closer into the fur cloak, a meager substitute. “It would take more than a little inconvenience to make me suffer a revulsion of feeling, Marriot. If only Cousin Henrietta were not here, so that we wouldn’t have to be put to these abominable expedients and shifts! I dare not send her away
now,
lest her suspicions are aroused— you know how she is! Let her get a notion that something is in the wind and she will be forever breathing down my neck.”
Lord March’s green eyes rested somewhat wistfully upon his wife’s neck, which was encircled by the ruff of her high-waisted white cambric gown. Lady March caught his glance. Equally wistful, she continued, “I am not good at dissembling, but I shall try very hard! Perhaps Henrietta may attribute any oddity to the anguish I suffer as result of our separation—oh, Marriot! Truly I am full of admiration for your nobility of character, and I think it is very good of you to try and spare my feelings, even though it makes me melancholy, and I would much rather you would not. I truly do not care if you stole those wretched jewels!”
So moved was Lord March by this highly biased outburst that he arose from the chest to pace in very great affliction up and down the room. “A pretty companion that would make me!” he said bitterly. “I cannot think a criminal would be the proper husband for you, Nell.”
“A criminal? Pooh!” Not only did the fur cloak lack the ability to comfort, it had grown stifling hot. “You refine too much upon it.”
“No, I do not.” With amusement, Lord March watched his wife struggle to be free of the cloak. After a moment, he crossed to her and plucked it away. How very desirable she looked curled up on his bed, watching him through those clear, cool amber eyes. “I have given every appearance of being a very loose fish. Yes, I know you cannot enter into my feelings upon that head, but I beg you will oblige me in it all the same—tiresome creature though you may think me.”
“I do not think you are tiresome! No, nor a loose fish!” Anxious that her husband be rid of these apprehensions, Lady March flung herself upon his chest, grasped his arms, and gazed anxiously up into his face. “You have overlooked the most pertinent point of all. I
love
you, Marriot.”
Green eyes met amber, and held. “And I,” Lord March said huskily, “love you, Nell!”
No little time later, Lord and Lady March were snuggled very comfortably beneath the fur cloak upon the narrow little bed. “I should be very angry with you,” remarked his lordship to his wife. “I
had
meant to deal with you from a discreet distance—don’t poker up on me, love. I like it excessively that you have persuaded me I should not. Unfortunately, this does not alter the situation, about which we have not yet decided what to do.”
“What
can
we do?” Now that racing pulses no longer plagued her, Lady March could approach the problem with a much clearer mind. To further speed her thought processes, she leaned across her husband’s chest, propped her elbows on either side of him, and gazed dreamily down into his face. “First, I suppose, we must find out if a large amount of jewelry has been stolen recently. I dare not ask Cousin Henrietta lest she grow suspicious. I think Mab and I must develop a passion for the newssheets.”
“I dislike to involve you in this business.” Lord March indulged his impulse to bury his hands in his wife’s thick hair. “I will undertake my own inquiries.”
“No!” Pleasant as it was to be caressed, Lady March abruptly drew back. “You must not!”
In lieu of her hair, Marriot stroked Eleanor’s bare shoulder. “Whyever not? I will be very careful and leave by the old tunnel after the household is asleep.”
How best to explain this conviction that disaster would befall them were Marriot to step foot outside Marcham Towers? Frantically, Nell thought. “If you didn’t steal the jewels, then how came you to have them? Even now someone may be looking for you—if not the jewels’ owners, then the thieves responsible for their disappearance. I’ll warrant you have not thought of that!” Her eyes filled with tears. “Pray oblige me in this, Marriot! Let Mab and I see what we may discover. To lose you again, so soon after having you restored to me, would be more than flesh and blood can tolerate!”
Appalled that he had inadvertently distressed his wife, Lord March rained kisses on her shoulder, neck and cheek. “Don’t go into high fidgets!” he soothed, “We will try it your way. You and Mab find out what you can. Meantime I will strive my utmost to avoid Cousin Henrietta. Marcham Towers is large enough to safely hide several fugitives, especially one who knows its nooks and crannies like the palm of his own hand.” If not better, he silently amended, having already discovered that appendage to be inexplicably callused.
Eleanor, too, had noted those new calluses, about which she breathed not a word. So relieved was Nell to have Marriot restored that she cared not a fig if he had
murdered
someone. In point of fact, Nell had several times experienced an urge to commit murder herself.
Nell set aside all thought of Cousin Henrietta, refusing to further tarnish this golden hour. “I brought you some things to make you more comfortable,” she said.
Marriot’s smile was frankly appreciative. “So you did.”
Nell blushed and giggled, “Rogue! I meant that I had brought another candle, and some fruit, and some books so that you may not be bored. Very highly, I recommend
The History of Serpents—
did you know dragons get fat on eggs? I assure you it is true. The adult dragon swallows eggs whole, then rolls about ‘til the shells are crushed inside him. And in case you do not care for dragons, I have brought you Pliny’s
Natural History,
and Foxe’s
Book of Martyrs,
and several more.”
Now it was Lord March who propped himself up on an elbow. With lazy amusement he watched his wife struggle to fasten herself into her high-waisted dress— rumpled now, and damp from the water basin, and none improved by a close acquaintance with cobwebs and dust. “When will you return?” he inquired.
“As soon as I may. Or perhaps I will send Mab.” Lady March smoothed ineffectively at her tumbled locks. “What a sight I must look. It is not kind in you to laugh at me, you wretch!” Her own smile faded. “Marriot, there is something we must consider. I do not think you stole the jewels, of course—but if we cannot prove it, then what?”
No trace of amusement remained on Lord March’s features as he reached over the side of the bed and plucked his shirt from off the floor. “There is another possibility, though you will not care to consider it. Perhaps I
am
guilty of theft—in which case I shall take my punishment like a man. My darling, do not look so! I doubt myself that will turn out to be the case.”
“No, no, I do not think it!” Nell pressed cold fingers to her cheeks. “I have just remembered the most appalling thing. Marriot, when days passed and you did not come home—I would not do it
now,
but then I had no notion—oh, blast! I called in Bow Street!”
CHAPTER FIVE
Fergus Ridpath, Baron Parrington, gazed without noticeable enthusiasm upon Marcham Towers. For the record, let it be stated that few people, especially of the feminine persuasion, could gaze with a similar lack of enthusiasm upon Lord Parrington. At seven-and-twenty Fergus had golden hair and brown eyes set in an amazingly handsome countenance, nicely fashioned shoulders and calves and all else in between. This day he wore a topcoat of light tan broadcloth with collar of gold velvet, a high-crowned beaver hat, gloves of York tan, buckskin breeches, and tall boots with tassels and white tops. “This is Lady Amabel’s direction,” he said reassuringly to his companion. “Allow me to assist you to mount the steps, Mama.”
Bedazzling as was Lord Parrington to behold, similar approbation did not apply to his sole surviving parent. Lady Katherine’s figure was stooped, her countenance raddled; once a great beauty, she now appeared older than her actual years. Nor was her personality any more pleasing than her person. “Lady Amabel!” she muttered irritably, as she contrived to mount the steps with the combined assistance of son and silver-headed cane. “Plague take the chit!”
Lord Parrington’s admirers were prone to wax eloquent about his unflagging patience regarding his vituperative parent. “I know you do not mean that, Mama!” he said cheerfully. “You are merely cross because you do not like to travel. I warned you of how it would be, but you were determined to accompany me to town. I did not realize you were so taken with Lady Amabel. She will be prodigious pleased by so high a mark of favor.”
“Taken with her, am I?” One of the disadvantages attached to unflagging good humor and an upright unsubtle nature was the tendency to attribute to other people the sterling qualities possessed by oneself. Lady Katherine did indeed wish Amabel might be carried off by plague. Her usually docile son had inexplicably taken the notion that he must set up his nursery, and for his purpose had settled upon the loveliest girl in the neighborhood, unfortunately the daughter of a lowly baronet.
“Taken
with her? Gad!”
Lord Parrington made no response to this cryptic remark, being busy anticipating Lady Amabel’s reaction to the singular stroke of good fortune that was about to befall her in the person of himself. Fergus was not vain, precisely, but he had been brought up to have an excellent notion of his own worth. His mother doted on him, and Fergus expected other ladies to similarly react. Thus far, though his experience had been somewhat limited, he’d had no cause for disappointment. Lord Parrington smoothed the sleeve of his broadcloth topcoat.
While the baron and his mama had thus engaged in rumination, the ancient door had opened to them, and they had been admitted into the great hall. There they were left to inspect the suits of armor and racks of spears, the screen of carved and wainscoted wood that stood at one end of the chamber. More precisely, Lord Parrington inspected those antiquities. Lady Katherine took firm grasp upon her cane and glowered at the staircase. At length the servant reappeared and conducted them past the carved balustrades and newel posts picked out in bright colors, and into the solar.
Not Lady Amabel awaited there, as Fergus had expected, but a short, plump, agitated-looking lady with wispy white hair. “I am so sorry!” gasped this worthy as she hastened to greet them, an act accompanied by a great fluttering other hands. “Amabel will wish she had been here to welcome you—so kind of you to call! So condescending! It is the fault of this queer old house that she is not with us at the moment; things—and people!—are never where one expects them to be. But I am forgetting to introduce myself! Henrietta Dougharty—March’s cousin, you know!”
“March?” Lady Katherine settled stiffly upon the chocolate-red daybed, her hands resting before her on the knob of her cane. “Dougharty? I seem to know that name. Are your people from Suffolk?”
Looking very gratified, Henrietta perched primly on a nearby embroidered chair. “Why, yes!” she replied. Lord Parrington left the ladies to the exploration of respective genealogies. As result of Mab’s failure to greet him in a properly flattered manner, he was becoming somewhat miffed. True, Mab could not have been certain he would come to London as result of her cryptic summons. The gist of that letter, Fergus pondered once more. He could make no sense of the strange goings-on at which Mab had hinted. She had called her papa the greatest wretch in nature, Fergus reflected. Mab was a great deal less charitable toward her parent than the young man he’d called a popinjay.
“Fergus! Pay attention!” his own peevish parent snapped. “Dougharty and I have discovered we are old acquaintances. Tell me, ma’am, how is it that Lady Amabel came to you? An unexpected visit, was it not?”
Henrietta was gratified beyond measure by this familiar treatment—Lady Katherine might have married a mere baron, but she was a duke’s daughter, a fact none other acquaintance were permitted to forget. “Quite unexpected!” agreed Henrietta, her expression arch. “It was not me she came to, precisely, but Eleanor—-that is, Lady March. How I wish I knew where they have got to! The attics, perhaps.”