Authors: Strange Bedfellows
Obviously some soothing comment was called for, but Lady March could think of no hope she might hold out.
“I
will declare you have been compromised!” offered a deep voice from the depths of the formidable four-poster bedstead.
“You—” A sensible girl, Lady Amabel didn’t for an instant think the bed had suddenly come to life, although she was so startled by this new entry into the conversation that her voice rose to a squeak. Should she swoon, she wondered—but this situation was fraught with possibilities too interesting to waste. “I thought I left you reading Torquemada’s
Miracles,”
she said sternly. “What are you doing in Nell’s bed?”
In response to this singularly inappropriate question, which caused Lady March to turn very rosy, Lord March emerged from the depths of the old bedstead, and settled himself against one of the bone-inlaid posts. He wore a floor-length robe of expensive brocade, tied at the waist, and a self-satisfied smile. “I was so taken with the tale of the shipwrecked lady and her ape,” he explained, “that I had to share it with Nell. Shall I cut up stiff about your treatment by young Parrington, brat? As head of the household in which you came perilously close to being seduced? A young girl under my protection! Oh, shame!”
“You are the one who should be ashamed, Marriot!” Though Lady March’s tone was chiding, her expression was not. “You must not tease Mab. This unfortunate development can’t enhance her position with Parrington’s mama.”
“Nothing could do that,” Mab wryly pointed out, as she followed Lady March to the great bed, where Lord March was toying absently with his wife’s charming nightcap. “It’s very kind of you to offer to help me, Marriot, but no one knows you
are
the head of the house!”
“They will soon enough.” Lord March made room for his wife on one side of him, and Lady Amabel on the other, and shared the molting cloak among the three of them in an attempt at warmth. “I’ve decided my reappearance must be no longer delayed.”
“Was that why you came down from the attic?” Mab tried to imagine how it would feel to snuggle up to Fergus in this manner—without, of course, Nell on the other side. “Perhaps you should reconsider, Marriot. If the site of your reappearance is your wife’s bedchamber, Henrietta is going to think it very odd.”
“Henrietta
is very odd.” Thus Lord March disposed of his cousin. “So that we may be rid of her is one reason why I have decided to come but of hiding.”
“It is a pity you didn’t think of Henrietta in the first place!” Lady Amabel answered. “Once she was finished hauling me over the coals, she tried to interrogate me— as if her conduct was above reproach, which it isn’t, because she didn’t tell me Fergus and his mama had called. That is who you heard her talking to in the solar, Nell! And they came to see
me!
It’s true, I assure you. Anyway, Henrietta is agog to discover why Marriot showed you a clean pair of heels, Nell. She said you would do better to prepare for tragedy than to rummage with me through the attics, and then she took to shuddering, and muttering about mice. I think it will be very nice when you reappear, Marriot, because Henrietta doesn’t expect that you will, and her nose will be put out of joint!”
Lady March, gazing across her husband’s enviable chest at Mab, glanced at the door. “Keep your voices down,” she warned. “I wouldn’t put it past Henrietta to eavesdrop.”
“Would she?” Lord March succumbed to impulse, and nuzzled his wife’s chestnut hair. “Listen at keyholes?”
“Certainly she would.” Mab reclaimed Marriot’s wandering attention by jabbing her elbow in his ribs. “She is a very rubbishing sort of person, I think! But this is fair and far off. We must put our heads together—or rather, I wish the pair of you would
not
put your heads together because I am feeling oppressing
de trop
.”
Recalled to the unsatisfactory condition of her young friend’s romance, Lady March raised herself from her husband’s chest and patted his smooth cheek. “Poor Mab! We shall not allow Henrietta to cut up all your hopes.”
Moved by this noble attitude, Lord March saluted his wife’s hand. “No, we shan’t,” he said. “I’ll send Henrietta packing, and demand that Parrington make reparations for the honor he has so carelessly besmirched. Will that suit you, brat?”
“Have you gone off your hinges?” Lady Amabel seriously doubted that anything would please her again. “Your own behavior is open to very unfavorable interpretations, Marriot! Nell, you need not be looking at me like a thundercloud! I did not say Marriot has done anything so dreadful—but we must not forget that he has lost his memory and gained what are likely stolen jewels.”
So he had, and by this unpalatable reminder Lord and Lady March were reluctantly recalled to the present. Marriot gazed in a somber manner at the shabby valise that he had brought with him from the attic, as well as the Toledo walking sword. “If only I could remember!” he mourned.
“Oh, Marriot!” Eleanor’s sigh was heartfelt.
“Well, you can’t!” briskly interjected Mab. “And we can’t simply wait until your memory returns, if ever it does. But you must have thought of some explanation for your absence, else you would not have left the attics. May we know what it is? Which reminds me, I had better tell you that I hinted to Fergus that you were involved in thwarting the French—don’t frown at me, Nell! I didn’t know what else to say!”
“By all means, don’t scold Mab.” Marriot gave his wife a little squeeze. “It isn’t like you to kick up a dust over a trifle like espionage, puss! However, I fear that tale won’t stand up to investigation—not that I am ungrateful, Mab!”
Lady Amabel contemplated giving his lordship’s ribs another jab. “It is not kind of you to
gammon
me,” she said sternly. “I am devilish out of humor, and so would you be, had you had your odious Cousin Henrietta ripping up at you about bacchanalian scenes.”
Lord March wondered what his odious cousin would think could she but see him at this moment, disposed regally in the middle of the ornate four-poster, wrapped in furs, with a lovely lady on each side. Doubtless the sight—or her own indelicate deductions—would inspire her to apoplexy. Hopefully, Marriot eyed the door.
Unacquainted with his lordship’s own indelicate thoughts, Amabel continued to speak. “I can understand why you wouldn’t care to say you’d been involved with enemy agents, or even tinkers, or a press gang— and Nell wouldn’t like it to be said you’d eloped with another female. But we must say you were somewhere—I do wish you would cease gazing at Nell in that mawkish manner, Marriot!”
Lord March, who looked not the least mawkish, despite Lady Amabel’s unkind accusations, removed his fond gaze from his wife’s patrician face. “I wish
you
would try to be a little more understanding, brat! How would you feel if you hadn’t seen young Parrington for six months?”
Mab would not see Fergus for a great deal longer than six months, she thought, did his mama’s will prevail. She drew a deep breath, inhaled a quantity of the fur which wafted richly through the air, and sneezed. “Would you mind,” she gasped, when she had caught her breath, “having been kidnapped?”
“Kidnapped?” Lady March’s voice was horrified. “Mab!”
“Imagine how I must have felt!” Lord March threw himself into this new role. “Alone and ailing—of course I must have been ailing, else I could easily have overpowered my captors, all of them!—without wifely sympathy or succor.”
“Nell! Do you succor Marriot at this moment, I vow I shall wash my hands of you both!” To emphasize her displeasure, Mab gave a little bounce. “You seem to have forgotten that the tale must satisfy
both
Henrietta and Bow Street. Though I do not know a great deal about such things, I conjecture that the runner who could not find you will want to know where you’ve been.”
“I thought of that.” Marriot smiled at Lady Amabel’s impatient expression. “You must not be cross with me, Mab; I have been thinking very hard of a reasonable explanation of why I hopped the twig—departed so suddenly, that is! And I have decided I must have gone to Cornwall.”
“Cornwall?” Eleanor looked mystified. “Why?”
“Because I had to go somewhere, my darling, and Cornwall is further away than most. We do have holdings there.” He shifted position, between the cloak and the ladies having grown quite warm. “I suppose you will ask me why I embarked upon such a journey in the middle of the night.”
Now that Lord March had withdrawn his manly presence, lounging instead amid the pillows at the head of the large bed. Lady March and Lady Amabel were left to huddle together beneath the cloak. Neither found this activity half so satisfying as when Marriot had lent them his lean bulk. “I wouldn’t ask that,” said Mab, after judicious thought. “Nor would anyone else who knew you, Marriot. Don’t get on your high ropes, Nell! You cannot deny that Marriot gets absentminded when he’s had a drop too much to drink. To use the word with no bark on it, there is no telling what he’ll do when he’s three parts disguised! It would be just like him to set off for Cornwall in the middle of the night, without luggage—and without letting you know!”
“That may be.” A trifle sulkily, Lady March pushed back her tousled locks. “But it would
not
be like him to forget to send me word for six months!”
“Perhaps I did send word, but it went astray.” Lord March sought a comfortable position against the high, intricately carved headboard. “The advantage of this particular explanation is that the servants can be instructed what to say. Personally, I would prefer to say as little as possible.” He looked at the valise. “Unfortunately, a mysterious silence would not satisfy Bow Street.”
“Or Cousin Henrietta,” added Nell drily. Though Eleanor would have infinitely preferred to keep her husband safe in the attic room, she realized Marriot would be miserable locked away. Too, there were advantages to having a spouse in residence. She blushed. “Why did you go to Cornwall, Marriot?”
“Business called,” suggested Mab, inspired by a nibbled knuckle. “Perhaps a dishonest bailiff who absconded with some revenues—perhaps Marriot was so displeased that he personally tracked down the culprit. No, that won’t fadge; if Marriot did apprehend the bailiff, the man would have to go to gaol, and I do not think we will persuade any of your servants to be put in prison merely to add credence to our tale! Maybe you were in an accident, Marriot, and your senses were disordered—you lay for days in a high fever, raving, within inches of losing your life!”
“High flights!” Lord March did not look especially thrilled by this highly dramatic theory of what had chanced. “It would be quite an accident that left me incapacitated for six months.”
Lady Amabel, who now had the fur cloak all to herself, looked meaningfully upon Lord and Lady March, both of whom were currently arranged comfortably amid the pillows against the intricately carved headboard. “I think it
must
have been quite an accident!” she remarked.
Marriot grimaced. “Point taken, brat! The thing is, we must have an explanation that gives rise to the least
speculation and comment. I do not care to have anyone delve too deeply into my activities these last months, especially since I don’t know what they were.”
“Oh, Marriot!” Having come across her nightcap, Eleanor set it back upon her curls. “Perhaps we should give this notion up—at least wait until it is safer for you to reveal yourself.”
“It may never be safe, love.” Lord March assisted his wife’s efforts with the nightcap. “We don’t know how I came by those accursed jewels, but someone must—and if that someone is to enlighten us, I must make an appearance.”
Lady March was doubtful. “It sounds dangerous.”
Before Lord March could respond with appreciation to his wife’s concern for his well-being, Lady Amabel interrupted. “If you don’t like my explanation for your absence,” she said crossly. “Pray, Marriot, what tale do you mean to tell?”
“The obvious one.” Very tenderly, Lord March gazed upon his wife’s face. “Unless Nell would mind it dreadfully, I think we will have quarreled.”
CHAPTER NINE
Not much later that same day, the astonishing tale of Lord March’s reappearance had already gotten round. Currently, the chief source of this news broadcast was holding forth in London’s largest bookshop, Mr. Lackington’s Temple of the Muses in Finsbury Square. “Quarreled! Can you credit it? And all this time she allowed me to go on thinking he’d been kidnapped by tinkers, or taken by a press gang!”
Henrietta did not lack for an audience, comprised not wholly of the person to whom she spoke. Books and periodicals had little power to interest those elegant browsers fortunate enough to be within earshot. “Stab me!” returned Lady Katherine, who was this day bundled up in a quantity of black wool topped by a bonnet of purple velvet covered with lace, trimmed with purple ribbons, and finished off with a short lace veil. “Here’s a pretty business.”
To this encouraging display of interest, Henrietta responded with a smirk. “You do not know the half of it!” For that matter, neither did Henrietta, which was a source of considerable chagrin. Especially, Henrietta was curious about the cause of Marriot’s quarrel with Eleanor, a quarrel that had taken him to the wilds of Cornwall. “Take my word for it! There’s more here than meets the eye.”
Lady Katherine was perfectly content to accept Henrietta’s account of her cousin’s homecoming, as were those other individuals so fortunate as to have chosen to wander this day through the Temple’s aisles. “Plague on’t, stop shilly-shallying!” demanded Lady Katherine, whose interest in the celebrated scandal of the disappearing Lord March was not one whit diminished by the fact she’d never set eyes on the gentleman in all her life. “Tell how this miracle came about.”
Unaccustomed to being the center of attention, even the vituperative attention of a Lady Katherine, Henrietta smoothed her three-quarter length pelisse of plush, a shaggy cotton velvet with a long nap resembling fur, which she wore over a simple walking dress. Upon her wispy hair was a helmet hat made of willow with a military feather over the crown. “Well?” demanded Lady Katherine.