When the Duke Returns Page 20

  He didn’t see her, so she slipped up the stairs. If anything, the smell was actually stronger as she climbed the stairs. Her knock on the dowager’s door was met with something resembling a bark. “Your Grace?” she called. “It is the duchess. Would you open the door?”

  A moment later the dowager did open the door, the better to glower at Isidore.

  Isidore fell into a deep curtsy. “Did the duke not leave a footman to guard you?”

  “The fool began to vomit,” the dowager said irritably. “What on earth are you doing here? The stench is enough to make any person vomit, not merely the lower orders. You must leave at once.”

  “I came to ask you to join us in the Dower House,” Isidore said. Truly, she did feel a bit faint at the odor. “Supper is being sent from the village. You can’t possibly eat here.”

  “I doubt that I could eat.”

  Isidore realized that the dowager was distinctly white, with patches of rouge standing out like poppies on her cheeks. “Your Grace, I insist that you accompany me out of this house. You are faint from lack of air.”

  “I am faint from the stench,” the dowager said. But she put out a hand to the back of a chair. “I thought I would—”

  Isidore took her arm. “You may return to your chambers as soon as they are habitable,” she said coaxingly.

  “You needn’t treat me like a child!” the dowager snapped, but she did take a step toward the door. “I can’t leave my jewels.”

  “They’ll be—”

  “I go nowhere without my jewels. No one understands my attachment to them.”

  Isidore nodded. “We’ll take them with us.”

  “And I was working on letters,” the duchess said. “I must have them as well. I must finish my correspondence.”

  Isidore glanced over at the table stacked high with sheets of stationery. “We can’t carry those. Is this your jewelry box?” She picked up an exquisite little box, rosewood with silver hinges.

  “One of them,” the dowager said. “The other is there.” She nodded toward a much larger box, made of leather and trimmed with faded velvet.

  “Goodness,” Isidore said a moment later. “It is heavy.”

  “I shall carry the smaller one,” the dowager announced. “Give it to me. I suppose all the footmen have fled the house.”

  “They’re in the barn,” Isidore explained.

  “Stuff and nonsense,” the dowager said, taking the rosewood box. She opened the door of her room and the smell came to meet them, like a blow. The dowager fell back.

  “Steady,” Isidore said. “Your Grace, why don’t I fetch your son? Footmen could carry you outside.”

  “I am tired of being old,” the dowager stated. “I shall leave this room under my own two feet.”

  They started down the stairs. When they reached the bottom, the hallway held a couple of men so filthy that Isidore had never seen the like. Dirt was caked on their legs and splattered on their shirts. Their faces were partially covered with red kerchiefs, but their hair and skin was caked with excrement.

  The one closest to the bottom stair grinned, his teeth startling white against the kerchief covering his nose.

  The dowager made a strange gulping noise, and her grip on Isidore’s arm weakened. “Your Grace!” Isidore said sharply, pulling her mother-in-law off the final stair.

  The dowager opened her mouth, like a fish out of water. “This is—this is—”

  “I agree, but we must continue.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear, ladies as is seeing what they shouldn’t,” a cheerful voice said.

  Isidore looked up and met the eyes of a third man, who had just emerged from the water closet. She knew in an instant that this particular member of the Dead Watch was an utter rogue, due to the peculiar flatness of his eyes, and the way he was smiling without smiling. “Jack Bartlebee, top of the Dead Watch,” he said to her. “And you two must be duchesses. I’ve a tenderness for the nobility. Really I do. When the king passes in his carriage of a Sunday, I always bobs me knee. Don’t I, lads?”

  “That you do, Jack,” one chimed in.

  “Ain’t it a shame, yer duchess, but Mr. Honeybutt went down the hillside to deal with a little problem with the pipes. We’ll have to help you.”

  The closest man held out his hands, caked with brown.

  The dowager made a choking sound and clutched her jewelry box.

  “Tush, tush,” Bartlebee said. “You’re affronting the ladies, Wiglet. You was always too forward in your approach. Ladies like the gentle word, the sweet tongue, ain’t that right?”

  “Sir,” Isidore said, “if you would move to the side, I would be grateful to take my mother-in-law into the open. She faints for lack of air.”

  “I’ll help you,” Bartlebee said genially. “Of course I will. I’ll take that wee little box that the lady is holding—”

  “Don’t touch it!” the dowager said, her voice a strangely airy version of her normal peremptory tone. “I can’t have you touch my—”

  All three of them had their hands stretched out. Isidore took a step to the side, dragging the dowager with her. She could leave through the ballroom, rather than out the front door. The men were enjoying causing fear. Their faces were alight with some sort of strange pleasure.

  “How dare you terrify an old woman!” she shouted at them, suddenly furious. “You’ve frightened her!”

  Bartlebee just laughed at her, and even his eyes, those horrible flat eyes, looked amused. “It’s a valuable lesson she’s learning. Duchesses shit as well as everyone else. And once you’ve been in the shit as much as we have, you learn that the color of the stuff is the same, ain’t it, lads?”

  There was a chorus of agreement.

  “Let’s cut the sauce,” Bartlebee said suddenly. “We’re only halfway through these privies, duchess. You wouldn’t want us to leave the job undone, would you? Because no one else is going down into that pit. No one in England. So we’d like a little present to keep us going.”

  “No,” Isidore stated. “You’ve been well paid.”

  The dowager was utterly silent, staring at the men with horrified eyes.

  “The young lady don’t even look frightened,” Bartlebee said, turning to his men. “That’s unusual, that is.”

  “I’m not frightened,” Isidore spat. “I’m disgusted by your lack of kindness. Have you no grandmother yourself?”

  “Is that a grandmother?” Bartlebee asked, interestedly. He moved closer to the dowager, who cowered away with a stifled little moan. “Oh, I see. It must be the wrinkles, am I right, Wiglet? The more wrinkled you are, the older you are? I’ve heard of that. Course, we on the Dead Watch don’t generally live to collect all that many wrinkles, so we don’t bother. We don’t have families in the regular way of things.”

  They all guffawed.

  “You’ll excuse me for not pitying you,” Isidore snapped. “If you have no families, it’s due to your criminal tendencies. Doubtless, no woman will have anything to do with you.”

  “Doubtless, doubtless,” Bartlebee said. “But just to make you feel better, miss, I will tell you that Wiglet here married Betsy as does behind the livery stables on Pond Street. Now there, does that make you feel better?”

  Isidore looked at Wiglet. He had no teeth and a leer.

  “Did I express any sorrow over your lonely condition?” Isidore asked, politely enough. “If I did, I assure you it was an error.”

  “Enough of this charmin’ banter,” Bartlebee said. “We’ll be having a jewelry box, since you was daft enough to bring it into the shit, if you’ll pardon my plain speaking. And just as payment for this delightful little chat, we’ll be having the large box, not the smaller.”

  “The duke will have you all thrown into jail,” the dowager half screamed. Her fingers were digging into Isidore’s arm like small talons.

  “That he won’t,” Bartlebee said. “I’m happy to reassure you there. Where the Dead Watch go, nobody sees. That makes us above the
law, as they’ll be happy to tell you in London.”

  “No one is above the law!” Isidore snapped. If she could just keep the conversation going. Simeon would finish his letter. Honeydew would return. She took another cautious step to the side, dragging the dowager with her. She almost had her back to the ballroom door.

  “Now if I murdered someone,” Bartlebee said, with that horrible mirthless grin of his, “I reckon you’d be right. A parish constable might knock on my door, if he could find it, of course. It’s such a temptation sometimes. All you’d have to do was tip someone into a pit, and they’d fall into a permanent sleep due to a sad, sad accident. Ain’t it a temptation, lads?”

  Only Wiglet answered: “Ay!” Bartlebee was grinning, but his other man didn’t look as comfortable.

  “You should all be ashamed of yourselves,” Isidore said, schooling her voice to a clear, high severity. “We’re paying you a fair and honest wage for the work you’re doing. And how do you repay us? By frightening an old woman half to death.”

  As if on cue, the dowager groaned and sank against Isidore’s shoulder, though Isidore noticed that her mother-in-law kept tight hold of her jewelry box. Now the door was directly behind her.

  Bartlebee stepped smartly forward, and she realized that she was going to have to give up the jewelry box, that all the jewels in the world weren’t worth one touch from his finger. She couldn’t turn around to open the door without letting go of the dowager, or letting go of the box.

  Just then she heard a voice behind her, like a thread of sound. “Isidore.”

  It was Simeon. The door at her back started to ease open. Bartlebee was reaching toward her, grinning; any moment he would see the opening door.

  Without hesitation, Isidore shrieked “Now!” Then she lifted the box she held and dashed it to the ground at her feet. With an ear-splitting crack, it opened and jewels skidded across the floor.

  The door behind her whipped back and Simeon leapt forward. He landed between his mother and the men, standing in the midst of a pile of dusty-looking necklaces.

  “What is this, gentlemen?” Simeon asked. His voice was as calm as if he were conversing with Honeydew.

  Isidore’s heart skipped a beat when she saw that Bartlebee was utterly unafraid. And his men stopped looking abashed as their eyes brightened at the prospect of a fight.

  “It’s the duke himself!” Bartlebee said, delighted. “See, gents, he’ll know about the law of the land. He’ll know that we’re doing a loathsome job, and all we’re asking for is a bit of a treat. And as we just told the duchess here, we might not be able to finish the job if we’re not given something to lighten our labor.” He suddenly kicked Wiglet, who was on his knees, scrabbling amongst the jewels. “Hist now! There’s no need to act undignified-like!”

  It all happened so fast that Isidore couldn’t follow it. One moment Simeon was standing perfectly still before her, and the next moment his foot connected with Wiglet’s jaw. He whirled, and Bartlebee’s head snapped back. He whirled once more, and kicked the third man in the jaw.

  He turned to his mother. “I do apologize, Your Grace,” he said, his voice as tranquil as ever. “I was reluctant to use my fists given their lack of cleanliness. I hope my delayed arrival didn’t cause you any undue alarm.”

  All three men were on the ground. Wiglet and the other were struggling into a sitting position, but Bartlebee just lay sprawled on the marble, mouth open and eyes closed. Unconscious, he didn’t look nearly as menacing. His jaw was narrow and his teeth jutted up like white turnips overgrowing their planting.

  “Dear me,” Simeon said. “I do believe that Mr. Bartlebee may have suffered neck damage. It’s always a possibility with Eastern arts of defense.” He prodded Bartlebee with his foot and the man groaned but didn’t move. “He seems to be alive,” Simeon said, turning to the two men climbing to their feet. “As I believe he himself said, it’s so easy to kill people. I always have to remind myself not to strike too hard.”

  “You’ll have to make a note of it,” Isidore said, keeping laughter and triumph out of her voice with an effort. Then she readjusted her hold on the dowager, who was still sagging against her, and skewered Wiglet and his compatriot with her glare. “You’re lucky the duke didn’t lame you for life after the way you frightened his mother!”

  “Bartlebee will be dazed for a time,” Simeon told them. His tone was quiet, not at all triumphant. “I suggest you leave him here and finish the task you have at hand.”

  Wiglet hesitated.

  “Need I repeat myself?” Simeon’s voice was utterly calm, but Wiglet quailed as if he’d leveled a weapon at them.

  He swallowed and then opened his hand. A dusky ruby rolled onto the ground and bounced once, rolling to a rest next to Bartlebee’s elbow.

  “Are you second in command?” Simeon asked.

  “Yeth,” Wiglet said. His lip was already swollen to twice normal size.

  “Right then, get on with it. You’ll know in an hour or two whether your commander will ever walk again. I do hope that there’ll be no further reason for me to feel concern about my safety, or the safety of my wife, my mother, or my possessions.”

  Wiglet backed away quickly. “Never, Yer Grace,” he gobbled. “Not in the least. I mean, never.” He and the other man stepped through the door into the water closet, presumably throwing themselves down the hole in their fervor to get away from Simeon.

  The dowager pulled herself to a standing position. “My jewels!” she said. “On the floor with those filthy, ravening beasts. I shall never feel the same about them, never!”

  Simeon bent down to pick up the stones.

  “Get up!” she shrieked, her voice suddenly strong. “That’s a job for a servant, as I shouldn’t have to tell you!”

  “Your Grace!” Isidore said, “Let’s—”

  Simeon dropped the ruby into the cracked box on the floor and straightened. “Would you prefer that we leave the rest for Honeydew to collect, Mother?”

  “I would prefer never to have been born,” his mother said on a gasping breath. “You—you have humiliated me one too many times. One too many times!”

  Isidore’s mouth fell open.

  “Your father would have taken those ruffians out with a blow to the jaw, like any respectable Englishman,” the dowager said. But her voice cracked on a sob. “You—my son—with his feet—”

  Isidore met Simeon’s eyes over his mother’s head.

  “We’ll go outside now, Your Grace,” she said, lifting the remaining jewelry box from the dowager’s arms. “Follow me, if you please.”

  They left Simeon there, the marble around his feet littered with tarnished jewels, in settings popular a half century ago. Isidore turned around once, but he was staring at the ground.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Gore House, Kensington

  London seat of the Duke of Beaumont

  March 3, 1784

  The Duke of Villiers handed his cloak to Fowle, the Beaumonts’ butler, pausing at the news that Jemma was out, but that the duke was in.

  He and Elijah had to talk.

  It had been years since they had spoken properly, although his valet Finchley babbled of how Elijah saved Villiers’s life when he was in a fever. Since Villiers had no memory of that, he could hardly savor the reunion.

  The truth was that Villiers was currently doing his best to seduce Elijah’s wife, and yet apparently he owed him gratitude for the said life-saving.

  What was all that between old friends?

  “I’ll announce myself,” he told Fowle. As he entered the library, he saw Elijah’s profile around the side of a high-backed chair. He seemed to have closed his eyes. Villiers loathed naps. But then Elijah spent his adult life saving the world, or at least the English parts of it, while he himself concentrated on frivolities like chess.

  As always when he observed differences between his life and another man’s, he paused to consider whether he would prefer to order his world on Elijah�
��s model.

  No. He had no wish to take up his seat in the House of Lords. In fact, he had a positive revulsion to the idea.

  Villiers walked noiselessly across the wine-colored, flowered carpet. It was as glorious as one of his own coats. He rounded the chair.

  Elijah was indeed asleep.

  Or not asleep.

  There was something odd about the immobility of his face, about the way his body was slumped in the corner of the chair.

  “Duke,” Villiers said sharply, bending over. Could Elijah have fainted? His face was rather white. “Elijah!”

  His eyelashes were dark against his face. He had been beautiful even back when they were both clumsy puppies and Elijah was the only person in the world that Villiers loved. Villiers himself had had a big nose, and uncontrollable hair that wouldn’t stay tied back properly, nor yet fit under a wig. Then Elijah had the white-blond curls of an angel, and the perfect profile of a young Gabriel.

  Villiers reached out, touched Elijah’s shoulder.

  Shook Elijah.

  Shook him again.

  Chapter Thirty

  Revels House

  March 3, 1784

  The last thing that the dowager said to Isidore before she left for her sister’s estate was that she wanted every jewel cleaned before they were returned to her.

  “He gave them to me every time,” she said to Isidore. “I’m sure you know what I mean.”

  “No.”

  “Then you shall. After all, you have married a Cosway. I never liked those necklaces, but they remind me of my husband.” She had the smaller box, the older one with silver hinges, beside her on the carriage seat. “These were my mother’s. I don’t mind if you keep some of the others; after all, you’re married to the duke. But these I shall keep and give to my sister’s children. You may inform my son so.”

  “The duke is bathing,” Isidore said. “Could you please wait until he is able to bid you goodbye?”

  “No. I shall stay at a neighbor’s and be at my sister’s estate by tomorrow at dusk. You can tell him where I’ve gone. He’s no son of mine, I’m convinced of that.”