Fortune's Folly - The Confessions Of A Duchess Part 21

"Yes," Dexter said. He pulled her a little closer. "I think," he said softly, "that Hattie feels I have earned the t.i.tle, but I am not sure I deserve to be called your husband."

Laura's hazel eyes were bewildered, as though she could not quite understand what he was trying to say. Dexter released Laura's hand and crouched down beside his daughter.

"I think it might take a little time to make you a brother or sister, poppet," he said. "I need to get to know your mother better first."

The color stung Laura's cheeks. "Really?" she said. "Do you really mean that, Dexter?"

"Really," Dexter said. "We will start this evening."

"I was going to take Hattie to the bonfire display," Laura said. She glanced at the clock. "It begins in a half hour."

"Then we shall all go together," Dexter said. "I am sure it will be a memorable night. And after that we can talk."

The door to the servants' stair opened and Carrington shuffled out. "Might I beg a word, your grace?" he asked, with dignity. "Mrs. Carrington and I would like to request permission to attend the bonfire display tonight."

"Certainly, Carrington," Laura said, smiling. "I am delighted that you would like to go out. Rachel and Molly are happy to stay at home. Apparently they do not care for bonfires."

"No, your grace," Carrington said. "Their cottage burned down when they were children and they have never liked bonfires since."

"It cannot be a happy time of the year for them," Laura commented. She looked at Dexter and there was something in her eyes that made his heart turn over. "Oh, Carrington," she said, "one final thing-would you please address me as Mrs. Anstruther now that I am married?"

"It will be a pleasure, your grace," Carrington said. He shuffled back to the staircase and closed the door behind him. Laura picked Hattie up.

"Laura," Dexter said, shaken to discover how moved he felt at what she had just done, "wait-"

She shook her head. "We need to get ready," she whispered. "We can talk later, Dexter." And this time she smiled at him and he felt the unfamiliar emotion tighten within him and sweep him further away from reason and sense than he had ever been. It felt dangerous and unfamiliar and frightening. It felt a lot like love.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

IT APPEARED THAT EVERYONE in Fortune's Folly had turned out for the Guy Fawkes bonfire that night. Laura glimpsed Sir Montague in the throng along with Miles, Nat Waterhouse, Lady Elizabeth Scarlet and Alice Lister. Mr. and Mrs. Carrington were talking to Mrs. Morton, the village dressmaker. Mr. Blount was roasting chestnuts on the bonfire and had already given Hattie some to eat.

The night was crisp with the stars white and bright overhead. The fire leapt and climbed, crackling and hissing, licking up the ragged trousers of the guy. The village children had done an excellent job. The guy wore a rough wig of straw beneath an old felt hat and had a mask that looked uncannily like Sir Montague Fortune. Laura wondered whether Lady Elizabeth had painted it. She was accounted a very fine artist.

Hattie snuggled close in Laura's arms and watched, entranced, a toffee apple clutched in one sticky hand and a piece of parkin in the other. With Dexter so attentive, as well, Laura felt almost as though they were like any proper family, as though the grief and distrust and misery of the last few weeks had at last lifted. Those brief moments in the hall had given her hope, and even if Dexter did not love her and was making this attempt for Hattie's sake, so that their daughter would know a happier childhood than he and his siblings had experienced, it was not impossible that in time they might build the marriage of mutual respect that he had once said he wanted. It would be a pale imitation of what she had once wanted from him but it was a start.

Faye Cole was standing a little apart from the crowd, shivering deep within her fur wraps. She did not seem particularly pleased to be there and Laura wondered what had prompted her to attend. Of Henry Cole there was no sign. It was not the type of event that Laura thought Faye would normally grace with her presence but perhaps she saw it as yet another opportunity to attract a husband for Lydia. Certainly she had tried to push her daughter toward Lord Armitage when he had strolled past, but Lydia had refused to budge. She stood beside her mother, looked pinched and cold and very unhappy, her fingers working feverishly on the links of the golden chain that was about her neck.

"You had better be quick there, my girl," Laura heard Faye say, "or that little wheyfaced Mary Wheeler will snap Armitage up from under your nose! First Mr. Anstruther lost to your cousin, and now Lord Armitage is paying court to that sniveling girl-"

Laura saw the expression on Lydia's face a second before Faye did and knew exactly what was going to happen. She half turned to hand Hattie to Dexter in the hope that she could intervene, but even as she took a step forward it was too late. Lydia had, at last, been pushed too far.

"I don't want to marry Lord Armitage!" Lydia screamed, making several people who were standing close to her, Laura included, jump with the sheer shrillness of her voice. "Do you hear me, Mama? I did not want to marry Mr. Anstruther and I do not want to marry Lord Armitage!"

Faye recoiled a step. "Be silent, you foolish girl," she hissed. "No one will want to marry you if you make such a dreadful scene in public!"

"I don't care!" Lydia screamed. "I am sick of you telling me what to do, Mama. You never ask what I want. You bully me and Papa creeps about the neighborhood fathering b.a.s.t.a.r.ds on any willing servant girl he can find, and no one cares a rush for me!"

"No one ever will care a rush for you if you behave like this, you little madam!" Faye screeched in a tone to match her daughter's own. Her face was turning almost purple with shock and anger at her daughter's outburst. "Be quiet! Be quiet, I say!"

The rest of the villagers, attracted by the unmistakable sound of the conflict, had drawn closer, their faces avid and inquisitive in the firelight, but neither Lydia nor Faye took any notice. Matters had already gone too far to be saved.

"Someone cares for me," Lydia shrieked. "Mr. Fortune wants to marry me. He gave me a ring!" She pulled out the golden chain and the ring on it gleamed bright in the flames. Beside her, Laura heard Dexter give a sudden, sharp exclamation.

"Miss Cole-" he began.

Faye grabbed Lydia's arm, ignoring Dexter's intervention completely. "Mr. Fortune!" she said scathingly. "Tom Fortune who has nothing to offer, not even a good name? You stoop too low there, my girl."

"How dare you!" Sir Montague interposed now. "I'll have you know that the Fortunes have an older name than the Coles, madam! We can trace our ancestry back to the Conquest!"

"The Fortunes are mere gentlemen and the Coles are dukes!" Faye shrieked, more piercing now than Lydia in her outrage. "If your brother has tried to mislead my daughter, Sir Montague, then it merely goes to show what bad blood there is in the Fortune family!"

"I love Tom." Lydia had started to cry now. "I was going to run away with him." She was turning the ring over and over between her fingers. Faye grabbed it and wrenched it from her. It spun across the ground, sparkling in the firelight. Miles bent to pick it up. Laura saw him glance across at Dexter and give an almost imperceptible nod.

"You stupid girl!" Faye had turned all her venom back on her daughter now. "Mr. Fortune doesn't love you! I'll wager that he only wanted one thing from you! If he loves you where is he now?"

"I don't know," Lydia wept. Her shoulders had slumped and she seemed to be shrinking into herself. "I don't know. He was to meet me at the t.i.the barn tonight and we were to run away together, but he was not there..." The rest of her words died in a tangle of sobs and it was Elizabeth Scarlet who went over to put a comforting arm about her.

Hattie had picked up on the malevolence in the air now and had started to wail. Laura drew her close. Everyone was standing frozen, bemused by what they were witnessing.

"Laura," Dexter said urgently, beside her, "I have to go after Tom Fortune. Miles and I must try to find him. I'm sorry."

"Of course," Laura said. She felt bewildered at the speed with which everything had unraveled about them. Lydia's heart-wrenching sobs had quietened now but her devastation had been shocking.

"Is Tom the one you were looking for, then?" Laura asked. "Is he Warren Sampson's henchman?"

"I think he must be," Dexter said grimly. "That ring Lydia had came from Crosby's body." He hesitated, his face tense and hard in the firelight. "I think Tom is the one who tried to hurt you, too, Laura, that day on the river and in the priory ruins. He and Sampson must have known you were Glory and were afraid of what you might know." His tone hardened. "He tried to kill you and for that alone I have to settle with Tom myself." The look in his eyes was suddenly so primitive and so fierce that Laura felt a pang of shock. There was nothing calm or restrained in Dexter's demeanor now, just fury and a violent emotion that almost took her breath away.

She caught his sleeve. There was no time now for pretense or pride between them. "Be careful," she said. "Please, Dexter, take care. For Hattie's sake-and for mine."

She saw the expression in Dexter's eyes soften and for a second it felt as though she was looking at a reflection of all the love that was inside her. It was so powerful that she felt faint.

Dexter kissed the top of Hattie's head. "Be good, sweetheart," he said. "I will be back soon."

He looked at Laura. "I don't want to leave you," he said. His voice was rough. "I will be back soon, I swear." He kissed her, a brief, hard kiss that left Laura feeling shaken through and through. Then he was gone.

Now that the excitement was over the villagers had started to drift back to their homes, no doubt, Laura thought, to discuss the sensational news of Lydia Cole's ruin. Only a few people remained, talking quietly in the firelight. Lady Elizabeth and Nat Waterhouse were standing close together. Nat was holding Elizabeth's hands in a comforting grip. Laura felt another pang. She had forgotten briefly that Tom was Elizabeth's half brother. She would feel his desertion very keenly.

Hattie had quietened now and had fallen asleep against Laura's shoulder. Alice came over to her. "I was never so shocked in my life," she said. Her face looked very pale. "Poor Lydia-and poor Elizabeth! Can it really be true that Tom Fortune is a hardhearted seducer? Surely there must be some mistake!"

"I don't think so," Laura said. "He is worse than that, Alice. He is a murderer. It seems that he killed Sir William Crosby. We all thought that it was Mr. Sampson who was responsible for Crosby's death but it seems it was Tom all along."

Alice looked suddenly fearful. "And Mr. Anstruther and Lord Vickery have gone after him?"

"It will be all right, Alice," Laura said, catching Alice's hand as she understood the source of her friend's anxiety. "Miles will be quite safe. I am sure of it."

The fire shifted and snapped and suddenly, with a roar and a crack of breaking sticks, the guy toppled from the bonfire and rolled to the ground. The felt hat came off. The straw wig was burning fiercely and so was the mask of Sir Montague's face, and beneath it...

Someone screamed as the body of Warren Sampson turned over and lay still, staring sightlessly at the night sky.

"A SHOCKING NIGHT, madam," Carrington said, as he brought a beaker of hot chocolate into the drawing room for Laura later that evening. Hattie was abed and the house was quiet. "Who would have thought that young Mr. Fortune was a seducer and a murderer? It quite shakes my faith in human nature."

"Indeed, Carrington," Laura said, taking the cup for him before he dropped it. "Thank you very much. I imagine," she added, "that neither you nor Mrs. Carrington enjoyed the evening much. I am very sorry."

"It was not quite as I had antic.i.p.ated, madam," Carrington agreed.

"I suggest that the two of you partake of some of this fine hot chocolate to steady the nerves," Laura said, smiling. "Please tell Mrs. Carrington from me that it is delicious and just what we all need after such a shock."

Carrington hesitated. "Thank you, madam." He cleared his throat. "Your grace-" He stopped and started again, his voice shaking a little. "Your grace, there is something that I feel I really should confess to you. Something that you do not know."

"A secret, Carrington?" Laura said. She felt a little puzzled. "What could you possibly have to confess to me?"

The butler shuffled unhappily, his face tense. "Oh, madam," he said. "I was the one who locked you in the wine cellar!"

The surprise was so great that Laura almost dropped her cup of chocolate on the carpet. "You, Carrington?" she said, mopping at the drops she had spilt. "How on earth is that possible?"

"Oh, madam," Carrington said again, "it was the most terrible mistake. I thought you were the d.u.c.h.ess of Cole!"

Laura's eyebrows shot up into her hair. "You thought that I was Faye Cole?" she repeated faintly. "But why? I was not even aware that you knew she was in Fortune's Folly at that stage. And why would she be down in my wine cellar?"

"It was all a terrible mistake," Carrington repeated. He wrung his hands. "Mrs. Carrington saw her grace in the village and followed her to the priory one afternoon. She was stealing the marmalade from your cellar, madam! We thought that if we could lock her in and then show the world the sort of person she was-"

"Wait!" Laura besought. "Faye Cole was stealing from my wine cellars?"

"She always did have a shocking appet.i.te for marmalade laced with sloe gin, madam," Carrington confirmed. "When we worked for her at Cole, Mrs. Carrington was driven mad by the number of pots she had to produce. All the sloe bushes were robbed bare! She has an unnatural appet.i.te, madam. It is quite disturbing!"

"It is indeed," Laura murmured, her mind boggling at the thought of Faye creeping through the priory to raid her stores. "I am shocked, Carrington. Even more so at the thought that you and Mrs. Carrington had planned to trap the d.u.c.h.ess and reveal her extraordinary habits to the world!"

"Yes, madam," Carrington said miserably. "Oh indeed, madam, it was so very bad of us, but her grace had treated us with the utmost contempt and cruelty!"

"I know," Laura said. "I know what you suffered at Cole and I am sorry for it." She thought about that very night and Faye's vicious public condemnation of her own daughter. It was true that Faye had not a single shred of generosity within her. Her voice softened and she smiled at him. "I do understand, Carrington."

"Oh, thank you, madam!" Carrington said, looking as though he was about to cry with relief. "It was only when I got back that night and Mrs. Carrington said that you had not returned that I realized what a dreadful mistake I must have made. So I hurried back to the priory and opened the door again. But in the process I must have loosened some of the stones in the tower and-" He stopped again, looking as though he was about to expire with the upset of it all. "Oh, madam, when I heard you were injured...I was ready to give myself up to the constable!"

"Well, I am glad you did not," Laura said. "At least that accident is one thing we cannot lay at Tom Fortune's door."

"No, madam," Carrington said, "but if I might ask an enormous favor of you, madam..."

"Yes, Carrington?" Laura asked.

"Don't tell Mr. Anstruther!" Carrington begged, his face shaking. "We have all observed how protective he is of you, madam, and I shudder to think what he would do if he discovered that I was responsible for hurting you!"

"You think he is protective of me, do you?" Laura said. A little smile touched her lips. If it had not been for that moment when Dexter had taken his leave of her she might have been inclined to tell the butler how very wrong he was, but now...She gripped her hands tightly together about the cup and felt its warmth. Now she did at least have a little hope.

"We think that he loves you, madam," Carrington said, with dignity, "which is exactly how it should be." He bowed. "If that is all, madam, and you feel that you can forgive me..."

"Of course," Laura said. "Think no more of it, Carrington."

"Thank you, madam," Carrington said, and he went out and closed the door, leaving Laura alone to think of Dexter and pray he would be safe.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

"LIZZIE, I AM SO VERY SORRY," Laura said. She was taking tea with Lady Elizabeth Scarlet and Alice Lister in the pump rooms. Fortune's Folly was positively bristling with gossip that morning, for everyone was talking about the events of the previous night.

"I always knew that Tom was a scoundrel," Lady Elizabeth said sadly, "but I had no idea that he was in so deep." She was a little paler and quieter than usual, her natural vivacity subdued. "Oh, it was easy to pretend there was nothing wrong because Tom could be so charming and he was so likable-the exact opposite of Monty! But from childhood I remember he was always in sc.r.a.pes of one kind or another and as he grew older so he became wilder..." She shook her head. "He lost money at cards and almost killed a man in a brawl on more than one occasion. We should have realized then that his propensity for violence would get him into bad trouble."

"You could never have realized that he was a.s.sociating with Mr. Sampson, nor where it would lead," Laura said comfortingly.

"I suppose not." Elizabeth fidgeted with her teacup. "Lord Waterhouse was telling me that they think Tom took money from Sampson and did his dirty work for him because Sampson paid his gambling debts. He killed Sir William Crosby on Sampson's behalf. Sampson was blackmailing Tom, but in the end Tom turned against him."

"It was truly gruesome when Mr. Sampson's body rolled off the bonfire," Alice said, shuddering. "If I were the type of female to indulge in the vapors, that was the moment I would have chosen."

"At least the d.u.c.h.ess of Cole fainted away and gave us all some peace," Elizabeth said. "Poor Lydia! Tom always had the most terrible reputation, but to seduce the Duke of Cole's daughter! I can scarce bear to think of it."

"I hope that Lydia will be all right," Alice said anxiously. "First to be betrayed by Mr. Fortune and then to be whisked off home in the middle of the night by her parents simply because they wish to avoid the scandal!"

"We must see what we can do for her," Laura said. She had already decided that she would go to Cole and try to help Lydia. Her cousin's reputation was in shreds but Lydia's heart was broken, too, and she would need someone kinder than Faye to comfort her.

"I hope," Laura continued, "that Sir Montague is bearing up, Lizzie?"

Lady Elizabeth looked disgusted. "Oh, Monty does not deserve your sympathy, Laura. I can scarce accept his callousness. Do you know, he has already washed his hands of Tom? He even plans to take Tom's pitiful little estate at Withenshaw and include it in the Dames' Tax. His greed knows no limits!"

"Gracious," Alice said involuntarily, "I knew he was very acquisitive but that is too much!"

"You had a fortunate escape there, Alice," Lady Elizabeth said. "Not that you ever intended to accept Monty's marriage proposal, I know." She smiled wickedly. "And who would, when a man like Lord Vickery would be so much more fun?"

"Lord Vickery is a rake," Alice said, coloring up furiously. She glanced at Laura. "I am sorry, Laura, for I know he is your cousin, but it is true!"

"Oh, do not apologize to me," Laura said cheerfully. "I know exactly what Miles is like but I think he does have his good points, too."

"One would have to look very hard for them," Alice said crossly. "If one were interested enough to do so, which I am not!" She chopped up the sugar furiously with a teaspoon. "Have you had any news from Mr. Anstruther, Laura? Have they found Tom yet? Are they returning home yet?"

"I am afraid it is a little too soon for news," Laura said. She tried not to feel too despondent, knowing that the others were watching her and also knowing that Alice in particular needed her to keep their spirits up.