Lady Anne's Deception (The Changing Fortunes Series Book 4) (11 page)

She pulled the blankets up and lay very still. But she found that she had exchanged one sort of agony for another. She could feel the heat emanating from his body a few inches away from her own. Her whole being started to throb and ache for his touch. Her treacherous body started to shake and tremble.

“If you are cold,” he said, without raising his eyes from the page, “I will fetch some more blankets.”

“It’s not that,” said Annie miserably. “It’s…” At a loss for words, she turned on her side to face him and put one small, cold, trembling hand on his chest.

He twisted his head and looked at her. Her eyes were wide and pleading and bright with unshed tears. Her soft mouth trembled.

“Bloody,
bloody
hell!” said the marquess savagely. He threw his book on the floor and jerked the bedclothes down to the foot of the bed.

“Take off that repellent thing you’re wearing,” he commanded.

“Put out the light,” pleaded Annie. The room was lit by the soft glow of one oil lamp on the marquess’s side of the bed.

“No. I said, take it off.”

Blushing, Annie pulled her nightdress over her head.

“Now,” said the Marquess of Torrance. “Come here and kiss me.”

Annie threw herself on his chest and kissed him inexpertly on the mouth.

He gathered her into his arms and rolled over so that he was lying on top of her, propped up on his elbows.

“Do you want me to make love to you?” he demanded.

“Yes, Jasper,” whispered Annie shyly.

“Do you want me?”

“Yes.”

“How much?” he said. “Tell me how much!”

“Very much,” she said in such a low voice that he had to strain his ears to hear.

Then his eyes gleamed with laughter. He lowered himself down on top of her, the hard weight of his chest pressing against her breasts. “Prepare for a long night, my lady.” He grinned. “Let’s spend our first passion quickly so that I may explore this delicious body of yours at my leisure. I will stop only when I have discovered that your passion matches your temper.”

After the first violent lovemaking was over, Annie felt so exhausted that she thought she would sleep forever. But his lips were moving down her body and every nerve leaped in response until she buried her hands in his thick hair and cried to him to take her again. As the pale dawn light filtered into the room, Annie looked up into her husband’s eyes and saw that they were filled with tenderness and a sort of amazed gratitude.

Her last waking thought was that for the first time in her life she had done something right.

His caressing hands woke her some hours later. The birds were singing outside, and the noises of the street came to their ears.

But, for Annie, all worries and fears had gone. All of the busy world had gone away. All of the universe was reduced to the touch of his lips and the feel of his long fingers, stroking her and turning her from one delicious position to another.

Mary Hammond, Mr. Shaw-Bufford, Marigold, and Harry Bellamy whirled and turned and disappeared from her mind as the Marchioness of Torrance proved over and over again that her passion could outmatch her temper.

Annie floated downstairs sometime in midafternoon, dressed and ready to face what was left of the day. She had retired to her own rooms to bathe and change after the long and exhausting night and morning in her husband’s arms.

A servant had told her that the marquess wished to see her downstairs as soon as she was ready.

A small smile curved Annie’s bruised mouth. He had not said he loved her during their exquisite, shared passion. Now she was sure he would.

She was therefore startled to find her husband waiting for her at the foot of the stairs with a grim look on his face.

Annie tilted her face up for a kiss and closed her eyes.

He seemed not to notice, for when she opened them again he was half turned away from her and saying, “Those two chaps from Scotland Yard are back. I put them in the study. They want to speak to you.”

All of Annie’s newfound esteem crumbled away. She did not care who was waiting for her in the study. All she cared about was that he had not kissed her. He did not care for her. Last night meant nothing to him. It did not dawn on her for a moment that her husband was very worried about something and had not even noticed her offered kiss.

“Well, if they’ve come to see me, I suppose I’d better see them,” she said in a brittle voice, sweeping in front of him toward the study.

Two middle-aged men rose at her entrance. Her husband followed her in and closed the door. “May I present Detective Inspectors Carton and Johns of the Yard. Mr. Carton, Mr. Johns, my wife.”

Annie gave them a chilly nod and took a seat facing them. The marquess stood behind her chair.

Mr. Carton was the spokesman. He was not like Annie’s idea of a policeman at all. He was very tall and distinguished-looking with a thin, intelligent face.

“We wish to ask you a few questions, my lady,” he began. “It concerns the death of Miss Hammond.”

Annie flushed guiltily. Suddenly it seemed terrible that she had not given one thought since last night to that poor woman’s death.

“I found Miss Hammond a trifle eccentric,” she said hesitantly. “But I would not have said she was the sort of lady to take her own life.”

“Exactly,” said Mr. Carton, in a level voice.

“But she seemed very worried… almost frightened… when I last saw her. Oh, dear!” Annie blushed miserably again. She remembered the look on Mary Hammond’s white face and how she had turned even whiter at the sound of a step on the landing above.

“You have remembered something,” prompted Mr. Carton gently.

“Yes, I…” Annie twisted her head and looked up anxiously at her husband.

His face wore a closed, shuttered look as he stared straight in front of him.

“Yes?” Mr. Carton prompted again.

“Well, it was at the ball. She said she wanted to speak to me about something.”

“And did she?”

“Well, no. You see, I was talking to my future brother-in-law, Mr. Harry Bellamy, so I said I’d see her later. Oh, she asked me if I had seen Mr. Shaw-Bufford.”

“I gather Mr. Shaw-Bufford arrived after the body of Miss Hammond had been found.”

“Perhaps,” said Annie miserably, “if I had given her the time, if only I had spoken to her, she would not have done this terrible thing.”

“You are under the impression that Miss Hammond committed suicide?”

Annie stared at the inspector, wide-eyed. “But of course she did. You can’t mean…?”

“It was made to look like suicide, yes, but in fact Miss Hammond was murdered. The autopsy was performed this morning and it revealed that Miss Hammond had been strangled by someone
before
the rope was put around her neck.”

“Oh,” said Annie weakly. Everything suddenly seemed unreal: the two detectives sitting so solemnly across from her, her husband standing rigidly behind her, the ticking of the black marble clock above the fireplace.

“We also found evidence in Miss Hammond’s lodgings that points to the fact that she may well have been the lady who tried to kill the prime minister yesterday. She bungled the job, so someone killed her. A powerful woman could do the job.”

Annie began to feel sick.

“So,” pursued Mr. Carton, “we want you to tell us about this society. Miss Hammond gave lectures, that we know. But she has no record of having undertaken any militant action before. We would have said she simply enjoyed public speaking. Can you think of any members of her society who might have killed her?”

Annie shook her head. “It’s silly, but I never really got to know any of them. She was a sort of one-woman organization when I first met her at Britlingsea. Then she called and asked if she could use this house for a committee meeting. I agreed. I knew some of the women who came, certainly Mrs. Tommy Winton, who gave the ball, and some of the other society ladies. But the ones I knew, well, I think they were simply using the whole thing as an excuse to have a sort of charity ball.

“The other women—there were about three—who seemed to belong to Miss Hammond’s new movement, I hadn’t seen them before, and I doubt if I would recognize any of them again.”

“Were the speeches—I assume there were speeches—particularly militant? Was there any mention of Mr. Macleod’s name?”

Annie passed a hand over her brow. “I can’t remember. I was coming down with influenza and I was already running a fever, you see, and I was out of the room most of the time Miss Hammond was talking.”

“Where did you go? To lie down?”

“N-no. Mr. Shaw-Bufford wanted to talk to me—in the study.”

Mr. Carton leaned forward. “What did he want to see you about, my lady?”

Annie stared at the floor.

“My lady,” said Mr. Carton, “this is a murder investigation. You must tell me why the chancellor wished to talk to you in private.”

“He wanted to ask me for money,” mumbled Annie.

She could almost feel her husband’s hands tightening on the back of the chair. She had lied to him. She had told him that Mr. Shaw-Bufford had not asked her for money.

“For himself?”

“No. For Miss Hammond’s society.”

“How much, my lady?”

“T-ten thousand pounds.”

“Ten
thousand
pounds! That’s a great deal of money. A fortune!”

“I didn’t give it to him,” said Annie quickly.

“And that was the end of the matter?”

There was a long silence. The fog had cleared, but a dismal, gusty, blustery wind was howling through the streets of London. A torn newspaper danced an erratic ballet in front of the window. The window frame rattled. The fire crackled and the clock ticked.

“My lady,” said Mr. Carton, “the only way we are going to solve this business is by demanding complete honesty from all the people we have to interview. Now, I will repeat my question. Did the chancellor just let the matter drop?”

Oh, thought Annie, miserably, Jasper is going to find out how I have lied and lied again.

“I felt ill. I needed time,” she said wearily. “I told him to come back on Wednesday. He did. But I was too ill to see him. When I finally did see him, I said I would make out the check to the society. My husband had told me to do that. He said I was never to make a check out to an individual. Mr. Shaw-Bufford was… well, rather insistent. So I told him I had no money of my own. I lied. I said that he should ask my husband. And he left. He—he was angry.”

“Well, then, my lady,” said Mr. Carton. “Don’t distress yourself. We shall probably find that Mr. Shaw-Bufford wanted the money for the society and for no other reason. Now, is there anything else you can think of that might help us?”

There was. Annie was sure there was something there at the back of her mind, but, for the life of her, she couldn’t think of what it was.

She shook her head dumbly.

“I may as well tell you, my lady, that I spoke to Mr. Harry Bellamy this morning. He said that you were worried about the ball being a sham. That it was not really for something vague like Women of the World, but for a feminist society run by Miss Hammond. In fact, he called in person at the Yard to tell us. Were you, in fact, very upset by this deception?”

Poor Annie felt that she had told enough truth for one morning.

“Yes,” she said.

“I am afraid that was not the case,” came the voice of her husband from behind her. “My wife pretended to sprain her ankle so as to manufacture an opportunity of being alone with Mr. Bellamy. I think you will find that my wife doesn’t care two pins whether women get the vote or not. She merely wanted to make her sister jealous. Lady Marigold Sinclair is affianced to Mr. Bellamy.”

“Is this true, my lady?” asked Mr. Carton.

“Yes,” said Annie, in a stifled voice. In that moment she could have killed her husband. How
dare
he hold her actions up to ridicule?

“Then I think that will be all for the moment,” said the inspector, signaling to his colleague. “I hope I do not have to trouble you again. My lord, my lady, good day to you.”

After the policemen had left, Annie walked to the window and stared out at the dismal day.

“I hope you’re satisfied,” she said in a low voice.

“Yes,” came her husband’s infuriatingly bland voice.

“It was necessary to tell the police the truth. That way you cannot be suspected of murder.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Annie, whirling around to face him.

“It also cleared the air. There has been too much misunderstanding between us. I ask you not to lie to me again, Annie.”

“You pompous ass,” howled Annie. “How dare you stand there and pontificate? How dare you tell those coppers that I have no interest in women getting the vote? I care very much. I think women have a damn hard time time of it. I think
I
have a hard time of it being married to you.”

“On the contrary, you have a very easy time. You are very much your own mistress. You came to me willingly last night, or do I have to remind you of that?”

“That was because I was afraid,” Annie flashed back. “I had just seen a dead body for the first time in my life, and a pretty awful one at that!”

“And what went on between us last night? How do you interpret that, my fair lady?”

“Lust!”

Although he did not move an inch, it was as if he were retreating from her, step by step, moving away, moving far away to the other side of a great, black gulf of resentment and hurt and misunderstanding.

The silence seemed to go on forever.

Then he gave a little shrug. “I have business to attend to,” said the Marquess of Torrance.

And so he left.

Annie had never felt more alone in her life.

CHAPTER SEVEN

 

Annie sat in front of the Houses of Parliament, surrounded by ranks of silent women, all demanding the vote with their long vigil.

The only comfort she had was the realization that she was doing it because she really thought women should get the vote and not to revenge herself on her husband.

During the past few weeks, she had hardly seen him at all, and when she had he had been polite and punctilious. At that moment, he was in the House of Lords. He had been up most of the night before preparing his speech. That much Annie had gleaned from the servants, who were most impressed that his lordship wrote his own speeches and did not employ the services of a secretary.

Annie had, however, seen quite a deal of Detective-Inspector Carton. He had returned on one occasion, bringing with him Chief Superintendent Delaney who, he said, was in charge of the case.

The chief superintendent was a large, fatherly man who quickly put Annie at her ease. He took her over the whole business again, starting with her first meeting with Miss Hammond.

Mr. Shaw-Bufford had appeared as a genuine champion of women’s rights, Mr. Delaney had said. Annie wondered whether to pass on her husband’s cynical opinion that the chancellor wanted to buy a peerage but decided against it.

Miss Hammond, it transpired, had been a country solicitor’s daughter, living on a small annuity left her in her parents’ will. Her lodgings in Bayswater had been depressingly shabby, Mr. Delaney had said. A rifle, recently fired, had been found hidden under the mattress, together with a diary that left very little doubt in the minds of the police that Miss Hammond had been guilty of the attempt on the life of the prime minister.

“He tells me it is the only way,” Miss Hammond had written after describing how she meant to go about shooting Mr. Macleod outside the House of Commons. “I trust him because he is wise, although some call him Evil.”

Annie shivered and pulled her cloak more tightly about her shoulders. The “he” of the diary, Mr. Delaney had decided, was probably the devil. He had asked if Miss Hammond had shown any signs of being a religious fanatic, but Annie had said that Miss Hammond only appeared fanatical on the subject of men.

The women who surrounded Annie during the vigil were mostly well-to-do, middle-class women. Annie had been sitting there for seven hours and she was feeling chilled to the bone. But if they could do it, she could, she told herself sternly. She had decided to wait until the House rose in three hours’ time, then go home and have a hot bath.

Several times she had thought of going to her husband and explaining what had driven her to say those things. That it was not just because he had made her feel like a fool in front of the police; it was because he seemed to have joined the serried ranks of authority figures who always made her feel like a fool.

Her mother and father were in London to begin the preparations for Marigold’s wedding. The countess had called on Annie to exclaim with horror over the fact that her younger daughter had got her name involved in a murder scandal. How Annie had longed to unburden herself. To cry for advice! But her mother had seemed as chilly and aloof as ever and was completely taken up with relishing the idea of what a beautiful bride Marigold would make.

Annie had then called on Mrs. Tommy Winton, hoping that that lady might have some advice on the difficulties of marriage.

But it seemed that Mrs. Winton and her society friends in some way blamed Annie for the ruin of their ball. Annie should have known, Mrs. Winton had said, rattling the teacups, that Mary Hammond was the sort of woman to do a terribly embarrassing thing like hanging herself in the most public manner possible.

Annie had tried to point out that it was a case of murder, not suicide, to which Mrs. Winton had replied with a superior smile that it was just like Annie to side with the police. She had added insult to injury by saying that she had decided that the whole idea of the vote for women was quite ridiculous and rather distasteful. Much better to leave the running of the country to the men. Equality was ridiculous. Had women had to fight the Boers? No, of course not. Well, if Annie and her ilk pursued their mad course, they would end up on the battlefield, fighting alongside the men and absolutely ruining their complexions. Although mud
was
said to be beneficial. Had Annie heard of the latest treatment at Solange? It was at this point that Annie had left.

And so Annie was left feeling more than ever like a child adrift in an incomprehensible adult world.

She longed to apologize to her husband. But she was terrified that he would reject her apology. And her stubborn pride kept telling her that he should be the one to apologize first.

Annie had met Marigold and her fiancé at the opera three nights ago. Harry Bellamy had twirled his moustache and leered at her, and Marigold had looked angry and hurt.

The minutes dragged by. Now she realized why some women preferred more militant action. At times anything seemed preferable to this long, silent war.

All at once she remembered the laughing tenderness in her husband’s eyes after they had made love. Surely that was love! Did one have to say it? Had he not shown her that he loved her, that it was more than lust?

Annie clenched her frozen hands in her lap. This evening, this very evening, she would apologize to him. And, having made that decision, she felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

Rain started pattering down on her felt hat, a few little drops, then more, then a steady downpour. She was glad that she had had the foresight to bring her umbrella and broke her silence by offering to share its shelter with the woman next to her.

“Thank you very much,” said her companion, briskly. “I was so sure it wouldn’t rain. I hope I don’t catch a cold because my husband will really be angry with me. He told me it would rain.”

“I suppose it’s all right if we talk,” ventured Annie. “I know it’s supposed to be a silent vigil….”

“Well, nobody will hear us in this deluge. I think we ought to stand up, don’t you? Our skirts will be soaked in no time.”

“No one else is standing up,” said Annie, looking around.

“Oh, well.” Her companion sighed. “I suppose we should all stick together.”

“I’m Annie Torrance,” said Annie, feeling an introduction was necessary.

“Very pleased to meet you. I’m Agnes Merriweather. Did you say Torrance? You’re not the Marchioness of Torrance?”

Annie nodded.

“Oh, you poor thing! I saw your name in the papers, my lady. I was reading about that Hammond business. We’re all mystified. If she had been a member of a large militant group—you know, the kind who smash windows in Oxford Street and snipe at passing trains—I could have understood it. But no one in any of the feminist movements had ever really heard of her. She was a member of the Women’s National and Political Union at one time, I believe, but she didn’t make any friends. Who do you think would kill her?”

“I don’t know,” said Annie. “I keep thinking it must have been a woman. But perhaps it was one of the men who got so infuriated with all she stood for.”

“But she didn’t really stand for anything but herself,” protested Mrs. Merriweather. “I gather she made vague sorts of speeches, all down with men and that sort of thing, traveling around the country and speaking in damp church halls to tiny audiences of bored women.”

“I first met her at Britlingsea,” said Annie. “She had some idea that we should cease all intimacy with men until we got what we wanted.”

Mrs. Merriweather laughed. “What woman in her right mind wants to do that? You don’t think some woman took her seriously and her husband strangled Mary Hammond in revenge? Of course, any woman who does that ought to end up in the divorce courts.”

Annie flushed. “Or man,” she said.

Mrs. Merriweather shifted a large handbag to her other arm and stole a look at her companion’s face.

“Forgive me, my lady,” she said. “But you look very unhappy. Is this business of Miss Hammond’s murder preying on your mind?”

“That… and—and other things. I need a woman to talk to.”

“I’m one. We’re not acquainted, but sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger.”

It was Annie’s turn to study her companion’s face. Mrs. Merriweather was middle-aged, with gray hair peeping out from under the brim of her hat. She had round, red cheeks and rather pleasant, faded blue eyes.

“It’s this,” Annie burst out. “I’m not on speaking terms with my husband.”

“And you married so recently! Perhaps he does not approve of what you are doing. Oh, how silly. Of course he must. That was a splendid speech he made in the Lords about women’s rights.”

Annie turned a dull red. “I didn’t know,” she faltered. “Nobody told me….”

“Well, it was in all the newspapers. He came under a lot of fire, but then he’s so witty his adversaries were left standing. But that’s not the problem between you?”

“No,” said Annie. “Look, I’m going to tell you about it. I must get advice from someone….”

And so Annie proceeded to unburden herself, feeling as she did so that she was breaking some rigid social code. Men, she knew, did not discuss their wives. Perhaps that was why so many of them died of high-blood pressure.

Mrs. Merriweather listened in attentive silence.

When Annie was finished, she said gently, “He must be very much in love with you.”

“But he never
said
so.”

“You don’t go by what people
say
but by what they
do.
There are some happy marriages, where, I am sure, the word love has never been mentioned. If Lord Torrance had not been in love with you, then he would not have been so hurt when you told him you had only married him to get revenge on your sister.”

“Perhaps that was just hurt pride,” said Annie. “My pride gets dreadfully hurt.”

“Now you move in a much more elevated society than I, my lady,” said Mrs. Merriweather. “But the social columns can’t
all
be wrong. I was under the impression that the Marquess of Torrance could have married anyone he wanted to.”

Annie nodded.

“But he didn’t. He married you. And very quickly, too.”

“That—that could have been to get my money,” said Annie, who had already told her companion of the legacy.

“But your husband is one of the richest men in the country! Didn’t you know that? His wealth is legendary, and that home of his, Frileton House, is a palace!”

“I didn’t know,” said Annie. “But,” she burst out, “if there is to be equality in a marriage, surely
he
should apologize to
me
.”

“Well, it seems he was in the wrong, too. But I think he has the advantage over you.
He
married you for love. Also, if you think enough of yourself, there’s nothing wrong with apologizing. If you don’t learn to do that, then marital rows can go on for weeks. It’s no use thinking the whole time that your husband is being nasty to you just because he
is
nasty. Goodness, how wet we’re getting! All this rainwater. My boots feel like swimming baths. Not long to go now. I’ll tell you a story to pass the time.” Mrs. Merriweather poked a strand of gray hair under her hat and adjusted her heavy handbag.

“Now Albert, my husband, was very moody when I started going on these vigils. Every time I came home, he was more angry and crusty than the day before. I naturally assumed, therefore, that he was like most men and thought all this feminist business was a farce, and so, as he became angrier, I became more silent and bitter, and by the end of one week we weren’t speaking to each other
at all.

“But somehow I suddenly found myself thinking, this is silly. So I simply went and asked him what the matter was, and he told me he thought I hadn’t been sitting outside the House of Commons, but that I was meeting some fellow on the sly. Well, I was very tempted to laugh because it’s very flattering when you come to think of it, considering my age and the fact that we’ve been married twenty years! It sounds funny now, but it was nearly the end of our marriage before I explained things. Lack of communication is a dreadful thing.”

“I had already made up my mind to apologize,” said Annie shyly. “I think I’ll find it a lot easier after talking to you.”

At last the House rose, and so did Annie and her companion. They were soaked to the skin, and Annie was shivering so much her teeth rattled. She said good-bye to Mrs. Merriweather.

Neither woman thought of exchanging addresses or of arranging to see each other again. For Annie was of the aristocracy and Mrs. Merriweather was middle-class and lived in Camberwell. Later in life this would strike Annie as very strange and she would often find herself thinking of Mrs. Merriweather. But, for the moment, the vote for women was revolutionary enough and left little space in Annie’s mind for any thoughts of breaking down the English caste system, or, indeed, of questioning it at all.

She did, however, feel a pleasurable sensation of guilt to have a mansion full of servants to return to, to have her bath drawn and scented with rose water, to have her clothes laid out for her. She hoped the rest of the women who had been on the vigil were half as lucky.

“Tell my husband I shall join him in half an hour,” Annie called to the maid, Barton, who was arranging jars and bottles on the toilet table. “We are going to the Bunburys’ tonight.”

“My lord has already left,” came Barton’s voice. “It’s ten o’clock, my lady. He thought you did not have any intention of going.”

Annie appeared from the bathroom, wrapped in a fleecy towel, and stared at the clock in dismay. It had been a late-night sitting in the House and she had been so absorbed in listening to Mrs. Merriweather that she had not noticed the passage of time.

“Then I will follow him,” she said. “Tell Perkins to have the carriage brought around in half an hour.”

Annie stood at the entrance to the Bunburys’ ballroom, feeling as shy and as gauche as she had done a few months ago. Her gown of lilac silk had a corsetlike, close-fitting bodice with a round waist. The décolletage was low and off the shoulder with large, “balloon” short sleeves. The skirt had a train and lace-trimmed side panels.