Mary Blayney - [Pennistan 03] (21 page)

The duke pulled the boy by the arm over to the spot where the coachman lay, unmoving. A man came out of the house and hurried to them, calling, “I’m a physician.”

The boy knelt beside the coachman and Meryon stood with his hand on the boy’s head as they both watched the physician examine his patient.

The boy’s eyes were wide with shock and Elena turned to Straemore. “Can you have someone bring them brandy? I think the boy is too upset to stand. He looks on the verge of passing out.” Elena pulled a vinaigrette from her reticule and hurried to the small circle.

“Here.” She handed it to the boy. “Sniff this.”

The boy did as he was told, drawing too deep a breath. It gave him an excuse for watery eyes, and his efforts to control the cough that followed were as good a distraction as any.

John Coachman groaned, and it was the happiest sound she had ever heard. Meryon relaxed visibly. The boy turned, ran, and retched in someone’s garden.

One of Straemore’s servants appeared with a tray holding brandy and glasses, another with a blanket to cover the coachman until he was able to move. Far better than using it as death shroud.

Elena poured a sizeable tot for Meryon, who accepted it with a grateful nod, his eyes on the coachman and the physician treating him. He drank it in one swallow and handed the glass back to the servant, who held the tray as
though serving drinks in the street were part of his normal duties.

Meryon took both her hands. “Thank you for the brandy and the vinaigrette. I must talk to Wilson and see if he can give me some clue about how this happened.”

“Yes, yes, of course. I am more hindrance than help now.”

“And if you do not leave now, when John Coachman opens his eyes he will think he is in heaven with an angel tending him.” He squeezed her hands and kissed her with his eyes.

Elena withdrew her hands slowly and walked back to the steps as John Coachman began to move. She paused and watched as he pushed the blanket off and rose, none too steadily, to his feet. Meryon grabbed him and led him to a chair that someone had brought out.

Guests were streaming out of the Straemores’ to see what had happened. The crowd around the carriage grew. Meryon had his hands full answering questions when she was sure he had more important things to do.

William managed to have her carriage brought around the block so that they could leave, which, at this point, seemed to be the way she could help the most. She wanted to stay, but she had no right.

As she climbed the steps into her carriage she looked back at the crowd and saw Meryon watching her even as he spoke to someone. He stopped what he was saying when he saw her and raised a hand. It was thank you, good-bye, until tomorrow, and was all the gesture she needed.

He called to the boy, putting his hand on his shoulder, and as they walked away from the crowd, Elena knew that Meryon’s heart was greater than his rank. He cared. He might hold the title of duke like her father, but it was all they had in common.

T
HE MARCHIONESS INSISTED
that they all come back into the house lest they be accused of a “seditious meeting.” Her guests laughed at the suggestion that they would do anything illegal, but followed her nonetheless.

Straemore’s head groom had come out, and when Meryon asked he readily agreed to oversee John Coachman’s transport home and the other details.

Meryon did not care if the groom burned the coach in place. At this point he wanted to talk to Wilson while the incident was still fresh in his mind. Such an accident merited investigation.

He put his hand on Wilson’s shoulder. “Boy, come tell me what happened. Everything is taken care of here, and watching John Coachman will not make him steady on his feet any more quickly.”

Wilson stood up but could not take his eyes from the coachman. Finally he looked at Meryon. “I didn’t do anything wrong. Really, I didn’t.” The boy’s hard eyes were filled with tears.

“No one thinks you did. If you tell me what happened we can figure out who was responsible, but you are the newest groom and the least likely to be at fault.”

The boy gave a jerk of his head.

It was a mild evening and Meryon led him over to the steps of a nearby, darkened townhouse.

“We were going round and round the block so I could see how a coach and four feels. The coachman let me hold the reins on the straight part.”

“Wait.” Meryon felt the boy shaking. “We will walk back to Penn Square, Wilson. It is better for you to keep moving than to sit still.”

The boy stood up, straightening his now filthy livery. As they moved down the street, Meryon kept a firm grip on his cane. Walking home was becoming a habit. The streets were empty, except for a man running up the stairs to a house, and a serving girl, still wearing her apron, shooing a caterwauling cat away from another gray stone residence.

“Alan, start at the
beginning
of the evening.”

“I had supper and the head groom said that I should go to bed.”

Meryon had not meant quite that early in the evening but he listened without correction.

“It was eight o’clock, sir, Your Grace. I had work to do. That’s what I told the head groom. I watched the
groom real close and helped him cinch here and there. Then we walked around the carriage and checked to make sure that nothing was amiss.” The boy stopped dead in his tracks. “I swear, sir, Your Grace, that all was as it should be.”

“Go on.” Not all the mud holes had been filled yet this spring and the winter had been one of freeze and thaw. Easy enough to lose a wheel if you drove over the same bad spot as many times as they had while giving the boy the feel of a coach and four.

“There are still mud holes. Could that be it?”

“For now, Wilson, tell me what happened. We will speculate on the cause later.”

“Yes, sir, Your Grace.” He thought a moment. “When we reached the party house, one of the maids come out and invited us in for cake. The coachman made the second groom stay with the carriage and the rest of us went. It was a cozy kitchen and there was a fire and maybe we stayed longer than we shoulda. But I took some cake out to the second groom like John Coachman told me, and he was asleep inside the carriage.” Wilson did not raise his head but did move his eyes so that he could watch for the duke’s reaction. “I ate his cake, sir, Your Grace.”

“I would have too.”

“Really?”

“Yes, then I would have rocked the carriage to wake him up and run and hid as fast as I could.”

The boy did not even try to deny this summary. “Do you think that’s how the wheel broke?”

“No, I do not. I think that the dark made it hard to
see the wheels in the stable in the mews. And since no one suspected trouble no one looked too carefully. They did as they were told, in a hurry to be on their way so I would not be kept waiting.”

“I suppose.”

Having established that his employer was not about to dismiss him or hit him for simply telling the truth, the boy walked with more confidence. His too-big shoes still slapped the street, but he had straightened and held his head high.

“Tell me what you think happened to loosen the wheel.”

“I think someone broke it on purpose so it would come off when you were in it, and the reason it came off sooner was because John Coachman was training me.” The boy’s voice shook with anger and then he watched the duke with uncertain eyes. That wild opinion had drained Alan Wilson of his newfound assurance.

“An interesting opinion, Mr. Wilson. I will investigate it.”

“What do you think happened, sir, Your Grace?”

“I think the wheel came loose for some reason we will never know and we need to inspect all the carriages more carefully in the future.”

“Yes, sir, Your Grace,” the boy agreed. “But I still think the coachman should carry a pistol from now on.”

They walked the last block in silence.

G
OD HELP US
. What an evening.” Meryon handed Garrett a glass of port and invited Magda to sit next to him.

“Everyone is all right,” Garrett said. Olivia’s endless optimism seemed to be contagious. “The carriage can be repaired.”

“Replaced. Its alignment is ruined.”

“Replaced. And you can afford it, Lynford. Did the grooms or John Coachman have any idea how it happened?”

“No. The coachman and Wilson insist that when they inspected it before leaving everything was as it should be. That kind of flaw is hard to miss, so I expect they are right.”

“So something must have happened on the way to the party or while the coachman was training Wilson. Or when the carriage was unattended. Lyn, it could have been sabotage.”

“Wilson agrees with you, but there was someone with it all the time. No, it was an accident.”

“Humor a suspicious old soldier and have your coachman carry a pistol.”

“Again Wilson is one step ahead of you with that suggestion. I thought him bloodthirsty. I’ll keep one in the carriage as well.”

“Thank you.” They sat in silence for a while. “Do you fancy a chess game?”

“You left the Straemores’ because you were tired and now you want to play chess. Men of God are not supposed to lie.”

“I was tired. Tired of making conversation with people I do not know well enough to be completely honest with them. Diplomacy does not suit me at all.”

They settled at the game table and Garrett made the first move.

They played in silence for twenty minutes. All the while Meryon debated telling Garrett what he had learned about Elena Verano. When Meryon lost his queen to a bishop, he sat back in his chair and held up his hands.

Garrett’s shock was sincere. “You never lose. You never concede. Are you sure you were not knocked on the head tonight?”

“In a way I was, and I’ve debated for an hour whether to tell you or not.” He returned the pieces to the starting point as he told Garrett of his conversation with Elena Verano and his supposition that she was Bendas’s bastard daughter.

“Lynford, you have spent too much time among The Gossips. There could be a dozen reasons why the Signora and Bendas do not speak.” As he numbered them he tipped over the pieces that were still standing. “Bendas insulted her husband. His wife insulted Signora Verano. She had an argument with him over Lord William. Bendas criticized her singing ability. He embarrassed her in some other way. I could go on and on but I’ve run out of pieces to topple.”

“She said that they have a ‘connection.’ That means something more than an insult.”

“So now we are going to debate the definition of the word? Where do you keep Mr. Johnson’s dictionary?” Garrett did not move from his seat. “If the connection is one of blood, what we should be discussing is whether you will continue to woo her.”

“I do not need to discuss that. It does not matter to me who she is.”

“For God’s sake, Meryon, you
hate
the man you now believe is her father. And you can honestly tell me that it makes no difference to you. I do not believe it.”

“Believe what you will. I want her and I do believe that she wants me.”

“Then this is about no more than lust? There is nothing noble in that, Meryon.”

“I am not pretending there is.”

Garrett steepled his fingers and waited, but he did not have to speak for Meryon to see the disapproval that had taken root. “So, when you are done with her, it will be no more than another element of revenge against her father.”

“No!” Garrett made him sound like some cad from one of Georges’s plays. “If her relationship to Bendas mattered to her she would have told me about it. Our friendship is completely separate from that.”

“As long as when it is over, she believes that as well. And Lord William. The two of them are very close. Hurt her and you hurt him. And the other way around.”

“Stop the sermon, Garrett. I know what I am doing.”

“Yes, I’m sure you think you do.”

O
N WEDNESDAY, BY
the time the clock chimed five-fifteen Elena had completely shredded her handkerchief. As she tossed the useless bit of cotton onto the sideboard near the front door, she realized that despite her nerves she was more angry than relieved that he had decided not to come.

It was clear to her that she had no straightforward sensibility where the Duke of Meryon was concerned. Except for the attraction that was a genteel word for lust.

She peeled off her gloves and was untying her bonnet when there was a knock at the door. The butler opened it and Meryon hurried to her. He held himself still for a moment then bowed to her.

“My deepest apologies, signora.” The words held a wealth of embarrassment. “I would prefer to blame the number of conveyances and people on the road, but honesty compels me to admit that I did not leave enough time. I hope you consider me merely fashionably late by Roman standards.”

His red face, his obvious sincerity, made her smile.

“I understand, Your Grace.” She spoke with all the sympathy she could muster. “Bloomsbury is not that far from Mayfair, but Tinotti was telling me the streets are full of people today.”

As she retied her bonnet and pulled her gloves on, she lectured herself.
This is much easier than singing to a room full of strangers
. It was a perfectly ordinary ride in the park with a duke. It was not his rank that made her nervous.