The Devious Duchess (23 page)

“Where else might they seek shelter and privacy? The granary? It’s separate from the stable. There’d be no one there this time of night,” Straus suggested. “If she met up with Ryder just as he came out . . ."

“It’s possible,” Deirdre agreed.

“We’ll give it a try.”

Together they hastened back across the meadow, veering toward the big barn that stood like a square mountain against the sky. But when they reached it, the door was bolted on the outside by means of a beam that slid into two wooden brackets mounted on either side of the door.

They exchanged a frustrated glance. Straus looked all around. The house was twenty yards away. Deirdre shook her head. "I can’t believe he’d take her there,” she said before Straus suggested it.

“Think, lass,” he urged. “He’s got her somewhere.”

A shiver of fear rippled down her spine at his manner of phrasing the situation. Deirdre had never cared for Anna Wilkey or seen her as a victim, but a vivid picture of her— such a small, pale, hopelessly ignorant girl, and Nevil a large, ruthless man—flashed into her head. Nevil had betrayed her, offered her some spurious affection, to bend her to his will. And what would he do now? Surely not kill her! Not another murder!

“The conservatory!” she exclaimed. “We haven’t used it for years. The glass windows are half broken, but perhaps . . ."

“Which way?”

“The far side of the house. You can’t see it from the road.”

“Aye, it’d be behind that large stand of fir trees then. Come along, lass, and, mind you, tread light.”

As he spoke, he hastened forward, and Deirdre went after him. The conservatory windows were heavily coated with dust and grime, but their surface picked up the moonbeams and reflected them dimly, creating an illusion of a ghost palace. Within, the skeletons of withered fruit trees, lemon and orange, stood like dead sentinels. The sere remains of pineapple plants formed spiky fans along the outer wall.

Straus stopped several yards in front of the conservatory and put his hand to his lips. Then he pointed to the door that hung ajar a few inches and looked all around. He and Deirdre noticed the two hunching figures at the left side of the building at the same time. Belami and Pronto. Dick looked up and spotted them. A movement of his hand bade them to leave, but they both ignored this and only detoured slightly, to approach the conservatory by a less direct route.

When Belami saw their plan, he went to meet them, a little removed from the conservatory. “They’re in there,” he said. “Ryder’s trying to cozzen her into returning to the Grange.”

“Have you got anything usable against him yet?” Straus asked.

“The word ‘murder’ hasn’t been used—yet. I don’t want to miss it when it is. I’m going back.”

“We’ll join you,” Straus said in a tone that brooked no denial.

Soon four pairs of ears were listening at the broken window, and four pairs of eyes were straining to get a glimpse of what was going on. Between the rows of trees, Deirdre could see that Nevil had an arm around Anna’s thin shoulders, trying his hand at a little lovemaking, but his rigid stance made it perfectly obvious that he found the ordeal distasteful.

“Everything’s going to be fine, my love,” he said. The words were spoken softly, but in the night air they traveled well enough to be just audible.

“That’s what you said before, and things ain’t fine, Nevil. You’re going to go off and leave me. I know you are. What’s to become of me?” Anna asked.

“I’ll come back for you, my love. Don’t you trust me?”

“You said it was only a sleeping powder. That’s what you said.” She turned in his arms and gazed up at him.

“It was a sleeping powder, Anna. What I gave you was a sleeping powder. If you were foolish enough to get it mixed up with something else and give him the wrong dose . . ."

Anna began crying, and her words were hard to hear. “I gave him what you told me to! I put it in the glass of brandy I poured for him, and I took away the glass after he fell asleep and put another one on the floor, just like you said, so Lord Dudley couldn’t prove you put him to sleep. You were supposed to come back. We’d put the old gentleman to sleep and get rid of Mrs. Haskell, and you’d come back. We’d spend the night together, you said. Why didn’t you come? The constable says it was arsenic. You killed him, Nevil.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed.

“You did, and that Lord Belami and Straus know it. They told Polly they’d help her if she confessed, and they’ll help me, too. You’re not going to get my neck stretched!” she said boldly, sniffling away her tears.

“If you’d done exactly as I told you, Anna, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Why did you have to go babbling to Polly that Mrs. Haskell was gone to visit her aunt?”

“I never told Miss Gower! I told her I didn’t know where she was gone. It just slipped out to Polly. That’s all. Anybody can make one little mistake. I could’ve talked Polly out of thinking I ever said it. It was you scaring her that made her run off like she did. Saying the law’d get after her for not being there to look after Lord Dudley. Neglecting her duty and letting him die. She’s so scared there’s no telling what she’ll do. I wish she’d stayed away."

“No use crying over spilt milk,” Nevil said. His voice was becoming impatient. “Exactly what did Straus say to you, Anna? What makes you think they suspect you?”

“Us, you mean,” she informed him. “He asked me all kinds of questions till I hardly knew what I was saying. He asked me if you was my beau and if you gave me any medicine to give Dudley that night. I tell you, Nevil, he knows everything.”

“You didn’t tell him? You didn’t admit it?” Nevil demanded sharply.

“No! But if he keeps at me with them sharp questions he’ll make me slip up. I know he will, Nevil. You’ve got to take me away with you—now, tonight.”

There was no immediate reply to this plea, but through the branches Deirdre saw that Nevil was pacifying Anna by patting her shoulder and smiling. Some unreasonable, emotional part of her wanted Nevil to run away to safety with Anna, but she knew he’d never do it. He’d never marry a penniless servant girl, and even if he did, to save his neck, the girl would have a hideous life.

In pantomime, they all watched as Nevil led Anna to a carved-iron loveseat in the conservatory and sat down with her, talking softly in a way that soothed her. Nevil was speaking, but in the low accents of lovemaking so that his words couldn’t be distinguished. He seemed to be giving Anna something, some little box. She opened it and took out a small, dark object. She offered the box to Nevil, and he, too, took up one of the little items. It must be bonbons, Deirdre thought. Almost simultaneously it occurred to her what they might contain.

She thought Anna was struck by the same thought, as she sat waiting for Nevil to eat his first. He popped his into his mouth, and Anna raised her fingers to do likewise. Suddenly Belami and Straus were galvanized into action. Straus let out an unholy bellow. “Stop, in the name of the law!” he hollered through the broken window. Belami had fled around to the open door, and in an instant Deirdre saw him grab the bonbon from Anna’s fingers. Nevil shot up from the bench and made a lunge toward the rear of the conservatory. His disappearance was followed almost instantly by the shattering of broken glass as he plunged through the window.

“Go after him, Pronto!” Deirdre shouted, and Pronto slunk away through the night with surprising speed. When she looked back to the scene inside, Belami and Straus were also gone. Deirdre went in to comfort Anna or to stop her if she seemed bent on escape.

Anna had gone beyond such crafty thinking. She sat slumped on the bench, crying into her raised hands. Deirdre took the poor, thin form into her arms. “It’s all right, Anna,” she said, stroking the girl’s back. “You’re safe now."

“Oh, miss, they’ll kill me for sure. I’m an accessory. I gave your uncle the poison. He told me it was just a sleeping powder.”

“We heard it all, Anna. Don’t be afraid. It’s going to be all right.”

“It was wicked of me. I know it was. He never even said he’d marry me, but he said I was beautiful. Nobody ever thought I was beautiful before. He said he’d loved me forever, ever since he saw me at the Grange. He was going to hire me rooms in London. He said he thought I was prettier than Polly.”

Deirdre knew she couldn’t leave Anna alone, but her mind was darting off on the chase. She thought it would only be a matter of minutes, but for a long time she waited with Anna, till the cold finally made her realize this was a poor spot to wait.

“I want to go home,” Anna sobbed.

Home seemed preferable to Fernvale, where the duchess would have a great deal to say to Anna Wilkey, none of which the poor girl was in any state to endure. Deirdre walked across the meadow with her and took her into the kitchen. In the lamplight, Anna’s face was seen to be ashen and stained with tears, her sunken eyes red from crying.

“Where’s Mrs. Haskell?” Deirdre asked Polly, who was working at the sink.

“She’s with Lady Dudley, miss,” Polly answered, but her eyes were trained on Anna. Soon she ran to her sister servant and put her arms around her.

“Oh, you great goose, Anna! I told you to stay away from that wretch!” Polly said. Tears spurted from Polly's eyes now, too. “It ain’t Anna’s fault, miss. She was took advantage by Sir Nevil,” she told Deirdre.

“I know it very well, Polly. Help Anna to bed, will you please?”

“The law won’t get hold of her, will it, miss?” Polly asked.

Both girls looked to Deirdre for consolation on this important score. “No, I don’t think it will,” Deirdre said. If necessary, she personally was ready to tell any lie the law required to save Anna.

Deirdre sat alone in the kitchen. After the ordeal just passed, she wasn’t about to go back home alone. She thought she should call Adelaide or Mrs. Haskell, but the quiet cozy kitchen, free of bothersome company, suited her mood, and she sat on alone, thinking. Nevil couldn’t get far with three men chasing him. He hadn’t had much of a head start.

They’d catch him, and he’d have to stand trial for Dudley’s murder. And as though dragging the family through the mire for murder weren’t bad enough, he had done it in the most cowardly way possible, seducing a poor ignorant servant girl and making her his unwitting tool. She was surprised Anna had succumbed to his blandishments, but then the poor girl never had any love or attention. And Nevil could lay on the charm with a trowel when he wanted to. She had begun to think him not so bad herself, at one point. It must have seemed like a dream come true to Anna, that Nevil had secretly loved her all these years and would rescue her from servitude.

After ten minutes, Deirdre was rested and impatient to learn what had transpired with Nevil and the others. She went upstairs and told her tale to Adelaide.

“Let’s get going!” Adelaide said, and ran for a shawl.

They took Bagot with them for protection, but there was no one at the conservatory or at Fernvale when Deirdre slipped back in the front door, from which she had left earlier. Where could they all be? Had Nevil managed to get away after all?

“I’ll send Bagot to have a look in the stable and see if any nags are gone,” Adelaide said.

Not only the nags but also Straus’s and Belami’s carriages were missing. Sir Nevil’s was still there, however, which suggested that the culprit had been caught and taken into Banting to be charged and incarcerated.

“The old lady will have a deal to say about this,” Adelaide prophesied.

No sooner had the words left her mouth than the heavy tread of the duchess’s step was heard, limping toward the saloon.

Chapter 16

It was more than an hour later when Belami and Pronto returned to Fernvale. Her grace had had ample time to cajole, threaten, and insult Lady Dudley into lowering her price on the Grange. The new price, including all furnishings, was seven thousand. Still under negotiation was the repair of the roof, and, of course, the seven thousand as well. The duchess was determined to have the place at six, and Adelaide equally determined not to go a penny lower than sixty-five. All such thoughts flew from their heads when the gentlemen entered.

The duchess’s negotiating demeanor changed to one of lofty contempt. “So you’ve put my nephew in jail for murder, have you, Lord Belami?” was her opening salvo.

She expected a heavy setdown and was surprised at Belami’s restrained manner. “That proved unnecessary,” he answered.

“What happened, Dick?” Deirdre asked, running to him.

“He committed suicide,” Dick said.

“Bonbons,” Pronto said.

“This is no time for sweets, Mr. Pilgrim!” the duchess exclaimed. “Neither does that portly frame of yours require fattening, I can tell you.”

“Poison in the bonbons,” Pronto explained. “The ones he was trying to give Anna. We got out of him that he laced three of ‘em with poison and ate one of the ones that wasn’t poisoned himself to convince Anna they weren’t dangerous. But when he realized we had him dead to rights, he popped one of the poison ones into his mouth and didn’t tell us. Was sick as a dog before we realized what he was up to. Pity, but there you are."

“Why on earth did he want to kill Anna Wilkey? She has no money to leave him,” the duchess said.

“Was afraid she’d crack under the strain of Straus’s questioning and tell the whole thing,” Pronto informed her. “Planned to walk her back to the Grange and have her slip up to die quietly in her bed, while he went round to the front door and let on he hadn’t seen her. Told
you
he was going to see Adelaide,” he said, tossing his head toward the duchess. “Meant to see her as planned and be surprised in the morning when Anna woke up dead, you see. Don’t see how he thought anyone would swallow Anna’s having murdered old Lord Dudley, but Dick thinks that was his plot.”

“Of course the whole business would look highly suspicious,” Dick added, “but it would have been impossible to prove anything with Anna dead. She was the only one who could give hard evidence of his guilt.”

“I’m surprised at Anna Wilkey!” the duchess said, her close-set eyes narrowed in anger. “I always thought she was a halfway decent girl. Turn her off, Adelaide. We don’t want a murderess running around the house. Or will Straus be able to have her put in jail, Belami?”