The Heiress In His Bed Page 25

  “What am I to do, Lover?” she asked petulantly when the butler returned after showing the last of her visitors out. “If I go out, I may meet someone I don’t like, but if I stay in, I’m certain of it! And these ridiculous invitations! I don’t want to go to Mrs Briggs’s candlelight supper, and I couldn’t be driven at knifepoint to Mrs Shaw’s ridotto. I adore politics, but why must all politicians’ wives be such deadly bores?”

  “You have one more visitor, my lady,” Lover said apologetically. “But it is perhaps too late for a morning call. Shall I tell Mr Rampling to come back tomorrow?”

  “Heavens, no,” said Viola, working out a desperate kink in her neck. “Let us get it over with. He has brought his badly dressed wife with him, I suppose?”

  “I believe Mr Rampling to be unmarried, my lady.”

  “What?” Viola said sharply. “I distinctly recall telling him to marry as soon as possible! What’s he been doing with his time? Send him in.”

  At twenty-five, Mr Rampling was something of a protégé. Viola had chosen him for Parliament primarily because he looked the part, and secondarily because he possessed a remarkable, booming voice perfect for drowning out the opposition. He had the necessary air of gravity and consequence. Blue-eyed and angelically fair, he was tall and good-looking. He had not expected to be ushered into the Presence—he had thought only of leaving his card—and his gratitude for Lady Viola’s condescension was immense and voluble.

  Viola greeted him cordially and gave him two fingers to shake.

  “Do you like Parliament, Mr Rampling?” she asked him pleasantly as he took his seat.

  Cornelius Rampling hated Parliament, but he could hardly say so. “I like Parliament excessively, Lady Viola,” he boomed. “These are exciting times in which we live. I—”

  Viola interrupted him. “Who put you there, Mr Rampling?”

  Cornelius blinked rapidly. “Beg pardon, my lady? Who put me…?”

  “In Parliament. Who put you in Parliament, Mr Rampling? It’s a simple question.”

  “You did, Lady Viola,” he said gravely. “That is, your ladyship’s brother did, upon your advice. Indeed, I am most exceedingly grateful to your—”

  “Who writes all your speeches for you, Mr Rampling?”

  “You do, Lady Viola.”

  “Who tells you how to vote?”

  “You do, Lady Viola.”

  “As a result, you are known as one of our most promising Members,” said Viola. “You would be quite lost without me to guide you.”

  “I am eternally grateful to your ladyship for the opportunity—”

  “And yet you do not take my advice, Mr Rampling,” she said coolly.

  Cornelius’s eyes widened. “I would not, for the world,” he said carefully, “argue with your ladyship, but there can be nothing more precious to me than your ladyship’s advice!”

  Viola sighed impatiently. “Did I not tell you to marry? Nobody trusts a bachelor in politics—it looks so eccentric. Are you married, Mr Rampling? Are you engaged?”

  The young man’s cheeks reddened. Occasionally, it was brought home to him that his tyrannical patroness was four years his junior and a stunning beauty besides, but most of the time he was scared witless that she would snatch away all she had given. “I am…looking for a wife, my lady. Most diligently. I spend at least three hours of every day in the park, looking.”

  Viola was frowning. “What do you mean, looking?” she said indignantly. “They are young ladies, Mr Rampling. They are not pictures at an exhibition.”

  “No, your ladyship,” he humbly agreed. “But there are so many of them. Of course, it is difficult to know what sort of female would be most pleasing to your ladyship.”

  “For shame, Mr Rampling! Has your mother not introduced you to any young ladies this Season? Has your sister no friends with whom you might consort?”

  “My mother and my sister are in Hampshire, Lady Viola.”

  “What? Not in Town? How does Lady Caroline expect to get you a wife, if she does not put any effort into the process? Does she have no interest in her future daughter-in-law?”

  Cornelius looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry to say, my mother’s health prevents her from coming to Town, Lady Viola. Else she would certainly have come to pay her respects to you.”

  “Oh,” said Viola, relenting. “Well, if your mother is ill, you should take a leave of absence, Mr Rampling. You should be at her side. You can leave directly after lunch.”

  Cornelius hesitated. A reprieve from the tedium of Whitehall? A holiday in the country? He could see himself fishing in the streams and tearing across the fields on his big black hunter. It sounded too good to be true. “Are you quite sure, my lady?” he said tentatively. “Indeed, the doctors do not seem to think my poor mother is likely to recover quickly. I could be gone for quite some time.”

  “All the more reason you should go! You only have one mother,” Viola replied. “You must go to her at once, Mr Rampling. In fact, I will take you. You may sit on the barouche box. Whereabouts in Hampshire are you?”

  Cornelius was taken aback. “I could not ask your ladyship to go to so much trouble,” he cried. “I would not dream—”

  Viola waved her hand. “It’s no trouble. My brother owns some property in Hampshire, and, as I am tired of London at the moment, it suits me very well to escape to the country. Are you anywhere near the charming village of Little Gambol?”

  Cornelius laughed awkwardly. “Your ladyship must know that my mother has taken Gambol Hall, Lady Viola.”

  “Really?” Viola said, pleased. “Then the house is already open. The rooms have been aired, and the staff is all in place. Excellent. Your mother won’t object if I pay her a little visit, surely? And your sister…What’s her name?”

  “Lucy, my lady.”

  “Lucy, of course,” Viola said, signaling for the butler. “Have the barouche prepared for the journey to Hampshire, Lover. Tell Cork to pack for a month in the country. Mr Rampling will want to send word to his man as well. We shall leave directly after lunch. Mr Rampling will be staying to lunch with me,” she added, smiling at the young man. “There! It’s all arranged.”

  Cornelius’s head was spinning. “Your ladyship is too kind,” he murmured.

  Lover cleared his throat. “My lady? What shall I tell his grace when he returns to London on Friday?”

  Viola shrugged. “Tell him I have gone to the country to visit a sick friend. I shall be gone at least a month.”

  “Very good, my lady.” Lover was stiff with disapproval, but Viola took no note of that.

  Garraway’s tavern in Change Alley was always noisy and crowded, but at the noon hour it resembled one of the fuller circles of hell. Julian pushed his way to the battered oak bar to order his sandwiches, digging his elbows into his fellow brokers, stepping on their feet and shouting to be heard over the din. As he was leaving, a man hailed him from a table at the back of the room. The man wore his hat low over his eyes, the collar of his greatcoat obscuring the lower half of his face, but Julian was just able to recognize the beaklike nose of his former colonel.

  “I’m surprised to see you, sir,” he said, joining Colonel Fairfax at his table. “Have you changed your mind about helping me?”

  Colonel Fairfax was distressed. “I cannot risk helping you get the special license,” he apologized. “What can I say? Your mother is a gorgon.”

  “She is, isn’t she?”

  “However, I do want to help you. After you left, it occurred to me…You could take the young lady to Calais and marry her there.”

  Julian frowned. “Would that be legal?”

  “Of course,” the colonel replied. “We’re no longer at war with France. Britain and France are allies. The marriage would have to be recognized. It’s a hell of a lot better than hauling your bride off to Scotland, you will admit. You could honeymoon in Paris. I’ve arranged passage for you and the lady on the next mail packet,” he went on, taking the printed tickets from i
nside his coat. “It’s the least I can do.”

  Julian accepted the boarding passes gratefully. “This will make her very happy. Thank you, sir. I will pay you back, of course,” he added, shaking the other man’s hand.

  “I know,” the colonel replied. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go out the back.”

  Julian took a moment to put the tickets safely away in his pocket.

  “Going somewhere?” said a chilly voice at his elbow.

  Julian turned to look at the speaker, a tall, thin, clean-shaven man with the unmistakable mien of a London bureaucrat. “Who are you?”

  “We’re from the government,” the man replied, smiling.

  “We?”

  “We,” said a voice at his other elbow. The tall man’s friend was a stout, heavyset man in a rough-looking frieze coat. Without further ado, he seized Julian by the arms.

  “There’s a pistol in my pocket,” the thin man said pleasantly. “It is aimed at your gut, Mr Devize. Shall we sit down?”

  Julian had no choice.

  “Now put the contents of your pockets onto the table.” While the thin man seemed particularly interested in the tickets to Calais, his colleague helped himself to Julian’s sandwiches. “You are thinking of visiting France?” the thin man asked politely.

  “Obviously,” Julian replied.

  The thin man smiled thinly. “Yes, obviously. For what purpose?”

  “Why is the government interested?” Julian demanded.

  “I’m just making conversation,” said the thin man. “Who is the other ticket for? Why are you going to France? Who are you working for? What are you up to?”

  “This is ridiculous,” said Julian. “I refuse to answer your impertinent questions.”

  “We’ve already rounded up two of your co-conspirators,” said the thin man. “Dolly Dean, the panderess. Mr Harman from the Bank of England. Mr Harman, in particular, seems very eager to cooperate with our investigation.”

  Julian laughed shortly. “Am I under arrest?”

  “Yes,” said the thin man. “Yes, I rather think you are.”

  As Julian was brought out of Garraway’s with his hands tied behind his back, a cheer went up and down the room, and the news that the law had finally caught up with the most hated man in London spread like wildfire through the City.

  The journey to Hampshire passed with an ease that surprised Mr Rampling, who was used to traveling in the public stagecoach, but, despite all the comforts of Lady Viola’s barouche, it became necessary to stop at a roadside inn for tea. Viola was always distressed by headache if she did not have her tea promptly at half-past four, and her mood was already turning unpleasant when she looked out of the window and beheld the Sussex Arms. Sussex, of course, was Julian’s county. It had no other associations for the lady.

  “Are we in Sussex?” she demanded coldly as the servant opened the carriage door.

  Cornelius confirmed the awful truth, and not even the fact that they were less than twenty miles from Little Gambol, Hampshire, could lessen the blow.

  “I hate Sussex,” she announced. “I despise Sussex. I loathe Sussex with all my heart.”

  As ever, she spoke with the clearest authority, in a voice that carried and penetrated every corner of the yard. The hostlers could not help but hear her. The innkeeper, who had come out to greet the gentry, heard it very well, too. Cornelius could not help but notice that they were all freakishly large men with angry red faces. He began to tremble with fear. “I wish you would not say such things, my lady,” he whispered frantically. “I wish you would not say such things so loudly. You’ll get us all killed.”

  “Are you afraid of Sussex, Mr Rampling?” Viola asked scornfully. “I am not. I hate Sussex, but I do not fear it. Now go and fetch my tea, if you please.”

  Cornelius swallowed hard as the carriage door banged shut behind him.

  The landlord was surprisingly sympathetic. “That’s a terrible stutter your wife has, sir,” he said, clapping Cornelius on the back.

  “Oh, she’s not my w—” Cornelius began. “Stutter?”

  “My wife was the same way,” the landlord went on companionably. “I believe all women hate it at first. Just give her time—she’ll get used to it. If she still hates it after a week, buy her a present,” he added slyly, laying a finger against the side of his nose.

  “Sussex?” said Cornelius, confused.

  “Oh, you’ve got a stutter, too,” the landlord said compassionately.

  Cornelius slowly caught the landlord’s drift. “Stutter!” he said, seizing gratefully on the idea. “Yes, landlord. We both stutter quite awfully.”

  Evenings at Gambol Hall fell into a timeworn pattern. After dinner, Lady Caroline Rampling drank herself into a stupor while her daughter Lucy darned stockings. If there was no mending to do, Lucy waited for her mother to drift off, then read a book. Lady Caroline did not approve of her daughter reading too much.

  At a little past seven, on this particular evening, they were surprised to hear a vehicle pulling across the cobbled drive. Lady Caroline was too drunk to stand, but she roused herself enough to send Lucy to the window. “It is a carriage,” Lucy reported, hastily hiding her book.

  “Of course it’s a carriage,” Lady Caroline slurred angrily. “I know it’s a carriage, you imbecile. Who is in it?”

  “It is a barouche,” Lucy clarified. She was quite used to being ill-treated by her mother, and hardly took offense at being called an imbecile. “There is a device on the door. A coat of arms. Three towers, I think.”

  Lady Caroline launched herself from her chair. “’Tis the Duke of Fanshawe himself!” Overwhelmed by dizziness, she fell back in her chair, retching.

  “It’s Cornelius!” Lucy exclaimed happily. “It is my brother!”

  “Cornelius?” Lady Caroline repeated in astonishment. “Traveling with the duke?”

  Lucy left the window and ran out to meet her brother, disregarding her mother’s angry reminder that it was unlady-like to run. While he was hardly the most affectionate brother in the world, compared to her mother, Cornelius was kind and thoughtful. “Corny!” she cried, flinging her arms around him almost before his feet touched the ground. “What are you doing here?”

  Cornelius pushed her away quickly in order to help a lady from the carriage. Lucy stared at Viola in dismay. Although the Ramplings were deeply in Lady Viola’s debt, Lucy did not like her brother’s patroness. Lady Viola was one of those perfect, beautiful people who have never suffered a toothache or had a pimple in the whole course of their existence. At present, she was wearing a leopard-skin coat and carrying a small white dog. She made Lucy feel old and dowdy.

  “You remember Lady Viola, of course,” Cornelius said pointedly, and Lucy hastily gave the duke’s sister her best curtsey.

  Viola signaled for Cork to take Bijou. “Take her down to the garden and make sure she does her business,” she instructed, before turning to Lucy. “Hello again, Miss Rampling. Now, mind, I’m incognito in Hampshire. Or is it incognita?” she laughed. “In any case, I don’t want to call attention to my presence here, you understand,” she went on, dusting off her spotted coat. “So you must remember to call me Miss Andrews. How is your mama? I hope she is better.”

  “Mama?” Lucy echoed stupidly.

  “Yes, Mama,” Cornelius said quickly and firmly. “I told her ladysh—Miss Andrews, that is—how ill Mama has been. She’s so ill that she cannot leave her bed, let alone go to London for the Season,” Cornelius shouted as Lucy continued to blink in confusion. “We’re all very worried about her. Why don’t you go and tell her, Lucy—I mean, check on her, of course. Make sure she’s not dying, ha ha. I’ll look after Lady—er, Miss Andrews.”

  “I won’t be any trouble,” Viola promised. “All I need is a good dinner and a warm fire.”

  Saving her questions for later, Lucy ran back into the house. Removing her mother from the drawing room, however, was easier said than done. “I am not shick, you fool,” L
ady Caroline bellowed, slapping her daughter’s hands away.

  “But Lady Viola thinks you are, Mama,” Lucy patiently explained.

  “I never felt better,” snarled Lady Caroline.

  “You do not want Lady Viola to see you like this, do you, Mama?” cried Lucy, ringing for the maid.

  “Like what?” Lady Caroline demanded. “Leave me alone, you stupid cow. And bring me another bottle from the cellar! Lady Viola will be thirsty.”

  Viola walked into the room and surveyed the two ladies for a moment. “Mr Rampling! A little water for Lady Caroline, please.”

  “Water!” Lady Caroline snarled. Infuriated by the suggestion that she drink plain water, she slapped away the glass her son offered her. “I’d rather drink piss!” she screamed.

  “Extraordinary,” Viola murmured.

  Cornelius tried to laugh it off. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying, Lady Viola. You should be in bed, Mama. Sleepwalking again, ha ha. Lucy, dammit, I told you she must be watched at all times,” he said through his teeth. “Where is the nurse?”

  “What nurse?” Lucy cried resentfully.

  “You know,” Cornelius snarled. “The nurse.”

  “Oh, that nurse!” cried Lucy. “I’m afraid we had to dismiss that nurse, Cornelius. She—she drank!” Lucy’s face was bright red with embarrassment. “Excessively!”

  Lady Caroline suddenly leaned over the arm of her chair. Clinging to it with white hands, she vomited into Lucy’s sewing basket. An appalling odor emanated from the lady’s ejecta.

  Viola found the bell and pulled it. “Send for the doctor at once,” she instructed the servant who appeared. “Lady Caroline is violently ill. Did you snort?” she demanded angrily.

  She had wronged the servant; he had only guffawed. “Perhaps you had better go and get the doctor yourself, Mr Rampling,” said Viola. “You may use my carriage. Miss Rampling and I will look after your mama.”

  Although he was fairly certain Dr Chadwick would not be pleased to come out to Gambol Hall in the middle of the night to tend to a drunken lady, Mr Rampling obediently departed.