The Chadwick Ring (11 page)

She looked up at Mrs. Harrison, and her countenance hardened with determination. “Find me a pen and paper,” she said, “and recruit someone to serve as outrider. I need to send a message to Lord Chadwick.”

Richard Glover, Lord Chadwick, peeled off his grey chamois gloves and passed them to the drowsy butler, who already held his hat and rain-spattered cape. With a terse nod the marquess dismissed the man and strode impatiently into his study, where he quickly located the brandy decanter and sloshed some of that vivifying liquid into a glass, heedless of the excess trickling down to stain the marquetry of the Chippendale table. He had longed for that drink all evening. He gulped down the brandy and regarded the empty glass ruefully as he flopped into the chair behind his desk. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to become a hopeless tosspot before he was forty, a drunken degenerate without any of the mitigating charms of youth, like some of the highborn louts he had observed tonight at Little Harry’s. As was his practice these days, he had remained aloof from the proceedings, but while he watched the diplomat he had escorted there—bald, belching, his overblown body constricted by tight stays—he had wondered with carefully masked distaste if the same sort of future awaited him; if he would ever find himself sprawled in some garish parlor, his fat sweaty hands groping moistly over the flimsily clad body of some young Paphian whose heavy face paint only partly concealed her disgust at what circumstances forced her to do. No doubt once the ambassador would have denied that he could sink to such depths, just as that girl’s parents would have strangled her in her cradle rather than allow her to become a whore before she was even as old as Ginevra.

With a shudder of rage at himself and the world, Chadwick flung the empty brandy snifter into the low fire in the fireplace. For just a second the dregs of his whiskey flared and sizzled in the flames, and the bright new gaslight in the room made the shattered glass on the hearth sparkle mockingly at him.

Nowadays he preferred his dissipations to be ... private, but he had only himself to blame for the continuing forays onto the town. Aeons before, when he was young, just after he was invalided from the Navy, he had been flattered when he was approached by members of the War Ministry, with their request that he help them ferret out the foreign agents hidden among the hordes of genuine
émigrés
resident in London. He had the perfect cover: he was a rich and aristocratic rakehell with no known connection to diplomatic circles, a man who could drink and wench and still remain alert for any furtive signal or unwary word. He had been seduced by the opportunity to serve his country now that his accession to the title made it impossible to return to the military, and he had thought privately that the assignment might help him in his quest to spirit his mother out of France. Besides, the job had sounded amusing, without the responsibilities of an official position. Over the years he had performed his duties with reasonable success, cynically aware that most likely he would have lived much the same way even had not the war given him an excuse to do so. He circulated as easily through the cockpits of Charing Cross as he did through White’s or Almack’s, and he listened with affected insouciance to all around him, watching with deceptively lazy blue eyes that missed nothing. Sometimes he had been required to distract suspects by taking them along with him as he moved not only among the Carlton House set but also into the haunts of the less savory denizens of the city. He had accepted such tasks as part of his duty to his sovereign, but now that the wars were at long last over and the Pax Britannica had dawned, when the foreign minister requested that he continue to escort visiting dignitaries on those dubious tours, Chadwick felt less like a loyal subject and more like a highborn pimp.

He was going to have to put an end to it. He was going to have to tell Castlereagh that henceforth he would serve his liege in the accepted fashion by occasionally assuming his seat in the House of Lords; that he intended to settle down to a life of pompous mediocrity as a country squire, devoting his attention to the growing of crops and the welfare of his tenants, living in unremarkable domesticity with his young wife.

Chadwick leaned back in his chair, booted feet resting on the edge of the desk, and he rubbed the bridge of his long nose and thought of Ginevra. A week had passed since he left her crying on her bed, a week during which he had cursed first her and then himself, for not turning back at the door to comfort her. How much less there would be to regret if only he had not left her! He was haunted by the memory of her wide gold eyes as she asked him timorously whether he would be seeing his mistress, and he despised himself for the ease with which he had wounded her with his taunting reply. She was not a worthy opponent. She was a confused and frightened child, trying desperately to cope with the situation she had been flung into, and he had been less than a man to take pleasure in hurting her.

He could not understand his reactions. He had never deliberately harmed a woman before, not even Maria, who had certainly given him justification; he had never cared enough about any woman to want to strike out at her, no matter what she did to him. Whenever a relationship had soured, he terminated it and dismissed the woman from his mind.

But Ginevra ... This beautiful woman-child he had taken to wife affected him in ways he did not recognize, stirred him with her very vulnerability. She made him question the validity of the pride that had served him so well and so long, a bulwark against the slings and arrows life had thrown at him. She made him wonder whether he might not find more strength in humility—

A rap at the door interrupted his agitated thoughts. “Come in,” he barked.

The butler appeared at the door in his robe, skinny shanks visible beneath the hem of his long nightshirt. In his hands he carried a small silver tray with an envelope on it, and his demeanor was as dignified as if he were dressed in livery and powdered wig. “Milord,” he said, “a rider just arrived with a message from her ladyship.”

Chadwick frowned. “From my mother?”

“No, milord. From her young ladyship. From Dowerwood.”

Chadwick’s scowl deepened. “Dowerwood!” he exclaimed impatiently as his long fingers ripped open the envelope. “There’s some mistake.” When he unfolded the single sheet of paper, he saw with trepidation that Ginevra must have written the note hurriedly, under the compulsion of fierce emotion. Her usually painstaking copperplate hand was ragged and blotched, and the letters faded out repeatedly, as if she resented the time necessary to redip her quill into the inkwell. His blue eyes scanned the missive with growing apprehension. He winced when he came to that last frantic plea: “I beg you, my lord, send someone at once! I remain, your dutiful wife, Ginevra.” His dutiful wife. Yes, she was certainly that—while in a matter of days he had proved the most lax and unworthy of husbands. He should have been there. God alone knew what phantasm from childhood had drawn Ginevra to the mouldering ruins of Dowerwood, or why Bysshe should be there, laid low with a fever, instead of safely ensconced at Harrow, where he had left him. The boy must be ill indeed, the marquess realized with dismay, if Ginevra admitted she could not treat him. She should not
have
to treat him, nor should she be forced to deal with a “drunken charlatan,” as she mentioned. Chadwick should have been there to handle the situation, instead of leaving those two children to cope on their own. But they were not really children, and he caught his breath as in his mind the pairing of his wife and his heir suddenly took on ominous dimensions.

The marquess jumped up, startling the stolid butler, who awaited instructions. “The rider,” Chadwick demanded, “did he have any further message?”

“No, milord, the letter was all. The man could scarce talk, he was so exhausted. He said he had been in the saddle since midday, the last two hours in rain.”

Chadwick nodded, his movements jerky. His voice was harsh as he rapped out orders. “Of course. See that he has food and a place to sleep. Then rouse Hobbs and instruct him to start packing. While you’re at it, you’d better get someone who can deliver messages for me, one to Dr. Perrin in Harley Street, another to Whitehall.” Yes, he thought grimly, tell Castlereagh that he will have to find someone else to do his dirty work for a while. Aloud he snapped at the dazed butler, “Be quick about it, man! I’m going home!”

“Miss Ginevra, you must rest.”

“No, Emma, I’ll be all right.” She rubbed her weary eyes and gazed at the boy who drowsed fitfully in his drugged stupor. The waning light disclosed a stiff fuzz of reddish-gold whiskers on his chin; she wondered if she ought to ask one of the footmen to shave him. Not yet, she decided. Now that his fever was at last cooling slightly, his skin was beginning to peel away in those areas where the rash had been most severe, exposing pinkly new flesh beneath. A razor might irritate it.

Emma said, “My lady, you’ve scarce stirred from that chair for days. The servants you summoned from Queenshaven have prepared a room for you. There’s a bed aired and waiting, and a tub ready to be filled at a moment’s notice. Let me watch while you bathe and take a nap. You can’t go on this way, you’ll make yourself ill. Give a thought to your own needs for once.”

Ginevra shook her head doggedly. “No, Emma. When the laudanum wears off he’ll be in pain again, and he’ll want me. I intend to be here.” She looked up at Emma, and her companion was horrified by the dark shadows cruising her gold eyes, the hollows punched into her cheeks by fatigue. Ginevra said, “I would dearly love a cup of tea, though, Emma.”

“Of course. May I get you something to eat as well?”

“No, thank you. I don’t care for any breakfast.”

Emma chided gently, “My lady, it’s dinnertime now.”

Ginevra raised her head to meet her friend’s speaking glance. She smiled ironically. “Don’t look at me that way. Mrs. Harrison’s disapproval is quite enough. Truly I would not eat a thing now. I promise you I’ll go to bed as soon as the physician arrives from London.”

“But we don’t know when that will be, or even if—”

“Emma,” Ginevra reproved sharply, “there is no doubt in my mind that his lordship will dispatch someone directly he receives my note. I am appalled that you could think otherwise.”

“Yes, my lady,” Emma murmured.

“And when the doctor comes,” Ginevra continued, as if speaking to a child, “I shall be waiting to tell him all he must needs know about ... about my stepson’s illness.” And when he reports back to the marquess, she added silently, my husband shall know that in this respect at least I am capable of acting a proper wife.

Emma regarded her young mistress as she leaned back in her chair, eyelids drooping, aching with exhaustion. In her stained blue silk dress, which she had not changed since reaching Dowerwood, the girl looked wraithlike, almost intangible. Emma had seen her work herself to the point of collapse before, always a devoted nurse, but this
time she sensed that Ginevra was driven by some compulsion far beyond her compassion for the sick boy. It must have something to do with the absent Lord Chadwick, Emma thought resentfully, and she cursed the man again for deserting his bride. Aloud she said, “I’ll go fetch you that tea now.”

Ginevra was hardly conscious of her leaving. Her attention was directed to the recumbent figure on the wide bed. He twitched as if the opium were losing its hold on him, and one bloodless hand began to flail weakly, batting at his ear. Ginevra caught his lanky wrist and held it immobile at his side. She knew that Bysshe was going to suffer greatly as soon as the laudanum wore off, and she would have her work laid out for her, to prevent him from hurting himself in his frenzy. Once, after an epidemic of measles, she had seen a toddler at Bryant House almost claw off his ear in an effort to escape the pain. After the agonizing infection finally subsided, the child was left stone-deaf, and the tenants said it was God’s mercy when he died two months later, overlaid in the bed he shared with his parents.

Bysshe stirred, and his brown eyes opened slowly. He stared up at Ginevra, his mind still clouded by the drug she had administered. “The doctor,” he asked hoarsely, “has ... has he gone?”

“Yes, Bysshe, yes, my dear,” she crooned, brushing the boy’s limp hair away from his face. “I sent him away long ago. I won’t let him hurt you.”

“That’s good,” he sighed, his agitation lessening. “I ... I didn’t like him.” His lids drooped shut again, only to open almost at once.

Ginevra watched apprehensively. Bysshe was struggling to throw off the last soporific coils of the opium, and she did not know what she would do if help did not arrive soon. It had been a day and a night and most of another day since the messenger set out. Agony lay in wait for the boy, just this side of consciousness, yet she dared not give him more laudanum, not right away. His immature body had already had as much as it could tolerate. More would poison him.

As if in answer to her thoughts, Bysshe moaned. His long fleshless form twisted restlessly, and his fingers flew to his head again. Ginevra caught his wrists in her small hands, and this time she was shocked by the power that had returned to his thin arms. He pulled away from her easily, and his nails scratched at his ears, making the skin raw and sore.

“No, Bysshe, you mustn’t!” she cried, trying futilely to stop him. Had his strength really come back with such force, or was she just weak from fatigue? “Stop it,” she sobbed, biting her lip as he thrashed out of her reach. Dazed, he whimpered in a little-boy voice, “It hurts...” She glanced around frantically for someone to help her restrain him, but the room was empty. She called out, but there seemed to be some kind of commotion belowstairs, and no one heard her. Until Emma returned with her tea, Ginevra would have to cope with Bysshe on her own, pitting her waning energy against the vigor of his wiry body. After a moment’s hesitation she kicked off her slippers and climbed onto the bed beside him. She flung herself across him, using all her few stones of weight to pinion his arms so that he could not touch his ears again. His head thrashed back and forth, tears escaping from beneath his tightly closed lids. “It
hurts
,” he repeated pathetically.