The Danbury Scandals (9 page)

They shook
hands and left the table together. ‘Give you a ride home, me boy?’ the Duke
offered.

Mark laughed.
‘Thank you, Cousin, it will give me a chance to see what I’ll be getting when I
win.’

‘If you win,
young fellow. If.’ Arm in arm, they went downstairs and out of the front door.
A footman offered to fetch his carriage, but His Grace waved him aside. ‘Get it
ourselves.’

As the two men
reached the stables, a groom came out leading a riding horse, a great, restive
bay which threw back its head as if wanting to rid itself of the hand that held
the snaffle. ‘Easy, easy, ol’ fellow,’ the groom soothed, then, seeing the
Duke, he added, ‘I’ll have yours harnessed in a shake, Your Grace.’ He tethered
the horse and turned to go back to the stables, passing a man coming out.

Mark stopped in
his tracks when he saw who it was. ‘You!’ he said, taking a step towards him.
‘You dare to stay around here!’

‘I have no
quarrel with my hostess,’ Adam said calmly, going to pass him. ‘Nor yet with
you, if you would but believe it.’

‘You, Sir, are
a coward,’ Mark went on. ‘And if that will not make you fight I shall continue
to say it all over the country until you do.’

‘Hey, what’s
afoot?’ His Grace asked, looking from one angry man to the other.

‘It is a private
matter,’ Adam said.

The Duke
laughed. ‘Lady, was it?’

‘This
gentleman...’ Mark’s voice was heavy with sarcasm ‘...has insulted a lady for
whom I have a high regard. I called him out, but he will not fight.’

‘Strange, I
would not have put him down for a coward,’ His Grace said. ‘Markham said he had
served with distinction in the war.’

‘Yes?’ Mark
sneered. ‘In whose army?’ He smiled suddenly as an idea came to him; there was
a way to kill two birds with one stone. He turned to Adam. ‘If you haven’t the
stomach for a fight, will you accept another kind of challenge?’

‘I will accept
any challenge which does not involve the unnecessary shedding of blood.’

‘A race. Have
you cattle and a curricle?’

‘No, but I can
get them.’

‘Five miles,’
Mark said. ‘Where and when to be decided. Do you accept?’

Adam smiled.
‘With pleasure. And I’ll back myself to the tune of a thousand guineas. That
should make it worth the effort.’

‘Done,’ said
Mark, not daring to think what might happen if his plans went awry and he lost.
‘Though you will understand if I prefer not to shake hands on it. You will
learn time and place by letter.’

‘You may
contact me with the details at the home of my lawyer, Mr Robert Rudge, at
Adelphi Terrace.’ Adam bowed to the Duke. ‘Your Grace.’ Then he strode over to
the bay, unhitched it and leapt into the saddle.

He did not feel
like returning to Robert, with whom he was staying; he needed to think. He set
off to ride on the heath until his anger cooled.

It was directed
more at himself than Mark Danbury. He had been a fool to allow himself to get
into a situation where he could not defend his honour, and all because of a
girl. He smiled to himself. But what a girl! He hadn’t meant to kiss her again
but simply to talk to her, to try to explain his dilemma. Instead...
Sacre
Dieu
! Why did she have to be a Danbury? Why, when he had almost decided to
leave well alone and return to France, did he have to meet her? She made him
feel light-hearted in a way he had not felt since his happy childhood had been
shattered by the Terror. He forced himself to think about it, to remind himself
of why he had come to England.

He remembered
Louis Saint-Pierre, the only father he had ever known, pleading with
Maman
to take the boy to England. ‘I have made provision for you there,’ he had said.
‘Go to Joseph Rudge and I will join you when I can.’

She had refused
and then the Committee of Public Safety
 
- what a misnomer! - had sent men to arrest them, and there had only
been time to push the twelve-year-old Adam into a cupboard and exhort him not
to come out until it was safe, before they were dragged away and the house
ransacked. His secure, contented life had ended in that cupboard and he would
bear the inner scars of it to his death. He had not dared to come out for hours
and by then all the servants but old Henri Garonne had fled. The old man had
urged him to leave the area. ‘They will be back for you,’ he said. ‘They won’t
leave any
aristo
alive, you can be sure.’

But Adam could
not tear himself away from home and those he loved, and he had been beside the
rough guillotine when Louis Saint-Pierre was brought out to his death. He had
run and flung himself into his father’s arms, trying to hold him back,
wrestling with the guards, crying, ‘No! No! No!’ until Papa had made him stand back.

‘Go to
England,’ he had whispered. ‘Find Mr Rudge. Tell him what has happened.’

‘And
Maman
?’

‘I don’t know.
They separated us. Pray God they were merciful.’ Then he had been dragged up
the steps by his bloodthirsty captors and his head had been severed from his
body.

The memory of
that terrible scene could never be erased by anything that happened afterwards,
however appalling or however pleasant. Twelve years old and alone in the world,
he had set off for Paris, a city teeming with beggars and orphans, as he soon
discovered. Wary and untamed as a wild animal, he had learned to live on his
wits, to trust no one. He had never allowed his emotions to get the better of
him since then - not until now - and no woman had held his affection. Why
should Maryanne Paynter be the exception? Was she worth being called a coward
for?

He could never
have accepted Mark’s challenge to a duel; he was prepared to wager the young
man had never heard a shot fired in anger and had never faced a rapier that
wasn’t cork-tipped. If he had agreed to fight and killed him, the truth would
have come out and he would have been vilified the length and breadth of the
country and, what was worse, he would never have been able to live with himself
afterwards. And not even the sparkling blue eyes and soft lips of the only girl
who had ever made his heart beat faster could alter that. He should never have
come to England, never started to pry, never gone to Beckford or Castle Cedars;
it solved nothing. He smiled suddenly. Then he would never have met Maryanne
and that he could not regret, even if it did increase his dilemma. But the
curricle race would have to be his Parthian shot, so he had better win it.

Chapter Four

His lordship,
clad in a full-length burgundy satin dressing-gown and with his dark hair
brushed but not dressed, was sitting alone eating his breakfast when Maryanne
went down next morning. She had always risen betimes and could not lie abed as
Caroline did, not even after a late night. And, besides, she had not slept
well; it was a relief when morning came and she could get up, though she knew
she would have to face his lordship’s displeasure. Mark had told him what had
happened before they left the ball; he was too angry to keep silent on the subject
and, in all fairness, his lordship had a right to know.

She hesitated
in the doorway before taking a deep breath and moving forward to make her
curtsy. ‘My lord...’

‘Good morning,
Maryanne. Come and have breakfast with me. I want to talk to you.’

She sat down
next to him but made no effort to help herself from the many dishes set out on
a side table. ‘My lord, I am sorry if I have disappointed you...’

He smiled.
‘Mark flew into the boughs over nothing, is that what you were about to say?’

‘It was all so silly.
If Mark had not come along, I...’ She hesitated, remembering that kiss and how
she had lost herself in the pleasure of it. ‘I could have dealt with him.’

‘Who was he?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘A stranger?
Maryanne, you astound me.’

‘He wasn’t
exactly a stranger. I had seen him before, several times.’

‘Where and
when?’

She told him
everything, including her doubts, finishing, ‘I am sorry, my lord, I should
have come to you before, but I could not see that he was doing any harm. I
still don’t think so.’

‘Mark saw him
in the village too?’

She nodded.

‘That might
account for his anger, don’t you think? It was not just last night’s
indiscretion he objected to, was it?’

‘I suppose not,
but he had no right to challenge the man like that.’

‘Come,
Maryanne, you are part of our family and Mark is very fond of you, as I am; he
was only protecting you. Thank goodness no one else saw you and he was able to
cover up your absence.’

‘I am grateful
to him, of course, but if there had been a duel, as Mark wanted, it would have been
all over London.’

‘Yes, it would
seem the young man had more sense than Mark on that score. You know his name?’

‘At first he
said it was Jack Daw.’ She watched his mouth twitch in a smile. ‘Oh, I am sure
that is not his real name. Lady Markham called him Saint-Pierre...’

‘Saint-Pierre!’
His lordship almost dropped the cup of coffee which, at that moment, he was
carrying to his lips. He set it down hurriedly. His face had gone very white
and his hands shook a little, but his eyes were bright - with what? Fear? Hope?
Anger? She could not tell. ‘Where did he come from?’

Why had his
lordship not heard the name before? she asked herself. But then, she reasoned,
he did not often listen to gossip, nor had he been present when Lady Markham
had introduced them. And last night Mark had referred to Adam as ‘that damned
Frenchman’.

‘I don’t know,’
she said. ‘No one seems to know; he just appeared. I believe he is French, but
he speak English very well.’

‘It can’t be,’
his lordship murmured. ‘They are all dead.’

‘My lord?’

He seemed to
shake himself. ‘‘Tis nothing. Where is he staying in London?’

‘I have no
idea, but surely he will not stay in town after refusing a challenge? Not that
I am sorry about that, I could not bear it if either of them were to risk arrest
or be hurt on account of me. Please don’t try to find him. I beg you, let
sleeping dogs lie.’

‘Let sleeping
dogs lie,’ he repeated softly. ‘Can it be that easy?’

‘I don’t
understand, my lord.’

He seemed to
pull himself out of a daydream to answer her. ‘No, of course you don’t. Now, we
will say no more about the matter; there is no need for anyone outside the
family to know about it. It is an indiscretion I am sure you will not repeat;
isn’t that so?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

She would not
repeat it, could not because she was sure the opportunity would not arise
again. If Adam had any sense, he would leave the country, go back home to
France and forget whatever it was that had brought him to England. But he had
left her emotions in a tangle and the more she tried to straighten them out,
the more confused she became. Had she really wanted a complete stranger to kiss
her like that? In the cold light of day and facing this gentle man who had
loved her and befriended her all her life, even if she had not known of it, she
could only look back in horror at her own weakness and stupidity. It must be,
as Caroline so often said, that she did not know how to go on in a society
which allowed flirting so long as it was conducted in the prescribed manner. It
was looked on as a kind of game, but only for those who knew the rules, not
young unmarried ladies at their first coming out.

Her confusion
was not helped by Lord Danbury’s reaction on learning the man’s name. It had,
for a moment, thrown him off balance, and sent him into another time, another
place, and confirmed her suspicions that it was the Danbury family and perhaps
his lordship in particular who were the objects of the Frenchman’s curiosity.
Or was it more than curiosity? Hatred perhaps? She had no answer to that and now
she supposed she never would have. And mixed with her feelings of shame and
remorse for being such a disappointment to his lordship were others of grief,
of having lost something beautiful, of joy stillborn.

She was in no
mood to hear that it was not the end of the affair and that the Frenchman had
accepted another kind of challenge, and that, far from leaving town, he was
still to be seen out and about. Not quite in the highest circles, but certainly
among those of the ton who enjoyed a certain notoriety. He rode in the park
with Lord Markham, played cards with Lord Alvanley, had Henry Luttrell to dine
and even out-dressed Sir Lumley Skeffington. All this came to Maryanne by way
of Caroline’s gossip. He was, the tattlers variously said, a French spy; a nabob;
a highwayman whose costume had not been put on solely for the benefit of Lady
Markham’s ball; a smuggler who had become rich smuggling French brandy; a
professional gambler. And everyone brought their own evidence to bear on their
own theories. Far from making an outcast of him, the stories only added to his
allure for all but the most staid of matrons.

The biggest
talking-point of all was the curricle race and that threatened to eclipse even
the gathering of the Congress of London as a subject of conversation. While all
the European heads of state gathered in the capital with all the pomp and
ceremony such an occasion demanded, and with the populace going wild at the
imminent return of the Duke of Wellington, the ton was speculating on the
Frenchman and why he had refused a challenge from someone who was considered an
indifferent swordsman, and why a fight to the death should have been reduced to
a curricle race.