The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy (39 page)

“Well, it is something to have sung in an Italian theatre as a castrato, and there is this to be said for it: no one will ever believe it.”

Gloom descended upon Alethea once more. It was kind of Lady Hermione to come back to England to help her, more than kind, but what could she do? What could anyone do?

Lady Hermione did not seem to have a defeatist bone in her body, however. “I have it all straight in my head, now, and it is not so very bad. Titus will have dealt with this Meg Jenkins, I can answer for that, so what we have to do is make your position unassailable.”

“That is more easily said than done.”

“It must be insupportable for you just at present. Harry and I noticed various unsavoury persons hanging about outside this house, and one of them was hawking a broadsheet about Napier's murder—how unpleasant it all is.”

“So what is to be done about it?” said Miss Griffin, who was obviously finding all this much more interesting than the most lurid plot she could contrive by her pen.

“Oh, as to that, it is quite simple. Now that I am in town, I shall simply inform everyone that you were with me.”

“With you, ma'am,” cried Alethea, astonished. “But I wasn't.”

“Of course you weren't, you were busy being ill on Titus's yacht. What has that to do with it? You weren't in London murdering Napier, and that is the truth, and if one has to come at a truth sideways, from time to time, then so be it.”

“It would certainly stop all the gossip and remove suspicion from Alethea,” said Miss Griffin. “Only, will it answer? Will you be believed?”

“Certainly I shall. I shall say that Alethea was with me, in Paris. People seem to know that she was in Paris not so long ago—that will be thanks to your sister Georgina, who does not seem to know when she should hold her tongue,” she added. “What more natural than that she was with me until—when was it that you reached these shores again? Monday of last week? Then you went, Alethea, at my invitation, to Shillingford, nothing more proper; it is her sister's house, after all.”

 

Titus couldn't believe his eyes. Harry, of all people, sitting in the club, a glass of wine at his elbow, looking completely at home. He strode across the room. “Good God, Harry, what are you doing here? How glad I am to see you!”

Harry got to his feet. “I imagine you'll be more glad to see Lady Hermione, who whisked me from Italy as though on a magic carpet. We've come to sort out your little problems, Titus, that's all.”

“I'm obliged, but I believe I can manage my affairs for myself.”

“Your affairs, yes, but those of Alethea Darcy—no, Alethea Napier she is, of course, one forgets—are beyond your touch.”

“Keep your voice down, for heaven's sake. No one is aware that I am even acquainted with Mrs. Napier, and it is best for her if it stays that way.”

“Not acquainted! When Lady H tells me you shared a cabin with her all the way back from Italy?” Harry said, quizzing his friend.

“I did no such thing,” said Titus, pulling at his neck cloth. “Don't bandy her name about like that, it is most offensive.”

“Ah, touched a nerve, have I? Well, she's a widow now, and a rich one, so there's nothing standing in your way.”

“Nothing—I don't know where you got this maggot in your head, Harry, but you are on the wrong track entirely. I helped Alethea out of a difficult situation, at Lady Hermione's insistence, and that is all.”

“Not quite. There's the little matter of Cherubino, to begin with.”

“That was the difficult situation. Now, drop it, Harry, or you'll start to annoy me.”

Harry lifted a languid hand. “I wouldn't do that for the world, knowing what a fire-eater you are. You'll be wanting to call upon Lady Hermione, I dare say. You'll find her at her house, in Bruton Street, where she is no doubt writing letters to all her numerous acquaintance. London is rather thin of company now, of course, otherwise she'd be on a positive orgy of visits. I must say it's very good of her to take all that trouble to clear the girl's name. Of course, there is the family connection, she is very fond of Alexander's wife. However, no need to fret, my dear, Lady H will do the trick.”

 

Alethea had thought she would feel uncomfortable to find herself in Titus's company again, but in the event, it was like greeting an old friend when he called on her that evening, bringing Lady Hermione into the house through the stables.

“How unconventional” was Lady Hermione's only comment when she came through into the hall. “I can quite see one wants to avoid attracting attention, although I think interest will die down very quickly.”

There was so much Alethea wanted to know. “What is to become of Meg?” was her first question. “She was defending herself against violence, she will surely not have to stand her trial.”

“There can be no question of a trial, that would be washing far too much dirty linen in public,” said Titus. “And if Meg were to be arrested and tried, I very much fear she would hang, for all the swearing and perjury her friends say they will commit on her behalf. The courts never trust a woman of that kind, and the public like to see a murder end with a hanging.”

“You said that Sir Humphrey was on her track—good Lord, he has probably found her by now.”

“He will have found where she has been residing until recently, but I'm afraid the bird has flown the nest. Meg Jenkins is by now across the Channel, where Mrs. Legrange owns several establishments. I do not think she is suited to the work, however, and Mrs. Legrange admits that she is likely to be too severely scarred to work in a fashionable house. So she is to have a new name and be given good references and a sum of money so that she can find more respectable work.”

Alethea's spirits rose; happy though she was to know that Lady Hermione had contrived to get her out of her own troubles, she had been deeply worried about Meg. “I suppose it is all wrong, and the law should be upheld, but if that means she must hang for killing Napier, when he was going to kill her, then I have no time for the law.”

Scars, permanent scars on poor Meg's body; Napier must indeed have been in a wild mood that night. She had suffered cuts and weals herself, but he had never attacked her with such viciousness, and she healed quickly. Such marks as remained would fade with time. Unlike the other scars that Napier had inflicted on her, she thought with momentary bitterness. And then, more philosophically, that she had been lucky. He might have stayed his hand with a new bride, but if he were capable of doing that to Meg, one day he would have attacked her with the same abandon, and she might not have had a pistol to hand.

“Think of it as a nightmare from which you have awakened,” said Titus, who had been watching her face.

“Yes,” she said.

“One remembers horrors, I think, for the rest of one's life, but memories do not always remain so sharp, and with time, and new circumstances, do not affect us so powerfully.”

He spoke like someone who had glimpsed his own hell and her mind flew back to the inn in Switzerland: Waterloo, the battle of Waterloo and its aftermath was his nightmare. As it must be for many others. It was easy to forget how much men might suffer, with the more adventurous lives they were able to lead, and on top of it that they had to endure the same domestic and family sadness and tragedies as their womenfolk.

Lady Hermione rose to her feet. “You will be glad to be away from this house, Alethea, I never saw a more dusty, dreary place. Now, I shall leave you to your own devices for a few minutes, as I wish to talk to Miss Griffin—no, do not trouble to show me the way, Figgins may do that.”

There was a long silence after she had left the room. Alethea fingered the lace on her black dress; how she loathed having to wear widow's weeds. She didn't want to look at Titus; what was he thinking about, why did he say nothing?

“May I ask what your plans are?” he said at last. “As Lady Hermione says, you will hardly wish to stay here.”

“I hadn't given it much thought,” Alethea said. “The Fitzwilliams are urging me to go to them at Aubrey Square, or I could go down to Pemberley until my parents return. Or the Gardiners have asked me to stay.”

“There are your sisters.”

Alethea shook her head. “I don't think I should be happy with any of them just at present.” Her face broke into a smile. “Letty would insist on the strictest mourning, she is a stickler for that kind of thing, and Belle hardly wants a raven in the house when she is about to be delivered.”

“Go abroad. There you need not keep up the mourning, not even for the first three months. Go to Rome, stay with the Wyttons.”

Alethea had a reason for not wanting to visit her sisters just yet, a reason she wasn't prepared to reveal to Titus. The prospect of being with happily married couples jarred on her, and there was no doubt that her four sisters were happy in their husbands and in their lives in a way she hadn't been, and had no prospect of being. She shook her head.

“Too much domestic bliss for you to stomach?” asked Titus.

He was shockingly acute, and his acuteness made her uncomfortable.

“Perhaps I should don my pantaloons and boots, and avoid wearing black that way,” she said with a wry smile.

“Alethea, don't you dare—ah, you are joking, I see.”

He was walking about the room as they were talking; he seemed ill at ease. He came a step closer to her, and was about to speak again, when the door opened and Lady Hermione came back in, with Miss Griffin on her heels.

“We have had a good chat,” Lady Hermione said. “If you will allow yourself to be advised by us, you will pack up your bags once more, and brave the waves of the Channel. No, you need not see your sister Georgina, or Camilla, or anyone you know at all. I'd like you to come and stay with me in Italy, spend the summer in the mountains; that will restore the roses to your cheeks. And in a place so remote from England, you know, you need not worry about mourning. Then, in the autumn, you can go to Vienna to join your parents.”

To go to Italy! To escape from England and spend the summer with Lady Hermione—she was overjoyed at the prospect. She turned to Miss Griffin. “Griffy, do you think it is advisable?”

“I most strongly recommend it. You may place all your affairs in the capable hands of Mr. Darcy's lawyer, and take yourself off until your health and spirits are quite restored. I am persuaded that it is just what Mr. and Mrs. Darcy would advise, since it is out of the question for you to travel to be with them in Constantinople, that is not at all the kind of place you need just now. And Lady Hermione has very kindly extended an invitation to me to come to Italy later in the year, when I have finished my present manuscript.”

Alethea gave her an impulsive hug, and then, after a moment's hesitation, another hug to Lady Hermione. “You are all so kind to me.”

Titus looked rather as though he would have like to be hugged, too, but he said nothing, and shortly afterwards took Lady Hermione away.

 

“I wish you will come, Figgins, but you need not if you don't wish it.”

“I told you before, where you go, I'll go, and I don't suppose it'll be as bad as that spa town you was on about. You aren't fit to be out on your own, if you want the truth of it. Abroad isn't what I fancy, I'll admit, and I've seen all the mountains I ever want to, but life isn't about what we want. Now, get to bed, and it's to be hoped you'll sleep less restless than last night. Calling out in your sleep, you were, and tossing and turning like demons were after you. Maybe now your mind's at rest you can sleep like a Christian.”

“I am tired,” Alethea said with a huge yawn.

She didn't sleep, not at once. Instead she lay under the sheets, thinking about how extraordinary a day it had been, what a reversal of fortune it had brought. Then she remembered Harry's words about Titus being beyond the age of losing his heart. What had he meant by them? Anything, or nothing, and besides, what was age to do with it? Titus was a young man, older than her, of course, but—

She turned over, giving the pillows a good thumping. He had seemed a little distant this evening, rather grave. It must go against the grain for him to be embroiled in her very shady affairs; how her stupidity had drawn in other people. There was Lady Hermione lying to save her reputation and Titus whisking Meg away from under the very nose of the authorities.

She smiled at that. He was the most decisive man, and more than a match for Sir Humphrey, for all that man's cleverness.

She would like being in Italy with Lady Hermione, but it was going to be a little lonely, perhaps. She wondered how Titus would spend the rest of the summer. At Beaumont, no doubt, busy for a change, with his own affairs.

She fell asleep, thinking for the first time in many weeks more about someone else than about her own problems.