The Chadwick Ring Read online

  “Thank you, m’lord.” The girl bobbed a quick curtsy and fled into the shadows.

  When Chadwick stepped into the brightly illuminated entryway, he discovered Susan huddled in anxious conference with the butler. In his surprise he forgot the note. In Chadwick’s experience household servants were as territorial as cats, and the maid’s presence downstairs in what was chiefly the butler’s domain was unusual enough to make him faintly disquieted. “Is something amiss?” he asked when the butler scurried over to retrieve his hat and gloves.

  The man smiled imperturbably. “I expect Susan is exaggerating, as is the wont of young women,” he said. “I’m sure there is nothing to be concerned about.”

  “Yes there is!” Susan interrupted, crowding roughly between the two men. Ignoring the butler’s squawk of outrage, she clutched at the marquess’s lapels with trembling fingers and pleaded, so agitated that she stuttered, “M-my lord, y-you must do something! Oh, please, I know something dreadful has happened!”

  Chadwick caught her wrists gently and put her away from him, studying her grey face as he did so. Beneath her neat cap the girl was shaking with fright. He said in quiet, soothing tones, “Compose yourself, Susan. I shall help you in any way I can, but before I can do so, you must try to calm down.” He watched her struggle to regain her self-control, and when she seemed to have herself in check, he asked, “Now, girl, what may I do for you?”

  Susan cried desperately, “But, my lord, it’s not me! It’s her ladyship. She’s gone!”

  He stared at her blankly. “What do you mean, she’s gone?”

  “She went for a drive and she said she’d be back within the hour—”

  The butler, offended that a maid had bypassed his authority, interposed, “My lord, I’m sure the wench has merely misinterpreted Lady Chadwick’s instructions.”

  Susan turned on him furiously, spitting with indignation. “No I did not, you old fool! I warned her ladyship she must be careful now, and she promised she and his young lordship would only be gone a short while—”

  The butler yelped, “Don’t get high in the instep with me, missy! I was here long before—”

  “Quiet!” the marquess bellowed, and the squabbling servants fell silent instantly, quailing before the cold light of command that blazed in his blue eyes. “That’s enough, both of you!” He took a deep, shuddering breath and said in a strained voice, “All right, I wish to have this clear: you say my wife left the house this evening and has not returned?”

  “Yes, my lord. She went for a ride with his young lordship.”

  “I see. Who drove them?”

  Susan looked at the butler, and he shrugged. She ventured, “No one, my lord. Her ladyship said they were taking a curricle.”

  Chadwick scowled. “My stable does not include a curricle.”

  “No, my lord,” Susan agreed, “but that is what she said.”

  Little sparks of alarm began to shoot off in the back of Chadwick’s head. He asked carefully, “And at what hour did they go out for this drive?”

  Again the two servants glanced at each other, and the butler said, “I am not sure of the exact time, my lord, but it was not long after the doctor departed.”

  Silence loomed up between them. At last the marquess groaned, “My God, I think I must be surrounded by half-wits! Why was the doctor here? Why was I not informed at once?”

  After another awkward pause Susan said quietly, “It was her ladyship’s wish, my lord. She wanted to be the one to give you the news herself.”

  Suddenly Chadwick felt as if his breath had been punched out of him. “The news?” he echoed hoarsely.

  “Yes, my lord,” Susan said reluctantly. “Her ladyship is ... is increasing. Forgive me for going against her wishes by telling you. I would never have done so, except...”

  Chadwick turned away, his harsh features pale under his tan. “I see,” he rasped. “Thank you, Susan. You were quite right to let me know.” He stared down at his hands, amazed to find them steady. How fair she was, Ginnie, his beautiful child-woman, now gravid with child herself.

  Susan called, “My lord, ought not someone go search for them?”

  He blinked and looked back at the girl, surprised to discover that his feet had carried him across the gleaming marble floor almost to the door of his study. After a moment’s hesitation he said with forced casualness, “I think perhaps it is too early to send out runners. After all, if there had been an accident, I am sure someone from Bow Street would have informed us by now; it is not as if her ladyship and Lord Bysshe were strangers to the city. I expect what has happened is that they called on my mother and lost track of time.” Even as he spoke Chadwick realized how lame that explanation sounded. To conceal his growing apprehension he said firmly, “Susan, go you to her ladyship’s room and lay out her night things. She will undoubtedly be extremely weary when she comes home.”

  He saw the look that flashed in the girl’s eyes, and he thought she was going to protest, but after the briefest of pauses she muttered, “Yes, my lord,” and trudged toward the staircase, her steps weighted with disillusion. He felt a twinge of exasperation. Damn the chit, daring to condemn him for not rushing headlong into the streets like some latter-day knight-errant to rescue his ladylove. Just what did she expect him to do, where did she think he should go? At this point no one even knew for certain that a “rescue” was necessary. As he had suggested, Ginevra and Bysshe might very well be with his mother. Or at the last moment they might have decided to attend the theatre, or they might yet be driving, or ... or...

  Sternly he refused to consider alternatives. He was not some moon-minded adolescent to fall into a jealous panic whenever his lady was out of sight. At the door of his study he glanced at the butler, whose face was more stony than usual, as if to atone for that gross breach of etiquette that had allowed him to be discovered quarrelling with the maid. Chadwick snapped, “Inform me instantly my wife returns,” and he slammed the door behind him.

  He splashed brandy into a glass and sank into the chair behind his desk, only to rise again at once, far too agitated to relax. He leaned against the desk and mused. Ginevra was pregnant. Inside her slender body a child grew and developed, the fruit of his loins. He was startled by the intense wave of desire that pulsed through him, engorging him with its heat. God, why wasn’t she here with him now so that he could hold her, caress her, reaffirm his potency ... He chuckled wryly. If Ginnie didn’t hurry home soon, he would be damned lucky if he could walk up the stairs.

  He lifted the snifter to his lips and relished the rich bouquet of the brandy, his sensitive nose discerning the faint tang of the charred oak casks it had been aged in: good French stock, and not even contraband, although there were those who claimed the liquor had lost some of its savor when the blockade was lifted. As he sipped his drink, his nostrils twitched, and they picked up a discordant note, a whiff of some odor that seemed thin and acrid against the heady aroma of the brandy. Chadwick scowled and set the glass aside. After a moment he realized that what he smelled was the heavily perfumed note from Amalie.

  He retrieved the green envelope from his pocket with a grimace of distaste, aware that it would require all of Hobbs’s skill to remove that cloying scent from the fine fabric of his coat. Poor Hobbs! His much-imposed-upon valet had probably dared hope that at last such trying duties were behind him.

  Chadwick’s blue eyes narrowed as he broke the thick wax seal that was stamped with an elaborate and explicit representation of Venus Astarte. Amalie had never been one for subtlety, be it in the employment of her perfume or the gratification of her appetites in bed, and Chadwick was amazed now to think that their relationship had continued for as long as it had without his becoming jaded much sooner. But now at last—praise God!—Amalie seemed to have accepted the termination of their affair. The little maid had said that her mistress had left town, and no doubt this message was a long and lugubrious farewell.

  Thus Chadwick was surprised to flip open the sin
gle folded sheet of paper and discover but three terse sentences penned in Amalie’s distinctive spiky, back-slanted hand: “Adieu, mon cher Richard, le jeu est fait. Your son has eloped with your wife. I wish you joy on becoming a grandfather.”

  10

  He stared at the note, revolted and fascinated. He felt awed by the depth of his mistress’s malice, strangely humbled to realize that the life he had lived so heedlessly could have inspired such hatred. Amalie’s revenge. Dear God, had he dared to think she was not subtle? Obviously she knew him far better than he had ever known her! With deadly cunning and accuracy she had searched out his most vulnerable spot and had probed it mercilessly, stimulating half-dead hurts and hostilities to new and painful life. She knew his ambivalence toward the son of his first marriage, and somehow she had managed to employ the boy as agent in destroying the second. Bysshe would have been an easy gull, Chadwick saw now: he had been building to this explosion for weeks, and Amalie had made skillful use of his burgeoning anger. As a final ironic twist, the marquess realized with grudging admiration, Amalie must have arranged for the elopement to be carried out in the very curricle he had bought for her.

  The one thing the Frenchwoman had underestimated was his trust in Ginevra. He knew there were many differences yet to be resolved between him and his young bride, he knew she was still uncertain of her feelings toward him, but never would he believe that she might be unfaithful to him—especially not after last night.

  But where were Ginevra and Bysshe now? He rubbed his aching temples and tried to think. God alone knew what lies Amalie must have fed to those impetuous children to make them flee into the night, and now he had to find them before something regrettable happened. But where could they be? Obviously with only a light vehicle they could not have followed the fashion for elopements and gone haring off to Scotland, so they must be somewhere close at hand, perhaps even still in London. His blue eyes blinked hard. Was it beyond the realm of possibility that they might truly have gone to his mother?

  Lady Helena’s butler staggered back, almost felled by the impact of the door Chadwick flung open. “Is my mother stirring?” he barked, and without waiting for an answer he bounded up the steps two at a time.

  When he burst into his mother’s bedroom, he found her propped against a great mound of pillows, reading, a pot of some fragrant tisane warming over a fairy lamp-beside her bed. “Thank God you are awake!” he exclaimed.

  She looked up and observed dryly, “Well, if I hadn’t been, I certainly would be now! You make enough noise for a regiment of hussars!” She glanced at his face again and set aside her book, her faint smile fading. “What’s wrong, Richard?” she asked quietly.

  He knew the answer before he posed the question. “Are Ginnie and Bysshe here?”

  Lady Helena’s sharp eyes widened. “No. Why did you think they might be?”

  He stared down at the shrunken figure huddled in her downy nest. Her face was lined with fatigue, and the thin silver braid that emerged from beneath her linen nightcap dangled limply over one shoulder. One of his earliest memories was of watching reverently as Lady Helena’s maid brushed the blue-black tresses that flowed in a thick, iridescent swath down her back; he remembered that when he begged to be allowed to stroke her hair, it had felt springy, almost alive under his chubby fingertips.

  “Richard, what has happened to upset you?” she asked again, and for answer .he handed her the note from Amalie. One eyebrow arched delicately at the perfumed paper, but as she read the letter her face was carefully expressionless. At last she passed it back to him and asked bluntly, “Do you believe this?”

  He shook his head. “No, of course not. I do know that something has happened to make them take flight, although I am uncertain whether Ginevra went willingly.”

  He hesitated before adding slowly, “Her maid tells me that, as the note implies, Ginnie is with child.”

  The years fell away from Lady Helena’s face as she smiled tenderly. “I thought so.”

  Chadwick looked surprised. “You did? How could you tell?”

  His mother shrugged “Women can always tell. It’s the eyes, I think. Besides”—she chuckled in a way that reminded him of all the years she had dwelt in France—“one could hardly expect your wife to be otherwise.” Her amusement subsided, and the look of weary age returned. “You must find them quickly, Richard.”

  “I know—but how? Where could they have gone?”

  She eyed the note he clutched in his long fingers and suggested, “I don’t suppose it would accomplish anything to question the ... friend ... who dispatched that nasty piece of business?”

  He crushed the green paper into a reeking wad and flung it away from him as if it were unclean. He said tightly, “I have it on good authority that Amalie has already left town.”

  Lady Helena nodded sardonically. “Very prudent,” she judged. “Then what about Bysshe? Where would he be likely to go? You must have some idea.”

  Puzzling hard, Chadwick finally admitted with a groan, “No. I have no notion of how his mind works. We are strangers.”

  His mother winced with remembered pain and regarded him sadly. “That’s a sorry admission.”

  “A true one, nonetheless,” Chadwick sighed.

  “Plus ca change ...” she murmured. She thought again and said, “But surely there was someplace he used to go when he was unhappy or confused? Some place that meant security to him?”

  “I cannot think of anywhere, unless it be ...” His brows lifted. “Dowerwood?” His mother nodded sanguinely. He protested with an irritable wave of his hand, “But that makes no sense! A man decamping with another man’s wife does not go—”

  Lady Helena intervened hardly. “Bysshe is not a man, Richard, pray you remember that. He is a little boy trying to be a man. That is a very nice, very significant distinction.” She held out a placating hand. “Please, my son, try to understand.”

  Gently he caught her fragile fingers in his strong ones. He bent with courtly grace to brush his lips across them.

  “I understand, ma chère. And when I find our infant runaways I promise that I shall be—”

  “No!” Lady Helena snapped, jerking her hand away from him. “You do not understand at all. You cannot deal with them in the same manner. Bysshe is still a child; Ginevra most definitely is not. She is young, yes, but she is a woman, a strong and courageous woman—or she would be if you would ever make up your mind whether you should treat her as your wife or as your daughter!”

  For perhaps the first time in his adult life the Marquess of Chadwick was truly shocked. “For God’s sake, Mother,” he choked, flushing hotly, “how can you...?” His voice faded, and he seemed to feel his blood draining from him. He stared down at Lady Helena, his blue eyes naked with pain in a face otherwise bleached of all color. With appalled insight he realized the truth of her blunt words. He thought of Ginevra’s fortitude in coping with the vast and bewildering changes he had wrought, the gallantry with which she had accepted his entry into her life, her bed. He remembered his own impatience and temper that had erupted whenever she questioned one of his edicts. Had there been even one time when he had tried to explain to her what he wanted from them, when he had listened to her opinions? He had imposed his own demands ruthlessly, even to the getting of a child—he could have prevented that, but in the satisfaction of his lust it had never occurred to him to question whether a girl of eighteen years might not be ready yet for motherhood—and he had excused his willfulness by cosseting her when it was convenient and did not contradict some expressed desire of his own. Whenever she retreated from his inconsistency, he drew himself up like a stern father and called her immature. Just which of them was the childish one? he wondered. He rasped, “Mother, I love her.”

  Lady Helena watched him with eyes as blue as his own, and she wished with wistful regret that she could draw his dark head down to her breast and comfort him again as if he were little. She sighed and knew it could not be. They had been apart too many
years, she had failed him too many times, and now, when he needed her, she could offer no comfort, only advice.

  In a voice oddly humble he repeated, “I do love Ginnie.”

  “Then find her,” Lady Helena said softly. “Find her, my son, and tell her, now, before it is too late.”

  Cold water trickled over her cheek, and Ginevra shook her head violently, only to still again with an anguished moan. She screwed her eyes shut and clapped her hands over them to shield them from the intolerable brightness of the single candle. As she lay there she felt the water drip once more, seeping in little rivulets between her fingers and beading on her gold lashes. When she tried to flick the wetness away, her fingertips brushed her cheekbone, and she winced.

  Above her, Bysshe’s voice begged, “Oh, Ginnie, please be careful.”

  Slowly, reluctantly, she lifted her lashes, blinking away the moisture as her eyes adjusted to the light. Bare inches from her face she encountered Bysshe’s brown eyes frowning at her anxiously. He repeated hoarsely, “You must be careful,” and he dabbed delicately at her cheek with a sodden cloth.

  She batted away his succoring hand and looked around cautiously. Her pelisse and shoes had been removed, and she was lying on something upholstered and lumpy, like a worn settee. Beyond the range of the candlelight the grey radiance of approaching dawn limned a room that seemed vaguely familiar. With great care she raised herself gingerly on one elbow, her head throbbing at every movement, and she glanced about her, taking in the cherry-wood armchairs and framed engravings, the crossed swords over the mantel, all looking rather eerie and ominous in the dim light, yet all known to her. Confused, she returned her gaze to Bysshe. His mouth, she noted, was swollen and discolored where she had slapped him. “Why have you brought me to Dowerwood?” she asked.

  He muttered, “I didn’t know where else to bring you.” He leaned forward, and she shrank away from him. At her retreat he cried, “I’m sorry, Ginnie!” and blushed furiously. “Please believe me, I’m so very sorry!”