Don't Tempt Me (Fallen Women 2)

“That isn’t the point,” he said. “Merely because you once lived among unspeakable people doing unspeakable things doesn’t make it right for you to spend your time among the dregs of London. The point is, you’re the Duchess of Marchmont, and she doesn’t frequent low places.”

Having peeled off the snug coat, she started unbuttoning his waistcoat.

“You’re the Duke of Marchmont, and you mean to frequent this place,” she said.

“I’m a man.”

Oh, I know, she thought. The waistcoat undone, she let her hand stray over the front of his shirt. “A big, powerful man,” she said. “With big hard muscles and a godlike instrument of delight.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” he said.

“I’ll be safe with you,” she said. “Who would dare to trouble me when you’re by my side? Even at Almack’s, everyone was amiable to me for your sake.” She let her hand slide over his muscled chest. She felt the heat begin, low in her belly, the snake of desire stirring.

“No time for that,” he said gruffly. As her hand slid downward, he gently lifted it away. “Everyone was amiable for your sake, Zoe, not mine. Because you’re pretty and amusing—and because they were worried that if they weren’t amiable, you’d hit them with that great diamond of yours and break their skulls.”

She smiled up at him. If he was making a joke, he was calming, and he would take her with him.

“I see what will happen,” he said. “You’ll fondle and flatter and smile me into it. I might as well admit defeat, instead of wasting time fighting you. But you’d better run along—and dress quickly, because I will not wait one extra minute for you.”

She reached up and grabbed his neckcloth, and pulled his face toward hers and kissed him hard. He was turning into a far better husband than she’d dared to hope for. He was not the shallow, capricious man she’d believed him to be. He was truly kind and truly caring…and she was afraid she was falling quite hopelessly in love with him.

Two hours later

The Bow Street Office stood a short distance from the Covent Garden Opera House, and on the same side of the street.

Zoe and Marchmont were able to bypass the busy courtroom at No. 3—where, Zoe supposed, the thieves and prostitutes and pimps and drunkards were gathered at present. This was because Mrs. Dunstan was being kept in a room in No. 4, the house adjoining. Here, among other things, Bow Street held its prisoners.

The housekeeper had been taken to a room separate from the felons’ room, in consideration of Marchmont, who’d asked to interview her privately. Otherwise she would have been shackled in the one room with all the other prisoners, Zoe learned.

A Runner had caught Mrs. Dunstan before she could board a Dover packet, bound for Calais.

She had not been cooperative, the Runner explained before Zoe and Marchmont entered the room. The housekeeper insisted she didn’t know where Harrison was. She had not been involved with him in any way, she said. She had left the duke’s house in a temper, she claimed, because the new mistress had questioned her methods. She refused to hang about, she said, and be accused of incompetence, and have her authority undermined in front of the rest of the staff.

“That’s her story, Your Grace,” said the Runner. “Doesn’t matter how we ask or what we ask. It’s always the same.”

When Zoe and Marchmont entered, they found Mrs. Dunstan seated stiffly upright upon a bench against a wall. Though the room was dimly lit, Zoe saw her eyes blaze at their entrance. She didn’t need to see it. The woman radiated hostility. But she was impotent, her ankles chained.

“Oh, Your Grace has come, have you?” she said. “You and she, to see me like this, in chains, like a common thief.”

“I should say, madam, on the contrary, that you are a most uncommon sort of thief,” Marchmont drawled. “I should say you are a genius among felons. Your aptitude with figures is a true marvel of sleight of hand.”

This small show of bored arrogance instantly lit a very short fuse.

“What did you ever have to complain of us?” she burst out. “We did our work. There’s no better-kept house in all of London. Everyone said so.”

The officer attempted to intervene, but Marchmont held up his hand. “Let her have her say,” he said.

“Oh, I’ll say, all right,” she spat out. “Not one of all those servants in that great house ever gave you any trouble at all, did they, Your Grace? But you don’t know what a trouble it was to us, to keep it that way. Everything always done for you. Like magic, wasn’t it? It was the best-run house in London, in all of England—and you had to bring her in and spoil it.”

She shot Zoe a murderous look before reverting to Marchmont. “What did we ever do that harmed you? We had a right to our perquisites and more, for all we did and how well we did it. When did you ever need to take any notice of the running of the house, Your Grace? When didn’t the windows sparkle and the floors shine? When was the sheets ever dirty or damp or the fires not lit when wanted? When was the dinner not laid exactly to the minute, whether you and your guests sat down on time or half an hour late? When was it ever cold or overcooked? When did you ever have to ask, ‘Why wasn’t this done?’ When did you ever have to ask for anything? Wasn’t it always as you wanted, before you even knew you wanted it? What was so wrong that she must come in and start looking for a fault? Why did she ever go looking in those books but because she couldn’t find any fault anywhere else?”

“Yet such a great fault there turned out to be, in those books,” Marchmont said. “And there, you see, is the nub of the matter: theft and fraud, fraud and theft. So unnecessary. You might have asked for an astronomical salary, and I’d have paid, without question—because what did I care? Instead, you made a great deal of unnecessary work for yourselves with your clever conspiracy. I would have paid you as much as you stole and cheated me of, and I’d never have noticed or cared what it cost. But no, you must commit forgery and fraud and theft and make it a hanging matter, you foolish woman.”

“I won’t hang! I did nothing wrong!”

“You disappeared at the same time Harrison did,” Marchmont said. “Why didn’t you two simply go abroad? It’s easily enough done. If Brummell could sneak away unnoticed, with that famous face and physique, surely you could. But no, you must hang about and plot with Harrison to attack my horses. For what? Spite?”

“I never did that!”

“John Coachman and two of our footmen saw Harrison take a knife to one of my horses,” said Marchmont.

“I had nothing to do with that!”

“You and Harrison fled my house at the same time,” Marchmont said. “You didn’t warn the other servants. They all stayed. One can only conclude that you and Harrison were in communication and still are. One can only conclude that you aided and abetted a violent attack.”

“I never did! If I’d known what he was about, I would never have stayed with him. I’d have run to Dover before today, and your dirty Runners wouldn’t have caught me.”

“But you did stay in London for a time. With Harrison.”

She realized, too late, what she’d revealed. She bowed her head and pressed her fist to her mouth.

“I don’t care about you,” Marchmont said. “I should be very sorry to see you hang simply because you were silly. But if you’d anything to do with what I’m bound to see as an attempt on my wife’s life—”

“It wasn’t me!” she cried. “I didn’t know until he came back and told me.”

“He came back and told you,” Marchmont repeated quietly.

“I didn’t want to stay in London, but he said we had to. He had to get the money we’d put aside.”

“My money,” Marchmont said with a thin smile.

“We were going to become innkeepers,” she said. “When he went out, I thought it was to do with the money, and making arrangements. But it wasn’t, was it?”

“He was watching us,” Marchmont said. “Watching where we went and what we did. He was waiti

ng for his chance.”

She nodded. “He told me afterward, and it was then I knew he must be out of his senses. He always had a temper, but I never knew him to do violence. He never needed to. No one dared to sauce him or cross him. He’d gone wrong in the head, that was clear. But I had to wait, because I feared he’d try to kill me if I left him, knowing what I knew.”

She told them how Harrison had regretted not being able to stay to watch.

Zoe saw Marchmont’s hands clench, but he un-clenched them immediately. His countenance told nothing, as usual, except to her. He wore his customary, sleepily bored expression. He controlled himself as he always did. He hid his feelings as he always did.

“The way he talked—it wasn’t like him,” the housekeeper went on. “I didn’t see until then how bad it was with him.”

The housekeeper went on to describe a degree of vengefulness others might have found shocking. Zoe wasn’t shocked. She’d seen worse cases than this, murderous rages and vendettas over trivial matters: a hair comb, a bracelet.