Page 19 of The Mysterious Marquess (The Bad Heir Day Tales #2)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Firstly,” Penelope said, marshaling logic, as she had for a thousand debates with Lucien, “I would not marry you, Dashiel Ingraham, if you were the sole legitimate heir to the crown, handsome, mannerly, and awash in wealth. Get that through your head. You have done me no honor whatsoever, and you will never get your hands on me or my money.”

Dashiel produced a folded piece of paper from a breast pocket. “Be that as it may, my lady, I am yet responsible for—”

“I am not finished.” Penelope spoke quietly, lest the footmen take a notion to join them long before she required their services. “Never interrupt a lady, especially when she’s seeing justice done. If Purdy had taken the watch— if —then she would have done so solely because Dommie de Plessis left it out as a temptation. Dommie clearly sought an excuse to call on you at an unfashionable hour.”

“Then you admit that your aunt stole the watch,” Dashiel said, rolling up the warrant and brandishing it like some scepter of office. “You admit that you and your pet peer are abetting—”

“I admit that you are tiresome in the extreme, Dashiel, and nothing more. Turn out your pockets.” Penelope’s temper, which had been rumbling like an approaching storm, found expression in a complete lack of inflection.

“Turn out my pockets? Who are you to tell me what to do? If you think for one minute…”

St. Didier moved away from the window. Westhaven rose. Lucien gently set his drink on the mantel and plucked the warrant from Sir Dashiel’s grasp.

“One does not argue with a lady,” Lucien said. “Rather, a gentleman does not.”

Sir Dashiel patted his pockets, went still, and then produced a gold watch. “I have no idea how that thing came to be in my possession.”

Penelope knew exactly how that had come about, because it had been her idea. Amazing, the ingenuity one was capable of when sharing a kitchen picnic with the right inspiration.

“Open it,” Lucien said. “Please.”

When Sir Dashiel merely stared at him mutinously, St. Didier took the watch and flipped it open. “‘To Roland de Plessis, from your loving father.’ In possession of stolen goods, Sir Dashiel? Naughty, naughty, or perhaps a bad habit.”

“I have never seen this watch before in my life.” Dashiel regarded the watch on the desk as if it might bite him.

Penelope had the sense that the men in the room—the gentlemen—were enjoying themselves, despite their severe expressions. She was not precisely enjoying herself, but she was gratified to be holding Dashiel accountable. Very gratified.

“You have seen that watch on Dommie de Plessis’s escritoire,” Penelope said. “Lying will not serve you, and I care not one stale biscuit about the watch.” Behind her, she heard the sound of paper being torn several times over.

“Lynnfield, when you tear up that warrant, you are interfering with the king’s man in the pursuit of a lawful—”

“Tell us about the brandy,” Penelope said as patiently as she could. “The exquisitely valuable brandy you stole in Spain, after you notified the French that you’d be willing to see the larger portion of it turned over to them in exchange for coin.”

“I know nothing about any brandy.” Dashiel’s indignation would have been convincing, but for a flush nearly the color of his fake ruby rising over his countenance. “Nothing whatsoever.”

“That’s odd,” Lucien murmured, dumping the torn-up bits of paper into the dustbin and taking the place on Penelope’s right. “Malcolm clearly recalls the cases being unloaded at the Roost upon your return from Spain. Wellington had very, very strict orders regarding plundering, Sir Dashiel. Lethally strict. That brandy was in the possession of nuns .”

“You stole from nuns?” St. Didier murmured. “One does not see you enjoying eternity in good company, Sir Dashiel.”

“There was a war on,” the baronet retorted, and never had he looked more contemptible to Penelope. “I was responsible for requisitioning that brandy, and my detail was ambushed by French snipers. Resistance would have cost lives pointlessly.”

Lucien’s posture subtly changed. “You bleating idiot, Lieutenant Lord Carweneth was scouting the area for potential bivouacs, and the French soldiers you had summoned behind British lines all but wiped out his patrol. They most assuredly put young Henry in his grave and his earldom with him.”

Lucien had explained that part to Penelope, and she had cried and raged and cursed, but hearing the words again, with Henry’s malefactor in the room, made her sick with grief.

“I didn’t…” Sir Dashiel looked from Westhaven to St. Didier, anywhere but at Penelope. “I had no idea, none whatsoever, that any forces other than my quartermaster’s escort were in that quadrant. The region was deserted, nothing but those old women and their skinny mules, and that…”

“You came home,” Penelope said, “after having put into the enemy’s hands the means to barter for their rations, and you commenced courting me. You knew , Dashiel. You knew that your actions had precipitated Henry’s death, or you suspected strongly enough that you wanted to ensure I could never go looking for details or asking inconvenient questions. You wanted my fortune, but you needed to ensure my silence.”

“I did not know for a certainty, but as a fellow soldier and Henry’s lifelong friend, I suspected the French had disobeyed their orders. I thought, as a gentleman , that I owed you the protection of my—”

Penelope turned away lest she wallop him. “Shut your lying, whining mouth.”

Sir Dashiel showed the instinct for self-preservation common to all furtive, slithering creatures and fell silent.

“Treason is a hanging felony,” St. Didier observed. “As I understand the posture of the various warring factions at the time in question, the French would have been mad to retrieve that brandy unless some traitor to the crown had explained to them exactly when the lot was to be moved and assured Boney’s men safe passage to that location.”

“We needn’t bother with treason.” Lucien eyed Sir Dashiel as he would have regarded a dog’s breakfast on the Axminster carpet. “Sir Dashiel traded in contraband and used the unsuspecting offices of a peer’s widow to distribute the goods. He has taken bribes while serving as magistrate. He assaulted an old man, a neighbor of notably peaceful demeanor, on several occasions, beating the fellow mercilessly with his riding crop.”

Dashiel stared at him. “I assaulted nobody.”

The denials were as dishonest as they were tiresome.

“You assault my sense of decency just by drawing breath,” Penelope said. “Malcolm is mute, also quite literate. He explained in a sworn affidavit that you accosted him when he was out walking alone, no weapons on his person, and you were on horseback. The last time it happened, some small boys climbing trees nearby saw the whole thing, but Malcolm asked them not to take you to task, lest you end up paying with your life. You repeatedly and viciously attacked a neighbor, hoping he would retaliate so you could claim that neighbor was a violent menace. If anybody’s behavior shows inchoate madness, Sir Dashiel, yours does.”

Though arrogance was the more accurate diagnosis, arrogance and the confidence of a petty despot.

Sir Dashiel smiled, all charm and innocence, and put period to any remaining shred of pity Penelope might have had for him.

“Very well, my lady, hang me. I’ve committed some bad acts, or so you claim, but you cannot prove any of it. Nobody will take the word of that old man when he can’t even speak. Small boys lie all the time, and the war is over.”

Penelope took one instant to consider her actions, and in that instant, she assayed the state of the three men in the room on hand to keep Sir Dashiel from leaping out the window. What she sensed from Lucien, St. Didier, and even Westhaven was a need for justice above all else.

“ I speak for Malcolm,” she said, “and for Purdy, Theo, the marchioness, outraged children, the sisters you stole from, and my brother gone too soon to his reward. I speak for them, and I say this…”

She drew back her hand in the expected preparatory maneuver, then let fly with her foot, striking Dashiel between the legs. Such a shame she hadn’t worn hobnailed boots to the ball.

Dashiel dropped like a marionette whose strings had been cut and lay gasping and writhing on his side.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” St. Didier said. “But what’s do be done with him?”

“He should be whipped at the cart’s tail, pilloried, and hanged,” Westhaven said coldly. “My brother Bartholomew died in that war, and St. Just is haunted by unspeakable memories. For all too many, the fighting will never be over.”

“He cannot hang,” Penelope said as Sir Dashiel’s moans quieted to whimpers. “Tabitha’s life would be ruined by the scandal.”

“Banishment,” Lucien said with cheerful malice. “Ingraham will grasp at that offer, thinking to live a life of ease in sunny climes, but banishment isn’t like that at all. Banishment eats at the soul and the reason. Thoughts of home become an obsession, and all of life is a purgatory. To be cut off from the connections that nourished us in youth and sustain us in later life… Sunny climes are notorious for fleas and biting flies. Banishment might well suffice.”

“Sir Dashiel’s real property can be sold to cover his debts,” Westhaven observed, “which I understand are sufficient to land him in Marshalsea for the rest of his miserable life should he return to Albion’s shores. His creditors deserve recompense for their patience.”

Sir Dashiel struggled to sit, propping his back against the huge carved desk.

“Sell the Roost, then,” Penelope said, “but keep the largest tenant holding as Tabitha’s dower property, held in trust for her to dispose of as she pleases. She and Tommie deserve a decent start in life.”

St. Didier regarded the slumped heap of baronet sniffling on the floor. “Banishment then, and we will wish him rough seas and sour rum on the way.”

Westhaven shot his cuffs. “Let the footmen see him to the docks. They deserve their little diversions, and Martin and Jones are quite the pugilists. I’ll be in the cardroom should your ladyship have further need of me.”

He clasped Lucien on the shoulder in a gesture that put Penelope in mind of Uncle Malcolm, bowed graciously over Penelope’s hand, nodded to St. Didier, and spared Dashiel not so much as a disgusted glance.

“I’d put him on the leakiest vessel you can find,” Westhaven said. “My thanks for an interesting diversion. Mind the punch and have a pleasant evening.” He sauntered out, and Penelope silently saluted an exquisitely choreographed exit.

“I will specifically inquire into seaworthiness when I’m about my next errand,” St. Didier said, “and don’t worry. I’ll see Sir Disgraceful equipped with enough of the ready and some decent clothing. He will survive to suffer for some time yet. Come along, Ingraham, or shall I have those two liveried pugilists carry you?”

Neither Lucien nor St. Didier made any move to help the baronet rise. He got to his hands and knees and then, leaning heavily on the desk, struggled to his feet.

“Don’t even look at my marchioness,” Lucien said. “We’ll tell Tabitha where to write to you, if she’s so inclined. Begone.”

Dashiel shuffled toward the door, the two footmen flanking him from his first step into the corridor.

“I bid you both good evening,” St. Didier said, sounding as close to jaunty as Penelope had ever heard him. “You will let Their Graces make the announcement?”

“After the supper waltz,” Penelope said. “Thank you, Leopold, and you must come visit us at Lynnfield whenever you need some fresh air and good company.”

Lucien wrapped an arm around Penelope’s waist. “We mean it. You have good friends at Lynnfield whether you want them or not, but I suspect you do want them, being the prudent sort.”

St. Didier, looking bashful and pleased, bowed. “I will make a full report once you return from your wedding journey.”

He marched off before Penelope could threaten him with a hug and closed the door in his wake.

“Not here,” Penelope said. “Not in this room, where that walking pile of offal tried to excuse the next thing to murder along with treason, malfeasance, extortion, bribery… I know why Malcolm never raised a hand to him.”

She headed out the door and turned back in the direction of the ballroom.

“Because Malcolm would have done him lethal injury,” Lucien said, “then buried the body in some forgotten ravine where nobody would ever find it, but Malcolm was too honorable for that. Where are we going?”

“The nearest alcove, because I need your arms around me, sir. I have never been so angry, and now I am so relieved. To think of all whom that miserable varlet threatened, and he nearly got away with it.” She would ponder how close Sir Dashiel had come to succeeding in his varied schemes on another, braver, calmer day .

Penelope found an alcove lit by only one sconce and without occupants, unless a bust of some philosopher qualified.

“I’m so glad we used that special license.” She slipped her arms around Lucien’s waist and tucked in close.

He held her in a secure, warm hug, a husbandly hug. “I am too. St. Didier made a wonderful witness, Tommie and Tabitha were charming, and Phoebe and Wren will dine out on the memory for years. Discreet and romantic, they said.”

“And our wedding breakfast a stop at Gunter’s. Perhaps we should suggest that to Tabitha and Tommie.”

Penelope was chattering, and for no reason. Her temper had calmed, her battle nerves were settling, but just for good measure, she kissed her marquess, and for reasons best known to him and grateful husbands the world over, he kissed her back just as fervently.

The wedding journey would take them to Wales. Lucien had already sorted that much out with his new bride. They’d have two weeks to themselves and then be joined by the elders and Tommie and Tabitha, if they weren’t on their own wedding journey. Malcolm might even be inspired to speak, if he could once again be surrounded by the music of his native tongue.

Much remained to be done first, starting with a wedding announcement at some point in the next hour. First, though, Lucien needed to kiss his bride.

Penelope seized the initiative and treated him to a drubbing worthy of their wedding night. “I was so worried,” she said. “What if Dashiel had had a warrant for my arrest or yours? What if he’d managed to pay off his debts with the last of the brandy? What if the marchioness hadn’t been willing to explain her part in the whole business?”

Her part had been minor, thank heavens. She’d overseen the transport of the first round of cases as a favor to a neighbor, and only then had Dashiel told her that she’d trafficked in contraband. His innuendos had been subtle and hardly threatening at all—at first.

“The dowager marchioness,” Lucien said, hugging Penelope a little tighter. “How do you like being Lady Lynnfield?”

Penelope eased back. “Some of it I like quite well. Particularly the parts that involve privacy and imagination. I wish we could go home, Lucien, just slip away right now.”

“Comfort yourself with the knowledge that Dashiel will wish he could go home, too, wish he could simply ride by the Roost and lay eyes on the manor house’s front door, but even that comfort will be denied him. The ache gets worse with each season, and every time he hears somebody speaking with a Kentish accent, every Yuletide when he can’t find a good plum pudding for love nor money, he will die a little more.”

Penelope straightened. “He will face exactly what you and I and all the elders faced when we were plucked up from Wales, and he will have a lot more in the way of education and experience than we did, but we had each other. We all had each other, and what a difference that made. Dashiel will have nobody. For Tabitha’s sake, I hope he grows up.”

Interesting way to put it, and apt. “Your knack for accurate insights is showing again. Are you ready to face the madding crowd?”

“I’m ready to face polite society, provided you are with me through the ordeal.”

Lucien kissed her again, for luck and courage. “Through every ordeal. I do believe that’s the supper waltz tuning up, and I beg the favor of a dance with my new wife.”

Penelope granted him that favor, and Lucien stood beside her through His Grace of Moreland’s long-winded and slightly ribald announcement of their nuptials.

He sat and rode beside her on lovely and leisurely journeys to Wales and back and kept her company through all of her lying-ins. St. Didier was honored to stand as godfather to their firstborn—a redheaded girl who quieted best when her papa sang to her—and every child of the union was blessed with robust good health, a full complement of brains, and an abundance of both curiosity and logic.

That St. Didier was to eventually encounter the full-grown version of a lady of keen wits and independent spirit might explain why he was such a devoted godpapa, though that is a tale for another time!