“I am not sure,” she said slowly at last, and heard him sigh.
“You see?” Tom said. “If you do not believe in me, then who will? Certainly my own brother does not. Monty has washed his hands of me.”
“Sir Montague was never a very reliable character,” Lydia said. “He bends with the wind. But, Tom, the question we should be asking is if you did not kill Crosby and Sampson, who did?”
“I did wonder,” Tom said, staring at the flickering flame of the lantern, “if it was one of the Guardians themselves. Oh, I know they are sworn to protect and uphold the law, but men have gone to the bad before now, and Sampson could well have been blackmailing them, or Crosby been about to expose them. Any one of them would have the knowledge and the skill to murder.”
“No!” Lydia said, recoiling instinctively from the thought. “It cannot be. Not Dexter Anstruther-”
“Probably not Dexter,” Tom conceded. “He is too principled, though one never knows. But Miles Vickery now…” Tom laughed. “You cannot tell me that he has not done many a thing that would lay him open to blackmail, and he would be ruthless enough to kill, I am sure of it.”
“Lord Vickery has renewed his attentions to Alice,” Lydia said, frowning a little. “If he is mixed up in something illegal, he has not profited from it financially, I am sure. He is so poor he is selling everything off.”
“Surely Miss Lister has not welcomed his suit,” Tom said.
“There is something between them,” Lydia said. “I know it.” She fidgeted with the seam of her cloak. “I recognize it. For all that she was once in service, Alice is as innocent as I was, and Miles Vickery fascinates her in the way that you used to fascinate me, Tom.” She smiled a little sadly. “It is because you are both so very bad, you see. Bad and dangerous and such a temptation to an innocent girl…” She sighed. “But there is one difference between Alice and me. I do not think she will be as foolish as I was. She is very strong and I do not think she will allow herself to be seduced as I was.”
“And now you see me as I really am, Lyddy,” Tom said, his voice cracking with self-disgust. “Not so attractive now, is it?”
“No,” Lydia said, “it is not. But if we are to clear your name and I am to have a father for this baby of ours-”
“Lydia!” Tom crushed her to him so that the rest of her words were lost. “You are too good for me,” he said, his breath hot against her hair, “but if we come through this I
“Well,” Lydia said breathlessly, feeling his arms about her and thinking it heavenly despite the fact that he was dirty and unkempt, “in that case we had better devise a plan. Now, what are we going to do?”
CHAPTER NINE
“THERE IS STILL NO INVITATION to Mary Wheeler’s wedding,” Mrs. Lister mourned as she and Alice and Lizzie took breakfast the morning after the assembly ball. “I would have thought that now you are betrothed to Lord Vickery, Alice, and I am his mother’s
“Mama,” Alice said, sighing, “I have already explained that my betrothal to Lord Vickery is not to be made public until he has fulfilled the terms of Lady Membury’s will, so it is not surprising that the Wheelers do not know of it.”
Lizzie, who was eating turtalong and seed cake with great gusto, make a sound of disgust. “And anyway, dear ma’am, Alice would not be able to attend the wedding even if you were both invited! She will be too busy at the Bedlam Hospital-” Lizzie glared at Alice at this point “-where I shall be delivering her personally for being mad enough to betroth herself to Lord Vickery!”
“Oh, Lizzie,” Alice said on a sigh. “Can we not drop the subject now?” She stirred her cup of chocolate and picked at the cake very halfheartedly. She was blue-deviled that morning. Lizzie had found out about the betrothal from Lowell the previous night and had harangued her all the way home in the carriage. She had then followed Alice into her bedroom and had pestered her for a further half hour, demanding to know why Alice had accepted Miles’s proposal and asking if her wits had gone abegging. She had even offered to fetch Dr. Salter to tend to her. None of Alice’s feeble explanations had cut the slightest bit of ice with Lizzie, which was not surprising, Alice admitted to herself, since they were so unconvincing that she would not have believed them, either. And as soon as they had got up this morning Lizzie had started grousing again and Alice already had a headache. The breakfast room was overheated because Mrs. Lister insisted on having an enormous fire, and Alice wished she could be out in the fresh air rather than cooped up inside.
In addition she was still smarting over events of the previous night. She had only been awake a few seconds that morning when she had recalled the way in which her family had been slighted by the rest of Fortune’s Folly society. She knew that it hurt her mother dreadfully and that Mrs. Lister would never understand why people were so cruel. And gradually, now that she had rejected so many suitors, the snubs had been growing more blatant and the language more crude, and people like George Wheeler and the Duke of Cole showed their absolute contempt and disrespect for her.
Worse, Miles had witnessed it all. She had seen him watching. He had stood by and done nothing, and she had been silently begging him to come across and speak to her. She realized that she had wanted him to rescue her from the slights and she had felt hurt and angry when he had simply turned and walked away. It was further proof, if proof were needed, of what he had told her. He cared for nothing but himself. She meant nothing to him other than as a means to save him from the debtor’s prison. There was no kindness in him and she was foolish to expect it.
“What I simply cannot understand,” Lizzie was saying, “is how you could be so
“Please, Lizzie!” Alice said sharply. Her feelings felt raw. “You know that Mama wishes to see me settled,” she added, despising herself for trying yet again to convince her friend, and yet somehow powerless to stop herself. “It is important to her to have a place in society-”
“Oh, indeed it is!” Mrs. Lister confirmed, beaming. “I am more than happy with Alice’s choice!”
“My dear ma’am,” Lizzie said, “I know that you will not be offended when I say that you would have been happy with any
An unhappy silence prevailed around the table, broken eventually by Marigold knocking at the door to tell Mrs. Lister that there was no wedding invitation but that some flowers had been delivered for Alice from Lord Vickery.
“Shall I bring them in here, miss?” she said. “Proper bright and cheerful they’ll look on the windowsill.”
“They will be roses, I suppose,” Alice said with a sigh, putting her napkin aside and getting to her feet. “In a basket, with a ribbon. How unoriginal.” She wished that it were not such a hollow gesture when she knew Miles cared nothing for her. Under the circumstances, Alice thought crossly, those roses could wilt amongst the potato peelings in the scullery for all she cared.
She bustled out of the breakfast room and almost collided with Marigold in the hall. The maid was carrying a beautiful glass vase with bright scarlet flowers that seemed to glow in the pale February morning light. Alice could see tiny pips like rubies at their centre. She caught her breath.
“Pomegranate flowers,” Mrs. Lister said, coming out of the breakfast room behind her. “How charming and unusual they look. Lord Vickery must have hot-houses at Drummond Castle.”
Alice touched the petals lightly. They felt rich and smooth beneath her touch. “They are very pretty,” she conceded.
“In the language of flowers the pomegranate means unspoken desire,” Mrs. Lister said. “How very subtle of Lord Vickery.”
“There is nothing remotely subtle about Lord Vickery’s desires, Mama,” Alice said, “nor are they unspoken.”
