The Ugly Duchess

Page 38

Mr. Badger shook his head. “The Flying Poppy wasn’t seen in those parts again for a good three to four years, which is not so extraordinary. Griffin Barry operates all over the seas, Your Grace. There’s talk of him around India and then near Canada. They call him ‘a flying fish’ and the like.”
“And when the Poppy returned, the Earl was gone.”
“Exactly. And the devil of it is that the Poppy hasn’t been seen in the last couple of years, and I didn’t hear stories of it, either. So there’s a chance that Barry has gone to the bottom of the sea, taking the truth of what happened to Lord Islay with him.”
A silence ensued; Mr. Badger had at last come to the end of his narrative. It was Theo who said what had to be said. “He’s gone.” Her fingers closed hard around the trumpery little piece of tarnished metal. “James is dead.”
Mr. Badger nodded, his gaze not unsympathetic. “I fear that is the case. Piracy is a terrible business, and I find myself amazed that his lordship survived even for a month or two, let alone as long as he did. Lord Islay would have been at a distinct disadvantage, surrounded by lawbreakers who would as soon shoot you in the back as issue a civil greeting.”
“This is a rather disgraceful question, but I fear it must be asked,” Cecil put in. “Is there a chance that my cousin left a child somewhere on the islands? I much dislike the idea of a Ryburn growing up under such disadvantageous circumstances.”
Theo’s heart skipped a beat.
But Mr. Badger was shaking his head. “ ’Twas Jack Hawk who has a way with the ladies. For all I know, that reprobate has scattered children all over the East Indies; he has a reputation that suggests it. But the Earl had a quite different character.”
“What was it?” Theo asked, her heart feeling crumpled and helpless somewhere under her breastbone.
“He was never known to have visited a woman at all,” Mr. Badger said, his eyes distinctly sympathetic now. “That fact suggests that when he embarked on this rather unusual career, Lord Islay did not discard all the qualities that distinguish an English gentleman. And, of course, he did keep the locket.”
“I’m glad that the old duke didn’t live to hear this,” Cecil muttered. “It would have put him in the grave.”
A sob rose up Theo’s throat with such force that she felt her mouth distort. James was dead, killed by a pirate, his body likely thrown into the sea. And he had kept her lock of hair with him when he left England. She couldn’t bear it . . . she couldn’t bear it.
She rose, and Cecil’s hand fell from her arm. “If you’ll forgive me,” she managed, feeling tears sliding down her face.
Mr. Badger came to his feet, nodding. He had the look of a man who had delivered terrible news before.
Cecil was fighting his way up from the low settee. “Go,” he said, panting a little. “I’ll just talk with Mr. Badger for a few more minutes. I’ll call on you later, my dear.”
Theo ran from the room, the locket clenched in her hand.
Twenty-two
May 30, 1816
The House of Lords
London
The Garter King-of-Arms, who was responsible for behavior and precedence in the House of Lords, was dreading the day before him. “I have to get them all in line to enter the Chamber,” Sir Henry Gismond said fretfully to his wife over toast and marmalade. “Almost two hundred of them, all told, and they will wander, especially the older ones. I dread these formal occasions, I truly do.”
Lady Gismond nodded. She knew that her beloved Henry hated them, even if he reveled in the chance to exhibit himself as the principal advisor to the Crown in matters of ceremony and heraldry. “It’s a terribly sad occasion. Lord Islay was a lovely young man, by all accounts. I hate to think of him lost on those cruel seas.”
“It’s the drunkards that make the most trouble.” Gismond continued his own train of thought. “You’d never guess how many of them conceal a flask under those scarlet robes, my dear. Truly shocking. I can hardly stop myself from rapping them on the knuckles on occasion.”
“They won’t be tippling today,” her ladyship said firmly. “How often is a peer declared dead in absentia? And Lady Islay herself will be in attendance. I’m sure everyone will respect her anguish at bidding good-bye to her young husband. They did say it was a love match, you know.”
It required the help of seven heralds, but Gismond managed to shepherd the peers into line, ready for their procession into the formal Chamber of the House of Lords: dukes paired with dukes and earls with earls. “Like the bloody Noah’s ark,” Gismond muttered to himself, and not for the first time. “Your Grace must stay in position,” he said, actually laying hands on an elderly and quite deaf peer.
Finally he was able to breathe a sigh of relief as the trumpet formally called the peers together, and he strode through the doors like a particularly magnificent mother duck leading two straight rows of quacking peers. Sunlight was flooding through the high arched windows, bouncing off the gilded chandeliers that hung from the ceiling.
Altogether, he found a rather glorious sight before him as he turned at the top of the room and waited as the crimson- and ermine-clad peers filed into benches. Lord Fippleshot seemed to have misplaced his spectacles, and His Grace the Duke of Devonshire was waggling his fingers at the crowded Spectators’ Gallery, currently occupied by the peeresses. But all the same, they were in line, and no one appeared to have overindulged in brandy during luncheon.
Sadly, the room took on this crowded, excited atmosphere only when the subject at hand was a question of death—a peer accused of murder, for example, or thought to be dead, as now. Though the peeresses tended to turn up for questions of wills and illegitimacy as well. It was only the routine votes governing the kingdom for which most didn’t bother to appear. But that was an unworthy thought, and he dismissed it.
There was a pause for a breath, and then a herald stalked up the aisle, the young Countess of Islay following in his wake. She wouldn’t ever become a duchess now, Gismond reminded himself, feeling a little pang of sympathy. But there, Lady Gismond—who read the scandal rags with the kind of concentration some reserved for the Bible and others for the racing docket—was passionately attached to the idea of the countess’s marrying again. “She needs a man of her own,” Lady Gismond had said that very morning. “Never a whisper of scandal about her, but the poor woman won’t have children if this drags on much longer.”
All the peers rose as the countess, dressed entirely in mourning, proceeded to the front of the chamber and curtsied, first to the Spectators’ Gallery, then to the assembled peers, and then to the Lord Chancellor. Formalities completed, she retired to the alcove reserved for peeresses and seated herself next to Mrs. Pinkler-Ryburn.
Gismond took a moment to squint at her, as his wife would demand every detail of her attire when he returned home. But Gismond could see nothing extraordinary. She was tall and she appeared to be thin, though it was hard to tell, as she probably wore four or five petticoats. She stood out like a drop of blackness in the midst of glitter. Not being required to wear robes, peeresses tended to wear their fortunes instead; the benches reserved for them positively sparkled.
The Sergeant-at-Arms boomed a request for silence, and then they went through the formal ceremony that opened the proceedings (every moment of which thrilled Gismond’s ceremonious soul). Finally, he himself knelt and handed the Lord Chancellor his staff of office.