Virtue

31

Judith ran upstairs, threw a cloak around her shoulders, thrust her pistol and a heavy purse into the pocket, and left the house through the French doors of the book room.

Marcus's curricle was being led from the mews as she crossed the cobbles. Drawing her hood over her head, she followed the curricle into the square and there hailed a passing hackney. "Wait on the corner, and then follow that curricle when its driver takes the reins," she instructed the jarvey, handing him a guinea. He touched a forelock.

"You don't want the cove to know 'e's bein' followed, lady?"

"Not if you can avoid it," she agreed, climbing inside. She peeped around the strip of leather shielding the window, watching as Marcus came out of the house and climbed into the curricle. She called softly up to the driver. "There's another two guineas in it if you don't lose him and he. doesn't realize we're behind him."

"Gotcha!" The jarvey cracked a whip and the vehicle lurched forward. Judith sat back, taking shallow breaths of the fusty air. The last occupant of the vehicle must have been eating raw onions and smoking a particularly noxious tobacco.

Marcus never looked back. He drove fast through the city, taking the northern route out to Hampstead Heath. It was a journey he'd made once before in the same urgency, consumed with the same desperate fury. How long had Gracemere had with the girl? Four hours at the most. Was Agnes Barret with him? Having procured the girl, was she going to hold her for him? The nauseating images spun before his internal vision.

The Reading stage lumbered down the road toward him, the postboy blowing his horn. The postboy grabbed the side of the box and closed his eyes tightly as the curricle didn't slacken speed. The two vehicles passed with barely a centimeter to spare.

"Lord-a-mercy!" the jarvey yelled down to his passenger. "That's drivin' for you. Didn't even shave the varnish, I'll lay odds. He's in a powerful urry, your cove."

Judith clung onto the strap as the hackney swayed and swerved along the rutted road, trying to keep the curricle in sight. It occurred to her somewhat belatedly that she had no idea how far Marcus was going. He could be going anywhere-Reading, or Oxford. Somewhere well out of the ordinary reach of a hired London hackney. But how did he know where Gracemere had gone?

The road wound over the heath and she leaned out of the window. "Can you still see him?"

"Aye, he's just turned off at the crossroads. Reckon he's 'eaded for the Green Man," the jarvey called back. "It's the only place 'ereabouts. Folks don't much relish livin' too close to the gibbet."

"No, I don't suppose they do." Judith retreated into the fetid interior again, averting her eyes from the rotting corpse swinging on the gibbet as the carriage turned left at the crossroads.

Marcus drew up in the courtyard of a dark, shabby inn under the creaking sign of the Green Man. He jumped down, tossing the reins to a small lad picking his nose by the wall, and strode into the pitch-roofed building, ducking his head under the low lintel. He held his driving whip loosely in one hand.

Voices came from the taproom to the left of the hall, and the smell of boiling greens wafted from the kitchen at the rear, mingling with the reek of stale beer. The innkeeper came bustling out from the back regions, wiping his hands on a grimy apron. When he saw his visitor, his eyes widened as the years rolled back.

"Ah, Winkler, still in business I see," the marquis observed in a pleasant tone not matched by his expression. "I'm amazed the Bow Street Runners haven't caught up with you yet."

The innkeeper shuffled his feet and looked Marcus over with a calculating shiftiness that carried a degree of apprehension. "What can I do for you, my lord?"

"The same as before," Marcus said. "Nothing overly demanding, Winkler. Your… your guests are to be found above the stables as usual, I assume?"

The landlord licked his lips and glanced anxiously around, as if expecting to see a Bow Street Runner spring up out of the dust in the corners of the hallway. "If you say so, m'lord."

"I do," Marcus said aridly, turning on his heel. "Oh, and should you hear any undue disturbances, you will be sure to ignore them, won't you? I know how deaf you are, Winkler."

The landlord wiped his forehead with his apron. "Whatever you say, m'lord."

"Just so." Marcus smiled with the appearance of great affability and walked back outside. He crossed the yard at the back of the inn. The stable was a substantial red-brick building at the rear of the courtyard. Beneath its sloping roof were two connecting rooms available to those who knew of them and were able to pay substantially for their use. No questions were ever asked of the various, generally felonious, occupants, and what went on in those rooms was known only to the participants. So far, Winkler and his clients seemed to have escaped the attentions of the law.

Marcus glanced up at the latticed, tightly curtained windows overlooking the stableyard just before he entered the building. He saw no flicker of movement at the curtains and he could hear no sound of voices as he trod softly up the wooden stairs at the rear of the dim interior. He paused, listening at a door at the head of the stairs. His heart had started to thud and he realized he was listening for the sounds he'd heard once before at this door. The sounds that had sent him bursting into the room with his whip raised. But there were no whimpering cries this afternoon. A chair scraped on the wooden floor and then there was silence.

He lifted the latch, then kicked the door open with his booted foot.

Gracemere leaped to his feet, a foul oath on his lips. The chair clattered to the floor behind him. "You!"

"Surely you were expecting me, Gracemere," Marcus said. "You must know that I always keep my promises." He glanced around the room. The curtains were pulled tight over the windows blocking out the afternoon's sunlight. The room was lit by thick tallow candles and the bright glow of the fire.

Harriet huddled on a wooden settle beside the fire. At the sound of Marcus's voice, she sat up with a cry, staring wild-eyed at him as if he were an apparition. Her eyes were swollen with weeping, her hair in disarray, her expression distraught, but he could see no marks of brutality.

He crossed the room swiftly. "Are you hurt, child?"

She gulped, tried to shake her head, then burst into a torrent of weeping that mounted alarmingly toward hysteria.

Marcus wasted no time in soothing her. He turned back to the earl, who still stood as if stunned. "Foolish of you to return here, Gracemere, but then a rat usually goes back to its own dung heap," he observed, cracking the thong of his whip on the floor. His eyes went to the door in the middle of the wall; he knew of old that it connected this room with its partner. "Where is Lady Barret? I should like her to witness the next few minutes."

Gracemere's face was bloodless. He looked desperately around the room and then grabbed for a bread knife on the table. Marcus's whip snapped, catching him across the knuckles. He gave a cry of fury, of fear, of pain, snatching back his hand.

Marcus advanced on him, taking his time, his eyes never leaving his face, the whip curled loosely at his side. Suddenly the whip cracked again and his quarry jumped backward. Again the thong whistled and snapped, and again Gracemere jumped back. In this fashion, Marcus pursued his prey until the earl stood backed against a heavy armoire.

"Now," Marcus said softly. "Now, let us begin in earnest, sir."

"Let us indeed begin in earnest, my lord." Agnes Barret stood in the door connecting the two rooms. She held a serviceable-looking flintlock pistol in her hand, pointing directly at the marquis. "Give the whip to Gracemere. I think he might enjoy putting it to good use."

The earl chuckled and held out his hand.

"Don't think I won't shoot, Carrington," Agnes said with a tight smile. "Of course, I won't kill you. The consequences of your death might be a little difficult to avoid, but I will break your knees. We shall all three be long gone from here by the time you recover your senses sufficiently to drag yourself down the stairs."

Harriet screamed. Gracemere snatched the whip from Marcus.

Within the inn, the landlord was struggling for breath as the jarvey cheerfully tightened his boldly checkered scarf around his throat, inquiring for the second time, "Where'll we find the gennelman cove, friend?"

"Perhaps he can't speak," Judith suggested as the innkeeper flailed desperately in the jarvey's choke hold. "You are squeezing him rather tightly."

The jarvey slackened the material a trifle and Mr. Winkler gestured outside with a hoarse but informative, "stables." His expression clearly indicated that he no longer had the least interest in preserving anyone's privacy, and would willingly yield up whatever secrets of his house and its guests were demanded of him, and even those that weren't.

"Stay here and keep an eye on him," Judith instructed the jarvey, taking the pistol from her pocket. "If I need you, I'll call."

"Right you are, lady," the jarvey said. "'Andy with that popper, are you?"

"Handy enough," Judith said.

Gathering up her skirts, she ran to the stable building, having no idea what she would find. In the dark, manure-scented interior, she stopped and looked around. Then she heard Harriet's scream and the sickening hiss and crack of a whip.

She hurled herself at the stairs, stumbled, picked herself up, and flung open the door at the head. Her eyes, accustomed to simultaneous observation and assimilation of half a dozen hands of cards, instantly took in the tableau. Agnes Barret with her pistol raised, aimed at Marcus; the two men swaying, grappling for possession of a whip; Harriet, paralyzed with horror, her mouth open but now no sound issuing forth.

Judith didn't pause for reflection. She fired her pistol and the flintlock spun out of Agnes's grip. Agnes stared numbly at the hand that had held the gun. Blood welled from the torn flesh and dripped to the floor.

"Dear God in heaven!" Marcus breathed, wrenching the whip from Gracemere's abruptly slackened hold.

Judith sprang across the room to retrieve Agnes's pistol. She directed the flintlock at Gracemere and looked properly at Marcus for the first time.

"That's quite an aim you have," he observed. "But I can't imagine why that should surprise me."

No response seemed required and Judith glanced toward the settle where Harriet sat, now looking utterly bemused. "Harriet…"

"She's frightened but has taken no serious harm," Marcus said. "What interests me rather more is what the devil you think you're doing here." He pulled out his handkerchief and went over to where Agnes stood, still staring in disbelief at the blood welling from her hand.

"It seems fortunate I am here," Judith responded rather tartly. "You didn't really expect me to leave you to conduct this business alone?"

"I had thought I'd made it crystal clear that was exactly what I expected." Taking Agnes's hand, he wrapped the handkerchief over the wound.

"But I love you," Judith cried with an edge of exasperation. "I couldn't possibly stand by when you might be hurt."

Marcus looked up from his bandaging, and a smile touched his eyes, then spread slowly across his face. "No, I suppose you couldn't," he said. "Where you love, you love hard and long, don't you, lynx?"

"And you?" It was a tentative question and she seemed to be perched on a precipice with joy on one side, desolation on the other.

"I've never loved before," Marcus said, still smiling. "But it does seem to be a very powerful and exclusive emotion."

Despair, anxiety, tension drained slowly away, leaving her empty of all but bone-deep relief and a well of loving warmth. It was going to be all right. She hadn't lost Marcus and his love. "And forgiveness?" she asked. "Can love include that?"

"It seems to promote it," he said, tying a knot in the handkerchief. "Is that comfortable, Lady Barret?"

"Comfortable is hardly the word I would have used," Agnes stated. She looked across at Judith with a strange smile quirking her lips. "I have to say, Charlotte, that for two such mewling babes, you and Peter have certainly turned out unexpectedly. Whatever could George have done, I wonder, to have given you both so much strength of character?"

Gracemere flung himself on the settle beside a shrinking Harriet and began to laugh. It was an unsettling sound, totally without mirth.

Judith stared at Agnes. "What do you mean?" But she knew. She knew as she had always known. Only the knowledge had been in blood and bone and sinew, in the threads of a primitive instinct, not in absolute words speaking absolute truths.

"Can't you guess, my dear child?" Agnes said, a taunting note in her voice. "But yes, I see that you can. Curiously, I find you a worthy daughter. I hadn't expected George's children to have any red blood in their veins."

"I thought you were dead," Judith said, her voice hollow.

"Alice Devereux is dead," Agnes said. "She died a convenient death in a convent somewhere. And then she rose again, as you see." She passed her uninjured hand down her body in mocking explanation.

"Marcus…?" Judith spoke his name hesitantly, her eyes searched for his, her free hand went out toward him in apprehensive plea.

"I'm here," he said softly, taking her hand, squeezing it tightly as her mother continued to talk.

"Your father was so blind. He never knew… never guessed that Gracemere and I had been lovers since we were little more than children. Since between us we hadn't a feather to fly with, one of us had to marry for money. But it didn't work out as it was supposed to. In the end, we had to get rid of George."

She was speaking quietly, cradling her bandaged hand, almost as if unaware of her audience. "He was in the way, always making demands… protestations of love. He wouldn't leave me alone. He made it impossible for me to be with Gracemere as I had to be. And there was Peter and then you, ten months apart, for heaven's sake. I had to get away from him."

Judith felt nauseated but she could no more move away or even interrupt than the fly stickily entwined in the web. She gazed at her mother, who continued her explanation with almost an assumption of shared comprehension.

"I couldn't simply leave your father, you must understand, because then I would have been as penniless as if I'd never married him. What were we to do?" It was a genuine question. "I could only leave your father if we had possession of his money. So Gracernere took it from him. We did what was necessary."

"Sebastian and I would have been in your way, of course," Judith heard herself say. "You'd hardly want to be saddled with a pair of brats when you started on your new life."

Agnes shook her head impatiently. "I never wanted children but George insisted. If he chose to take you with him when he left, why would it matter to me?"

"Why indeed?" Judith agreed distantly. "I quite see that." She shook her head as if to dispel the cobwebs of confusion. In some essential way, the story seemed to have nothing to do with her at all, but she couldn't quite clarify how or why that should be so.

"It seems that the affair has come full circle, ma'am," Marcus said into the silence, still holding Judith's hand. "Your children have ruined you and your lover as completely as you and your lover ruined their father. There's a nice symmetry to it, I'm sure you'll agree." And it did now seem to him that it was the only right thing to have happened. Listening to the evil in this woman, who for passion's sake had condemned her children to a life as outcasts, he felt only satisfaction for what Judith and her brother had achieved. Vengeance was an ancient and savage imperative.

"But my mother needn't be ruined. Perhaps she would prefer to remain with her present husband in London," Judith suggested with a razor-edged smile, her voice hard. "I'm sure Sebastian-or rather, Peter-and I would really enjoy getting to know her properly."

Agnes regarded her daughter with a glimmer of respect. "That could almost be an amusing prospect. However, my dear, you'll never see me again. You must make my farewells to your brother." She turned and went into the connecting room. Gracemere rose from the settle, offered a mocking bow to Judith, and followed his mistress.

Harriet whimpered. "I don't understand…"

"No, of course you don't," Judith said swiftly. "What a terrible time you must have had, love. There's a hackney downstairs. The jarvey is most reliable and he'll convey you back to Brook Street immediately. In fact, I'll accompany you-"

"No, you will not," Marcus interrupted. "I'm not letting you out of my sight again. Come, Harriet." He picked up the bewildered, tear-streaked girl, who lay limply in his arms. "I'm going to put you in the hackney and direct the jarvey to take you to Sebastian. I think you'll find greater strength there than in your mother's company, and he will know just how to explain matters to your parents so that they have no idea of the truth. Davenports are very good at that." He cast his wife a darkling look that nevertheless carried a hint of rueful amusement. "Stay here, Judith, until I come back."

"I'll be here," she said. She stood looking at the closed door to the other room. How much of her mother did she have in her? Was she infected with her mother's evil? But she knew she wasn't. The person she was had more to do with the circumstances of her childhood than to any blood, bone, and sinew she shared with Agnes Barret. Her mother's abandonment had been the greatest service she could have rendered her children. If she'd stayed in their lives, they would probably have learned to be as warped as she.

She went to the window, watching as Marcus carried Harriet across the yard. She felt curiously at peace, despite the dreadful revelations of the last minutes. It was as if something had been completed. The last piece of her past was fitted in place. She knew her mother, had avenged her father. Now she was free to be her own person.

"I can't imagine how Sebastian is going to adapt to life with a woman who collapses in the middle of adventures," Marcus observed, when he returned. "After a lifetime with you, my love, it seems impossible to imagine." "I expect he'll find it a pleasant change," Judith said. "How did you know Gracemere would be here?" "That's a story for later… much later." Marcus came over to her, taking her hands in his. The black eyes gazed down at her intently. "How do you feel after all that?"

"I was shocked at first, but now it seems oddly irrelevant. She's nothing to me." She shrugged. "It's strange, but I really don't feel any connection with her at all. In fact, now I know who she is-what she is-it's a great weight off my mind. She's been disturbing me ever since I met her. It's a relief to know why."

Marcus nodded. "She is nothing to you. Now we can put all this behind us and start afresh."

Judith bit her lip. "Yes, well, there's just one thing more-"

"Oh, no." Marcus groaned, dropping her hands. "Not something else, Judith, please. "

"I wasn't going to tell you-" "Judith, don't do this to me!" "I have to," she wailed. "If you hadn't discovered about Gracemere and all this muddle, I would have kept quiet about it. Sebastian said it wasn't important because we create our own truths, but it is important, and since you know all the rest, you had better know this, too. In fact, it'll probably occur to you, anyway, at some point, when you have time to think."

Marcus closed his eyes briefly and said with heavy resignation, "Go on. What truth have you created now?" He moved away to the fireplace and stood waiting.

"Well, you see… you see, we aren't married," she blurted, wringing her hands. "What!"

"Judith Davenport isn't a legal person; neither is Sebastian Davenport. I didn't think about it in the church, how should I have? It was only afterward, when I looked at the register. But we're Devereux… I don't ever remember being called Charlotte, but…" She saw comprehension in his eyes and fell silent, judging she'd said enough.

Marcus strode across the room. His fingers clamped one wrist, tightening around the fragile bones, as he dragged her to the door. She tripped over an uneven flagstone on the threshold but his pace didn't slacken as he hauled her after him, down the rickety stairs. She stumbled in his wake, her manacled wrist at full stretch, and they emerged in the sunlit stableyard. Judith blinked at the brightness of the light after the gloom above.

"Marcus, what are you doing? Where are we going?" she demanded breathlessly.

"I'll tell you where we're going," he replied in clipped accents. "We're going to find a bishop and a special license, and we're going to finalize this marriage beyond all possible doubt. After which I intend to exercise all my marital rights-including the one involving a rod no thicker than my finger. The only question is in which order I decide to exercise those rights." He caught her around the waist and tossed her unceremoniously into his curricle.

"Can't I have an opinion?" Judith asked, picking herself up and scrambling onto the seat.

"No, you may not!" He jumped up beside her. "If you have a grain of common sense, which I doubt, you'll sit very still and keep your mouth shut."

Judith sat back, smoothing down her skirt, catching her breath, as the thong of his whip flicked the leader's neck and the team plunged forward. They kept up a furious pace, pounding across the heath, and swung onto the deserted post road at the gibbet. Judith examined her companion's profile with a mischievous glint in her eye.

"Marcus, you're laughing," she stated.

"What the hell have I got to laugh about?" he demanded, keeping his eyes on the road ahead. "For the last seven months, I've been living in sin with a woman who took part in an illegal marriage ceremony, and if circumstances hadn't forced a confession from her, fully intended to leave me in ignorance for the rest of my mortal span!"

"Ignorance is supposed to be bliss," Judith offered, not a whit fooled by his ferocious tone. "Anyway, what's in a name?" A strange little sound came from him and his shoulders shook. "I know you're laughing," she insisted. "You once said it was very bad to repress laughter… I'm. sure you said it would give one an apoplexy."

Marcus checked his horses and drove the curricle off the road into a stand of trees. There they stopped and he turned toward Judith. Her mischievous glint deepened as she saw the merriment in his eyes. "I knew you were laughing," she said with satisfaction.

He caught her chin. "Ever since I met you, I have taken leave of my senses. Why else would I permit a tempestuous, manipulative, unscrupulous wildcat to lead me the craziest dance a man has ever been led?"

"For a man who hates dancing, it does seem a little inconsistent," she agreed, smiling. "But, judging by my own experience, one doesn't choose where to love. Why else would I fall body and soul in lust and love with a tyrannical, stuffy despot, who insists on keeping me under his thumb, and is only happy when he's laying down the law to all and sundry?"

"But you do love him nevertheless?"

"Oh, yes," she said, reaching up to grasp his wrist. "As he loves a designing adventuress."

"Beyond reason," he said softly. "I love you beyond reason, you abominable lynx."

He brought his mouth to hers, his hand moving to palm her scalp as she reached against him, and his tongue plundered the sweetness of her mouth even as she drank greedily of the taste and scent of him, of the promise of an untrammeled future, where loyalties were simple and trust was absolute.