VI Dirty Laundry in Bath
“Ashdowne first?” suggested Nicholas.
“Why not?” said Jeremy.
Jeremy Wrothling, Viscount Wrothlington, heir of Jeremy Wrothling, Earl Wroth, quickly got to see St. John Ashdown, Baron Ashdown.
“What can I do for you, Wrothlington?” asked Ashdown.
“You can sell me all the vowels you hold from Edmund Dacres at fifty percent of their value,” said Jeremy.
“Excuse me? Are you trying to be funny?” spluttered Ashdown.
“Not in the least, old thing,” said Jeremy. “You see, apart from the fact that you did not spend out full price to acquire them, and accepted some as settlement for lesser debts against your own play, where, as I understand it your rules include marking the cards, I happen to hold further information, and I suggest you sit down. You’d hate it if you met me; I fence with Angelo and box with Jackson, and I have been known to shoot the wicks off a dozen candles in my club for a wager.”
“I can still refuse to sell,” said Ashdown.
“You can; but let me say two words,” said Jeremy. “Arthur Fitzalleyne.”
“What the hell do you know about that?”
“I can describe how you used a lockpick to let yourself into his apartment, with the aid of a thief you had coerced to do so, and shot him in cold blood with a pistol you had bought at a pawn broker’s, specifically for that purpose, and left it in Fitzalleyne’s hands, to get out of paying a gaming debt. You forgot two things.”
“Oh? What are they? Supposing there was any truth in that statement.”
“One; it was remarked at the time that Fitzalleyne held the pistol in his dead right hand; but Fitsalleyne was left-handed, which would be grounds for re-opening the case,” said Jeremy. “Two, there was a witness. A witness I could produce,” he added, mendaciously.
“I... those vowels will buy me Dacres’ daughter,” said Ashdowne. “She is important to me.”
“No, actually, they won’t,” said Jeremy. “Because Miss Dacres is in my possession, and possession is nine tenths of the law. You will never get to despoil her; you are too late.”
“Damn you!” said Ashdowne.
“Better men than you have cursed me, yet here I am,” said Jeremy.
“Very well.” Ashdowne opened a drawer in his desk.
“Slowly,” said Jeremy. “My friend has a pistol which he would prefer not to use.”
Ashdowne slowly removed a package tied with string, and laid it on the desk. Jeremy reached for it, and undid the string, opening the brown paper wrapper to check that it was, in fact, the vowels signed by Edmund Dacres.
“You have what you want, now get out,” said Ashdowne.
“Thank you,” said Jeremy. “The five thousand in return.”
“Keep it, I don’t care,” said Ashdowne. “Was she as delightful to train to the realities of the bedroom as I thought she would be?”
Jeremy smiled.
“Why do you think I would be prepared to spend money to get permission to wed her and keep her forever?” he said.
“Good G-d!” said Ashdowne.
“He is, and He will bless our union,” said Jeremy.
“What if her father cuts up rough about signing permission?” asked Simon.
“One of these IOUs is on a full sheet of notepaper,” said Jeremy, extracting it from all the others. “A round, secretary hand such as the hand you write stating above it, ‘I, the undersigned, Edmund Dacres, do hereby give my daughter permission to wed Jeremy, Viscount Wrothlington.’ Where it says ‘IOU’ you will add ‘one favour, for marrying my daughter.’
“Cunning,” said Simon.
“What can we do for you, my lord?” asked Edmund Dacres. He looked as if he had not slept.
Jeremy threw down the packet of vowels.
“These, I believe, are yours,” he said. Dacres stared, then scrambled the scraps of paper with his promissory notes written on them towards himself.
“But... but how? Why?”
“You will write at my dictation,” said Jeremy. “‘I, Edmund Dacres, the undersigned, do hereby give permission to Jeremy, Viscount Wrothlington, to marry my daughter, Cecily, at a time and place of his choosing. I accept the bride price given and will never contact my daughter or Lord Wrothlington again, nor expect any further favours.’ Is that clear?”
“I... yes, very clear. But she is my daughter, will you keep a family apart?”
“If Cecily asks to see you, or your wife, that is her business; but you will not approach her,” said Jeremy. “I will consider an approach by your wife to be an approach by you by proxy. If you have any information she needs, go through Palmer, Huntley, and Knightley of Gray’s Inn, London. Now, if you will write....”
Edmund Dacres took paper, quill, and ink from a writing slope and wrote as directed. Jeremy countersigned, and Nicholas and Simon signed as witnesses.
Dacres looked years younger, and Jeremy realised that the disposition of his daughter was of less moment to him than being free of the debt held over him. Jeremy despised him.
They left.
There was no easy way to the back of the house from which Lily had escaped, so Simon went down the area steps, and knocked. The door was opened by the butler in his shirtsleeves.
“Miss Lily sent me to collect Ella to be her maid,” he said. He vailed the butler. “There’s a crown for whoever helps her pack her trunk and carries it down.”
“Certainly, sir,” said the butler, who knew a real swell when he saw one. “I trust Miss Lily is safe?”
“Indeed,” said Simon. “May I come in?”
He was tenderly installed in the butler’s pantry and shortly the butler himself ushered in Ella, looking frightened, and the butler carrying her trunk.
“I am to speak to you of the Lily flower and Cinderella,” said Simon. Ella’s face cleared.
“Oh! Miss is safe with you?”
“Yes, I’m going to marry her,” said Simon. “Thank you,” he passed two half-crowns to the butler, and took the trunk from him, swinging it effortlessly up onto his shoulder. The other men waited in the landaulet as he carried up the luggage, and helped Ella into the carriage.
“There’s a quilt, and we’ll stop at an inn for a hot brick,” he said.
The landaulet had just started when a man ran out of the front door, and started pursuing it.
“I’ll have you up for abducting an heiress!” he shouted. “Come back here and face me like a man!”
Simon turned and raised two fingers in the time-honoured way.
“Good luck persuading Bow Street that an adult lady leaving of her own accord to marry a man worth a thousand a year is abducting an heiress,” he called, jeeringly. “Just think how you lost out in mistreating my Tiger-Lily, you skirter!”
Lily’s father had had to stop running and was stood, hands on his knees, panting. The look on his face was priceless.
Jeremy turned at the end of the street, and came back to him, by which time a young woman had joined him. Jeremy raised his hat, as Annabelle was female.
“I’m the Viscount Wrothlington,” he said. “That’s my cousin you are being stupid enough to threaten. And Miss Hendry already tied up her little bit of inheritance with the bank before joining us for Christmas. But guess what? If she had been treated nicely by her sister, her sister would have been dancing with my cousin’s wife at Almack’s after Easter, but now? Tough luck, Miss Hendry, you reap as you sow. Merry Christmas!” and then he drove on.
“But you should be marrying me! I’m the pretty one!” wailed Annabelle.
“No, you ain’t; you haven’t half the countenance of Tiger-Lily and your hair is dull and plain,” said Simon, who was never normally rude to a lady, but felt that Lily needed years of insults and disparagement being repaid.
Annabelle’s hysterics were loud.
And the whole street now knew exactly what had happened.
Another man waved the landaulet to a stop.
“Has the ginger chit managed to escape?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Jeremy.
“Well, wish her good luck from the Comyn family; I never believed she was feeble minded.”
“A girl who can do compound interest calculations? I should rather say not,” said Simon.
“Believe me, if any Bow Street Officers come around here, I’ll put them right about,” said Comyn.
“Much obliged!” said Jeremy, raising his hat.
He would have his agents find out about the family and do them a good turn, if he could.
A hot brick having been procured for Ella, they bowled back to the hunting lodge. Jeremy stopped off at the church of the nearest village and called at the vicarage.
“Hello, Face-ache!” he said to the vicar.
“Hello, yourself, Angel,” said the vicar, who was another cousin of sorts, and who had outgrown the crop of acne which had earned him the unlovely soubriquet. His name was William Derwent, and he was related more closely to Nicholas than to Jeremy and Simon.
“I’ve got three special licences,” said Jeremy. “I want to book a triple wedding for Monday twenty-seventh.”
“What, you found three ladies prepared to put up with you three?” said William. “I confess, I’m delighted. I expect Frid is, too.”
“She is,” said Jeremy. “We might well move in, actually, or work out a rota to stay here, she’s getting frail.”
William nodded.
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “We’ll see you for the midnight and morning services?”
“Most certainly,” said Jeremy.
“Ella! Cried Lily, when her maid came into the house. She embraced her warmly.
“Tut, child, show some decorum,” said Frid.
“No, ma’am I will not,” said Lily. “Ella was my only friend. She smuggled food to me, she helped me sew and mend the rags I was given to wear. She is my companion, not my maid.”
“Well done,” said Frid. “I respect a lass who will stand up to me. We’ll have to dress her more suitably too, then.”
“Oh, madam, I am just so pleased Miss Lily got away, and to be able to be with her,” said Ella.
“Well! You’re a good girl, and I am glad to meet you,” said Frid.
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