“Bull droppings! That was just an excuse to run away and not have to deal with the fact that I wanted to become his mistress.”
A little smile flitted across Plum’s lips but was gone immediately. Her voice, when she spoke, was level and carefully devoid of emotion. “Yes, well, that is an entirely different subject, and not one suited to this moment in time. Poor Dagmar needs our attention now. We must do what we can to help her companion.”
“As I said, Aunt Plum is a genius when it comes to making intricate plans.” Thom’s expression was back to pleasant interest. “Just tell her all, and then sit back and let her craft a plan so cunning that even a fox would be devastated by its brilliance.”
Plum looked modest. Dagmar had her doubts that anyone but she and Leo could get Julia out of the bind she was in, but she tried to keep an open mind. “Very well, but I warn you again that it is a long story if I am to start at the beginning. It goes all the way back to Copenhagen.”
“How very fascinating. Start there and we’ll see what help we can give. Wait, we’d better have the whiskey first, just to brace ourselves. Why hasn’t Juan brought it by now? Drat the man. If he’s drunk it all, I will have several severe and cutting things to say to him…”
Plum marched to the door and was about to throw it open when the doorknob jerked in her hand, causing her to step back in surprise.
“Plum!” the woman who opened the door said, a smile lighting up her face.
“Gillian!” Plum responded, likewise with an expression of surprised joy, and the two women embraced.
“Oh this is excellent,” Thom commented, giving Dagmar one last awkward pat before getting to her feet. “You’ll have the very best assistance humanly possible with Gillian giving Aunt Plum help with her plans. She’s almost as devious, although I must admit, not quite as inventive in scope. Hello, Gillian. Have you come to see your bastard of a stepson?”
The woman named Gillian, who had bright red hair and pronounced freckles, stopped hugging Plum and turned to Thom with raised eyebrows. “Thom, how delightful to see you again. You are looking well. Bastard? Really? Is it like that?”
“He’s a coward,” Thom told her simply.
Gillian thought about that for a minute then nodded. “He is. I told him at the time that he should explain to you what he was doing before he left, but he listened to Noble, not me, and we all know the sort of advice men give to each other when it comes to women.”
“Incorrect,” Plum said, twining her arm through Gillian’s and escorting her over to Dagmar.
“Bad,” Gillian agreed.
“Stupid to the point of being ignorant,” Thom said with more than a touch of acid.
Dagmar pondered for a moment, then added, “Misguided is, I believe, a better word for it. Although I suppose that sometimes stupid fits too.”
“Quite. I don’t know you, do I? I’ve a horrible memory for faces.” Gillian smiled, and Dagmar was reminded of a warm, sunny summer day spent lolling around in the hayloft, eating apples and perusing the groom’s smutty periodicals.
“You don’t know her. Gillian, Lady Weston, may I introduce Her Serene Highness, Princess Dagmar of Sonderburg-Beck, who is also Lady March.”
“March?” Bright green eyes examined Dagmar with interest. “I wasn’t aware Leo had marr—God’s toenails! Princess? A real princess? Leo married a princess princess?”
“Are there any other kind?” Dagmar asked.
“Yes, there are.” Gillian smiled again. “And because I know Thom will ask, I’m referring to the sort of woman who has lower morals than she probably should and who calls herself a princess but really isn’t entitled to do so.”
“What a very odd country this is,” Dagmar mused as she took her seat again. “In Denmark, prostitutes don’t try to pass themselves off as nobility. They are content to service men and enjoy their sinful lifestyle to the fullest.”
“It’s a bit different here in England, that’s very true. The women of ill repute in this country are far less content, but that is not a subject for the moment. We’ll simply agree that the English are very definitely characters.”
“You are not English yourself?”
“I’m only half-English.”
“As am I!” Dagmar said, feeling quite at home with the older woman. There were a few threads of silver in her red hair, but her joie de vivre gave her a sense of timelessness that Dagmar couldn’t help but envy. After the drama of the last few days, she was feeling old, ragged, and definitely hag worn.
“Gillian, I’m delighted you’ve come, but I hope you’ve opened up your town house, because you simply cannot stay here.”
“Chicken pox,” Gillian said, nodding. “We got a letter from Nick last night, and he mentioned it. That’s why we’re in town. We had no idea he was back in the country, and since the boys are at school, we thought we’d come to town for a few weeks, just the two of us, as sort of a holiday from the girls.”
“You need a holiday from your daughters?” Dagmar couldn’t help but ask.
Gillian sighed. “We have two daughters, one fifteen and one thirteen. They both believe they’re in love with the drawing master, who I will admit is a handsome man and Italian to boot. He has the most delicious accent, so I quite understand the attraction. However, the daily drama of living with two love-struck girls is beyond belief. If they’re not trying to sneak out of the house to follow the poor man around the little town near where we live, they’re arguing about which one of them will marry him first—they’re determined that they can both wed him—and in their spare time, they write the most horrible love poems that they will insist on setting to music and singing to us every evening. Noble threatened to wall them up in a tower until they were eighteen, but it does no good. They’re determined to drive us both into an early grave.”
Plum laughed, and Dagmar joined in politely, although she felt sorry for the two girls. Something in her expression must have shown because Gillian, glancing at her, added, “Truly, they make their own woes. Noble tries desperately to bring order to the chaos that follows them, but you know how it is with girls that age—everything is a life-or-death situation. It’s all black and white with no shades of gray; either they’re bouncing around the house on a cloud of ecstasy because Signor Cosmo praised their painting, or dragging their moping selves with dire warnings of their imminent deaths due to disappointment and crushed spirits when he failed to notice while they were trailing him about the market.”
“They sound like lively girls,” Dagmar offered, not sure what else to say that wouldn’t betray her own rather spotted romantic past with her father’s groom, two drawing masters, and a traveling vendor who had the greenest eyes she’d ever seen. Then again, she would never have revealed the objects of her passions to her mother, since that lady, while being an estimable woman in general, had an annoying propensity to deliver notes regarding Dagmar’s behavior found lacking.
Had Mama ever found out that Dagmar hid in the hayloft in order to watch the groom while he bathed his upper parts, or that she had tried to convince the green-eyed tinker to elope with her (she was all of ten at the time, but quite smitten with him), Dagmar knew she would never have been allowed to leave Yellow House without a full score of maids and footmen to watch her every move.
“Oh, that they are. Plum, I’ve been on the road since dawn. Would such a thing as several large cups of tea be possible?”
“Yes, of course, what a shameful hostess I am.” Plum bustled over to the bellpull and gave it a tug. “I’ve asked Juan to bring some whiskey, but if you’d prefer tea—”
“Whiskey? At this hour?”
“We need it,” Thom said, perching on the arm of a chair and swinging her leg. “We have troubles.”
“Nick?” Gillian shook her head. “I can’t say that I blame you, the way he’s behaved, but you know he’s devoted to you. He always has
been. He’s just…a little overly sensitive because of the circumstances of his birth and the fact that he’s always felt he was a burden on us, which is just ridiculous because Noble has enough money for all our children. And heaven knows Nick does so much work for my foundation that he’s certainly due the money that Noble settled on him, but he won’t touch it. He says he should be able to make his own way and not be dependent on us.”
“Gillian has her own foundation,” Thom told Dagmar in an undertone. “She redeems harlots.”
“They are so often unhappy,” Gillian said with a little shrug. “And frequently fall into bad situations where they aren’t even allowed the money they earn. We take the ones who wish for a better life and teach them a trade skill. Thus far, we’ve trained and placed into good employment thirty-seven women who were formerly street bound.”
“How very noble,” Dagmar said.
A look of consideration crossed Gillian’s face. “Not really, no. I mean, he supports it wholeheartedly and never complains about the money we spend—oh, I see what you mean.” She shrugged again. “It’s what we do. And Nick helps when he can. He has worked tirelessly both rescuing women from dangerous situations and also with the group attempting to enact child labor laws. He’s very altruistic.”
The last was aimed at Thom, who merely said, “I’ve never doubted his concern for those in need. It’s his lack of concern for those who wish to live with him in a connubial way that I take issue with.”
“I don’t understand why you are against marrying this man,” Dagmar commented. “I know that you said you would do so, but most women wish to marry, not just be a mistress.”
“I have strong feelings,” Thom said complacently. “Sometimes they get me into trouble. Gillian, to answer your question, I don’t intend to do anything about Nick. I asked him to be my lover years ago, and he refused. I don’t intend to ask him again. If he chooses to continue being an idiot and a coward and a man who can’t face a woman who wishes to bed him, then that’s his problem, and not mine.”
“Oh, I know all about men who don’t wish to be bedded,” Dagmar told her. “It turns out that most of them are quite willing to do so. It helps if you can take off their trousers.”
“I don’t think we need to be teaching Thom the ways of seducing a man into a relationship,” Plum said quickly, sharing an unreadable look with Gillian. “That’s not what she wants, not really.”
“No, it isn’t,” Gillian agreed. “I can’t imagine anything worse than trapping a man into marriage by taking advantage of his honorable nature.”
Dagmar sat stunned, feeling as if a bolt of lightning had shot out of the sky and straight through the house to where she sat. Had she taken advantage of Leo’s good nature by seducing him against his will? It was bad enough she had married him without his express consent, but now had she compounded that sin by seducing him, all the while telling herself it was what he wanted? Was he even now feeling himself bound to her while wishing otherwise?
She felt sick and disoriented, as if the floor had fallen out from under her feet. She wanted desperately to run away, to leave the house, to leave England and return to the safety and comfort of her home in Copenhagen.
But that wish was impossible. She was homeless, and in a strange country full of people who all had their places in society and who had family and friends and loved ones to care for. Her friend was in prison, and her husband, who had repeatedly told her that they would work out some sort of a relationship, clearly did not intend one of the intimate nature they now shared.
She had been a fool. A selfish fool, one who deserved scorn, but there was little that heaping coals upon her head would do but leave her with an insane desire to wash her hair. No, she owed it to Leo to fix the situation. She had saddled him with both a wife and companion that he didn’t want, and now he was drawn into Julia’s troubles. He deserved better treatment than that, and she swore a silent oath that from that moment on, she would see to it that she would right the wrongs she had done.
The sound of her name pulled her out of her miserable contemplation of her own tarnished soul.
“—not me who needs the help with Nick. It’s Dagmar. Her friend has been jailed for murdering her host’s sister.”
“No, really!” Gillian looked at her with new respect. “It’s just like something out of those gothic novels that Noble loves so much. Please tell me that there’s a mad monk involved. Or a skeleton!”
“There’s no monk,” Dagmar said after a few second’s thought. “Although a curate and a handful of churchmen are involved with the telling. And two skeletons.”
“Capital!” Gillian clapped her hands together with obvious delight. “I can’t wait to hear all about it. I just wish Noble were here so that he could enjoy it as well.”
“Where is he?” Plum asked, opening the door and bellowing out into the hall, “Juan, if you don’t stop guzzling the whiskey and bring it in here instantly, I’ll have all your tight trousers thrown out.”
“Noble? He went off to the club to see Harry. I assume he is there?”
“No doubt. The twins were being a bit obstreperous this morning, and Vyvyan is ceaseless in her demand for a new pony, so he sent her and Nurse off to the stable while he escaped to the sanctity of his precious club. I certainly wish I had one to run to now and again. But that’s beside the point—oh, there you are.”
Juan appeared in the doorway, wobbling slightly as he carefully walked into the room, a tray bearing two large decanters and glasses gripped firmly in his hands. “I have the woes of many, Plump. I need very, very whiskey such to survive the drama of the diablos.”
Plum opened her mouth, no doubt to tell off the butler for referring to her children as devils in the hearing of guests, when a distant rumble from abovestairs was followed by the crash of pottery. Instead, she winced and hurriedly closed the door to the sitting room. “Yes, yes, just leave the tray and go see whether it was something valuable that broke. And also see if they’ve let another horse into the long gallery. It sounds like they have.”
He left but only after snagging the smaller of the two decanters, and he was in the act of swigging from it as he exited the room. Plum turned the lock on the door after him before facing them all with a bright smile. “There now, we won’t be disturbed, so you can tell us everything, Dagmar. Thom, pour us all a tot. Gillian, stop looking up at the ceiling with that worried expression. The twins are very resilient, and that was only a minor scream you just heard, not one that hints of actual dismemberment or maiming, so all is fine. Relatively speaking. Ah, thank you, Thom. Shall we toast to Dagmar and Leo’s health?”
They did, and once a few more toasts were made to the distillery that produced the whiskey, the inventor of the door lock, and tailors who made tight trousers (Dagmar’s offering on the toast altar), they had all settled in comfortably. By the time she’d told the three women her tale, beginning with a chance meeting in Copenhagen and ending earlier that day, two hours had passed and the decanter was empty.
“That is just about the most bizarre thing I have ever heard, and I’ve lived with Harry’s children for six years now.” Plum, who had adopted the position of lying on her back on the floor, with her legs elevated onto a nearby chair, waved a hand at nothing. “And I include in that statement the time that Thom swore the stable was haunted by a deranged cow.”
“Distressed mooing could be heard every night at the stroke of ten for a fortnight straight,” Thom said from her position on the window seat. She was too long to be able to lie down on it, so had scrunched herself into a huddled position that looked singularly uncomfortable. A pillow lay over her head, making her voice somewhat muffled. “And once the vicar exorcised the entire stable yard, the phantom mooing stopped. If that’s not haunted, I don’t know what is.”
Gillian walked across the room, her path curved and circuitous. She stepped with exaggerated care and twic
e stopped to giggle at absolutely nothing. “I think the point here is that something must be done. We cannot have the companion Jennifer—”
“Julia,” Dagmar said from where she sat on the floor, her back to the wall, her legs straight out before her. She was sitting thus because they—her legs—seemed to have stopped working. They appeared to be made out of some of the India rubber that Frederick had on his desk, and she felt it was wiser to let them stiffen up in a straight position than bent.
“We cannot have the companion Julia rotting away in gaol simply because there’s been a gross…gross…what is it that I’m thinking?”
“You are thinking,” Plum said from her position on the floor, waving her hand toward Gillian, “that we need more whiskey.”
“Misconstrued something. I just can’t make the words come out on my tongue. Misconstrued justice?”
“There is no justice at all that I can see,” Dagmar said, frowning at her legs and wondering if they had hardened up yet sufficiently that she could stand. “Misconstrued or otherwise. Julia couldn’t have killed Louisa. She’s not at all the time of person who kills others. I feel it in my India rubber bones.”
“Then we must find out who did kill that poor woman, so that your companion will be released,” Gillian said, wobbling her way over to a chair where she plunked down with more energy than grace. “If we all put our minds to it, I’m sure we’ll have it figured out in no time.”
“Leo is at the gaol now. He will speak with Julia and determine what happened, and then he will tell the officials so that they let her go.” Dagmar offered this tidbit with no little amount of pride, feeling quite confident that Leo would do just that, at which point she would strip him naked and then allow him to do all the things that he kept saying he wanted to do.
She frowned, the pleasant thought suddenly stained with darkness. “Oh, but I can’t.”
“Sure you can. Harry has lots of whiskey. He always says that it’s as vital as air when it comes to dealing with the children. I’ll just have Juan bring us some more.”