Chapter 22

22

It was quite late the next morning when the theft was discovered. Sophie had risen at her normal hour and was with the Dowager, reading quietly – she wasn’t paying a great deal of attention to what she read and she didn’t think Delphine was either, but they were both by tacit agreement working hard at pretending everything was normal – when Marchand appeared with William. They both looked pale, and Marchand, normally a woman of great self-possession, appeared almost flustered. ‘I have been sent to summon you, madame, mademoiselle. William is here to carry you.’ She spoke in English, which in general she did not, as if to make sure she could not later be accused of sharing secrets.

‘This is most unusual,’ responded her employer coolly in the same language, raising an eyebrow. ‘Has something occurred to upset the household?’

‘I am not to say anything,’ Marchand replied woodenly. ‘Monsieur himself instructed me.’

‘Very well,’ Delphine replied. ‘Come, Sophie, set down your book. The Vicomte de Valmont will have to wait for us, it seems. I dare say it will do him good, the scoundrel. William – I am all yours.’

He didn’t raise a smile this time, and it was a solemn little procession that made its way downstairs. Sophie shot Marchand a questioning glance, but the woman merely shook her head emphatically and would not speak.

The whole household staff, as far as Sophie could tell, including people she’d never set eyes on before, was assembled in the Marble Saloon. The empty wine glasses, the spoiled food and all the rest of the debris from the party had been cleared away, but the great throne on its dais was still there, and the beds also remained, crumpled and sordid in the clear morning light that streamed in through the great oculus above. William looked about him a little wildly, but there was no other chair, so he was obliged to carry the Dowager to the throne and set her gently in it. He hurried away to join his fellow footmen where they stood, and Sophie, with Marchand, went to the old lady’s side, so that she would not be entirely alone. I’ve caused all this, she thought. I believed I’d gone into it with my eyes open, but… what have I done? Her heart was racing.

Lord Wyverne stood to one side, and Lady Wyverne next to him. There was a space around them, as if no one dared approach, and they were not touching each other. Their guests were nowhere to be seen. Rosanna didn’t look as though she’d been to her own bed – her hair was still dishevelled and she was very pale, but someone had brought her a robe, and the flimsy fabric with which Sophie had covered her lay discarded on the floor in a pool of stark red on the white marble. It looked like blood.

Apparently they were still waiting for some more of the servants to join them, and Lord Wyverne would not speak until they had. The tense silence in the chamber was disturbed after a moment or two as the stable staff and gardeners shuffled in and took their places with all the rest, then the company fell uneasily silent again.

At last Lord Wyverne said, and his tones were low, so that Sophie had to strain a little to hear him, ‘I have been robbed.’

There were a few gasps, a little murmuring, but he waited till silence reigned again, and then repeated, ‘I have been robbed.’ He was still not speaking violently or aggressively, but his whole body vibrated with tension.

She’d seen very little of him prior to this moment, and the rest of the staff must know him much better than she did, but what shocked her, and, she thought, shocked the others, judging by their faces, was the fact that his voice wasn’t steady; it shook, and his eyes were fixed and glaring. Although he wasn’t shouting, or not now – perhaps he had been earlier – he had spittle around his lips, and his face was flushed and hectic. Well, she’d wanted to wound him, and there could be no question that she had done so. It ought to feel better.

Sophie’s hand crept out and found the Dowager’s, and Delphine did not pull away. Her hand was thin and frail, the skin soft and papery. But it was steady in Sophie’s gentle grasp.

‘Robbed!’ her son repeated. ‘And if I find that one of you here was responsible, or knows anything at all about the matter – anything! – I promise you, you will wish you had never been born. You will beg for death before I am done with you.’ His dark gaze travelled slowly around the room, stopping here and there as he fixed one servant or another with a basilisk stare. They trembled and grew paler. We all look guilty, Sophie thought, or terrified, which amounts to the same thing. No one could hold his eyes for more than a moment, and although she would have liked to stare him down, she knew it would be foolish to provoke him, so when his regard fell on her, as she’d known it must because she was so new here, she let her eyelids drop after a moment, so that she would look as abashed as everyone else did, no less and no more.

‘Perhaps you might tell us what exactly has occurred,’ the Dowager said quietly. ‘If we are being accused of something we might at least hear what it is, for at present you know we are all in complete ignorance.’

‘I know no such thing,’ he said shortly, his eyes bulging. ‘But very well, madam. I suppose it would be ridiculous to suspect you , a helpless cripple. So. Lady Wyverne rather carelessly allowed herself to fall asleep here last night, on that bed, there, wearing almost every jewel that I possess, and when she woke from her slumber – which must have been extraordinarily deep, but then she had drunk a great deal, as is her wont – she found to her great consternation that all my precious things were gone, stripped from her body. It beggars belief that such a thing should have happened here, in my house, but my dear wife assures me that it is so. It was later discovered that a window was left open in the blue drawing room, so perhaps the thief left that way, or perhaps he did not and only feigned to do so, or perhaps he had an accomplice among you here. And now you know just as much as I do.’ His voice was icy cold, his words clipped, and his wife flushed with mortification as he spoke and looked as if she might burst into tears. But she did not, and said not a word to defend herself.

‘How shocking,’ his mother replied in level tones. ‘You will contact the authorities?’

Lord Wyverne’s flush deepened. ‘That is no affair of yours, madam,’ he snapped, losing some of his coolness. I think that means no, Sophie mused, a little calmer now. Perhaps he dare not, because all the precious things that have been stolen from him had first been stolen from others. Or perhaps he doesn’t want word to spread through society of how he has been humiliated, as it must if he reported the theft. And if the world should learn the manner of the crime, and exactly what had occurred here last night… Rosanna couldn’t be cast out by the haut ton, because they’d always shunned her, and her husband too was no longer received or invited anywhere due to his atrocious reputation. But this would be a truly enormous scandal, eclipsing anything that had gone before. Could he want the whole of England to know what he had caused to be done, and the disaster that had resulted from it?

Sophie had once in Nate’s tavern heard a tale of a crim con case, a scandalous divorce that had happened before she was born – of a gentleman who had encouraged men to look at his wife naked, who had perhaps watched her in congress with her lover and enjoyed doing so. She remembered the man’s name, Sir Richard Worsley, for it was still repeated as a byword and a laughing-stock at every level of society, and what he had done so long ago was as nothing to Lord Wyverne’s behaviour. Could he want to be known for that, for what the world would surely label perversion, and by implication impotence? Could any man?

It wasn’t clear to Sophie what the Marquess had hoped to achieve by summoning all his household here – had he expected the culprit to break down and confess, intimidated so that he or she lost their wits? Or had he imagined that someone knew something to implicate another and would rush to tell it, in order to save themselves? But nobody spoke. Nobody so much as coughed. The silence stretched, and they endured it.

Lord Wyverne said at last, his voice still wavering a little, ‘You have been warned. I will be watching all of you very closely. Now go about your duties. You have wasted quite enough time.’ This accusation was so unjust that Sophie might have laughed, but despite their master’s words it was plain that no one wanted to be the first to move; they all stood as if frozen, as still as the statues in the alcoves behind them. ‘Go!’ he shouted, his voice rising and cracking on the single syllable that echoed in the dome, and there was a great bustle and confusion as the room emptied out with surprising speed. William hurried over and seized the Dowager, almost running up the stairs with her in his arms, and Sophie was close behind them.

But just as she was about to reach the turn in the stair, the great main door opened with a dramatic creak. Normally two liveried footmen would be standing by it all day long to admit any visitor, but they’d fled along with everyone else, so Lord Drake thrust open the door himself and strode in, looking around him casually at the backs of the stragglers who were still queuing to escape. A little frown creased his handsome brow, as if in puzzlement at the unusual sight, and Sophie could not resist going just a little further up the stair then watching from her place of concealment. She had no clue what might be about to happen.

‘You!’ said his father with evident loathing. ‘What are you doing here? Come to gloat, have you?’

‘I have not the least idea what you mean, sir. I have come to see my grandmother, as is my daily habit.’ Lord Drake’s words were coolly civil, although Sophie noticed that he had not acknowledged his stepmother’s presence by so much as a nod.

Wyverne’s eyes narrowed in instant suspicion, and he stepped forward. ‘Were you here last night, Drake?’

‘I was. What of it?’ The civility was fading fast.

Wyverne’s face was almost as purple as the marble columns now. ‘I was robbed last night, sirrah, robbed, I tell you, and I demand to know, did you have a hand in it?’

‘I know we have little regard for each other, but I confess I had not expected to hear you accuse me of theft.’ Lord Drake was icily controlled, in sharp contrast with his now obviously agitated parent. ‘If some bauble from your collection is missing, perhaps you should interrogate your guests. Having made their acquaintance, I could well believe any one among them capable of such a crime.’

‘Some bauble?’ bellowed his father, enraged, spittle flying from his mouth. ‘Some fucking bauble? Some treacherous bastard has taken every jewel I possessed, boy, including the Stella Rosa itself, while she lay sleeping here, in this room, like the stupid, lazy whore she is!’

Rosanna did not break when she heard herself so described. Her face was quite impassive, and Sophie could read nothing in it. Perhaps she was accustomed to such abuse.

‘Am I to understand that some ingenious person actually took the items from Lady Wyverne’s body as she slept? Such audacity,’ murmured Lord Drake. He seemed to be deliberately trying to infuriate his father even further.

‘Ingenious? I’ll break every bone in his body when I catch him, and we’ll see how audacious he is then! I’ll have him whipped in the town square before he hangs! Look me in the eye and tell me it was not you!’

‘It was not me.’ Four chilly words.

‘But you were here!’ Wyverne seemed to have seized eagerly on the idea of his son’s guilt, and was clearly reluctant to give it up.

‘I was, but I give you my word that I did not take your jewels. I cannot prove it to you, so my word of honour will suffice – though it is ridiculous to speak to you of honour – or it will not. I cannot help what you choose to believe. I spent the night at the rectory, as I often do, and you must consider if you really think I rode there with a sack of stolen diamonds in my lap, or whether you are making a fool of yourself once more. I must congratulate you, for it seems that you have found a new way to do it, which I had not previously thought possible. Good day to you, sir.’

‘You insolent cur! Do not turn your back on me! You could easily have hidden them somewhere in the park!’ his father yelled after him.

But Drake was mounting the stairs, and made no answer.