Chapter Twenty-One
It took the rest of the afternoon and long into the evening to take everyone’s statements. Teign’s warders were initially defiant, certain that, as one of them put it, “Ain’t nobody can touch the master. And ’e’ll send us to ’ell if’n we tell what we know.”
“You fool,” said one of the lawyers. “You see before you the Dukes of Dellborough and Kempbury. The Marquesses of Thornstead and Deerhaven. The Earls of Somerville, Sutton, and Trilby. Their Graces had an audience with the King yesterday afternoon to tell him about Teign’s crimes.
Even a marquess must answer to the King and the House of Lords.
Teign’s appointment with the devil is inevitable. ”
“In any case,” Ernest pointed out, “we are witnesses to your own crimes, and we have enough evidence to convict you. You shall soon be dancing on the end of a rope. The question is whether what you tell us is worth a bucket of sand to weight your legs so you die quickly.”
After that, the other warder broke and confessed, and his mate must have decided he was doomed either way, for he soon joined in.
At one point, Allan was called out to see Clara, who had visited with some unexpected company. The cook from Teign’s townhouse and all her co-conspirators had turned up at Clara’s house, escaping from Teign before he could figure out that they were involved in drugging the warders.
“We put laudanum in the stew as well as the beer, my lord,” the cook explained. “And we made everything more salty than usual so they would be thirsty and drink more beer.”
“It worked brilliantly,” Allan told her. “Well done.”
The Duchess of Dellborough agreed to offer the servants refuge, and Allan assured them that their positions would be restored to them after this was all over, if Allan had the power to make it so.
He might not. Allan had already considered—and discussed with his brothers—that Teign’s crimes were so dreadful the title and all the estates might be forfeited. So be it. Teign had to be stopped, whatever the cost.
It was one of the reasons he wanted to wait to marry Melody. Although perhaps he should marry her before his future became clear, for she wanted to be a marchioness even less than he wanted to be marquess.
“Clara,” he said to his sister-in-law as the duchess took the servants to hand over to her housekeeper, “Can you suggest where I might find flowers suitable to give to Melody when I propose?”
“Of course,” said Clara. “Where do you plan to propose? I suppose you want privacy?”
Allan considered. “Actually,” he said, after a moment, “I should like to make my formal proposal on bended knee in front of my family and hers.”
Clara grinned at him. “Then,” she said, “let us have a Twelfth Night party late tomorrow afternoon. I shall tell Harmony and all the wives.”
“Warn them to say nothing to Melody,” Allan cautioned.
“Of course. She will accept you, Allan. She loves you.”
Allan hoped Clara was right. Melody did love him—she said so, and she was not a liar, despite her profession. But did she love him enough to take him scandal, marquisate, and all?
Tomorrow would tell the tale.
*
Teign made a break for it that night. His sons and their wives were all asleep and knew nothing about it until the morning, when Dellborough sent for Allan.
Without preamble, the duke said, “After receiving our initial report on what you found in Teign’s cellars, the king sent a detachment of his household guard to arrest Teign and convey him to the Tower of London.
He was gone, and so was Farnham. The king has sent troops to each of Teign’s estates, and more to the main ports. ”
“Troops!” Somerville snorted. He and the other peers who had joined in the assault on the cellars were together in Dellborough’s study, dictating the final report.
All four had been serving officers during the long war that ended nearly a decade ago.
All four expressed their opinion of the royal component of the search in scathing terms.
“Parade-ground officers, all gilt and no substance,” said Trilby.
“The troopers were as bad,” Somerville claimed. “Shiny boots and feathers for brains.”
“Who goes hunting for a miscreant in full dress uniform with a standard and a bloody drummer boy?” Trilby asked the room at large. He caught Melody’s eye, flushed, and bowed. “Sorry, Mrs. Blackmore. Forgot. Ladies present.”
“Twelve of them,” Stanhope groaned. “Twelve troops of lummoxes in fancy uniforms on flashy horses, and every single one with a standard and drummer boy. The king wants us to keep the scandal quiet and sends out twelve drummer boys!”
“Useful for Farnham and Teign. They’d have been able to hear them a mile off,” said one of the others, and the four of them sighed in unison.
“His Majesty wishes us to know he is taking matters seriously,” Dellborough pointed out. “The real work will be done by the runners and thief takers. With luck, our fugitives will be watching the troops and will not notice who is coming up behind them.”
“As for keeping the scandal out of the public eye,” said Kempbury, “that horse has well and truly bolted. And I do not see the point, anyway. If a marquess has been breaking the law, surely the masses need to know that the royal family and the aristocracy will stand up for them and bring the villain to justice? This idea that the mob will descend on us if we do not hide the wrongs the wealthy commit, and pretend they do not exist…” He shook his head. “Ridiculous.”
Allan thought that Dellborough underestimated Teign’s devious nature.
Who knew what the man might try, now he was cornered?
The report writers had sent for all the Sheppards, to ask them a whole barrage of questions.
The brothers spent the day trying to pretend they were not starting at shadows and flinching at loud noises.
If the various illustrious personages noticed, they were too polite to comment.
It was well into the afternoon before Allan, his brothers, and their wives could all gather at Clara’s for Twelfth Night celebrations.
Phineas and Harmony were there, too, of course, as were Harriet, Lydia and Benjie.
Thomasina’s aunts came, too, and so did Nottwick, Phineas’s brother, and his wife and their two children.
All the children were delirious with excitement and joy. Not only did Lydia and Harriet have their respective parents with them, but every aunt and every uncle had bought or made each child a present.
The Twelfth Night cake was served first, with heated wassail to drink—sugar, nutmeg, orange juice, other spices, and cider.
And a second version for the children, with apple juice substituted for cider, as Mel explained to Allan when he went to prevent Lydia from taking a third helping.
Clara’s kitchen had also produced a range of other edibles.
Phineas, who found the bean in his slice of cake, seemed nonplussed at being thus elected to be King for the night, but made a manful attempt to suggest silly games and even sillier forfeits, egged on by the other men.
The schoolroom party had come up with a play that involved the whole group. It featured the visit of the three kings to the baby Jesus, with Benjie, Lydia, and a cloth doll doing duty as the Holy Family, and Harriet providing commentary in the persona of the innkeeper’s wife.
Allan, Phineas, and Cornelius were instructed to be the three kings, and the whole assembly was ordered to line up and think of a gift to bring to the baby. “It can be something real or something imaginary,” Harriet said.
It took nearly an hour for everyone to present their gift.
Most of them had chosen to amuse, and the company was often disabled with laughter, as when Harriet turned her nose up at the myrrh, because it was smelly, or when Allan solemnly presented a string of imaginary camels as being more versatile than a donkey.
Mel won acclaim from the ladies when she presented an invisible sack of clouts. “The sack never runs out, and the clouts in it are always clean. The discards will dissolve in water and never be seen again,” she assured the very young Mary, who was not as impressed as the mothers in the room.
After that, the other ladies competed in presenting useful but extravagant gifts that could only be imagined.
Baby clothes that grew with the infant. A self-replenishing dish of pottage.
A baby carriage that was easy to push and pull, even over rough ground, and that also rocked on command.
“Might as well give it a voice to sing lullabies,” one of the brothers commented, and the lady who had suggested the device promptly added that to the list.
The children were allowed to stay up for dinner, though they had been snacking ever since the party started, and the littlest Nottwick was already sound asleep on her father’s shoulder.
After that, parents began to make noises about bedtime. Allan, who wanted Lydia and Harriet to be present when he offered for Melody, signaled to Clara. This was the time.
*
Something was going on. Everyone kept looking at Mel. Did she have cake crumbs on her face? Surreptitiously, she peered into the glass on the cabinet doors. No. She could see nothing to explain the glances.
Allan was a target, too. Clara had just looked at him, then at Mel, then back at Allan. And there! Winifred was doing the same.
Mel sought to catch Allan’s gaze. When he saw her looking and smiled at her, she became lost in his eyes. So much so, she was barely aware that he was closing the distance between them until he was directly before her.
There he stopped, and—without warning—went down on one knee.
“Melody,” he said, as her heart leapt and began to beat faster.
“Melody, I never thought I would marry again. After my first wife, I was unwilling to risk such betrayal ever again, and why should I? I have a child who is the world to me. I even have an heir in my brother’s son. Why marry?”
He smiled up at her. “But then I met a lady who made me reconsider. A lady who made me question my determination to spend my life alone. A lady of courage, integrity, and pride. You, Melody. You have filled the empty spaces in my heart and in my mind, and I can no longer imagine life without you. Your strength, your intelligence, your trust in me give me confidence that we shall never meet a challenge we cannot discuss and find our way through.”
He took one of the hands that hung limp at her side. “Melody, my beloved, will you be my wife, my companion, my partner in life? Mother to our daughters and any other children God might grant us? My one and only love from this day until I take my final breath? Will you marry me?”
For a moment, Mel could not speak past the lump in her throat.
His face dropped as he processed her silence.
She shouldn’t, couldn’t bear his mistaken disappointment.
“Yes,” she croaked, forcing out the sound.
“Yes, I will,” she added, more normally, the one word having broken whatever blockage had disabled her.
Allan grabbed her other hand, grinning up at her, tears running down his cheeks. “You will?” He turned to glance over the gathering, grinning broadly, and shouted, “She will!”
Then Harriet and Lydia needed to be hugged and kissed, and assured that the family would all live together from now on. All those present had to assure one another they had seen this day coming, which was a surprise to Mel, for she had been certain it would never happen.
And finally, the children had their long-delayed bedtime, Allan and Mel escorting the group upstairs hand in hand with their two daughters.
Teign remained the only cloud on their horizon, and surely he would be captured soon?