Page 9 of The Rum and The Fox

Chapter 4

To be in bad bread - in a disagreeable scrape

- The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, by Francis Grose.

Keziah lay in bed but didn't sleep. The young duke's disarming smile flickered in and out of focus, and she felt a surge of fury at the unfairness of it. This situation was none of her making, and there was nothing she could do to stop it, so why should she be the one losing sleep? Her father would no doubt come home and snore his head off as though he had not a care in the world, he usually did.

Except, then, she heard voices from below her room and realised that her father and his valet, Martin, were in the front parlour. Slipping out of bed with as little noise as she could manage, she pulled a shawl around her shoulders and got to her knees, putting her ear to the cold, wooden floor.

Her father's and Martin's voices were low but nonetheless audible.

“I’m sure something could be arranged.” There was a dark tone to her father’s voice that sent shivers running over her, making the chill of the wooden floor seem colder still. “We’re going to be invited to visit the duke’s seat, Chartley House, very soon, Martin, and that will be our chance.”

“You sure she’s strong enough to face her family down? I’ve heard the old woman is a proper tartar.” Keziah could hear the scepticism in Martin’s voice and her father’s scornful reply as he moved about the room.

“Oh, she’ll do it,” he said, his complacent manner provoking a spark of anger that he should treat some poor woman in such a way. “The foolish creature is so in love with me that she hardly knows which way is up. So we’ll have an invitation, but the duke will be forced to come, too, for propriety’s sake, and because he won’t trust me an inch, and that will be our chance.”

Keziah felt her breath catch in her throat and sat upright, breathing hard while her mind tried to deny the plot the two of them were hatching together. Surely not? Surely even her father wouldn’t…?

Returning her ear to the floor, she froze, horrified as the depths of their wickedness were revealed to her.

“And, in any case, he’s just a young pup, by all accounts, it should be an easy enough manner to dispose of him. A hunting accident, perhaps?” This last was said with amusement as Keziah’s blood seemed to turn to ice water in her veins.

“Oh, yes, my lord,” Martin replied, apparently sharing her father’s enjoyment of the idea. “Always a popular choice, that, and so very hard to prove as anything but an accident.”

Keziah clutched at her throat, scurrying away from her position on the floor and sitting on the bed before her knees gave way. Her mother had died in a hunting accident when she was just a tiny child. There had always been something about that, something in her father’s eyes when he spoke of it, that had unsettled her and made her wonder, but now … now she could no longer doubt it.

Her father had killed a man in his youth, that she knew, for she’d heard him boast of it when he was in his cups - how he’d gotten away with murder and the law couldn’t touch him. That had been shocking enough, even when she’d known he was a monster since she was old enough to realise what the word meant. But to know he had killed his own wife, her mother … and now, he was planning to kill the Duke of Chartley. Once the duchess was married and her only son gone, he would control their finances. It would all be his.

Nausea roiled in her stomach and she choked back tears as the horror of it unfolded before her. She might want an end to this meagre existence, she might want her life back where pretty clothes, good food, and comfort had been hers, but not at that price. She’d not gain at the expense of a man’s blood.

But her father was right about one thing. The young man who had visited her here, who had stared at her with such guileless admiration, he would be no match for her father.

He was as good as dead.

Keziah got back into her bed, shivering under the covers as she considered what could be done. She would have to warn the duke, Lord Ashwicke. Though she had no idea where he lived, it ought to be easy enough to track him down. She’d have to wait until her father was out of the house, and he rarely rose before midday, so she’d have to take care to avoid him until then. She’d had years of practise at hiding her thoughts, at remaining placid when she was inwardly quaking, but her temper was something she still struggled to control. Her father’s legacy, no doubt, she thought with a grimace. And this, this had pushed her past any anger she had known before.

She might have sorrow enough to last for several lifetimes over the way she had been treated by him, sorrow aplenty for the loss of her mother, but now she was full of fury. Rage ate away at her like a disease in her blood, making her seethe with restless energy when she should be at rest, and it wanted retribution. The fury within her wanted revenge for her mother’s sake, revenge for her own sake, for every backhanded slap, for every blow and kick and cruel word, revenge upon the man who had squandered their fortune and her future on gambling and women and vice of every conceivable kind.

She wanted revenge, and by God she would have it.

***

As it happened, it was only mid-morning by the time her father emerged. Keziah avoided him, her only contact a brief nod of greeting as he descended the stairs, dressed like a prince in the clothes that she had sold every last scrap of her mother’s jewellery to buy for him. She swallowed down the bile that rose in her belly, have patience, she muttered inwardly. Her father had eluded the law for so long, firstly, by dint of being a peer, and secondly, by being sly and cunning. Well, that she had inherited some of his traits might be a matter of revulsion to her, but in this she would embrace those aspects of her nature. She would prevail and grind this wretched creature beneath her heel, if it was the last thing she did.

So Keziah contented herself with pottering in the kitchen, all the while listening for the sound of her father getting ready to leave the house.

Fortune was smiling on her that day as Martin left with him, though they went off in different directions. Swiftly pulling on her coat and pelisse, Keziah ran from the house and then hesitated as she saw her father’s towering figure disappearing around the corner. A nagging sense of anxiety tugged at her mind, unsettling her further still. Deciding to listen to her instincts, she hurried after him, keeping a good distance back in case he turned around and spotted her.

From the house they’d rented on Abbey Green, he strolled in a leisurely fashion in the direction of the abbey itself, which was only a few minutes’ walk away. This seemed a most peculiar location for her father to be found at voluntarily, and so she kept with him. Passing the Roman Baths without a second glance, he moved towards the west front of the impressive abbey building with its surprising and, to Keziah’s mind, somewhat whimsical ladders of angels. The angels both ascended and descended the ladders which climbed the towers on both sides of the huge west door.

Keziah hung back, not wanting to cross the open expanse before the Abbey and risk catching his attention. She huddled into her pelisse, threadbare as it was, and wished she had a muff to warm her hands. It was bright now, with fast-moving white clouds scudding across the sky, but a chill wind blew nonetheless, plucking at her skirts and making her shiver.

Too cold to keep still, Keziah began to move forward, and then, with astonishment, she watched as her father paused to take a furtive look behind him, causing her to throw herself into a doorway and startle an elderly man in the process. Apologising for her clumsiness, Keziah turned, just in time to see Lord Todd slip inside the building.

With curiosity burning, Keziah moved forward, and after a few moments of dithering outside, followed him in.

It was dark and hard to see anything, at first, after the bright sunlight of the late morning. Squinting and hugging the shadows in case she was seen, Keziah lingered in the darker corners until her eyes adjusted. Once they had, however, she rather wished she hadn’t followed her instincts after all. For there was her father, sitting side by side with a pretty, dark-haired girl, young enough to be his daughter.