Point of Honour (Sarah Tolerance) Read online

  “Don’t call her that! Sarah …” Versellion reached out a hand to her, but Miss Tolerance regarded him with a cool eye and did not extend her own. After a moment he let his hand drop. When he spoke again, it was quietly, his eyes fixed upon the floor as if seeing the whole played out before him there.

  “All right, if you will have it. It was an accident. I went there—you said she knew nothing of the fan, and then I got a note from her bidding me come. We were looking for a secret about my family, and she knew one. There was no danger from the secret, she said, but I should know what it was. She told me to come to the house disguised, ask for a girl, then excuse myself and find her. I swear to you, Sarah, I had no idea. I found her lounging on her sofa, for all the world as if she were a goddess receiving on Olympus. She told me to take off my hat and scarf and let her see me. Then she said I looked just like him. The longer she looked at me, the more agitated she became, murmuring to herself. She began to weep a little, then came at me. I swear, I felt as though she were attacking me. Threw her arms about my neck.”

  Miss Tolerance nodded sadly.

  “I pushed her away—she was drunk or sick, sloppy with it. Disgusting. I asked her why she’d summoned me … and she told me. She wept all over me. Figlio mio, she kept saying. She wanted to kiss me, embrace me. She wanted me to kiss her. I couldn’t even draw a breath, she would not give me a moment to think.”

  Miss Tolerance looked at her lover pityingly. In a few words his world, his self, had unraveled, and the clever Mrs. Virtue had been too addled with opium and sentiment to see it.

  “She told you she was your mother.”

  “She told me I was her son. She kept pressing in on me. I had to push her away, she kept grabbing at me until I finally struck her. Only once, I swear it. Then she sat down again and told me the whole story. At the end she looked at me as if this must be welcome news. She tried to embrace me again, this raddled old woman pawing at me, claiming me over and over—My God.” His voice shook. “She wouldn’t stop! I was in such a rage and she wouldn’t stop and there was a candlestick—”

  “And you struck her down and left the house.”

  He nodded. “I was in such a panic I could not think what to do.”

  “A panic. And yet, you thought to wipe the candlestick. And when I came to tell you that she was dead, you pretended astonishment.”

  “I was afraid to tell you what I had done—Christ, I was afraid to think of it myself.”

  “You would have let your cousin hang for your mother’s death as well as for the others.”

  “Don’t—” He broke off. He studied her for a moment. Then the line etched between his brows smoothed, and he gazed at Miss Tolerance with great reasonableness. “Would it truly do good to confess myself a murderer? I stand poised to do such good, Sarah. Henry was always volatile, he could never brook opposition—indeed, to be honest, he had long ago passed the point where his rages could be excused. He killed your friend, and that old woman—”

  “Mrs. Virtue was an old woman, too,” Miss Tolerance reminded him.

  “Sarah, I acted in the shock of the moment. Surely you must see that.”

  “I do.”

  “My cousin is a dangerous man, Sarah. I am not. Sarah.” His tone was gentle, not wheedling but persuasive. “You know me. You know what I want. If I win my point with the Prince, my party can accomplish so much good. Perhaps then”—he spoke as if he were changing the subject—“you will overcome your scruples and be with me. When I consider the crop of insipid maidens paraded before me tonight, and how much finer a politician’s wife you would make than any of—”

  “Please, Edward.” Miss Tolerance laid a finger over her lover’s lips to stop the words. “You misread my character. I cannot be bought by the suggestion of marriage.”

  He looked genuinely astonished. “It is no suggestion. Sarah, if you love me …” He took her hand in his own; this time she permitted the gesture, but did not return the clasp.

  “I do love you,” she said sadly.

  “Then listen to reason. Accept that this is the best outcome for everyone. And think of what we might do together. To have you with me would make a better man, a better politician of me. I love you, Sarah. Can we not find a way to make ourselves happy?”

  “What way?” Miss Tolerance withdrew her hand. For an unsettling moment, she felt as if she had been taken to the top of a mountain and offered all the kingdoms laid before her. “What way? Even if I told you yes now, I could not forget, or deny, what I know. You would never forget that I knew it. I love you, Edward, but you killed that woman, your mother, and I cannot forget that.”

  She could not tell if it was anger or sorrow that straightened Versellion’s shoulders. He looked away from her. “Then we must part?”

  Miss Tolerance nodded. “Yes.”

  “As easily as that?” He raised one hand to her, open-palmed.

  “Nothing in this is easy.” She turned to the door. “Sir Walter, are you there?”

  Versellion pulled his hand away as if she had burnt him.

  “I’m sorry, Edward. There are some things I cannot do. Should I scruple to let a matricide rise to the prime ministry?”

  The door opened and Sir Walter Mandif entered, with his two Runners behind.

  “You’re giving me to Bow Street?” Versellion stared at her in horror.

  Miss Tolerance pursed her lips and nodded. Anything she could think to say would sound cold, she thought, and the tumble of feelings behind her impassive expression was not cold in the least.

  “That is what is generally done with murderers,” Sir Walter Mandif commented mildly. “Mr. Hook, if you please?”

  The shorter of the two Runners had already advanced upon Versellion. “Edward Folle, I arrest you in the name of the Crown … .”

  Miss Tolerance turned to Mandif. “You heard it all?”

  “I believe so.” Mandif’s long, foxy face was drawn with fatigue, but he looked upon her sympathetically.

  “Then you heard that there were … extenuating circumstances. He had had a shock—”

  “It will all come out at trial,” Sir Walter said. “I shall make sure the entire circumstance is laid before the court.”

  Versellion had gone from immobility to a rage which rivaled anything Miss Tolerance had seen on his cousin’s face.

  “In court? If I’m tried, I can only be tried by my peers,” he spat. “The House of Lords is like to prove more sympathetic than you.”

  “Perhaps they would, sir,” Mandif said quietly. “But given the circumstances of your birth, I cannot say for certain that you will be tried by the Lords. It seems you’re not a peer but a peer’s bastard.”

  “Sarah!” Versellion appealed to her one more time, in a voice in which outrage and entreaty were mixed. “Sarah, this is all wrong!”

  Miss Tolerance nodded mutely.

  “Sarah, say something to me,” Versellion barked.

  “I tried to tell you what happens to a man who thinks his rank will exempt him from pain. I’m sorry … .”

  Sir Walter Mandif offered his arm to Miss Tolerance. “You need to go home,” he suggested. “It has been a long night for all of us, but for you most of all. I shall arrange it.”

  Miss Tolerance nodded and Sir Walter led her downstairs. He left her on a chair in the front hallway while a hackney was summoned. When Hook and Penryn emerged from the room upstairs and marched down the stairs with Versellion between them, she watched their progress without expression. He would have paused before her, but the Runners urged him forward, past her chair, through the door, and into a waiting carriage.

  She did not cry in the carriage that wheeled through the waking London streets to return her to Manchester Square, nor when she removed the beautiful dress and crawled into her bed. She thought she would weep there, but her feelings were too new for mere weeping. She slept instead, for a long time. Late that day Miss Tolerance awoke and dressed herself. She had left the ball gown draped carelessly
over a chair the night before, and as she picked it up now, she noted, sadly, a long rip in the skirt and several smaller rents in the bodice, souvenirs of her struggle with Folle. One more sign, she thought wearily, that she was not meant for ballrooms. Miss Tolerance piled the dress into its bandbox, carried it with her to her aunt’s house, and asked the laundress to see that it was mended and cleaned, after which whoever wanted the thing might lay claim to it. Then she climbed up to her aunt’s sitting room.

  She found Mrs. Brereton in her customary attitude, sitting at her desk with a neat pile of duns before her and her counts-book nearby. Mrs. Brereton rose immediately when she saw her niece and put both arms around her, drawing her to sit beside her on the sofa.

  “Rumors are flying all over London, and most of them mention you. How are you, my dear?”

  Miss Tolerance smiled wearily. “Tired. Hungry.”

  Mrs. Brereton tsked comfortably. “You shall have a cup of tea before anything else.” She lifted the silver bell at her hand.

  In a few minutes Miss Tolerance had been furnished with tea and a bowl of soup. Mrs. Brereton took a sip from her own tea, then put it aside.

  “Now, my dear, which of these rumors am I to believe? Versellion and his cousin, both murderers? Versellion a bastard? The Prince of Wales himself intervening to rescue you from death at Sir Henry Folle’s hands? What extraordinary melodrama!”

  Miss Tolerance nodded. “It is that, ma’am. But I notice you do not mention Lord Balobridge. Has he not sent word to you that he, too, is in custody? Or has he somehow got free?”

  Mrs. Brereton’s expression did not change. “Balobridge in custody? For what? And why would that old Tory send word to me?”

  “Because the old Tory is your lover, and you have been giving him information about my movements since this whole affair began,” Miss Tolerance said flatly.

  Mrs. Brereton appeared to consider what she might safely say. Miss Tolerance shook her head irritably to forestall any new lies.

  “I thought it was one of the girls, or one of the servants. But your rule of discretion is too well known, the punishments too absolute—and your people’s loyalty is strong. The only person who might easily get round the rule is the one who made it, Aunt. You. I only wish I understood why.”

  “It was simply business,” Mrs. Brereton said. “Balobridge assured me you would come to no harm. And I really told him very little, Sarah, things which could not hurt you. It kept him happy—and Balobridge, happy, is very generous.”

  “Are you so desperate for cash, Aunt Thea?”

  “I am not getting younger, Sarah. A generous lover is not a thing to dismiss lightly at my age.”

  “Well, your lover lied. I might have been killed several times.”

  Mrs. Brereton raised her chin angrily; her eyes narrowed. “But you weren’t.”

  Miss Tolerance nodded. “That is true, but only because of my own efforts at survival. Were you so hot to turn a profit on me that you had to sell me to Balobridge?”

  “That is unfair. I have respected your unwillingness to work here, however finical—”

  “Then I suppose it was finical, or old-fashioned, of me to hope that family loyalty would outweigh the claims of your generous lover.”

  “Family? Don’t be naive, Sarah. What has family ever done for you or me? They cast us both out—”

  “The more reason, I should have thought, that our familial bond would be inviolable.” Miss Tolerance saw the anger in her aunt’s eye and looked back unblinking. “Your lover Balobridge sent men to kill Versellion—and me. Balobridge was Sir Henry Folle’s accomplice, and Sir Henry Folle himself killed Matt—beat him to death upon your information.”

  Mrs. Brereton paled.

  “Had you not realized that? Matt went out in my coat, upon my errand, was mistaken at first by Folle and his man for me—because someone told Balobridge that I had gone out again—and Folle flew into a rage when Matt knew nothing of use to him, and killed him.”

  “That was Folle,” Mrs. Brereton whispered at last. She rose from the sofa and began to pace in front of the fireplace. “I had no way of knowing. Balobridge swore—”

  “I don’t doubt he did,” Miss Tolerance said.

  “What was I to do? Say no to him?”

  “You might have done. I did.”

  Her aunt stopped pacing and turned to regard her niece with equal coldness. “You did. I am sick of your schoolroom scruples! Particularly when they are so malleable! At least I am selective in my customers—I’ve never seen you turn someone away because you did not like the cut of his coat!”

  Miss Tolerance regarded her aunt with astonishment. “The cut of his coat? God, Aunt, anyone can be bamboozled by his tailor; turn away custom because the client is old, or badly dressed, or lacks wit, and I’d have very little indeed. You can afford to be nice in your clientele: you place so few conditions upon what happens once they have come through your door.”

  “And you have so many conditions on what you will do?”

  “Not so many as I would like, but a few. My reputation—”

  “Good heavens, girl, you lost your reputation a decade ago! All this pretense—”

  “I lost my virginity. I lost my innocence. The world seems to regard this as the same thing as honor, but I do not. You lost your ‘honor’ a score of years before I did, but do you steal from your customers, Aunt? Do you sell their secrets? Do you force your … employees … to take men they detest, or to do things they detest?”

  Mrs. Brereton shook her head sadly, as if her niece’s incomprehension saddened her. “That’s not honor, girl. That’s good business sense.”

  “Then I am lucky I can afford to be a good businesswoman, Aunt.”

  The two women watched each other warily. It was the older one who spoke first.

  “Perhaps it was a mistake, telling Balobridge what he wanted. I did not see the harm, but perhaps I was shortsighted.” Mrs. Brereton looked at her niece apprehensively. “Sarah, what are you going to do now?”

  “Do?” Despite the warmth of the day, Miss Tolerance felt cold. She rubbed her hands together briskly. “I don’t know. Wait for my next client. Mend my stockings. Why? Do you want me out of the cottage?”

  Mrs. Brereton shook her head. “No. Did I say so? Certainly not. I should miss having you here.” She smiled. “We are family, after all.”

  Miss Tolerance laughed softly. “Why, so we are.”

  “And we may go on as we have before?”

  “As before? Not quite. But in terms of business”—her emphasis was light but satirical—“this place suits me very well. I will be happy to rent the cottage from you, and take tea with you, and assist you when I can. But we should be clear upon this one point: your business is in selling the sexual favors of your employees; mine is in providing information and discreet errands for my clients. We must agree each to keep to our own businesses. I shall keep my counsel. You will not sell yours.” Miss Tolerance meant the words to hurt, but she could not tell if they had hit their mark.

  “Well, then.” Mrs. Brereton returned to the sofa and sat again. “Let me give you more tea.”

  Despite the brave words she had used with her aunt, Miss Tolerance returned to her cottage feeling very much alone. She looked at the counts-book on her table but could not bring herself to open it. The Gazette and the Times lay folded there, but she was unwilling to look at them. She put the kettle on for tea and then decided she wanted none. She was not sleepy, but wanted more than anything else not to sit and brood over the events of the last four-and-twenty hours. She thought of returning to Mrs. Brereton’s house to find a book, but could not make herself leave the cottage.

  A knock at her door made her jump. It was Marianne.

  “I thought you could do with some distracting,” she said placidly. “This seemed to help when you were sick.” She put Tom Jones on the table with a firm thump and looked at Miss Tolerance as if to dare her to say no.

  “I was just wishing
for something to read,” Miss Tolerance said. “Would you like some tea? The kettle is just on.”

  Marianne took up her seat on the settle and began to read aloud. Miss Tolerance made tea and poured it out. To her surprise, she found, an hour later, that she and Marianne had drunk the pot dry. She took a little water from the kettle, rinsed the pot with it, and put the kettle back on the hob to heat again. Marianne read on through the end of the chapter and finished just as Miss Tolerance was measuring out tea into the pot.

  “Well, you’ve stirred things up properly, haven’t you?” Marianne leaned into the corner of the settle and grinned, as if stirring things up were a very good joke upon all concerned. From the calico workbag at her side she took out a piece of knitting and began to work.

  “What have you heard?” Miss Tolerance asked.

  “Nothing of account from your aunt or anyone in the house except Cook, who said you had a long face when you passed through the kitchen. But some of the guests in the house was buzzing with This One’s ruin and That One’s scandal. And it seems you caught our Matt’s killer after all. I feel bad about that—Folle was one of mine.”

  “You couldn’t have known,” Miss Tolerance assured her.

  “No, I couldn’t,” the whore said calmly. “And you, you got your heart broken, did you?” Marianne tilted her head sympathetically. “No, no one has said so, but you’ve the look of it. If you want to talk, I promise it will go no further.”

  “I believe you,” Miss Tolerance said. “But there’s little to talk about. He—I fell in love with a client.”

  “He didn’t love you?”

  Miss Tolerance laughed sadly. “Oh, yes, he did, I think.”

  “Well, then, where’s the heartbreak in that?”

  “My client was the Earl of Versellion.”

  Marianne’s mouth pursed in an “O” of appreciation. “The one you turned in to Bow Street? That’s hard. You could have let it slide, couldn’t you?”