The Best of Men (47 page)

“And you, sir, are incontinent,” Digby said. “You might as well claim half of Marlborough as your progeny. If you will not drown them, I’ll gladly undertake the duty for you. Where are they hidden?”

At length, after Digby had suggested stringing him up at his own door, the man promised to surrender his five hundred pounds, and they left him.

“I must congratulate you, Mr. Beaumont,” said Digby, scanning the chaos around them. “That old miser was more appalled by your sinister face than my threats. No doubt he’ll enjoy retelling the story to his horde of grandchildren.”

“Or to the enemy pamphleteers,” said Laurence.

“Hmm. Pamphleteers, eh? You give me a thought. When we are back in Oxford, I believe I might engage your services, if Wilmot will allow me.”

Laurence made no reply.

Once stripped of valuables, Marlborough had to be garrisoned for the King, but by the time the Royalist army rode out, shopkeepers were reopening their businesses and the town had been restored to relative calm. It was a slow journey back to Oxford with prisoners, horses, and cattle in tow, and piles of booty stuffed into every available vehicle, but as Wilmot had anticipated, they were greeted as conquering heroes upon their arrival. The Court was in residence, Christmas festivities
had started, and news of the victory at Marlborough only heightened the atmosphere of optimism, as well as the boasts of the pro-war party. At Christ Church College, where he was quartered, His Majesty threw a banquet to congratulate the Cavaliers, as they had come to be known.

Laurence had been seated between Wilmot and Charles Danvers, with whom he had no desire to exchange a single word. They were all drinking heavily, surrounded by an adoring female audience. Then Digby sailed up and made himself a place at the table. He looked exceptionally sober, and smug.

“Why in God’s name aren’t you as cut as the rest of us, my lord?” Wilmot demanded.

“Later, later. Mr. Beaumont,” Digby said, beaming at Laurence, “I’ve a proposition for you. Where are you staying?”

Wilmot answered for him. “Alas, Beaumont is
not
staying. His sister is to be married in a few days, and he tells me he cannot miss the event. Are you trying to steal him away from me, my lord?”

“I was not aware you owned him. What do you have to say to that, Mr. Beaumont?”

“I don’t have any owner that I know of, my lord,” Laurence said politely.

“Really! I was told that Colonel Hoare thinks he owns you. As he owns our friend Danvers here.”

Danvers flushed and tossed back his wine.

“If you’re trying to provoke an argument, my lord,” Wilmot said, “we are in far too good a humour to rise to the occasion. For an argument, I mean.” He drew the nearest woman onto his knees and put a hand on her breast, which she did not discourage from dipping below the front of her dress. “We are perfectly capable of rising in other ways.”

Digby giggled. “I’m sure you are, sir! Ladies, don’t you find Mr. Beaumont an exotic morsel? If I did not know him for an Englishman, I might suspect he has a lick of the tar brush in him. Hot climes breed
hot blood, or so it’s said. If I were you, my dears, I’d be tempted to discover the truth of it.”

“Now
there’s
a recommendation,” observed one of the young ladies; the prettiest, Laurence noted. Slight and dark-haired, she wore a dress of pale silk that glowed and shimmered in the candlelight, and she was examining him with eyes rather like Isabella’s, though wider set, in a heart-shaped face.

“Leave him be, my lord,” Wilmot growled at Digby. “And drink up.”

Shortly after, Laurence excused himself; since the campaign had drawn to a close, he was at last free to visit Seward, and he had much to recount.

“Off to smell the flowers, are you?” Danvers said. “Me too.”

Out in the open quadrangle, breathing chill winter air, Laurence realised that he was drunker than he thought. Danvers had stopped to urinate against a wall. “Beaumont,” he said, over his shoulder, “I told you, it’s not true about Hoare. You can’t believe Digby – he’s just trying to make trouble.”

“I couldn’t give a toss, either way,” Laurence said, walking off. “Good night.”

A few seconds later, he heard the rapid click of heels on the cobblestones, and a hand tugged at his cloak. He turned abruptly, expecting Danvers, but it was the woman from the banquet. “Mr. Beaumont,” she said, “I had thought to leave also. My chamber is not far, in Corpus Christi. Would you accompany me there?”

“Yes, madam,” he replied, after a brief hesitation; she had slipped her arm in his. “Have you no cloak?”

“I’m not cold,” she said, but he took his off anyway and wrapped it over her shoulders.

She was a lady of rank, he thought, judging by the tasteful, expensive style of her clothes. She should have a servant with her. “Are you alone?” he asked, feeling suspicious.

“I am now,” she sighed. “My gentlewoman was drinking to excess and is quite incapacitated.” When they reached the College, she returned his cloak. “Would you see me to my chamber? I had difficulty with the key.” He hesitated again; he was unarmed, about to enter some unlit corridor, and there could be any number of surprises awaiting him behind her door. Yet she beseeched him again so sweetly that he agreed.

As she had said, it took him some time before the key would turn in the lock. He opened the door, removed the key, and was about to place it in her palm when she murmured, “Aren’t you going to give me a good-night kiss?” He looked down at her, and the aphrodisiac effect of liquor crept over him. Her lips were soft and her mouth tasted of something sugary. “I would so like to know you better,” she whispered afterwards, pressing her breasts against him.

She manoeuvred him into the chamber, which was large and elegant, suggesting that she must indeed be someone of importance, and after a quick glance about he shut the door with his foot. He unfastened her gown, slipped it from her shoulders, and began to kiss her again. Then he stopped. “Are you sure you wish to know me this well?”

“Yes. Lock the door.”

In the darkness, after certain other preliminaries, he raised her petticoats and happened to run his hand over her belly, only to discover that she was some months pregnant. “Is your husband here in Oxford with you?” he inquired warily, recalling his past experience with an irate spouse.

She shook her head and pulled him closer. “He died of his wounds after Edgehill. We were married four years, and loved each other very much. Please, sir,” she said, her voice hoarse with desire, “make me forget him for the night.”

She was certainly in need, raking his back with her nails and biting his neck. She panted so loudly that he had to muffle her mouth with his, although the squeaking of the bed frame would have been sufficient to
give them away to anyone passing. After a while he shifted her about, to avoid the distracting swell of her stomach. “What have you touched inside me?” she cried ecstatically; and he thought, not for the first time, what a shame it was that so few women seemed familiar with this sensitive spot within their own bodies. The ceiling of heaven, he had once heard it called.

They continued on until he felt himself on the brink; and when it ended, her panting quietened. She gave him a last kiss, lay back in bed closing her eyes, and mumbled, “You may let yourself out,” before apparently succumbing to sleep.

Easing away from her, he laced up his breeches, and was ready to exit from her chamber when he heard noises outside, of slow, dragging footsteps. He unlocked the door, and looked out. In the corridor another woman was tottering towards him. Even from a distance, he could smell the alcohol on her breath. Her eyes flickered as he emerged. “Who are you?” she demanded. “Where is my Lady d’Aubigny?”

Laurence felt a slight alarm, hoping that the episode would not become public knowledge: Lady d’Aubigny’s late husband had been a cousin of His Majesty. Oh well, he thought next, at least he could not be accused of impregnating her.

“Where is my Lady d’Aubigny?” repeated the gentlewoman drunkenly.

“In her chamber,” he said. “Allow me,” he added, as she grabbed his arm for support. He took her in, laying her down on the bed beside her mistress, then left them and closed the door.

When he reached the street outside, he had the taste of sugar on his tongue and Lady d’Aubigny’s floral perfume lingering in his nostrils. After his enjoyable hour with her, he felt full of energy. He walked the short distance to Merton, where a yawning porter admitted him.

Seward, as usual, had not yet gone to bed, and greeted him with a hug as he entered. “Look at me, home at last – as is Pusskins, too!” The
cat was padding in circles around Laurence’s feet, emitting loud purrs. “He is thanking you,” Seward explained, “for your gallant conduct in Oxford Castle. Sit down, Beaumont, and give me an account of your exploits since then.”

“Well,” he began with a smile, throwing himself into a chair, “I can now confirm without a doubt that Pembroke is our chief conspirator.”

Seward listened avidly as he described his sojourn at Blackman Street and the gift he had arranged to be delivered to the earl’s house. “Eros and Harpocrates!” Seward crowed with glee. “Not only will he be in a frenzy of suspicion against Radcliff, but he may think that the entire Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross is after him, bent on revenge for the misuse of their symbols. Have you told Falkland about the painting?”

“No, though I nearly did. He wants me to sort out his problems with Colonel Hoare before we make any move on the regicides. I urged him to arrest Radcliff and hinted as broadly as I could that Pembroke was involved, but he insisted that we wait. He’s afraid of prejudicing the next round of negotiations with Parliament.”

“I think you made a mistake in not disclosing all that you knew! Surely if he were aware that Radcliff had been staying with Pembroke, he would be convinced they were both guilty as sin.”

“Perhaps. But I agree with him that it would be best to have Hoare out of the way before we question Radcliff. Radcliff will keep silent for as long as he can, just like Harpocrates, and I don’t want Hoare butchering him before we can make him talk.” Laurence paused, then added, “When I was at the house of Ingram’s aunt, just before I came to Oxford last time, she happened to mention that Radcliff had stored a small coffer with her. His correspondence might be in there.”

“Can you invent some excuse to go back and conduct a search?”

“If you can think of a good one, I’ll use it – once I’ve fulfilled a prior commitment. My sister Elizabeth is getting married the day after tomorrow, and if I don’t attend, my mother will disown me.”

“It amazes me that she did not do so years ago,” Seward said, laughing.

Ingram was playing backgammon with Elizabeth and Anne in the parlour, a fire warming his back, his leg propped up on cushions, a glass of sack and a plate of cracknels beside him on the table. He felt at the same time happy and a little sad, because it was his last day with them, although that might be for the best: he had grown too fond of Anne during his convalescence. He would also miss Elizabeth’s teasing, so like her oldest brother’s, and the charming, learned conversation of Lord Beaumont.

Chipping Campden seemed to Ingram a world of its own. He was still surprised to wake up every morning in such a magnificent bed, his clothes freshly laid out for him, and to descend to a breakfast of gargantuan proportions, given the numbers at table. For excluding the legions of servants, butlers, maids, grooms, and so forth, the Beaumont household was curiously empty, and his lordship received few visitors. Apart from Tom’s wife, Mary, there were no other relatives living there, and no gentlewomen attending her ladyship, of whom everyone clearly stood in awe, including her husband. The two daughters led a remarkably untrammelled existence, reading whatever they wanted from their father’s library and discoursing with self-assertion on topics that Ingram considered more suitable for an Oxford scholar than a pair of young, nobly born females. They also spoiled him with an affection that he had never enjoyed at home. Towards Mary they were less affectionate and occasionally even mean, though Ingram understood their impatience with her: she lacked their wit and spontaneity, and her habit of weeping at the least excuse had become more pronounced of late, now that she was with child. Today
morning sickness had kept her in bed, and neither he nor the girls felt her absence.

“Laurence once said that there are thirty-six different throws possible with two dice,” Elizabeth observed, as she waited for her turn at the board. “If you know every combination, you can tell where to leave a blot with the least chance of being hit.”

“Good Lord,” Ingram exclaimed. “Who could remember them all?”

“
He
can, which is why we don’t like playing with him any more,” Anne said.

At this moment, there came the clink of spurs outside and Beaumont himself walked in. Both girls rose immediately to greet him.

“We were speaking of you – and here you are!” Elizabeth remarked delightedly.

“How’s the leg, Ingram?” he inquired, once they had all sat down again.

“The surgeon thinks it will heal a bit shorter than before,” Ingram said, “but that’s a small price to pay.” He smiled at his friend. “You look very well. I gather you survived the first campaign of the war unscathed?”

“Yes, by some miracle,” Beaumont replied, lounging back in his chair.

“Laurence, you must persuade Ingram to stay for my wedding,” begged Elizabeth. “He claims he has to leave for Newbury tomorrow, for Christmastide.”

Beaumont stole a sip from Elizabeth’s glass, earning a slap on his wrist. “You can’t go when I’ve only just arrived,” he said to Ingram. “I’ll take it as a personal affront.”

“I’m sorry, truly I am, but Richard is expecting me.” Beaumont rolled his eyes. “And Kate and Aunt Musgrave have come from Faringdon. Radcliff is joining us, too, once he’s paid off the troop.”

“You mean to say their company is more stimulating than ours?”

“You will miss a wonderful feast,” Elizabeth put in. “All the local gentry are to attend, including the Secretary of State!”