Amy Lake (19 page)

Now that the cottage was empty of guests Fiona could no longer avoid the problem of Cousin Wilfred. Thaxton would arrive within days, according to the second letter, and after that she and Madelaine—and Hobbes, for that matter, although perhaps her cousin would keep him on—would need lodging elsewhere.

Dee, efficient as ever, had already found a likely home for them in Barley Mow. Mrs. Perryhill, who was seventy if she was a day, had gone to live with her daughter in Middlesbrough, and her house was presently standing empty. The situation was considerably more appealing than taking rooms from Mrs. Cadogan, much as Mrs. Marwick was fond of the old herb woman.

“Just in case,” he said to Fiona, of the Perryhill home, which was in the center of the village, two doors from the pub.

She nodded, grateful that the doctor had taken matters in hand. Fiona’s one achievement, after procrastinating for weeks, was to tell Madelaine of their upcoming move. The girl’s reaction was much as expected; Maddie was outraged.

“I don’t want to live in Mrs. Perryhill’s old house! It’s
dirty
!”

Which was true. Alice Perryhill’s eyesight had worsened gradually, and her housekeeping had suffered as a result. Fiona had visited her regularly over the past year or two, bringing a pot of soup or a loaf of oat bread, and Maddie had gone along often enough to have a good idea of the state of the house.

“I’ll clean it up,” said Fiona, who was actually looking forward to the challenge. ’Twould be something to occupy her days.

“I don’t care! I don’t want to live there!”

“Maddie, I’ve explained the situation. It isn’t my choice.”

“If Colin was here he’d take care of it!”

“Perhaps so. But he is not here.”

Her mother’s expression at this point was such that Madelaine did not carry her complaints further.

  * * * *

Mrs. Marwick spent the next few days cleaning her own cottage to within an inch of its life. She had tidied the guestrooms regularly, of course, during the Ashdowns’ stay, but ’twas time for a thorough wash of floor and walls. The bedding was aired, odd corners dusted, and the sweet smell of lemon oil permeated the house as Fiona polished every inch of woodwork.

The kitchen fireplace needed to be scrubbed out, and the firebrick re-laid before winter, as it was Mrs. Marwick’s habit to keep a merry blaze going constantly during the coldest months of the year. Christmas would be there before they knew it.

Perhaps, a little voice reminded her, you will no longer be living at Tern’s Rest by Christmas.

But the thought was unbearable, and so she did not think it. In the meantime, Fiona found the remnants from a bolt of cheery blue cotton and began sewing a new set of curtains.

“New curtains?” asked Dee. “What was wrong with the old?”

Fiona did not tell him the truth, which was that she could not bear to see the old ones because they reminded her of the marquess. The fabric was falling to pieces, she claimed, and although she did not think the doctor believed her, he said nothing more.

Yes, it was a relief that Lord Ashdown and his sisters were finally gone and these chores could be completed.

  * * * *

The next week passed with no hint of any long-lost cousin. Dee frequented the cottage as much as he could, hoping to be there to support Fiona when Thaxton chanced to arrive. But the road to Tern’s Rest remained empty of any carriage, or even a horse and rider, and the doctor began to feel that his suspicions—and those of Lady Edwina—were correct.

Cousin Wilfred did not exist.

Richard Ford, his Runner, had given Dr. Fischer a first inkling of this in a recent report, which concerned the baronet rather than Thaxton himself. It had arrived at Dee’s home on the same day as the Ashdowns’ departure and read, in part—

Sir Irwin Ampthill is known as a Captain Sharp, and has been bodily removed from nearly every gaming hell on Jermyn Street and the Pall Mall. He and a close acquaintance, one Billy Thaxton, are reputed to have used a false disguise in their latest attempt to enter Boodle’s. He disappears periodically—

—to the unsuspecting village of Barley Mow, thought Dee—

—but has been observed recently in London, and to be behaving in an unusually forward and aggressive manner.

The name was too much of a coincidence, thought Dee; ‘Billy’ Thaxton was one and the same with Wilfred Thaxton, and neither one was any cousin of Fiona’s. Perhaps. Or had Sir Irwin chanced upon an actual Marwick relative in London? Someone who, in the usual course of events, would have expected Joseph Marwick live much longer, and to sire a son, and thus paid little attention to the land at Tern’s Rest? He thought back to Edwina’s comment about the handwriting on Thaxton’s two letters, and wondered if Ampthill had written one or the other of them himself.

“That appalling little man knew about the letter,” Lady Edwina had reminded him. “At least, the first one.”

And how could Sir Irwin have known, otherwise? Perhaps he needed to push Fiona along, and ran out of time to have someone else write the thing. It was quite clear, no matter what else, that the baronet was not fond of Mrs. Marwick.

If a cousin did not exist, what did Sir Irwin really want?

The doctor did not know, but the true reason for Ampthill’s interest must be the key to the problem. A second letter had arrived just that morning from Ford, and in it the Runner detailed the baronet’s current activities, which Dee found curious.

Sir Irwin has been observed entering the offices of John and William Brandling,

Henderson and Grace, on Shoreditch Street in northeast London.

These individuals are the owners of a company involved in the mining of

coal in the Newcastle region—

Coal? thought Dr. Fischer. Mining had become a bigger part of the area’s economy; even Barley Mow had benefited from the employment in the mines, although Dee had seen enough of the resulting injuries that he couldn’t be entirely happy with that fact.

Only last year there had been a tremendous explosion at the Felling colliery, and over ninety men and children had died, with many others horribly wounded from the blast. The youngest had been eight, little Tom Gorden from Heworth, who had perished along with his father and ten year-old brother, Joe. Dee had tended Mrs. Gordon, afterwards. He still got angry thinking about the greed that led the mine owners to employ children, and the desperate circumstances that drove families to accept those jobs.

The doctor could not imagine what business the baronet would have with the owners of a colliery. The land belonging to Marsden Hall was too small to allow for a mine, and adding Tern’s Rest would do nothing to change that.

Was it time to tell Mrs. Marwick? He had put off any mention of his suspicions about Wilfred Thaxton, not wanting to raise her hopes if he and Edwina were wrong. Dr. Fischer knew Fiona. One word from him and she would be so relieved that she would immediately put all thought of entails and cousins from her mind, which would be fine if Thaxton did not exist, and devastating if, in the end, he did.

At that moment the doctor missed Lady Edwina more than he like to admit. If only he was able to mull over this latest piece of information with her, to get her perspective, to see the intelligent expression in her lovely eyes.

 Coal.

Chapter 33: Closer to the Truth

Sir Irwin’s horses had been whipped into a lather by the time his coach made the final turn onto the lane leading to Marsden Hall. The baronet hardly spared a glance for his animals. In London he might have paid better attention to the team, as ’twas considered poor form for a gentleman to mistreat his cattle; here in the environs of Barley Mow—Sir Irwin made a face at the thought of the village—there was no-one he cared to impress.

Gods. Barley Mow, in County Durham. A backwater of the most detestable sort, all of it green fields and fresh-faced children, with no club or gaming house in sight. And yet he was obliged to remain here for the duration, and visit London for only as long as necessary to make his dealings. ’Twould never do to have a permanent address in Town. A permanent address might be discovered.

And that bothersome Mrs. Marwick. Ampthill recognized well enough that Fiona was considered beautiful, and he might even have been attracted to her under other circumstances. But he
needed
her, or rather he needed Tern’s Rest; that, combined with the woman’s undoubted antipathy towards him, which she’d made no secret of from the beginning, had erased any chance of his avowed fondness being the truth.

Sir Irwin remembered very well the first time he’d set eyes on the woman. She’d been in the company of her brat and that doctor, bringing a pot of soup—soup!—to one or another of the old biddies in the village. He’d condescended to introduce himself, as the two adults looked the closest thing to quality he’d chanced upon yet within a ten-mile of his new home.

He learned that she was a widow, and the man was a doctor; the two of them were nobodies, in other words, but he could tell immediately that neither one was impressed with Sir Irwin Ampthill, Baronet of Ferndale and new owner of Marsden Hall.
Damn their eyes.

Sir Irwin knew, in hindsight, that he’d made a mistake in trying to pressure Mrs. Marwick with threats. But how could he have known that a little village widow would prove impervious to his suit? And now he was desperate, and reduced to other measures.

As Dee and Edwina had conjectured, Fiona’s supposed cousin Wilfred did not exist. A
William
Thaxton did exist, but this individual had no relationship to the Marwick family and was currently, as it happened, spending an indeterminate amount of time in Marshalsea prison, for a debt which he had little chance of paying.

The blithering fool. Sir Irwin had gone to a great deal of trouble and expense having the proper papers forged, but by the time Billy got out of Marshalsea—if he ever did—’twould be entirely too late. The fine gentlemen on Shoreditch Street had made that abundantly clear.

“This offer will not be extended further,” Brandling had said. “We have numerous opportunities elsewhere.”

And although Sir Irwin guessed that the ‘numerous opportunities’ were a bluff, he also knew that Messrs. Brandling, Henderson and Grace would run out of patience eventually, and that if Fiona Marwick did not give him what he needed there would be no other place to get it. The land attached to Marsden Hall did not run all the way to the sea. His property was interrupted by Tern’s Rest, and those few acres—no more than twenty—made all the difference.

So. ’Twas time for a different approach, and on this occasion, Ampthill decided, he might be forced to edge a bit closer to the truth.

Chapter 34: Madelaine

Madelaine was quite cross with the entire situation. The Ashdowns had left Tern’s Rest
days
ago and she’d heard
nothing
from Colin since. She was sure he would write, but the girl did not think she could survive until a letter arrived; her mother was so gentle and soft-spoken these days it made Maddie want to scream. Or at least to do something very wrong and provoking, just to see if Fiona would look up from scrubbing the floors.

The cottage had always been spotlessly kept, but
this
, thought Maddie, was beyond enough.

And now her mum said that they were moving to Mrs. Perryhill’s house! Mrs. Perryhill was a nice lady, and Maddie knew she shouldn’t say anything bad about her, but she was
old
, and her house wasn’t at all like their house, and she didn’t want to live there.

She didn’t think Fiona did either.

Madelaine didn’t understand why the marquess had gone away in the first place. She had expected her mum to return from the stables on Lord Ashdown’s arm that night, and for Colin to announce that they would be married; instead all the adults had exchanged funny looks, not a word had been said about an engagement, and she’d been sent to bed.

’Twas unfair.

 Even the doctor, normally a reliable confidant, told her nothing more than ‘be patient’.

Ha. She’d been patient for weeks. Why did everyone seem to think that children had no sense of time?

She missed Bunny.

Chapter 35: Another proposal

Fiona woke up every morning feeling like it would be her last.

The house and land were entailed, of course—

Oh, Joseph
, thought Fiona,
is it really true?
She could hardly believe that her husband had not known about the entail, and yet ’twas entirely unlike him to have hidden it from her. Perhaps he had thought that there was no need to worry, as they would have had more children, and surely a boy. Joseph always had plans for the future.

He said he wanted to marry you.

Fiona began to regret that she had refused to speak further with Lord Ashdown. When she thought of how empty the cottage seemed without him, and how much she missed their conversations, missed his voice and his warm, beautiful eyes, to say nothing of the advantages to Madelaine of the connection—

She should have begged him to stay. She should have
thrown
herself into his arms.

Just like Lady Susan.

Oh, a pox on Lady Susan, thought Fiona. They were not even really engaged.

And yet. She wondered what it said about Lord Ashborn, that he cared so little about the poor girl’s feelings. She imagined the beautiful Lady Susan prostrate on her bed, weeping into her pillow, the marquess’s sister Evelyn bending over her, making assurances that his lordship would be arriving any day—

He said he wanted to marry you.
But perhaps it was nothing he had the right to say.

  * * * *

Late on one cold afternoon, about a week after Colin and his sisters had left Tern’s Rest, Fiona was finishing preparations for dinner when the sound of a carriage on the gravel outside made her heart leap into her throat. Knowing the case was hopeless, she tried to will the carriage away, or to convince herself, even for a moment, that Lord Ashdown and his sisters had returned. Anyone besides Wilfred Thaxton—only it was not Thaxton, as it happened, but nearly worse, as she discovered when Madelaine ran in the kitchen door, slamming the door behind her. The girl headed straight to her bedroom.