An Heir of Uncertainty (14 page)

Sam gazed down at Beauty and sighed. “Aye, she were a right one. I raised her from a pup, poor mite.”

“Have you seen anyone suspicious here in the last day or two?”

He shook his head. “Nay, sir, naught but familiar folk, saving thyself and thy brother here.”

“What familiar folk have you seen? Servants? Dr. Strickland?”

“Aye, them and the magistrate.”

“Mr. Channing was here, on the estate?” Win could understand the doctor’s presence—he’d set Win’s broken arm, after all, and was apparently in the habit of calling at the dower house—but why should the magistrate have been on the abbey grounds?

“Aye, sir. Mr. Channing. He were here last night, looking for Dr. Strickland.”

Ah. If the magistrate had needed a doctor, that would explain his appearance. Win hadn’t been informed of his arrival, but then, perhaps Channing had encountered Dr. Strickland as the doctor was riding away. Besides, Beauty had been poisoned this morning, not the night before.

Will glanced from the dog to its grieving owner, and then to Freddie’s distraught face. He would see what Mr. Channing had to say for himself, before matters grew still more deadly.

He hoped he hadn’t been too quick to dismiss his earlier notion that the abbey would make a fine setting for a gothic horror story.

Chapter Ten

Forever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to love;
And when we meet a mutual heart,
Come in between and bid us part?

—James Thompson

Freddie had calmed down considerably by the time dinner approached. Walking to the dower house with him, both of them dressed in their evening clothes, Win couldn’t resist giving his brother a few last-minute words of advice. “Whatever you do, for God’s sake don’t use the words
crop milk
or
cloaca.
”

“What words would you prefer I use instead? I suppose
vent
would do to describe a pigeon’s orifice for mating and elimination, but I’m not sure—”

“No, that’s not what I meant. No mention at all of mating, or of orifices either.”

Freddie shot him a bewildered look. “Is that just tonight, or in general?”

“Any time you’re in mixed company. In fact, it would be best to refrain completely from talking about your birds.”

“But what if one of the ladies wishes to discuss them?” Freddie asked on a hopeful note. “Wouldn’t it be rude to refuse?”

“If one of the ladies brings up the topic, then you have my blessing to share the benefit of your knowledge. But I doubt that’s going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Win said with a note of exasperation, “you’re the only person on earth who cares anywhere near that much about pigeons.”

Freddie lapsed into silence.

Win glanced sidelong at him. Ugh, that
look
—as if he’d kicked a puppy.

Win hunched his shoulders. What was wrong with him? He was being a petty despot with poor Freddie, who’d already suffered two disturbing disruptions to his routine in the past two days, and that was in addition to being uprooted from Hampshire.

Besides, why should he care what kind of impression they made tonight? Lina clearly didn’t see him in a romantic light—certainly not now that she knew about his first marriage—or she wouldn’t have objected when her sister invited them to dinner. And it was for the best, really. It wasn’t as if he had any plans to court her. He’d made a poor husband, and he had no intention of marrying above himself
twice.

“I’m sorry,” he told Freddie. “Talk about whatever you like. But the ladies don’t know you very well yet, and they’d likely be interested in learning more about you personally.” After a moment of reflection he added, “Do avoid mentioning mating, though.”

When they arrived at the dower house, it was almost as cold indoors as out. The damp smell gave the house the air of a dungeon. Win glanced about him, irked that the dower house should feel so uninviting when the estate was prospering. The paint in the front hall was chipped and peeling, and there was a large yellowing patch to one side of the front door where water must have seeped into the plaster. Damn Sir John Blessingame and his vindictive penny-pinching.

The servant—he was one of the two strapping footmen Win had sent over from the abbey—led them to the drawing room, where the two ladies were waiting. Miss Douglass looked fresh and pretty in a lavender lutestring gown, even if Win’s eyes did insist on straying to the regal little figure in black beside her.

“Dinner should be served soon,” Miss Douglass said, stepping forward with a gracious smile to greet them. “We’re so pleased you could come.”

Lina didn’t look especially pleased. Instead she squared her shoulders. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I’m afraid we won’t be eating in the dining room. We can’t use the fireplace there because the chimney doesn’t draw, and it’s too cold this time of year to dine without a fire. We’ll be using the sitting room.”

She spoke quickly, evidently embarrassed by the irregularity of the arrangement, but Win focused on the one part of her speech that most concerned him. “The chimney doesn’t draw?”

“Not in the dining room,” Miss Douglass said. “In fact, we have the same problem with the fireplace in the study. We can’t even have fires in the bedrooms above those two rooms.”

Despite the proud angle of Lina’s chin, she looked acutely discomfited. “I suspect there may be birds’ nests in the chimneys, from the time when the house was sitting empty.”

She was probably right, given that even the bedroom fireplaces didn’t draw. Win gave her a puzzled look. “Then why not call in a sweep?”

“Because I—” Her gaze slid to the floor. “Because I can’t, that’s all.”

She looked so uncomfortable, for a fleeting moment he imagined she had some furtive reason for allowing the chimneys to remain unswept—clandestine meetings with Dr. Strickland, possibly, or some other rendezvous she wouldn’t want an outsider to witness. But the jealous impulse quickly faded as something in her reply struck a chord with Win. He’d used that half apologetic, half combative tone himself, talking to Harriet during his marriage. Of course—Lina didn’t have the money.

Win’s voice went from chiding to sympathetic. “Why didn’t you apply to the abbey, and have the estate send over a sweep?”

Her prickliness eased at his change in tone. “I would have, only—well, in the first days after Edward died, it was all I could do to make the move here. By the time I felt equal to addressing the problems with the house, I’d already realized I was in an interesting condition, and Mr. Niven seemed so disobliging when I told him the news...”

“So disobliging you preferred to stay in a freezing house rather than ask for help?” When she merely stared back at him without answering, Win said, “Never mind. I’ll see to having the chimneys cleared.”

“Would you really?” Miss Douglass said.

“Thank you, Colonel. I’d be most grateful.” Lina sighed. “Now you must think me a goose. Who takes up residence in a house without working fireplaces? Normally I’m much better at keeping my wits about me, and much better at dealing with men like Mr. Niven too.”

“She is,” Miss Douglass confirmed. “Ordinarily, Lina handles everything most capably.”

Win noticed that Miss Douglass hadn’t stepped in to fill the void when her sister’s grief had been at its most acute, but he refrained from saying as much. “The blocked chimneys likely explain the damp in the house. When the fires aren’t lit, the air doesn’t circulate, and nothing dries out as it should.”

Lina winced slightly. “You noticed the damp, did you?”

“It’s rather hard to miss.” He looked about him, mentally assessing his surroundings. If there was one skill he’d had years to master, it was keeping a house running on very little money. “Setting the chimneys to rights and getting the fires going should help, and the servants can air out the draperies and rugs with the next spell of fine weather. A little sunshine works wonders. And while we’re at it, the front hall needs replastering, if you wouldn’t mind my sending over a workman or two.”

“Mind? You’d be my knight in shining armor.”

It astonished Win how quickly the countess’s green eyes could change, and the defensive pride give way to a becoming sparkle. Miss Douglass had a pleasant smile, to be sure, but Lina’s seemed to warm the otherwise chilly room. And all because he’d offered to have the birds’ nests cleared from her chimneys. He found himself standing a little taller.

After a few minutes of polite small talk—Win assured the ladies his broken arm was more nuisance than affliction, and Lina divulged in a roundabout way that her morning sickness was much improved since she’d begun eating more frequently—they went in to dinner. Because the sitting room was too small to accommodate the dining room furnishings, the ladies had drawn chairs up to an old stretcher table. Win didn’t mind, and he was certain Freddie couldn’t have cared less. In fact, it made for a pleasantly intimate atmosphere. He was pleased, too, that the ladies appeared to have taken his broken arm into consideration when planning the menu, and he could manage most of the dinner fare one-handed.

As for Freddie, before tonight Win had all but given up on Miss Douglass and his brother taking an interest in each other. Freddie seemed oblivious to most young ladies, and if Cassandra Douglass had dismissed Dr. Strickland out of hand, how likely was she to welcome the attentions of an eccentric, absent-minded pigeon fancier? But to his surprise, she appeared quite taken with Freddie.

At first, Win assumed she was merely being polite. After all, Lina had described her sister as uniformly friendly to everyone. He began to wonder if there was more than mere friendliness at work, however, when Miss Douglass smiled winningly and asked, “Do tell me, Mr. Vaughan, why is that I often see adult pigeons, but never baby ones?”

Freddie’s eyes lit up. “An excellent question. It’s because pigeons are such exemplary parents. Most birds turn their fledglings out no more than two or three weeks after the eggs hatch, but pigeons allow a squab to remain in the nest for up to two months.” In his enthusiasm, Freddie leaned forward, elbows on the table. “By the time a young pigeon emerges, it looks almost indistinguishable from an adult—I say ‘almost’ because, of course, the young pigeon’s beak is longer in relation to its body size, and the flesh above it is pinker in juveniles than in adults.”

Miss Douglass smiled. “How fascinating.”

“Well-fed pigeons breed year round, and typically won’t drive a fledged squeaker out of the nest until the new clutch is ready to hatch...”

As the two younger people talked, Win turned his attention to Lina. “Your sister is most obliging.”

Lina smiled. “Yes. Of the five of us, she was always the most personable.”

The most personable, perhaps, but far from the most captivating. Looking from Miss Douglass to Lina was like turning from a breezy spring day to the ripe brilliance of summer—they were both lovely, but he much preferred Lina’s more vivid beauty. The stirring memory of her warm curves pressed against him in bed made Win’s blood warm.

“Cassie is my closest friend in the world,” Lina said. “I sometimes think my mother’s life would have been very different if she’d had a brother or sister to turn to, but she was an only child.” She sighed. “
Our
lives would’ve been very different. My grandfather owned property on the other side of Malton that might have come to my mother, but after she was ruined, relations between them became so irretrievably fractured, he cut her out of his will. He left my grandmother a life interest in the property, but when she died it was sold, with every penny going to found The Dalchester Asylum for Fallen Women.”

“‘For Fallen Women’?”

She laughed humorlessly. “Oh, yes. It was quite a slap in the face to my mother, as he clearly intended—leaving everything he had to all the weak, credulous females of the world, with the pointed exception of his own daughter.”

Win had never heard of anything so spiteful. That it should have occurred in a clergyman’s family left him doubly shocked. “How did you lose your brothers and sisters, if the question isn’t too painful?”

“Malcolm died after a fall from a tree when he was only twelve,” Lina said with a wistful expression, “and Colin and Fiona died some three years ago, both from fever and within a week of each other.”

“Three years ago? So you were already engaged to marry Lord Radbourne?”

“No, but we’d met not long before and I was...” She seemed at a loss for words to finish the story. “We decided to marry not long after.”

“That must have been especially hard, losing your brother and sister so close together.”

“Yes, and not just for us. At the time, poor Dr. Strickland was new here. He did everything he could to save them, but to no avail, and losing two young and otherwise healthy patients did little to recommend him to the neighborhood.” She summoned a philosophical smile. “Fortunately he’s an excellent doctor, and with time his practice recovered.”

Dr. Strickland again. Was it mere coincidence that his name seemed to crop up with such frequency, particularly in the wake of tragedy? Strickland
had
seemed an excellent doctor, but just because he could set a bone with skill didn’t put him above suspicion when it came to harming Lina and those around her.

Then again, was it really so surprising that the doctor’s name should be associated with tragedy when it was his job to attend the sick and injured? Strickland hadn’t been present when Lina was pushed into the street in Malton, at least not as far as Win was aware. Besides, what possible motive could he have to hurt her? Though Win had all but discounted the insinuations Mr. Channing had made about the two of them, if there was even a possibility of truth to the rumor, it made no sense for Strickland to harm his own unborn child.

Which brought up another, more humbling possibility. What if his creeping suspicions about Strickland were simple jealousy? What if he was quick to raise his hackles whenever Lina mentioned the doctor only because he didn’t like the thought of her being linked to another man?

Annoyed with himself, he set the conversation back on its original course. “I’ve been fortunate in that my branch of the Vaughan family tree is a hardy lot. I’m the eldest and Freddie is the youngest, but we have two sisters in between, Ellie and Anne. They’re both married now.”

“You said that with such pride, I rather envy your sisters.”

“I am proud of them. They both offered to take in Julia after my wife died, actually, but Ellie lives in Cornwall and Anne was only a newlywed at the time, and I couldn’t bear the thought of letting Julia go. She was already walking and talking and had a nurse who doted on her, and I believed I could manage.” He picked up his wineglass, wearing a faint frown. “Unfortunately, we were forced to leave her nurse behind in Hampshire, and Julia is growing old enough now to need more than just a father’s care.”

“Hence the search for a governess.”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t forgotten. I’ll think of a likely candidate or two and give you their names before the week is out.”

Win nodded his thanks, trying not to be obvious about admiring Lina’s looks. The candlelight threw her beauty into sharp relief, yet there was nothing cold or unapproachable about her. Her front teeth were just the tiniest bit crooked, something he hadn’t noticed at first but which he now found utterly beguiling—though perhaps he might have noticed the trait sooner if her evening gown weren’t cut low enough to reveal the high, firm curves of her breasts. “It’s fortunate you’re so familiar with the neighborhood. I take it you’ve lived in Yorkshire all your life?”