Beatrice (5 page)

“I take
it that you weren’t expecting it then?” Ben murmured as he took a
seat beside her. “I hate to say it but, although it is rather
beautiful, that odour is a little pungent.”

“Pungent?” Beatrice replied aghast. “It stinks to high
heaven.”

The
blatant honesty in her declaration made him smile and he opened his
mouth to answer, only for the whistle of the kettle to summon him
back to the kitchen. While he clattered around looking for the
things he needed to make tea, Beatrice studied the box, and then
turned her attention to the wrapping paper it came in.

The
label was badly smudged from rainwater, but the ‘B’ of her first
name was still legible, as was the ‘N’ of her surname. Apart from
that, there was nothing to say that the person who had delivered it
even had the right address. Still, it seemed odd that something
like this would be delivered here; to a botanist’s house, if it
wasn’t meant for a botanist. It pointed to the fact that the plant
had been left for her or her uncle for some reason, but why? Why
hadn’t the person who had delivered it spoken to her to tell her
they were leaving it?

She
turned to look at Ben when he reappeared with a heavily laden tray
of tea things, and lifted the paper so he could see it.

“It is
definitely for me – look,” she pointed to the smudged writing and
watched him nod.

“I take
it that you know what to do with it?” He nodded to the
plant.

Beatrice
shook her head as she studied it. “I have never seen anything like
this before.”

She
trailed one finger along one of the waxy-looking flowers, and
watched it quiver alarmingly. It was a miracle the plant had
reached her safely, because it didn’t look strong enough to endure
a good gust of wind, let alone confinement in a box. “Uncle Matthew
would have known what to do with it,” she whispered sadly. “I just
don’t have a clue, I am afraid.”

Ben
looked at her with a frown. “I thought the beautiful garden here
was down to you?”

The
beautiful, well-tended gardens at Brantley Manor were renowned
throughout the area for being the most stunning for miles around.
Many of the plants visible from the road were varieties that were
not popular in the area, but added to the wonderfully vibrant
display that often made people travel for miles just to be able to
witness the spectacle.

“It is,
but this plant variety isn’t anything likely to be found in our
gardens,” she sighed. “My garden,” she corrected. “It is just too
delicate.”

Ben had
to agree, he couldn’t see something as fragile lasting for more
than five minutes in any English country garden.

“What is
it?”

Beatrice
studied it closely. “I have no idea. I haven’t seen anything like
it before.”

Ben
sighed and watched Beatrice pour the tea. “Maybe it was something
he was working on. Maybe one of his associates, or friends, left it
for him not knowing that he is no longer with us.”

“Maybe,”
she nodded. “I really have no idea.”

“Is he
likely to have notes about it in his study?”

Beatrice
looked at him frankly. “I really cannot say. Uncle Matthew was
eccentric and really kept himself to himself. He came out for
meals, and to go to church on Sunday but, other than that, he was
always in his study. I never really got involved with his botany
work. Whenever I ventured in there I always got shouted at because
I inadvertently disturbed something Uncle Matthew deemed precious.
Maud always left his tea trays on the floor outside his door. More
often than not, it went cold and remained untouched, but she left
it there anyway, just in case he remembered that he wanted a
drink.”

To Ben,
Matthew Northolt sounded like an incredibly selfish man; or a mad
genius. He couldn’t understand anyone wanting to ignore Beatrice at
all, especially when she was living in their house. If he ever got
to a point in his life when he had such a wonderful woman like
Beatrice in his home, the last thing he would do was practically
ignore her.

He took
the opportunity to study her while they drank their tea. She had
started to dry out a little now that the room had started to warm
up. Her damp hair had started to curl into ringlets which bounced
against her face whenever she talked, or moved her head, and it
merely added to the fine, porcelain beauty of her face. His fingers
itched to stroke that velvet cheek to see if it really was as soft
as it looked, but he kept them wrapped tightly around his tea cup
instead. To sit beside her now was a stroke of good fortune. The
last thing he wanted to do was push his luck, and frighten her by
trying to touch her.

He tried
to remind himself that he was a gentleman, and so should behave
like a gentleman. It would be foolish to attempt to seduce someone
who was injured and needed his help in her hour of need, not his
lechery, but it was damned difficult given that the memory of her
lush curves pressed tightly against him hovered in the recesses of
his mind and refused to be ignored.

“I
cannot remember seeing anything like this before either outside or
in the conservatory. I am sure that I would have remembered,” she
murmured.

She
studied the single slender stalk that barely held on to several
heavy flowers, all of which were the same cream colour, which
darkened to a golden yellow the closer it got to the stalk. Its
heady scent reminded her of honeysuckle mixed with chocolate,
tainted by the cloying odour of Mr Tinder’s sweet shop.
Individually, they were wonderful scents she usually enjoyed.
Combined, they were sickening enough to make her stomach churn
alarmingly.

When he
placed his cup back into its saucer, and it rattled alarmingly, she
studied the fine trembling in his hand. Immediately, a wave of
guilt swept through her at her lack of manners.

“You
must be frozen. You have been outside in the pouring rain and are
soaked through.” She assessed his height. “Would you like to change
into something dry so you can get warm? You are about my uncle’s
build, I am sure that there is something in his wardrobe that will
fit.”

Ben
contemplated the wisdom of that for a moment. His first instinct
was to say no, but then really wanted to know a bit more about the
plant; and her. Now that he was in her house, he found that he
wanted to stay with her for as long as possible.

“I think
that would be a wise idea, if you don’t mind,” he replied ruefully.
“Before I get your floor too wet.” He studied the water that
dripped steadily from the hem of his trousers and threw her an
apologetic smile.

She
smiled at him, relieved that he was going to allow her to at least
try to make amends for her lapse of manners. “If you go to the top
of the stairs, the bedroom immediately to the left was my uncle’s.
I haven’t touched any of his belongings yet, so you should find
plenty there that should fit you.”

“Thank
you,” he murmured gently and nodded to the tea tray. “Will you be
alright to pour another cup while I go and change?”

Beatrice
nodded and watched him go. With nobody to talk to, and nothing else
to do, Beatrice placed her saucer onto the table beside her and
picked up the packaging paper again. She studied the label but it
really was completely illegible, and there was no sender address.
Curiously, there were no stamps either, which pointed to the fact
that it had been hand delivered and not posted. Once again, she
thought of the strange thud she had heard in the hallway and
wondered if someone had attempted to knock on the door. If so, why
hadn’t they knocked again when there was no answer?

“What is
it?”

Beatrice
jumped and turned to study him, and felt a surge of awareness at
the sight of him in the doorway. He had borrowed one of her uncle’s
white shirts and had folded the sleeves back to reveal the corded
muscles of his forearms. Her stomach fluttered and she studied the
thick patch of chest hair hidden beneath the pristine cotton which
lay open at the neck. The rather casual look was emphasised by dark
brown trousers, which made him look more like a workman than an
urbane gentleman, but even that seemed to emphasise his rugged
handsomeness.

She
watched him walk toward her but it was only when he took a seat
beside her that she realised he still waited for her to
reply.

“I was
just thinking that it is rather curious that someone would travel
all the way out here to deliver something like this and not even
leave a note.” She looked at him. “I don’t know how to look after
it,” she declared and wafted her arms around the room for emphasis.
“I mean, does it like sunlight, or does it prefer to be somewhere
cold? Is it a tropical plant, do you think?”

“Did
your uncle work on his botany projects here?”

“Well,
yes. The conservatory is stuffed full of things he worked on. Why?”
Beatrice frowned at him.

“Did he
work on his plants in the study?”

She
shook her head. “No, he only did his paperwork in there. He had a
conservatory out the back where he spent time with his plants when
he wasn’t in his study.”

Ben
drank his tea for a moment. He wanted to kiss her and see if her
lips really were as soft as they looked, and knew that if he
remained on the sofa with her much longer, that was exactly what he
was going to do. He sighed and forced his attention back to the
plant.

“Let me
go out to the conservatory and see if there is anything like that
plant in there. If there is, we know that this one you have is
something that your uncle may have been working on. It may have
been returned to him by someone who doesn’t realise he is
dead.”

Beatrice
nodded and mentally kicked herself for not having thought about
that herself. She opened her mouth to speak but, to her
consternation, he was already on his way to the door.

“Ben?”
It felt terribly familiar to use his first name, especially given
their relatively new acquaintance, but he didn’t appear to have any
objection to her familiarity. “Would you mind putting this into
uncle’s study, please? It is the room next door.” She put a
delicate hand to her nose and tried hard not to sniff. “I can’t
take any more of that odour.”

Ben
nodded and happily complied. If he was honest, the stench had
started to grate on his senses too. He just wished that there was
something else he could waft around to smother the
smell.

Holding
the plant carefully away from him, he walked casually into the
study and stared in horror at the sight that greeted him. He
quickly put the plant onto the floor by his feet and hurried back
to the sitting room.

“Beatrice?”

She eyed
the cold fury on his face and felt her stomach drop to her toes.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”

Once
again, her thoughts turned toward the strange noise she had heard
earlier, and knew deep inside, that she wasn’t going to like what
he was about to tell her.

“I am
afraid that there appears to have been a break in.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Beatrice
stared at him in horror and started to struggle to her feet. “What?
Is it the study?”

“Come
on,” Ben murmured gently as he swept her off her feet.

“All you
seem to have done this afternoon is carry me,” she grumbled quietly
but didn’t ask him to put her down. She rather enjoyed the way he
seemed inclined to want to carry her everywhere.

Ben
merely threw her a regretful look. Seconds later he placed her on
her feet just inside the doorway of the study and stood back to
allow her to see the chaos. A part of him didn’t want her to look
at the mess that had been made of the room, but she needed to
witness the destruction for herself before he went to fetch the
constable.

“If you
want to take a look around and try to identify if anything might be
missing, I will take a look at this window. I cannot remember
seeing any sign of damage on the back door, but whoever did this
may have gotten in through one of the other downstairs windows,”
Ben muttered as he carefully picked his way across the room to
study the window frame.

Beatrice
glanced around the room in confusion. “Ben, what makes you think
this place has been broken into?”

Ben
turned to stare at her in consternation and waved toward the papers
and books strewn practically everywhere.

“I am
afraid that it usually looks like this,” she murmured ruefully when
she realised the misunderstanding. “To the untrained eye, this is
nothing more than a wild mass of confusion that should be swept up
and thrown away.” She studied the things her uncle had spent a
lifetime collecting and sighed. “To my uncle, everything had a
place and he knew exactly where that place was. Everything here
meant something to him.”

It just doesn’t mean anything to me,
she thought regretfully, although didn’t say as much to
Ben.

When a
bolt of lightning lit the sky, she looked out of the window and
shivered at the sight of the darkness of the sky. The storm seemed
to be an omen for troubled times ahead, and she couldn’t shake the
feeling that the near-miss with the carriage was just the start of
a whole host of troubles that were only just beginning. She quickly
turned her thoughts away from her incident in the lane and looked
back at Ben. For some reason, just looking at him seemed to
reassure her that everything would be alright. She was so very glad
he was there.