Carla Kelly (10 page)

I suppose that is
the residence of the Viscount Byford, she said to herself. Jamie
should have a nice home there.

She hoped again
that the viscount was a good man, and that his wife would not
object to a rather quiet, solemn boy who, every now and then,
showed flashes of huge enthusiasm.
All he needs is a chance,
please
, she thought.

“
Yes?”

She must have
spoken out loud. Omega shook her head and touched Angela’s
shoulder.
And you
,
too, my dear
, she thought.

“
Let’s
go, Angela.”

They strolled
into Byford, crossing the bridge over the River By that looked as
old as the church, walking past trim houses close together, and
into the town itself. It was not hard to blend with the crowds; an
agricultural fair was in progress. Omega walked slowly, keeping
Hugh and Jamie in her sight.

Hugh paused to
talk to one of the shepherds standing, as well-groomed as his
long-nosed sheep, close by the horses. The shepherd leaned on his
crook and listened to Hugh, and then pointed in the general
direction of the large house Omega had noticed earlier. Hugh nodded
to the man and looked behind him. He motioned with his head, and
Omega and Angela followed.

A walk of some
ten minutes took them across a stream and then beyond the broken
wall that had once protected Byford. The way was easy. The
cobblestones were as evenly spaced and tidy as the houses, with no
weeds sneaking up between the paving.

“
I’ve
never seen a better-regulated town,” said Omega as they walked
along. “It speaks well for the viscount.”

Hugh and Jamie
were waiting for them at the gates to the viscount’s manor. The
gates were open, as if someone was preparing to ride through. The
gatekeeper was nowhere in sight, so the four of them walked up the
curving lane with beeches on either side to the front
entrance.

There was nothing
pretentious about the house; in point of fact, it was smaller than
the former Chartley country house in Lincolnshire. But it was
splendid in a kind of magnificence unequaled before in Omega’s
admiring eyes. It was tidy, with no hint of crumbling mortar
between the stones, no buckling of paint on the windowsills, no
thin patches in the gravel of the front carriage drive where the
ground showed through. The windows were so clean she had to look
twice to make sure there was glass in the frames. Each bit of ivy
scaling the walls appeared to have been dusted and arranged by
hand. It was too clean.

The splendor had
affected Angela
,
too.
She leaned against Omega. “Do you think people really live here?”
she whispered.

Hugh shrugged his
shoulders. “I almost hate to touch that knocker,” he confessed to
Omega as he rapped twice.

Immediately the
door swung open on perfectly noiseless hinges. The man who stood
before them was as precise as the house, ineffable in his splendor.
Angela sucked in her breath but said nothing. Jamie stared in
wide-eyed amazement, but he found his voice before the
others.

“
Are
you
the viscount?” he asked.

The man at the
door did not bother to reply. Jamie stepped back and hung his head.
Omega squared her shoulders.
How dare that man be so
insulting
, she thought as she looked at the resplendent figure
before her. She cleared her throat and pretended that he was one of
her pupils, and a particularly ill-favored one, at that.

“
Sir,
we are looking for the Viscount Byford.”

She thought for a
moment that he would not speak to her
,
either. She tried to stand a little taller and
stare him down. “Are you the butler?” she asked at last.

“
Dios mío
,” whispered Angela behind her back. “He looks
like the Duke of Wellington! And you call him a butler?”

“
Please tell the viscount that James Clevenden is here to see
him,” she persisted, placing her hands on Jamie’s shoulders and
keeping him in front of her.

“
I
cannot fathom what interest my employer would have in seeing this
young person,” said the butler, and stepped back to shut the
door.

Before he could
close the door, Hugh Owen bounded up the steps and stuck his maimed
arm in the way. The butler showed surprise for the first time,
gasping and stepping back. Hugh spoke over his shoulder to Omega.
“I knew that would stop him.”

The butler stayed
on his side of the door, eyeing warily the place where Hugh’s hand
used to be. His coloring had gone from sanguine to pasty in a
remarkably short time.

“
See
here, sir,” said Hugh as he took another step into the hall. “Is
your employer a justice of the peace?”

With a visible
effort the butler regained his composure and pulled it about his
shoulders like a tattered cloak. “Indeed he is, but he is otherwise
engaged this afternoon.”

“
Is he
in residence?” asked Hugh point-blank.

“
That,
I am
relieved
to say, is none of your concern,” said the
butler.

Hugh went farther
into the hall, and motioned Jamie in after him. “We have a serious
matter to discuss with the justice of the peace.” He raised his
voice, his fine Welsh voice. “And is it not the right of all
Englishmen to demand the presence of the justice?” He thumped the
door frame with his good hand. “Didn’t men and women die at
Runnymede for this privilege?”

“
Follow me,” said the butler, and turned on his heel. Omega
ushered Angela in front of her and caught up with Hugh. “That’s the
biggest particle of nonsense I’ve ever heard,” she whispered. “Who
taught you history?”

“
Yes,
it was a real hum, wasn’t it?” Hugh agreed. “I, my dear, am
entirely self-taught.”

Omega smothered a
laugh as she hurried to keep up with the butler. She looked about
her with real delight. The house was magnificent, all warm woods
and gently blowing white curtains. An elegant Persian rug traveled
the length of the hall, and felt so soft under her
shoes.

Adding to the
total picture of understated elegance was a pleasant fragrance, one
she could not identify immediately, but which nagged at her. The
scent, quietly insistent, competed with the smell of furniture
polish and fresh-scrubbed carpets. She frowned as she hurried
along. The fragrance was sharp and faint at the same time, and the
memory of it clanged somewhere in the back of her brain.

Omega hurried
Angela along, though the girl wanted to stop at every open door for
a glimpse of splendors within. The butler paused at last and opened
a door. He peered in and started to open the door wider, but
glanced back at the ragged party following him and evidently
reconsidered.

“
This
will never do,” he said severely. “Remain here in the hall. Mind
you, don’t touch anything!” He glared at Angela, who put her hands
behind her back.

With a sigh that
emanated from a great depth, the butler swept back to the staircase
they had just passed on their march down the hall. Omega heard a
door close upstairs, and footsteps in the upper hall overhead. They
were measured and slow, as if their owner was pausing every now and
then to make last-minute adjustments to his person.

“
That
will be the viscount,” declared Omega triumphantly.

The steps came
closer. The butler went to the foot of the stairs just as an
aproned lady came in another door. Her face was red and she was
breathing hard, as if she had just hurried up a flight of steps.
With only the smallest glance in Omega’s direction, she approached
the stairs
,
too.

“
I’m
first, Mrs. Wells,” said the butler, sounding amazingly to Omega
like her grammar girls queuing up for treats.

“
But,
Mr. Twinings,” the woman protested, wiping her forehead, “this is
truly important. I simply cannot locate a hare for tonight’s game
course. And I particularly wanted one.”

“
I,
Mrs. Wells, am representing the law in this instance,” said the
butler. He looked up the stairs. “My lord, there are some ...” He
stopped, wondering how to classify the soldier, two ragtag
children, and the woman who was obviously a lady fallen on hard
times. “... some people below. They seem to require your presence
as justice of the peace.”

If the viscount
made a reply, Omega could not hear it.

“
My
lord, they insisted. Perhaps if you hurry down, you can clear up
this matter at once and be on your way to the judging.”

“
Very
well, Twinings,” said my lord, and he began to descend the stairs.
He stopped. “The bookroom?”

“
No,
my lord,” replied the butler, and he made no attempt to spare the
feelings of the people in the hall. “They did not look precisely
... tidy, and I feared for the upholstery on the chairs. You can
deal with them in the hall, I am sure.”

“
And,
my lord,” said Mrs. Wells, wringing her hands together, “your
gamekeeper has failed us. There is not a hare to be seen for
tonight’s dinner.”

“
Tell
Antoine to fix up something or other in one of his sauces. No one
will know.”

Omega listened to
the high drama being enacted right over their heads. Something else
about the tone of that conversation set off another bell clanging
in her head.

“
My
lord!” exclaimed Mrs. Wells. “Antoine will have
palpitations!”

“
Oh,
surely not, Mrs. Wells,” said Twinings, intruding in the
conversation jealously. “This is a trifling matter.” Mrs. Wells
fired her final salvo. “Not to your French cook, it isn’t,” she
declared in round tones, addressing herself to the viscount. “And
didn’t I hear Lord Cabot inquiring after his services last
week?”

“
Drat!
I’ll talk to him, Mrs. Wells.”

The viscount did
not hurry. “Drat!” he said again.

“
Heads
up, Jamie,” whispered Omega. “You’re drooping.” She smiled at him.
She took a deep breath by way of improving example, and the smile
froze on her face.

His lordship
continued down the stairs. Omega could see his booted legs. She
stood where she was and took another tentative whiff, and then
another. It was the same odor she had noticed in the front
entrance, the sharp citrus tang of lemon cologne.

“
Has
something gone cock-a-hoops?” Hugh watched her. “You’re quite pale,
Omega,” he whispered.

She opened her
mouth, but nothing came out. She knew she looked like a fish hooked
and tossed up on the bank. Omega could only stare at Hugh, not
daring to turn around.

She looked down
at Jamie, who was watching her in that intense way of his, his head
angled to one side. As she stared at him, she knew suddenly where
she had seen the boy before. Or one very like him.

“
Come,
come,” said the butler. “The viscount hasn’t all day, and you
insisted upon his presence. State your business.”

“
Yes,
do,” said the viscount, “but turn around, please. See here, I don’t
bite.”

Omega closed her
mouth, grasped Jamie firmly by the shoulders, and turned around.
“Matthew, may I introduce you to your nephew, Jamie
Clevenden?”

The viscount
paused in the act of raising a quizzing glass to his eye. The glass
slipped through his fingers and swung from the end of the
ribbon.

It was the
viscount’s turn to open his mouth and stare. He blinked his eyes
and looked from Omega to Jamie and back to Omega, where his eyes
remained fixed to her face.

“
Omega
Chartley,” he managed finally.

“
The
same, Matthew Bering,” she said.

Omega was going
to say something else—what, she wasn’t sure. Every thought, every
polite remark that had ever crossed her lips (growing whiter by the
second), rushed out of her brain and left it completely bare. The
only urge she felt was the instinct, entirely primitive, to pluck
up her skirts and run.

Before she could
move, she heard a sound behind her. Omega looked back and could
only watch in wide-eyed, stupefied silence as Hugh Owen shouldered
his way past her. Before she could even speak, Hugh pulled back and
smashed his fist into Lord Byford’s elegant face.

The viscount’s
eyes rolled back in his head. Angela scrambled to get out of the
way as Matthew Bering, the Viscount of Byford, thudded to his knees
and fell forward, sprawling on the carpet.

Hugh stepped back
in quiet triumph. “I told you I’d draw his cork, Omega. Who’d have
thought it would be so soon?”

“
Who,
indeed?” said Omega Chartley. “Oh, Hugh, we are in a real broth
now.”

The butler reeled
back as if Hugh had struck him
,
too. He lost his footing and stumbled into a small
table, upsetting a Chinese vase. The fragile porcelain keepsake
teetered back and forth and then fell to the floor, shattering into
a pile of antique rubble and scattering roses and water.

With a low moan
the housekeeper sat down hard and toppled over in perfect imitation
of the vase. She lay in the middle of the roses and gave herself up
to a good faint.