Carla Kelly (19 page)

“
I saw
Timothy Platter again.” He shook his head. “We both took each
other’s measure, nodded, and walked on. How strange.”

Omega forgot her
embarrassment. “Matthew, what are we to do?”

Lord Byford
spread his hands out in front of him. “I have no legal power to
keep Jamie ... Now, don’t interrupt me, Omega! Don’t rip up at me!
How can I think when you nag? I shall have to think of something. I
am tired of being such a coward.”

He left the room
before she could say anything else. She watched him go, mentally
kicking herself, wondering at what point in the last eight years
she had ceased being a young lady of gentle manner and had become a
nag and scold. She berated herself until she was thoroughly out of
sorts, and until there was nothing to do but sleep, and resolve to
do better at their next meeting.

As dinnertime
approached, she woke and began to feel frightfully ill-used. She
also discovered how hungry she was. Delightful odors were drifting
up from the dining room. She imagined everyone sitting around the
table laughing and joking, and she longed to be part of
it.

How many years
have I sat wallowing in my own company? she thought. How many meals
have I eaten, book in hand, moving food from fork to mouth, finding
no pleasure beyond the thought that it was one less meal to contend
with? She stirred restlessly. It would never do to think of such
things, those things she had so resolutely put out of her mind, but
she lay there and remembered evenings around the table with Alpha
and her father, and later Matthew, talking and laughing until they
were all a little silly.

Omega stretched
out her foot tentatively. It throbbed, but some of the pain was
gone. “It will be different in Durham,” she said out loud. “I will
seek out the other teachers.” Her former teacher would be there for
advice and company, too. And surely there would be pupils about
Angela’s age who would care to spend an evening discussing good
books and great ideas. “And if they should chance to ask about me,”
she said softly, “I will tell them, and not hide within myself
anymore, wasting my time wondering what they are thinking. So much
time I have wasted.”

She heard
Matthew’s step in the hall then, and put her hand to her hair,
patting the odd curls under her cap. He opened the door without
knocking, and brought in her dinner tray, which he set on her
lap.

“
Antoine told me to hurry up with this.”

She looked at him
in surprise. “Your chef orders you about?”

He nodded. “Of
course. And I pay him outrageously. But the results, madam, the
results.”

She was hungrier
than she thought, eating quickly as Matthew watched. He made only
one comment as she worked her way through the delicious dinner.
“Antoine told me to pay close attention to what you did not eat,
and he would try to remedy your paltry appetite tomorrow. I have
the happy task to inform him that the only thing you did not eat
was the gold border around the plate. I am sure he will try to
correct that oversight.”

Omega laughed and
waved him away. He sat back with a smile on his face and closed his
eyes, his hands folded across his stomach. When she finished, he
took the tray from her and set it outside in the hall.

She expected him
to leave then, but he did not. “Let me tell you something curious
about this whole nasty business, Omega. I haven’t ever really
considered it before, mainly because I did not want to—as you can
well imagine. But now that Jamie is here ... well, I must speak of
it.”

“
Are
you sure you want to talk about it?”

He nodded.
“Positive. Omega, I have never spoken to anyone about this matter
before. It seems easier, now that you know. Do you recall that I
told you four of my best friends were present at that ... that
party?”

“
Yes.”
Omega’s eyes were on his face.

“
Three
of them are dead now, and one I have not heard from in years. I
fear that he is dead
,
too. Don’t you see, there’s no one alive to relate any of the
events of that night. I have only Rotherford’s word for what
happened.”

He leaned forward
and looked her straight in the eyes. “I am beginning to wonder if I
am part of a huge blackmail, Omega.” He paused to let that
disclosure sink in.

“
But
... but, Matthew, why would Rotherford do this to you? Did he
dislike you? Did he want to destroy my happiness
,
too? I don’t even know him.”

Matthew sighed.
“He doesn’t hate me and he didn’t know you. But the thing I have
not considered before—before you and your entourage barged in on
me—is Jamie ... Jamie and his fortune.”

“
I
don’t understand,” said Omega.

“
Then
I shall tell you. Play devil’s advocate, my dear.” He took off his
shoes and propped his feet on the bed. “My friend Colonel Merrill
Watt-Lyon, Lord Mansfield, was at the party, and he died in Spain
during the Peninsular campaign.”

“
Matthew, that is war,” she said.

“
Ah,
but he did not die in battle. His troops found him and his horse at
the bottom of a ravine outside Ronda. Word got about that he had
been drinking, but Merrill seldom drank. Liquor made him sick. I
remember how sick he was that night.”

“
Friend number one,” murmured Omega.

“
Friend number two was David Larchstone. I believe you remember
him?”

She nodded. “He
was the first person I ever danced with at Almack’s.”

“
And
let me tell you, that was only because he got in front of me and
had no scruples about loping across the ballroom floor!” said
Matthew with a smile. “I had a certain reputation to maintain then.
Dashed if I can remember why, now.”

“
And
is he dead?”

Matthew nodded.
“About six months after Merrill. He was a bruising rider after
hounds. He went to take a fence that his horse could not jump. It
didn’t yield when he struck it, and he died after a day and night
of the most acute agony.”

“
Dear
God,” said Omega. “But it was a hunting accident, was it
not?”

“
The
top rail on the fence—a fence he had jumped many times—had been
raised and nailed quite firmly into place. There was no way he
could have avoided what happened. I learned these particulars from
the solicitor whom our families share.” Matthew started to reach
for her hand, and then thought better of it. “I remember wondering
at the time who could have had a grudge against that charming
scapegrace. And then there is my brother-in-law, Marchant
Clevenden, Lord Rotherford’s younger brother and husband to my
sister Diantha.”

“
I
knew so little of him,” said Omega. “Was he not in business with
the East India Company?”

“
He
was. What you probably did not know—because goodness knows, such
things never seemed to interest you—March was a very wealthy man.
He took to Indian trade and intrigue like a duck to water. He
amassed a magnificent fortune.” Matthew chuckled. “It makes mine
look like I’m only a stagger away from the workhouse. Lord, but
that man had a talent for raking in the ready! It used to send
Diantha into whoops when she considered how Rotherford sneered at
his little brother’s ‘smell of the shop.’ ”

Omega sighed and
rubbed her arms.

“
I am
tiring you,” Matthew said.

Omega shook her
head. “I am cold.”

Matthew got up
and pulled the blanket up from the foot of the bed until it was
arranged comfortably around her. He sat down again and put his feet
under the edge of the blanket. “I am cold
,
too. I am also frightened. Omega, March
and Di were visiting the Clevenden estate in Somerset about five
years ago when their carriage tipped them into the ocean. They
drowned.”

Omega opened her
eyes wide. “I never knew. And what of Jamie?”

“
He
was supposed to have been with them, but at the last moment Di left
him behind at the house because he was napping. The fortune is
his.” Matthew looked away from her. “And the guardianship fell to
Rotherford, as somehow I think he had known it would. Do you see
what has happened?”

He was looking at
her so earnestly then, his eyes searching deep into hers, almost
pleading with her to understand.

“
Is
Rotherford an improvident man?” she asked slowly, feeling her way
through this puzzle.

“
Yes,
or that is the rumor. Again, my source is my solicitor, who keeps
me well-informed.” Matthew clapped his hands together in
frustration. “I would give my whole stable right now to find out if
Rotherford has been dipping into Jamie’s trust. But I was never
included in any dealings regarding Jamie’s
guardianship.”

And then Omega
understood clearly. “And he knew you would never contest his
guardianship. Oh, God, Matthew, you owed him his neat little
wrapping-up of that dreadful evening’s work!”

“
Exactly, or so I am beginning to believe. And to think I was
so grateful to him for protecting me in that mess!” he said
bitterly.

“
Don’t
berate yourself, my dear,” Omega said.

He looked at her
quickly then, but made no remark on her address. “For all that I
have behaved stupidly, I am no fool, Omega. All the witnesses to
whatever happened that night are dead, or at least far away. If I
were to make any motion to challenge his guardianship—Clevenden
left no will—Rotherford would have trussed me like a Christmas
goose and delivered me to the hangman. He
knew
I would say
nothing.”

“
But,
Matthew, that would mean he has been planning this for ... for
years!”

Matthew took her
by the hand. “Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” He shook his head.
“Rotherford has one virtue that I used to admire. He is a patient
man. You should see him with his horses, how he trains them
carefully and slowly. He would think nothing of patiently weaving a
web of this kind.”

“
Is it
possible?”

“
Yes,
indeed, my dear. Time was on his side. He knew I would do nothing.
At some point in this dirty business he examined my faulty
character and
planned
it that way.”

Omega shook her
head. “It is hard to imagine that someone would be so cold-blooded.
I cannot take it in.”

“
Well,
my dear. I can understand how you would feel that way. You have no
guile. You never in your deepest nightmares could have imagined
that anyone would leave you standing in the church, exposed to the
ridicule of the world, did you? So how are you to believe
this?”

He was silent
then. Omega scooted herself to the edge of her bed and leaned
against his arm. He started, and then looked at her in surprise.
“Omega, my dear, I obviously do not understand women. I tell you
this terrible story, and you only seek to give me
comfort.”

He did not touch
her, but he did not move away
,
either. Omega put her arm through his. “Matthew,
don’t you think you have berated yourself enough in the past eight
years? I know that I have scolded and railed against fate and
excoriated myself until I am sick of it.”

Matthew stirred
himself and put his hand over hers again for a brief moment before
he moved farther away from her. “One thing remains for us to do, my
dear. I had better locate Timothy Platter. Do you think ... could
we possibly ask him to help us?”

Matthew did not
bring her breakfast in the morning. It came direct from the kitchen
in the hands of Antoine, who was followed by his interpreter,
Angela. After Angela tucked a napkin in the top of Omega’s gown,
Antoine set down the tray with a flourish, exposing several
ladylike slivers of Yorkshire ham, crepes nestled in raspberry
sauce and topped with a spoonful of clotted cream. There was tea in
the pot, and a small basket of pastries.

“
Antoine,
magnifique
!” she exclaimed, exhausting her
French.

Antoine beamed
and dabbed at the corners of his eyes.

He spoke rapidly
to Angela and then folded his arms.

“
I am
to tell you that if there is any little morsel that he can create
for you, he will be so grateful,” Angela said. “He begs to tell you
that he will prepare a small restorative to be eaten around ten
o’clock.”

“
Oh,
tell him that will not be necessary,” Omega replied, her eyes on
the crepes.

“
I
cannot do that!” Angela protested. “It will wound his feelings. He
is so dreadfully sensitive, and besides, Jamie and I will eat the
goodies at ten o’clock.”

“
Very
well then, dear,” Omega said, “although I do not believe for a
moment that you are being a martyr.”

After staying
long enough to watch Omega eat one of his crepes, Antoine dabbed at
his eyes again and left the room, overcome with strong
feeling.

“
You
have made him the happiest Frenchman in England,” said
Angela.

The dignified
Miss Chartley snorted and poured herself some tea. “That is a
whisker, Angela! Only wait until I cross him on some issue about
dinner or luncheon. Then he will rain rapid French down on my head
until we are all quite weary.”