City of Darkness (City of Mystery) (2 page)

“Please, dear Tom, we’ve spent a week
hearing Grandfather eulogized to the skies,” Cecil said.  “No further accolades
are necessary, or we’ll have to send to Rome posthaste to have the man
canonized.  It’s certainly bloody hot in here, isn’t it?”

Leanna jerked a gloved hand from the
folds of her skirt and pushed open the carriage window.  Cooler air rushed in,
bringing the road dust and flies with it, but the rest of the carriage occupants
didn’t protest.  They merely sat staring at Leanna as she settled back into her
motionless state.

“So if elder sons inherit and younger
sons find professions, what happens to middle sons?”  Tom asked, although he
knew full well what Cecil would answer.

“They marry well,” Cecil said
promptly.  “What about it, William? Hours from now when you’re firmly in the
money, will you remember me?  Enough at least for a new suit of clothes and a
decent carriage so I can win the hand of Hannah Wentworth?  So far I’ve been
able to offer her nothing but charm, which I luckily have in abundant supply,
but we all know that if I actually propose marriage, her father is going to
expect to see more than a winning smile.  I overheard him at the track saying I
was all blue but no green.”

“Meaning exactly what?” Gynnette
asked testily.  At one time gossip had obsessed her and she still maintained a
certain reflexive interest in the social standing of her family, even if she
was powerless to stop its slow decline.  The remarks she had overheard during
the last few years were rarely pleasant, but she catalogued every snicker and sarcastic
comment, rolling them over in her mind the way a tongue compulsively prods a
sore tooth.   

“Meaning we’re all of the right
class, hence the blue blood, but we haven’t any cash, hence the deplorable
absence of green,” Cecil said.  “Meaning, to be a bit more blunt, that we’re
acceptable enough to ask to tea but not suitable to marry the daughter of the
house.  Is that clear enough?” 

“Yes,” she said shortly, and dropped
her veil back over her face.

“But now,” Cecil said, “I have the
next best thing to money, which is a brother with money.  So William, you have
yet to answer.  Can I count on you for enough cash to court Miss Wentworth and
reassure her father?”

“Of course,” said William.  “It would
be a smart move to align with the Wentworths, even though I can’t see why you’re
so determined to marry that girl.  She has a face like that horse you keep
threatening to shoot.”

“True enough,” Cecil said agreeably. 
“But second sons have to take care of themselves. “

“Not like this,” Gynnette said.  “As
long as we still have that blue blood you find so amusing, I won’t have you
sully the family name by chasing wealth.”  Her hand fluttered nervously to the
opal and diamond brooch on her chest.  It was the only thing left from the
early years with her husband, the good years, and with the mention of the
Wentworth fortune, her mood must have shifted, because Gwynette tended to
fiddle with the brooch whenever she was anxious.  It’s her talisman, Tom
thought, something she touches whenever she needs to bring back a bit of her
old power.  “I remember when Silas Wentworth was nothing more than a dairy farmer. 
And, Cecil,  why on earth do you insist on going to that racetrack?  You know
it killed your father.”

“Is it my imagination,” Cecil said,
“or is this an exceptionally tedious conversation?”  He settled back into the
cushions and closed his eyes.

Tom leaned back too and wondered if
it would be possible to sleep, to clear his mind for the ordeal ahead.  Cecil,
for all his crudity, was quite right.  Older sons inherit, second brothers
marry well, and youngest brothers seek professions.  William would be master of
Rosemoral by sunset today and Tom only hoped that his grandfather had left an
adequate allowance for his final years of medical school.  Leonard had been
proud that at least one of his grandchildren inherited his love of science and
had been more than happy to pay Tom’s tuition, just as he had paid for Leanna
to continue at boarding school after their father was killed.  Otherwise, Tom
suspected Leanna would have been shipped back to Winter Garden the minute their
mother had grasped the true enormity of her late husband’s debts. 

Leonard Bainbridge had always made it
clear that Tom and Leanna were his favorites and had been extraordinarily
generous with them both.  But a single term at Cambridge had taught Tom that
academic men were often disastrous judges of human character, unable to accept
that not everyone was similarly ruled by logic.  Tom knew his grandfather’s
motives were pure, but he only prayed that provisions for him and Leanna had
been spelled out specifically in the will and that their grandfather hadn’t
left them dependent upon William’s unsteady sense of justice. 

Grandfather wasn’t a fool, Tom
thought, as he began to drowse.  He would have left Leanna a significant dowry,
certainly, probably enough to help her form a good alliance when the time
came.  Otherwise, it would fall to her brothers to arrange her marriage, and
Tom cringed at the thought of what William and Cecil might consider a suitable
match for their sister.

Within another hour they were at the
gates of Rosemoral, and as Leanna peered out at the familiar entrance, her
spirits lifted.  Her mother had pushed aside her veil too, but seemed oblivious
to the beauty.  Leonard, who’d dabbled in botany as well as zoology, had taken
pride in the fact his gardens had color from April through November, a not
insignificant accomplishment for England.  Leanna turned in her seat, leaning
her face out of the window and relaxing for the first time in days.  There had
been so many times in the past she had impatiently ridden past these gates, had
bounded from the carriage and run squealing through the foyer and into her
grandfather’s study, certain of the welcome she would find there. 

“Your hair,” Gwynette murmured,
smoothing back her own.  Although they both were blonde, Leanna did not have
the delicate beauty of her mother, but rather the rosy, vibrant coloring of the
Bainbridges.  Normally it would have been difficult for her to sit still during
a two-hour carriage ride, but behind the wall of her veil she had realized that
invisibility granted a certain freedom; since they couldn’t see her face, her
family had quite bizarrely seemed to conclude that she didn’t exist, or at
least that she gone deaf.  They had talked about  subjects she was normally not
privy to hearing, and Leanna had held herself immobile, pretending to sleep,
but really mulling over the implications of the conversations, and the deeper
implications of her brothers’ anger. 

This is what Tom has been trying to
warn me about, she thought, when he says the money is passing into less
benevolent hands.  The power will go straight to William’s head, that’s a given. 
And things appear to be far worse than Mother knows.  Cecil’s been gambling –
daily and probably heavily, and probably with that man they call Edmund Solmes. 
He’s been cornered enough to consider marriage to a woman he doesn’t love, and
Tom’s terrified too, frightened that William won’t see him through medical
school.   But the biggest shock of all had been the realization that William simply
wasn’t as smart as the rest of them.  He seemed to think every problem in the
world could be solved with money, an opinion Leanna knew was only held by the
most foolish of men.

As a child she had always looked up
to her eldest brother.  They had wandered the halls of Rosemoral together and
she had let him press her into service in any number of tasks.  She’d been his
lieutenant in arms, a princess in a tower, his nurse, his valet, his pupil, his
adversary in a duel fought with willow branches.  Leanna had played whatever
role William had wished her to play, happily, and with pride that he would
notice a younger sister, that he would single her out – even if he was singling
her out to die an ignoble death in their grandfather’s flower gardens.  

But a new and uncomfortable truth was
beginning to dawn.  William may not be the quickest in wit, but, due to the fluke
of birth order, he would shortly be lord of them all.  Cecil would try to wheedle,
Tom would try to argue, and her mother would pretend they were the Bainbridges
of fifty years ago and not the sad remnants of an unraveling family cloth.  And
meanwhile she, Leanna, was both young and female and thus the most vulnerable
of all.  Once her grandfather had taken her out on horseback and they had
ridden the perimeters of the estate.   He’d talked about how the house and
grounds were large, and how it took a great deal of money to sustain them. 
Looking back, she supposed it was Leonard’s attempt to explain the difference between
genteel wealth and cash in hand.  She had been no more than fourteen.  She had
not grasped the full implications of his lecture.

Now she did.  Rosemoral, while impressive
to the eye, did not necessarily provide the sort of endless income that an
outsider might imagine.  Leonard had been trying to explain why the estate could
not be cut up as easily as a pie at dinner, why he had not bailed his own son
out from his debts, why William might not be able to rescue Cecil, why what
seemed like family coldness was sometimes family survival. 

Her grandfather had been warning her
that, appearances aside, there might not be enough to go around.

An elderly man was waiting for them
under the portico of the south wing and as the carriage rolled to a stop, he
stepped forward, peering up with an anxious squint.  Leanna recognized him as
Charles Galloway, her grandfather’s solicitor, and she smiled as he lifted a
shaky hand to help her down the steps.

“Mr. Galloway, I’m so glad you’re
here.  I was afraid you might send one of your aides.”

“For the reading of Leonard
Bainbridge’s will?  You wound me, child.  Your grandfather was my dearest
friend.  Tom, William, it’s a fine thing to see you both again.  I wish it
could be under better circumstances, of course, and last week at the funeral I
tried to… Ah, and you of course are….”  As the rest of the family climbed out
of the carriage, solicitor fumbled for a moment, despite the fact he must have
prepared for this meeting. Tom finished the introductions.   Galloway had
obviously never met Cecil, proof of how rarely Leonard’s middle grandson had
visited Rosemoral, and he seemed utterly flummoxed by Gwynette who, even in
mourning, could still stop a man in his tracks. 

William brushed by the old man, as if
determined to be the first to enter the house.  He and Galloway would have
regular dealings from now on, Tom thought.  Presuming, of course, William had
no plans for throwing Leonard’s best friend aside in favor of a solicitor his
own age.

“Um, yes, yes, let’s step in,”
Galloway said, following William into the main hall where a young maid
collected the canes, hats, and gloves.  “Tillie here can bring tea to Leonard’s
study and I thought that afterwards – “

“We can hear the will now, in my
opinion,” Cecil said.  “We only brought bags for one evening and our plan is to
be underway early tomorrow morning.  I have pressing social engagements and I
don’t think any of us see the point in dragging things out.”

“Ah yes,” said Galloway. “Yes, we
must send a boy for your things.  The rooms have been prepared, of course, but
I thought perhaps…” He broke off, as if he were unaccountably disappointed they
wouldn’t be staying longer, and nervously fingered the leather portfolio in his
hand.

Leanna reached over to grab the
maid’s arm as she sped by.  “Tillie,” she whispered.  “If it’s no trouble, can
I have the pink room with the French doors?”

“Of course, Miss, just as it’s planned. 
Mr. Leonard always called that ‘Miss Leanna’s room.’”  She bobbed an uncertain
curtsey and it occurred to Leanna that this must be hard for the staff as well,
the death of a much-loved master and an abrupt change of the guard.  William
watched this exchange silently, then turned to Galloway.

“I agree with my brother,” he said. 
“Let us get on with it.  I cannot imagine it is a particularly complex document.”

“No,” Galloway said evenly, pushing
open the double doors of Leonard’s study.  “Mr. Bainbridge had only one child,
who predeceased him, so the people in this room represent his entire issue.  
Are you sure you won’t take tea?”

“It’s almost four,” William said, a
slow flush of anger beginning at his neck.  How dare the man offer him tea in
his own house?  “I presume some sort of dinner has been arranged, so we’ll be
eating soon enough.  We’ve had an exhausting journey, and just as Cecil said,
we’ll be going home tomorrow to begin the arrangements.”

“Arrangements?” questioned Galloway.

“Arrangements to move,” said Cecil. 

“Move?”

“Move from Winter Garden to Rosemoral,”
William said, in complete exasperation, thinking he’d send this old fool
packing as soon as he could.  “As you said, the eldest son of the only son is
in this room.”

“I believe I said the issue – “

“Quite.  So let us begin.  As you can
see, my mother is exhausted.”

Gwynette had already settled into a
chair and she looked anything but exhausted.  When she turned her gaze on
Galloway, he flinched, thinking that her eyes were so light that the blue
looked eerie, otherworldy.  He wondered why only minutes ago he had thought of
her as beautiful.