Lord Deverill's Secret (18 page)

“It’s the product of many generations of my family,” she said.

“Your illustrious ancestors would be charmed to know that it is in such good hands.” His gaze fell to her hands. “Fine hands, roughened with honest toil,” he said. “Though young, you will soon mature into a sensible woman who will be capable of managing her husband’s house hold to the highest standards.”

Oh, no! thought Cassandra. Surely he isn’t going to propose
again
?

Her worst fears were realized as he dropped creakily to one knee.

“Miss Paxton, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?”

“Mr. Brown, I have told you before—”

“Of course. Womanly modesty prevented you from accepting my first proposal. I understand,” he said, dismissing it with a wave of his hand.

“Mr. Brown,” she said firmly. “I’m very sorry, but I cannot accept.”

His complacent expression wavered for a moment, but then his habitual certainty returned.

“You are not yet used to being at home again. I will ask you again in a few days’ time. I am sure you will see the advantages of uniting our two estates as well as our two persons—”

“Mr. Brown—”

“—the two oldest families in the area banding together for the future. Our land will stretch all the way from Farview to Millween, and our children will inherit an estate to be proud of.”

“My estate is sadly mortgaged,” she reminded him.

“My dear Miss Paxton, mine suffers from the same malaise. But that is all the more reason for us to marry. Once the estates are merged, we can sell off some of the outlying fields to pay the mortgages and still have an estate to be proud of,” he said.

“You are very kind, but I must stand by my original answer,” said Cassandra, praying for patience. “I cannot marry you.”

“I will say no more for the present,” he said.

Thank goodness for that
, she thought.

“But I will leave you to contemplate my offer.”

So saying, he bowed himself out of the room.

Well, thought Cassandra, if people aren’t wanting to murder me, they are wanting to marry me! At least he had not borrowed another book, and so had no excuse to return. Although no doubt an enquiry as to whether she’d changed her mind would suffice as a reason.

She glanced at
Arboreal and Botanical Wonders
before returning it to its shelf. Perhaps if she read it, she would be able to learn something about plants—enough to stop her pulling them up by mistake, at least! But she was not in the mood for gardening, and she went upstairs instead.

As she passed the gallery, she was seized by a sudden impulse and went in. There on the walls were paintings of all her ancestors, and at the end of the row were a number of paintings of her family. There was a group portrait, showing herself, her parents, Lizzie and Rupert, and next to the group portrait there was a portrait of each of them painted individually. She traced the lines of Rupert’s face. It was a handsome face, but the chin was weak and the mouth was slack. She felt a wave of sadness for her brother. She was sure he would not have trodden such a dangerous and dismal path if her parents had lived, but left to his own devices he had fallen by the wayside.

Her eyes moved on to the portrait of Lizzie. The artist had caught the curve of her lips and her golden hair very well, but had not quite captured the merriment in her eyes. The portrait of her father was better. The wide, generous mouth, the broad forehead and the hint of grey at the temples were all well caught. And then she turned to the portrait of her mother. Gentle eyes looked out at her. She missed her mother. They had always been close, and it had come as a terrible blow to learn that her mother was dead. Her eyes followed the golden hair and blue eyes and fell to the locket hanging round her neck. What had happened to her mother’s locket? she wondered. She had looked for it after her mother’s death, but had not been able to find it.

“Miss Cassie!” John’s voice brought her thoughts back to the present. “There’s mildew in the cupboard.”

Cassandra gave a sigh. “Coming!” she said.

Justin was in his drawing-room of his Brighton home when Matthew was shown in.

“Mr. Standish, my lord,” said Manby.

Justin looked up from the notebook he was studying.

“Interesting?” asked Matthew, nodding towards the notebook, as Manby left the room.

“Perhaps,” said Justin. “I’ve been gathering together all our information, but so far it tells me nothing. I hope you’ve discovered something useful?”

Matthew sat down, lifting the tails of his coat out of the way, and then crossed one booted leg over the other.

“Nothing conclusive, but suggestive all the same. I’ve been asking around, and Elwin was at the races that day. He was seen by at least a dozen people.”

“So he could have pushed Cassandra under the horse,” said Justin thoughtfully, closing the notebook and putting it on the table beside him.

“Yes, he could, but I don’t think it’s likely,” said Matthew. “It was a risky thing to do. He could have been seen, and besides, there was no guarantee that it would work. If she had recovered her footing she would not have fallen, and even if she had, she might not have fallen far enough forward to be in danger.”

“But it was worth his while trying,” said Justin. “If someone had seen him, he could have passed it off as the normal jostling that goes on at a race track, and although she might not have been killed it was a possibility. If things went well for him, he could have been rid of her with no one being any the wiser. He knew she was in Brighton, he knew she was asking about Rupert…. If he is the traitor’s ringleader, and if he felt threatened, I think he might have felt the risk was worth his while. You’ve arranged for a watch to be kept on him?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Because I don’t want anything like this to happen again. I want to know where he goes, what he does and who he sees. Did you discover anything else?”

“Yes, I made enquiries about Peter Raistrick, as you asked me to do.”

“Yes?”

“There might be something there. He’s been seen with one of the dippers. He was giving her money.”

“Ah.” Justin was thoughtful. “So he could have paid her to drown Cassandra?”

“He could have done. But there are…rumours about him.”

Justin looked at him enquiringly.

Matthew raised his eyebrows and went on.

“It’s rumoured that Peter likes to dress in a chemise and cap and join the women when they bathe.”

Justin’s lip curled. “I didn’t know that.”

Matthew shrugged.

“So far, they are only rumours. Several of the people I spoke to have heard he likes to do this, but not one of them has seen him actually do it. It might just be scurrilous talk. Alternatively, it might not.”

“You’re having him watched?” asked Justin.

“I am.”

“Good. We need to know the truth of the matter, because if he really does like dressing up, he could have tried to drown Cassandra himself.”

“It’s certainly possible,” Matthew agreed.

“Which would explain why Cassandra found it so hard to break free when she was knocked beneath the water,” said Justin, following his line of thought. “A woman would have been relatively easy to fight off, but a man would have been another matter.”

“Very true.”

“Anything else?” asked Justin.

“Yes. I’ve been making enquiries about Goddard. He’s in a bad way. He has a mountain of debts and no income. He tries to make his living from gambling, but he doesn’t have either the luck or the skill to do it. I don’t think he has the brains to be the ringleader, but if someone approached him with a difficult job and offered him enough money to do it, I think he would do anything that was asked of him.”

“Then he could be our man. Do we know where he was when Cassandra was bathing?”

“He was supposedly out of town, but I’m making enquiries to see if that is true.”

“Good. Are all the men being watched?”

“Yes. They are.”

“I want this finished with as quickly as possible,” said Justin, standing up.

“I’m not surprised,” said Matthew.

Justin looked at him enquiringly.

“As soon as it’s finished, Cassandra can come back to Brighton,” said Matthew.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that you’ve been like a bear with a sore head whilst she’s been away. You miss her.”

Justin acknowledged the truth of it.

“Yes, I do.”

Cassandra could not sleep. It was now five days since she had left Brighton and she had still heard nothing from Justin. She did not know how things were progressing in Brighton, or if they were progressing at all. She turned over and plumped her pillow, then closed her eyes and counted sheep. Unfortunately, the shepherd began to look remarkably like Justin. He was walking towards her, stroking her face, kissing her—

She sat up resolutely. If she allowed herself to think of Justin, she would never fall asleep. She decided to get up and choose a book to read. Inspiration hit. She would read
Arboreal and Botanical Wonders
. That should keep her thoughts from straying to anything romantic! It should also help her with the flower-beds when she plucked up the courage to weed them.

Throwing a wrapper round her shoulders she lit her candle with a tinderbox and then, picking it up, she went downstairs. The library looked serene in the moonlight, which came in through the french window. She put her candle down on the table and went over to the first shelf, looking along it until she found what she sought. She picked it up, collected her candle, and went out into the hall. As she did so, she heard a tinkling sound, as of glass breaking, and immediately she stiffened. She turned her head towards the dining-room, which was where the sound had come from. She strained her ears, but could hear nothing. And then she heard a creak, and knew at once what it was: the creaking floorboard in the middle of the dining-room floor. Someone had broken into the house, a burglar or…

She did not dare follow that thought. Hurrying upstairs, she ran into her bedroom with her heart pounding. She threw her book down on a chair and locked the door, pressing against it and listening hard, trying to catch any sound that would tell her where the burglar was.

It must be a burglar, she told herself. It couldn’t be someone who had followed her from Brighton. No one knew she was going, except Maria, and Maria had not wanted to tell anyone.

But someone could have seen her leave….

She caught the sound of a groan, and recognized it as the groan of one of the stairs halfway up the staircase. She held her breath. There came another groan, more like a whine this time: it was the second stair from the top. Seeing the candle, she quickly blew out the flame so that no light would show under her door, then she listened again. There was nothing. She waited. And waited. And…the door handle began to turn. She felt her heart thudding in her chest. There was someone on the other side of the door. They tried to open it, but the lock held. They put their shoulder against it, but the door was made of oak and the lock was a strong one, and did not give.

But now they knew she was in there. Or rather, they knew that someone was in there. What would they do next? She glanced at the window, but was reassured. It was inaccessible. There were no trees nearby, and no creepers on the walls. Without a ladder, it would be impossible to climb in, and her ladder was broken. Unless the burglar had brought a ladder with him.

She heard a slight creak and let out a sigh of relief, knowing they had moved away from the door. But where had they gone? She fought down an impulse to open the door and look. She knew she had to stay locked in her room until morning. She could only hope that John would be safe. But if the intruder was a burglar, he was unlikely to want to harm anyone, and if he was an assassin, sent to kill her, he would have no reason to harm her servant.

She stayed by the door until she was sure the intruder would not come back, then padded over to the bed. All hope of sleep was gone. So, too, was all hope of reading. The curtains were pulled across the window, and there was no moonlight coming in from outside. She did not intend to pull them back, and she did not want to risk lighting a candle. Instead, she huddled under the covers and waited for daylight.

At last it came, creeping through a crack in the curtain. She felt drowsy, and realized she must have dozed off. But she was still safe, and in one piece. She waited until it was fully light before getting out of bed and cautiously peering round the curtain. The lawns lay peaceful and serene beneath another fine sky. There was no sign of any disturbance.

She washed quickly, using water left over from her ablutions the previous evening, and then dressed. She hesitated before unlocking the door, only turning the key when she heard John’s heavy tread outside and knew that he was up. She dressed and went downstairs quickly.

“We’ll have breakfast in the kitchen,” she said, as she joined him.

She did not feel equal to examining the damage from the night before until she had eaten.

“Just as you say, miss.”

She prepared breakfast whilst John saw to the horses, never thinking it odd that she was waiting on her servant, for whenever the occasion demanded she helped with the chores. A short while later, having breakfasted, she went into the dining-room, and there, sure enough, was a broken window. She looked around to see if anything else had been taken or disturbed, but apart from the window, everything looked exactly as it should be.

“We seem to have had a break in,” she said, as she met John in the hall. “The dining-room window is smashed.”

“It’s a wonder we weren’t murdered in our beds,” said John.

Cassandra shivered.

“It’ll be Ned Rogers,” said John. “He’s as shifty as they come.”

“It could be,” said Cassandra cautiously, thinking of the local ne’er-do-well. “I will have to tell Sir William. As the local magistrate, he will need to know.”

“I’ll go and tell him,” said John.

“Good,” said Cassandra. “I want to have it dealt with before we return to Brighton.”

She had not been intending to return until the traitors’ ringleader had been caught, but she no longer felt safe on her estate. It could have been a simple burglary, but she felt sure there was more to it. If it had been a burglary, then something would have been taken. She felt sure in her own mind that someone from Brighton had discovered her whereabouts. In the country, she was more vulnerable than in the town. Her house was large and there were many windows, any one of which could be broken, whereas in Brighton the house was much smaller and she would have Justin’s help. He would arrange for someone to watch the house, and she would feel safer that way.