Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Casebook of Barnaby Adair) (21 page)

For a moment, she stood luxuriating in the welling excitement of a new and utterly fascinating case, wallowing in the anticipation.

Stokes turned to her. “What did you want me to take to Griselda?”

Penelope blinked and returned to the moment. “Oh, that. I lied. I wanted to detain you to make sure both you and Barnaby comprehend just who Mr. Thomas Glendower is.”

Propping his shoulders against the drawing room door frame, hands sunk in his trouser pockets, Barnaby smiled lazily at her. “So . . . who is he?”

“He’s . . .” After a second, Penelope waved her hands. “I hardly know where to begin. He’s known as an extremely wealthy, but very reclusive, gentleman—he never appears in public. Clearly, we now know why. But he endowed and manages a fund for the Foundling House—it’s the largest we have, and it accounts for nearly a third of our income. That’s where I first heard his name. Later, I learned that he’s done the same with that new hospital south of the river, and then I discovered he’s endowed the . . .” She listed charity after foundation after institution on her fingers, working through one hand, then the next, then starting on the fingers of the first hand again, ultimately concluding with, “And he’s the largest individual benefactor of the British Museum.”

After a moment of stunned silence, Stokes looked at Barnaby. “I suppose we now know how he’s been spending his time over the last five years.”

No longer smiling patronizingly, Barnaby pushed away from the door frame. “Regardless, that’s impressive.” He paused, then arched a brow. “I wonder what Montague’s view of Mr. Thomas Glendower is.”

“You can find out tonight,” Penelope declared. “Dinner here at seven o’clock, gentlemen—I’ll send messages to Griselda and Violet, as well as Montague, so don’t be late.”

A
t three o’clock that afternoon, in response to a polite knock, Thomas opened the door of their suite and stood back to allow Penelope, Adair, Stokes, and a conservatively dressed man Thomas took to be the great Montague to enter.

He’d told Rose of his earlier meeting and had warned her they were coming. She’d been sitting, waiting, on one of the two sofas; coming to her feet, she somewhat nervously smoothed her skirts.

Penelope Adair, in what Thomas suspected was her habitual forthright fashion, swept up to Rose, a warm and transparently genuine smile on her face. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Heffernan. And might I say how indebted I am to you and Mr. Glendower”—she waved at Thomas—“for bringing us such an intriguing case. I, for one, am grateful for the distraction.”

Across the room, Rose briefly met Thomas’s eyes, then, clasping Penelope’s offered fingers, murmured, “Please, call me Rose.”

Penelope’s smile deepened. “And as you’ve no doubt guessed, I’m Penelope Adair.”

Thomas shut the door but didn’t have to make the rest of the introductions. Penelope blithely did that for him, then she looked at the children, both watching from chairs at the table by the window in the far corner of the room. “And these must be . . .”

Finally, Penelope stopped and glanced at Thomas.

Obediently, he obliged. “Allow me to introduce”—at his beckoning wave, both children, openly curious, came forward—“Miss Pippin and Master Homer.”

Pippin bobbed a wobbly curtsy. Homer’s bow was more certain.

Penelope beamed at the pair. “Are you busy with your lessons?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the children chorused.

“Indeed.” Rose turned the children back to their books. “Thomas and I have promised to play a game with them later—once they finish.”

Reminded of that reward, the children retreated and settled once again at the table.

Turning to Rose, Penelope arched a brow.

With a wave inviting Penelope to share the sofa with her, Rose sat, and while Penelope set aside her bonnet and reticule, and the gentlemen arranged themselves in the armchairs and on the other sofa, Rose quietly explained, “We think it best that they continue to use the nicknames they chose four years ago, when we left Seddington Grange.” She met Stokes’s gaze. “Using their real names might prove dangerous, and they’re very comfortable with their nicknames now.”

Extracting a black notebook from his greatcoat pocket, Stokes nodded. “There’s no benefit in them changing back just yet.” He glanced swiftly around the circle, then looked at Rose. “If you don’t mind, Miss Heffernan—”

“Please. Just Rose.” Rose smiled wryly. “I’m also more comfortable with that name now.”

Stokes nodded easily, the expression in his eyes reassuring. “Rose. I’d like to go through the details of what happened four years ago in Lincolnshire, but it would help if we could start from further back—from your mother’s marriage to Robert Percival, when you first went to live at Seddington Grange.”

Fleetingly, Rose arched her brows. She understood why Thomas had taken the step he had, and if she didn’t as yet fully comprehend all the ramifications, she fully appreciated that securing Stokes’s—and Adair’s and Montague’s—support was a major advance. So she nodded and cast her mind back. “I was fifteen when my father died of a fever and nineteen when my mother remarried. Robert wooed her for several months, and I felt comfortable with him. He was kind, caring, and I was very happy that Mama had found someone who truly cared for her.”

“So you weren’t upset by her remarriage.”

“No, not at all. I was relieved.” She paused, then added, “Mama wasn’t strong physically, so having Robert appear, and then be so intent on sweeping us up, into his care, was, from my point of view, a happy circumstance.”

“Nineteen,” Penelope said. “Did you make your come-out?”

Glancing at her, Rose nodded. “The following year. I had two Seasons, but . . .” Her lips quirked. “You might say I didn’t take.” She looked at Stokes. “But then William was born, and Mama never fully recovered. I helped her take care of him, and, I’ll admit, as I wasn’t enamored of ton entertainments, the Season, the marriage mart, and all the rest, I used caring for him, and then later Alice, too, as an excuse to avoid the social round.”

“So,” Stokes said, “would it be correct to say that you, the children, and your mother and stepfather were happy and content, with no acrimony or tensions, at the time of the accident?”

“Yes.” Rose nodded decisively. “That’s exactly how we were . . . and then, they were gone.” Telling Thomas had been easier; she hadn’t had to relate the details, hadn’t had to relive the memories, bringing them to life in her mind. She drew in a slow breath. Stokes, to his credit, didn’t prompt her, but she knew what he wanted to know. “Mama was sickly and often spent her days lying down. But on the morning they left, she was having one of her good days, so Robert thought to take her out for the day—fresh air always did her good. So they ordered a picnic basket from the kitchen, and we”—Rose tipped her head toward the children—“all three of us, stood on the front steps and waved them away. Robert was driving his curricle, and Mama was laughing.”

She looked at Stokes. Head bent, he was scribbling in his notebook.

Without looking up, he quietly asked, “When did you realize something was amiss?”

“When they didn’t return for dinner.” She paused, recalling. “Fisk, the butler, sent a rider to Grimsby. Robert had mentioned they would head that way.”

“And . . . ?” The gentle prompt came from Penelope.

Rose drew in a shaky breath, shook her head. “We heard nothing until the next day. About eleven o’clock, the head constable from Grimsby arrived with the news. Fishermen going out that morning had spotted the yacht and found the bodies.” Her voice strengthening, she caught Stokes’s eye as he glanced up. “I knew, then, that something wasn’t right, that Mama, at least, could never have drowned, would never even have been on the yacht, but . . .” She drew in a sharp breath. “I had William and Alice to console.” She glanced briefly at the pair. Heads bent, they were busy with their lessons; they were far enough away that they couldn’t hear. “They didn’t understand, not exactly, but somehow they knew that they would never see their parents again, that they had gone forever, and they were . . . inconsolable.” She paused, then, pressing her hands together, drew in a deep breath. “It was a difficult few days.”

A massive understatement; she’d been battling her own grief, compounded by her confusion, and dealing with Alice, who, at two, had worked herself into hysterics. . . . Rose pushed away the memory. She felt Penelope’s hand briefly squeeze hers and spared the other woman a weak smile.

“What happened to the curricle?”

It was Adair who had asked. The question helped Rose refocus. “It was found on the headland, but the horse was wandering aimlessly, so we had no idea where they’d actually stopped. But they had eaten their picnic.”

“Had anyone seen them take the boat out?” Adair asked.

Rose shook her head. “But that wasn’t necessarily a surprise. If they’d gone out in the afternoon, the fishermen’s boats would have been well out at sea, and when the boats returned at dusk, the fishermen might not have spotted the capsized yacht.”

“So”—Stokes studied his notes—“next came the funeral.” He glanced at Rose. “Anything particular about the service or the wake?”

Remembering . . . she shook her head. “No. It was all very somber. No one had expected them to die, not so young. Everyone was in shock. Both were well liked, and, of course, Robert had lived there all his life.”

“Who of the family attended?”

“The Percivals—Richard, Robert’s younger brother, and Robert’s uncle, Marmaduke, and Marmaduke’s son, Roger Percival. Beyond that, there were a great many connections and many distant cousins, but”—Rose shrugged—“no one I really knew. No one elected to stay on at the house except for Richard and Marmaduke.”

“And them staying makes sense,” Thomas quietly said. “Richard and Marmaduke were named William’s and Alice’s co-guardians. Although Richard was named principal guardian, he and Marmaduke would have had arrangements to discuss and decisions to make.”

Scribbling furiously, Stokes nodded, then looked at Rose. “Tell me what you did after the guests left, in as much detail as you can remember.”

Straightening, Rose raised her head and turned her mind back to that day. “I spent the next hours with the children in the nursery. I don’t know who stayed to dine—I remained with the children and didn’t go down. After that . . . I couldn’t settle. It was still evening, not that late, so I thought to start on the task of writing to Mama’s more distant friends, informing them of her death.” She swallowed, then went on, “She kept her address book in the drawer of an escritoire in what was called the study. It was a room off the drawing room. Robert never used it as a study—he used the library instead—because anyone conversing in the study could be heard in the drawing room. The two rooms shared a chimney. I went into the drawing room and was crossing to the study door when I heard voices—from the fireplace.” She met Stokes’s eyes. “From the study.”

When Stokes nodded encouragingly, she went on, “The chimney distorted the voices, but only a little—I could hear the words clearly.” She drew breath, then said, “I heard Richard say that he . . .” She blinked, then, her voice firming as exactly what she’d heard replayed in her mind, she went on, “He said that he had killed them, Mama and Robert. He was gloating over how well he’d succeeded in making it look like—
look
like—they had drowned. He made a point of explaining how he’d wrapped their bodies in the sails to make sure they were found . . .” She paused, then glanced at Thomas. “I didn’t understand the significance of that at the time, but now I do. He needed their bodies found, or he would have had to wait seven years for Robert to have been declared dead.”

After a moment, Stokes waved his pencil. “Return to the moment—tell me exactly what you heard, exactly what you did.”

“If I might,” Adair said, then he shifted his gaze to Rose. “Who was Percival speaking to?”

She grimaced. “I don’t know, but he had several friends who had come up from town for the funeral. Because I didn’t join them over dinner, I don’t know who stayed.”

“Back to the moment,” Stokes insisted. When Rose looked at him, he glanced at his notebook. “You heard Richard gloat about making sure the bodies were found by wrapping them in the sails. Then what?”

“Then,” she said, the words clear in her mind, echoing through the years, “he said that now all he had to do was eliminate William—that was the word he used, ‘eliminate’—and he would have the estate, and he planned to make a move on that sooner rather than later. His friend, whoever he was, laughed, and wished him good luck.” Rose refocused on Stokes. “To leave the study, they had to come through the drawing room. I couldn’t risk them finding me there. I turned and very quietly left. As neither came after me, I assume they never knew I had been there, that I had overheard them.”

Stokes, scribbling, held up a finger. When he raised his pencil, he looked at her. “How well did you know Richard Percival?”

“Not well at all. In fact, Mama warned me away from him, and Robert—he was present—agreed. Rather grimly, too. At the time, I assumed the warning was because they thought I was impressionable and might succumb to his charms or some such thing. He was—is—a notorious womanizer. But in hindsight, perhaps they meant the warning more generally.” She frowned, then looked at Stokes. “Regardless, as I lived with them and saw no reason and had no inclination to go against their guidance, I never spent much time with Richard, not at family gatherings, and not socially, either. To give him his due, he never gave much sign of noticing me.”