Sheri Cobb South (23 page)

“I do,” the newcomer replied curtly, and Lady Fieldhurst’s pulse quickened at the sound of the voice she had been listening for all morning.

A moment later he strode into the drawing room, not John the footman, but John Pickett the Bow Street Runner, wearing a coat of brown serge and sober yet determined expression.

“John!” cried the viscountess in some distress, quite forgetting that she was supposed to be his irate employer. “Where have you been? When you did not appear at breakfast, I imagined the most dreadful possibilities!”

He silenced her with one brief but speaking look before addressing himself to Lady Anne.

“I’m afraid I have bad news, my lady,” he said, removing his shallow-crowned hat as he approached the baronet’s widow. “Sir Gerald has fallen into the river and drowned.” While she digested this pronouncement, Pickett turned to the butler. “The current is so strong that he’ll be washed downstream if we don’t step lively. Send a contingent of footmen and stable hands down to the river to recover the body.”

The Hollingshead butler, having been in service to the family for most of his fifty-odd years, was not in the habit of taking orders from a mere footman, particularly one young enough to be his son, but he nevertheless responded to the ring of authority in Pickett’s voice.

“Y-yes, sir,” he said, backing away toward the door. “I will attend to it at once.”

Throughout this exchange, Lady Anne remained seated with rigidly correct posture upon a striped satin chair, looking as if she had been turned to marble. No emotion showed in her handsome countenance, and Lady Fieldhurst found herself thinking of those objects left within the petrifying well. Miss Hollingshead, by contrast, had turned alarmingly pale, and Mr. Meriwether moved quickly to stand beside her, taking her trembling hand in his. Miss Susannah, face flushed crimson, leaped up from the pianoforte and confronted Pickett.

“You
did this!” she cried. “It’s all your fault, and I
hate
you!”

Pickett flinched as if she had struck him. For the first time, Lady Fieldhurst wondered if the girl’s
tendre
was as unrequited as she had supposed. There were, after all, only ten years between her fourteen and his four-and-twenty—significantly less than the fifteen-year difference which had separated the viscountess from her late husband. She was possessed of a sudden urge to box Miss Susannah’s ears.

In this desire, at least, she was not alone. “If you cannot control yourself, Susannah, you may return to the schoolroom,” Lady Anne addressed her younger daughter in frigid tones.

“Pray don’t scold her, your ladyship,” protested Pickett, pale but resolute. “She is closer to the truth than you know. I am not a footman at all, but John Pickett of the Bow Street police office. At the time of Sir Gerald’s, er, unfortunate accident, I was in the process of placing him under arrest for the murder of Cyril Danvers.”

Lady Anne regarded him with stern disapproval. “If this is intended to be a joke, young man, I confess I fail to see the humor in it.”

Pickett uncapped his tipstaff and produced the rolled-up paper bearing Lord Kendall’s signature. “I assure you, your ladyship, I would not joke about such a thing.”

“And why, pray, would my husband murder the vicar?”

“Because of his book.”

Lady Anne raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I will be the first to concede that my husband is—was—hardly a patron of the arts, but to suggest that he would kill a man for writing a tedious book is preposterous.”

“I’m afraid that the book wasn’t nearly tedious enough for Sir Gerald, ma’am. While researching the church records, Mr. Danvers found evidence of a marriage early in the last century, between a village girl and the eldest son of the second baronet.”

“Yes, but the marriage was a sham,” put in Mr. Meriwether. “He wanted only to seduce the poor girl and could not persuade her any other way.”

“So the Hollingshead family has always insisted, and their word has always been accepted in the village as law,” Pickett said. “In fact, the marriage was plainly recorded in the church register, but the page was torn out and concealed within the spine. Apparently the priest who performed the ceremony feared reprisals from his patron. Perhaps he would have come forward with proof after the birth of the child; we’ll never know for certain. At any rate, the vicar died only weeks after the wedding, and the new incumbent was apparently content to let his curate deal with the day-to-day business of the parish, and so he never bothered to read through his predecessor’s papers. By the time the child, a boy, was born the following summer, his father had been killed in a tavern brawl on the Continent, and so the heir to the baronetcy was raised as a bastard.”

“Sir! I must ask you to watch your language!” protested Miss Grantham, clapping her hands over Miss Susannah’s ears.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Grantham,” Pickett said meekly. “To continue, on the night of the dinner party, Mr. Danvers informed Sir Gerald of his findings, assuming that he would want to do the noble thing and set the record straight. He could not have been more mistaken. After the party broke up and it was discovered that the bridge had washed out, Sir Gerald took advantage of the confusion to walk to the vicarage. Perhaps he tried to persuade Mr. Danvers to strike that passage from his manuscript; perhaps he even tried to buy his silence. Whatever the case, his efforts were unsuccessful, so he picked up the poker from the fireplace and struck Mr. Danvers in the head with it.”

“But I thought he shot him,” protested Lady Fieldhurst. “In fact, I heard the gunshot myself.”

Pickett smiled at her. “An honest mistake, my lady. In fact, I had to trip over the murder weapon—literally—before I tumbled to the truth. Even with Mr. Danvers dead, Sir Gerald still had to destroy the book, lest someone else should read it and reach the same conclusions as the vicar. When he couldn’t find it after a brief but no doubt frantic search, he set the room on fire. You may remember that Mr. Danvers had been having trouble with gypsies stealing his chickens and had purchased a fowling piece. The gun was mounted over the mantel, along with a horn of powder. The ‘gunshot’ you heard was undoubtedly the flames setting off the powder.”

Pickett fell silent, and Emma Hollingshead spoke into the void. “But—but if the marriage was binding, and Papa was not the true baronet, then that—then that means—” She broke off, staring up at Mr. Meriwether.

“Quite right, Miss Hollingshead.” Pickett turned to the curate, who still held tightly to his beloved’s hand. “No doubt there will be a few legal hoops to jump through first, but you had best get used to hearing yourself addressed as Sir Colin Hollingshead.”

“At a cost of two men’s lives,” said the new baronet, shaking his head in bewildered disbelief. “I would not have wanted it at such a price.”

“Harrumph!” Lord Kendall cleared his throat. “No sense in feeling guilty over something that’s none of your doing, my boy.”

Mr. Carrington seconded this sentiment. “Through his death, Mr. Danvers set to right an ancient wrong. I think he would be pleased.”

“I fear you have allowed tavern gossip to cloud your judgment, Mr. Pickett,” said Lady Anne. “Have you any proof of this extraordinary claim?”

“Indeed, I have, your ladyship. Only this morning I stopped at the church and found the page torn from the church register pushed down behind the spine, just as Mr. Danvers wrote in his book.”

Philip Hollingshead, who had had nothing to say thus far to the destruction of his birthright, suddenly leaped to his feet and ran from the room. In seconds he could be seen from the windows, running down the path leading to the church.

“I say!” exclaimed Mr. Carrington, leaping up as if to set out in pursuit.

Pickett shook his head. “Let him go. He can’t do any harm.”

Mr. Carrington wrestled with indecision. “But—the evidence—”

“I left it with Lord Kendall for safekeeping,” said Pickett, bowing slightly in his direction. “You still have it, sir?”

The Justice of the Peace nodded. “Locked up pending the trial. Unnecessary, as it turns out, but at least that young hothead will never get at it. Pity the boy has to lose his inheritance, though.”

Mr. Carrington begged leave to differ. “I confess, I don’t know the lad well, but I knew many such young men in the East. I suspect that eventually he might be happier as a soldier or a sailor than he ever would have as a country landowner.”

Miss Susannah looked up, puffy-eyed, as realization of this fresh loss dawned on her. “But—but if everything belongs to Cousin Colin now, what will happen to the rest of us?”

“There will always be a place for you here, Susannah,” Mr. Meriwether assured her. “You have my word on it.”

Lady Anne, at least, was unmoved by this display of generosity. “Your sense of duty is admirable, Cousin, but I will not be a pensioner in the same house where I was once mistress. Every feeling revolts! No, my children and I will remove to Claridge Hall. I believe the Dower House is vacant; I am sure my brother, the earl, will not object to our occupying it.”

“Perhaps
he
may not, but
I
shall,” Emma Hollingshead spoke up with uncharacteristic firmness. “You may reside wherever you please, Mama, but I intend to remain here and marry Colin. There can be no question of a London Season now, so long as we are in mourning, and even
you
cannot suppose there would be many eligible gentlemen eager to wed the daughter of a discredited baronet.”

To Lady Fieldhurst’s surprise, Lady Anne accepted her daughter’s show of independence with every appearance of resignation. “You are right, alas. And when I think of the brilliant match you might have achieved! Ah well, I suppose there is no use in pining for what might have been.” She rose from her chair with great dignity, and addressed the company, “And now, if you will excuse me, I must change my gown for something more sober, as befits my newly widowed status. I suggest, Emma, that you do the same. Miss Grantham, the gray muslin will suffice for Miss Susannah until some of her dresses may be dyed.”

Miss Grantham rose obediently and began to herd her charge toward the door. As she drew abreast of Pickett, he detained her.

“One moment, Miss Grantham. I have something which belongs to you.” He reached into the inside pocket of his coat, and drew out the folded pages of manuscript. “I hope you will forgive me for borrowing them. I assure you, I took very good care of them.”

The governess blinked at the papers as if seeing them for the first time. “Oh, dear! What will happen to Mr. Danvers’s book now?”

“Perhaps that decision should be left to his son,” suggested Pickett.

“Mr. Danvers had no son,” Miss Grantham reminded him. “The poor man never married.”

“It is true that he never married,” Pickett conceded, “but it appears that while he was in India he, er, formed an illicit union with a native woman and fathered a son by her. He brought the infant back to England with him, and placed him with a couple whose own child had just died. The boy lived with them until their deaths. Since then, ironically enough, he’s lived almost on the vicarage doorstep—one of the gypsies Mr. Danvers was so determined to—”

A loud crash interrupted Pickett’s conclusion. Mr. Carrington, ashen faced, had dropped his teacup, and a puddle of the dark liquid now spread across the floor at his feet. “What—what did you say?”

“Mr. Danvers had an illegitimate son while in India. He brought the child to England, and the boy—almost a man now—has been living amongst the gypsies in the Home Wood.”

Mr. Carrington shook his head. “No. Not Mr. Danvers’s son. Mine.”

As the rest of the company gazed at him in shocked disbelief, Mr. Carrington’s eyes grew unfocused, as if he were no longer seeing the very proper English drawing room, but a more exotic locale many years ago and thousands of miles away.

“Her name was Yasmina. I would have married her and damned the consequences, but it would have been death to my budding career—as my employer did not hesitate to inform me. And so, may God forgive me, I allowed myself to be persuaded to give her up. When she died in childbirth, Mr. Danvers, who was shortly to leave India, offered to take the child back to England with him. Yasmina’s family accepted his offer—they were only too eager to rid their family of the stain upon its honor. The lot of a bastard half-caste is not a pleasant one; the most wretched English orphan is to be envied by comparison. Imperfect as it was, Mr. Danvers’s solution appeared to be the most merciful to all involved. And yet, still I could not forget my child. When at last I retired from my position with the East India Company, I was determined to try and locate the boy. I returned to England and sought out Mr. Danvers, only to learn that the lad’s foster parents were dead and the boy himself had disappeared.”

Miss Grantham, sentimental soul that she was, sniffed loudly and dabbed at her eyes with a cambric handkerchief. Lady Anne heard the sound and recalled the presence of her younger daughter.

“Really, Mr. Carrington, this is hardly a fit subject for mixed company. Miss Grantham, take Susannah back to the schoolroom at once. Lady Fieldhurst, I am sure you will understand when I say that I can no longer offer you hospitality. My own carriage will convey you to the village at your convenience, from which location you may hire a post-chaise.” Having dispensed with the viscountess, she fixed Pickett with a look which might have quelled a man less mindful of his duty. “As for you, Mr. Pickett, I believe you have done enough damage here. I strongly suggest that you pack your bags and leave this house at once.”

* * * *

As Pickett’s possessions were few, it did not take him long to pack them all into a single battered valise. Having finished with this task, he started down the attic stairs, lingering for a moment on the landing nearest the schoolroom. Upon hearing muffled sobs emitting from this chamber, he tapped softly on the door and pushed it open. Miss Susannah, now clad in a light gray frock from which every scrap of lace and ribbon had been hastily removed, knelt before the fireplace. As Pickett watched, she tore a large parchment into long strips and fed them one by one into the fire.