Sheri Cobb South (4 page)

“I vow, I am worn to the bone,” declared Emma Hollingshead, yawning behind her gloved hand. “I hope you will not think me rude, Lady Fieldhurst, if I say goodnight.”

The viscountess was quick to seize her opportunity. “On the contrary, I find it an excellent notion.”

She accompanied the younger woman up the stairs, but they had scarcely reached the landing when the jingle of harness and the crunch of carriage wheels on gravel announced a late arrival.

“Good heavens,” muttered Lady Anne. “Who can that be at such an hour?”

The footman, who had been engaged in clearing away the playing cards and putting away the tables, abandoned this task long enough to open the front door. Lord Kendall burst into the room, considerably the worse for the mud splattering his stockings. “I fear it is just as Mr. Meriwether predicted,” he said without preamble. “The bridge is out.”

* * * *

The next half hour flew by in a flurry of activity. Lady Anne, prophesying that all the guests save the vicar would return soon enough, summoned the housekeeper and ordered five additional bedchambers prepared. The Kendall family’s return was followed within minutes by that of Mr. Carrington. Since Mr. Danvers did not have to cross the bridge, he was not looked for, it being assumed by all that he should have reached his vicarage safely enough by now. There remained only the curate unaccounted for.

“What can be keeping Mr. Meriwether?” Lady Anne wondered aloud. “You don’t suppose he could have fallen into the river?”

Lady Fieldhurst suspected her hostess would not be devastated should that prove to be the case.

“Now that you mention it,” said Lord Kendall, “I don’t recall passing him on the road. I trust no harm has come to the lad.”

“I think it far more likely that he stopped by the vicarage,” put in Lady Fieldhurst. In fact, she was not well enough acquainted with the curate to venture an informed opinion of what sort of action he might take, but she felt that Miss Hollingshead might be in need of reassurance. Glancing around the room, however, she realized that her efforts in that direction were wasted; Emma Hollingshead was nowhere to be seen.

“I’m going to take a lantern and have a look at that bridge,” announced Sir Gerald. “I’ll keep an eye out for him.”

After rooms had been prepared and assigned, there seemed to be little left to do. One by one, the guests drifted upstairs to their allotted chambers, Lord Kendall requesting to be awakened regardless of the hour, should it prove that some misfortune had indeed befallen the curate. Lady Fieldhurst followed their example, only too grateful to reach the privacy of her bedchamber. She could not deny some concern for Mr. Meriwether’s safety, however, and so after unpinning her hair and exchanging her gray silk gown for a white muslin nightrail and a wrapper of pink satin, she walked over to the window, drew back the curtain and pushed open the casement.

The rain had indeed stopped, but the night air was heavy and damp with the promise of more to come. Lightning occasionally lit up the sky to the east, and muted thunder rumbled in the distance. There was no sign of the curate, nor indeed of any other living creature. She turned away, but even as she reached for the casement, a movement of shadow caught her eye, followed by a glimpse of red in the garden below. Her hand stayed; she watched as a dark shape detached itself from the shrubbery.

A moment later, Emma Hollingshead was safely in the arms of her lover.

Julia knew she should draw back; she was, after all, intruding on a private moment. Still, it was rather like watching a play. Young lovers, no matter how sincere their devotion, were really quite painfully alike. In a way, it might be better if they were never allowed to marry, for then their romantic illusions need never be shattered by harsh reality. This thought led, not unnaturally, to unpleasant memories of her own marriage.

And then, abruptly, she was recalled to the present by the sound of her own name.

“—Lady Fieldhurst to dazzle me with tales of her own brilliant Season.” The bitterness in Emma Hollingshead’s voice was audible as it drifted up from the garden below. “Can you imagine? A woman who killed her own husband—

“Hush, my love, and listen to yourself,” Mr. Meriwether chided her gently. “Lady Fieldhurst did
not
kill her husband, as you well know.”

“You are right, of course,” conceded Miss Hollingshead, deflated. “But you cannot know what it is like to live in this house, feeling as if the whole world is conspiring to tear us apart. You can have no idea!”

He chuckled. “I do, actually. But I feel you must acquit Lady Fieldhurst as a co-conspirator. I think it very likely that her ladyship had no idea for what purpose she was invited.”

“Perhaps,” Miss Hollingshead admitted, albeit somewhat grudgingly. “But it really doesn’t matter, for I shall never give you up, no matter what anyone may say!”

“Hold fast to that thought, my love, and be patient. I have a plan which I hope will allow us to be together very soon as man and wife forever.”

“Oh, what is it?”

He hesitated. “I dare not say more, for fear of raising hopes that may yet be dashed. Only trust me, and try to be strong.”

“I will, for your sake,” she vowed with feeling. “And when Mama and Lady Fieldhurst describe the delights of a London Season, I shall pretend to be persuaded,”

“Good girl! Although, since her ladyship’s marriage turned out so very badly, she might prove to be a valuable ally.”

“If only I can be allied to you, my darling, I shall need no other.”

His reply was muffled as the two shadows merged into one.

At the end of a protracted farewell, the lovers went their separate ways. Emma re-entered the house through a side door, spilling out a shaft of yellow light which illuminated the curate’s profile ever so briefly before he vanished into the shadows beyond.

Staring down into the empty garden, Julia resolved to make her excuses and escape from this ill-assorted gathering as soon as the bridge was repaired. Whatever her sympathy for the star-crossed lovers—and she was surprised to discover she
was
sympathetic to their plight in spite of the less than happy ending of her own whirlwind romance—she had no intention of becoming embroiled in a quarrel that was none of her concern.

But even were she to leave, where would she go?
Not
to the dower house and her mother-in-law, that much was certain. Nor did she have any desire to visit Fieldhurst House, where she would be obliged to watch her late husband’s cousin play at being a viscount. London was unbearable in summer, while Brighton—as she had pointed out to her friend Emily, Lady Dunnington—was far too festive for a lady supposedly in mourning. She thought of Emily, enjoying the frivolities of Brighton with her latest paramour, and of Lord Rupert Latham, who but for the murder of Lord Fieldhurst would now be her own lover. In truth, she did not regret his loss any more than she did that of her husband. She sighed, wondering if perhaps there was something wrong with her as a woman. In the weeks since she had been cleared of suspicion in her husband’s murder, she had been aware of a certain restlessness, a lack of purpose which she could neither understand nor overcome. It was this, more than anything else that had driven her northward to Yorkshire, but even this had been in vain: it seemed there was no relief to be found here, either.

A sharp crack, unheralded by the flash of light which usually precedes such outbursts, startled her from her reverie. She ducked back into her room and shut the window, then tossed her wrapper over the back of a chair and extinguished the single candle beside her bed. She settled herself comfortably beneath the covers and was just surrendering to Morpheus’s embrace when a sudden commotion outside dragged her ruthlessly back to consciousness.

“Sir Gerald! Your ladyship!” shouted a voice below, while someone pounded on the front door as if attempting to break it down. “Open the door! The vicarage is burning!”

All thoughts of sleep flown, Lady Fieldhurst leaped from her bed, raced to the window, and looked out. On the horizon, thick smoke billowed over the treetops, eerily lit with an orange glow. By the time she had thrown on the nearest gown to hand, hastily scraped back her hair, and hurried downstairs, every able-bodied man on the estate had been recruited to help battle the blaze. Such artificial distinctions as rank were set aside as Sir Gerald and Lord Kendall worked side by side with the lowliest stable hands and pot boys to extinguish the flames. Even Mr. Kendall made no mention of the potential damage to his coat, but donned borrowed oilskins and hurried after the others.

Inside, the ladies of the house descended upon the kitchens to assist the staff in brewing the tea and coffee that would be needed to fortify the fire fighters upon their return. The kitchen was warm and dry, save for a damp cloak of scarlet worsted which hung from a hook beside the door. Julia recognized it as the one Emma Hollingshead had worn for her assignation and hoped Lady Anne would be too distracted to notice it.

“Strange to think of anything burning on such a night as this, wet as it is,” Lady Kendall said, tying a coarse cotton apron over the elegant indigo crape she had worn to dinner.

The cook looked up from slicing a loaf of day-old bread for sandwiches. “I’ll wager ‘twas the lightning what did it. ‘Tis a beastly night, and no mistake.”

“I hope poor Mr. Danvers had time to escape the house before the flames spread,” said Lady Anne, in between giving orders to her staff. “I confess, I am concerned. I should have thought he would have come to us straightaway.”

As if on cue, the heavy tread of a boot sounded just outside the kitchen door. It opened a moment later to admit, not the vicar, but a damp and windblown Mr. Meriwether, who blinked at the sight of the entire female population of Hollingshead Place bustling about the kitchen.

“Colin!” cried Miss Hollingshead, bursting into overwrought tears. “Where have you been? I’ve been imagining the most dreadful things!”

He blinked in bewilderment. “Imagining—but why should you? What on earth has happened here?”

“The vicarage is on fire,” explained Lady Anne, regarding him with narrowed eyes. “Surely you must have seen the smoke?”

Mr. Meriwether, who had stripped off his greatcoat and hung it on a hook next to the scarlet cloak, froze with one hand still grasping its worn collar. “And Mr. Danvers—?”

“We don’t know,” continued his kinswoman. “He may well be helping the other men to put out the flames. We cannot know for certain until they return. When I heard you outside, I thought perhaps it was they.”

“No, but of course I must do anything in my power to help.” He shrugged back into the cloak he had just removed. “If there is any sign of him, I shall send word.”

The ladies agreed readily to this plan (save for Miss Hollingshead, who was loath to let him go) but no word came. In fact, there was no sign of Mr. Danvers at all until well after dawn, when Lord Kendall had sufficient light to locate the vicar’s charred body among the smoldering remains of what had once been his study.

* * * *

It was a somber company that gathered in the breakfast room several hours later. Miss Grantham snuffled incessantly into her handkerchief, and even the irrepressible Miss Susannah Hollingshead was strangely subdued. Master Philip Hollingshead pouted over his parents’ failure to awaken him so that he might assist in the rescue efforts (“the most excitement we’ve had around here in years!”), and Mr. Kendall, now that the crisis had passed, was inclined to complain about the smell of smoke clinging to his coat.

“I daresay my valet will never get it out,” he grumbled,

“In case you have forgotten, Robert, a man is dead,” Lord Kendall censured his son and heir. “Surely the condition of your coat is irrelevant, under the circumstances.”

“Pray do not be too hard on him, my lord,” protested Mr. Meriwether, coming to the younger man’s defense. “I believe it is not unusual for the mind, when confronted with tragedy, to focus instead on the trivial.”

The Honourable Robert, however, found his rival’s show of support even more objectionable than his father’s scold. “Trivial?” he echoed, sneering at the curate’s threadbare garments. “I am pleased to know you find my clothing of so little importance. I daresay if I dressed as you do, I should feel likewise. But I think we know what occupies your mind in this time of crisis.”

“Robert—” growled his father.

Mr. Meriwether frowned. “I think it is perhaps best that I fail to take your meaning,” he said, then turned back to the older man. “Lord Kendall, how extensive is the damage to the vicarage? Can anything be salvaged, do you suppose?”

“Yes, you’ll want to move in as soon as possible, I don’t doubt,” sneered Mr. Kendall. “But how fortuitous that you should succeed to the living just before Miss Hollingshead goes to London for her Season. One might almost call Mr. Danvers’s death providential.”

“Robert!” barked his father.

“You will kindly leave Miss Hollingshead’s name out of this discussion,” the usually gentle Mr. Meriwether ground out through clenched teeth.

Miss Hollingshead, pushing a forkful of buttered eggs about on her plate, acknowledged neither of her suitors, but focused her attention instead on the Justice of the Peace. “What is to be done now, Lord Kendall?”

“With the body, you mean?” His lordship gave his son one last glowering look before fixing gentler eyes on Miss Hollingshead. “Nothing at all, at least for the nonce. The coroner must be notified, of course, but with the bridge out, there’s no way to send word to him, and no way for him to reach us even if we could—not that we don’t already know how Danvers died, God rest his soul.”

“Waste of time, then,” declared Sir Gerald. “He’ll need to be put underground long before the bridge will be repaired.”

Lord Kendall shook his head. “He can’t be buried before the coroner’s seen him—can’t be buried now in any case, not after all this rain. The churchyard’s on low ground—too saturated by half.”

“What of the funeral, then?” asked Lady Anne, frowning, no doubt, at Mr. Danvers’s thoughtlessness in dying at such an inopportune time.