The Outcast's Redemption (The Infamous Arrandales) (19 page)

‘Go away, Croft, we will announce ourselves.’

‘Cassandra!’ The words had hardly left his mouth before a petite dark-haired beauty threw her arms about him. ‘What the—the deuce are you doing here?’ he demanded, frowning over her head at Raoul Doulevant, who had followed her into the room. Raoul merely lifted his shoulders in a very Gallic shrug.

‘My wife, she thought we should support you.’

‘You knew I was coming here?’

‘I guessed,’ said Cassie, twinkling up at him. ‘As soon as Grandmama wrote to tell me she was coming to Arrandale I knew something was afoot. We set off as soon as Raoul had made arrangements for leave from his duties.’

‘Then you can make yourself useful by helping to search the house for the Sawston necklace,’ snapped Lady Sophia.

Wolf glanced at the dowager marchioness. Despite her sharp tone he could see she was delighted to have her granddaughter with her and she even greeted Raoul with more warmth than Wolf expected her to show to a mere surgeon.

‘The diamonds?’ said Cassie, going to sit on a sofa beside her husband. ‘You think they are here?’

The dowager nodded. ‘Wolfgang thinks so, although so far we have found nothing.’

Wolf exhaled fiercely. ‘Perhaps I am wrong, but Meesden was adamant the diamonds had not been stolen. Grace and I both remember her saying so.’

‘Grace?’ Lady Hune pounced on the name. ‘Your brother mentioned a young woman was helping you.’

‘Miss Duncombe is the daughter of the local vicar here in Arrandale,’ he said carefully. ‘She was visiting her aunt in London.’

‘Indeed?’ Wolf found himself subjected to another of the dowager’s piercing stares. ‘I should like to meet her.’

‘I think not,’ he said quickly. ‘She has had too much contact already with the Arrandale family. And she is about to marry the local magistrate.’ Wolf stared moodily into the fire. The thought of Grace married to another man tore into him. It was made even more painful by the obvious affection that existed between Cassie and her husband. If only Grace could love him in that way, but her heart was buried in the Arrandale churchyard, along with her first love.

He rubbed a hand over his eyes, the long ride was catching up with him.

‘I need to sleep,’ he said, rising. ‘Then I will help you search the house. The diamonds are here, I know it, and I am determined to find them.’

* * *

Grace slipped into the vicarage, thankful that there was no one on the stairs to see her in her boy’s clothes. In her room she found the maid, humming tunelessly as she ran a cloth along the mantelshelf. On hearing the door open, Betty turned and immediately dropped the Dresden figurine she had been dusting.

‘Ooh, Miss Grace, you did give me a scare!’ She looked in dismay at the shattered porcelain pieces lying in the hearth. ‘And what the master will say when he knows what I have done I don’t know.’

Grace quickly closed the door.

‘Leave that for now, Betty. I will make it all right with Papa, but first you must help me to change. I cannot go down to him dressed like this.’

‘No, indeed.’ The smashed figurine was forgotten as the maid put her hands on her hips and regarded her mistress. ‘I thought I’d have time to clean your room before you got home and you turn up, bold as brass and dressed like a, well, like I don’t know what.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘And if you don’t mind my saying, Miss Grace, you looks like you’ve been pulled through a hedge backwards.’

Grace stooped to look at her reflection in the mirror on her dressing table.

She gave a rueful smile. ‘Perhaps it would be as well if you fetched me up some hot water.’

Betty hurried away and the smile faded. Although the pain of the past few hours was lessened a little by being home, she felt so tired and unhappy that she wanted nothing more than to curl up on her bed, but that would have to wait. Papa would want to know why she had arrived in such a precipitous manner and she was not quite sure how much she could tell him.

* * *

‘Papa?’

Grace peeped into the study. Her father was sitting at his desk, staring out of the window, deep in thought. At the sound of her voice he looked up and smiled.

‘My love.’ He rose and held out his arms. ‘We did not expect you until dinnertime!’

‘I rode on ahead,’ she said, walking into his embrace and surreptitiously scrubbing away a rogue tear on his shoulder. ‘I have such a lot to tell you...’

* * *

An hour later her tale was done. She was sitting on a footstool next to her father’s chair. He had kept his hand on her shoulder throughout and shown no signs of censure or approval as she told him everything that had occurred since she had left Arrandale.

Well, not quite everything, she thought now, as she rested her head against his knee. She had not mentioned the way Wolf had held her, kissed her.

‘So you helped Wolfgang Arrandale to escape, then rode through the night with him.’

‘Yes, Papa. Was it very wrong of me?’

‘I am sure you believed you had good reason, my love. How much of this do you intend to tell Sir Loftus?’

She looked up at that. ‘Everything I have told you.’

‘Oh, my love, he is a magistrate, and in helping Wolfgang to escape you have broken the law.’ He sighed. ‘I blame myself for this. It was I who insisted you and Mr Arrandale should travel to London together. I do not doubt you thought it your duty to help him, but I had not expected you to go this far.’

‘You taught me it was my duty to fight injustice, Papa, and Wolfgang would surely hang if he was brought to trial in Southwark.’ Her voice shook. ‘We both hated the fact that poor Henry’s murderer was hanged, imagine how much worse for it to happen to an innocent man, and I sincerely believe Wolf is innocent.’ She took his hands. ‘I could not in all conscience do other than help him, surely you must see that.’

He smiled sadly. ‘I see a young woman who is very much in love.’

Grace quickly looked away.

‘Do not say so, Papa.’

‘After Henry died you shut yourself off from the world, Grace. I am glad to see that you can love again, I only wish it was your fiancé and not Wolfgang Arrandale.’

‘I wish it, too, Papa.’ She put her head back on his knee. ‘What shall I do?’

‘We shall pray, my child. And you must not show yourself until your carriage has arrived. Then I will write a note to Loftus telling him you are home and inviting him to dinner tomorrow. By then who knows what might have occurred at Arrandale?’

* * *

Grace went up to her room to rest. As soon as she lay down on her bed exhaustion overcame her and she slept soundly until Betty came in, telling her it was time to change for dinner.

‘Have my trunks arrived?’ asked Grace, rubbing her eyes.

‘Aye, miss, they have, and Mrs Graham and her maid with them. Such a to-do there was, Mrs Graham not knowing whether you was safe, but the master put her mind at rest and now she’s in the guest room, changing her gown, and Mrs Truscott’s fretting about dinner and worrying that the capon she’s got on the spit won’t stretch.’

‘I will go and talk to her. And I will arrange my own hair, Betty, so that you may be free to help in the kitchen. Now, have my luggage fetched upstairs and we will look out one of my new gowns to wear.’

Grace marvelled at how easily she was slipping back into the role of keeping house for Papa. There was at least some comfort in that.

* * *

Dinner was excellent, as Grace had known it would be, and if she had no appetite it was nothing to do with the quality of the chicken, nor the boiled tongue and potato pudding that accompanied it. She did her best to eat the lemon jelly that was served with the second course, knowing Mrs Truscott had prepared it especially for her homecoming, but in truth she tasted nothing. She spent most of the dinner hour in silence while her aunt discussed with Papa the best way forward.

‘When Mr Wolfgang was clapped up Grace visited him every day,’ said Aunt Eliza, casting a reproachful glance across the table at her niece. ‘Perhaps you will say I should have stopped her, Titus, but I confess I do not know how I might have done so.’

‘My daughter was merely doing her Christian duty,’ murmured Papa and Grace threw him a grateful look.

‘But then, when I received her note, saying she was riding home and wanted her things sent on to you today I vow I could not sleep for worrying!’

Grace said softly, ‘I am very sorry if I caused you anxiety, Aunt, but as you can see I am here, safe and sound.’

‘Yes, yes, but what if it gets out that you have been aiding and abetting a felon?’

Grace sat up very straight. ‘Wolfgang Arrandale is an innocent man.’

‘I think we may be sure that Mr Arrandale will say nothing of my daughter’s involvement in his flight,’ said her father. ‘We must hold to our story, that she left London with you this morning. But let us hope that no one asks.’

‘I vow you are as bad as Grace,’ declared his sister with a little huff of exasperation. ‘After she lost her first fiancé we were all relieved when Loftus Braddenfield proposed.’ She glanced at her niece. ‘You will forgive me if I speak plainly, my love, but you are nearly five-and-twenty and unlikely to receive another offer. I very much fear all this has put the match in jeopardy.’

‘Let us wait until tomorrow and see what Sir Loftus says,’ replied Papa gently. ‘After all, he is a reasonable man.’

‘Not so reasonable that he will condone his fiancée careering around the country with a man,’ muttered Aunt Eliza. ‘Especially an Arrandale.’

Grace said nothing, but she very much feared her aunt was right. To the weight of her own unhappiness was added the knowledge that she had disappointed her family. By the time they retired to the drawing room she was feeling very low and she excused herself, saying she was going out.

‘There is at least an hour’s daylight left and a little fresh air will clear my head. I am only going to the churchyard, Papa, but I think I shall go straight to bed afterwards, so I will say goodnight to you both now.’

Grace went upstairs to fetch her cloak and found the maid turning out the trunks.

‘You should have left that for me, Betty, I am sure you have been rushed off your feet today.’

‘Nonsense, Miss Grace, it’s been a pleasure to put away all the new clothes you bought in London. Well now, I never expected to see this old gown again.’ She lifted out the yellow muslin. ‘You must have had it for at least four years.’

‘I had the hem repaired while I was in town,’ said Grace, trying not to sigh at the memory. ‘It was done by a lady who used to work up at the hall, you may remember her. Annie Meesden.’

‘Oooh, yes,’ said Betty, her face lighting up. ‘She was brutally done to death, wasn’t she? Mr Truscott read it in the master’s newspaper. It said Mr Wolfgang Arrandale had been taken up for it.’

Grace did not know how to reply. She felt suddenly stifled by memories and her fears for Wolf. She needed to get out into the fresh air.

‘So she was reduced to taking in sewing, was she?’ said Betty, inspecting the gown. ‘Well, she did a good job on this, I must say.’ She frowned and peered closer at the muslin. ‘Hmm, she thought a lot of herself, sewing her mark into the hem.’

‘Yes, I saw that,’ murmured Grace, hunting around for her cloak.

‘But it’s not her initials, is it?’ Betty continued. ‘That would be “A.M”. And look, miss, she has embroidered “M.K. One-six, one-six”. I wonder why?’

Grace barely glanced at the embroidery on the hem of the old gown. She did not want to think any more about the dresser, or murder. Or Wolf. At last she found her cloak and threw it around her shoulders as she hurried away.

* * *

Outside the house Grace took a deep, steadying breath. Even with a low blanket of cloud covering the sky it felt so much cleaner and fresher here than Hans Place, where the dust and dirt of the ongoing building work hung in the air. She walked briskly to the churchyard. Tomorrow she must see Loftus and explain everything, but tonight there was something equally important she must do, for the sake of her conscience.

The flowers she had laid by Henry’s headstone before going to London looked withered and grey in the fading light.

‘I am sorry I have not brought fresh ones,’ she murmured, sinking to her knees. ‘And I am sorry for a great deal more.’ She gazed sadly at the ground. For five years she had thought her heart was buried here, with Henry. She knew that the innocent, girlish passion she had conceived for Henry Hodges was nothing to the love she now felt for the dark and brooding Wolf Arrandale.

‘But he is as lost to me as you are,’ she whispered, running her fingers over the rough lettering inscribed on the headstone. ‘More so, because he does not want me. And even if he did, I am promised to Loftus. All I can do is to pray that Wolf will prove his innocence. I want him to be happy, that must be enough for me.’

There. She had made her peace with Henry. Grace blinked away the threatening tears, fixing her eyes on the final words engraved on the headstone.

We are the children of God

Rom 8:16

She froze. The air in the graveyard was very still. Nothing moved, there was no sound. In her memory she was seeing again the delicately embroidered numbers and letters on the yellow gown.

‘It is not a seamstress’s mark at all,’ she muttered. ‘It is a biblical reference!’

* * *

Wolf was in no mood for family reunions. The sight of Richard and Cassandra, both deeply in love with their partners, only intensified the aching emptiness of his own life. After dinner he remained in the drawing room for barely half an hour before retiring, declaring he was too tired to stay awake.

As he crossed the hall there was an urgent knocking at the door and he stepped into the shadows beneath the stairs. Had his pursuers caught up with him already? Croft opened the door and Wolf heard a familiar voice enquiring urgently for Mr Arrandale.

‘Grace?’ He strode forward and she ran past the astonished butler.

‘Thank heaven I have found you! I must tell you—’

‘Hush now, come into the library where we may talk privately.’

He led her across the hall. The library was in a state of disorder, for Sophia had ordered the servants to examine every book in their search for the missing necklace. Two servants were still going through the shelves, but Wolf dismissed them and gently guided Grace to a chair beside the empty fireplace.