What the Marquess Sees (28 page)

An army of toy shoulders, bent and twisted, were scattered about the grounds as well—both in the garden proper and outside its wall.

By contrast, the cottage’s interior was fastidious, almost gleaming. Certainly not the condition in which it had been found. Personal effects were lined up with exacting precision on a table, including the tools for making up additional shot casings, the means for sharpening a sword, and a man’s pocket watch. The watch was polished to a brilliant shine and lay perfectly square to one corner of the table, its chain lined up horizontally with the table’s edge. Precise. Bizarre.

A traveling valise lay on the small bed in the far corner. Squarely in the middle. And on top of bedclothes pulled taut and tucked tight with not a wrinkle to be found. Very bizarre.

And there wasn’t a single inch of dust to be found. Someone had certainly spent significant time cleaning the one-room shack.

So Edward wasn’t here, though it appeared as if he would be returning. Someone that precise would not leave behind his personal effects.

Dansbury tapped the table and turned to face his friend. “What do you think, Ambrose?”

“I think I’m surprised we found him so easily. And I think he’ll return…what are you doing?”

“Messing up the bed.” Dansbury had sat on the bed. Just sat. It was enough to add a crease or two.

“How old are you?”

Dansbury just grinned at his friend. Clearly, the question was rhetorical.

“Anyway,” continued Stonebridge, “I’ll not wait here all afternoon wondering when. Let us head back and prepare appropriate accommodations for our reluctant guest. Then, we’ll return at dusk and extend our invitation.”

As they left, Dansbury brushed his hand over the pocket watch’s chain.

He just couldn’t resist.

“There's nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head.”

―Thornton Wilder

The Back Terrace…

Bloomfield Park…

The women were outside on the back terrace taking coffee. And talking. He just couldn’t help himself; he paused near the open door leading outside and listened in on their conversation. Eavesdropping had helped him out of many scrapes in the past; it was a hard habit to break even when not on assignment.

He no longer thought of Bea as an assignment.

Fortunately, the doors had panes of glass covered by translucent curtains, he was reasonably shielded from their sight, yet he could make out both their profiles well enough.

Yet he only had eyes for one.

“What about your half-sisters, Beatryce? Why do you leave them? I can see you care. You care for them a great deal,” asked Aunt Harriet. He had wondered the same. He held his breath as he awaited her response.

He could tell Lady Bea squirmed in her seat. She reached up to push a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I do. I care, though they wouldn’t know it. I’ve had to keep them at arm’s length, don’t you see? Especially Adelaide. Have you met her?”

“Yes, I have. She’s the female equivalent to our Dansbury. Charming. Precocious. And cute as a button.” The women laughed at the comparison; their mirth danced to his ears on the breeze, free and unfettered.

He wanted to chuckle aloud with them. He did rather like little Adelaide. No wonder.

“She is at that. You could see it right from the beginning. And my father, the bastard that he was, always kept me in line by threatening her well-being. It was his way…and met with far more success than any direct assault could. He said that if I didn’t…obey…he would use her instead.”

Aunt Harriett gasped. Cliff gripped the doorframe with no insignificant amount of force. In the blink of an eye, a shadowed veil enshrouded them. That bastard!

“And so you obeyed…” Aunt Harriett’s voice was shaken.

“And so I obeyed. Everything he would have me do, I did.” Bea’s voice remained strong, but with a hardened edge.

Dansbury wished the man alive so that he could be the one to kill him this time.

“But he’s gone now; he can threaten you no more.” A faint trace of hope colored Aunt Harriett’s voice.

Yes, he is gone. Thank God.

“He cannot, tis true. But despite his evil, he did offer my sisters some level of protection from the more unsavory men of his acquaintance…so long as I was there to do their bidding, of course.”

It’s in the past, ignore it. Ignore it.

Dansbury gripped the doorframe even harder. The wood gave a telling creak.

Bea continued, “But he’s not here now, and that actually makes the girls more vulnerable than ever, especially should I remain. It is too late for me, don’t you see? Those…men—I hesitate to call them that—they know me; they have certain…expectations…based on our past associations…and will and would continue to venture into and out of my life should I remain in society, which means running the risk of them turning their attentions elsewhere when they grow tired of me or simply want more variety…”

Dansbury shuddered with revulsion. What sick, sick animals. They certainly weren’t men by any definition of the word. A rat had more honor.

“But I would keep them from turning their attentions toward any of my sisters…by staying far, far away from them. I could not live with myself should one of them try to take advantage of Adelaide…or even Hetty or Sylvia…because of their connection to me.”

Bea’s voice held a slight tremble now. He could not even begin to imagine how she had endured it for so long. Suddenly, he had an all-too-real, all-too-horrific vision of what sort of hell Beatryce had lived in and with her entire young life. And despite it all, she was willing to give up a life of comparative ease to ensure her sisters’ safety…the very definition of noble and utterly unselfish.

“Oh, Bea, you poor dear.”

Dansbury echoed the sentiment. It was so odd, hearing such dark tales amidst such bright and sunny weather. For the weather was certainly fine. Yet Bea’s past, her story, tainted the very air in shadow.

“Aunt Harriett, it is all right. Their threats are in the past, and I have come to terms with my future. I am quite looking forward to this new life I have planned.”

Cliff admired her strength. Despite her shadowed past, she actually held onto some small amount of optimism and acceptance of her reality. At least on the surface. She’d kept that part of her character hidden from the world quite well. Quite well.

“But by yourself, Beatryce? No man, to aid you?”

Bea laughed. “A man, Aunt Harriett? I need no man. And I am surprised to hear that sentiment coming from you, of all people. I see no man gracing your drawing room, save for your charming nephew.” Bea lifted her cup and acted as if she suspected she might find a gentleman hiding beneath it. The real Lady Beatryce was actually a witty, funny woman. Imagine that.

Dansbury had to stifle his own laugh, weighted thought it was with her revelations. Lady Beatryce certainly had his aunt figured out.

“You are correct, my dear. But there was one. Once. A long time ago.” Aunt Harriett’s voice trailed off as if she’d left to live a little in the past.

He recalled a vague memory of a kind man, always smiling.

“And where is he now?” Bea prompted.

Aunt Harriett sighed and searched her hands. “I don’t know…One day, he just left, and I never saw him again.”

He remembered now, his aunt burdened by sadness for many months when he was young. It had upset him, seeing her that way. So out of character from her normally vibrant personality.

“You still love this man? I can see in your eyes that you do.”

Cliff felt mildly ashamed, how could he not have suspected this?

“Strange, I know. But I do. I still do. No one could ever measure up after that.”

Still, he was surprised by her admission. She continued to love that man, still, after all this time…True love was a powerful, enduring thing, wasn’t it?

“And you still don’t know what ever happened to him?”

“I don’t.”

“Oh, Aunt H…”

“No, No. Don’t you worry yourself over me. I’ve long since resigned myself to my fate. I’ve managed all these years; I’m not about to lose myself now. But you, Bea, you are young yet. Would you not choose to have a man with you, if only to keep you warm on a cold winter night?”

Oooh, what a devious little troublemaker, his aunt.

“Like Dansbury, Auntie H?”

Dansbury’s thoughts froze at Bea’s unexpected suggestion. Him?

Aunt Harriett fiddled with her cup, turning it in her hands this way and that. “Perhaps…”

What? More astonishing still was Aunt Harriett’s confirmation of Bea’s suggestion.

He wanted to hear more of what Beatryce would say to that, but at the same time, he feared it. He wasn’t ready. He needed time to think. To know…

It was clear that this was his cue to interrupt. He slapped on his most charismatic grin. “I see you two are taking advantage of our unusually beautiful weather by relaxing outdoors…” he said as he strolled out onto the terrace. He hoped to God his cheeks weren’t aflame.

The cool air blowing across the covered terrace felt unusually cold to his skin, so he doubted it. Unfortunately.

Perhaps the ladies wouldn’t notice. 

“Why then tonight let us assay our plot.”

―Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well

“Dansbury! You’re back.” Beatryce jumped up and rushed toward him, her eyes combing his body for any sign of injury. Worry was getting the better part of her common sense and composure. She wasn’t used to fretting over someone other than herself.

“Did you find him? Did you find that madman?” She didn’t waste another breath, desperate as she was to know what happened. Still, she continued to check him for holes that shouldn’t be there whilst she spoke.

“We did,” answered Dansbury. He just stood there, arms outstretched like a scarecrow and let her have her way.

She shoved him gently and looked at him. “And?” Sometimes men could be maddeningly cryptic, offering very few words when they had to know one wanted every single detail, no matter how insignificant.

Bea resumed her inspection of his body while she waited for him to answer.

“He’s staying in an old game keeper’s hut.”

“Close by?” She prompted and only just stopped herself from stomping her foot in vexation over his reluctance to elaborate. There were no unexpected holes on his left arm.

“About two miles west of the mill.”

She wanted to pinch him, she really wanted to pinch him.

“God. That close?” And none on the right arm either. Good.

“Yea.”

“So…I take it he wasn’t there?” She prompted.

“He wasn’t.”

Aargghh. Sometimes men were less talkative than the stones beneath their feet…and just as hard headed.

God, for once give me a garrulous man.

“What are you going to do now? And do not say ‘Go back later.’” She would drag it out of him even if she had to pull the words from his mouth one syllable at a time.

She patted his chest once, finished with her inspection and satisfied he was whole, awaited his answer.

Dansbury smiled, the flirtatious teasing one that made every woman weak in the knees. “You know men so well.”

“Arg. Just tell me.” She was ready to shake his words loose.

“Arg? Tsk. Tsk. Such a ladylike noise, Lady Beatryce.”

She crossed her arms and glared at him.

“We are going to go back later…”

He paused just to needle her; she just knew it. “At dusk. We’ll meet in the library an hour before and finalize our plans. You will be there, won’t you?”

“Of course.” As if he needed to ask.

She turned from him then, an uncomfortable feeling beginning to form in the pit of her stomach now that she wasn’t focused on inspecting him for injury. She caught Aunt Harriett’s eye as she returned to her chair. She looked away, then jerked her gaze back up to catch Aunt Harriett’s meaningful look.

Bea did not want to see it, and she most definitely did not want to acknowledge it.

Bea sat and entertained a most ridiculous plan to avoid further eye contact or conversation with either one of them for the rest of the afternoon, while her thoughts began to swirl chaotically like the wind ahead of an approaching storm.

Aunt Harriett cleared her throat. “Yes, well. That was most…informative.”

Everyone remained uncomfortably quiet for a moment; to Beatryce the very outdoors began to shrink in on her. The atmosphere seemed to take on a darker, more saturated hue with shadows hovering around the periphery of her vision; the plants became more focused and defined, darker. Heavier.

All three of them knew Aunt Harriett was not referring to Dansbury’s loquacious recount of his morning reconnaissance.

“Well, as these old bones are no longer suited for such dangerous assignments, I'll leave the planning and such for you young folk,” she admitted.

Aunt Harriett rose to leave.

Dansbury stood out of respect, and Bea followed suit, though her eyes remained fixed on her own twisting, knotted hands. She couldn’t look just now, not with her mind in such a whirl.

Aunt Harriett walked across the slates, her cane tapping the surface with every step. Like a clock ticking the seconds, marking the passage of time. One. Step. Two. Step. Three.

Bea couldn’t help but look up and watch her now that Aunt Harriett couldn’t see her.

The woman paused beside her nephew, and lay a hand upon his arm. “But Clifford, darling, remember, life is grim when you lose what makes it joyful…” She looked back at Beatryce, then turned to face Cliff again. “Be cautious, son.” And she looked back once more at Beatryce before she took her leave.

Bea started and sought Cliff only to find he was already regarding her with troubled eyes.

She could not bear the weight of such a gaze. “I must see to…I must take my leave…as well.”

And she followed in Aunt Harriett’s wake.

But as she passed Cliff, she heard his unmistakable voice. “Coward…”

His words sounded more a plea than an accusation.