A Bride by Moonlight (5 page)

“Mellow with age?” echoed Napier. “Duncaster is hardly a bottle of brandy. Besides, the man must have one foot in the grave, and most of his toes.”

Sir George leaned a little across the table. “All the more reason to go,” he said quietly. “Perhaps your grandfather wishes to make peace? He must be nearly eighty, Royden. You are his only grandson. His heir. And someone . . . someone must see to things.”

“I do not see why that someone must be me.”

But he had known for a while now that there mightn’t
be
anyone else.

Had he somehow imagined he could avoid this?

All three of Duncaster’s sons were dead. The eldest had died without children. And now the middle son, who’d sired only daughters, had recently passed on to his great reward—mere weeks before he was to marry again, with every hope of begetting an heir that might saw off Hanging Nick Napier’s embarrassing branch of the family tree.

Napier had wished his uncle well in his efforts. He already considered himself sawn off.

But his uncle, Lord Saint-Bryce, had been in his fifties, and the gleeful anticipation of bedding a beautiful woman half his age had apparently done the poor fellow in. Either that or Lady Hepplewood’s incessant nagging. From what little Napier had grasped, the old dragon had dogged her nephew’s every step, determined to marry the poor devil off again.

Napier thought again of the oddly scribbled plea Hepplewood had written Sir George all those months ago. The old man’s rambling notions suggested someone at the vast family estate wished him ill. So Napier had gone, at Sir George’s insistence, to see what nefariousness was afoot in Wiltshire.

Except that there had been no nefariousness. Hepplewood had been nearly insensible upon Napier’s arrival, and had never really regained himself. He had simply begun to suffer, Lady Hepplewood claimed, of his family’s curse, senility.

Another mystery solved.

Napier shook his head. He did not need another.

Sir George extracted a letter, and pushed it across the table.

“I promised Duncaster I’d beg you,” he said. “And I do. Beg you, that is. Go, and at least placate him. I’ll have your duties here in London seen to until you make up your mind.”

“Make up my mind?” Napier looked at him incredulously. “To do what?”

“To stay here and waste your blood and your talent,” said Sir George, “or to go home, and take up your duty as Lord Duncaster’s heir.”

“Heir!” Napier spat out the word. “I’m a bureaucrat’s son.”

“Nonsense,” Sir George admonished. “You have the manners, the education, and all the bearing of a gentleman. Indeed, you are a gentleman born.”

Napier shook his head again, and felt his lips thin.

“He is an old man, Royden; likely frail and near death. Don’t you wish to hear his side of it?”

No, damn it all, he
didn’t
.

Or at least . . . he hadn’t.

Not until Lazonby had clouded his life with what Napier so desperately wished to believe were lies about his father. But now he was beginning to question all he’d believed in. That his father was a stoic hero; a relentless crusader for good over evil. That his grandfather was a rich, unreasonable despot surrounded by sycophants and a house full of pompous, parasitic dependents.

As with all things, the truth was likely somewhere in the middle.

He sighed. “Give me the letter,” he said, thrusting out a hand.

His index finger set in the center, Sir George pushed the folded paper another inch, then hesitated. “There is one other thing.”

“Yes, with that lot, there always is.” Napier fell back into his chair. “Well, go on. What is it?”

“Lady Hepplewood—your great-aunt, that is . . .” Sir George looked suddenly sheepish. “She has a companion, or . . . or a sort of ward?”

“Saint-Bryce’s intended bride?” Napier looked at him oddly. “Yes, there’s some vague family connection. She was Hepplewood’s cousin, I think.”

Sir George glanced away, never a good sign. “Well, Lady Hepplewood has told Duncaster that the girl has been given every expectation of becoming the next Baroness Saint-Bryce.”

“Well, that will be a damned sight more difficult with Saint-Bryce in the grave,” said Napier dryly, “but I wish Lady Hepplewood every success.”

“Doubtless she’ll be relieved to hear it. Because Royden . . . well,
you
are Saint-Bryce.”

“The devil I am.”

“Technically, you are,” said Sir George.

“No,” he countered. “
Technically
, I’m assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police—unless you mean to sack me over this Coldwater debacle.”

“But Baron Saint-Bryce
is
Viscount Duncaster’s secondary title,” Sir George pointed out. “The courtesy title traditionally borne by the heir.”

“And if he offered it to me,” Napier gritted, “I would bloody well refuse it.”

Sir George lifted his shoulders lamely. “I fear that he and Lady Hepplewood are already referring to you as such.”

“Good God.”

“Oh, I doubt your grandfather shares his younger sister’s marriage schemes,” said Sir George consolingly. “After all, Duncaster’s much older than she and—well, he is a
man
, Royden. He’ll likely be satisfied with merely your boot across his threshold.”

“I fear they are both to be disappointed,” said Napier coldly. “Moreover, they are never satisfied. I’ve already seen that much.”

“But Lady Hepplewood—” Here, Sir George leaned forward. “Well, my boy, you spent several days in her company. Does she not intimidate you? I always found her terrifying.”

Napier lifted one shoulder. “The lady scarcely spared me a glance,” he said honestly.

Sir George fell back. “Well, she will have more than a glance for you now, my boy,” he warned. “I have known the lady for years, Napier, and I very much suggest . . .”

“What?”

“That you prepare yourself,” he said. “Perhaps . . . perhaps you ought not go alone?”

“How kind of you, sir,” said Napier a little acidly. “I shall greatly enjoy your company on the long ride to Wiltshire.”

Sir George blanched. “No, no, I meant . . .”

“Yes—?”

“Well, I did happen to see you at the opera recently,” he said, “with a strikingly lovely widow on your arm.”

Napier could only glower at him. “With Lady Anisha Stafford, do you mean?”

“Indeed, and she appears both graceful and self-possessed.” The sheepish smile returned. “Her late husband was one of the Dorset Staffords, you know. Certainly her Scottish roots are noble and ancient.”

He was tiptoeing around the fact of Anisha’s Rajput mother, Napier noticed. But no matter. “What, sir, is your point?”

“Nothing,” said Sir George. “But I’m given to understand that the two of you have been keeping company. That you recently dined in her home, and that she has occasionally visited your office. And I just thought that, if there were anything in it, then now might be the time to announce—”

“There’s nothing whatever,” Napier gruffly interjected. “The vaguest of friendships. As to Lady Anisha’s finer feelings, I believe they are otherwise engaged.”

“Oh.” Sir George’s face fell, and he looked suddenly weary. “Oh, that’s unfortunate.”

He mightn’t think so, thought Napier grimly, had he known of Anisha’s involvement in Sir Wilfred’s death. Napier felt a stab of guilt for having used his influence to keep her name from the witness list. But he did not doubt Lazonby’s threat; the man would have mired the Napier name in mud forever, and ruined his father’s legacy.

That, however, had hardly been the deciding factor. Napier truly had no wish to involve Anisha. Oh, he no longer thought of her as anything save a dear friend; the whole of his attention was subsumed by this case.

And by the lady in gray.

Good God. He tried to shove the thought of Elizabeth Ashton away again.

But even now he could feel her cool eyes cutting into him. Could feel the heat of her hand in his as he’d settled her back onto the bench. She was as different from Anisha as the moon from the sun.

“Oh, well,” said Sir George worriedly. “It would have been ideal, of course, to take a prospective bride to visit your grandfather.”

“A bride?” Napier retorted. “I’ve rarely time for breakfast, let alone a bride.”

“Well, nothing less, I fear, will put Lady Hepplewood off her notion.”

“Lady Hepplewood’s notions are no concern of mine,” said Napier.

“Hmm.” Sir George looked worried. “We shall see about that.”

But the talk of Lady Hepplewood’s scheming had stiffened Napier’s resolve. “No, we shan’t see,” he answered. “I haven’t the time to traipse off to Wiltshire to dance attendance on an old man and his whims.”

At last irritation sketched over Sir George’s face. “Royden, for God’s sake, be reasonable,” he hissed beneath the clamor of the room. “When Duncaster dies, what then? Do you think for one moment Commissioner Mayne will keep you on at Scotland Yard? Or will even
want
you? And I shan’t force him, I tell you. One cannot simply give up estates and titles. One is expected to do one’s duty to the Crown.”

“I did not ask for this,” Napier muttered. “Good God, I never even dreamt it!”

“No one did,” said Sir George grimly. “But far better you go now and make something like peace with Duncaster—and learn a bit of how things go on. For if you wait until he dies, my boy, you’ll be viewed as nothing but a neophyte to be taken advantage of by the staff, the estate agents, and that wheedling pack of granddaughters. You’ll be utterly ignorant—and you’ll be hated in the bargain.”

Napier shrugged. “Already they regard me as nothing but a burr under their proverbial saddles.”

At that, Sir George’s mouth quirked. “Well, then,” he said, flicking the letter across the table. “It will be just like a day at the office for you, won’t it?”

T
he rain clouds that had visited Hackney in the wee hours of the morning had apparently taken a long-term lease. By early afternoon, the traffic passing by Elizabeth Ashton’s tidy cottage had winnowed away to an occasional carriage clattering past, and a farm cart with an ancient driver wrapped in a damp brown blanket who, hunched miserably as he was, greatly resembled a drowned rat.

With the tip of one finger, she leaned into the parlor’s bow window and pulled back the light underdrapes to look out for about the fifth time at her small but sodden front garden. The gutters around the house still rumbled and rain still bounced off the flagstone path like pea-gravel flung from the heavens. Elizabeth dreaded going out into it. And yet she had to resist the almost overwhelming urge to do just that.

To run. No, to
flee
.

To rush headlong into something, anything, that might take her away from here.

Or away from herself, perhaps.

Refusing to wring her hands over her plight, she clenched the ends of her shawl in one fist instead. Wherever she was to go, she could not go today. It had taken the past several days to summon her solicitor and tidy her affairs. Still, she had a little time yet; a very little, perhaps, but Elizabeth had become adept at calculating risk and opportunity.

Dropping the drapery, she turned from the glass and considered ringing for a fire to be built up. But the cold she felt, Elizabeth feared, was a chill no fire would mend; it was a coldness of the soul—and one brought upon herself.

The elderly gentleman scratching out a document deep in the shadows of the parlor stretched forward to dip his pen into his inkwell, the creak of his chair drawing her back to the present. Mr. Bodkins returned to his efforts with utter concentration, as if unaware his client still remained in the room.

Suddenly, light, quick footsteps came down the stairs and Elizabeth’s maid Fanny poked her head over the banister, holding a large wicker case by its leather strap.

“Beg pardon, Miss Lisette, but this one for the hats?” she asked. “Or would you rather the boxes?”

Elizabeth blinked, trying to draw her mind back to the pressing tasks at hand. Away from Sir Wilfred’s pale corpse. Away from Lord Lazonby’s knowing gaze, and the black, soulless eyes of Royden Napier. But all of them had begun to haunt her nights.

“The wicker, I think,” she said vaguely.

“And—er—Mr. Coldwater’s things have been sorted.” Something like sympathy sketched over the maid’s face. “Shall I put them in the trunks?”

Elizabeth stilled her hand on the shawl. “We shan’t have room,” she finally said. “Take them up to St. John’s. The Ladies’ Parish Committee will know what’s best done with them.”

Fanny cut an assessing look at their caller. “Those old tabbies might quiz me, miss,” she warned.

“Drop Mr. Coldwater’s things in the vestry,” said Elizabeth flatly. “If anyone asks you why, act as if you’ve been struck dumb.”

At that, Bodkins snapped shut the latch on his rosewood writing box and rose from the parlor table, a worried crease down the middle of his forehead. It had become a permanent fixture over the last twenty years, Elizabeth realized.

“Well, that’s that, Lisette,” he said, making a creaky bow. “If I could just have your signature?”

She went to the table and hastily scribbled upon the lines as he shuffled papers and pointed them out.

“Very well,” he said when she’d laid the pen aside. “Everything has been signed and your accounts brought current. Now, as to the lease on this house—”

“Thank you, Bodkins,” Elizabeth preempted, “but I’m quite persuaded to quit Hackney.”

Bodkins’s crease deepened as he peered at her over his silver spectacles. “But where will you go, my dear, if I may ask?” he said uneasily. “I went to great lengths to obtain this house—and at your insistence. Moreover, Hackney is a quiet, lovely village, and you have the wherewithal to live here in a measure of comfort.”

“Thank you,” she said, “nonetheless, I insist.”

Bodkins shook his head. “But my dear,
where
do you mean to go?” he pressed. “And when?”

“The day after tomorrow,” she said crisply. “As to where—” Here, her own forehead creased. “Where did you say that old manor house was located?”

“The one that came to you ten years ago?”