A Prudent Match (22 page)

“Yes, and I've a great deal to accomplish before he returns,” Prudence assured him. “You mustn't linger, Sir Geoffrey. It's starting to look like rain and I would wish Catherine home before we have a cloudburst.”

Prudence was touched when Sir Geoffrey clasped her hand with firm pressure, then lifted it to his lips to kiss. “Contrary fellow,” he muttered, “to leave such a lovely bride behind when you've been married so short a time.”

“He felt it his responsibility to act,” Prudence said gently. “I quite understand that.”

Sir Geoffrey looked rueful. “Then you understand a great deal more than I do. Never mind. I'd best get my wife and child home. Good day to you, Lady Ledbetter, and our thanks again.”

Prudence retreated into the house when the carriage had rolled off down the drive. Because she was a very organized woman, she had the arrangements for the dinner party very much in hand. But she had put off writing to her family since she had left on her wedding day, and she felt it was more than time to make up for that omission. Her sister Lizzie would be especially anxious to hear how she went on. While Prudence was scratching away with the quill on a fresh sheet of paper, she heard the rain begin and turned to watch it fall outside the withdrawing room window.

Somewhere out there Ledbetter was playing his version of Bow Street Runner, trying to track down clues about Mr. Youngblood's parentage. Prudence had been too distracted by her house guests and her preparations for the dinner to consider whether she might herself do any searching out of information. But as she watched the miserable rain drench the landscape, and the ink dried on her quill, an idea came to her. She rang for Tessie.

When the girl arrived and curtsied, Prudence beckoned her close. “Tessie, were you at church on Sunday?”

“Yes, my lady. With the servants, in the back. That's a very fine organ his lordship's mother gave the church.”

“Yes, isn't it?” Prudence's eyes sparkled. “It would have done very well for a cathedral as well. But that's not what I'm concerned about just now. You heard Mr. Youngblood play?”

“I did. My, I've never heard music like that before, ma'am. He could play for the Prince Regent, everyone said.”

“A remarkably fine performance,” Prudence agreed. “But what I wish to ask you about, Tessie, is his resemblance to Lord Ledbetter, and the reaction of the servants to it.”

“Oh, they were that astonished!” Tessie admitted, a gleam in her eye. “Had a great deal to say about it on our walk back to Salston.”

“You walked?”

“Oh, yes, ma'am. It's a tradition, Mrs. Collins said.”

“Hmm. Perhaps we should update that tradition a little. But, Tessie, what I'd like, if you are able, is for you to tell me what they said. Not like telling tales, you understand. You needn't tell me who said what. But I would be very grateful to know what their impressions were about that likeness between the two men.”

“Yes, I see.” Tessie looked thoughtful. “Well, there was those as felt he, Mr. Youngblood, was a . . . a natural child of the old Lord Ledbetter, this one's papa, you know. Said you couldn't find someone so alike without there being a connection. But there was others as scoffed at that, saying the old lord weren't that kind of fellow. Got into a bit of a huff, some of them. One, he said that weren't the way of it at all.”

Prudence's interest sharpened. “And what did he think
was
the way of it?”

“He didn't rightly say, my lady. Just that there was no call to be thinking the old lord done anything he shouldn't have.”

“Tessie, would it be asking too much of you to tell me who said that?”

The girl shook her head. “Don't see any harm in it, ma'am. 'Twas the head gardener.”

Chapter Eighteen

There was little more that the girl was able to tell Prudence. Tessie was inclined not to place too much dependence on the gardener's statements, as she explained, “His hearing is none too good, my lady.”

Still, Mr. Newhall seemed a possible source of information. Prudence had heard Mrs. Collins say that the gardener had grown up on the estate, that no one had worked there longer. And it seemed very likely to Prudence that if Ledbetter had spoken with him, Ledbetter would already have known about the gardener's deafness.

So Prudence made a special trip to the succession houses in hopes of finding the gardener at work. The rain was coming down in earnest now, and she felt more than a little damp when she stomped into the glass-sided building, but the riot of colors immediately put any thought of discomfort from her mind.

“Oh, how beautiful,” she breathed, taking in the rows of spring blooms. She could see that Mr. Newhall was going to turn her dining room into a spectacular garden for the Salston guests. The daffodils and tulips were especially promising, their blossoms so newly unfurled that they seemed to quiver with promise. A rainbow of color waved across the room, drawing Prudence down one aisle after another.

“They please, do they, my lady?” a voice asked from across the room.

Prudence glanced up to see Mr. Newhall entering from the potting room. “I've never seen anything so magnificent,” she said, being careful to speak slowly and clearly. “I can scarcely wait to see them in the dining room.”

“It will be a treat, it will,” he agreed, grinning widely. “Haven't told his lordship, have you?”

“No,” she admitted. “I want to surprise him.”

“Aye. He'll be surprised.”

“Have you all the help you'll need?”

“More than enough, thanks to your ladyship. I'll hardly have to lift a finger.”

“Good.” Prudence crossed the room toward him, her fingers straying to touch a blossom here and a leaf there. “Mr. Newhall, may I ask you a question?”

“As it pleases you,” he said, though he looked wary.

“You were at church yesterday.”

“Aye.”

“And you saw the young organist, Mr. Youngblood.”

He nodded, his brows lowering in a frown. “No missing him. Couldn't hear the music much, but I could feel it, don't you know.”

Prudence thought he must mean that he could feel the vibrations of the mighty organ through his feet. “Mr. Youngblood looks a great deal like my husband.”

“Aye, but you're not to be thinking the old lord sired him, ma'am, for it ain't true.”

“Do you know that for a fact?”

“Near as can be,” he said, his voice rough. “Knew the old lord as well as anyone, I daresay. He weren't in the petticoat line. Had a temper, and got foxed on occasion, but I'd bet my grandfather's watch that he never sired that organ-playing fellow.”

Prudence sighed inwardly. It was not enough that the gardener's loyalty prevented him from envisioning Ledbetter's father as a philanderer. Newhall might very well be right, but he could hardly provide proof positive. She was about to turn away when she thought to ask, “Do you have any idea who Mr. Youngblood might be, then?”

“Aye.”

Prudence stared at him. “You do?”

“Can't be certain, of course, but my guess would be that he's Francis's son.”

She searched her memory for any mention of the name but could think of none. “Francis?”

“Aye. Francis Ledbetter, the old lord's younger brother. Uncle of the present baron.”

“But Ledbetter doesn't have any uncles.”

“May not now,” Newhall ruminated. “Could be he's long dead. But he most certainly existed, Francis. Charles, the old lord, and Francis and I all played together as boys.”

Though his hearing might be impaired, there was nothing wrong with the old man's memory, so far as Prudence could tell, but his revelation astonished her. “And what became of him?”

Newhall shrugged. “Don't rightly know. The family disowned him when he ran off with one of the maids. Always was a bit of a scapegrace. Don't think he married her. This might be her son, or a son by some other woman. Francis, now he was in the petticoat line,” the gardener said with a trace of envy. “And they adored him. He could sweet talk them right out of . . .  Well, excuse me, my lady. He was a handsome devil, that Francis. But he had no sense of what was owing the family name. Acted more like a stable lad than brother of a baron.”

“Perhaps he resented being a younger son.”

“As to that, I couldn't say. Francis came into an inheritance from his own uncle when he was twenty, and there was no stopping him after that. Charles, now, he had the position and the estate, but he also had the responsibility. Did a fine job of improving the land and the buildings. Great pity he had such a temper. Drove the young lord away.”

Prudence asked hesitantly, “Did they argue, Ledbetter and his father?”

The old man shook his head with rueful reminiscence. “Like cats and dogs. William, that's to say the present baron, took mighty exception to the old lord's way of shouting at anyone who got in his way or slowed him down. And most everyone did. Never knew a fellow with such a drive in him, like he couldn't sit still for two minutes together.”

“Where did Ledbetter go when he left?”

“To London, usually. When he was younger, to Sir Geoffrey's.”

“I see. How long ago did Ledbetter's father die?”

“Three—four years, maybe.” Newhall scratched his chin. “Went just like everyone said he would—in a rage. Apoplexy, the doctor said. I miss him. He used to come down to the succession houses of a summer evening and we'd smoke a pipe and talk about the old days. He talked about Francis some with me, never with anyone else, don't you see? His parents were so disgusted with the boy that they struck his name from the family Bible and no one ever spoke of him.”

Newhall sighed and shrugged his bony shoulders. “But we'd been lads together, like I said, and when the old lord needed to remember the old times, he'd come to me. He never knew what became of Francis. No one ever heard a word from the boy after he left here.”

“But Ledbetter must surely know of his existence!”

“Maybe so, maybe not. It was all water under the bridge by the time William Ledbetter came along. And another thirty years since then, close enough.” The old man shook his head. “Like as not, though, the organ-playing fellow descends from Francis, not from Charles. Francis had that kind of curly hair.”

“Thank you for telling me, Mr. Newhall.” As she turned to leave, Prudence remembered her disagreement with her husband, and paused. She smiled earnestly at the gardener and said, “I hope you know how much we appreciate your skills and hard work, sir. But Ledbetter reminds me that you've worked here all you life and may wish to sit back and relax now. It's your decision, whether you'd prefer to stay on as head gardener, or retire from your duties and have a well-deserved rest. There's no urgency for an answer.”

“Don't know what I'd do with myself if I didn't manage the gardens and the succession houses,” he grumbled.

“Just think about it.”

“Yes, ma'am. I'll do that.”

* * * *

The first thing Prudence did when she returned to the house was to have Mrs. Collins find the family Bible for her. And there it was in black and white, so to speak. Francis Ledbetter had been born two years after Charles Ledbetter, and his name entered on the date of his baptism. But at some point later in his life, someone had taken a pen and drawn a thick black line through his name.

Ledbetter did not seem to Prudence to be someone who would spend much time perusing the family bible, and therefore would not likely have learned of his uncle's existence in that way. But surely his father, or his mother, or
someone
else had told the boy or the man of Francis's place in the family history. Such secrets always managed to find their way into the light of day eventually. Of course, it was always possible that Mr. Youngblood
was
the means by which this particular secret was coming to light.

Prudence set aside the bible and looked thoughtfully out the window, where she could see that the rain was still falling in earnest. In all likelihood, this solved the problem of who Mr. Youngblood truly was. On the other hand, it did not solve the mystery of why the vicar had involved himself in the whole matter.

Ledbetter might demand that information from the man of God, but Prudence thought her husband’s patience would be sorely tested by such an endeavor. Therefore, she decided to undertake the business herself, knowing that Ledbetter would not necessarily approve of or appreciate her efforts, that he might even be seriously annoyed with her.

But then, Prudence was seriously annoyed with him for deserting her there at Salston while he wandered about the countryside. It was, after all, scarcely a week since they had wed. So she could not be too distressed about Ledbetter's finer sensibilities. If he had any.

Prudence slid another sheet of parchment from the pile on her escritoire, dipped her quill in the standish, and wrote: “Dear Mr. Hidgely, I would be most grateful if you would call on me at Salston when the weather improves, as I desire a private consultation with you. Thanking you in advance, Prudence Ledbetter.” She folded the sheet over, scratched his name on the outside, sealed the missive with the previous Lady Ledbetter's sealing wax, and rang for a footman.

Mr. Hidgely presented himself at Salston the next morning rather early, though the day looked almost as dreary as its predecessor. Prudence had him brought to her in her private parlor and greeted him with a slight degree of formality, because she thought he would expect it of her. She was, after all, Lady Ledbetter, the baron's new wife, and therefore about to become something of a figure in local society.

Though she suspected Mr. Hidgely accounted himself quite impervious to the privileges of rank, she suspected he was no less a social creature than any other man in the parish. His particular regard for Ledbetter's mother, enhanced by that good lady's gift of the impressive organ to his church, suggested that he was not unmoved at least by wealth and power.

After she had begged him to seat himself, and sent for tea, Prudence got down to the business of quizzing the vicar. “Have you been vicar here long?” she asked.

“A dozen years or more, my lady, brought here at the request of his lordship's father.” The vicar sat relaxed in his chair. He was a man of medium height, with a rather long face and scant eyebrows.