Beware of Virtuous Women (14 page)

There were more small sketches, all of them rather broadly drawn, yet all of them perfectly capturing the likeness of the subject.

Mrs. Hendersen sipping tea at the large wooden table in the kitchens.

Mrs. Ryan, stirring a pot.

One of the young maids, up on tiptoe, wielding a feather duster over the front of a piece of furniture.

Treacle simply being Treacle.

And himself. Jack smiled as he looked into his own face, to see that Eleanor must have sketched him from memory, and the memory hadn't been a happy one for her. His mouth was open, his eyebrows slammed down over his eyes, and he was holding up what had to be the journal he waved in her face a few evenings ago.

"Well, then, not blind adoration at least," he muttered, noticing the small horns she'd placed on top of his head. "Maybe I was flattering myself."

"Flattering yourself, is it? I know you're talking to yourself, boyo," Cluny said, sauntering into the room.

Jack laid down the drawing and picked up the next one, that he believed most probably depicted the view from Eleanor's bedchamber window. "You're home early."

"Ever been to a cockfight where the cocks are all devout cowards? Makes for a damn dull evening. What have you got there?"

Jack smiled as he kept turning over pages, some of them larger now, all of them watercolors of the exterior of Becket Hall as seen from several angles. "Watercolors of Becket Hall, Cluny. Here, you've never seen the place. This one? That's how the place looked the first time I saw it, in the middle of a rainy winter."

"I would have kept on riding, myself," Cluny said, squinting down at the watercolor. "Looks a good place for ghosties and suchlike."

"Not really," Jack told him, turning over another painting. "Here. This one is of the sun shining on the large terrace that faces the Channel. Look at that, Cluny. Eleanor's very talented, isn't she?"

Cluny tipped his head from side to side. "Eleanor, is it? These are hers?"

"Yes, and you should see the sketch she made of you."

"Thank you, no, boyo. I know what I look like, and I'm not proud of the fact. Now, could she be drawing me without the belly, I'd be pleased."

"Then you won't be pleased," Jack said, smiling as he kept carefully turning over the sheets, only to lose that smile as he looked at the next rendering.

"And the chins. Could do without the chins, too, now that I think on it. Do you think she could—what are you looking at, boyo?"

Jack turned over the sheet, looked at the next water-color. Then the next. The next. "Damn."

Cluny came around to Jack's side of the desk to look more closely at the paintings. "Thought you said our little girlie never set foot away from this Becket Hall of hers. You know what that is, don't you, boyo?"

"Oh, yes, Cluny, I know what that is, because we've both already reconnoitered the place, haven't we?" Jack said, caught between anger and an unexpected disappointment that only increased his anger. "No mistaking it. That's Chelfham Hall."

"You getting the feeling you've been taken up for a ride by these Beckets of yours, boyo, and they're the only ones what really know where you're going?" Cluny asked, looking at his friend, who was already glaring at the ceiling over his head.

"You know that idea you had, Cluny? About pillow secrets."

"I remember," Cluny said, heading for the drinks table, but keeping one eye on his friend. "What of it?"

Jack sat quietly, feeling the sting of betrayal as he accepted a full glass of wine and lifted it to his lips. Before draining its contents, he said quietly, "What of it, Cluny? I don't think you're the only one who's thought of that game..."

At some point during the evening, amidst all her other chatter, Miranda Phelps had mentioned that, missing country air, she made a point of walking in Hyde Park every morning around eleven if the weather was fair.

The countess, as Eleanor recalled, had countered this statement with a rather sarcastic remark about her sister-in-law feeling more at home with the nannies and encroaching cits that clogged the area at that unfashionable hour than she ever would in the Promenade in that same park at five.

Doubting she would meet the countess, which suited Eleanor down to the ground, four days after the disastrous dinner party she and her maid, Beatrice, entered the park at precisely eleven o'clock, Jack's town carriage remaining outside the grounds for them.

She hadn't told Jack of her plans, mostly because he seemed to be avoiding her as studiously as she was avoiding him. She'd been closer to him in her dreams in her bed at Becket Hall than she was now, only one unlocked door between them.

So, just last night, she'd locked the door. At least now she didn't feel as if he had a standing invitation to repeat what he'd obviously regretted doing in the first place. It was bad enough that she did
not
regret it.

In fact, if she was to be a help to Jack at all, she would have to take steps on her own, and the only one she could think of was to further her acquaintance with Miranda Phelps.

"Oh, dear, this is so much larger than I'd thought," Eleanor said as she surveyed the green landscape unfolded in front of her. "I've read that the park consists of well over three hundred acres, but as I've nothing to compare that size with in my head, I didn't realize how very vast that is."

"Yes, ma'am," Beatrice said, waving to someone Eleanor didn't see.

"A friend, Beatrice?"

The maid blushed very red as she nodded. "I suppose he is, ma'am. He was just standing there the other morning, three days ago as a matter of fact, when I stepped outside to fetch the milk for Mrs. Ryan, because you said we should help where we can because that's what we want from everyone else. He said his master forgot something here the other night and he was sent to fetch it."

"Really?" Eleanor was scarcely paying attention up until that moment, but now she was listening closely. "His master, you say. And who would that be?"

"Why, his lordship, the nob what was to dinner, remember, ma'am? Gerald is a footman for him over in Grosvenor Square, ma'am, an
upper
footman. We've... um, we've been walking out every night ever since. Not in the park, ma'am, because that's too dangerous after dark."

While Beatrice spoke, Eleanor was busy looking at the people coming and going along the paths and across the well-scythed lawns. She saw no one in livery, no one who could be a footman. "I don't see him, Beatrice. Point him out for me, please."

Beatrice shaded her eyes with her hand and looked around, then dropped her hand to her side. "Oh, he runned off, didn't he? I suppose I shouldn't have oughta waved, being here with you and all. Not that he'd be in any trouble for a wave, would he, ma'am?"

"No, of course not," Eleanor said, thinking over the maid's admissions. "You said you walk out in the evenings. But it's not evening, Beatrice, so what do you suppose your Gerald is doing here now?"

The maid opened her mouth to speak, then shut it, furrowed her brow. "Why, I'm sure I don't know, ma'am."

"What did he forget?"

"Ma'am?"

"His lordship. You said Gerald told you his master forgot something."

"Oh, that. Not forgot, exactly. Lost. Well, we looked, Gerald and me both, but we couldn't find it nowheres."

Eleanor was doing her best to control her temper, and her sudden anxiety. "You allowed Gerald to enter the house, help you
search
it?"

"Well, yes, ma'am," Beatrice answered, beginning to look worried. "You said we was to use our in-in..."

"Initiative. Yes, I did, didn't I. So, Beatrice. Where did the two of you search?"

Beatrice screwed up her face as if the contortions could help her concentrate. "The drawing room. The dining room. Mr. Eastwood's study..."

"Mr. Eastwood's study? Beatrice, I don't believe the gentlemen ever left the dining room, but chose to play cards there for the little while our guests remained after dinner. I'll ask you again, what were you looking for?"

"A stickpin, ma'am. A diamond stickpin. But we didn't find it, hard as we looked."

"That's too bad," Eleanor said. "So, you searched together?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am, I'm not such a looby as to let just anyone walk about my master's house willy-nilly. Except when you rang forme, ma'am, o'course. But that was just for a few minutes, because all you were wanting was to have me button up your gown, remember? The blue one?
¹
'

Eleanor remembered. She'd rung for Beatrice, and had kept her for a good ten minutes, as she'd also asked her to help with her hair, that had been proving particularly unwieldy that morning.

She put her hands on Beatrice's upper arms, trying to remain in control. "Where was Gerald when you were called upstairs?"

"Oh, ma'am, he wouldn't have nipped anything, if that's what you mean. Gerald's a good man, he is."

"Yes, and I'm sure you're a sterling judge of character. Where was he when you left him, Beatrice?"

The maid began to sniffle. "In...in Mr. Eastwood's study."

Eleanor closed her eyes for a full second, then looked very intently at Beatrice. "And when you came back downstairs, Beatrice? Where was he then?"

Beatrice rolled her eyes up toward the sky, then down toward her toes, her mobile face contorting once more before she smiled and looked at Eleanor. "I remember now! He was waiting for me, just there, at the bottom of the servant stairs. Said he was hoping for a peek at m'ankles. Cheeky thing, but then he asked me to go walking with him, so that was all right."

Eleanor considered the logistics of the thing as she let go of Beatrice's arms and began walking aimlessly down one of the paths. Jack's study was at the rear of the main living floor of the large house, as were the servant stairs leading both up to the bedchambers and down to the kitchens. The whole thing could be perfectly innocent.

So why was she suddenly fighting a nearly overwhelming urge to look over her shoulder, to see if anyone was watching her?

"Ma'am?"

Eleanor took a breath, smiled and turned to her maid. "Yes?"

"I shouldn't have oughta done that, should I, ma'am? Are you going to turn me off with no notice?"

"No, Beatrice, I'm not," Eleanor said, turning around to retrace her steps to the street and her waiting coach. "I am, however, going to ask you to try to remember as much as you can concerning any questions Gerald might have asked you about the house or Mr. Eastwood or myself. Can you do that, Beatrice?"

The maid nodded furiously. "Oh, yes, ma'am, I can do that."

"Very good, Beatrice. But before you do, are you walking out with Gerald again tonight?"

Beatrice was wiping away tears now, whether still in fear of her position or worried that she'd be denied her Gerald, Eleanor didn't know, and did not especially care.

Beatrice colored again. "Yes, ma'am. Right at eleven o'clock. If that's all right by you, ma'am?"

Eleanor stood quietly as the maid quickly stepped in front of her to open the coach door and pull down the steps even before the footman could jump down to do the job himself. Beatrice was using her initiative again.

Then Eleanor took one last, hopefully casual look around, still feeling as if something were boring between her shoulder blades, and told the maid, "I should be the last person to interfere in matters of the heart, Beatrice. Now, come along, and tell me everything you and your Gerald talked about, all right?"