Sheri Cobb South (13 page)

She regarded him warily, her blue gaze narrowed. “If I placed you in an awkward situation, Rupert, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were in such dire need of an alibi.”

“Nor did I, until I had the honor of breakfasting with our friend from Bow Street. I had the distinct impression that he would cheerfully send me to the gallows in order to save your pretty neck. You appear to have made a conquest, my dear, and a very useful one at that. I congratulate you.”

“I wish you will not talk nonsense! You didn’t kill him—did you?”

“Our friend from Bow Street? Oh, you mean your husband! How very gauche of me, to be sure. It is truly amazing what one learns about oneself in a time of crisis,” Lord Rupert marveled. “Before yesterday, I had no idea so many people considered me capable of such bloodthirstiness. My dear Julia, no one needed your husband to remain among the living more than I. Should you doubt it, you have only to consider the coolness with which you greeted me only moments ago.”

“But,” said the viscountess, wisely ignoring this rider, “if you didn’t do it, and I didn’t do it—and I assure you I did not, no matter what the gossips may say!—Rupert, is it possible that Frederick killed himself?”

“By stabbing himself in the neck with a pair of nail scissors?” scoffed Lord Rupert. “Highly unlikely, my dear. I daresay most gentlemen so inclined would prefer to use a pistol. Messy, to be sure, but, if done properly, infinitely less painful.”

Lady Fieldhurst made a moue of distaste, but whatever she might have said to this rather graphic analysis was interrupted by a tentative knock on the door.

“Yes, who is it?”

The door opened a crack, and Thomas’s head appeared in the opening. “Begging your pardon, my lady, but Mr. Crumpton is here.”

Lady Fieldhurst, recognizing the name of her late husband’s solicitor, recalled that her husband’s will was to be read that day, and resigned herself to an afternoon of dealing with the more mundane aspects of her husband’s demise. “Very well, Thomas, show him into the—no, bring him here. Lord Rupert was just taking his leave.”

Lord Rupert raised an eyebrow, as if ready to contradict this statement, but remained silent.

Thomas, blushing furiously, bowed himself from the room, shutting the door behind him.

“Now, what do you suppose is wrong with him?” Lady Fieldhurst wondered aloud.

“Er, I fancy young Thomas supposed himself to be interrupting a romantic tryst,” offered Lord Rupert.

“Good heavens! Did he think to find us rolling about on the carpet? No, do not favor that utterance with a reply; for I can tell by your expression that you are about to say something hateful!”

Lord Rupert, thus adjured, contented himself with an ironic smile.

“On a more positive note,” conceded her ladyship, “I can see that, should I be fortunate enough to escape the gallows, I need not fear for my reputation; indeed, I shall have no reputation left!”

“In that case, my dear, you and I need have no scruples,” said Lord Rupert. “But if you say I must go, then go I shall, and await a more opportune time.”

He executed a graceful bow over her hand, turning it in his grasp and twitching back the edge of her black glove so that he might press an ardent kiss onto her bare wrist. It was perhaps unfortunate for Lady Fieldhurst that at this moment the footman reappeared with not only the solicitor, but also Mr. Pickett in tow. Her face flaming, she snatched her hand away from Lord Rupert and dropped a curtsy in the direction of the new arrivals.

“Mr. Crumpton, how good of you to call.”

“I trust you will have no objection to Mr. Pickett’s presence,” the solicitor said, answering her curtsy with a bow. “He called on me to inquire as to the disposition of the viscount’s estate. I thought it simplest for all concerned if he joined us for the reading of the will.”

“Mr. Pickett has certainly been busy about his investigations,” observed her ladyship frostily, acknowledging him with a regal nod.

Pickett noted her sudden coolness, and attributed it to embarrassment at being discovered in what might be considered a compromising situation. He gave her a rather uncertain smile, then bade Lord Rupert a chilly “good afternoon.”

“Would you care for a cup of tea, Mr. Crumpton?” she asked, after Lord Rupert had departed. “Mr. Pickett?”

Lady Fieldhurst could only be thankful when they both declined; she felt she had dispensed enough of that noxious liquid today to last a lifetime. Her stiff bombazine skirts crackled as she sank onto the sofa and gestured for the solicitor to do likewise.

“I must apologize, Mr. Crumpton,” she said as he seated himself beside her on the sofa. “I confess I had quite forgotten our appointment. I have received so many callers today offering their condolences that at first I thought you were but one more.”

Pickett, taking the chair opposite her, wondered bitterly whether society etiquette required that the bearer of condolences salivate all over the bereaved’s hand.

“I daresay your husband’s heir will be here shortly,” Mr. Crumpton said. “Mr. Bertram not unnaturally wished to know how matters stood before going to Kent for the funeral.”

“Of course,” said the viscountess somewhat stiffly.

Mr. Bertram arrived within the quarter hour, along with the dowager Lady Fieldhurst and Mrs. Bertram, who was in a high dudgeon at being summoned to the widow’s house. It seemed more fitting, in her opinion (as she later confided to the greater part of her acquaintance) that the solicitor should wait upon the new viscount at his own residence. “I don’t say it wasn’t most inconvenient, being obliged to go out just when George is trying to prepare for the journey,” she complained to Mr. Crumpton, “but of course we must do all we can to ease matters for poor Julia during this trying time, mustn’t we, George?”

George Bertram agreed, as was his invariable practice, as Mr. Crumpton spread out his papers on a nearby table.

“As I am sure you are all aware,” the solicitor began, “the entailed property, including this house and the principal estate in Kent, as well as smaller holdings in Surrey and Sussex, passes in its entirety to Mr. George Bertram, along with all incomes derived therefrom. Most of the late viscount’s unentailed property, both real and personal, also devolves upon—”

A sudden commotion in the hall penetrated the paneled door, and a hearty voice boomed, “No need to stand on ceremony, my lad, no need at all! I’ll announce myself!”

Lady Fieldhurst, recognizing the voice, rose from her chair just as the door opened to admit a large, ruddy-faced man with a fine pair of white mutton-chop whiskers, dressed in the expensive yet unashamedly rural costume of the country squire.

“Papa?”

“Ju-ju, my pet!” he exclaimed, enfolding the viscountess in a suffocating embrace. “You didn’t think Papa would stay in Somersetshire while his little chick was thrown to the wolves, did you?”

Pickett frowned thoughtfully at this purely rhetorical question and made a notation in his occurrence book.

“I am always glad to see you, Papa, although I could wish for happier circumstances,” the viscountess assured her parent. “Does Mama accompany you?”

The squire released his widowed daughter, but retained his grip on her black-gloved hands. “No, no. You know how your Mama is: her health won’t permit her to undertake such a journey.”

“Particularly at such a pace as you must have made!” she chided. “Really, Papa, you should be more careful.”

“I don’t spare my livestock where my poppet’s well-being is concerned, so you might as well save your breath!”

“Do sit down,” she urged, gesturing toward the vacant end of the dowager’s sofa. “Would you care for some tea? You remember Frederick’s mama, of course, and Mr. and Mrs. Bertram. This is Frederick’s solicitor, Mr. Crumpton—and Mr. Pickett, from Bow Street,” she added a bit grudgingly. “This is my father, Sir Thaddeus Runyon.”

Sir Thaddeus greeted the assembled company in robust accents, declined his daughter’s offer of tea, and settled himself on the sofa beside her. Having dealt with the interruption her father’s arrival had caused, Lady Fieldhurst begged the solicitor to continue.

“Now, where was I?” Mr. Crumpton muttered, pushing his spectacles higher on his nose and scanning the voluminous document for the place at which he had left off. “Ah, yes! Most of the viscount’s property devolves upon Mr. Bertram with some few exceptions, the most significant of these being the dowager’s jointure, which will continue to be paid from the estate until the event of her death or remarriage.” He smiled benignly upon the late viscount’s mother, then turned his attention to Julia. “I am also pleased to assure the present viscountess that she is not to be left destitute.”

“No, indeed,” agreed the dowager. “Julia is to join me at the Dower House. It is all settled. We will remove there immediately after the funeral.”

“Balderdash!” bristled the squire. “She’s coming back home to Somersetshire, where she belongs.”

“Oh, but I am sure she will be much happier living with us,” protested Mrs. Bertram, determined not to be cheated out of her unpaid nanny. “She may have charge of little Edward’s care, as if he were her own son. Indeed, the dear boy has his heart quite set on it.”

“You are all too kind,” protested Lady Fieldhurst in failing accents, feeling that perhaps the gallows was not so very dire a fate after all. “How long may I—that is, must I decide at once?”

Mr. Crumpton blinked in confusion. “No, no, my lady! That is, if you wish to return to your father’s house, or to reside with your husband’s family, I am sure—but we run ahead of ourselves. You must know that at the time of your betrothal to the late viscount, certain provisions were made in the event of just such an occurrence as has now come to pass.”

“Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Crumpton, that my husband expected to be murdered?”

“No, no! Of course not!” protested the flustered solicitor, pushing his spectacles higher onto the bridge of his nose. “Surely no one expects such a thing! But we live in uncertain times, my lady, and even the peace we enjoyed during those days proved to be a fleeting thing. Your father and your betrothed, as Lord Fieldhurst was then, wished to see that you were adequately provided for.”

“I should think so!” interjected the squire. “D’you think I’d give my little girl to a man without making dam—er, dashed—sure he’d take care of her?”

In spite of her father’s braggadocio, Lady Fieldhurst could not feel hopeful. As she recalled, her father had been almost as bedazzled by her wealthy and aristocratic suitor as the young Julia herself, especially given her modest dowry and undistinguished pedigree. He had taken rooms in Bath in the hope that she might form an eligible match—that she might make a brilliant one had never entered his head. But having achieved this unexpected triumph, he was unlikely to have risked offending his future son-in-law by pressing for a lavish jointure for his daughter. As for her husband, time had eventually shown just how cheaply he held her.

“Yes, Mr. Crumpton?” she prompted the solicitor. “How, precisely, do matters stand?”

The solicitor shuffled the papers littering the desk. “According to the terms of your marriage contract, you are to have four hundred pounds per annum for the rest of your life. Such a sum, I believe, will allow you to command life’s comforts, if not its luxuries.”

The viscountess glanced uneasily toward Pickett and, finding him regarding her steadily, quickly shifted her gaze back to the solicitor. Unaware of the silent exchange, Mr. Crumpton bent his bespectacled gaze to the papers once more.

“It is perhaps fortunate for your sake that your husband apparently never considered the possibility of an early demise, for he did not specify that your jointure cease to be paid, should you marry again.”

Lady Fieldhurst’s hands clenched in her lap. “Surely no woman having been married to such a man as Frederick could contemplate the prospect of remarriage with equanimity.”

The solicitor permitted himself an avuncular smile. “It must seem that way now, my lady, while your loss is still fresh, but you may feel differently someday. In the meantime, however, I wonder if you might be happier in an establishment of your own here in Town?”

Whatever Lady Fieldhurst’s feelings on the subject, this suggestion found little favor with the squire. “My little girl, living all alone in London? Poppycock!”

“I am hardly a schoolroom miss, Papa,” pointed out the viscountess.

Mr. Crumpton hastened to reassure the affronted parent. “Her ladyship would, of course, wish to hire a respectable woman for companionship.”

“And where, pray, am I to find a house in a respectable part of Town, much less household staff, all on four hundred pounds per annum? I fear, Mr. Crumpton, that your notions of life’s comforts must differ considerably from my own.”

“Given the difference in our respective stations, my lady, it would be very unusual if that were not the case,” observed the solicitor wryly. “However, I can set your ladyship’s mind at ease on one point. In addition to your widow’s jointure, you are to have sole ownership of a modest house in Queens Gardens, Kensington.”

“Kensington?” the viscountess echoed in some surprise.

“I had no idea my cousin possessed such a property,” remarked Mr. Bertram bitterly, apparently feeling himself cheated out of an inheritance which should have been his.

Mr. Crumpton consulted his notes once more. “It is a small house, purchased in 1805; I drew up the deed myself. At that time he added a codicil to his will, specifying that the house and all its furnishings were to go to you upon his death.”

In 1805. Three years after their marriage, when it had begun to be clear that she would never give him the hoped-for heir. She had not expected such a show of generosity, and, while she was suitably grateful, she could not ignore the fact that it placed her present position in quite a different light. Instead of being cast onto the dubious charity of her husband’s relations (or the more benevolent but no less smothering generosity of her own), she was now an independent woman of property and substance.

As she pondered the possibilities, the solicitor droned on, reading aloud from an endless list of small bequests.