The Deception (7 page)

I bit my lip and stared into the flames. I had spent a good part of the winter thinking about the manner of my father’s death, and I badly wanted to talk to Paddy.

I was going to have to think of some way of tracking him down.

* * * *

I went to the stable earlier than usual the following morning, then I put on my blue dress and waited for Mr. Crawford to arrive.

I suppose I should mention here that my wardrobe was another source of disagreement between me and the Noakeses. After my marriage, Cousin Louisa had sent all my clothes to Lambourn, but I had sent back all of the clothing that my uncle had paid for. I would rather have worn rags.

To listen to Mr. and Mrs. Noakes, you would have thought I
was
wearing rags. This was simply not true. My clothes were in perfectly decent condition. They might not be fashionable, but they were very far from being rags. The blue dress was particularly nice—Papa had bought it for my eighteenth birthday and it had cost him half the price of a nice young mare he had just sold. “It almost matches your eyes, Kate,” he had said with his most irresistible smile. “I couldn’t find a perfect match—no dye is that vivid a blue.”

I remembered his words as I was getting dressed, and they made me smile. It was becoming less painful for me to think of my father. I suppose that old saw about time healing all wounds has some truth to it after all.

When I had worn the dress for Mr. Crawford’s first visit I had been so thin that it had hung on me. It fit very well today—a tribute, I thought, to Mrs. Noakes’s good cooking.

I was sitting primly in one of the embroidered chairs in the drawing room when Mr. Noakes appeared to announce the arrival of our visitor, who came into the room on his heels.

“My lady.” Mr. Crawford was a young Scotsman who took his position very seriously. After Adrian’s father had died, Adrian had pensioned off the old earl’s man of business and had employed Mr. Crawford. Mr. Crawford was of impeccable lineage, but he was also the middle child in a family of nine. He was intensely grateful for the position and tended to speak of Adrian as if he were the second coming of the Messiah.

“You poor thing,” I said as I took in his frozen appearance. “Go right upstairs. There is a fire going in your bedroom and Robert will bring you some hot tea.” He gave me a grateful smile, murmured a few polite words about my graciousness, and disappeared up the stairs in the direction of the bedroom he always used.

He looked better when he came into the drawing room an hour later. I was waiting for him and we went into dinner.

Mr. Noakes and Robert served us Mrs. Noakes’s delicious wine-sauce chicken. Robert came every day to help Mr. Noakes around the house, but he lived with an aged grandmother in one of the cottages on the estate grounds. The other servant was Nancy, who also lived in one of the cottages. She came to the manor every morning with her father, who saw to the garden.

“I have been in communication with the earl about you, my lady,” Mr. Crawford said as he took an abstemious sip of his wine. I had been admiring the large lump Robert was sporting on his forehead due to a fall on some ice, but these words captured my undivided attention.

“About me?” To my chagrin, my voice squeaked. I cleared my throat.

“Yes. He has authorized me to pay you a quarterly allowance. I have the first payment with me.”

I could feel my jaw drop. I closed it firmly. “He doesn’t...” I cleared my throat again. “He doesn’t have to do that. I don’t need any money.”

“Yes, my lady, you do.” He was looking at me out of troubled hazel eyes. “If the earl had not been called to Paris so abruptly, he would have taken care of this matter before he left.” He was so sweetly serious as he lied to me that I didn’t have the heart to contradict him.

Adrian had not rejoined the army, nor had he been called to Paris abruptly. He had gone back to France of his own choice and in a civilian capacity, as I knew from the one terse note I had received from him on the subject. His ostensible reason for this return had been that the Duke of Wellington needed his assistance in dealing with the friction that was constantly breaking out between French citizens and the Army of Occupation. I knew the real reason why Adrian had returned to Paris, however. He had done it to get away from me.

“Is ... is his lordship remaining in Paris?” I asked anxiously.

Mr. Crawford looked at me with pity. “I am afraid that he is, my lady.”

Obviously this poor young man thought he was giving me grievous news. “Oh,” I said, afraid to say anything more lest my words betray my delight. I was happy here at Lambourn, and as long as Adrian stayed in Paris I could go on pretending that it was really my home.

“The Duke of Wellington has found the earl’s assistance to be invaluable,” Mr. Crawford assured me. “The duke himself is rather... blunt. The earl, on the other hand, knows how to be diplomatic. This is of great importance when one is dealing with the French.”

This was excellent news. Let Adrian stay in Paris and be a diplomat. However, I still did not want to take his money, and I said so.

“I understand from Mrs. Noakes that you need a new winter pelisse,” Mr. Crawford said.

“There is nothing wrong with my pelisse! It may be a little shabby, but it is perfectly warm.”

“My lady, the Countess of Greystone cannot wear clothing that is a little shabby.”

“No one sees me.”

“The tenants see you. The people in the village see you. How do you think it will make the earl appear if his people see his wife wearing shabby clothes?”

“Perhaps they will think I am eccentric.” I wasn’t willing to give up yet.

“They will blame him,” Mr. Crawford said. “It is not fair of you to put him into a position where he will not appear to advantage in front of his own people.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way. I regarded the gilt edging of my dinner plate, and thought. Then, “Are you certain he wished me to have this allowance?” I asked anxiously.

“Quite certain, my lady.” He smiled at me. He was quite a nice-looking young man when he smiled.

“Very well,” I said. I swallowed. “Then I suppose I will take it.”

“Christmas is coming,” Mr. Crawford said. “Perhaps you would like to buy a few gifts?”

I brightened at that thought. In my spare time I had been working on a sampler for Mrs. Noakes, but my needlework was atrocious. If I had some money I could buy her a present in the village. I could buy something for Mr. Noakes and Robert and Nancy and Willie and George, too. I could even buy something to send to Cousin Louisa! I beamed and said, “Yes, I would. Thank you, Mr. Crawford.”

He looked embarrassed.

Robert refilled our glasses. The lump on his forehead was certainly sporting an interesting variety of colors. I said, “Are you feeling all right, Robert? That is a truly monumental lump.”

He grinned at me. Robert was my age and we liked each other. “I’m good, my lady,” he said.

I turned back to my guest and asked, “Will you be going home to Scotland for Christmas, Mr. Crawford?” When he said he would be, I asked him how his family was doing. He said that they were well.

“How lovely it must be to have brothers and sisters,” I said.

“You would not think it was lovely if you found a toad in your bed,” he replied dryly.

I laughed, and behind Mr. Crawford’s back, Robert smothered a smile. “Did one of your brothers do that to you?” I asked Mr. Crawford.

“He did.”

“Tell me,” I demanded. He told me that story, and then, when he saw how interested I was, he told me more. I was entranced. I had always had the only child’s envy of large families.

When dinner was finished and I rose to return to the drawing room, I had another happy thought. I would buy a present for Mr. Crawford too!

* * * *

I bought the presents, and Christmas was not as bad as I had feared it would be. I missed Papa, of course, but for some reason I was so busy all day that I did not have time to brood. Mrs. Noakes had baked her special Christmas bread and she asked me to take a loaf to each of Adrian’s tenant farmers. Everyone invited me in, and gave me punch, and I played with their children. Then, when I returned to the house, I discovered that all my friends had bought presents for me too. I opened them, and then Mr. and Mrs. Noakes and I sat down to an enormous dinner.

It was not a bad day at all.

Two days after Christmas I had the first communication with my husband’s family since our marriage. Adrian’s younger brother, Harry, turned up on the doorstep of Lambourn Manor and announced that he had come to meet his brother’s wife.

Chapter Five

The young man Mr. Noakes ushered into the library that late December morning had the same unearthly fair hair as his brother, but where the clean bones of Adrian’s face gave an impression of strength, Harry’s more chiseled features were so fine that he looked almost angelic. There was nothing angelic about Harry’s spirit, however, as I was soon to discover.

“Did you come alone, Lord Harry?” said Mr. Noakes, disapproval oozing from every pore.

“Don’t be such an old mutton-face, Noakes,” Harry said blithely. Then, to me, “I must say, I had no idea Adrian’s wife would look like you!”

I glared at him. Harry was not that many inches taller than I, so he was much easier to glare at than his brother was. “Apologize to Mr. Noakes this instant,” I demanded.

He stared at me in amazement. “Apologize to Noakes? Whatever for?”

“For calling him a mutton-face.”

His mouth dropped open.

“Apologize,” I said again.

He closed his mouth. “Sorry, Noakes,” he muttered. “Didn’t mean to insult you, you know.”

The old man’s look of displeasure did not change. “Will you be staying for dinner, Mr. Harry?”

Harry looked at me once more. “Yes.”

Mr. Noakes’s frown deepened.

I regarded Harry’s riding breeches and boots and asked him what he had done with his horse.

“I know Lambourn is lightly staffed, so I left him at the stable,” he replied.

I nodded my approval of such thoughtfulness. “I was just going out for a ride, but I should be happy to offer you some tea first.”

His gray eyes, which were considerably lighter than his brother’s, flicked downward from my face. Then he said, “Madeira would be better than tea.”

I knew what he was looking at. The Noakeses had been scandalized when I had first appeared in the divided skirt I wore for riding. It was a costume Papa had designed himself. “You can’t continue to wear breeches,” he had said when he presented me with the skirt when I was fourteen. “But I’ll be damned if I’ll ruin the best seat I’ve ever seen by making you ride aside.”

I had been so pleased by the compliment that I had not even objected to giving up my breeches.

The divided skirt came to my ankles, and I wore it with high boots, so it was perfectly modest, but it had caused a sensation more than once. Everyone usually forgot about it once I was on the back of a horse.

I invited Harry to take a seat in the library. “I don’t use the drawing room very much, so there is no fire in there,” I apologized as we sat in the two worn blue-upholstered chairs that flanked the fireplace.

“It don’t matter,” he replied breezily. “This has always been my favorite room at Lambourn.”

“It is my favorite room too,” I confided, looking around at the mellow book-lined walls, the big polished desk, the large globe, and the two mullioned windows that looked out over the Downs.

Mr. Noakes came in with Madeira for Harry and tea for me. He also served us a plate of Mrs. Noakes’s delicious buttered muffins, which he put on a small table between us. I thanked him, and Harry and I helped ourselves to the food.

“So,” Harry said after he had finished his first muffin, “tell me all about how you came to marry Adrian.”

“What has he told you?” I asked cautiously.

“Nothing. I’m up at Oxford, you know, and he wrote me a letter saying that he had married Charlwood’s niece and was going to rejoin Wellington in
Paris. He ain’t mentioned you since.”

I chewed on my lip, regarded the small bronze statue of a dog that graced the mantelpiece, and wondered how much I should tell him.

“Are you really married?” he asked me.

“I am afraid that we are,” I said mournfully.

“And you’re Charlwood’s niece?” His voice sounded incredulous.

“I am afraid that I am.”

“Damn,” he said, adding belatedly, “I beg your pardon.”

I was quite accustomed to hearing men swear. “It is all right,” I said, and went on staring at the statue of the dog. It looked like some sort of a mastiff, I thought. Perhaps it was supposed to be one of King Alfred’s dogs.

Harry took another bite of muffin, and I could feel him looking at me while he chewed. He brushed some crumbs off his lap and said, “How did it happen?”

I removed my eyes from the dog, looked at Harry, and decided there wasn’t any point in not telling him the whole story. He would be bound to hear it from his brother one of these days.

“How rotten for Adrian,” Harry said when at last I had finished. He scowled. “Charlwood must have loved putting the screws to him like that.”

“I have thought about it a great deal,” I said, “and it certainly does appear as if Charlwood planned the whole episode. Otherwise he would never have known to come looking for me like that.”

“He planned it,” Harry agreed, pouring himself another glass of wine. “He probably paid someone to damage the axle enough to be sure that it would break.”

“But why?” This was the question that had plagued me for the last eight months. “This wasn’t just a case of Charlwood trying to catch an earl for his niece,” I explained. “I saw his face that night at the inn, and he looked positively vengeful.”

The angel face opposite me looked grim. “He was after revenge, all right.”

“For what?”

He paused for a long moment, his eyes searching mine. “I think I will tell you,” he said at last. He put down his glass and lowered his voice. “But it’s a family secret.”

I leaned toward him, feeling the heat from the fire scorch my cheek. “I swear I’ll never tell.”