The Uncatchable Miss Faversham (13 page)

    A painful sensation began to creep through her stomach, leaving her quite unable to speak for a moment. She could not help remembering that anguished letter Nathaniel had sent her when she had first returned to London, in which he had hinted at his despair. He was certainly capable of deeper feelings than most other men of her acquaintance.

   
Nathaniel could not be thinking of taking his own life, surely?

   
Something of the dread in her heart must have communicated itself to Charlotte, who stopped fanning herself and sat bolt upright on the sofa. Her frightened eyes were suddenly wide with horror. ‘You do not think … it’s not possible that he …?’

    ‘No,’ Eleanor said decidedly, dismissing that possibility as ridiculous, though for a horrible moment it had made her feel quite sick to consider it. ‘Your infuriating brother may be many things, Charlotte, but he is not a coward. From what you describe, it sounds as though he was intending an expedition of some kind.’

    ‘An expedition?’

    ‘Candles, old boots, a rope.’ She looked at her friend’s bewildered face. ‘Are there any caves or areas of rough ground on the estate that are not commonly known about? Or old buildings where he might need such things?’

    ‘No, of course not.’

    ‘Are you sure? Think a little harder.’

    ‘I
am
thinking hard!’ Charlotte complained, rooting for a handkerchief in her skirts. ‘Ever since I learnt that Nathaniel was missing, I’ve done nothing but rack my brains where he might be. Look at my face! Poor little Robert has been cooped up with his nurse all morning – I couldn’t bear my baby boy to see his mother in this state.’

    Eleanor sat back and frowned, remembering the note of impatience in Nathaniel’s voice as he had spoken to his mistress in the village. Had he argued with Mrs Underwood too? That might have driven him from home. Perhaps she had misjudged the depth of affection between them. The thought stung her but she pressed on, unable to let the idea go now that it had occurred to her.

    ‘Has Nath – I mean, Lord Sallinger – ever done this kind of thing before? Has he disappeared before?’

    Charlotte stared at her. ‘No. That is, I’m not sure. Wait. Maybe a few years before I married dear Henry. You had just gone to London, and we were all alone here. Father was ill. It must have been dreadfully boring for Nathaniel, because I remember he was quite cut up that you had left. He kept vanishing, sometimes for several days at a time, and it took us ages to work out where he had gone. It was such a puzzle!’

    Eleanor watched her impatiently. ‘And where had he gone?’

    ‘To Sallinger’s Folly, of course. You remember. It’s down near the lake, a mile or so towards the village.’

    Charlotte waved her hand in the direction of the window, where a dark-frowning sky above the wide green vista of the Sallinger estate could be seen, promising imminent rain.

    ‘It was one of Papa’s great projects when he was younger and fancied himself as a bit of an architect. A medieval tower in the middle of nowhere, like something out of one of these gothic novels!’ She frowned. ‘Only the work was never finished. Or perhaps it was never meant to be finished. I can’t remember which. But it’s all tumble-down. I don’t think it even has a roof. Nathaniel couldn’t possibly be there. Not with his bad leg. Poor thing, he suffers so dreadfully with it these days.’

    Eleanor looked down at her hands, now twisted together in her lap. She needed no description of this ‘tumble-down’ tower in the middle of nowhere. She knew the place only too intimately, but had not realised that it was known as Sallinger’s Folly. How shocked and dismayed dear Charlotte must be if she knew the truth.

    ‘I see,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘Well, it sounds unlikely that he would be there. Why not leave it another day, and then send Allenby into Leamington to make discreet enquiries there?’

    ‘You think my brother might be in Leamington Spa?’

    Eleanor paused and decided that her only choice was to make up an out-and-out lie. She wished to distract her friend from the idea of the tower, but also had to remember that Charlotte was pregnant and might not react well to anything too shocking or outrageous.

    ‘I’m afraid I did hear a rumour,’ she began untruthfully, ‘about Lord Sallinger and a certain lady of the town.’

    ‘Oh!’ Charlotte closed her eyes. ‘Don’t! It’s too dreadful.’

    Eleanor stared at her, surprised by her candour. ‘You’ve heard something too?’

    ‘With Nathaniel, there are always rumours.’ Charlotte sighed. ‘The poor boy was so dreadfully unlucky in the war, wasn’t he? Those scars and his limp would frighten off all but the most unhappy spinsters. If he does occasionally visit a woman or two in Leamington, it would be no great surprise, and would certainly explain his absence now. So few ladies of our acquaintance are able to bear the sight of him, you see. Indeed, I had once hoped that you and he …’

    Charlotte tailed off into an awkward silence, seeing the shock on Eleanor’s face and misreading it.

    ‘I beg you, dearest, pay me no heed. I’m distraught with worry, that’s all.’ The door opened, and Charlotte clapped her hands at the sight of the tea tray, pretending delight. ‘Ah, here is our tea at last. That will set us up nicely in this damp weather. Then we shall have lunch, and a game or two of whist. What do you say?’

    Speechless, Eleanor managed a faint nod.

    ‘I envy how free you are to travel about, Nell. To come and go as you please, just as a man does. Not that I would dare, if I were still unmarried. But you could never stand to be told what to do.’ With another heartfelt sigh, Charlotte settled heavily back onto the sofa, a capacious gown of brown silk draped over her enlarged stomach. ‘I would love to visit you in London – just for a few weeks, to see the shops and attend a few parties. Of course, I know my brother would never allow it. Not in my condition. But I am so very tired of Warwickshire!’

It was only once Eleanor was free of the elegant but somewhat stifling walls of Sallinger House that her plan of visiting the broken-down Folly began to take real shape. Charlotte’s comments about her freedom to come and go as she pleased – ‘just as a man does’ – had increased her courage, which, it had to be admitted, had not been at its height earlier that day. So it was with a sheer spirit of devilry that she turned off the road at the mill gate, nudging Desdemona through the slosh of mud ruts. Her heart was now set on at least seeing the Folly again, even if she was not quite brave enough to enter it, in case Sallinger really was hiding out there.

    At first, the mare picked her way with obvious reluctance, stopping every now and then to sniff at a promising patch of brambles or jerk up into the trees after some unseen delicacy. But Eleanor’s determination was more than a match for the mare. She urged Desdemona on with her heels and several muttered exhortations, glancing about herself all the while but seeing nobody else either walking or riding along the overgrown riverside track.

    The threatening rain clouds had pushed further in her direction by the time she stretched in the stirrup, catching her first glimpse of the tower through a ragged bank of trees. She could have made far better progress, Eleanor thought, if she had not been forced to ride side-saddle, but she supposed that at her age, it would appear unpleasantly hoydenish to be careering about the countryside like a man – even though she might have done so often enough in her youth.

    As she approached the Folly itself, however, the laughter in her eyes died away and her nerves grew suddenly unsteady.

    What if Nathaniel truly had been seized by some dark mood, and had taken a length of rope with him for the most terrible of reasons, meaning to do away with himself in the privacy of this tumble-down tower?

    With this fear beating in her heart, Eleanor dismounted a few feet shy of the tower’s dark entrance, tying Desdemona to a thorn bush before advancing more discreetly on foot.

    The Folly was just as she remembered it, tall circular walls of reddish stone ruined and half tumbled down to the west, while on the east side it seemed almost perfect, a faux-medieval tower with arrow-slit windows. She knew that a narrow circular staircase would take her to the first floor, which was draughty but protected from the elements, while the top floor was a bitter, hostile place where the rain came in and the wild birds roosted. Beyond that was only a ruined roof and the air.

    If Nathaniel had slept here last night, she thought, he would have made his bed on the first floor.

    Eleanor paused on the threshold, gloved and bonneted, leaning her head and shoulders into the gloomy doorway of the tower.

    ‘Hallo?’

    Her voice echoed strangely up the empty staircase and she very nearly drew back, no longer sure whether she wanted to see what lay above. Only the memory of Charlotte’s frightened face spurred her on.

    Was she a child, to be scared of a simple echo?

    She took another hesitant step, lifting her skirts free of the filthy walls as she began to ascend the staircase. It was narrow here, darker and cooler than in the doorway, and once or twice she shuddered, brushing away the fine trail of a spider’s web across her face.

    ‘My lord?’

    Still no answer. Her heart beat so loudly, it seemed deafening in the silence. Then, much to her relief, she was clear of the dark stairs, entering instead the high-ceilinged circular room on the first floor, bathed now in the warm orange-red glow of sunset.

    There was fresh straw on the wooden floorboards, scuffed about here and there as if by hurried feet, and an old mattress thrown to one side – she blushed to see it, remembering how they had lain together there, keeping each other warm in the storm – covered now with an old sheet of leather, and what looked like a fur-lined gentleman’s cloak. On the table stood a closed lantern, its wick well-trimmed, and a knife which appeared to have been used for cutting cheese and bread, of which nothing was left but a few crumbs. Several candles lay there too, prevented from rolling off the table by a neat stack of books.

    Eleanor paused beside the books, noting an absence of dust on their fine leather covers and gilt-tooled spines: several histories and political treatises, a new world atlas, and some vast scholarly work in Greek whose title she could not decipher. Not the typical reading matter of some impudent farmhand, she thought wryly, using the tower as a shelter during times of rough weather. No, this was definitely Nathaniel’s secret hideout.

    Yet if his lordship had slept here last night, and left these books and candles still to hand, where was he now?

    Inevitably, her gaze drifted back to the mattress. Despite the draughty room and its cold stone walls, the exposed fur lining of his cloak draped across the leather-covered mattress made it look somehow luxurious, almost an inviting bed.

    Looking at that make-shift bed, a sudden horrible suspicion struck her. Had she been right in her belief about Sallinger? Had he arranged to meet that red-headed Underwood woman here?

    It would certainly explain his overnight absence from the big house. Lord Sallinger might have been indiscreet at times with his
petites affaires
, but to bed one of his married tenants under his own roof or, worse, within earshot of her poor blind husband, would be pushing even his arrogance further than seemed credible.

    This tower might provide a more private stage for the enactment of his lordly desires – as indeed it had done in the past.

    She found herself shivering at the outrageous possibility, and drew her own cloak tighter about herself.

   
Droit de seigneur
, indeed!

    This folly might have been designed as a Gothic tower by Nathaniel’s father, but that was no reason for Nathaniel to behave like some medieval Lord of the Manor here.

    A soft rhythmic thudding made her freeze on the spot, listening in a sudden welter of anxiety. What on earth was that?

    The noise continued, growing in intensity, and she realised that it was rain – a gentle shower of English rain, hitting the sides of the stone tower all around her.

    With a hysterical laugh, Eleanor straightened up, commanding her heart to stop fluttering against her chest. It was ridiculous to be this nervous when Sallinger was nowhere to be seen.

    ‘Found something to amuse you, Miss Faversham?’

    She jumped at the sound of that familiar drawl, whirling round to see Nathaniel himself, lounging there in the doorway.

    He was watching her with a sardonic smile on his lips, clad in rough buckskins and a crisp white shirt open at the neck like a labourer’s, one shoulder propped nonchalantly against the dusty stone.

    As she saw and recognised that look in his eyes, a feeling of genuine dread flooded her heart. She took several steps backwards, instinctively wishing she had a weapon of some kind.

    In polite society, like most men of his rank, Lord Sallinger was forced to follow the rules of conventional behaviour. But in this isolated tower, away from public eyes, she knew perfectly well that those rules would have no power over him. What a fool she had been to come here alone. Here, to the very place where they had made love on their last night together!

    Her hand, scrabbling behind her, fell on the vast Greek tome. She clutched at it feverishly, wondering how much time for escape she might gain by throwing it at him.

    ‘Very improving,’ he mocked, still blocking her only escape route. ‘I didn’t realise you knew any Greek. That’s Homer’s warlike “Iliad”, by the way. Quite fitting as a missile. Which is what I presume it’s about to become.’

    ‘I warn you, my lord, let me leave. Or I won’t be responsible for my actions.’

    With a smile that could freeze milk in a china jug, his eyes dwelt for a moment on the leather-bound volume in her raised hand.

    ‘I would aim a little more to the left, Nell. Otherwise, you’re more likely to hit the wall than me.’

    ‘You scoundrel, don’t dare use that name!’ she hissed, and threw the book clumsily in his direction.