“I was only thinking he might be acquainted with his mother’s friends, particularly if she had developed a penchant for young gentlemen.”
He suddenly squeezed her arm. “Take care. Harbisher is approaching.”
With which Lord Francis moved away from her towards the earl, leaving Ottilia feeling peculiarly bereft.
“If you insist upon Polbrook’s innocence, Fanshawe,” Lord Harbisher was beginning, taking immediate advantage of Cattawade and his minion having left the room, “what other explanation have you for my poor Emily’s demise, I should like to know?”
His wife turned where she stood, her eyes dilating. “I was just thinking the same, Francis. If Randal did not do this terrible thing, who did?”
“That is just what we are endeavouring to find out,” said the dowager from behind her. “Only today we have uncovered more than one possibility.”
Ottilia held her breath, fully alive to the infelicity of these possibilities in the eyes of the marchioness’s brother. The matter of the will was nothing to this. She cast an agonised look at Lord Francis and found him regarding her in much the same state. He had sprung to precisely the same conclusion. How to avert disaster?
Lady Harbisher’s brow wrinkled. “But it does not make sense. We understand poor Emily was safely in her bed at the time. Who but Randal—? Oh!”
The realisation struck her dumb, and a tide of pink entered her pale cheeks, while her eyes registered an all too vivid demonstration of her own opinion of the likelihood of her sister-in-law having entertained another man in her bedchamber.
It took a moment for the implication to register with her spouse, although Ottilia could see Sybilla was before him, recognising how her own words had led to this. Colonel Tretower was steadfastly regarding the ceiling, and Lord Francis’s gaze signalled a frantic message. Ottilia grimaced in response. Too late!
“Hey? What’s that you say?” uttered the earl, as if he could not believe his ears. “You dare tell me Emily played him false? Not while I live!”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” burst from the dowager. “Did you take the woman for a saint? How in the world are you to know what she may or may not have done in the privacy of her chamber? You are merely her brother, sir, not her keeper.”
“I will not hear this,” Lord Harbisher thundered. “I will not have my sister’s name besmirched!”
“But you expect me to sit mute while you revile my son,” Sybilla threw at him furiously. “Well, know this, Harbisher. Your sister’s amorous dealings are a byword in the ton, and we are hunting down the culprit from among her favourites. There, it is said. Now let there be no more mealymouthed subterfuges between us.”
This attack so stunned the earl that he was evidently lost for words for the moment. To Ottilia’s senses, the other occupants of the room held a collective breath, watching the protagonists holding stare for stare.
Lord Harbisher was the first to break. He jerked his gaze away from Sybilla’s, looked intemperately about the room as if he hardly knew what he was looking at, and then fastened upon the glass in his hand. With a quick movement, he tossed off the wine it contained and moved to set aside the glass. It seemed to fortify him, for he looked directly at Lord Francis.
“Is this true?”
Lord Francis hesitated. Then he gave that shifting shrug Ottilia recognised as signifying discomfort with what he had to say.
“I can’t confirm Emily’s conduct as certain knowledge. But it is true that we have been led to the supposition that there may be a third party involved.”
“Third party,” scoffed the earl. “If you mean a lover, Fanshawe, then say so, since your own mother prefers to call a spade a spade.”
“Very well, if you insist,” Lord Francis said coldly. “So far as we can ascertain, there is a strong possibility that Emily was killed by a man she had expected and welcomed into her chamber. You will allow that Randal is unlikely to have been such a man.”
“Oh, how truly dreadful, if it is really so,” uttered Lady Harbisher in broken accents. “Poor, poor creature, to be so cruelly betrayed.”
She set down her glass on the mantel and sank into her vacated chair. A pocket-handkerchief fluttered from her sleeve to her hand and was held to her eyes. Of the opinion that her emotions were genuine, Ottilia looked to her husband to see how he took this. The earl was surveying his wife with a frown creasing his brows, but Ottilia believed his thoughts were otherwhere.
Colonel Tretower stepped forward. “If you will furnish me with your direction, Lord Harbisher, I will be happy to keep you informed as to the progress of the investigation.”
The earl started. “Eh? Progress? By God, I’ll not have it progress an inch!” His now troubled eyes swung back to Lord Francis. “You’ll not shuffle this off onto Emily, and so I warn you. D’you think I’ll have every scandalmongering busybody on the town bandying her name in such a fashion? Saying she came by her deserts? For that’s what they will say, sure as check. I’ll not have it, I tell you!”
“That is past praying for,” cut in Sybilla curtly. “The whole town has been buzzing these past days. What else can you expect?”
“Nothing else,” came from Lady Harbisher in accents oddly bitter.
Ottilia glanced quickly at the woman and found her pallid features marred by an expression very like a scowl. The handkerchief lately held to her eyes was now jerking between unquiet fingers. She cast an anguished look at the dowager and her voice came low and very nearly vicious.
“Is it him they speak of? Is it Quaife?”
A pulse jumped in Ottilia’s chest and her eyes flew to Lord Francis. He looked aghast, as well he might, his gaze trained on Lord Harbisher. The significance of his wife’s words did not register with the latter at first. Then his cheeks suffused and Ottilia braced for the explosion.
“Quaife? Darby Quaife? What in thunder are you saying, Dorothea?”
Lady Harbisher paled still further and a gasp of fright escaped her lips. But she rallied, looking him in the eye in a manner either foolhardy or valorous, Ottilia could not decide which.
“Of what avail to pretend now, Hugh? You know well poor Emily’s name has long been coupled with his. I know he is your friend, but—”
“Friend! A pretty friend to be ruining my sister’s name.”
“Was, then. Was your friend,” said his lady, as one willing to make concessions. She hurried on. “None of us can know the truth of it, my dear, but in this predicament—”
She broke off, stuffing the wreck of her handkerchief against her mouth, as if she regretted having spoken, her eyes on the fulminating countenance of her spouse. To Ottilia’s relief, Lord Francis leapt into the fray.
“Do not, I beg of you, Harbisher, go off at half-cock. George and I have spoken with Quaife this very morning and—”
The choleric earl turned on him. “Then you suspect him. By God, if that fellow is the villain who crushed the life out of my sister, he shall answer for it!”
Sybilla was on her feet. “A moment since you were threatening my son in like manner. What do you mean to do? Scour the town for Emily’s lovers and call them all to account? You fool, man! Can you not see how your conduct must provoke the very talk you are desirous of scotching?”
“All?” Lord Harbisher’s bulk shifted to confront her. “What in thunder do you mean, all? How dare you make these insinuations, ma’am? How dare you impugn my sister’s name?”
“By the same token with which you impugn my son’s, sir.”
“Let us have done with this,” exclaimed Lord Francis, impatience lending his voice a note of authority that had the oddest effect on Ottilia’s pulse, making it jump unevenly. “There is enough harm done without quarrelling amongst ourselves.”
“Ha! Yes, and who is harmed?” demanded Lord Harbisher, seizing on this. “Who, I ask you, is the victim here?” Unexpectedly, his voice shook, awaking Ottilia’s sympathies. “You none of you cared for her. Do you think I don’t know it? Do you thi
nk I have not seen how little she was valued? There is not one in this house who held her in affection, who can speak of her with—”
The opening of the door interrupted him. Glancing round, Ottilia saw Lady Candia enter with Lady Dalesford behind her. The girl, who was looking composed but peaked, no sooner caught sight of the earl than she uttered an audible gasp and clapped a hand to her cheek.
“Uncle Hugh! Oh no. I thought—” She broke off, and bringing her hand down, clasped it tightly with the other. “I beg your pardon. I heard your voice and I thought—I thought Papa was come home.”
A rustling drew Ottilia’s attention. Lady Harbisher had risen and was moving lightly across the room, her hands held out, her eyes brimming.
“Poor, poor child. Dearest Candia, I am so very sorry.”
Tears sprang to the girl’s eyes and she accepted the proffered embrace with alacrity. Ottilia could not help but remark how the frail form of the countess all but disappeared into the more robust figure of the younger female. When she was released, the earl perforce went forward, expressing his condolences in the bluff manner that seemed to overtake him when he was overpowered by the emotions of the other sex.
“A narrow escape,” came a mutter close behind Ottilia.
She turned, shifting her eyes from the reunion to focus upon Colonel Tretower’s face. “The poor man is in a state to blame anyone he may. I should be careful what you tell him, sir.”
The colonel’s intelligent gaze regarded her with a lurking twinkle. “You think he may attempt to lay violent hands upon Quaife? Let me reassure you. The fellow is well able to hold his own.”
“I was not thinking of fisticuffs.”
A frown appeared. “You think Harbisher might call him out? The very thing calculated to worsen the scandal? Surely not.”
“I suspect his desire for vengeance is too impatient for that.” Ottilia glanced across at the earl, quiet now in the presence of his niece.
“What is in your mind, Mrs. Draycott?”
Ottilia turned back to the colonel. “Bowerchalke. You spoke of a slight youth, I think.”
“Lord, yes! Harbisher would break him in two.”
“Then I beg you will refrain from mentioning the boy’s name to the earl.”
Tretower nodded, casting a grim look at the earl’s broad back. “I take your point.”
The entrance of Lady Candia naturally put an end to the heated discussions that had occupied the inhabitants of the parlour hitherto, and the rest of the visit passed in a spurious atmosphere of peace. Anxiety nevertheless beset Ottilia. She kept a surreptitious eye upon Lord Harbisher and could not be satisfied with his demeanour. A certain rigidity in his pose, coupled with the motion of telltale muscles in his features, spoke of his underlying discontent. His intervention, should he be moved to take matters into his own hands, would likely blight any effort to discover the truth and clear Lord Polbrook’s name.
It took some time for the effusions of sympathy offered by Sybilla’s specially selected intimates to run down, but at length Mrs. Arncliffe’s tongue ran dry and she took up her glass of proffered wine to wet it. The female who accompanied her instantly cast herself into the breach.
“You cannot imagine how much we have longed to be permitted to condole with you, dear Sybilla,” said Mrs. Bucklebury, pointing her long nose at the dowager in a manner that reminded Ottilia irresistibly of an aristocratic dog on a delicate hunt for tidbits. “Such a nasty turn it gave me when I heard.”
“I don’t doubt it,” returned the dowager.
The dry note did not escape Ottilia, though she guessed the visitors wholly missed it. She had been assured that the cousins, who had both come out in the same year as Sybilla, been married within a twelvemonth, and widowed these last ten years, had devoted themselves to an insatiable thirst for detail about the lives of everyone with whom they came in contact—with particular attention to anything savouring of scandal. Ottilia was familiar with the type. It became a habit with them to take a vicarious pleasure in the misfortunes of others, adding piquancy to their own uninteresting lives. In other circumstances, she would have found them an entertaining duo as they sat together on the sofa by the windows, the one as plump as a Christmas goose, the other as skinny as its skeleton after the diners had eaten their fill.
“Horrible,” pursued the latter with a shudder. “Poor dear Emily.”
This last held so blatant a note of glee that Ottilia could not help butting in. “You were fond of the marchioness, ma’am?”
A tinge of pink overspread Mrs. Bucklebury’s sallow features and a nervous tic attacked the false redness of the lips. “Who could not be? Dear Emily. Such a sociable creature. Always the centre of the crowd.”
“A crowd of gentlemen, is what you mean, I don’t doubt.”
Mrs. Bucklebury stared wide-eyed at Sybilla and an O of surprise opened Mrs. Arncliffe’s lips. As one, the two women turned to exchange a glance of question, and again as one turned back, the light of curiosity alive in both sets of eyes.
“A fascinating woman was Emily,” ventured Mrs. Arncliffe. “She never wanted for beaux.”
“Oh yes,” agreed the other. “I imagine half the men in London were in love with her.”
The dowager was correctly attired in severest black crape for the occasion, her sewing woman Biddle having been true to her word and completed her commission to make over two gowns. She looked from one to the other eager face and then nodded in a decisive fashion.
“Come, I have known you both long enough. Let us throw off the mask.”
Puzzlement entered Mrs. Arncliffe’s chubby countenance, but the other was sharper. “You asked us here for a purpose.”
“A sufficient one. I will be glad if you will speak with candour. Were you at the ball Emily attended on the night of her death?”
“At Endicott House? Yes, we were both there.”
“It is what makes it so particularly distressing,” put in Mrs. Arncliffe. “Dreadful to remember poor dear Emily, so alive and vibrant all evening as she always was, and then—oh, it makes one mad to think of it!”
“Don’t think of it,” said Sybilla flatly. “Think only of the evening before. Who was there? By which I mean, who was in attendance on Emily?”
Mrs. Bucklebury sat back with a satisfied air. “Ah, I thought as much. It is not certain who did the deed, is that not so?”
Her stouter cousin looked a trifle shocked, and hastened in. “For my part, dear Sybilla, I could never believe it of Polbrook. Goodness knows they were no devoted couple—” She broke off, throwing a hand to her mouth as if to stuff the words back in. “I did not mean—”
“Spare your blushes,” recommended the dowager. “Did I not request you to be frank?”
“You did,” cut in Mrs. Bucklebury swiftly, “and if you are looking to pin the blame upon another, you would do well to look to Quaife.”
Ottilia exchanged a glance with Sybilla, and her mind flew to the previous day’s uncomfortable interview with Lord Harbisher. Little had been accomplished in the way of investigations since, due to Lady Candia’s presence. But Sybilla, having received a swift acceptance to her invitation to the two gossips, had instructed her daughter to remove her granddaughter from the house for the morning. “Easy enough,” had said Lady Dalesford. “I shall take her to Celeste. We must both arrange for mourning clothes.” Lord Francis and the colonel having gone off to begin upon the funeral arrangements, the field was left clear for Ottilia and the dowager to gain insight into Emily’s last night upon this earth.
Mrs. Arncliffe seemed inclined to argue with her cousin. “How can you say so, Maria? Quaife was quite outside Emily’s circle that night.”
“Precisely so, my dear. But he was not absent. I marked him particularly, and if his aspect did not betoken jealousy, you may call me a dunderhead, and welcome.”
“But he has been quite broken away from Emily these several years,” objected the other. “No, no, Maria, you have it wrong, indeed y
ou do. It is Feverel who has been most assiduous in hanging about her.”
“But only for the purpose of thrusting that pretty fellow Bowerchalke upon Emily’s notice. He is Feverel’s godson, you must know, and as handsome a boy as you could well hope for. Anyone might have guessed what would come of it.”
“Very true. Emily had ever an eye for a pretty youth. I daresay that is what first attracted her to Theo Rookes, for he was many years her junior at the time, although of course he broke with her upon his marriage.”
“That is neither here nor there,” argued Mrs. Bucklebury. “I am surprised you did not remark Darby Quaife’s conduct, Phoebe, for I promise you, he looked fit to slaughter young Bowerchalke that night.”
Ottilia listened to the swift give and take with concentrated attention, tinged with a touch of amusement despite the sinister trend of the conversation. Sybilla glanced her way once and she signalled with the faintest shake of her head that it was wisest not to intervene. So engrossed had the two ladies become, Ottilia thought they had sufficiently forgotten where they were to allow their tongues to run unchecked, which was all to the good. But consciousness returned in a moment, and Mrs. Arncliffe was the first to blush.
“Forgive me, Sybilla, I did not mean to run on so.”
The dowager flicked her hand. “It makes no matter. Tell me, did either of you notice whether anyone had Emily’s fan?”
Mrs. Bucklebury’s sharp gaze widened. “The Polbrook heirloom? I did see the boy fanning her after a particularly energetic gavotte, I believe.”
“Did he give it back to her?”
Mrs. Arncliffe took it up, leaning forward in a confidential fashion. “You do not know, then?”
“Know what?”
The cousin sniffed. “Oh, it is only a romantic supposition of Phoebe’s. I set no store by it myself. The fan is too valuable to be used in such a fashion.”
Ottilia’s senses were alive to a fresh possibility. “The fan was a signal? Is that what you are suggesting, Mrs. Arncliffe?” The lady beamed and nodded, setting her chin wobbling. “That is it exactly. I don’t know how many times I have seen her hand it over, with the prettiest of smiles and a whisper in the ear. What else could it mean?”
The Gilded Shroud Page 22
