by Thea Devine
What was Hugo's story, really?
The only diamond she had ever seen in the house in all those two years was the one around her neck. If Olivia owned any, they were not in evidence.
Or—she had never had any.
Or—they had been used solely to support this lifestyle for the past thirty years.
That made the most sense. And that maybe Hugo had gone up to London for precisely that reason: it was time to sell again. After all, he had buried his wife, he needed to make a gift to the church, there were expenses at Waybury, there was a profligate son whose debts he must pay.
Why would a man go out of mourning and go up to London unless there were such pressing matters weighing on him?
Ow, Emily said. Why are you taking so long?
Because she still wasn't sure her father's lifelong obsession had
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any validity? Or she was utterly mad, thinking there was more to this than appeared on the surface?
That was the most likely conclusion. The one she didn't want to make. Because she wanted to prove her father had been cheated and robbed. She wanted him to have a stake in whatever Hugo had smuggled out of South Africa. She wanted, finally, to take her place among the tuition girls.
To do that, she had to have no qualms about prying out Hugo's secrets, and she couldn't be squeamish about rooting around in the family's private places or possessions. She had to be as cold-blooded about it as Lujan had been about walking out the door.
Could she?
She owed him no loyalty, no love. And even though there was that little spark still simmering in the embers, she would not consciously fan that flame. Let it die of its own volition. It was dead anyway, trampled by Lujan's neglect. Better she was prepared for it, and on the offensive.
Better to have something to do than to molder away in an empty house pining for what she could not have.
Where to start? Where to even think about beginning a search?
Emily stared at her, long and hard. Hugo's room.
Hugo's room?
Emily paced down the hallway toward the door and sat down on her haunches, waiting. Well?
The hallway was dark, encroaching, even at this early hour of the morning, almost as if the walls were watching, looking for transgressions. The feeling was pervasive, heavy, and Jancie paused at the bedroom door for a moment, girding herself.
One step, one turn of the knob, and she committed herself wholly and fully to her father's purpose, acting as his instrument of revenge.
Oww, said Emily. What are you waiting for?
And Jancie thrust open the door.
******************
Nothing was the same. London wasn't the same, the town house wasn't the same, and surely there were new faces threading
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their way through the dining room and bedroom, unobtrusive as mice.
His head was killing him, throbbing like a heartbeat as he rolled over in his commodious bed to the tune of a commotion in the hallway below.
He pulled the pillow over his head. Never should have married the twittle—could've solved the fucking problem some other fucking way—didn't need to marry that virginhead—what the hell was J thinking? . . .
. . . never going hack to Way bury—shit, she loves me, she loves me not—don't need love, don't need anything but wide-open cunt. . .
. . . Lord, she was so wide wide-open a man could drown in her. . .
.. . not like that little tart last night behind the pub, with her greedy, grasping hands and endless pumping hole . .. all the tricks, all the whore's hopes—Jesus, what a nightmare getting away from that one—and her not worth a dribble and a ducat. . .
. .. why am I thinking about HER .. . I am NOT cunt-struck . ..
Shit—what the hell is going on down there?
. .. need to find more well-bred cunt.. . that's it, that's what I need—tonight. Won't drink, go somewhere, get some good stiff-upper British grumble and grunt—the kind you can't buy for a crown. The kind that makes you feel like a king . . . God, I wish my head would stop pounding . . .
No—that's the door—holy hell—stop the frigging pounding on the fucking door . . .
"Come . . ." he heard his voice thick and clogged with sleep and the fogginess of too much drink and too little release.
"Mr. Lujan, sir."
A servant—someone he'd never seen, no—maybe he'd seen him and hired him before he'd gone to Waybury to be with Olivia and seduce the—but he was never going to think about her or say her name again—companion.
"WHAT??" Oh God, too loud. Too .. .
"Mr. Hugo has arrived and sent me to see if you'd join him for dinner."
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"Dinner?" Surely not. He had only just toppled into bed. Hadn't he? Dinner? He looked up bleary-eyed at the servant. "Hugo is here? Downstairs? In the house?"
"In the house, sir. Waiting your pleasure."
"Son of a bitch—Hugo shouldn't be here. He should be prostrate at the cemetery, begging Olivia's forgiveness for his transgressions. Goddamn it, a man can't even trust his own father with the hired help these—" He looked up abruptly at the servant, who was stony-faced at this diatribe. "What's your name?"
"March, sir," the man said reluctantly.
"March. March." He had to memorize it because he'd forget it in ten minutes. "March. Well, march right downstairs and tell Mr. Hugo that I will join him in a half-hour. And bring some hot water. And a tot of brandy."
"Yes, sir."
Was there a faint undercurrent of disapproval there? As if servants had opinions. Servants didn't have opinions, they had tasks . . .
It struck him suddenly that he was still prone, barking orders and having tirades. He must look like an ass. Not a position of power.
"You may go, March," he said, gathering some dignity together and easing himself into a sitting position. He held it until the door closed and then sank back down into his pillows.
Too dizzy. Jesus, how was he going to pull himself into shape to cope with Hugo? What the hell was he doing here, anyway?
Shit. He tried sitting up again. Everything started going in circles. Where had he been last night? Right, the pub. The whore. Not the companion, and his cock positively aching to blow off the companion. No, not the companion—his wife, his wide-open, naked vessel of a wife . . .
Lord in hell, what was he doing here?
Hiding from she loves me, she loves me not—right—only thing to do when a man's wife got sappy . . .
SHIT! He bolted upright. His father had gone and left her alone at Way bury with Kyger?
The fog lifted. Danger was imminent. His father was negligent, positively culpable, if anything happened between them.
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He couldn't get out of bed fast enough. What the hell was his father thinking?
He didn't wait for the wash water; he stumbled downstairs in ten minutes, hanging onto the banister, furious as a lion.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he roared, careening into the dining room.
"The same as you, my boy. Looking for some cheap fig to console me. Why not? A widower still has feelings, needs, that old morning pride—"
"Why not? Why not? You left the companion alone with Kyger? The two of them alone, together, and him half head over tail about her—Jesus, old man—pride be damned. It's too soon. A man your age—goddamn it—you left her alone ..."
"But I'm not the one who left her," Hugo said flatly. "You did. You left her. She's not my wife ..."
"Goddamned not," Lujan muttered. "Not dead yet..."
"Go to hell," Hugo shot back. "And whip your ass back to Waybury and start acting like a man ..."
"No one more man than me and my pride," Lujan mumbled, sinking into a chair. "Where's that brandy? Where's March? What the hell are you doing here? You should be on your knees in church, begging forgiveness. Confess you were lusting after a girl who could be your daughter, your d
aughter-in-law ..."
"God," Hugo muttered. "Your wife, for Christ's sake."
Lujan banged on the table. "Exactly. My wife. Not yours. You go back to your wife, old man. Where's my BRANDY?"
Hugo got up. It was too late for talking, too late to drum any common sense into Lujan. Years too late. He was too drunk, too spoiled, too used to having his own way.
Beyond that, Hugo was tired. Not only from the journey, but tired of Lujan and his recklessness, irresponsibility, and his total disregard of anything but his own pleasure.
Fine. Jancie would wait—she'd known what Lujan was about before she'd agreed to marry him. Even if it was a bad decision— she'd have done better with him, but that was water down the drain now. And she'd get some value from this union. She had a life now she never would have had otherwise. Money. Position. A beautiful home. Children, eventually . . . always a consolation.
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Sometimes.
As for him, he didn't give a damn about proprieties now; he would take his ease where he could, away from Waybury, the memories and the might-have-beens. Olivia would forgive him.
And at this moment, looking at Lujan laid to the bone, hanging limply over the table, banging his fist belligerently, his brain fogged and fuzzy, he didn't care if everything, all of it, went to hell.
Even him.
Chapter Ten
A man like Hugo—what had she expected? His bedclothes embroidered with diamonds? His room was neat as a pin and spare as a monk's cell. Not that there wasn't furniture—his bed was a massive four-poster set against the wall to the right. There was an armoire on the left wall, a chair and table by the window and one by the fireplace, and a thick Persian carpet on the floor. Kerosene lamps on the ceiling and sconced on the fireplace wall.
Nothing else.
Not a painting, not a decoration, not a piece of bric-a-brac, not a personal item anywhere.
Even Emily, prowling curiously around the room, found nothing.
In the armoire, there were several frock coats hanging; in the drawers, freshly laundered undergarments, an array of collars neat in a row.
In his dressing room, there was another cupboard with more suits, a selection of shoes, and a washstand with a hand-painted bowl.
Nothing more.
Jancie felt like a thief, skulking in his room, rooting through his clothes.
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He had no jewelry—no diamond rings, no diamond watch fobs to be found.
She even stooped to looking under the rug for a secret hiding place in the floor, and to tapping the furniture for secret compartments.
Not that she'd know what she was hearing. She felt singularly incompetent. She was never meant to be a detective.
That she had gotten this far in carrying through her father's wishes was due solely to luck and fate. She could never say she manipulated events.
But here she was, getting nowhere. Whatever Hugo's secrets, he did not keep them cached anywhere in his room.
Ow, Emily said, seating herself in the very center of the room.
Emily knew something—what?
"There's nothing here."
Ow, Emily said, more emphatically.
Jancie turned around and around, trying to see the room from Emily's perspective. She saw nothing unusual or out of place. The plain furniture, the richly colored carpet, the bare walls, and the sun streaming in, making a halo around Emily's variegated fur.
Nothing glittered. Nothing seemed obviously out of place, nothing seemed any different from anything a man would have in his bedroom.
But then, Hugo didn't seem like one to leave anything to chance—or right out in the open.
It had been too many years since he'd returned, in any event, too many years to plan how he would hide and disperse the evidence of his betrayal. Still, there was always a chance that he had grown careless over those years. That since there was no one to question or constrain him, he had become less cautious.
But nothing in the room spoke to that except Emily, sitting patiently, waiting for her to deduce what she wanted her to know.
Mrroowww,
Well, that was pretty emphatic.
There was something in the room that she was missing, something Emily comprehended and she did not.
Ooowwww . . .
Emily was getting impatient. She rose up, arched her back, and stretched—and . . .
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"Madam?"
And darted under the bed as Jancie whirled, her heart in her throat.
It was Mrs. Ancrum at the bedroom door.
Now what? This was a supreme humiliation, to be caught skulking in Hugo's room. It felt like a dirty-girl moment, not dissimilar to when one of them was caught sniffing an expensive perfume, or looking at the lustrous pearl necklace of some tuition girl.
She fought the feeling. She was the mistress of Waybury now. She was entitled to go where she wished, to look at what she wished.
"Good morning, Mrs. Ancrum," she said, still battling the moment and trying to maintain some composure.
She couldn't detect any nuance of disapproval in Mrs. Ancrum's voice, however. She was a tall, spare woman with iron-gray hair and a penchant for severe black. She ran the household with a smooth efficiency upon which Olivia had totally depended.
As Jancie planned to do. But she had never given it much thought in the months preceding her marriage. So for Mrs. Ancrum to have caught her like this was not a little embarrassing.
Perhaps it could be smoothed over—? Was she duplicitous enough to carry it off? The truth was, she was nervous as hell.
"I was just looking at what tasks each bedroom would entail, Mrs. Ancrum. Mr. Hugo seems scrupulously neat."
"Yes, madam."
No give there. "Shall we continue, as long as we're on the bedroom floor?"
"As you wish, madam."
How did one make her unbend? Where was Emily?
They went into the hallway.
"The maid has begun on your room, seeing as how Mr. Lujan has gone."
Jancie sent her a sharp look. What did she mean by that? Was there censure? Did she know that Lujan was gone for the foreseeable future?
Servants knew everything—she mustn't forget that, or that it was the mistress's business to act as if they didn't. "Excellent," she murmured.
"Now, as to Miss Olivia's room ... I have had no specific in-
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structions about that, whether to keep it closed, to clean it, to pack it up . .."
They entered Olivia's room together, and Jancie immediately felt a surrounding sense of Olivia's presence. She couldn't kill Olivia this way—by clearing out the things that had meant the most to her; and besides, who would it hurt to keep the room intact for a while longer?
"Let's not touch it yet," she said, running her hand over the lowered slant top of Olivia's desk.
The wood was silky smooth; Olivia's pens and stationery had not been moved. The novels they had been reading were book-ended on the desktop.
The curtains were drawn, the bed was perfectly made, everything was neat and in order, as if Olivia had just gone downstairs for breakfast.
"The staff were so sorry . .." Mrs. Ancrum murmured as the silence lengthened uncomfortably.
"I know she's missed," Jancie said. "You'd been with her for many years, had you not?"
Mrs. Ancrum nodded. "I came to Miss Olivia just before the last child ..." She stopped abruptly.
"Yes. Gaunt. They told me—so sad, so tragic . .."
"She never got over it, if I may say so, madam."
No. Not if that child had been the one thing in her heart and on her mind, the last word on her lips at the moment of her death.
She felt a shadow pass over her, as if Olivia were still in the room.
"How could she," Jancie said, "if the child was never found. One wonders, how could it not have been found?"
"If I may, madam—the search went on for mont
hs with not a trace of him anywhere. It was as if he'd been lifted up and away to no one knew where. They found nothing—and the conclusion they came to was that he had, for some reason, run away. Or alternately, that someone had kidnapped him. But there was no earthly reason ... and since ultimately no demands were made ..." her voice trailed off.
"Too tragic," Jancie said again, leading the way out of Olivia's room.
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Mrs. Ancrum straightened her shoulders as if throwing off all the depressing thoughts of the missing child. "Mr. Kyger's room is this way."
Kyger's room. The private part of Kyger that no one knew except the maids and the housekeeper. And now her.
Mrs. Ancrum opened the door, and Jancie edged her way in. This was where Kyger slept, the secret part of his life that was not involved in the family business.
The first thing she saw was his massive desk, piled with papers and accounting books. The second, the bed, long and narrow-nothing fancy or opulent. The third, a big, comfortable chair by the window next to a rectangular table spread with books, and a kerosene lamp. The armoire, open and spilling with clothes, and his mud-crusted boots by the door.
A man lived here who was involved in his life, not like Lujan, who skimmed the surface and Hugo, who had given up altogether.
"Mr. Kyger really doesn’t prefer to have things moved. He wishes the bed to be made,. the fireplace to be swept, the carpet to be kept clean."
"That's fine," Jancie said.
"And, of course, Mr. Lujan—yours and Mr. Lujan's room . . ."
That one was next, full to the brim with memories of the past three days. Needing a full and thorough dust and clean now that she was to occupy it alone, but that didn't enter into her instructions.
That settled, they made- their way downstairs. Here, she was shown the kitchen, the gardens, and introduced to the gardeners and the cook, shown the menu book and where Mrs. Ancrum kept the stores.
Every morning, Mrs. Ancrum told Jancie, she was accustomed to consulting with Olivia about the day's menus. Generally, there was nothing going on—after the disappearance of the child, they had dispensed with entertaining altogether. After Olivia had come out of mourning, she'd gotten ill and hadn't been up to it, so things had become a day-to-day routine centered around that which didn't seem to change, even with the advent of Lujan's wife.
