“But you do not believe that, surely?” Gil said. “Father had his faults, the Good Lord knows, but a bigamous marriage? Would he really have married this Amelia Gartmore, and then, just a few months later, entered into a second marriage? It is inconceivable!”
Humphrey pressed his fingers to his lips, lost in thought. “That is a good point,” he said slowly. “Father was always so conscious of his honour. Imagine the scandal if it should have come out! As it would be now… but we can perhaps hold Ben at bay by telling him we are investigating ourselves. It is a terrible risk, for you might end up proving exactly the point you wish to disprove, but… it should be attempted, I think. But I cannot go anywhere just now. I must be in York all next week, preparing for the opening of my gaming house. Merton? Can you go?”
“To Garthorpe? Mrs Merton will be very cross to be left behind. I have been promising her a trip to that part of the county ever since we married. Still, I daresay I can manage a few days away. There is a house near there with a leaky roof that needs my attention too, so I have a good excuse.”
“Willerton-Forbes?”
“Ah, no. My brief is very clear, to stay here until recalled.”
“Then it will be just you and me, Merton,” Gil said, grinning. “An expedition — such fun! I particularly look forward to the leaky roof.”
While Humphrey galloped off to tell Monty of developments, and Merton took up his pen to write to Carrbridge, Gil went to the coach house, and organised a carriage for the journey. There were few options, all the better travelling coaches having been called upon for the journey to London. Nor were there any curricles available.
“It’s either the old luggage coach or Lady Georgiana’s carriage, milord,” Lester told him.
Gil looked from one to the other. “Lady Georgiana? You mean Grandmama? Good grief. Which one is older?”
“Hard to say, milord. They’re probably as old as each other.”
“And Grandmama’s was probably built for her marriage, so that must be… let me see… sixty years ago?”
“Maybe a bit more’n that, milord. But in full working order. Nothing unsafe about either of them, and perfectly adequate for two gentlemen and not much luggage.”
“Well, it had better be Grandmama’s, then. Have we anyone left here who can drive the thing?”
“I’ll drive you myself, milord.”
“Excellent. You will need to collect Mr Merton tomorrow morning at eight, he will breakfast with me at Silsby Vale at ten and then we shall go on from there.”
~~~~~
Genista had passed a pleasant morning. The three ladies had designated it a sewing day, so while Lady Humphrey and Mrs Andrews steadily produced tiny baby garments, she worked on her wedding wardrobe. With Mrs Andrews’ enthusiastic help, she had finished a new day gown, and begun work on an evening gown. The material was a pale blue silk shot through with darker threads which gave it an unusual textured appearance. She’d rarely worked with silk before, but this was a thicker type which, with a proper petticoat, would not cling too much. She’d just begun stitching the bodice together when Gil arrived in a haze of excitement.
“Ah, there you all are. There is uproar at Drummoor. Ben Gartmore is minded to make a claim against the title after all, so Merton and I are off north for a few days to look into this supposed marriage. With luck we can scotch the whole idea. We shall be off tomorrow morning. Just going to pack.” He disappeared through the door again, bobbing back almost immediately. “Merton will be here for breakfast, Lady H. I hope that is all right?”
And without waiting for an answer, he disappeared again, and his feet could be heard thumping up the stairs.
“Oh dear,” said Mrs Andrews. “That is very bad news. Poor Lord and Lady Carrbridge! What a dreadful thing! But it may come to nothing, I dare say.”
“It may,” Lady Humphrey said. “We can only hope that Ben thinks better of it, or that the claim is rejected. I suppose the lawyers will have to come back again. How vexatious! Maria, do you suppose…”
Genista hardly took in a word of it. Only one thought was in her head — Gil was leaving her. And he seemed very pleased about it, too. She could not recall seeing him so excited before.
She laid down her sewing carefully, and then sat, considering. Just as in London, he was going away, leaving her behind again. When it had happened before, she hadn’t known him at all, and would never have dared to say a word. But now… Surely she knew him well enough now? In sudden determination, she rose, left the room and went upstairs.
He was in the dressing room, pulling shirts and neckcloths out of drawers, tossing them onto the bed. Davy, on his knees, was folding them, laying them in a travel box. A box… that meant a carriage. At least he was not planning to ride. That was something.
“Lady Gilbert,” Davy said, with a bow. “I’ll just fetch your other coat from below stairs, Gil.”
“Good idea.” Gil half turned, smiled at her, then turned back to the drawers.
“How long will you be gone?” she said.
“A few days, I expect. Four… five. Oh, if we are delayed, there will be Sunday to consider, so it could be more than a week.”
She hesitated. It was so hard to find the right words. But she must speak, before her courage deserted her. “Did you mean what you said?” she blurted. “About… me asking, and you would do it?”
“Yes, of course,” he said absently.
“Then may I come with you?”
“You would not enjoy it,” he said, without looking up. “Bad roads, worse inns, a lot of sitting about with nothing to do. Much better to stay here.”
“Then you didn’t mean it,” she said, hanging her head. Her disappointment was a physical pain that shot through her insides horribly. She had believed him! What a fool she was.
For the first time, he spun round to look at her fully. “I did mean it,” he said in injured tones, “but why would you want to come along, when you can stay here? Good food, servants, every comfort provided, and friends to gossip with. Do you not like Lady Humphrey and Mrs Andrews?”
“Oh yes, they are everything that is amiable!” she cried. “But they are strangers.”
“Well, I am a stranger, if it comes to that,” he said, coming nearer, so that she could see the bewilderment on his face.
“But you are my stranger,” she said softly. “I don’t want to be left behind like a parcel to be collected later. I’d be no trouble, truly. I’ll be as quiet as a mouse, and keep out of your way.”
He gazed at her, head tipped on one side, as if he’d never looked at her properly before. “You would really enjoy such a trip? Better than being comfortable here? You truly want this?”
“Oh yes! Please, Gil. I’d rather be with you than anywhere else in the world.” She hadn’t meant to say that, but somehow the words had just risen straight from her heart and flown out of her mouth.
And he wasn’t angry. He smiled, and cupped her face in his hands. “Then let it be so, and you shall enjoy exactly the same discomforts of travel and indifferent inns that I do.”
She laughed at that. “I don’t mind! I’m more at home in an inn than a big house like this.”
“We shall need to take Holland…”
“I can manage perfectly well without a maid,” she said.
“True, and I can brush your hair, after all…” He stopped, with a sigh that she could interpret very well. “But there may be times when Merton and I will need to go off together and leave you at the inn, and I should not like to leave you alone. Oh, but perhaps Mrs Merton would like to come along? She has a great desire to see that part of the county apparently. Would that be acceptable to you?”
“Oh yes, of course.”
He smiled, and kissed her gently on the lips, and that kiss turned into a much longer and more ardent kiss, and they only sprang apart, rather flushed, when Davy returned.
~~~~~
They travelled slowly, for every few miles there was another hill, another precipitous valley, a
nother vista to be enjoyed. Mrs Merton had a guidebook to the area, and so they were constantly on the lookout for an oddly-shaped stone, or a fork in the road, or a clump of trees which marked the next spot to be exclaimed over and delighted in. The carriage would come to a halt and they would all climb down and conjure up a new set of effusions over the beauties before them.
To Genista, whose whole life until a matter of weeks ago had consisted of some nine or ten square miles of Kentish countryside, every hour was a delight, and one she felt free to enjoy because she had Gil by her side and no unexpected arrival before an astonished marquess to anticipate with dread. Sometimes she sat beside Mrs Merton, but the best times were when she could sit beside Gil, and slip her hand through his arm and rest her cheek on his broad shoulder. It astonished her now to recall his arrival on her doorstep, almost dead from the cold and his festering wound, yet now he was her husband, her delight, her love. She knew he was no angel, but when he was by her side, nothing could dismay her.
They stopped early, since Gil knew of a particularly good inn, where they had the snuggest private parlour Genista had ever seen, with a roaring fire, a big dining table, a sofa and several very comfortable chairs. There they passed a pleasant evening with a good dinner, several rubbers of whist without a single coin changing hands and not the least formality.
The next morning saw them on the road shortly after eight o’clock, and heading into even wilder country. A little after noon, they came to a place where their road, high upon the moors, looked down into a broad valley. Some distance along it was a neat little village, its church, cottages and grazing lands clearly visible.
Mr Merton did not need the guide book to identify it. “High Berenholme village, and just beyond it you might make out the chimneys of High Berenholme itself.”
“Where Amelia Gartmore came from?” Gil said, in surprise.
“The very same. The property with the leaky roof is probably the house hidden by the trees just there.”
“But it is next door to High Berenholme!” Gil exclaimed. “That is… a curious coincidence.”
“Not really,” Mr Merton said. “Watersmeet, the house with the leaky roof, is the property made over to Lady Hester for her lifetime. I could wish the seventh marquess had not been so generous, but there we are. Any number of these small estates were given to various Marford ladies to enable them to live independently, if they chose not to marry or in widowhood. This one was much used when Lady Hester was younger, by all I have heard, for she was quite a gay lady and liked a party. I imagine that in Amelia Gartmore’s time, it was a convenient hiding place for the young men of the family wishing to escape the constraints of Drummoor or Marford House. Naturally, since Lady Hester moved to Drummoor permanently, it has been leased out.”
“So my father came here and visited the neighbours at High Berenholme and thus met Miss Amelia Gartmore,” Gil said.
“That would be my guess,” Mr Merton said. “Lord Reginald came here last year and talked to old Mr Kiddleston at High Berenholme, who remembered your father well. The Gartmore sisters were poor relations of the Kiddlestons.”
“I remember now,” Gil said. “No one ever heard what happened to the younger sister… what was her name?”
“Annie. She was friendly with Sharp. He was your father’s batman and valet in those days, so he went everywhere with him. It was only later he became the agent.”
Gil frowned. “So Amelia paired up with Father, and this Annie paired up with Sharp? And Amelia may or may not have married Father, but Annie and Sharp…?”
“We know what happened to him — he became the Marford land agent,” Mr Merton said. “But Annie disappeared. No one knows where she went.”
“We can guess, though,” Gil said in sudden excitement. “Sharp had that cosy little arrangement up in Northumberland, where Gus is. The mill town…”
“Drifford. Oh, you mean…?”
“The woman there… the one who gave him so much trouble… I will wager any money you like that was Annie Gartmore.”
“Mrs Ballard,” Mr Merton whispered. “Oh, that makes so much sense. We suspected that Charles Ballard was Sharp, and yes, of course Mrs Ballard was Annie Gartmore. So he whisked her away from High Berenholme, settled her at Drifford and let her run the place while he was fleecing Lord Carrbridge in his role as agent. Good grief! I have even met her!”
“But she, at least, is under lock and key,” Gil said in satisfaction. “She was caught trying to burgle Reggie’s house, and was sent north to answer for her crimes there, was she not?”
“She was,” Mr Merton said sadly. “Unfortunately, she escaped from gaol a few weeks ago. Lord Augustus brought us word when he was here.”
“So she and Sharp are both running loose?” Gil said in disgusted tones. “And they still have thousands of Carrbridge’s money to enable them to live like lords. There is no justice in this world, none at all.”
21: Garthorpe
Garthorpe was as different from the little village of High Berenholme as it was possible to get. Not quite a town, yet too big to be called a village, it sprawled in ungainly fashion along the road, lined on both sides by large warehouses and manufactories. One or two boasted tall chimneys belching black smoke, so that the air was choked with it. After driving for a mile or so with no change, they eventually crossed a busy turnpike road, and beyond that lay the more respectable, older part of Garthorpe, with a fine church, some shops and a few better houses arranged around a square. Mrs Merton’s guidebook led them to a quiet inn on a side road — ‘catering for the gentry and all those of a sober and peaceable nature, where accommodation guaranteed to please the most fastidious may be had for a very modest sum’.
Genista had already discovered that Mr Merton was as fastidious as anyone she had ever met, liking everything to be just a certain way, but even he declared himself not displeased with their bedrooms and the substantial parlour they had secured.
“What, no bed bugs to be detected?” Gil said teasingly.
Merton raised a wintry smile. “There are always bed bugs in an inn bed, my lord. It is as inevitable as Easter following Lent. But I take my own sheets and pillow when I travel, so I am tolerably optimistic that I shall survive.”
Mrs Merton laughed. “So long as he has a good dinner and plenty of claret, he will not regard the bed bugs, I am sure.”
And Merton laughed amiably and patted his wife on the cheek. “I dare say I shall not, and if I do, I shall not complain about them above twenty times. Ladies, my lord — the church is very close. Shall we walk down there before dinner?”
They all agreed to it, and, apart from the smoke, it was a pleasant enough place for a walk, and the people respectable and well-mannered. One or two doffed hats or curtsied as the group passed by, recognising by their clothes that they were persons of consequence. Genista had not had occasion before to walk about in company with anyone other than her father, and she was acutely aware of the difference. Gil had a certain air about him that commanded immediate attention. It was not arrogance, exactly, so much as an expectation that he would be looked at, an awareness that he was of interest to persons beneath him on the social scale.
Indubitably he looked very much the lord. His well-fitting coat, his carelessly arranged hair that she knew took considerable time to achieve each morning, the immaculate neckcloth with its elaborate folds and the highly polished boots — all proclaimed him a man of fashion and substance, even when the title was not known. Mr Merton, by contrast, wore garments which proclaimed him to be a gentleman, wealthy but without the slightest ostentation. Mrs Merton was dressed with great elegance, yet without any undue flamboyance.
Genista had never been more conscious of her own dowdy appearance. Even her new pelisse with its little bit of frogging seemed very plain and ordinary beside the others. For the first time, Genista realised that she owed it to her husband to dress well, for her garments reflected his status. She would study Mrs Merton’s gowns, she decided, for they
had a pleasing simplicity which, if she could contrive something similar, would not make her feel too grand. Father had always had a horror of what he described as ‘jumped-up shopkeepers’, and Genista could not be comfortable in the sort of frivolous fashions that Lady Dryton wore, or even Lady Carrbridge. But she could afford the finest fabrics now, and she need not worry about the practicality of her clothes any more. She could wear higher waists and tighter sleeves and paler colours, and she might dare to add a feather or two to her hats. The idea pleased her so much that when Gil asked her in the most solicitous tones if she were enjoying herself, she beamed happily at him and told him in all sincerity that she had never enjoyed herself so much in her life.
He laughed at that. “I am glad of it, for you have had little enough pleasure in your life, I think. This was a happy thought of yours, Gen, to accompany me, for it delights both of us.”
She had a sudden urge to cry, and was too gratified by his words to make any further response.
The church being deserted, they went instead to the parsonage next door, and were received with delight and many bows by Mr Kilroy, and deep curtsies from his wife and sister-in-law. They had the sort of threadbare gentility typical of many clerical families, the same serviceable and well-worn clothes that Genista was used to in her own family, and had seen much of in the more respectable families of Elversham. She felt she could estimate Mr Kilroy’s income very well — perhaps one hundred pounds a year from the tithe, and each Sunday would necessitate an anxious examination of the offerings box, the farthings and pennies carefully added up. Would there be enough to order more coal, or buy another box of candles or a new pair of boots?
But they greeted their unexpected guests with pleasure, and much gratitude for the condescension shown to them. In honour of the occasion, tea and cake were brought out, and even Madeira offered. Gil accepted a glass, but the others refused, and Genista thought she detected relief in Mrs Kilroy’s face. A bottle of Madeira would be hard to replace when every ounce of tea and piece of meat must be carefully considered before the expense could be justified.
Lord Gilbert (Sons of the Marquess Book 5) Page 20
