by Amanda Scott
XI
TO NELL’S AMUSEMENT, LADY FLAVIA accepted the arrival of her grandnephew with her customary composure, merely expressing at the dinner table that evening her hope that he would not be too uncomfortable in the bedchamber that had been allotted to him, just as though, Nell thought, there were nothing at all out of the way in his return to Bath. Her ladyship’s reception of the information that the Marquess and Marchioness of Axbridge were presently in residence in Royal Crescent was a different matter.
“We must lose no time in paying our respects,” she informed Nell with a decided nod. “Sybilla is quite a favorite of mine, for I knew her best of all Sir Mortimer’s children. I shall be pleased to see her and to renew my acquaintance with Axbridge. We will call tomorrow.”
Declining to serve herself from a dish of scalloped oysters that Sudbury offered her, Nell said, “I had thought to wait a few days before returning, ma’am. I doubt Sir Mortimer will want to see me while Lady Axbridge is visiting him.”
“If you think he will let such a small matter as that weigh with him, then you cannot have learned much about the man,” her great-aunt said. “If he has so much as communicated with her since her arrival in Bath, I will own myself surprised. Do you not recall, my dear, that until Mr. Manningford forced him to accept you as his scribe, he had refused to see anyone but his manservant for nearly a quarter of a century?”
“But he has allowed me to visit him nearly every day,” Nell protested. “Surely he will no longer insist upon keeping himself to himself, for I have seen for myself how lonely he has become, particularly since he can no longer occupy his hours with his work. Indeed, I think his circumstance quite pitiful.”
“He would not thank you for saying so,” Lady Flavia said, accepting a serving of stewed celery. “Only think of the blow it would be to his dignity to have to beg for company now. He will not do it. He might be lonely, my dear, but after all this time, he would not know how to accept kindness, or even to recognize when only kindness is meant. Mortimer is a proud man. ’Tis bad enough that he has been forced to admit Mr. Manningford, the doctor, and you to his chamber. He must not be forced to admit any more persons, so don’t get to thinking that all you have to do is to encourage Sybilla to ignore his orders and barge into his room to effect a more normal relationship between them.”
After a moment’s reflection, Nell said slowly, “You are right. Until his first attack, he controlled his own life and the lives of his dependents with no help from anyone. Now that he is dependent and must look to others to help him, it must be dreadful for him.”
“So much so,” Lady Flavia said, “that one actually wants to help him, and ’tis the oddest thing, for I am certain that such a notion has never entered my head before. But, now that it has, I suppose I must speak to Sybilla before she takes the matter into her own hands, and it will not do to be putting off the business out of nonsensical scruples or misguided notions of propriety, for she might attempt to beard him at once, thinking to do him good. The excellent Borland will be unable to prevent her, of course, and although it is possible that Mr. Manningford may do so, one must not leave the matter to chance.”
“Goodness, ma’am, do you think Mr. Manningford would even think to attempt such a thing?”
Lady Flavia’s eyes twinkled. “I do not know for certain, of course, but I do not believe that at this point he will encourage his sister to take the reins from him.”
“But, until quite recently, he has been in the habit of letting others manage things for him, has he not? And I think, from all that he has said of her, that Lady Axbridge must be something of a managing woman, Aunt Flavia.”
Lady Flavia chuckled. “Sybilla has always been one to think that, if a thing needed doing, there was no one so capable as herself to do it. As the eldest of Sir Mortimer’s motherless children, she quite naturally assumed leadership over the others, particularly since Charles, though heir to Sir Mortimer’s title and estates, has not got a forceful character. When Sybilla married Axbridge—Earl of Ramsbury he was then—for a time, she tried to rule over two households, her own and her father’s. It did not answer, of course. Such arrangements never do. One heard rumors of some rather exciting fireworks between Axbridge and Sybilla before that business was settled, but now that she has got children of her own—four of them—she has little time to spare for the household in Royal Crescent. Nigel dear,” she added briskly, “pray, do not eat all the mushroom fricassee. Your sister is partial to that dish.”
Nigel grinned. “She’s partial to anything with nutmeg in it, or hadn’t you tumbled to that fact, ma’am. But I’ve left a bit, for I mean to have another helping of the roast chicken; and you needn’t think I mean to eat you out of pocket, either, for Nell told me how things are, so I slipped Sudbury a few sovereigns to pass along to the missus.”
“That was kind of you, dear, but truly, not necessary. Thanks to dear Nell’s wages—most generous—and Jarvis’s entirely unexpected contributions, we do very well now. You ought to have kept your money, for I cannot doubt you will need it.”
Nell looked up at him in surprise as she helped herself from the dish of mushroom fricassee. “You had sovereigns in your pocket, Nigel? I must say, I didn’t expect that.”
“Fact is,” he said, “that I had a bit of a run of luck in Paris, and Axbridge wouldn’t accept a sou from me for the trip home. He’s a great gun, you know. I can’t even remember how it came about that I told him about myself. Just began talking one night at some rout or other—both being from England and finding that we both had aunts in Bath. Though everyone has at least one of those,” he added with a grin at Lady Flavia. “At all events, by the time we’d met one another at several more such affairs, I’d told him more and more until he’d grasped pretty nearly the whole of it. Said straight out one night that I didn’t seem to be the sort to get mixed up in a duel, let alone one who’d fire before time. I snapped back that of course I’d never do such a thing. Well, until that moment, I hadn’t questioned what had happened, but then I got to thinking about it more and more, and the devil of it is that I have so little memory of what happened. I want to discuss the whole with Jarvis, of course, though I daresay he won’t be best pleased to learn that I’ve come back after he thought he’d got me safely out of the country.”
“But, surely,” Nell said, “it cannot be safe for you here.”
He looked at her with defiance. “I don’t care about that now, or not so much as I care about finding the truth if I can do so. If I didn’t kill Bygrave in the manner Jarvis said I did—”
“Then you didn’t kill him at all,” Nell finished for him. “I tell you, Nigel, Jarvis is the villain, first to last.”
He grimaced. “I know you do not like him. Nor do I, but what reason could he have?”
“To get control of Highgate, of course. He has always coveted what he constantly calls ‘the seat of the Bradbournes.’ Why, whenever he sets foot on the place, one can see the calculating look in his eyes, as though he is mentally scything lawns, counseling tenants, and generally refurbishing things.”
“Well,” Nigel said, flushing, “I know he has long held our father—and me—in contempt for our neglect of the place, but he cannot have had any notion that killing Bygrave might benefit him in any particular way.”
“At the least, my dear,” Lady Flavia interjected gently, “he might have counted on ruining your reputation; and Nell’s chances to marry, you know, were not high even before that night, since your father continually refused to allow her to have so much as a single Season in London. She has suffered a good deal from his suicide, and although nothing much seems to be known hereabouts about your affair, Jarvis has made it clear enough that he can alter that situation with no more than a word. He desires, for some reason, to marry her himself, you see.”
“What?” Nigel glowered at his sister. “Don’t tell me you thought of doing such a thing, even for a moment.”
“No, of course I did not,” she retorted,
her own temper rising, “but had Aunt Flavia not been willing to take me in, and Sir Mortimer not willing to pay me an excellent wage to … to work for him, the case might well have been different, for neither Papa nor you had made the least arrangement for me, you know. Both of you just left me to … to Jarvis’s mercy.”
Nigel grimaced. “Out of fairness to Jarvis,” he said, “I should tell you that I did ask him to look after you.”
“Yes, he has told me so,” Nell retorted. “’Tis his constant litany that he wants only to shield me and to protect the family name. He pretends to be all that is noble, and I detest him.”
“Well, you needn’t marry him, after all. I do not suppose he can force you, not now that I am returned, at all events.”
“Yes, but you cannot show your face, certainly not to Jarvis, not unless we can clear your name. Do you remember nothing of use from that night? Surely, you had seconds!”
“Oh, to be sure, but I don’t know their names, and their faces are lost in a fog of Blue Ruin.”
“Well, then, what do you recall?”
“Only what I told you before.” He hesitated, gathering his thoughts, then said slowly, as though he were seeing a mental image of the action in his mind, “I remember thinking when we arrived that Kingsmeade Square was rather too near the rougher edge of town for my taste, but inside, the place looked like any proper gentlemen’s club—a porter at the door, old men dozing in chairs, and a card room. A little shabby, perhaps, but then so is White’s in London. Bygrave—he was the club secretary then, you know—was not on the premises when we arrived, but he was expected, so Jarvis suggested we have a glass of wine while we waited. We must have had several, for by the time that damned fellow showed up and announced that the wager was what Jarvis had said it was, I was castaway and hardly knew what I was saying.”
Nell frowned. “How came you to fight the duel at once? I thought such things were generally arranged for dawn.”
He grinned. “They are, and one is expected to be sober. I cannot tell you why it happened as it did. I’ve a hazy memory of thinking we ought to wait a bit, and of being pressed to finish the thing, but that’s well nigh all I do remember. If I didn’t think they’d call up a constable the instant I set foot in the place, I’d pay the Bees-Waxers’ a visit to see if being there again would stimulate my memory. But Ned—Axbridge, that is—says I mustn’t do any such thing until we discover what charges have been laid. He has sent a fellow to his man of affairs in London to see if a charge has been laid against me there, and he’ll set someone else onto it here in Bath.”
“It is kind of him to take an interest,” Nell said.
“Lord, yes, for when a marquess requests information, you know, no one tries to fob him off with a lot of nonsense. And the best of it is that Ned believes it cannot be so big a tangle as we had thought, else the circumstances would be more widely known. They are not, he says. Not at all, in fact.”
“No,” Nell agreed, “I must own that it surprised me when Aunt Flavia told me that no one here in Bath seemed to be aware that Mr. Bygrave was killed by a Bradbourne. Certain gentlemen here, and elsewhere, are aware of the fact that he was killed in a duel in the club, for Mr. Manningford knew before I told him so, but even that much is not common knowledge.”
Nigel did not seem inclined to discuss the matter at greater length, then or later. He was restless, and she knew it chafed him to be tied by the heels in Laura Place, wondering what was happening elsewhere. He had given his word to Axbridge to stay put until the marquess had a more exact understanding of the situation, but patience had never been one of his more noted virtues. Thus it was that Nell, hoping to discover what was occurring and report back to him, put forth no more argument against calling in Royal Crescent the following day, and willingly accompanied Lady Flavia to pay their respects.
They traveled to the crescent in a pair of chairs, but they were not carried to the garden gate in Julian Street. Being set down at the front door gave Nell quite a new perspective of the place, and she paused for a long, appreciative moment to gaze at the distant prospect before they were admitted by the porter.
He stood tall, carrying himself with nearly arrogant pride, and Nell hid a smile, certain that he had altered his demeanor in accordance with his notion of what was due to the increased consequence of a household containing a marquess. He handed the callers over to a tall, unfamiliar footman who guided them up the stairs to the drawing room, where he announced their names with an air of haughty dignity to the four occupants of the room.
If Nell had feared that their hostess might be as high in the instep as her servants, she soon discovered her error. The moment their names were announced, Lady Axbridge, who had been idly playing a melody on the pianoforte, pushed back her stool and rose gracefully to her feet. Her russet-silk afternoon frock set off her copper-colored curls to admiration and clung so becomingly to her curvaceous body that Nell found it difficult to believe her the mother of four hopeful progeny. Her figure, though voluptuous, was youthful, and she moved with a lightness and grace that most matrons of her age had already forfeited. She was taller than Nell by several inches and built on more generous lines, but her hazel eyes twinkled and her manner when she stepped forward to greet them was cheerful and warm.
“Lady Flavia, how kind of you to call so soon. And Miss Bradbourne, I am quite delighted to make your acquaintance. My reprehensible brother has just been telling us of the miracles you have wrought with my father. You must be sure to tell us your secret, for I own, I cannot imagine how you induced him to let you go to work as you have with him. Oh, but do let me make you known to Axbridge, for this is he, you know,” she added, gesturing toward the tall, dark-haired, rather harsh-visaged gentleman who had broken off talking to Manningford and Mr. Lasenby by one of the tall front windows when they entered.
As she made her curtsy, Nell glanced briefly at Manningford and saw that he was regarding her rather narrowly. Since she could not imagine what he might have told his sister, she made no effort to reply to her observations, but rising, smiled at the marquess and said, “I am told that I stand in your debt, sir, although I confess that at this present I am not entirely convinced that I ought to thank you.”
Axbridge’s smile lightened his severe countenance considerably, and his voice was gentle when he said, “I cannot blame you for your doubts, ma’am, but I have influence in certain quarters, you know, and I believe that I may be of help.”
“Indeed he can,” Sybilla said brightly, “so you must place your trust in him, Miss Bradbourne, and think no more about it, for as it happens, a new worry faces us just now—concerning my father’s ridiculous novel, you know—and ’tis one that puts every matter but your own completely in the shade.”
Nell turned abruptly to Manningford to discover a rueful twinkle in his eyes. “She knows all,” he admitted. “It was not my fault, but Borland’s, for he now reads all letters held at the receiving office for Clarissa Harlowe before deciding if he will trouble my father with them. One arrived today that he decided must be given to me, and when Sybilla told him I’d gone out, his distress aroused her suspicions. She demanded an explanation, and the idiotic man found it impossible to snub her.”
“So I should hope,” Sybilla said. “He would have been most ill-advised to set his will against mine. Indeed, I should hope any servant in this house would know better than to do that.”
“Most of them do not know you, my dear,” Manningford said gently, exchanging a look with his brother-in-law, “though I cannot doubt that they soon will.”
“Well, you are mistaken if you think I am going to stay here to run this household for you, dear brother. There was a time, to be sure, when I should have felt obliged to do so; and I own, I was astonished to find you here when we arrived, and even more astonished to learn that you had taken some responsibility for once in a way. Though if you are responsible for hiring the excellent servants I have so far been privileged to meet—”
“Yo
u must credit Borland for most of them, my dear, not me.”
“Ah, that explains their quality. But I shall not tease you. The fact is that since we do know your great secret—Papa’s secret, I should say—and since Lady Flavia and Miss Bradbourne were actually favored before I was—No, no, Ned,” she added in a laughing aside to her husband when he made a sound of protest, “I am not finding fault, for I should not have wished to know and, indeed, would prefer that no one else ever discover that my own father, not content with acting the part of Bath’s greatest eccentric all these years, has now added color to his role by making it known that he has written I-don’t-know-how-many lurid romances for the amusement of young ladies who ought to be spending their time more wisely than by reading them.”
“Gently, Sybilla,” recommended her husband. “You will recall that Miss Bradbourne is at present attempting to complete just such another tale. It will not do to be condemning her labor before your father may reap its benefits.”
Sybilla turned her merry face toward Nell. “Indeed, and I hope you are not one easily to take offense, for what I must condemn in a man who ignored the existence of his family merely to amuse himself by writing such things, I can only admire in one who has been so kind as to assist him in this crisis; however, I must tell you about the letter that came, for you will nev—”
She broke off with a comical grimace when her footman and two of the maids entered just then with refreshments for the visitors. The conversation turned to desultory matters while the servants were in the room, and Nell could not help but notice that Mr. Lasenby took little part in it. Indeed, as she realized, he had spoken scarcely a word since their arrival and seemed to be paying heed only to the excellent view from the window. The moment the servants departed, she took advantage of the fact that Manningford had moved to her side to ask if all was well with his friend.
