Then Nick was on his way, down the lane at a relaxed trot that took him from view all too quickly.
“Shall I accompany you to Stoneleigh?” Matthew asked as all three left the stable yard for the warmth of the manor house. “Two can look for a safe more effectively than one, and Abby can return home that much more quickly.”
The squire, whom Abby would have pronounced quite steady on his feet, stumbled.
Axel righted his brother solicitously. “Watch the footing, old man. I’d rather you bided here, in case Sir Dewey calls again, or Abigail has need of good company. You might consider working on those duets, for I say with all kindness, you are far from being able to impress your lady wife with them, much less your children.”
“We can’t all be experts, baby brother. I beat you regularly at cribbage, and my skills over fences eclipse your own handily.”
“I mix a better holiday punch, and always have.”
They nattered back and forth, while Abby swallowed around the lump in her throat. She’d miss Nick, and having somebody to miss was… better than having nobody to miss.
“Madam, this will not serve,” Axel said, linking his arm through Abby’s. “Nicholas has upset you with his leave taking. Matthew, please have the kitchen send a tray with hot chocolate and scones to the glass house and find Mr. Pennington’s journal to send along with it. Have a footman bring out a hassock and blankets, as well. Abigail will be enjoying some solitude among the roses, where all is peaceful, fragrant, and warm.”
Matthew bowed and marched off toward the house.
While Axel produced a key from his watch pocket and curled Abby’s cold fingers around metal that bore the warmth of his body heat.
All the way to Stoneleigh Manor, and all the way back to Candlewick, Axel contemplated the image Abigail had made in his glass house that morning. He’d left her swaddled in a soft wool blanket, her grandfather’s journal open before her, a pot of chocolate at her elbow. Every lady deserved hours spent thus, and every gentleman deserved a lady upon whom to shower such devotion.
As a new husband, Axel had invited Caroline to his glass house, but he hadn’t known how to lure her, hadn’t known luring came into it—and neither had Caroline.
Ah, well. Oxford was now luring him, his last treatise having caught the notice of both the Regent and the Regent’s personal physician. His correspondence with the late empress had somehow become known in academic circles, and his nephews had distinguished themselves for their diligent scholarship, or perhaps…
He turned Ivan onto the Candlewick lane, the manor house at the end cheerily abloom with lamplight. For a moment, he halted his horse, trying to name the emotion that suffused him.
Welcome was part of it, sanctuary another. This was his home, where he’d raised his children; said his earthly farewells to Caroline; written his scholarly works; and developed roses renowned for their beauty, hardiness, and fragrance.
That all mattered, but lately, what mattered more was that here, Abigail Stoneleigh had given him her trust. Surely a piece of her heart had come along as well?
Ivan stomped a hoof in the snow.
“You want your oats.” Axel gave the horse permission to walk on. “I want… I wanted a position at the university. I wanted a thornless rose.” Those were fine ambitions, ways to make meaningful contributions to posterity and even to present society. A thornless rose might lead to thornless raspberries, for example.
But those ambitions no longer had the feel of wishes, of cherished dreams.
The cold had acquired the profound stillness of deep winter, a good time for contemplation before a roaring fire. Axel turned his horse to the stable yard some moments later as a black-clad figure emerged.
“I lied to your brother,” Abby said, marching up to Ivan’s side. “I told him I’d left Grandpapa’s journal in the glass house. I simply wanted to be out in the fresh air, and I wanted to wait for you here.”
Which explained Wheeler’s absence once more, also the warmth blooming in Axel’s heart, where before all of him had been chilled.
He swung down and flipped the reins over Ivan’s head. “Come into the barn, Abigail. You’ll develop an ague in this cold. I suppose you’re curious about my interview with Ambers.”
She pitched into him so hard Axel nearly stumbled. He got an arm around her and tucked his chin over her crown.
“Madam, is something amiss?”
Now would be a fine time for her to confess she wasn’t ready to return to Stoneleigh Manor, and she wasn’t up to the task of dwelling there through the months of refurbishing the house.
“Mr. Weekes paid a call this afternoon.”
Mrs. Weekes must have taken a day off from her baking. “I trust he did not give offense?”
“Matthew charmed him, of course. Strutted his magistrate’s credentials, gossiped about mutual acquaintances from the university, but Mr. Weekes remarked pointedly about how much better I appeared to be doing—several times. He hopes to see me at services this Sunday.”
Well, damn.
“I will be happy to escort you.” Though if Axel escorted her to services, this quiet little repairing lease at the neighbor’s became common knowledge, as did Abigail’s greatly improved health. Courting couples went to services together.
Axel guided Abigail into the barn, but such was the weather that even the stable wasn’t warm. He whistled for Wheeler, who came bustling in from the direction of the carriage house.
“A hot mash for my intrepid steed, Wheeler,” Axel said, giving the horse’s neck a pat, “and I’d bring over extra hay from the home farm, were I you. The cold will keep the horses hungry, and if the temperature warms up, snow is likely.”
Wheeler touched his cap to the lady and led Ivan the Intrepid off to the cross-ties. Ice balls clung to the horse’s fetlocks, and his hoofs left a wet trail in the dirt of the aisle.
“Why did Weekes come calling?” Abby asked, pacing away from Axel. “For years, he could not bestir himself to visit me at Stoneleigh Manor unless Gregory was in residence, and then no more than every few months. That presuming old man patted my knee.”
The pastor had a latent wish to make the immediate acquaintance of his Maker.“Abigail, you are welcome here as long as you like, and my own peace of mind would be best served if you did not return to Stoneleigh Manor unless and until we know who killed Gregory.”
Her shoulders sagged. “Then Ambers did not kill Gregory over a collection of smelly old pipes?”
“Likely not. The maid confirmed that Ambers had merely stepped out for a moment to smoke, as he often did at the end of the evening.” Axel turned Abby toward the manor, when what he wanted was to take her to the glass house and make passionate love to her—which would, of course, solve nothing. “If we’re fortunate, the weather will obviate the need for anybody to attend services this Sunday.”
Though no wonder Weekes had remarked Abigail’s improved health. Between rest, good nutrition, and her present blazing temper, she was positively thriving.
“I can’t pray for a great storm,” she said, stomping across the garden toward the back terrace, “because Nicholas is traveling. Matthew might soon be traveling too, and you had wanted to pay another call on the lawyers, if I recall.”
“Nobody wants to pay a call on lawyers, Abigail. I shall though. Ambers’s recollection matches Shreve’s. He was never asked to witness your signature on any document, and like Shreve, he completed an affidavit to that effect for me.”
Abby had mentioned once that Ambers had lovely handwriting. Having seen an example, Axel was gratified to think that its distinctiveness would go far toward making a case against Handstreet.
“So you’ll be able to compare signatures with whatever the lawyers produce.” Abby stopped at the top of the terrace steps, her breath puffing white before her. “I’d rather you tell me the rest of it now, instead of waiting until your brother is on hand to see me raging and fuming anew when you announce that Gregory was faithful to
his mistress while he couldn’t be bothered with me.”
In her present mood, Axel knew not what to say, or do. He risked a kiss to her forehead.
“I am ever so glad Gregory did not bother with you in the sense you allude to. In my eyes, respecting your chastity was Stoneleigh’s sole virtue.”
Abby leaned against a lamp post, as if abruptly fatigued. “Are you angry with me because I was… without experience?”
“I am more flattered and bewildered by the gift of your virginity than I can convey, Abigail. Had I known—must we speak of this here and now?”
Speak of it at all? Axel longed to retreat to his roses rather than muddle on with this conversation, but more significantly, he wanted to muddle through whatever upset plagued Abigail.
She pushed away from the lamp and the circle of light it cast. “Had you known I was without experience, you would never have presumed, and there I’d be, the only widowed virgin in all of England.”
Not for long. “You overestimate my gentlemanly self-restraint, and underestimate your own charms. Had I known, I would have taken infinitely more care with you.”
She stopped mid-stomp across the terrace and turned, slowly. “More care? I don’t see how you could possibly have taken more…” Her brow knit. “You are distracting me from the matter at hand, Mr. Belmont.”
“None of that Mr. Belmont-ing, Abigail. Gregory did not have a mistress in the usual sense.”
She resumed pacing at a brisk rate. “Oh, delightful. Now you’ll tell me he paid some madam to beat his naked backside on the first Wednesday of each month without fail, or that he preferred boys. I shall be sick all over again before we find the end of Gregory Stoneleigh’s dirty little secrets.”
“How could you possibly know about erotic flagellation?” Much less bring it up in conversation with such marvelous bravado?
“I read, Mr. Belmont. So do you. I’ve inspected your library, including that shelf behind your desk.”
If there had been any doubt of Axel’s regard for this woman before, he was smitten past all recall now.
“Abigail, you peeked at my erotica.”
“I did not peek. I read some of it and studied more. Your tastes are refined and eclectic. My grandfather would have approved.”
Very few honest men disapproved of erotic art. “I didn’t start that collection until I was widowed. Do you disapprove?”
Abby came to a halt before him. “One of your books looks… Japanese? I’d like to borrow it. The woodcuts are very graceful and… inventive.”
Axel kissed her on the mouth, mostly because whenever he saw her, that’s where he wanted the kissing to start, in the usual location, well rooted in tradition and experience. From there… he’d like to kiss her all the way to Japan, so to speak.
“I’ll make a gift of it to you. Gregory did have a mistress, of a sort.”
She kissed him back, then leaned against him, her forehead on his shoulder. “Tell me. I missed you today, and we must go in to dinner, and then we must endure your charming brother and pretend we aren’t worried for Nicholas.”
We, we, we… Smitten was not the half of it. “I’ll come to you tonight, if you’ll allow me to.”
Oh, and he’d planned to be such a proper damned host. Then Weekes had stuck his oar in, and now Abby was upset, and the investigation might never come to a satisfactory conclusion.
But Axel could still show her what infinitely more care looked like.
“Please do come to me, and don’t play an extra hour of cribbage with your brother first, merely to make me more eager. Whoever Gregory’s mistress was, I want the woman to have a pension.”
“Not a who, but possibly a what. The colonel’s destination on his monthly sojourns to Oxford was a humble tobacconist’s, though one apparently doing quite well. Ambers picked up and paid for the colonel’s monthly order of tobacco and sundries for his pipe habit. Did you know Stoneleigh smoked substantial quantities of hashish?”
Chapter Seventeen
“Hashish?” Matthew asked, crossing his knife and fork over an empty plate. “I haven’t heard mention of it since I left university. Rather exotic vice, as I recall.”
Axel looked tired, Abby agitated, and both of them for the duration of the meal had been looking anywhere but at each other.
“I tried it at university, purely in the interests of science, of course,” Axel said. “Very pleasant effect, if one doesn’t mind the whole business of drawing ash into the lungs.”
“What does pleasant mean?” Abby asked.
The servants would not clear the table until summoned, and the dining room was kept warm by blazing fires in both hearths. Matthew had taken many a fine meal here, but without children underfoot, the room seemed too large… too quiet.
Too serious and sad.
“Pleasant,” Axel said, as if stating the title of a lecture. “When smoking hashish and for a time afterward, one feels a peaceful lassitude, a general euphoria, a lessening of anxiety and ill will. The appetite can be stimulated at the same time agitation of the mind ebbs. Hard on the respiration, though casual use hasn’t been noted to cause lasting damage.”
Matthew reached for a pear, and Axel passed him a silver fruit knife. “If a man was having trouble with his temper,” Matthew remarked, “with controlling impulses, with violent displays, such a soporific might be medicinal.”
Abigail left off tracing a fingertip around the rim of her wine glass. “Shreve said Gregory was growing more difficult. In hindsight, I concur, but this… hashish. Is it foreign? Indian?”
Matthew would have had to consult his library, where he’d probably find nothing germane. The next step would be correspondence with his brother, but failing that, nothing short of a trip to consult the gardeners at Kew would have answered Abigail’s question.
“The plant itself is usually grown in warmer climates,” Axel said, “for rope making. My reading suggests the Tibetan mountains are home to the best medical specimens, but varieties are common now all over India. The Chinese are familiar with it, though opium has a much stronger effect and is a more lucrative business. Both are considered habit-forming, and hashish lacks opium’s pain-relieving qualities. Opium has more dramatic flowers too.”
Which Axel could doubtless have sketched for his lady.
“Will you interview the tobacconist?” Abigail asked.
“After I call upon the solicitors and explain to them that defrauding a young woman of her inheritance is a felony offense, as is conspiracy to commit fraud.”
“I’d missed that,” Matthew said, setting the plate of sliced pears beside a pot of violets in the center of the table. “The statute of limitations on the crime of conspiracy will not have tolled.”
Abigail set a section of pear on her plate; Axel took none. He was doubtless feasting on his lady’s mere appearance, though he’d given a good account of himself at supper.
As had Abigail, to Matthew’s relief.
“I did almost nothing today,” Abigail said, considering her pear. “And yet, I am fatigued. Gentlemen, I’ll leave you to your port and take myself upstairs to cavort with Colonel Brandon. Perhaps we can discuss the solicitor’s situation further at breakfast.”
“Sweet dreams,” Matthew said, getting to his feet.
Axel said nothing, but visually followed Abigail’s progress to the door, then cocked his head as the door closed and her footsteps retreated.
“As I recall,” Matthew said, resuming his seat, “Colonel Brandon wasn’t the cavorting sort.”
Axel sat and popped Abigail’s uneaten slice of pear into his mouth. “Don’t underestimate a fellow simply because he’s quiet and gentlemanly. What did you learn at the Weasel?”
“Not much. Ambers is a competent horse-master though something of a dandy who dropped the occasional French curse when he first came to the shire. According to Miss Nairn, he fancies himself too good to marry a local woman, though he’s not above importuning a pretty domestic. He doesn’t speak il
l of his employer except after a few too many brandies—brandy, not ale, mind you—and then mostly the usual mutterings.”
Another slice of pear disappeared. “Mostly? The trip to the tobacconists was undertaken even in the foulest weather, according to Ambers. Even if the colonel was traveling, if Ambers remained behind at Stoneleigh Manor, he was to fetch the package from that shop upon pain of discharge.”
The facts, in other words, were not adding up to a solution—again. “What sort of huntsman leaves his head groom at home in the middle of the foxhunting season?” Matthew mused. “Then too, a shopping excursion to a tobacconist seems an odd errand to discharge one’s stable master for.”
“Doesn’t it? And I’ve yet to hear from Sir Dewey about the exact dates and destinations of all the colonel’s travel. One wonders if those journeys were as imperative as this simple errand.”
Another loose end Matthew hadn’t thought to pursue. “What will you do with the lawyers? They colluded with a felon to bilk Abigail of her family’s fortune, and probably profited handsomely.”
Axel had a well-developed sense of justice. An older brother’s heart was pleased to see that where Abigail Stoneleigh was concerned, Axel’s protective instincts had also become razor sharp.
And as far as Matthew was concerned, Oxford fellowships should be tossed down the jakes.
“When it comes to the lawyers,” Axel said, “with Abigail’s approval, I will threaten and drip innuendo. She doesn’t need a money settlement from them, but a substantial bank draft might give her satisfaction. A draft large enough to put the damned pestilential ciphers out of business. She wanted to establish a pension for any mistress who’d spared her Stoneleigh’s attentions.”
Which notion, the present magistrate seemed to heartily endorse.
“At the risk of finding myself face-down in some horse trough when I least expect it—or stoutly kicked halfway across the garden without warning—I will again venture the opinion that you and Mrs. Stoneleigh would suit.”
It Happened One Night: Six Scandalous Novels Page 26
