Bar Sinister

by Sheila Simonson

  Richard whirled, eyes blazing. The right sleeve of his coat flopped. "What would it take to convince the lot of you that I want nothing at all to do with the Ffouke family? Nothing means nothing."

  Wilson felt his own temper rise again. "Do you include Sarah in your ban?"

  "It was Lady Sarah who called my children to Newsham's attention--"

  "That's not true--"

  "And to the dowager's attention," Richard snapped. "Is there a difference? I don't question Sarah's motives, just her judgement."

  "You're mad with suspicion, Richard. It poisons your judgement."

  Richard stared at him for a long time. "Give me the letter, then, and I'll take my suspicions elsewhere." He held out his good hand. After a pause Wilson returned the letter.

  He felt absurd, as if they had been passing schoolboy messages back and forth. Richard's mouth set in a hard line. He smoothed the letter and shoved it into his jacket.

  "Richard, my dear!" Sarah, in the doorway.

  Both men turned to her.

  "Sally," Wilson began, warning.

  Richard executed an exaggerated bow, sleeve flopping again. "Lady Sarah. I was just leaving."

  Sarah flinched and cast Wilson a beseeching glance. He was suddenly very angry indeed. He contrived to keep his voice low, however. "Go back to the withdrawing room, Sally. I'll be with you directly."

  "But Maman..." She looked from one to the other. Sarah was not slow-witted. "Very well. If it's Newsham again, Richard, I think you ought to acquaint Maman with the matter. In any case, you owe her some degree of civility. I'll tell her you're here." She left, her shoulders stiff with hurt dignity.

  Wilson found he was trembling. All the pent-up resentment he had suppressed, all the exasperation of a bystander caught up in someone else's quarrel, possessed him. "I've had enough of your rag-manners and more than enough of your melodrama, Richard. By God, I have. Newsham has made you an offer. In a mean-minded, left-handed way, it might even be construed as generous, though I can see no reason why you should accept it. Decline, politely if possible, and put it out of your mind. That is my advice to you. Now, if you please, I'll accept your apology."

  "I apologise for coming." Richard's tone was not conciliatory.

  Wilson was not a quarrelsome man by nature. He was beginning to regret his own hot words. "'Left-handed' was not well chosen, nor 'melodrama'." He shook his head and went over to the table which bore the sherry tray. He poured a glass. "Sherry?"

  "No."

  "Then you'll have to pardon me. I need a soothing draught before we face the ladies." He took a careful sip. "Ah. I beg your pardon if I used intemperate language, Richard. I think your apprehensions ill-founded, but I don't mean to dismiss them out of hand. Shall I ask Newsham to explain himself? I daresay he is still at Abbeymont, but I could write him."

  "That won't be necessary. I'll follow your advice and write Whatley a fulsome letter declining the offer."

  Stung, Wilson set his glass down. "I said nothing of fulsome letters."

  "I beg your pardon. A civil letter."

  Wilson mistrusted that. It was too carefully emotionless. But he did not wish to provoke further hostilities, and said, conscious that he sounded pompous, "I believe it to be the wisest course. If there are consequences, I trust you'll tell me so at once."

  Richard did not reply.

  "Well, well, we shall see." Wilson cleared his throat. "What do you hear from your publisher?"

  "The galleys should be ready in a fortnight or so."

  "Splendid. I'm looking forward to reading the book. By the by, I see from the Times that your friend, Major Conway, has succeeded to the earldom of Clanross. I had no idea he stood in the line of succession."

  "What!" Richard was startled out of his impassive pose. He took a half step toward Wilson, frowning deeply.

  "Did you not know?" Wilson indulged in another, soothing swallow of sherry. "It has set the Ton by the ears. Lord Clanross drowned on Lake Lucerne a fortnight ago, according to the Times. He had eight daughters. Your friend was the next male heir."

  "My God."

  Wilson set his glass down again. "You don't sound pleased."

  Richard said flatly, "Tom is dying. He doesn't need to waste the time he has left haggling with lawyers."

  Wilson was taken aback. "I'm sorry. A war injury, I collect."

  Visibly distressed, Richard nodded without speaking.

  "I'm sorry," Wilson repeated. "How easy it is to misread another man's fortune. I daresay Conway will be envied by the ignorant."

  Richard rubbed his forehead. "I daresay."

  Wilson rose. "Well, well, that is by the way. The ladies await us. Come and make your bow to the dowager, and, Richard..."

  Richard looked at him, eyes dark.

  "Try not to be too insulting. Your mother has already spiked Newsham's guns for you once. Best keep on her good side."

  Richard's mouth was tight, but he said nothing.

  Wilson sighed, and led the way to the withdrawing room.

  Wilson watched his mother-in-law. The dowager duchess had at all times a great deal of charm, and she now made a desultory attempt to exercise it on her son. On any other occasion, Wilson would have found her failure amusing, but Richard's blank indifference made Sir Robert extremely uncomfortable and distressed Sarah. The dowager did not reveal his feelings. She rarely did.

  Neither mother nor son had seen one another in twenty years. To all appearances the reunion was as affecting as the presentation of a minor consul at a minor court. Sarah looked bewildered and unhappy, the duchess, after the first show of animation, cool. Richard addressed his mother as "your grace," and left after a mere quarter of an hour without mentioning Newsham's letter.

  Wilson went out with him and waited whilst the groom retrieved Richard's horse. Both men stood silent.

  "The dowager stops with us another fortnight," Wilson ventured when the silence began to pall.

  "What? Ah, lucky for you. I say, Wilson, did the Times happen to mention where Tom was? Tom Conway," he added, impatient, when Wilson betrayed incomprehension. "The Earl of Clanross...Of all the stupid, unnecessary accidents. I daresay he can't refuse an earldom."

  Wilson stared. He might have known better than to expect effusions of filial sentiment from his brother-in-law. The poor duchess. She did not perhaps deserve a great deal of this son, but she deserved something more than absolute indifference.

  Wilson almost voiced his indignation, but at that point his groom led Richard's nag to the mounting block, and Wilson, taking a close look at the spavined beast, burst out, "Where in the devil did you find that?"

  "Hired it. You cannot expect me to keep stables."

  "But Mrs. Foster--"

  "I'm not living with Mrs. Foster," Richard snarled.

  "I didn't mean to imply..." Wilson took a breath. "You have a genius for forcing the worst possible construction on people's words. I meant, as you very well know, that you could hire a loose box from Mrs. Foster. You'll be requiring a horse. Indeed, I'd be glad to mount you. You can ride one of my hacks until you have time to buy your own."

  "No." Richard swung into the saddle and adjusted the reins one-handed. "Thank you."

  His sympathies thoroughly alienated, Wilson turned and stomped back into the house. Enough was enough.

  But not quite.

  Three weeks later Wilson, at Sarah's urging, drove over to Mellings Parva to make his peace. He found Richard gone. The cottage was locked and the grass overgrown. At Wellfield House he discovered that Mrs. Foster, her son, Richard's children, and their personal servants had also vanished. The housekeeper eyed him curiously. No, she couldn't say where they'd gone or how long they'd be away. Visiting Mrs. Foster's kin, likely. She couldn't say for sure. They'd left in an almighty hurry, certainly.

  Wilson felt the stirrings of panic. Visions of forcible abduction, even murder, flashed before his mind's eye. He was not a prey to melodramatic suspicions, however, and he soon assured himse
lf that Mrs. Foster and the children had departed in Sir Henry Mayne's carriage accompanied by Miss Mayne. Colonel Falk, it appeared, had left earlier, separately, for London. A perfectly ordinary set of circumstances.

  No need to worry.

  Wilson told himself that half the way to Knowlton, and the rest of the way home, having granted the unlikelihood of the coincidence, worked himself into a fury with Richard. "Mark my words, your brother has inveigled that innocent lady into an unnecessary flight."

  Sarah was white as curds. "Newsham."

  "Newsham has nothing to do with it. They left in Mrs. Foster's father's carriage. No, my dear, they have not been abducted--unless your dear brother Richard has abducted them. He's mad as a March hare. Ought to be clapped into Bedlam."

  "Where have they gone?"

  "I don't know and I don't care. Richard," Wilson pronounced "may go to the devil, with my blessing."

  "I shall drive over to see Sir Henry Mayne."

  "Oh no, my dear, you'll do no such thing. Nor will you go running to your mother with this fairy tale. We shall both stay out of your brother's affairs from now on."

  At that Sarah flew into the boughs and they had a terrible quarrel, their first serious brangle in seven years of marriage. It left them frightened and spent. They clung to one another, appalled by the storm of fury, and repentant, both of them.

  Part V

  Tom Conway, Emily, Sir Robert Wilson

  1815

  29

  My dear Tom,

  I have just come from my brother-in-law Wilson, who tells me Lord Clanross is dead and you have succeeded. It sickens me that you should be dealt such a blow. Fate governs with a malign sense of humour, and nowhere more clearly than in this instance. I am sorry, Tom. If I can be of any use to you at all, pray command me.

  Your servant, as always,

  R.F.

  P.S. This is probably my last right-handed scrawl. In future I shall be thoroughly and finally sinister.

  Richard.

  Tom Conway, tenth earl of Clanross, Viscount Brecon, Baron Breccan of Breccan, set the letter on his cluttered desk and walked slowly over to the narrow window of his makeshift study. The window overlooked the single pinched street of the Lancashire village in which he had now lived for more than a year. It was evening and the cottage windows flickered with friendly light. The village was not a beautiful place, but Tom had begun to feel at home in it.

  He had deciphered Richard's scrawl with difficulty. Now, staring into the dusk, Tom thought of the other letters he had received in the days since he had learned of his elevation to his cousin's lands and dignities.

  Some of his friends had expressed conventional condolences. He didn't resent that, though it was mildly comic. Tom had disliked what he knew of Lord Clanross, had loathed being patronised by his wealthy kinsman, and had never met any of the Conway family. He felt no personal sense of loss at all.

  Other friends had been gleeful--what a honeyfall! That was more realistic and as such more painful. Tom admitted to himself that in other circumstances he would have felt some pleasure in falling heir to one of the great estates. An unlimited income was any penniless subaltern's dream. But he was no longer a penniless subaltern, and he did not at all like the notion of being translated to the House of Lords.

  As Tom watched, a black cat, tail erect, stalked into and out of the light from his window. Seven years' bad luck, or is that mirrors? He did not have seven years. That was what turned everything to ashes. Worse, he knew his engrained sense of duty would compel him to deal carefully with the legal difficulties attendant upon so unexpected an inheritance, and his conscience would compel him to see to the well-being of Lord Clanross's family and dependents. All that would take time, and he did not have time.

  Two months before, he had suffered another surgery. The attacks were now more frequent, the pain barely manageable. What Tom chiefly felt was a vast dull resentment that he could not, in the brief time left to him, continue the absorbing work he had found. If his absorption was dogged, at least it was genuine, something more than mere distraction. Something productive. Richard had been right in that, as his letter was also right, a feat of pure imagination.

  "'Ere, Major--beg pardon, I'm sure. 'Ere, me lord. Wot about the lamp?" Sims brisked in, huge and blessedly unimaginative.

  "Yes, light it." Tom smiled at his man. "I've had a letter from Richard Falk."

  Sims was unimpressed. "Scribbling away again, is 'e? Good luck to 'im." He trimmed the wick and lit the lamp with a spill from the fire.

  "He's not doing very well, if his handwriting's a symptom. It's barely legible."

  Sims snorted. "'E should 'ire a sectary. Plump in the pocket now, ain't 'e. Colonel and all. Chevalier of France. Pah." The back of Sims's neck expressed his disdain of French orders.

  "He's been pensioned."

  "Chelsea ticket?"

  "Yes."

  "Humph. Was you 'ungry, me lord?"

  "Confound you, no."

  Sims looked injured. "I 'ave to get used to the ruddy title, 'aven't I then? Me lord."

  "Don't be difficult. We're going to London."

  Sims turned from the fire which he had been poking. "It's too bloody soon, Major. That last attack..."

  Tom said wryly, "Or too bloody late. No time is a good time."

  Sims scowled but forbore to protest further. When he left the room Tom returned to the desk and took up his friend's letter once more. "Sinister." Tom smiled, idiot. He took out a sheet of paper and began to write.

  Less than a week later he was lying more or less in state in his new pied-à-terre, a set of fusty rooms in St. James's Place that had once belonged to the late earl's deceased brother. It had only taken two days to reach London and two more to reach the high pitch of recuperation he now enjoyed. He regarded the ornamented ceiling and listened to Lord Bevis's account of their friends with the occupation forces in France and decided he wasn't dished yet. "I beg your pardon, Bevis."

  "Expecting callers?" Bevis's head cocked.

  Tom listened to the noise in the hallway. "Richard Falk, I think. I writ him I was coming to Town." He turned his head to look at Bevis, who was grimacing.

  "Falk? I'm leaving."

  Tom contented himself with a small grin. Richard had torn strips from Bevis's hide in their last encounter, or so Bevis insisted.

  Richard's voice could now be heard. Bevis rose. "Shall I pop in tonight on my way to White's?"

  "If you like."

  Sims stuck his head in at the door. "Colonel Falk to see you, me lord."

  "Tell him to come in, and don't lordship me to death." Tom craned his head gingerly.

  When he entered, Richard noticed Bevis's presence first. Richard always looks as someone might jump him from behind, Tom reflected, holding out his hand. "I'm under orders to be still, so I won't rise. It's good of you to come, Richard. I hope you didn't make a special journey."

  "No. Had to see my publisher." Richard shook hands awkwardly, left-handed. His right reposed in a black silk sling. Tom had not seen his friend since Rye, two years before, and he looked Richard over narrowly.

  The brown coat was better cut than the obnoxious French jacket that had offended Tom in their last encounter, and Richard wore his hair longer. The reason for that became apparent as he turned to greet Bevis. The scar of the head wound, jagged and new enough to show purple, scored the left side of his brow. A wing of thick brown hair covered it when you faced him straight on. Sidewise it was just visible. Richard looked about ten years older than Tom remembered, but he moved with the same contained energy, like a cat. That was reassuring. Tom let out a long breath.

  Hesitating only briefly, Bevis offered Richard his hand. Left hand. Very tactful. After Water-loo Bevis's duties had taken him directly to Paris, whilst Richard sweated out his injuries in Brussels, so they had not met since. Bevis said something congratulatory about the Order of St. Lewis, and Richard looked sardonic.

  "Oughtn't to have refused
a knighthood, Falk. Dash it, great honour."

  "Certainly," Richard said politely. "I've been kicking myself ever since. It would sound impressive. Sir Richard F--"

  "Restrain yourself, Dickon," Tom said, glancing at Bevis, who turned scarlet. Tom bit back a grin. In moments of exasperation Richard's subordinates had been used to refer to him by an inglorious cognomen very like his own adopted surname. Richard would have picked up on it. There was very little he did not pick up on.

  Now he apparently decided he had tormented Bevis sufficiently, for he asked a question about the disposition of troops in the Parisian suburbs and allowed Bevis to master his confusion under cover of military technicalities. Very shortly thereafter Bevis left. He still looked ruffled.

  Richard sat and stretched his legs out, admiring the sheen of his boots. "Sorry. I shouldn't do that."

  "Bedevil Bevis? No, you should not. He's a good chap."

  Richard leaned against the high-winged back of his chair, eyes closed. "The mail coach was delayed at Clapham last evening. The driver made up for lost time. Wonderful thing, his majesty's mail."

  "Jostled?"

  Richard opened one eye and grinned. "At least I had the wherewithal to ride inside this time. Squinched between a corn chandler and the Wife of Bath."

  Tom smiled. "It's good to see you, and more or less in one piece, too."

  Richard grimaced. "It marches. I seem to be obstinately right-handed, however. Did you know that a left-hander drags his sleeve across the wet ink as he writes? I must invest in a supply of paper cuffs."

  "Sims says you ought to hire an amanuensis."

  Richard's mouth quirked. "Your translation."

  Tom nodded. "Why not hire a secretary?"

  "My dear Tom, can you imagine me saying some of the things I write aloud? I'd blush like a maiden. I'm much ruder on paper than I'd ever dare to be in speech."

  Tom laughed. "That I cannot credit. Shall you write another novel?"

  "I'll have to. As usual I've backed myself into a corner."