Another figure, this one shorter by a head and white-haired, pointed at Aylesbury. “They said he had to swear, not me, that is why. And he would not. Nor would his steward in his stead. You may be so rich you can afford to allow poachers a free hand, Your Grace, but the rest of the landowners here are not so favored by Providence.”
“Mr. Langreth, I am sorry to have denied you your pound of Mr. Stone’s flesh. We all know his circumstances, however. He is little more than a boy, and he cares for his ill father and his six siblings. Furthermore, there is no proof he poached on my lands that day.”
“He had the damned hares in his damned sack, along with a damned trap. He was crossing the road between our properties, leaving yours and going to mine. If that is not proof he was poaching, what is?”
“Finding him on someone’s land with that trap, or those hares,” the other voice said. “Of course my brother would not swear information against this Mr. Stone. He could not prove Mr. Stone had in fact gotten those hares in his forest.”
“Hell of a thing. I’ve been asking you to put your people after him, and when I catch him myself it doesn’t count in the law!”
“Mr. Langreth. I sympathize that you think your property rights have been violated by poachers. There are some I would gladly see punished,” Aylesbury said. “However, what little Mr. Stone may take from my land feeds an infirm father and a passel of children, all of whom might starve if he is taken from them.”
Silence greeted that. Then boots stomped away. “Hell of a thing!” Mr. Langreth yelled to the village at large.
“I am surprised this Jeremiah Stone was not convicted,” another new voice said.
“Sir Horace Radley woke up that morning in a generous mood,” Aylesbury said.
Marianne sneaked a look over her shoulder. Aylesbury stood with two other men, not more than fifteen feet behind her. They all appeared related, although not a one of them truly looked like another. Dark-haired, all of them, and tall. Of the three, Aylesbury was perhaps the least typically handsome, yet she thought his particular version of handsome the most compelling.
As if feeling her quick glance, he turned. In the window’s reflection she saw him facing her back, looking at her.
“Miss Radley, is that you?”
She feigned surprise at seeing him. He walked over and looked in the shop window. “Are you considering the purchase of a man’s waistcoat? There are a few women who favor such things, but I do not think you would find one flattering.”
He had noticed she had been at the window for some time. “I was thinking my uncle could use a new one.” It sounded stupid, but it was all she had.
“You should advise him against getting it here. This fellow does not cut well.” He looked toward the lane. “Our meeting is a happy coincidence. I would like to introduce you to my brothers. They are visiting for a week or so.”
She could not refuse, so she found herself receiving close inspection by Lord Ywain Hemingford, and Mr. Gareth Fitzallen. The latter was a beautiful man with a winning smile. The former might be beautiful, too, but with a subtle hardness that his own smile did not soften.
“Is your mother with you?” Aylesbury asked.
“She is completing some business with the dressmaker. I should return to her.”
“We will walk with you.” Aylesbury made to do just that, so she walked too. His brothers followed.
“Your cousin is well?” he asked.
“She is much recovered, thank you. I believe her ordeal from that day is firmly in the past.”
“That is good to know. I have been concerned for her.”
She began to think well of him for that, until she remembered that in the past he had been so unconcerned that poor Nora was found in the mud, after rain poured on her for hours.
“At least she suffered no fever this time.” She could not resist saying it.
As soon as they approached the dressmakers, her mother came out the door. Mama must have seen her escort through the window, because now she pretended to look far and wide for Marianne, making a display of her search. She feigned surprise to see her daughter nearby with three gentlemen.
“Your Grace!” Mama dipped a curtsy. “Marianne, you have collected an impressive group of friends in such a short walk.”
Aylesbury did the introductions. “You have not called on me, Mrs. Radley. I expected you by now.”
“It has been my intention to do so very soon, Your Grace. Hasn’t it, Marianne? We are well settled now, so we would be honored to call.”
“I look forward to it. Do not dally, or my brothers may be gone. That would disappoint them, since they have so little society here other than my company.”
Marianne doubted either brother wanted to sit in a drawing room while Aylesbury flattered her mother. However, both brothers smiled, nodded, and joined in cajoling Mama to make her call very soon.
“We will take our leave now,” Aylesbury said. “I regret we have business to attend.” He bowed to Mama and her, and all three brothers walked back toward the tailor shop.
“Well. My.” Mama let her shock finally show. “When he invited me to call the day we met, I did not believe he meant it. Such things are said all the time out of politeness. I certainly did not think he meant it so much that he now scolds me for neglecting him.”
“Do you know the third one? Mr. Fitzallen?”
“The old duke took a mistress early on, and kept her until he died, and that man is the result.” Mama turned back to the dressmaker. “If we are going to make a call on a duke, I must tell Mrs. Makepeace to enhance those ensembles they are doing over, and to complete it immediately. Come along, and pick out some trim for your mantelet. We will call the day after tomorrow, I think, not tomorrow. We do not want to look too eager.”
Considering the gleam in Mama’s eyes, Marianne suspected they would look too eager even if they waited a week.
* * *
“You both must stay now. Ives, invite your wife to join you. She can study here as well as in London.” Lance made the demand as they strode down the lane. “Gareth, since Eva is with child, she does not have to come.”
“How good of you,” Gareth said.
“I am not going to request it of Padua on your whim, so she will not be coming either,” Ives said.
“It is not a whim. It will be much easier for me to devise ways to see Miss Radley if there is a woman or two about. Otherwise I am left with dull calls in Sir Horace’s drawing room. I can hardly make good progress that way.”
“Good progress on what?” Ives asked.
“On being so bad she won’t have me. Gareth, when they call, you are to attend on the mother. Attractive older women find you irresistible. Distract her, et cetera.”
“There will be no ‘et cetera.’ I am a married man. I am not going to flirt with Mrs. Radley to accommodate your progress.”
“Perhaps after today you will not have to concern yourself with the lady, or with Sir Horace,” Ives said.
Lance thought that unlikely, but was willing to try anything.
Today’s visit to the village had been Gareth’s idea. At breakfast he suggested that, as Percy’s next of kin, they all call on the coroner and express familial concern. They would press on him that the question regarding the circumstances of Percy’s death left the entire family in a type of limbo.
They walked past the village’s two taverns, either of which Lance thought would be a fine place for such a meeting. They turned a corner and instead entered a coffeehouse. Thaddeus Peterson, the coroner, favored this establishment over the others, being an abstemious sort of fellow. The son of a local landowner, he bided his time until he inherited his father’s estate.
He sat on a divan, reading the Times and drinking his coffee. A thin, fair man with curly blond hair, his soft face appeared as bland as Lance knew his character to be. Many y
ears ago, he and Peterson had boyhood friendship. Then Peterson grew up into someone who did not remember how to have fun.
“Peterson. What a fine accident, finding you here,” Lance said as they descended on him.
Peterson gazed up in surprise at the phalanx of Hemingfords hovering over his divan. “I am always here in the afternoon, except on Fridays when I make calls. I ride out at two o’clock each day, and take coffee here, then ride back at four.”
“Do you, now? I had forgotten what a pleasant place this is.” Lance pulled over a chair. Ives sat on the divan’s arm. Gareth propped his ass on the edge of a table. They all smiled at Thaddeus.
Peterson took one more look at his paper before setting it aside. “You interrupted my pondering the news reaching London.” He tapped the paper. “Do you know this Elijah Tewkberry who is serving as the paper’s correspondent in this county?”
“I have never heard of him,” Lance said.
“One of his letters mentioned me,” Ives said. “I do not recall meeting him, however.”
“I have no idea who he is,” Peterson said. “He wrote he was visiting here this winter. I have not heard of a family with such a visitor.”
“Not everyone parades their visitors down Cheltenham’s lanes,” Gareth said. “I think you have no idea who I am, either, and I have visited the county many times over the years.”
Peterson eyed him thoughtfully. “I confess I would not recognize you, or even guess who you are, except that you are here with these two. You must be the old duke’s by-blow.”
“Lance did not want to disturb you when we saw you in here, but I insisted,” Gareth said, ignoring the slur with what Lance thought was admirable patience. “The unresolved matter of my eldest brother’s death weighs on me. On all of us. As the coroner, surely you can come down one way or another. Your determination of causes unknown has stood for nine months.”
Peterson glanced at Lance. “I am surprised you press me on it. After all, it may come down the one way you would not like.”
“There is no evidence of any crime,” Ives said.
“The physician—”
“The physician only said the stomach pains might indicate poison. Might,” Ives said. “If after nine months there is no proof he was poisoned, it is time to lay the matter to rest, don’t you think?”
Peterson folded his arms over his chest. He glared at each of them in turn. “I do my duty as I see it. When a possible murder is on the table, and of a duke at that, I do not clear the plates in the name of expediency.”
Ives looked ready to argue. A subtle gesture from Gareth stopped him. Gareth pushed away from the table and sat on the divan next to Peterson.
“No one would want you to do anything contrary to your sense of duty. We merely expressed our frustration with having his ghost still without rest.”
Peterson relaxed. “I thank you for that. I confess to experiencing some of that frustration myself.”
“Were you friends?”
Peterson hesitated. “He was amiable enough with me, and greeted me, and we spoke at assemblies and dinner parties. He called once or twice, on a matter having to do with my official duties.” He glanced sharply at Lance. “He did not insult me at least, or cut me, or turn his wit against me.”
“It sounds like a friendship to me,” Gareth said. “We knew there were those in the county who mourned him as we did, even if we did not know all of their names.”
Peterson nodded.
Gareth stood. “Let us leave Mr. Peterson to the revelations of Mr. Tewkberry. It is almost four and he will want to finish his coffee in peace.”
Ives did not like it, but he followed Gareth and Lance out of the coffeehouse. Back on the main lane, Gareth stopped and turned to Lance.
“He hates you. Why?”
“Perhaps he was insulted when I dropped him as a friend. You know how it is. You have a boyhood acquaintance with whom you might on occasion play knights in the woods, but then you get older and realize that boy has become a very dull man, so you stop seeking him out.” He gestured toward the coffeehouse. “Would you be friends with him now?”
“He spoke as if you did not merely stop seeking him out. He implied you insulted him.”
“I suppose, when I was in my cups, I may have teased him once or twice, when we were both still very young. It was so long ago I have forgotten it.”
“He has not forgotten it.” Gareth walked on. “Did you also insult the justices? Is all of this personal, and a way to flog you for your past deeds?”
They repaired to one of the taverns. Over some ale, Gareth raised the question again.
“I will confess that if it had been Ives in the house that night, there might have never been one day of suspicions, let alone nine months,” Lance said. “I have assumed from the beginning that it was partly personal, and revenge for my past behavior, but not by Peterson.”
“He is speaking of the other justice of the peace,” Ives said to Gareth. “Not Radley. Mr. Gregory.”
Gareth swallowed a groan. “So not just the coroner, but one of the magistrates as well. Did you insult him too?”
“You might say so.” Ives bit back a grin.
“What did you do?”
Lance never apologized for his behavior, but at this moment he felt some chagrin. “Seduced his wife,” he muttered.
“Excuse me? You were talking into your cup and I did not hear well. Did you say you seduced the man’s wife?”
“He did indeed, and not discreetly.” Ives, who was always discreet, said the last with a tone of censure.
“He married a young woman, too young for him, and brought her up to London to show her off. In my defense, I did not pursue her, but one thing led to another—”
“So you did not just seduce his wife, you seduced his bride.”
Gareth appeared shocked. Lance thought that took a lot of gall considering the topic was the seduction of another man’s wife. His bastard brother had been notorious for that.
“With Gregory honing his ax, and Radley blackmailing you, and Peterson sulking about a slight from long ago, you will find no mercy there. I had hoped—well, it is safe to say that nothing less than making good on your plan to find the real murderer will exonerate you,” Gareth said.
“That is why I intend to do just that.”
“Here is the problem,” Ives said. “What if we have always been correct, and he was not murdered? Then what?”
They all looked at each other. Leave it to a lawyer to point out the chasm on the path to salvation.
CHAPTER 9
“Smooth your mantelet. Straighten your hat.” Mama’s instructions came in a quick whisper after she and Marianne stepped out of the carriage.
Not just any carriage. Not the gig kept in the carriage house, or even the tilbury, either of which Marianne could have driven. On hearing the request for one of the carriages, and learning their intention to call on Aylesbury, Uncle Horace had insisted they use the barouche, and had sent a footman to accompany them and the driver. Both servants wore ancient livery that Marianne had not seen since she was a child.
She did smooth her sapphire mantelet. Mrs. Makepeace had added fur to its edge. A new bright sapphire plum adorned her bonnet. Beneath the mantelet, a pelisse dress of fine fawn wool sported a new border of brown embroidered with an intricate black design. The goal of that border was to increase the length of the dress due to Marianne growing an inch during their time in exile. The bodice had been let out an inch, too, to accommodate growth in another area.
Mama’s green carriage ensemble now had plaid edging and new gold buttons. On leaving the house, Marianne doubted even Aylesbury would be able to tell both of them wore remade clothes. Mrs. Makepeace had done them proud.
Now, as her gaze spanned Merrywood Manor, her self-confidence wavered. Her family home was very large, but
this manor house went on and on in every direction. There was probably twice as much again behind what she saw. This house would make anyone feel small, unless one was born to the manor to start.
Her mother muttered nonstop all the way to the door. “This will establish us again like nothing else will. And he insisted we call so he could receive us! I daresay you will find yourself with some eligible men dancing attendance on you when it becomes known a duke receives you and your family.”
“I would not mind a beau.”
“More than one, I hope. And not just any beaus. I have been making a list of the eligible bachelors in the county as I make my calls and hear of them. Much has changed on that count in five years, including your advancing years. Still, I am hopeful.”
They presented their cards to the butler. He put them in a little reception chamber while he went away. He returned soon, and led them to the drawing room.
“Don’t gawk like a rustic,” Mama warned as they stepped into the chamber.
It was all Marianne could do to obey when she saw the riches within. Hundreds of people would fit in the huge drawing room, and the many sofas and chairs would seat most of them. The ceiling soared above, replete with extensive moldings, and large windows lined one wall. Those windows were not composed of small panes of glass in the normal fashion, but with large ones lacking any leading. It was said the palaces of kings had windows like that.
Two of the largest carpets she had ever seen graced the floor. Her feet sank deeply into the one on which she stood. All of the fabrics in the chamber proclaimed the wealth of the owner. The drapes alone probably cost more than Uncle Horace’s income in a year.
“Stand proud. We are more than presentable.” Her mother did not sound nearly as confident as her words.
“I think even if we dressed in sable and the finest lace, we might not be presentable enough,” Marianne whispered back.
They inched farther into the chamber, taking it all in. Then another set of doors opened, and the duke entered with his brothers.
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