Aurora

by Joan Smith

  “He was only sixteen when you knew him,” Rorie pointed out, anxious to defend him.

  “That sort of behaviour does not improve with age, my dear. Quite otherwise. I think I might have had an offer from him myself if I had half tried. But I would not want to be married to a man I had to worry about seven nights a week. I had some fear he might take it into his head to set up a flirtation with you. I am glad he has not.”

  “Whoever makes the sad and sorrowful mistake of mar­rying that one will have her hands full,” Malone added. She stood at the door listening, but did not come in. “There is Millie broken-hearted in the kitchen now she’s found out who he is, for he let on to her he was a gypsy. Let it be a lesson to her. You don’t tell a sausage by its skin, and you don’t tell a gypsy by a black hide. Come along, then, you two.” She turned to herd the children upstairs, allow­ing the sisters a private discussion of Marnie’s match.

  Rorie took Charles back home for dinner and spent a quiet evening before the grate alone, looking a pathetic sight, but with her heart full to the brim of plans and memories. Life had been slow to get started, but was rolling along with a vengeance now—romance and adven­ture enough for anyone.

  Clare returned the next day around noon. Inquiries as to the success of her mission were met with evasive replies. “Yes, it went well. I foresee no difficulty,” she said, but Rorie thought she looked worried. There were fine lines etched around her eyes, a little pucker between them.

  “Did you have time for any shopping, Clare?” she asked. It was unusual for Clare to go to the city and come home empty-handed.

  “No, I hadn’t time for that. What minutes I had free from business I spent at the house. It is in a sad state after being empty a year, and even when Bernard was alive, there was little done to keep it up. Your sister is not much good along those lines.”

  “I took Charles down to the Dower House for a visit twice. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No, no,” Clare said absently. She hardly seemed to be listening.

  With nothing to be gained from her in the way of news, Rorie was happy to be getting home again, with someone to talk to other than a child and the servants. Berrigan came for dinner. The conversation did not indicate in the least a lengthy wait before their marriage. Already he had been to see the minister, and spoke of a honeymoon to Brighton. As established fiancés now, John and Marnie required no token chaperonage, and Rorie felt more than ever that her presence was not wanted. She went early to her room to reread her note, and to wonder how soon she might expect to see Kenelm in person. She was a little dissatisfied with the manner in which her sister and Malone spoke of Kenelm, as a philanderer, but that would stop once they knew of her engagement. An engaged man would settle down, and she would be formally engaged as soon as he got back. He meant to marry her, she assumed—he would not speak of her giving him an answer unless he was to ask the crucial question.

  He came the next day just after luncheon, and with the excitement of an engagement to be told him, no one mentioned his own absence the day before, nor did he. He was less than ecstatic—thought it too soon perhaps, as Marnie had feared he would, and as she knew very well herself it was. After a quarter of an hour’s discussion, he asked Rorie to go out for a drive with him.

  She felt his first words would be about his trip to London; she was prepared to hear that before he asked her the question of more importance. But what he said was, “What will become of Mimi?”

  The question surprised her. “She will live with her mother and John, of course. Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t want him adopting her. She is a Derwent. I think Marnie is rushing into this without giving it enough thought. A widow usually waits a decent two years.”

  “She has known John for years, and with the likelihood of Clare’s joining us, it is best for her to have some other plans made.”

  He shook his head as though trying to rid his mind of the matter. “It would be better if she waited. That would be the more proper way—but then she should know more about it than I. Who am I to be giving a lecture in propriety? Oh, I have some news to tell you. I think it will surprise you.

  “I am dying to hear what Clare was up to. She wouldn’t tell me a thing.”

  “When did she get back?”

  “Around noon yesterday.”

  “She was not in London at all.”

  “Not in London! But she said she was at the London house. Where was she, then?”

  “I have no idea. I inquired at the house. Oh, discreetly! I drove around to the stables. One of the old grooms recog­nized me, but her carriage wasn’t there and hadn’t been. Nor had she!’

  “Impossible! Could she have stayed at an hotel?”

  “She could have—but she told you she was at the house.”

  “Yes, she definitely said so. And why should she stay at an hotel when the house is open and half-staffed?”

  “I checked the larger hotels, the Pulteney and the Clarendon. I couldn’t get around to them all, but I doubt she would put up at any little hole-in-the wall establish­ment. She made no secret of the trip. There was no reason to hide her presence. No, she wasn’t there at all, and where the devil was she? That is what I must discover.”

  “You’ll never find out.”

  “Induction—that is how we must set about it. Now, let’s see where she stands. She has Rutley dead and buried—again. They put him back in this morning, poor soul. She has me, whom she hopes to pass off as him. And she has the emeralds. What would she be doing? She wants to prove I’m Rutley. Who could help her?”

  “She’s already been to Rutley’s, and in any case it wouldn’t take her two whole days to see them. They live right in the village.”

  “There’s Nel Rutley, Horace’s mother. Would she have been to see her?”

  “What would be the point? If Horace were with his mother, surely his grandparents would know. They raised him. He is more to them than to her, I should think.”

  “There was that fellow with Horace at the time of the horse trade, the business that caused Horace to bolt off. Carson was the name. Elmer Carson. Also local people. It wouldn’t take her days to find them. No, it must be Nel she went to see. I can’t think of anyone else. Horace could be there without his grandparents’ knowing it. I doubt Nel can even write, and the distance would seem great to folks without a carriage or much money. Nel was a poor girl, not bright. She is somewhere in Hampshire. The time is about right. Clare could have made it with a fast team and driving late into the night. I think I must go see Nel Rutley myself.”

  “How would you find her?” Rorie asked.

  “Her parents must know her married name, and where she lives. If Clare found her, I can find her.”

  “We don’t know that is where Clare went. It may have had something to do with the emeralds. Selling them, to get rid of them, or trying to get them back.”

  “You’re slipping, my sweet, just when I had some hope you were developing into a useful partner in crime, too. She’d never risk selling them at such a crucial time, with the chance that they would pop up and be traced back to her. She’s too sly for that. And how could she hope to recover them if she sold them years ago? They’d have been broken up and disposed of long ago. It has to do with Rutley—it must.”

  Rorie sat thinking about this, and could not feel it at all likely that Clare had gone to visit Nel Rutley. “If Horace is dead, what Clare wants is silence. Why should she go to his mother, to stir up talk and gossip?”

  “That is the stumbling block,” he said, thinking deeply. “I can’t think when I’m driving. Shall we pull off the road and take a walk into the meadow?”

  They did this, and after walking into the meadow a hundred yards, sat on a large rock to cogitate. It was comparatively private here, private enough to do more than discuss Clare’s trip, in Rorie’s opinion, but today Kenelm’s mind was on business. He wrinkled his brow and sat with his chin in his hand.

  “I find myself coming to an
utterly absurd conclusion,” he said at length, lifting his chin to look at her.

  “The whole thing is absurd. I can’t see that Clare would go muddying the waters when she knows perfectly well Horace Rutley is dead. Surely she isn’t thinking of trying to get Nel to say you are her son?”

  “That occurred to me. That is possible, but then Nel was not very close to Horace. The Rutleys in the village would be the more likely people to use for that scheme. No, if Horace were indeed dead, she would have no reason to go to Nel, but if he were alive—if she weren’t sure he is dead, I mean—there is just a bit of a chance he might have gone to his real mother for help, being unable to come home here because of the trouble he was in when he left. She couldn’t take the risk that he might turn up, giving the lie to her theory that I am he. She went to Nel Rutley to see if she has heard anything from her son, and that means she doesn’t know he’s dead. Doesn’t know for a fact that the body in the grave is Horace.”

  “Who else could it be?”

  He tossed up his hands. “Anybody. Any six-foot black-haired gent with good teeth who happened along eleven years ago and fell into a scrape of some sort with Clare. She’s involved with it. She didn’t turn a hair to see my uniform and rings on that body. She knew what to expect.”

  “Could it be that it was Nel’s husband and not Horace Rutley who got rid of the emerald necklace for Clare? It is a pet theory of Malone’s that Horace was shot for trying to diddle her over the emeralds.”

  “How could she use Nel’s husband? In Hampshire, miles away. How would she know him? She’s from Somerset herself, quite a distance away, and while Clare may not be quite top-drawer socially, she is a step above a fellow who would marry a halfwit who had already had a child. She would not have been a friend of such a man.”

  “If Nel is helping Clare in some way, she won’t help you—won’t tell you anything.”

  “I must go to Hampshire all the same and see what I can uncover. Like Malone, I have my own foolish theory. I don’t think Nel is working with Clare. She went on a hunt for facts, and I’ll do the same. I’ll hint to Nel I mean to help the boy, and so I shall, too, if he’s alive. Papa always paid him an allowance. No doubt Clare said the same thing.”

  “You are hunting mares’ nests,” Rorie told him, shaking her head.

  “I’ll find one, too. There’s nothing to be done here in any case. The case will sit gathering dust for weeks yet. I have time to burn. But it is a pity I must dash off on you again so soon,” he said, turning to face her. “I really have to get this business cleared up, though. I shall console myself that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and to overcome the possibility that my being out of sight will put me out of your mind, I shall write you, if I may. Would that be all right, considering we are now confirmed soulmates? You can keep my billets doux this time, too, if you care to. You got rid of the other?”

  “I was very careful of it,” she answered vaguely. It was at home pressed between the leaves of a book, where Clare would never see it.

  “Good. We wouldn’t want Clare stumbling across it, and finding out that we are in league. Your relationship to her is too valuable. I sometimes feel I ought to cultivate her myself. The fact is, she is in the devil of a bind. I can almost pity her. I wonder if she would be interested in coming to terms—amicable terms. If Rutley is alive, she must be on the anxious seat. What do you think?”

  “I doubt she would come to terms with you.”

  “She used to like me well enough.” He laughed. “Very fond of Papa’s younger son.”

  Rorie had already felt a little twinge of dissatisfaction at his mention of her relationship with Clare being valu­able, useful. The dissatisfaction turned sharply toward anger at his last remark. “Odd she should have been attracted to a youth of sixteen years,” she said.

  “She was only twenty herself when she married Papa. And a very appetizing armful she was, too. Well, she was about thirty years closer to my own age than Papa’s. The marriage was ludicrous. There is only five years’ differ­ence in our ages, and it seems less now than it did at the time. Once people are grown up, a few years is nothing. I am six years older than you, Aurora. I hope you don’t find me quite an old man.”

  “No, but when the man is five years younger . . .”

  “I was precocious,” he said, and turned to her with a teasing smile. “All the ladies found me so. Quite the blade of the county. Of course I am all reformed now, ready for the bit and bridle.”

  With Clare now added to the list of Lady Alice and the others, including Marnie, who thought she might have had him had she tried, Rorie could not feel he was one hundred percent tamed yet. And never a mention of her giving him any answer today.

  “Now don’t sulk, Aurora,” he said, taking her hand. “I mean to leave this afternoon. Shan’t see you for a few days, and I don’t want to carry off with me the image of you in a pique. I like to leave my ladies smiling.” Ladies, in the plural, she noticed.

  They walked back to the curricle and returned immedi­ately home. “I’ll drop down to Rutley’s in the village and see if they can give me Nel’s direction. See if Clare preceded me there too. That would be substantiation of my theory. Meanwhile, if Clare makes any overtures of friend­ship, don’t turn her off. It would be interesting to discover if she had a beau at the time of Horace’s leaving. Of course she won’t mention that, and you’d better not ask her directly. I wonder if Wilkins would know. That’s an idea. I’ll send a message with Sam from the tavern.”

  He walked her to the door and stepped inside. The hallway was deserted, and before leaving he leaned down and kissed her cheek. “That will have to do you till I get back,” he said, teasing. He regarded her a moment, then the reckless gypsy smile slowly formed on his lips. “Oh, but it won’t quite do me,” he added, and began to draw her into his arms, just as Malone came trudging down the stairs.

  Her hands went to her waist, and she stood glaring. “And just what do you think you’re up to if a body might ask?” she demanded of them.

  “You amaze me, Mrs. Malaprop, that a woman of the world like yourself doesn’t recognize an embrace when she sees it,” Kenelm told her, unperturbed but for the annoy­ance of having his embrace interrupted. He didn’t quite let go of Aurora either, but merely loosened his hold a little.

  “Embroglio is more like it,” she charged, well pleased with this grand near word.

  “That’s truer than you know, ma’am. Do you intend to turn voyeur on us, and observe my leavetaking?”

  “It’s yourself as does all the voyaging. I’ve no mind to go and mix it up with a bunch of Moslemites. Where are you off to?—as you mentioned taking your leave.”

  “What would you expect of one of my kidney? I am off to pay my respects to another woman, naturally.”

  “You’re a brass box if there ever was one. Bernard never talked so impudent to me.”

  “He was always a bit of a slow top. Were you about to leave, Malone?” he asked, a trifle impatiently.

  “I’ll give you just exactly one minute, and then I’ll come and fetch her, so you’d better get busy.” The warning given, she went into the saloon and stood counting off the minute on the long case clock.

  “I hope she is equally strict with all your callers?” Kenelm asked, and put the remainder of his minute to better use.

  Malone, true to her word, was back in sixty seconds, and promptly showed Lord Raiker out the door. “You’ve got a bit of explaining to do, missie,” she said to her charge when he was gone. “Haven’t I been warning you what he’s like?”

  “Yes, when you are not advising me to make up to him,” Rorie answered pertly.

  “It’ll be yourself with red eyes next. I gave you credit for a little self-respect. You shouldn’t be holding yourself so cheap. It’s marriage or nothing.”

  “I wish you would not make a great to-do about it. He is a connection, after all.”

  “Oh ho, connection, is it? I don’t see Mr. Berrigan taking su
ch a warm leave of you, nor did I ever see Bernard, nor anyone else that calls himself a gentleman. And he as well as saying to your face he was running right back to Lady Alice, the villain. What he sees in the vixen is beyond me. Is he sweet on you then?” she asked, unable to contain her curiosity longer.

  “Yes, Malone, I think he is, and I am very sweet on him, but nothing is settled, so pray don’t feel obliged to run to Marnie with tales of what you have seen.”

  Malone regarded her with narrowed eyes. “I hope you know what you’re about. He shouldn’t be taking such liberties till it is settled. He’s as sly as a weasel, that one. Still, he’s been abroad, and don’t know the right way to behave, I suppose. You’d oughta teach him. Who is he going off to see now?”

  “It has something to do with the case,” Rorie answered unhelpfully. Malone thought she didn’t know, so didn’t press her. She was in two minds about Kenelm. Certainly she considered him an indelible parti, but a little raffish for one of her girls. He’d bear watching, and there was little dearer to her soul than keeping a sharp eye cocked on her girls, unless it was spying on their beaux. To find the latter had run amok was heaven.

  * * *

  Chapter 14

  The two days of Kenelm’s absence were full days for him, and not entirely without incident for Aurora. Lady Alice came fishing for news at the Dower House, as Raiker was fishing in Hampshire. It was clear from the outset she had no idea where he had gone, and becoming clear too that she realized she had an archrival in Aurora. She dropped a million hints that she and Kenelm were more than friends, even using the word “soulmates,” which caused Rorie’s brow to rise and her heart to sink. He had shown her all his treasures from India, discussed his plans for them, had given her a shawl and a book on Indian customs. She had been teaching him to waltz.

  “He adores the waltz, and how well he does it! He says he would have come home sooner had he realized it was the style now to hold all the young ladies in your arms with public approval. He is teaching me to drive his curricle. What fun we have, out every day. He took you out once I think, Miss Falkner? He mentioned he ought to do so, as you are Lady Raiker’s sister.”