The Girl at Rosewood Hall (A Lady Jane Mystery)

by Annis Bell

  Jane took the carafe of port from the table and poured herself another glass, which she swallowed quickly. Then she said, “I still had my knife. But there was no harm in him being there, too.”

  “You two are made for each other, Jane. Believe me. Now pour me another port, too.”

  “Assuming what you say is true, then there’s still a major hurdle to face.”

  “And that would be . . . ?”

  “He has a lover. And I will not accept that.”

  Instantly, every trace of merriment vanished from Alison’s eyes. “Talk to him! Thomas thinks very highly of him. He’s an honorable man, and he won’t lie to you.”

  “Hmm.” Jane hesitated for a long time before she said, “I won’t take the first step.”

  Alison rolled her eyes. “Then you’ll just go on collecting orphans and trying to save the world.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” replied Jane, archly.

  With a look of pure innocence, Alison replied, “Nothing. Nothing at all. But will that be enough in the long run, I wonder . . .”

  38.

  Mulberry Park, September 1860

  “Rufus!” Jane turned her horse down the steep cliff path and then let the mare gallop on the sand. The Great Dane ran wildly beside them, barking all the way.

  Jane had been back for a week and was enjoying every minute that she spent outside. Toward the end of the London Season, she had been counting the days, cursing every appointment she had to keep. But she understood her obligations and obediently spent the days and weeks in endless trivial babble about Paris fashions, and the weather—a perennial English topic that foreigners would never understand. Then there were topics like horses, wagers, parliament, the prime minister, the Queen and her ailing husband—one could only feel sorry for the poor woman—and so on, and so on . . .

  Wescott barely showed his face at home. He accompanied her to important receptions but otherwise always seemed to be needed elsewhere. She never asked what kept him away, and this seemed to suit him, for his expression was invariably closed and somber. Even when Mary decided on a school in Kent, all he said was that he was happy for the girl. If Alison’s suspicion was correct, and he truly had another woman, then Jane could forget about love. She met with Violet on several occasions; the woman looked up to Jane as if she were a charity icon. With Violet’s help, Jane financed a new orphanage in Lambeth and organized a new teacher and a doctor, who would check on the children twice a week. The work gave Jane a sense of fulfillment, but she often had the feeling that there had to be more. She longed to go on a long trip. Perhaps she and Hettie could travel to India in winter. Her courageous maid had earned that, and it would invigorate Jane as well.

  Floyd had recovered to the point where he could run the household properly again, as a butler ought. Mr. Roche continued to take care of the house and grounds, and Mrs. Roche had transformed Mulberry Park into a livable home. The new cook, a woman from Edinburgh, had been chosen with care, and her background had been thoroughly checked. Jane insisted only that Scotland’s national dish, haggis, be banned from the menu.

  A number of open wounds remained. One of them was Mary’s beloved brother, Tim, who could not be found, and her friend Fiona, who had been sent away to Australia. Such things took time, and one could never give up hope. The body of the missing teacher, Mr. Gaunt, was found. Cooper saved himself from hanging by disclosing the location of the grave; in exchange, his sentence was reduced to life in prison. They were not able to prove him guilty of murder because he offloaded all the blame onto his dead brother, Jedidiah.

  The ocean that day was choppy and the wind strong, and the salty spindrift sprayed Jane’s face. As her horse galloped over the wet sand, she let the wind blow past her and savored the taste of salt on her lips. The clouds were gathering, and the dark wall looming in the west did not bode well.

  “Come on, Rufus. Time to head home, or Floyd will start complaining.”

  Several times, on her extended rides, she had been surprised by squalls and cloudbursts, and each time Floyd had worried himself sick. The poor man had been through enough on her account, and it would help no one if she came down with some self-inflicted lung infection and had to spend weeks in bed. Jane pulled the hood of her cape over her head. The first heavy drops of rain were already falling.

  And there was another threat hanging over her. Since her last visit to Rosewood Hall, her cousin Matthew had not been in touch again. Yet she knew he was obsessed with driving her out of her beloved home. She checked the post every day, looking for anything that might be officially certified or written in her cousin’s hand, but so far she had been spared any more bad tidings.

  She jumped her mare over a wall, then trotted across the fields. A herd of sheep was huddled against a hedge for protection from the impending thunderstorm. The wind freshened and became gusty, driving a broken-off gorse bush before it. Branches bearing tiny yellow flowers swept through the air. The summer is coming to its end, thought Jane, and spurred her horse onward. In the distance, a bolt of lightning flashed. The storms that rolled in from the sea were powerful, but passed over quickly. Finding yourself caught in the middle of one, however, was no picnic.

  Jane was lucky. The storm took its time, and most of the dark mass of clouds stopped and hung over the river’s mouth. On the other side of the river lived Doctor Westwood, whom she had not yet seen since her return. Perhaps she should visit him soon. After all, Floyd owed his full recovery to Westwood’s medical skills. The mare trotted briskly around the last curve just as Rufus began to bark and charged ahead.

  “Come on, old girl, let’s go see what’s going on.” With light pressure from Jane’s legs, the horse covered the final stretch to the house at a canter.

  When Jane saw the two horses in the yard, she felt hope and fear grapple inside her: the fear that Matthew had brought a court order together with a bailiff to enforce it, and the hope of seeing Wescott again. Despite everything, she missed his company, his surly expression that could give way to a warm smile from one second to the next, and their arguments. There was simply no one that she loved to argue with more than him, and that in itself was remarkable.

  Barely had her mare’s hooves rattled the pavers in the courtyard when she saw Blount and Floyd coming around the corner of the house. The two men were chatting away amicably as if they had been best friends for years. Jane did not wait for one of them to help her from her horse, but jumped to the ground on her own. She was wearing riding breeches, boots, and a robust tweed jacket beneath her rain cape, which she now untied and tossed over Floyd’s arm in passing.

  “Nice to see you, Blount. Is the captain already inside?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” As usual, the valet was wearing his brown suit, but today there was the trace of a smile on his face.

  Jane thwacked her boots with the riding crop and then ran up the front steps with Rufus at her side. Only when she opened the door did she realize that her hair, disheveled from the ride, must be a terrible sight. Her cheeks were certainly red from the wind, and she looked like anything but the image of a lady of rank. But to blazes with that. Who cared about convention!

  With a spring in her step, she entered the hall. The heels of her boots clacked loudly with every step. When she pushed open the door to the library, she found Wescott standing at the window. He looked at her with an unfathomable expression.

  “Jane.” His voice was hoarse.

  “What a greeting. I’m touched. How are you? Keeping well? What are your plans? Are you going to let me in on them, or are you just here to check that everything’s in order? Not to worry. I have very little opportunity out here to compromise either of us.” She dropped the crop on the table and pulled off her gloves.

  “Finished?” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and withdrew a bundle of letters.

  “What’s that?” A dark suspicion rose inside her when she
recognized the familiar handwriting on the envelopes.

  Wescott approached until he was standing just an arm’s length away. He handed her the bundle. “My wedding gift.”

  “Your . . .” It was true. He had not given her anything for the wedding. Everything had happened so abruptly that they had just exchanged rings, and then he was gone again. She ran one hand gently over the letters, in which she found her father’s promissory notes. Her eyes filled with tears.

  “That’s why Matthew never got in touch again. How did you get your hands on them?” she whispered.

  His dark eyes sparkled, and he gave her a knowing smile. “Didn’t I tell you that you could trust me?”

  She nodded.

  “But you didn’t.” He took the letters out of her hands and set them on the table. Tenderly, he stroked her wind-tousled hair and placed one hand around her waist.

  Jane breathed faster. She could easily let herself be seduced by him. He knew it and was playing with her yet again. “Don’t!”

  But Wescott did not release her. He pulled her closer to him, so close she could feel the beating of his heart through the woolen material of his jacket. “I want to terminate our damned contract.”

  “Excuse me?” She found it hard to think clearly so close to him, but she was not about to let him ride roughshod over her like she was some idiot farm girl.

  He sighed. “Oh, Jane. I can practically read your thoughts.”

  “No, you can’t. Unless you’re a medium with supernatural powers at your command! You want to make things easy for yourself. You lead your life in London, in the clubs, amusing yourself with other women, and now you want a warm bed at home, too, but that’s not—”

  That was as far as she got, for Wescott closed her mouth with his own lips. His kiss was extremely convincing, and for a long moment, Jane gave herself over to the feeling. As his lips glided over her cheek and down to her neck, she leaned away from him spiritedly.

  “Thank you for this sample of your talents, David. But I can agree to the cancellation only on one condition.”

  “And that would be . . . ?” He stroked his hand a little lower over her back. “I can’t get the sight of you in trousers out of my head.”

  “No other women.”

  He looked at her earnestly. “There have been no other women since we’ve been married, Jane.”

  “But Alison saw you!”

  “All purely professional.”

  Jane pursed her lips.

  “It won’t work without trust,” he said.

  She smiled at him provocatively. “I’ll remind you of that the next time I need you to help me break into a house at night.”

  Wescott pulled her close and laughed. “The moment I met you, I knew I was in for trouble.”

  About the Author

  Annis Bell is a writer and scholar. She has lived for many years in the United States and England and currently divides her time between England and Germany.

  For more information, please visit www.annisbell.com.

  About the Translator

  Australian by birth, Edwin Miles has been active as a translator in the literary, film, and television fields for nearly fifteen years. Widely traveled, he has worked, among other things, as a draftsman, teacher, white-water rafting guide, and seismic navigator.

  After undergraduate studies in his hometown of Perth, he was awarded an MFA in fiction writing by the University of Oregon in 1995. While there, he spent a year working as fiction editor on the literary magazine Northwest Review. In 1996, he was short-listed for the prestigious Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award for young writers for a collection of short stories.

  After many years living and working in Australia, Japan, and the United States, he currently resides in his “second home” in Cologne, Germany, with his wife and two very clever children.