Family Plot

by Sheri Cobb South

  “And her cousins? Surely Mr. Kirkbride’s plans affected them, too. What were their feelings on the matter?”

  “Oh, Duncan was quite willing, even eager, to marry her. Poor Duncan has never had a feather to fly with. His father, besides being a younger son, married a vicar’s daughter—a sweet girl, mind you, but not a penny to bless herself with. Gavin, on the other hand, was left a tidy sum by his mother, or so I’m told. He keeps a house in London, in any case, and that takes plenty of brass, as they say. In short, Gavin had no need to wed, and apparently no partiality for Miss Kirkbride’s company. No, if Angus’s plan was to succeed, Duncan must be the one to marry Elspeth.”

  Lady Fieldhurst, picturing with some difficulty Duncan Kirk-bride, even a much younger Duncan Kirkbride, in the rôle of devoted suitor to a girl of seventeen, found her sympathies wholly aligned with Miss Kirkbride. “But she was so young! Surely there was no need for such haste. Given time, the situation might have resolved itself.”

  “One might have thought so, but then, one had reckoned without the Kirkbride stubbornness. In short, Mrs. Pickett, Elspeth was discovered in flagrante delicto with—”

  “This will not do, Aunt,” interrupted Duncan Kirkbride, regarding Lady Fieldhurst with a bared-teeth expression that might have been a smile, but that somehow put her in mind of a wolf. “I will not allow you to monopolize our fair guest this way. Tell me, Mrs. Pickett, have you seen the cliffside garden? It is widely admired.”

  Although an avid cultivator of roses, Lady Fieldhurst had little interest in the garden at the moment, and even less desire to explore the side of a cliff with Duncan Kirkbride as her escort. Still, courtesy demanded that she allow him to lead her through the French windows and onto the landscaped terrace that sloped toward the cliff’s edge. He stopped before some shrub Lady Fieldhurst could not identify, and ran his fingers through its autumnal foliage.

  “Now what, I wonder, can my Aunt Malcolm have been saying to hold you so enthralled?” Duncan wondered aloud.

  Although Duncan did not appear to expect an answer, Lady Fieldhurst felt compelled to offer some explanation. “We were speaking of your cousin, Miss Kirkbride. She was merely telling me—”

  He raised a hand to silence her. “No, don’t tell me, let me guess. My aunt is an incorrigible gossip, and I have no doubt she was eager to impart the circumstances that led to my uncle’s and cousin’s estrangement.” He made a swift, savage motion with his arm, and a branch broke from the stem with a flurry of yellow leaves. “Did she also tell you that my Cousin Elspeth preferred an illicit tumble in the hay with a stable hand to an honorable marriage with me?”

  CHAPTER 9

  IN WHICH LADY FIELDHURST’S

  PEACE IS QUITE CUT UP

  * * *

  “As you can imagine, I hardly knew where to look when he said that,” recalled Lady Fieldhurst sometime later, when she recounted this scene to Mr. Pickett in the privacy of her bedchamber at the inn. In fact, she hardly knew where to look now, discussing so intimate a subject with a man still flushed and disheveled from sleep. His color was much improved, but he was clad only in shirtsleeves and breeches, and his hair had come loose from its queue and now tumbled to his shoulders in unruly brown waves. Even his bare feet, which she had assured him held no power to move her, now suggested an alarming degree of intimacy in the light of the magistrate’s accusations.

  But Mr. Pickett’s comportment seemed to give the lie to Mr. Colquhoun’s claims, for there was nothing the least lover-like in the Bow Street Runner’s demeanour. Seated in the room’s only straight chair while her ladyship perched on the edge of the rumpled bed, he listened to her tale without interruption, pausing occasionally to make a notation in the small notebook balanced on his knee.

  “Duncan Kirkbride offered no further details?” he asked, looking up from the notebook.

  “No, indeed!” The viscountess shook her head. “In fact, he turned on his heel and left me abandoned and alone in the garden. I should not have had a chance to press him for details, even if I’d had the audacity. It was shockingly rude on his part, but I confess, I was not sorry to see him go. After all, what reply does one make to such a revelation?”

  Pickett, deep in thought, offered no suggestions. “I wonder how I might go about finding this stable hand?”

  “I believe,” said Lady Fieldhurst slowly, “that I saw him just this afternoon. There was an interruption, a man demanding to see Elspeth. Gavin said he used to work in the family’s stables, and fancied himself to have a grudge against the Kirkbrides. Why do you want him? What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking there are few people more qualified to recognize an impostor than a former lover.”

  “I see! You are thinking this stable hand might be able to identify Miss Kirkbride by something only known to someone intimately acquainted with her, such as a telltale birthmark on her—er, her—” Finding herself in deep waters, Lady Fieldhurst lapsed into embarrassed silence.

  Pickett considered this scenario with a serious expression belied by a twinkle in his brown eyes. “An interesting possibility, although we might have difficulty persuading the lady to disrobe for such an examination. No, my lady, I was thinking of something less dramatic. It seems to me that many of the things Miss Kirkbride has ‘remembered’ also would have been known by any number of others: her cousins, her father, even the servants might have known these things and tutored her, if they were inclined to perpetrate a hoax. But lovers, surely, must have secrets known only to one another.”

  Lady Fieldhurst was annoyed to feel her cheeks growing warm, all the more so because there was nothing in Mr. Pickett’s words to provoke her blushes. They were not lovers, after all, nor had they any secrets of an intimate nature. Surely Mr. Colquhoun must be mistaken in believing his protégé to have an unrequited passion for her! Else how could they sit here, having been thrown together in the most awkward of circumstances, two reasonable adults dispassionately debating the love affairs of others with nary so much as a blush between them? Well, scarcely a blush, anyway, amended her ladyship, resisting the urge to open the window and admit the cool evening air into a room grown suddenly warm. It was as if that midnight embrace in Yorkshire had never taken place at all. Indeed, she had all but forgotten it, and she supposed he must have done so as well. And yet as he sat scribbling in his notebook, her gaze dropped to his mouth and she remembered as if it had been only yesterday the feel of his lips on hers, and wondered if he ever thought of it . . .

  He looked up abruptly. “Do you think you could find out?”

  She started guiltily. “I—I beg your pardon?”

  “Do you think you could find out how the stable hand might be reached? Where he lives, or where he is currently employed?”

  “I—I suppose so,” she said, dragging her attention back to the matter at hand. “Although it would be very odd if Mr. Kirk-bride were to cast off his daughter and yet remain in contact with her paramour.”

  He grimaced at the prospect of so abrupt an end to such a promising lead. “True. But the stable hand has obviously kept up with the Kirkbrides over the years, and since he’s apparently the sort who wouldn’t hesitate to force himself on them if need be, it’s always possible that the Kirkbrides have kept a weather eye out for him as well. Perhaps you could find out what became of him, in any case.”

  “I shall try.” Abandoning a losing battle, Lady Fieldhurst rose and crossed the room to throw open the casement, then fetched her portable writing desk from the wardrobe. “Before I forget, here is the sketch you requested.”

  She opened the hinged lid, drew out the single sheet of paper, and handed it to him. He studied it for a long moment.

  “Hmm.” He tapped the corner of the sheet with the end of his pencil. “This is very interesting.”

  “Is it?” the viscountess asked eagerly, far more gratified than the occasion warranted. “What does it tell you?”

  “It tells me,” he said with great deliberation, “th
at Miss Kirkbride’s fingers bear a marked resemblance to the sausages I had for breakfast this morning.”

  Lady Fieldhurst tried to be offended, and failed. “Well, I did warn you,” she retorted, laughing.

  “In all seriousness, my lady, this is very good. God knows I am no connoisseur, but I can almost see her in my mind—” He looked up at her abruptly. “Tell me, my lady, what color is Miss Kirkbride’s hair? Is she fair?”

  “No, she is dark, like the rest of the family. Why do you ask?”

  He gave his head a shake, as if trying to banish an image. “No reason. It was—nothing.”

  “It is not easy to convey color with only charcoal,” Lady Fieldhurst said apologetically, feeling she had somehow failed him. “I could try to do a watercolor, but I haven’t any paints.”

  “You’re very kind, my lady, but that won’t be necessary.” He looked down at the sketch again. “It just seemed familiar somehow, as if I had witnessed the scene myself. Impossible, I know.”

  “It was probably that Edward’s pose was so very like,” the viscountess suggested with a mischievous smile.

  “No doubt that was it.” His answering smile quickly faded. “I wish I could at least see the people I’m supposed to be investigating. In the absence of first-hand observation, my mind supplies images that may have nothing in common with the originals. When I looked at your sketch, I could have sworn Miss Kirk-bride would be blonde.”

  Lady Fieldhurst pondered this problem for a long moment. “There might be a way,” she said slowly. “Mr. Kirkbride is hosting a ball tomorrow night to celebrate his daughter’s return. Harold and I have been invited, as has your Mr. Colquhoun.”

  This suggestion found no favor with Mr. Pickett. “Unless it is to be a costume ball, I fail to see how—”

  “No, no, hear me out! Although I would give much to see you don fancy dress in the line of duty—I suspect you would make a very dashing cavalier, or perhaps a medieval knight—I regret to say it is not a costume ball. Still, there are French windows overlooking the terrace, and a high boxwood hedge from which you might watch the festivities unobserved.”

  Pickett regarded her with a skeptical eye. “And I suppose Mr. Kirkbride’s butler will usher me onto the terrace himself, and install me in the place that offers the best view for spying undetected.”

  “No, but you might easily reach the terrace yourself by way of the path that runs up the cliff from the beach. You will be in no danger of falling,” she assured him quickly, anticipating his next objection, “for the moon is at the full, and the path should be quite visible in the moonlight.”

  “And how am I to know who I am spying upon? You forget, I have never seen any of the parties involved. I wouldn’t know Miss Kirkbride from Queen Charlotte.”

  “As Queen Charlotte will not be in attendance, her identity need not concern you,” retorted Lady Fieldhurst. “The ball begins at nine o’clock. If you will give me an hour to say all that is proper to the Kirkbrides and their guests, I shall slip away and join you for a few minutes, just long enough to point out the principal players.”

  He frowned. “Surely your presence would be missed, my lady.” He added in a curiously flat voice, “Once the dancing starts, I am sure you will be in great demand as a partner.”

  “You forget, Mr. Pickett, that I am in mourning,” she reminded him. “No one will expect me to dance—indeed, they would be very much shocked if I were to do so! In fact, you will be rescuing me from languishing against the wall with the dowagers. I should stand in your debt.”

  He tapped his pencil against the notebook as he considered the matter. “It might work,” he said at last. “I shall have to clear it with Mr. Colquhoun, of course, but I think it might work.”

  He rose from his chair and began to gather his discarded clothing, presumably to go in search of the magistrate.

  “Excellent! I shall meet you on the terrace at ten o’clock, then. If you wish, I shall bring you a plate of refreshments and a glass of champagne.”

  “You are very kind, my lady, but you’d best leave off the champagne.”

  “Are you not allowed to imbibe while on duty, then?”

  He regarded her with a rueful smile. “No, my lady, but I might develop a taste for things above my touch, and that would never do.”

  Feeling her face grow suddenly warm, Lady Fieldhurst moved to open the window, and realized it was already open. “Things,” he had said. Not “something,” but “things,” in the plural. To what else might he have been referring? Could it possibly be herself? If that was indeed what he was implying, it would appear Mr. Colquhoun might have been nearer to the truth than she had cared to admit.

  And the worst of it was that she hardly knew whether to be sorry or glad.

  “Not ‘my lady,’ but ‘Julia,’ ” she scolded, hating the unsteadiness in her voice. “If I were really your wife, you wouldn’t call me ‘my lady’!”

  “No,” he said, his expression unreadable. “If you were really my wife, I would call you my lady.”

  Oh, dear. It appeared that Mr. Colquhoun might have been wide of the mark after all. For as she watched Mr. Pickett tying back his hair with its crumpled black ribbon, it occurred to her to wonder precisely who was toying with whom.

  CHAPTER 10

  IN WHICH JOHN PICKETT MAKES

  A SURPRISING DISCOVERY

  * * *

  On the following evening, Lady Fieldhurst arrayed herself in the black satin gown she had worn to Theatre Royal in Drury Lane on the night that had led to her banishment to Scotland. While this garment’s short train made it more suitable for dinner or the theatre than for a ball, she was, as she had informed Mr. Pickett, prohibited from dancing in any case. It was one of the more chafing aspects of being obliged to mourn a husband whose absence provoked only relief and a bewildering sense of freedom. Once, in her mad youth, she had loved to dance, until she had quite unexpectedly captured the interest of the Viscount Fieldhurst, and innocent pleasure had soon given way to awe and a dread of displeasing. Sometimes those days seemed so far away it was as if they had happened to another person, a young girl who no longer existed.

  Banishing these melancholy thoughts, she summoned the innkeeper’s daughter to dress her hair. The girl had an unexpected talent with curling tongs, and by the time she finished her work and stepped back to allow Lady Fieldhurst to examine the results in the small looking-glass over the wash stand, her ladyship’s spirits were quite lifted. Her unhappy marriage was in the past, and however uncertain her future might be, for the moment she was still young and attractive, and her unlikely partnership with Mr. Pickett gave her a sense of purpose she had never until quite recently realized that she lacked.

  When a knock sounded on the door, she felt a pleasant frisson of anticipation, which evaporated when the innkeeper’s daughter opened the door to reveal Harold standing there holding a slightly rumpled cravat.

  “I can’t get the dashed thing tied,” he grumbled, giving poor Betsy nothing more than a distracted nod as that damsel curtsied and took herself blushing and giggling from the room. “I never thought I would miss having old Harvey to valet for me! He’s a sour old stick-in-the-mud, but by Jove, he can turn out a Waterfall or even an Oriental in style.”

  “But what about the cravat you wore this morning, or yesterday, or the day before?” Lady Fieldhurst pointed out. “You contrived to tie them all by yourself.”

  “Those old things?” Harold gave a snort of derision. “Why, those were nothing but a cravate à la Colin! They were acceptable for day wear, but for a ball a fellow wants something with a bit more dash.”

  The late Lord Fieldhurst had refused to let anyone, valet or wife, disturb him while he tied his own cravat, so Lady Fieldhurst’s knowledge of men’s neckwear was for all practical purposes nonexistent. “I’m afraid I can’t help you,” she told him. “Perhaps you should go next door and see if Mr. Pickett can offer some assistance.”

  This suggestion found no favor with
Harold. “Mr. Pickett? Why, his cravat is hardly more than an overhand knot!”

  Lady Fieldhurst frowned. “It is true that Mr. Pickett does not aspire to the heights of fashion—I daresay he lacks the funds to follow such a pursuit, even had he the inclination—but his appearance is never less than pleasing.” Seeing Harold was not convinced, she added, “It is only a country ball, so anything as elaborate as an Oriental would only make you appear gauche.”

  “Perhaps that magistrate, Mr. Colquhoun, could help,” Harold said, brightening at his own stroke of brilliance. “I shall go ask him at once!”

  In the light of Mr. Colquhoun’s disapproval, Lady Fieldhurst was extremely reluctant to stand in the magistrate’s debt any more than was absolutely necessary, but since she could think of no other suggestion that might find favor in Harold’s eyes, she had no alternative but to watch as he left the room, determined to put this plan into action.

  Apparently Mr. Colquhoun did not disappoint, for when Lady Fieldhurst descended the stairs some quarter-hour later, she found Harold awaiting her there, his cravat tied in a tasteful and age-appropriate Sentimentale knot, which showed only the faintest of creases from his earlier attempts.

  “Very dashing,” she said, smiling her approval. “I hope you remembered to thank the magistrate for his assistance.”

  “Oh, yes,” Harold assured her. “In fact, we have something else to thank him for, as well. He has procured the innkeeper’s trap to convey the three of us to the ball. It isn’t a natty rig by any means, but it’s better than having to go on foot.”