To Wed an Heiress

by Rosanne E. Lortz

  “Mr. Hastings roared something at him about not being a gentleman. And then they quieted down. I waited a few minutes and knocked to deliver the pastie. His lordship was just leaving as I went in.”

  Pevensey reflected that the story confirmed what Hastings had told him. The earl had decided that morning to jilt the mill owner’s daughter. But it still did not tell him why he was jilting her. And the answer to that question might be of crucial significance in this case, for even if the earl turned out to be innocent of Miss Hastings’ death, Pevensey had a hunch that the relationship between the two was still the prime mover which had set the event in motion.

  “One more question for you,” said Pevensey, “before I go back to the servants’ hall to interview the downstairs servants. Have you ever heard Lord Anglesford shout at anyone before, the way he shouted at Hastings?”

  “No,” said the footman, with a pause. “Come to think of it, I never have.”

  ***

  “Time for your nap,” Eda said, as Great-Uncle Harold’s eyes began to droop.

  “Nonsense, my dear!” said Uncle Harold, but before many more minutes passed, he was snoring away in the chair by the fire in the garret.

  Eda took the time to brown another piece of toast for herself, munched on it thoughtfully, and then put another log on the fire to ensure that Uncle Harold stayed warm. She wandered aimlessly down the stairs from the attic.

  At the door of the music room she paused. She thought about playing some Mozart on the pianoforte but realized that those sunny scale passages cascading through the house would be too heartless, even for someone who had despised Arabella as much as she had. Her lips compressed into a firm line. In life, Arabella had threatened to destroy the spirit of Woldwick, and now, even in death, she was still casting a pall over the place.

  Throughout the last week, Eda had never thought any further than how to get Arabella’s claws out of Haro. She had not realized that those claws would leave marks, some of them so deep that perhaps they would never heal. But then, it all depended on the outcome of this investigation.

  She descended the main staircase down to the morning room, pulled out her paper and began to sketch. It was a face she knew by heart she had sketched it so many times. But she had never before sketched it like this, lips slightly parted, eyes filled with intense longing…what was it he had been about to say, standing before the mantel in the drawing room?

  Her head bowed low over the paper, and her black hair, half of it unpinned, fell forward over her shoulders, framing the whiteness of her long neck.

  The door opened, and Jacob Pevensey sauntered in unannounced as if he were a houseguest or a member of the family. Eda sat up sharply, dropped her pencil, and turned over the paper to conceal the drawing. “How can I help you, sir?”

  “Oh, please! Stay seated, miss,” said the Bow Street Runner, in a tone that he had doubtless cultivated to soothe the nerves of gentlewomen. But Eda was not taken in. He had come to ask questions, and she must be careful what answers she gave. She knew the general impression led to suspicion of Haro, so whatever she said must cast doubt on the general impression.

  “I’ve just come from interviewing the servants.”

  “All of them?” Eda’s eyebrows raised. He had only been here a couple of hours. Either the man was incompetent at questioning or a very efficient investigator.

  “The ones that mattered,” said Pevensey smugly. Eda was reminded of how much she had always disliked red-haired men.

  “Do I matter enough to be interviewed?”

  “But of course! Is there even a question of that?”

  Eda supposed that a serving maid would have blushed at that or simpered coyly. She would give him no such satisfaction. If he dared to try to kiss her hand, as it looked like he might, she would box his ears!

  “What are you drawing?”

  She placed her hands protectively over the reverse side of the paper. “Is this part of the interview?”

  “Just a question from one artist to another.”

  Such familiarity was not to be borne! Eda looked at the Runner coldly. “My sketches are private.”

  “All except the one you gave as a gift to Miss Hastings?”

  Eda’s mouth fell open. “Who told you about that?”

  “The second footman.”

  She forced her mouth to close. It had never occurred to her that the servants would take an interest in her rivalry with the mill owner’s daughter. But now that she thought about it properly, it was only natural for them to gossip about it below stairs.

  “It was a picture of Monsieur Bayeux, the architect, wasn’t it?”

  It seemed that he already knew as much. “Yes.”

  “Now that is curious. Why would you give the young lady a picture of Monsieur Bayeux? Surely, it would be more usual to give a picture of your cousin, her fiancé, for her to treasure?”

  She had thought that this freckle-faced investigator could not penetrate her defenses, but at the idea of giving Arabella a keepsake picture of Haro, every sense revolted!

  “I thought,” she said, swallowing hard, “that she would prefer the picture of Monsieur Bayeux, seeing as how they had been previously acquainted.”

  “Acquainted?” Pevensey’s ears perked up. Apparently, this piece of information was not one that he had already learned from the servants. “How so?”

  “Oh, you’ll have to ask him,” replied Eda breezily, having completely recovered her composure and preparing to lead the Runner down another path. “He had drawn up some plans for her father in the past, but I think there was more to it than that.” She looked up at him through her dark eyelashes. “I’m sure you know what I mean.”

  Pevensey tapped his nose in a knowing manner. “Certainly, certainly. I’ll discuss the matter with Monsieur Bayeux. And for now, I have just one more question to put to you, Miss Swanycke.”

  Eda pursed her lips. “Yes?”

  “What were you doing yesterday morning when the sad event occurred?”

  “Why, I suppose I was in my room, sketching.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes,”—she looked him directly in the eyes—“quite alone.”

  ***

  Jacob Pevensey shut the door to his garret room. Mrs. Alfred had done her best to find him a comfortable place to stay, but he was used to the awkwardness attending his position where he was not quite a servant and not quite a guest of the family.

  The afternoon and evening had passed quickly for him, though rather more slowly, he imagined, for those waiting to be interrogated. He had spoken to most of the servants and learned some very curious things about the more genteel inmates of the house.

  He flipped through his sketchbook. There was a picture of Miss Swanycke—or at least, the closest rendering he could make of Miss Swanycke—striking Miss Hastings across the face. The scullery maid, who was not overly fond of Miss Hastings, had taken great pleasure in describing the scene. She was not certain why the slap had happened, although she was absolutely certain it was for good reason. It seems that the mill owner’s daughter had leaned in to whisper something just before the vengeful slap had been administered. Pevensey would give a pretty penny to have been a blue-bottle fly on the wall close enough to hear what words had antagonized the Irish captain’s daughter.

  He turned another page in the sketchbook. There was the second footman opening the door for a haughty young woman in a modish pelisse. Pevensey had added the hall clock into this picture, with the hour hand set at eight o’clock but the minute hand missing entirely. Apparently Mademoiselle Mathilde was not the only servant who paid little heed to the time, for the second footman could only give him the roughest approximation of when he had opened the door to allow Miss Hastings egress from the house.

  He turned the page again. Here was a horse being led out of a shadowy stable with a lantern casting its rays into the stable yard. The groom, even though he had no clock on him, had a sharp eye for his surroundings. The sun had just
been peeping over the tree line when he had led out a saddled horse for Monsieur Bayeux to ride to the village…or, at least, the village was the destination he had claimed.

  Pevensey pursed his lips and rubbed his chin with a pensive thumb and forefinger. This put Bayeux outside the house before Miss Hastings had stepped out the door, with easy opportunity to meet her at the icy bridge. According to Miss Swanycke, there had been something between the two of them, an attraction, at least on Bayeux’s side—and seeing as how Miss Hastings had engaged herself to another man, the attraction had most probably not been reciprocated….

  Unless, of course, they were star-crossed lovers, with Miss Hastings having been coerced into the betrothal by her pater familias. Pevensey snorted. That was a possibility that could not be dismissed. It was apparent to any close observer that the mill owner would have sacrificed the feelings of his offspring if there were any consequence to be gained by doing so.

  Pevensey unbuttoned his waistcoat and loosened his cravat. He sat down on the green brocade coverlet that lay across the bed and began to remove his boots. William Hastings’ valet and Lady Anglesford’s lady’s maid had provided little information that he did not already know, but the important players were still holding their cards.

  He must not neglect interviewing the architect on the morrow, although he suspected that the most helpful indicators in that area of the field would come not from Bayeux himself, but from the others he had not yet interviewed—the earl, his mother, his brother, and the downtrodden companion Mrs. Rollo.

  21

  “I say!” said Torin, chewing a hearty mouthful of breakfast while voicing his complaint. “That fellow Pevensey never came and spoke to me yesterday. Nor mother either!” He was seated at the end of the table with Haro and Eda on either side. It was a family gathering to discuss the state of affairs, missing only Lady Anglesford who had chosen to take breakfast in her room.

  “He avoided me as well,” said Haro, his broad shoulders obscuring the entire back of the small chair. He tried to hide his own annoyance. It would be an unpleasant interview—he was sure of it—and he wanted nothing more than to have it over with.

  Eda, warming her white hands on the sides of her teacup, gave an arch smile. “I am the favored one then, for he interviewed me just before teatime.”

  “Oh?” said Torin, a hint of jealousy in his tone. “And what did he ask you?”

  “This and that,” she replied mysteriously and took a sip of her tea. “He brought up that ridiculous sketch, and I put him on the trail of Monsieur Bayeux.”

  Haro flushed as Eda mentioned the sketch, remembering the whole awkward episode and the trouble it had brought.

  “Well done!” said Torin. “And, as I’ve said before, it was probably Bayeux that did it.”

  “Now, now!” said Haro, coming to the architect’s defense. “You don’t know that.” He could not help but feel a great deal of compassion for the man, alone with his sorrow and his bottle of Blue Ruin.

  “Why are you defending him?” demanded Torin. “He’s a complete stranger to all of us—shows up at the house without an invitation and starts planning to knock down walls and set up columns in the courtyard. Eda says he told her all about how he was ‘in love’ with your intended. That alone ought to make you suspicious of him. No doubt when she refused to reciprocate his advances, his temper got the better of him and he—”

  “Enough!” said Haro, raising a hand to halt the conversation. “I believe Mr. Pevensey is the one in charge of gathering and sifting through the evidence. We’ll let him decide who to cry rope on.”

  “All right, all right then,” said Torin with a sniff. “But if that Runner deigns to speak with me today, I shan’t give the Frenchman a glowing character reference.” He wolfed down a few more bites of sausage. “Did you give him an alibi for your whereabouts, Eda?”

  The black-haired woman set down her teacup with nonchalance. “No. I left things very vague. Told him I was all alone, sketching in my room or doing some such thing.” She smiled provocatively at Haro.

  The earl closed his eyes. Was she doing this purposely to vex him?

  Torin tsked. “That was silly of you, Eda. But we can at least hope that he hasn’t heard of your drawing room duel.”

  “Oh, yes. He most certainly has. It is much talked of downstairs.”

  Haro began to massage his own temples. Really this whole thing would be easier if he just locked Eda in her room for the duration of the investigation. That taradiddle about the twisted ankle might come in useful to explain why she must keep to her bed. He lifted his thumbs gently away from his temples.

  “Headache?” Eda enquired. “Shall I ring for Cook to send up some chamomile?”

  Haro opened his eyes. “I hardly think chamomile will be of sufficient strength to cope with the problems you keep creating.”

  “The problems I keep creating?” Her voice was indignant. “If I recall correctly, it was you who invited the Hastings here in the first place, and you who betrothed yourself to that trollop!”

  Haro pushed his chair away from the table and stood up sternly. “Trollop? I don’t recall Arabella being the one pushing her way into gentlemen’s bedr—”

  Torin cleared his throat loudly. There, standing in the frame of the open French door was the Bow Street Runner who had precipitated this conversation with his presence at Woldwick.

  ***

  “Good morning, my lord!” Jacob Pevensey nodded to Haro and bowed with a flourish to them all. “If Mr. Torin Emison would be so obliging, I would greatly enjoy having a word with him this morning.”

  “Well, it’s about time,” said Torin, but he did not get up from his seat.

  Eda, her face as pink as a carnation, looked down at her half-empty teacup.

  Haro abandoned his chair altogether and walked over to the window to scrutinize the frozen fog that was billowing out of the trees. He stole a glance at Eda and saw that she was too mortified to speak. How had he let the conversation spiral into accusations of that kind?

  The Runner was still standing there, smiling and staring.

  Haro cut through the silence. “And will you be needing me anytime soon, Mr. Pevensey?”

  “All in good time, my lord,” said Pevensey smoothly. “I suppose you could say I like to save the best for last.”

  “I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean in this case,” said Haro, trying his best not to stiffen at the remark. He looked over at his brother. “But since Torin refuses to relinquish his breakfast, then perhaps we’d best relinquish the room to you for his interrogation.”

  Walking over to Eda’s chair, Haro slid it back to help her rise. Then, taking her arm, he led her out of the room, down the hallway, and into the library.

  A fire was burning in the fireplace, casting a warm glow over the parquet floor. The backs of two high wingback chairs shielded them from some of the heat from the flames, but even so, it was markedly warmer in this room than it had been in the hallway.

  The library door had no sooner closed than Eda raised her hand, ready to strike. But Haro had anticipated the motion and caught her wrist between his own fingers. Eda’s left hand attempted another attack, but Haro caught that and pinioned it as well.

  “How dare you!” she hissed. Her dark blue eyes blazed.

  “May I remind you that you said the word trollop first!”

  “Yes, well…not in reference to myself.”

  “It’s not very charitable to speak ill of the dead.”

  “I never claimed charitableness as one of my better qualities.”

  Haro loosened his grip. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You’ve been charitable enough not to cast my mistakes up in my face…until just a moment ago, and in front of that Bow Street Runner, to boot.”

  He dropped his hold on her wrists, but he still stood directly in front of her, his face no more than a hand’s breadth from hers.

  “Well, if it’s any comfort,”—she put a small white hand on the
lapel of his jacket—“I’m sure my little outburst only served to prove to him that I’m a jealous virago, capable of committing any crime to steal back the man she loves.”

  Haro held his breath and tried to keep his tone jovial. “Oh, so you’re in love with me still, are you?”

  Eda’s eyelids dropped demurely, and her hand slid off his lapel onto the white muslin of his shirt front. “It adds a pleasant touch to the story, don’t you think?”

  “A very pleasant touch indeed.” Haro’s heart was threatening to leap outside of his chest.

  He reached out his right hand, ever so slowly and was just about to place it on the curve of her face when a loud sniff came from the recesses of one of the wingback chairs. With one swift, guilty motion, they both sprang apart.

  Eda clapped her hand over her mouth and, motioning to Haro to follow her, tiptoed toward the door handle. The earl was no more than a step behind, and before half a minute had passed, they were back in the hallway on the other side of the library door. With tacit consent, they darted towards the main staircase and only stopped once they had put a flight of stairs between themselves and the mysterious eavesdropper in the wingback chair.

  “Who was that?” demanded Eda, breathless, leaning on the banister. “William Hastings?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Haro. “He would have been thundering away at us the moment we started talking.”

  “Philippe Bayeux then?”

  “Maybe….” said Haro. He would not have expected the Frenchman to sniff like that.

  “If Mr. Pevensey were not with your brother, I would almost say it was him. He seems to have a penchant for surprising us.”

  “Dashed annoying of him, don’t you think?” said Haro lightly. This last interruption was more than annoying—it was downright infuriating.

  “Now, now, Lord Anglesford.” Eda took on a tone of mock reproof. “I must remind you to watch your language in front of a lady.”

  “Oh, is that what you are calling yourself now? I beg your pardon!” Haro grinned. He had forgotten how much he loved sparring with Eda; it sharpened his mind and magnified his mirth—and made the sentimental exchanges Arabella had been so fond of all the more cloying.