But clear as a church bell he heard Felicia’s voice in his head. ‘No matter how desperate the winter, there is always a spring of warm sunshine and bluebells in the woods, and then high summer and poppies in the fields.’ He smiled. There would be difficulties, naturally, for no marriage was all plain sailing and smooth seas, but he loved her and she loved him, she said, so they would weather the storms together.
“—not listened to a word I have said!” Drusilla said indignantly.
He smiled even more widely as he turned to face her, biting back the acid riposte that spring effortlessly to his lips. He would be civil, if only for Felicia’s sake. “I beg your pardon, but a man deep in love is surely permitted a degree of inattention, do you not think?”
Drusilla goggled at him. “You are insane. If you think this jumped-up—”
“No,” he said quietly, holding up one hand. “You will not say one word of insult against Felicia. She is not from a great family but she is sensible and quick-minded and generous and well-mannered, and will not disgrace the family name in any company.”
She looked at him thoughtfully, and for the first time, the pacing stopped, although she did not deign to sit down. “I say nothing against her person or her manners,” she said, with a lift of one shoulder. “She is a little too impertinent, perhaps, and not nearly humble enough, but I say nothing to that. I will readily admit that her influence on you has been beneficial, and at least with a few new gowns and jewels she will look the part. But her birth and her lack of connections cannot be overlooked. You will both be cast out of all good society.”
“Only the highest sticklers will object to the Countess of Finlassan, Drusilla, whatever her origins, and I care nothing for the good opinion of such people. Aunt Isabella and Aunt Geraldine will present her at court—”
“The Queen will not receive her!”
“Well, if she will not, so be it. I should like Felicia to be treated with the respect her position deserves when she is my wife, but it is of no consequence. We shall be content to live quietly here.”
“You are determined to do this, then?” Drusilla said. “No residue of good sense remains to you?”
“Sister, whom would you have me marry?” he said. “Some grand lady of fashion with a noble family and a large dowry, or a woman who makes my heart sing with joy?”
Drusilla had no answer to that.
Dinner that evening promised to be lively. Fin’s hastily scribbled note to Arnwell — ‘Have brought Felicia back. We are to be married. Come for dinner tonight. Finlassan.’ — had borne fruit, for the marquess’s carriage arrived precisely half an hour before the prescribed time for dinner. He greeted Felicia with affectionate pleasure, and congratulated the betrothed pair with many felicitations. Drusilla could not be excluded, naturally, and Juliana and Margarita were there with their governesses. The two girls were wildly excited to see Felicia again, then apologetic about the supposed insult to their new governesses, then even more excited to learn that Felicia and Fin were to marry.
One other attendee insisted on being present at dinner. Hercules was so excited to see Felicia again when she visited him in his quarters behind the stables that he howled piteously when she attempted to leave, and thereafter clung tenaciously to her side, even in the drawing room. He was so thrilled to see the marquess there as well, his two favourite people in the entire world, that Fin suspected the poor creature thought he had died and been transported to dog heaven.
“This is all the thanks I get for my efforts to walk him while you were away,” he said to Felicia. “He cares nothing for me, I can see. “
She only laughed at him. “You are jealous, I declare,” she said. “Just because he loves me best.”
He tried to think of a suitable response to that — after all, he loved her best too, and there should be some riposte to be found there — but he always grew tongue-tied when she looked at him in that mischievous, teasing way, and the words would not form themselves.
There was one other guest. Shortly before the signal to dress for dinner, Fin had found Felicia at his desk in the sitting room, head down, industriously engaged in some book work.
“Why are you in here? You have a sitting room of your own, you know.”
“There is no paper or ink there yet, and besides, in this room I am surrounded by your paintings. Do you mind?”
She smiled at him and he could only shake his head. So strange the effect she had on him, reducing him to quivering muteness. With an effort, he cleared his throat and said, “What are you doing?”
“Greek translation. This is a… well, I am not sure what it is, journal or fictional account or history, it is hard to say. It was written by Miss Armiger in Ancient Greek, and I am working on a translation in case it contains anything of relevance to me.”
“Of your parents, you mean?” She nodded, and he picked up the notebook that lay on the desk. “This is the journal? You have not got very far.”
“My Greek is very bad. I have to interpret every word with the primer, and half the words are not there or seem to mean something different. It is very hard.”
“Cotham is something of a Greek scholar. Should you like him to translate it for you?”
She smiled with relief, and it occurred to him that she was remarkably easy to please. A note was dashed off to Cotham inviting him to dinner, and informing him of the task required of him. He arrived promptly, full of effusive gratitude. Another one who was easy to please.
“I hope you will not think the price too high when you begin work on the volume,” Fin said to him. “It was written by the lady who raised Miss Oakes, and it may reveal some clues to her history, so you may appreciate her interest in the matter.”
“I shall be most happy to do whatever I can to oblige Miss Oakes in the matter,” Cotham said with one of his low bows.
Fin could not remember a pleasanter evening, not for years. Felicia sat beside him and he was allowed to pay her as much attention as he liked and no one could object, for they were betrothed now. Drusilla grumbled that the ladies outnumbered the gentlemen, but Fin could not care about such trivia. The girls and their governesses disappeared after the tea tray, but Fin, Arnwell, Drusilla and the curate made up a four for whist. Felicia sat distractingly close to Fin, saying little but watching the play and listening to the conversation with a tiny smile, as if everything pleased her.
It was gone midnight before Arnwell began to tire and the party broke up. As soon as the door had closed behind the departing guests, Bagnall coughed discreetly.
“Beg pardon, my lord, but there is a gentleman to see you in the library.”
“At this hour? What sort of a gentleman?”
“One who wishes to speak to you most urgently, my lord. Alone,” he added, with a significant glance at Felicia.
She took the hint, and bade Fin a shy good night. In a well-regulated world, she should not, of course, be living under the same roof as her betrothed, but Felicia’s world had never been well-regulated, and where else could she go? He would not, under any circumstances, send her off to have her mind poisoned by Drusilla. Besides, they would be married very soon, as soon as he could obtain a licence, he hoped, and then it would hardly matter. He watched her disappearing with light feet up the stairs, and had a rush of longing to see her dance. She was made for dancing, his Felicia!
With reluctance, he tore his eyes from her retreating form and turned towards the library. When Bagnall threw open the door, he was astonished to see the familiar face of Godfrey Buckley. He was seated at a small table, enjoying what looked like a substantial supper, a decanter of wine to hand. He rose at once and came forward with a seriousness in his gaze that Fin had never seen before. Impossible to say what that portended.
“Buckley?”
“My lord, I abjectly beg your pardon for disturbing you at this unholy hour, but the matter is of some urgency, given your news. My felicitations on your betrothal, my lord, but it is of Miss Oakes that I must speak t
o you, for I believe she may be in the gravest danger.”
Fin had reached for the brandy but now his hand stilled. “Immediate danger? Should I remove her from here at once? Post footmen outside her door?”
“She is on an upper floor? Then a footman would be sufficient.”
Fin gave the orders to Bagnall, who loitered with dignified curiosity outside the door, and then poured himself a large brandy. “Finish your supper, Buckley, and then you may tell your tale. I am not minded for sleep yet, so you may take your time over it.”
“You are very understanding, my lord.” He neatly ate the rest of a pheasant, then pushed his plate away with a sigh. “You have an excellent cook, my lord.”
“You had better stop this ‘my lord’ business, since you will be a marquess one day. Call me Finlassan.”
Buckley nodded an acknowledgement, although his eyes were wary, as if he expected Fin to withdraw that authority. He refilled his wine glass and turned back to Fin. “I have had the great good fortune to be invited to stay at Cottersmere Court this summer as a guest of the earl and the Dulnain family, and so I was present when Lord Cottersmere received your letter requesting his assistance regarding the ancestry of Miss Oakes. Her similarity of appearance to the Lady Olivia Dulnain is very striking, so an unorthodox connection to the family is a reasonable suggestion. The letter surmised that Miss Oakes might be connected to Sir Royston, who was also a guest. Sir Royston denied any responsibility and since he has a number of known by-blows, it seems unlikely that he would repudiate just this one.”
“He does not like public reminders of his adventures, by all I have heard,” Fin said, swirling the brandy around his glass.
“True enough, but he always takes care of them. No woman ever starved because she was got with child by him. A cottage somewhere, an annuity… he is not ungenerous, but once dealt with he dislikes to have the child flung back in his face, that is all. Everything tidied up neatly. If Miss Oakes were his child, he would have taken considerably better care of her, you may be sure.”
“Very well, then. Not him. Could there be anyone else in the family who might have sired her? It does not matter two pennies to me who her father was, but it matters to her, and I would set her mind at rest if I could.”
“Indeed, but Lord Cottersmere is also confident that no one on his side of the family is responsible. But I believe I may solve this seeming riddle. I cannot be sure, you understand… there is no proof, but it is my sincere belief that Miss Oakes is in truth the Lady Edwina Buckley.”
“Who the devil is Lady Edwina Buckley?” And then he realised… “One of Arnwell’s daughters? But… they all died in the fire!”
“No. The two youngest survived.”
Fin jumped to his feet. “Impossible! You are insane, Buckley, and I will not have you telling Felicia such a story and raising her hopes. I have seen what remains of that part of the house and there is nothing but ashes. No one could have survived. Arnwell himself was dragged out half dead. I will not listen to any more of your lies!
“They did not all die, believe me, and may God strike me down if I lie! The two babes survived and were smuggled to safety. They did not all die!”
27: Revelations
Fin took a long draught of brandy, then refilled his glass and took another. Was it possible? Two events, equally implausible — that some of Arnwell’s children had survived, and that Felicia was one of them. Either one stretched credibility, but for both to happen was akin to throwing a dozen double sixes in a row with the dice. Yet what could Buckley have to gain by such a story?
“Explain,” he said.
“I can tell you little of the night of the fire,” Buckley began. “I was but five years of age, and so my knowledge has come to me from two persons — my father and my aunt. Both were at Shotterbourne that night and—”
Fin frowned. “Both? Your aunt was there, of course, to attend Lady Lucia, but I understood that your father was barred from the estate after he tried to claim the title.”
“True enough. He was forbidden ever to set foot in Shotterbourne again. Nevertheless, there are always ways of effecting entry. Unlocked gates, easily-climbed walls, bribeable lodge-keepers… He never revealed to me how he got in, but he told me he was there and that the fire was a terrible accident… that something went wrong.”
“It started accidentally?” Fin said. “Or it was begun deliberately and got out of hand?”
“I never got a clear answer on that point. You must understand that Father told me nothing of this until I was almost an adult, and to be frank, in his later years he was seldom sober and grew increasingly muddled, so it was hard to make out the truth. But there was one other point— he said that, despite appearances, I should never inherit Shotterbourne or the marquessate, that the heir yet lived but was hidden away for safety. He never attempted to explain what the great risk was, or why it was such a secret that no one spoke of it, and perhaps it was no more than a figment of his disordered mind. Sometimes it seemed to me that he even thought that he had won his own claim to the title and was himself Lord Arnwell, so I took little notice of much that he said, but the idea lingered in my mind, naturally. The world believed me to be the heir presumptive, but it might not be so.”
“You did not think to ask your aunt about the matter?”
“My father was not on good terms with her, and I did not care to go against his wishes. Besides, it would be resolved one way or another when Lord Arnwell should die. Either another heir would appear… or not. I was content to await events.”
“While living in the style of a future marquess, no doubt,” Fin growled.
Buckley laughed. “Oh, if only I could have done so! But I received not a penny from Lord Arnwell, and my father was almost destitute.”
Fin grunted, not convinced, but said nothing, and Buckley continued his story.
“Two years ago, my father died and in sorting through his papers I discovered correspondence from my aunt which suggested that she knew something of the matter, and I felt compelled to make an approach to her to find out what she knew. At first she denied it, telling me that all the children had died, but then… Now I must come to Miss Oakes and yet another apology, for I have treated her abominably, I freely acknowledge it.”
“You have indeed,” Fin said coldly. “You thought her an heiress, and saw an opportunity.”
Mr Buckley had the grace to look abashed. “You are aware of my circumstances, that my father all but ruined the estate with his foolish attempt to wrest the title away from Lord Arnwell, and took no steps to improve his position after, beyond drinking and gaming his way to an early grave. I have had to retrench greatly, and would have gone under had it not been for the tolerance of my banker.”
“Who believed you to be heir to a fortune,” Fin said.
“He did, and I was unable to disabuse him of the idea, for I was constrained by my own uncertainty as to the position. Even if it were true that the children had survived the fire, there was no guarantee that they still lived. Oswald was a mere babe at the time, and there are many perils in the world. But then Miss Oakes arrived, looking so like Lady Olivia, and all her circumstances consistent with the missing Edwina, even the day of her birth. At once my aunt suspected it, and confessed that she had known all along that the two youngest children had survived, by some unknown means. Thus she created her plot. I was to court and win Miss Oakes, who would then be revealed as the heiress to Lord Arnwell’s unentailed fortune, which is considerably more than the entailed portion.”
“A risky strategy,” Fin said. “Arnwell hates the Buckleys so profoundly that he is perfectly capable of cutting his daughter out of his will.”
“So I argued, too, but Aunt Edith had an answer to that. Presently the unentailed fortune is willed to a natural daughter the marquess has somewhere. There is not a judge in the land who would agree to overlook a legitimate daughter in favour of a illegitimate one, so Miss Oakes need only contest the will to have her fortune. If
the son survives, he would have the small entailed properties, and I would have the larger part, and if he does not, I would have everything. That was the plan, but…”
“She would not have you,” Fin cried. “She saw through you!”
“Not quite,” Buckley said, smiling. “Naturally I was tempted, for who would not be? Lord Finlassan, you of all people must surely understand why I was drawn to Miss Oakes. I should explain, perhaps… but I should not mention— No, let me be honest, for it may make my actions more understandable, if not excusable. My affections and hopes have long lain with the Lady Olivia Dulnain. Since Miss Oakes is, in looks, so very similar to Olivia, it seemed to me that it would not be a difficulty to transfer my affections from one to the other. Miss Oakes is very easy to like, as you will surely agree, but there is something so open and artless about her that it smote my conscience powerfully to so deceive her.”
“She does have that effect on people,” Fin conceded, with a rueful smile.
Buckley smiled too. “Indeed. When it came to the point, I found that I could not propose marriage to her, and very likely she would not have accepted me anyway. I took myself out of her life, and made my hopes known openly to Lord Cottersmere, who invited me to Cottersmere Court to get to know Olivia better. Thus it was that I was there when your letter arrived two days ago, revealing that you were to marry Miss Oakes. That made it imperative to inform you of these suspicions at the earliest moment. I may be mistaken in this and Miss Oakes may have nothing to do with Lord Arnwell, but if there is any possibility of it, you must know of it.”
“And Arnwell, too,” Fin said. “But Felicia… it would be a cruelty to raise her hopes and tell her that she has a father, a home, a family and yet find out that there is nothing to it. How can it be proved, one way or another? To start with, how does your aunt know that two of the children survived yet Arnwell clearly believes them to be dead?”
The Painter Page 28
