“Then I suggest you prepare to travel to Greenly at week’s end, for I cannot like to harbour unsavouries of your ilk.” Eversham rang the bell. “Quinley, Lord Robert and I will travel on Friday morning to Yorkshire. See that the arrangements are made.”
“And my lord’s luggage?” Mr. Quinley asked meticulously of Lord Robert.
“Send to Somersetshire for it, if you please. Margill Manor,” Eversham instructed.
“And,” Lord Robert said, a little tentatively, “inquire at the Red Pony, in the village, for a Molly Harper. Have her sent to Treehill. I have engaged her as a housemaid.”
Mr. Quinley flicked an inquiring look at his master, who only nodded. But, after the door was closed, Eversham said, “Really, Robert, I had not thought you would be chasing the servants in the back stairs while visiting an acquaintance of mine.”
“It is no such thing, sir,” Robert replied with dignity. “She was turned out by Miss Catherine for breaking a hairbrush, the parts of which I believe were used to beat her. And she took my note to the village, to fetch your watchdogs to Margill bearing some false pretence of urgent business, so I could, in all good appearances, make my escape.”
“So you have employed her. I see. And, since I am your banker, I suppose you expect me to make good on such a promise? Really, Robert, you must learn to curb your more charitable instincts.”
“I will have need of a maid, you will allow.”
“And now you have one.”
“A grateful one at that.”
Riversham sighed in exasperation, even as a shadow of a smile crossed his eyes. “Be gone, brat.”
“Ah, the happy sounds of my childhood,” replied Denley in equal charity.
“You will stay hidden above stairs, like the scoundrel you are, until Friday morning. Your meals will be sent up, and you will have paper and pen to write a marvellously flattering letter to Bromley thanking him for his hospitality, et cetera, and explaining why you will not be returning.”
“Cannot your secretary do that?”
“No, he is busy. Also, send some word to Mr. Fanley if you please.”
Chapter Fifteen
Four days stretched interminably for the Marquis of Denley, imprisoned in a bed chamber as if he had the pox. His one escape attempt, a dimly formed plan to enlist Brinkley and Drake to take him out for air, was quashed by his vigilant uncle. Eversham. He had put his men on notice that, should they aid and abet his nephew again, they would find themselves discharged without references. All that was left for the young man to do was to pace and rake his hands through his blond mane in a fit of unspent energy, and to think. The letter to the Bromleys was done after several attempts — each more false, flowery and pretentious than the last, until the final draft fairly dripped with condescension and satire.
“It will suit,” Eversham said upon inspecting the document. “I dare say they will think it a treasure, once they’ve got over the fact you’ve wriggled out of the net.”
Robert did not reply. He had, by the third day, become morose and silent. Eversham noted it, but felt little in the way of compassion or concern.
He finally relented on the second day of the long journey to Yorkshire, when the silence of his companion simply overwhelmed him by its longevity.
“You had best tell me what has you so bedevilled,” he said, after an uncommunicative luncheon at a wayside inn, followed by an hour of jostling on a rutted road that did not spark a single oath from his companion.
Denley hesitated before he straightened his back and focused his gaze. “Is there truly no recourse to settling our affairs that does not involve Mary Fanley?”
“Do you object to her so much?”
“Indeed, I do not object to her as much as I did. It is, rather, that she should object to me.”
“You are feeling scrupulous again? First some poor maidservant, and now Miss Fanley’s prospects. I despair, Robert.”
Denley made no response, but retreated into his silence, forcing Eversham to a rare capitulation. “Do not trouble yourself so on Mary’s account. You will make her a duchess for God’s sake. And think. What is her future otherwise? She cannot have any society — you know her father. He will not put her in the way of an eligible match, and he will be very happy should she pass on to spinsterhood waiting on him hand and foot. Reflect on the ways in which your association will benefit her, and rest assured your perfidies will not touch her, for I intend you to live quietly, in the strictest economy.”
“So, by your own account, we will be poor and isolated in the country without the acknowledgement of society. Am I to find aught in this that elevates her from what she is now? By my reckoning, she is poor and isolated in the country without the acknowledgement of society already.”
“If I could trust you with more than a competence, I would. It is your due, and your station in life demands privilege. But in truth, Robert, we have no money.”
The Marquis of Denley’s young face turned stony and masked, and an extended silence followed that stark revelation. Eversham spoke no more, for he wanted the reality of such a nightmare to sink deeply into the consciousness of the heir apparent.
At last, Lord Robert stirred. “It is not the money that vexes me, sir,” he said, in a sober man’s voice. “Our family has other curses that make living on a competence in the obscure country seem like a holiday.”
“Ah.” Now it was Eversham’s turn to fall into the gravest of silences. At length he spoke. “You do not want to expose Mary Fanley to the spectre of madness that runs in the house of Devonshire.”
“I do not want to expose Mary Fanley to a husband who, by degrees, becomes irrational and runs amok in the moonlight!” cried Robert. “I do not want to expose Mary Fanley to a child, or God forbid, children, who become more and more strange or difficult and must eventually, for the sake of common courtesy to neighbours and servants, be sent to an institution in Wales!” He gathered himself then, and said with conviction, “I am not, as you allude, afraid to introduce her to my father. I do not relish it, but it is an evil I can endure. Nor do I shy from the odious introduction to the opera singer turned profiteer who is my stepmother. I find myself confronted with the task of wooing and wedding a respectable girl, one who should not have to bear any burden, much less the extraordinary one of marrying a ruined, dissipated man. That is a prospect that causes me to ask — is there truly no way to settle our affairs that does not involve Mary Fanley?”
Chapter Sixteen
The subject of so sincere a conversation could hardly have known she was thought of at all. Indeed, Mary Fanley could barely think, so beside herself with consternation was she. Her pin money, long held in a certain satin covered box in a small unlocked drawer in her vanity, had been slowly dwindling. Mary knew now, days after first thinking that the little money missing from her box was purely her imagination, that much more had gone.
Her suspicions quickly passed over all the household. None of the servants presented themselves as reasonable suspects. They had no one new, had never once experienced theft at Greenly, and now would be a rare time for it, given that the estate was doing so well. Her father was thrifty, but only because he spared no expense for Greenly. He had recently given every worker on the estate the staggering amount of five pounds apiece as a harvest gift.
Mary fell into distraction, for she knew that she must, with great reluctance, suspect her brother Will.
With this sad business firmly tucked in her heart, Mary began to observe Will and his guest, Oscar Neville. Neville’s manners remained smooth as ever; but he had lately begun to lord over Will. And Will, desperate to show he was not some child in knee pants, had borne the treatment as only a hot-headed nineteen-year-old can — he reacted.
“I say, Will,” Neville said at dinner, “I have a passion to see the Hanley estate that your papa says is so shockingly untended. We could stop at the Green Man for a pint, if you’re a good lad that is.”
“Shockingly bad.” Mr. Fanley agreed. “Yes, Will, take
Oscar to see how an estate should never look. And look at it yourself, for I want you to take a lesson there.”
“Oh, well, certainly we can go see it if you’d like,” Will replied sulkily, “but indeed it is quite boring. You passed it on the way here, Oscar, and I had much rather go up to the Himmels for a visit.”
“Well, if it is the schoolroom you are in the mood for, the Himmels it is.” Neville winked at Mary. There was a certain young miss of sixteen at the Himmels who was not yet out, and ever since he discovered that Will had a tender eye for the girl, Neville never missed an opportunity to apply a little friendly ridicule.
“Roger has a new hunter I’d like to see, that’s all,” Will exclaimed with unmasked frustration and a faint blush. “But if you are so keen on the Green Man, then by all means, let us go.”
“Is the Green Man an inn in Hampton?” Mary asked.
Glances were exchanged. “Yes, a rather homey place, I’d say, wouldn’t you Will? Most wholesome. With a good landlord, who looks after young bucks who’ve come for some roadside refreshment.”
“Hm,” Will assented, but he passed a look to his friend that spoke a homily on repression.
“I’ve a mind to stop in then,” Mary said breezily. “I have been meaning to spend some of my pin money at the drapers and Maria says the shop in Hampton is uncommonly well set up.”
Will looked up sharply. “You cannot be thinking you will ride all the way to Hampton for some muslin, when our village shop is just as good. Papa, you must not let her do it!”
“Do what? Oh, ride to Hampton? I say, Mary, if you do go, there is a book seller’s shop I would like you to visit for me. There is a publication I would like; I will write it down if you will remind me.”
With a hint of mischief, Oscar Neville added his voice to the subject. “Miss Fanley, if you arrive in time for tea, stop and find us at the Green Man.”
When Will responded to this suggestion with a fiery glare at his friend, Mary relented. She could not see her brother made so miserable and she had discovered what she had set out to learn. “Well, if you do not think it is a good idea then I will give it up.”
Her brother looked at her with resignation, for he knew he was caught. He returned to making conversation with Oscar, although he showed no inclination for it. They talked languidly of horseflesh, with a few references to Newmarket and cart racing which distressed Mary a little, but she kept her father comfortable and distracted until the meal was finished.
That evening, while in her bedchamber, Will knocked lightly on her door. She opened it without surprise and welcomed him to a chair. “So are you betting on horses Is that what goes on below stairs at the Green Man?”
“I only borrowed the money, Mary. I promise you. I’d no intention you’d ever know.” Here he paused, and said in a disapproving voice, “You have a shocking amount of pin money lying around. I’d no idea father was so good to you, and my pockets are always hanging outside my breeches.”
“Papa is not so good to me as you suppose. I have saved my pin money for quite some time now, since I’m not much in the way of dress parties. And, I economize, Will, where you do not.”
He flashed her a surrendered look. “I know I’m devilishly loose, but I’ll pay you back in two days’ time.”
“You’ll not need to pay me back at all, if you will but tell me what sort of game you are getting into.”
“You are not my mother,” he said a little savagely, “and I said I will pay you back.”
Chapter Seventeen
But in two days’ time, all Mary saw from Will was a cavalier face. Indeed, he seemed to laugh loudly and speak with devil-may-care abandon on any subject. Oscar Neville encouraged this reckless mood, occasionally offering to walk out with Mary and thereby causing Will a moment of undisguised terror. She could only guess that Will’s expectations had sunk. And with Neville playfully threatening to tell all, Will, who was just a boy after all, was stuck acting as if all was right in the world.
Indeed, to the degree her brother suffered abysmally, Mary began to suffer herself. The shine had worn off Mr. Neville just a little; she found him mildly tiresome while she waited for some sort of reckoning with her troubled brother. Surely, she thought, when four days had elapsed, the evening would find a chastened boy in her bedchamber offering up an explanation. With this in mind, she counted out her pin money and prepared to relinquish the whole of it in anticipation of rescuing him from this scrape.
But her hopes were dashed. During nuncheon, an express came for Mr. Fanley from the Marquis of Denley. Her father was delighted and put down his fork so he could open the missive. “From Robert!” he had said to all around the table. “Here, I will read it.” While all sat expectantly waiting to hear it read aloud, Mr. Fanley silently perused the letter from top to bottom, finally putting it down with a pat of satisfaction.
“Papa!” cried Mary. “What did he say?”
“Oh. Quite right, Mary. He is coming. Indeed he and Eversham had planned to be here tomorrow, but it is quite wet to the south so they expect to be here by week’s end.” He fell to musing, sometimes aloud and sometimes silently, as to what he would first show the Marquis of progress at Treehill, a list of vague concerns, a quantity of favourable reports and one or two very dark mumblings about poaching two counties to the west.
A little while later, as Mary sat tatting lace in the main salon in a patch of autumn sun, she was surprised when not Will, but Oscar Neville joined her. Rather than the charming half smile she was used to, his face was serious, and she looked up at him with no small degree of curiosity.
“I wonder that your father can welcome such a man,” he said with a grave shake of his head.
“Do you mean the Marquis of Denley?”
“Indeed, who else? I know nothing of his uncle…that is to say, I understand him to be perfectly respectable with a most serious character.”
“Then you had better say you know nothing bad of the uncle.”
“It is better than I can say of the nephew,” Oscar replied with his great dark eyes on her.
“Hm.” Mary went back to her lace. Inexplicably, she was no longer eager to hear tales from Mr. Neville, particularly about Lord Robert.
Mr. Neville stood abruptly and began to pace the room. “It is outside of enough that he is allowed here, in the midst of a respectable family, with a young and virtuous lady whose reputation is above reproach.”
“Mr. Neville!” Mary exclaimed. “Calm yourself! Indeed, I have been thrown much into company with the Marquis, and though I find him officious and…and high-handed…and abominable!…I cannot hold him in contempt for he has never been inappropriate to me.”
Neville returned urgently to his chair and moved it closer to Mary. He took her hands in his and said, “Were it in my power to keep this information from you I would, but I cannot in good conscience allow you to play hostess to such a man without knowing his true nature.”
“Sir?” Mary’s face grew cold. “You want to tell me something of the Marquis of Denley?”
“He is, Miss Fanley, a man of such ill repute he has been removed from town, some claim through coercion by the uncle.” This grave announcement was made while he still held her hands in his.
“Whatever can he have done?” she gasped, instantly removing her hands from his grip.
“Aside from squandering the family fortune in the most injudicious games of chance, and being dunned by every creditor nameable, he is in deep with the moneylenders, has a dangerous temper and a history of duelling. It is a known speculation that he is in hiding following a duel in which his adversary suffered a serious wound and may not live. And to think, I find him here among my friends. All this is very bad, but the most pressing fact of which I must make you aware is that the Marquis of Denley is a known seducer!”
Mary paused. “I see. I thank you for the warning, and I assure you, that I will have a care for my reputation when he is among us.”
Neville sat back. “I fea
r you do not see, Miss Mary. His being among you is enough to see your reputation damaged, perhaps irreparably.”
She stared at him. “If what you say is true, my reputation is already damaged irreparably, and I see nothing more to do about it. But really, Mr. Neville, I become quite uncomfortable discussing my virtue with you. It is not proper in the least.”
He took her hands again. “Indeed, it is not proper, and for that reason alone, I hesitated to come to you. But my regard for you is such…is such that I determined to exert myself in spite of the danger that I would offend you. But you are very much mistaken that there is nothing more to do about it. I flatter myself that I alone know of your…acquaintance…with a man of such ilk. For that, we are fortunate. But what remains is for you to put a word in your father’s ear so that such a person should never be allowed to visit.”
It was Mary’s turn to stand very abruptly. “Mr. Neville, I thank you for your exertions, but I take leave to tell you that indeed you have offended me! I have listened to you discuss my virtue and muddy the character of my father’s friend, and I have borne with you placing me under obligation to you for your silence about my association with a town rake. But to suggest that my father must be led like a milk cow is most insulting!”
Mr. Neville stood and bowed stiffly. “Then I beg your pardon, Miss Fanley, for importuning you.”
Mary did not grace this with any response. She swept out of the room and into the hallway, grabbed her shawl and went out of doors for a long and angry walk.
The road to the village took her past fields now golden, through copses of copper coloured leaves, and along the hedgerows where she and Will had played hide-and-seek as children. She allowed that she had been imposed upon by Mr. Oscar Neville, that she had been swayed by his charms and enamoured of his compliments. She also allowed that, for all the niceties of a gentleman’s tender attentions, she would much rather cross swords with Lord Robert of Denley, for he was not duplicitous and she could never accuse him of flattery.
Grace Gibson Page 6
