“Ella blames herself for her mother’s death,” Struan told him. “She is convinced that if she had not run away from Mrs. Lushbottam’s, she might have found a way to help Miranda.”
Calum sat up abruptly. “Help Miranda?”
“Miranda. She died of a fever shortly after leaving that house. Ella discovered this at the fair.”
“Miranda died?” Calum was beyond emptiness. “Poor woman. What had she to do with Ella—or her mother?”
“Think, man.”
Calum’s vision slowly, acutely, focused. “Miranda was Ella’s mother?”
“And mine,” Max said. “But I was sent away when I was a little ’un. They couldn’t afford me. What’s goin’ to ’appen to us now?”
“First you will learn to speak like a gentleman,” Struan said severely. “And then we shall decide your fate. Something with black dogs chained to ghosts might be in order.”
Calum couldn’t smile.
Footsteps clamored on the stairs outside and Saber Avenall burst into the room. At the sight of Calum, he stopped and took a pace backward.
“Saber,” Calum said, nodding.
Avenall appeared speechless.
“Where is Ella?” Struan asked.
“In the green drawing room,” Saber said. “There’s someone with her. Ella told her how she came to be here at the castle…and the rest of the story you shared with us tonight.” He approached Calum, but still didn’t address him.
“We’d best join Ella in the green drawing room, hadn’t we?” Struan asked.
“Yes.”
“Very well. Remain here until I send for you, Max.”
“But—”
“Remain here.”
Calum got to his feet and his eyes locked with Saber’s. He made to pass, but the other man caught his arm.
“What is it?” Calum asked.
“I can’t believe it,” Saber said. “But I want to. Come. Servants have gone for the rest of them. They may be curious enough to be timely.”
Pippa leaned on Nelly’s arm and made her way to the green drawing room as steadily as her weakened limbs allowed. Saber had sent for her on a matter of great importance. And, so Nelly said, Lady Justine was also to be there.
“Why could Justine not come to me herself?” Pippa asked. And why could she not simply close her eyes and die—and be finished with all of this?
“I wasn’t told the reasons, my lady. But the dowager’s been summoned, too. And the duke, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Pippa swayed. “I cannot face him. I cannot.” Not when she suspected that he was a villain more black than any she could have imagined.
“Here we are,” Nelly said in hushed tones. “Now, you lift up your pretty chin and don’t let any of them see you’re anything but your own self.”
“I shall never again be my own self,” Pippa said, but she raised her chin and took her hand from Nelly’s arm before walking into the drawing room.
Justine hovered near Ella, but neither the dowager nor the duke was present. Pippa stared at the only other occupant of the room, a veiled woman in flowing blue robes.
“What’s all this?” Franchot, wrapped in a red dressing robe, joined them. “I’m a sick man and I’ve suffered enough for one day. There had better be a good explanation for this intrusion.”
He did not acknowledge Pippa.
“Sit down, Etienne,” Justine said tartly, then guided Pippa to a chair near the fire. “Sit quietly, my dear Philipa. I believe you will be glad.”
Pippa could not take her eyes from the veiled woman.
Grumbling, attended by two harried maids, the dowager arrived and refused to be seated. “What do you have to say for yourself, Justine?” she inquired, planting her ebony cane firmly on the carpet. “How dare you create a stir on a day such as this.”
Ella, her eyes swollen, retreated to a corner, but at the sight of Saber, who strode in with Struan at his right hand, her eyes brightened.
“You are Sybel,” Pippa said to the woman in blue. “You are the fortune teller from the fair.”
“Fortune teller?” the dowager repeated in disbelieving tones. “My own home is become a fairground.”
“We visited you. Calum and I visited you at the fair.”
The woman rose slowly, looking not at Pippa, but at the last man to enter the room.
Calum. But the dowager had told her he was dead!
“Stop this!” The dowager duchess trembled visibly. “Who is to blame for this masquerade? You?” she said to Calum.
“I was responsible,” the woman Sybel said. She pointed at Calum. “He was an infant and his mother’s body was not yet cold. I took him from his cradle in this castle and left the other one in his place.”
Franchot groped for a hold on a nearby chair. “Get this madwoman out of here.”
Sybel shook her head and approached him. “Your mother’s name was Florence Hawkins. We knew each other in a certain house in London. It was there that some of us were forced to go from time to time when there was no other way to live.
“Florence caught the eye of the former Duke of Franchot. But Florence caught many eyes. When she was increasing with you, she thought that if you were a boy, the duke could be made to accept you as his own. At that time he had a baby daughter and no son and heir. She became obsessed with the idea that the duke should force his wife to pretend you were her own child. Florence was convinced that, out of his gratitude, the duke would then install her in great splendor somewhere.”
“Heresy,” Franchot said. “Remove her.”
“The duke laughed at Florence,” Sybel continued. “He said, correctly, that you were most definitely not his child—that he had not known Florence for such a time that no unborn offspring of hers could possibly be his. And then he revealed that his wife would bear her second child at much the same time as you were to be born. And that is how all this came about. The duke had a son of his own, and so did Florence. She would not give up her rage at him. But in the end, the fault is entirely mine, and I have suffered greatly for it. I took gold for the crime Florence asked me to commit. It was her intention to reap her reward when her son assumed the title.”
The woman looked at Calum. “The only thing I did not do for the gold I was paid was to kill you. Guido said I should never be able to do that and he was right. I took you with me and we traveled with the fairs. Until you got so sick. Then I had to leave you where you might be cared for.” She removed the veil and smiled. “I am glad you grew so strong and fair and that the people of Kirkcaldy were so good to you.”
“You are Rachel,” Calum said. “The snake man’s assistant!”
“I was Rachel. Now I am Sybel, or I am if you will allow me to remain so.”
“My God!” Franchot moved suddenly, approaching Pippa with horror in his light eyes. He touched her face, took her hands in his and sank to his knees beside her chair. “This is even more desperate a plot than I had imagined, my love. This woman has been paid to come forward with this amazing nonsense.”
Pippa tried to remove her hands, but he held her too tightly.
“Grandmama,” he said, “we cannot allow this in our home. This female is a fortune teller who used to be a snake man’s assistant!” He cast his eyes dramatically upward, and his lips moved as if in silent prayer.
Pippa looked at Calum, who stared back as if she were unknown to him.
A furor arose outside the drawing room and the doors burst open to admit the steward, Figerall. “Your Grace,” he said to the dowager, his eyes popping, “I could not stop…them.” The steward’s voice trailed off.
“They” were Lady Hoarville, the pink satin of her swansdown-trimmed traveling costume splattered with mud, and an exceedingly tall, plain woman dressed entirely in black and wearing a quantity of unbecoming rouge.
“Bloody hell,” Viscount Hunsingore muttered.
The rest were silent, except for a moan from Ella and the loud, umbrage-filled breathing of the dowager.
“So it is t
rue,” Lady Hoarville said, glaring at Franchot. “You thought you could abandon me and that I should leave without a whimper.”
Franchot’s hands became as cold stone on Pippa’s. She noted what she had not seen at first. Lady Hoarville held a pistol to the other woman’s side.
“Who is that?” the dowager finally asked, pointing her cane at the stranger.
When no one answered, Viscount Hunsingore said, “A lady, er, tailor, Your Grace. She runs the establishment where I assume Rachel and Florence Hawkins met.”
“And Cora Bains,” Rachel said. “Anabel’s mother.”
Lady Hoarville, her hair tangled in her swansdown collar, glared around before returning her venomous gaze to Franchot. “Now you shall pay. All of you shall pay me for what I know, because, unless you do, the world will learn the aberration that is the family of Franchot.”
Franchot jerked to his feet, releasing Pippa as he did so. “Anabel, my dear friend. Thank goodness you have returned. I was so concerned—”
“I helped my poor old husband leave his world of pain a little early so that I might stand at your side as your duchess,” Lady Hoarville said. “Just as you helped Florence Hawkins to a more peaceful place to make certain she could not interfere with—”
“My dear”—the woman in black spoke for the first time—“I do advise you not to do this.”
Lady Hoarville’s response was to jab the pistol with enough force to produce a noisy groan.
“My mother told me all I know,” Lady Hoarville said. “Unfortunately, she also had to go to a better place because she insisted upon interfering. A great deal of effort has been expended, and now I want what I’ve worked for.”
“Anabel, I beg you to be circumspect,” Franchot said. His step in the furious woman’s direction earned him a momentary view down her pistol barrel. He promptly subsided beside Pippa once more.
“This—” Lady Hoarville poked her unfortunate prisoner again. “This traitor was preparing to sneak away, having left me a note. A note, mark you. Informing me that I was to remove myself permanently from your life unless you chose to contact me. Etienne, how could you?”
“I…” Franchot swallowed audibly.
“You do not even try to defend yourself, so I have no alternative, do I?”
Standing on tiptoe, she tore out the black comb that secured an ugly lace mantilla to a chignon atop the other woman’s head. The chignon came away with the comb, and a sparse quantity of rather long hair, obviously dyed black, fell around the cadaverously thin face. Lady Hoarville used the lace headpiece to wipe away rouge from sunken cheeks, and blacked eyebrows applied to ponderous, hairless bones.
“No, no,” Franchot whimpered, covering his face.
Pippa shrank back in her chair and felt a deep shudder. It was him.
“Tell them who you are,” Lady Hoarville instructed. “Then we shall discuss an appropriate settlement for the indignities and inconveniences I have suffered at the hands of some. Tell them!”
“I’m Lushbottam,” the man said sullenly, flinching with each fresh assault of Lady Hoarville’s weapon. “And I’m his father.” He pointed at Franchot.
“No,” Franchot murmured. “Grandmama, please.”
“He’s my son by Florence Hawkins, and if you nobs don’t give this lady what she wants, I’ll tell anyone who wants to listen.”
The dowager turned her back on Lady Hoarville. Pippa saw Calum widen his stance and flex his hands. Viscount Hunsingore shifted slightly, never taking his eyes off the woman with the pistol.
“I think you have done quite enough, my gel,” the dowager said, swinging around with remarkable agility. In one hand she held a wickedly pointed blade, and this she applied with a very steady hand to Lady Hoarville’s neck. “Take the pistol, one of you. Not you, Etienne. Calum, do it.”
He moved quickly to do as the old lady asked.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Lady Hoarville said, and squeezed her eyes shut when the tip of the blade made a tiny cut on her white neck.
Laughter threatened to bubble from Pippa. The dowager had produced her blade from the ivory-handled ebony cane she carried whenever she was displeased. And she now displayed the calm of a seasoned soldier faced with just one more battle.
“St. Luc,” the dowager said, her lip curling. “Where is that creature?”
“Left me,” Lady Hoarville whined. “We were waiting for Etienne at an inn—only he never came. And Henri caught the eye of a prince traveling from some Eastern place. And he took the emeralds dear old Hoarville gave me.”
At a command from the dowager, Figerall was dispatched to round up the burliest of the castle staff. When these arrived, they were charged with placing Lady Hoarville and Lushbottam in a safe place until “a suitable destination” could be found for them. They were to be closeted together—with Franchot.
He went silently, and for that Pippa was grateful. Lady Hoarville could be heard shrieking threats for some time.
“Grief,” Saber said when peace finally settled. “What a pickle.” He draped a protective arm around Ella’s shoulders.
“Pickle?” the dowager said, and addressed Rachel. “You have wronged us—but you have now done us a great service and I believe you have suffered enough. There would appear to be no reason to involve you further. Etienne…He and that woman will implicate each other without you. You may go.”
Rachel inclined her head and swept from the room without another word.
“Well, now.” The Dowager Duchess of Franchot sheathed her blade and gave the closest thing to a smile Pippa had ever seen. “We must deal with this little contretemps with the least fuss possible. Obviously there will have to be a trial. These criminal charges must be addressed—but swiftly and finally. The sooner any gossip can be put to rest, the better.”
Saber gave a barking laugh. “There’ll be enough gossip for a lifetime in this lot.”
That earned him a raised brow from the dowager. “We must arrange a small but selectively well-attended wedding. I will inform certain people at once.” She considered. “It shall take place—hmm—a week from next Tuesday morning. That should give time for a few important witnesses to arrive. We must make certain the world sees how united we Franchots are in all this.”
“Marriage?” Pippa said faintly.
“Of course. I’m so happy for you my dear. And for…for you, Grandson.” For the first time there was the vaguest waver in the woman’s eyes as she looked at Calum.
He shook his head. “I hardly think you will find it so easy to arrange such a marriage, Your Grace.” Still he avoided meeting Pippa’s gaze. “Certainly not until there has been an official investigation and some ruling by the Lords.”
The dowager gave a haughty shrug. “Nonsense. My influence goes beyond the Lords. This will be accomplished handily and you’ll be married with royal blessing.”
For the first time in many hours, Pippa found the energy to be truly angry. She pushed to her feet and, disdaining the hand Justine rushed to offer, marched toward the door. “Royal blessing or no,” she said, “I shall never marry that oaf.”
“For the sake of your honor, my dear, I think you will,” Calum said, his harsh voice drawing her to a halt. When she faced him, he said, “I should prefer a more faithful, tender bride, but no doubt we shall manage tolerably well.”
Viscount Hunsingore swept up a crystal decanter of brandy and began pouring generous measures into glass after glass. “A toast would seem in order.” He raised a goblet and drank deeply without waiting for any to join him. “To my eternal gratitude that I was born a younger son!”
Charmed Twenty-Nine
From a distance came the sounds of revelry. Music—the strains of violin and harp—soared.
The celebration of a wedding. His own and his new wife’s.
Calum tried not to look at Pippa.
They sat—he and Pippa; Arran, Marquess of Stonehaven, and his blond wife, Grace—beneath the domed ceiling of a small jewel of a salon on
the floor above the ballroom where, presided over by the dowager, the “select” festivities were now in progress.
Playful Italianate putti frolicked across the salon’s gilt-and-painted ceiling. Furnishings that had once belonged to a Dauphin echoed the art’s opulence.
All his.
He was in hell.
“Too bad of Struan to leave like that,” Arran said when the silence had stretched to an agony. “Seems to have a habit of popping out at inconvenient moments.”
“He remained as long as he could, Arran,” Grace said, sounding exceedingly worried. Her lovely brown eyes were clouded as she addressed her husband. “He assured me he could not wait another moment to leave for Dorset with those dear children.”
“Struan is angry with me,” Calum said, “although I cannot imagine why.”
Arran grunted.
Calum did look at Pippa then.
From the frightful night after they’d almost drowned together until this morning in the castle chapel, they had not encountered each other. Calum had seen his bride approach him as if through a Scottish highland mist—all softness and dew, a veil upon her loveliness. And then their vows, which should have made him the happiest man in the world, had become distant mouthings.
Her gown was simple. Stark white tulle over satin, square at the neck and with long, tight sleeves. Pearls and rosebuds caught the tulle hem into puffs that revealed satin beneath, and strands of the same pearls were threaded through her black hair. Calum wondered that she had not chosen to wear the fabulous Chauncey diamonds on such an occasion. But then, she was not a woman concerned with public display.
“Does something about me trouble you, Your Grace?” she asked.
Calum started and gazed into her magnificent blue eyes. “Nothing more than we are already aware of, Your Grace.”
“God give me patience,” Arran muttered.
“He will, He will,” Grace said, slipping her small hand into his huge one.
“Nice of my grandmama to arrange this charmingly intimate little respite from the revelry,” Calum said.
Grace made a humming sound. “She is being thoughtful, Calum. We all know what a trying time you and Pippa have had.”
Fascination -and- Charmed Page 72
