The Stanforth Secrets

by Jo Beverley

  Chloe left the inspection of the intimate items to Justin. She checked such places as inside vases and clocks, while the maid looked under the bed and felt down the sides of the upholstered chair.

  This coal scuttle was half-full. Justin carefully removed some top pieces so as to be able to check without creating a mess. When he was finished he looked quizzically at Chloe, and she gave him a smile of approval.

  Next, they moved on into Randal’s room. They had exhausted their likely suspects but went through the motions. Randal had traveled light, without a valet, so it was an easy search.

  The Duchess’s two rooms were a direct contrast. She never traveled without a coachload of possessions. Still, after going through dozens of gowns and pairs of shoes, ten hatboxes and all the room fixtures, they had, as expected, found nothing. Looking at the cluttered dressing table, Chloe was relieved the Duchess’s expensive lotions and cosmetics all came in tiny or narrow-necked containers.

  There were two small empty bedrooms and they were quickly finished. Chloe, Justin, and Margaret stood in the corridor.

  “Do we search our own rooms?” asked Chloe.

  “Of course,” he said with a grin. Chloe realized, with a flicker of embarrassment, that he had never been inside a bedroom of hers. How silly to be so conscious of such a thing.

  Justin surveyed Chloe’s room like a man studying a work of art, a beauty of nature. It was a large room with two windows looking out over the bay. The corner by the windows was given over to a sitting area, with a writing desk, a small table and chair, and a chaise. He could imagine her spending many hours here, reading or writing letters, as she watched the water come and go. Surely it should work to his advantage that she loved this place.

  The pink and gold arabesques of the carpet were matched in the pink brocade hangings and bedcover. Now, when he dreamt of her lying in her bed, he could imagine the exact surroundings. On her bedside table sat two dolls. One was a rag doll with an unpleasant kind of leer. The other was an exquisite French bisque doll in fine, lacy clothes. He remembered them. She had taken them in her scanty baggage on that elopement journey.

  God, they must all have been out of their minds.

  “Margaret,” he said roughly. “Check the furnishings. Chloe, help me to search the drawers. It must be done.”

  Chloe wondered why he had suddenly become so brusque. Had it been the sight of Jenny and Lisbet? She supposed it was silly to still have dolls at her age, but she had taken so little from her home and never cared to ask her parents for more.

  She opened the doors of her matching japanned armoires, and almost giggled at his expression when he saw the masses of gowns and spencers, pelisses and cloaks.

  “I sent for all my belongings from London when Stephen died,” she explained. “I expected George to be living in Clarges Street, of course. There are some boxes in the attics as well, which, incidentally, we should hunt through too.”

  “Not,” he muttered, “unless there is any evidence someone has been there this morning. I don’t have to look through this. I know you didn’t hide anything here.”

  Chloe looked at him. Despite obstacles and incredulous servants, he had been resolutely thorough in the search thus far. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, Justin, but think. Belinda, if it is she who hid it, was not under observation for every second. She would have to be a fool to hide the thing in her own quarters. There’s nothing to say she didn’t slip in here.”

  He groaned slightly and began a thorough search, while Chloe took down all her hatboxes and checked them.

  Justin’s groan had not been from the work involved. He wasn’t sure he could handle riffling through Chloe’s garments. Her soft spicy perfume wafted round him. The shimmer of silk, the sheen of satin, even the simple softness of her creamy muslins all made him think of her skin.

  He turned to find her checking her shoes and upturning her boots. A glance showed him Margaret shaking her head. He fled the thought of searching through Chloe’s underthings. That task he left to the maid, taking the safer one of checking the vases on the marble mantelpiece and looking in her writing desk.

  Only personal correspondence, of course, he thought, looking at the neat piles of her embossed stationery. The business of the estate had been conducted from the study. He opened the drawer to find sealing wax, sand, pen-wipers, and such like.

  There was a small wooden box.

  Because he saw Margaret was watching him, he opened it. It contained a folded letter. He was about to close the box when Margaret exclaimed, “Lawks, sir! Don’t say you’ve found it!”

  Chloe hurried over. “What?” She looked at the box. “What is it? Why, it’s George’s little treasure box. He would keep odd buttons, broken studs, and such in there. How strange.”

  “It’s the will,” declared Margaret, hands clasped. “You could knock me down with a feather!”

  “Me too,” muttered Justin, as he took the paper out of the box. It was a single sheet, not new and crisp, and not the treasure they were hunting for. Below it was a carefully folded handkerchief. Had George made another will?

  He unfolded the paper, aware of Chloe leaning over his shoulder and Margaret doing the same thing, a little more discreetly.

  Ma chère Chloe,

  Je suis désolé sans toi. Je me souviens de tes baisers brûlants, la

  douceur de ta peau sur mes lèvres . . .

  I am desolate without you. I remember constantly your burning

  kisses, the flavor of your skin upon my lips . . .

  Chilled with shock, Justin glanced at the bottom of the brief but torrid missive.

  Ton amant, ton esclave, Claude

  His first thought was of relief that the maid could not read French. The letter was undated. When had this been written?

  He remembered the Duke of York. Women will do anything for a certain kind of man. . . .

  He looked up as Chloe said, “I’ve never seen that letter before in my life!” He saw the genuine amazement in her eyes change to shock, then anger as she read the doubt in his.

  “I have never seen that letter before in my life,” she repeated, coldly and precisely. She reached for the handkerchief.

  He got there before her. He turned it so the embroidered design was clearly visible. The Ashby coat of arms and the monogram RA. The only person who possessed such handkerchiefs was Randal.

  Justin looked at the piece of linen. He trusted Chloe. Of course he did. But she had been playing hot and cold with him, welcoming his kisses, refusing to commit herself. Could it all have been a game, designed to distract him until she could get away from Delamere, away with the message for her French lover? Was she Randal’s lover? Surely not both.

  He couldn’t think. Not now. Not here. It was hard enough to stop his hands from shaking, to keep choked back the words he must not say. He put the letter and the handkerchief into his pocket.

  “Of course,” he said, not looking at her. “It certainly isn’t what we’re looking for.”

  Chloe watched as he walked across the room. She felt chilled from head to toe. In fact, she feared she might be shivering. One letter, and he would believe it? Did he too think her without morals and sense? And what did he believe? Adultery? A lover since her widowhood? Many lovers?

  Treason?

  Anger began to replace anguish. Anger at Justin for harboring a moment’s doubt. Anger against whoever had put that letter there. It had not been there the day before. It had been secreted in her desk since word was given of the search, intended to do just the damage it had.

  “Are we finished?” asked Justin in a strained voice. He sounded lost.

  “Hardly,” Chloe said crisply. “There is the master bedroom.”

  “My room?”

  “Of course.” She could feel her words come out hard and cold. “We are looking for George’s will, remember? Where more likely for him to hide it than in the room which was his?”

  He gained control of himself. “I had forgotten
,” he said flatly. “By all means, let us be thorough to the end.”

  The master bedroom was at the center of the house, with wide windows looking down the drive toward the Lancaster road. After his marriage, in a thankfully brief nesting urge, Stephen had refurnished the room in the Egyptian style, modified by Chloe’s reluctance to have mummies and sphinxes looking down from the walls. All the furniture, however, had been commissioned new from Waring and Gillow in Lancaster and sat upon long thin legs formed of Egyptian figures—except the bed, that is, which had short, fat crocodile ones. Chloe always made sure to hide them under a long coverlet.

  The suite had stood empty from George’s death until Justin’s arrival, and thus far Justin had spent little time there. A few garments in the press and the drawers, his brushes and shaving kit, some books. He had not yet hired a valet, and used Matthew for his simple needs. She supposed his other possessions, coming by cart, would arrive one of these days and make more of a mark.

  The search was rather cursory. Margaret was out of patience with the whole business, Justin was abstracted, and Chloe was convinced nothing would be found here. She was also fighting the turmoil caused by silly things such as his shaving equipment on the stand, his slippers by the bed. The man didn’t trust her. He thought she was working for the French. How could she allow herself to turn weak at the knees at the smell of his soap?

  Eventually, in silence, they left the room and closed the door, to stand in the wide, carpeted corridor. It was as if a yawning gulf lay between them, rather than a foot of crimson Axminster.

  “I think I will see how they’re doing downstairs,” said Justin abruptly.

  “They would have sent us word if they had found anything,” Chloe pointed out.

  He ignored that and ran his fingers through the soft curls on his forehead as if confused. “Perhaps we should look quickly through the maids’ rooms and the attics, unless they’re full of junk?”

  “No,” said Chloe coolly, staring at an insipid hunting scene on the wall. “This is a very orderly household. There are only a few trunks and suchlike.”

  “Why don’t you and Margaret start up there, then. I’ll join you in a minute.”

  With that, he walked briskly off and down the stairs. Full retreat, thought Chloe, watching him coldly. She discovered her jaw was tight, her teeth pressed painfully together. If he had escaped to think, good luck to him. She marched off toward the narrow stairs which led to the upper floor.

  “Milady,” said Margaret plaintively. “There’s no chance at all Mr. George would have come up here!”

  “Once it’s done, it’s over with,” said Chloe tightly.

  There were two maids’ rooms. Margaret, Agnes, and Susan, the Duchess’s maid, shared one. Rosie and the kitchen maid had the other. Each room contained three beds, hooks on the walls, and a chest of drawers. Each room had a single basin and ewer on a pine washstand. There was nothing in evidence except the servants’ simple belongings.

  Margaret and Chloe moved on to the storage rooms. The attic space had dust, a few cobwebs, and a dozen boxes and trunks. The dust on the floor, and on the boxes, was undisturbed.

  “Do you care to go through these, ma’am?” asked the maid dispiritedly.

  Chloe sighed. Her anger had seeped away, leaving only bitter dregs. In Justin she had thought to find a man to depend on, a man who would also trust and depend on her. She had foolishly allowed him to wear down her defenses, work his way into her heart. Now, at the first, shallow suspicion of possible unworthiness in her, his regard had evaporated. Would she never learn?

  “No,” she replied. “There is no need to search them. But when all this fuss is over, Margaret, have them taken down to my room. I must go through them anyway, to see what I wish to take when . . . when I leave. So many things are out of fashion now.”

  She smiled for the woman. “Thank you. You have been a great help. It was a useless project, I know, but it had to be done. You may have the rest of the afternoon to yourself.”

  The woman flushed. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  There was no sign of Justin when Chloe came down the stairs. She was about to find refuge in her room, when she became aware of raised voices below. It sounded like an argument. Had something been found?

  A flicker of excitement chased back the depths of her depression. If that list had been found, it would be something to place in the balance against her shattered dreams.

  She hurried down.

  Chloe found Justin, Randal, and Macy facing an angry Belinda in the library. She was waving a piece of paper.

  “George never wrote this!” she shouted.

  Mr. Macy pursed his lips. “I must confess, it looks like his hand.”

  “Illegible and illiterate,” murmured Randal, giving Chloe a humorous look.

  “What is it?” she asked of no one in particular.

  “A charming scrawl from old George,” drawled Randal, “to person or persons unknown, saying, in effect, I don’t like Belinda, she scares me, and I never wanted to marry her in the first place.”

  “It’s a lie,” Belinda said fiercely, tears in her eyes, but whether of pain or anger was difficult to tell. Chloe could sympathize. The two emotions were easy to confuse.

  “May I see?” she asked. “I know George’s writing reasonably well, though he did little enough of it.”

  Belinda handed over the grubby, scrunched piece of paper.

  “Where was it found?” Chloe asked, as she smoothed it out.

  “In the Meissen vase,” said Randal, “by yours truly.”

  Uncle George had only been marginally literate, and his writing was appalling, but the gist of the letter was still clear and exactly as Randal had succinctly put it: “. . . fule to let her. Stand up and tak it. Honner of Delamere. Help me to eskap this wiced trap . . .”

  Chloe remembered the letter upstairs. Had someone been seeding the house with scandalous correspondence? For what purpose? There was every indication, however, that this letter had been written by George. Such childishness would be almost impossible to reproduce.

  “It is his writing,” Chloe said slowly, and looked at Belinda.

  “He didn’t write that,” the young woman declared. “I know he didn’t. Someone made it up and put it there!”

  “True or not,” said Justin wearily, “it has little to do with anything. It is not the . . . the will. No one here will spread what is in the letter, Belinda, or think the worse of you. Uncle George was given to strange mental processes.”

  Belinda looked as if she would protest further, but shut her lips tight. With a sudden movement, she took the letter and hurled it into the fire. It blackened, flamed, and was gone.

  Chloe wished she had possessed the forethought to do that with another piece of paper.

  “Have you finished here?” asked Justin of the men.

  “Pretty well,” said Randal, “and no luck. The only place we haven’t touched is the study. Thought you and Chloe should be there, or we’ll doubtless make a pig’s dinner of it for you.”

  Chloe saw him look at the two of them with puzzlement. She hoped he wouldn’t take it into his head to tease them. It was four days until Tuesday, the day she and the Duchess planned to leave. She could not bear the thought of being in the same house as Justin for four days. Could she persuade the old lady to move faster? Her grandmother didn’t like to travel on the sabbath, but surely if Chloe explained.

  She trailed after the men. Belinda stayed behind.

  Chloe turned. “Are you coming?”

  “Why should I?” Belinda replied angrily. “I can go to my room now, can’t I?”

  “Yes, I suppose you can,” said Chloe on a sigh. “You’re right. Why should we bother?”

  Chloe saw Belinda’s anger fade as she looked at her. “Has something upset you, Chloe?” she asked.

  “Everything is upset these days,” Chloe said, as much to herself as Belinda.

  “Yes,” said Belinda quietly. “This was a happy hou
se once.” She took the lid off a pot of potpourri on a small piecrust table and touched the petals. “You and Justin didn’t find anything upstairs then?”

  Chloe thought of that disgusting letter. “No,” she said.

  “We weren’t looking for a will, were we? We were looking for that mysterious package the sailor lost.”

  Chloe was too heartsore to fabricate. “Yes.”

  “What is it? Government papers being smuggled out to the French?”

  “No,” said Chloe. “French papers being smuggled in to the British. If you have them, Belinda, please just give them to Justin so we can forget all this, and get on with our lives.”

  Chloe saw Belinda’s face set. A sign she had something to hide. “Why are you always harping on about me having them?” she demanded angrily. “That would be treason, wouldn’t it? Do you want me to hang?”

  “I don’t think you have them,” argued Chloe, trying to find the key to Belinda’s cooperation. “But I think you may know something. What if Frank had them?”

  Belinda stiffened. “So now you think Frank was a traitor, do you?” she spat. “That would be nice for you all, wouldn’t it? Having a convenient member of the lower orders to take the blame.”

  Chloe felt some guilt, for in a way Belinda was correct. It would be simpler if Frank could be blamed for everything. “Who then?” she demanded in exasperation.

  Belinda looked away. “How would I know?” she said quietly. “But neither Frank nor I would have served the French.”

  Chloe believed her. “I’m sorry,” she said, not exactly sure which of a myriad things she was sorry about.

  “I’m sorry too,” said Belinda. “You have been kind to me.”

  “Not as kind as I might have been,” said Chloe. She added, “Unless you intend to go back to live with your parents, Belinda, you’d do best to go away from here.”

  Belinda looked out of the window. It was not a pretty day, for the sun was hidden behind a cloudy sky. Wind tossed the trees and flicked up rough waves on the water.