The Rogue's Return

by Jo Beverley

  He laughed, knowing he was blushing. Parents could be the very devil.

  Jancy had been in Brideswell for less than a day, yet she felt the wrench of leaving as she took her farewells. The throng had appeared again, but she still hadn’t sorted out most of them.

  The young woman with the baby was Mary, wife to Simon’s brother Rupert. He was the Brideswell estate steward, and he and his family lived in the home. A plump excitable girl and a plump quiet one were Simon’s young sisters Lucy and Jennifer, but she wasn’t sure which was which. The ancients were a maternal grandfather, a paternal grandmother, and a great-aunt and -uncle connected who knew where.

  There were some other old people who might be family connections or retired servants, and two young boys she hadn’t placed. She hesitated to ask questions, though she’d be comforted to learn they were accepted by-blows. It would make her own birth a little less shocking.

  She wouldn’t want them to be bastards of Simon’s father, however. She wanted to believe his parents were as devoted as they seemed. When packing, she’d realized that this was her first experience of a happy family. She wanted it true as a model for her future.

  Simon’s mother hugged Jancy in a warmer way than undemonstrative Martha ever had but with tears in her eyes. “Take care of them for me, my dear.”

  She seemed to regard the departure of her husband and son as if they were heading off to Canada, rather than traveling fifty miles into Nottinghamshire. But perhaps that was the effect of Brideswell. Jancy found herself sniffing back tears as the post chaise rolled away, a dozen people waving, the lads running alongside until they were through the arch and into the big, wide world.

  Jancy settled back, thinking that her life had certainly been one of continuous motion for a very long time. She would have liked to talk to Simon about his family, but they were sharing one chaise with his father so instead she asked about their destination.

  “You said Marlowe is a grand house. Is it like Long Chart?”

  “Grand in a completely different way,” Simon said. “Do you know your architecture? It’s Palladian.”

  She didn’t mind admitting, “That means nothing to me.”

  His father spoke up. “Built after the fashion of Andrea Palladio. Italian fellow. Sixteenth century. Wrote books about classical architecture—Roman villas and such. Last century a lot of people took up his ideas and unfortunately Great-uncle Marlowe was one of them.”

  “It means,” said Simon, “facades that look like the Acropolis and a central hall that goes up to a skylight in imitation of a Roman atrium. As England lacks Italy’s climate, the effect is chilly. Perhaps to compensate, the style has smaller villas attached by corridors to house ordinary living. Marlowe is widely admired, however. People travel from around the world to see it.”

  It was impossible to tell what Simon thought about that, but his father let out something that could be a growl or even a moan.

  “The park matches Long Chart in beauty,” Simon continued. “There’s a lake close enough to the house to reflect it on calm days. A remarkable effect, especially with a rise, darkly treed, behind it.”

  She smiled at his tone. “You make it sound fit for a gothic novel.”

  “Not at all. No dusty corridors, ancient chapels, or priests’ holes. The entire place was built only sixty years ago and an army of servants keep it pristine. Any skeletal monk would be run out in a moment.”

  Talk turned to other matters, mostly father and son reviewing the state of affairs, locally, nationally, and internationally. Jancy listened and learned, impressed by the way they took it for granted that all these matters were their business and, to an extent, their responsibility. If problems were discussed, such as unrest and poverty, it was hand in hand with proposed action.

  Hereward the Wake’s bloodline.

  Her bloodline was nothing but irresponsible trouble. She put the Hasketts out of mind. Simon had taken action to deal with Dacre and he believed her deception would never be revealed. Let it be so.

  She began to look forward to playing a small part in steering the fate of a nation and was amused to see Simon persuade his father that a seat in the House of Lords was not a total burden—that he would be able to use it to promote rural causes dear to his heart. Mr. St. Bride even promised to lend his weight to Simon’s fight for justice in Canada but added with a mock scowl: “I suppose I’ll end up tangled with those Rogues of yours. London. Plaguey nuisance.”

  Traveling in luxurious efficiency, they arrived at Marlowe in the afternoon and Jancy peered for her first look. She needn’t have strained. Some great houses sought privacy behind walls and trees or flickered coyly from behind carefully arranged hills and coppices. Marlowe stood on display.

  The park was almost flat in this direction and lightly wooded. Now, with most trees bare, the white house glowed from miles away, framed, as Simon had said, by a rise of dark evergreens behind.

  It did resemble a Greek temple, the central part presenting a triangular pediment supported by tall pillars. On either side, two pillared arms curved to the villas—miniature copies of the central house, even to pediment and pillars. Like offshoot plants, she thought, her wanton imagination seeing gardeners having to scurry around trimming buildings before they overran the park.

  The curving arms could have looked like a welcoming embrace, but to Jancy Marlowe stood aloof. It did not say, “Enter and be warmed.” It said, “Look on my beauty and bow low in awe.” She was grateful to be dressed in Lady Thea Debenham’s elegant black.

  They came to a halt at the foot of massive double stairs, where somber servants awaited to open the chaise door and usher them up to large white doors hung with an escutcheon draped in crape.

  As they entered the house, Jancy supposed that an army of servants constituted a welcome, but that was the only one she felt. She reminded herself that this was a house of long-term sickness and recent death. The powdered footmen and uniformed maids all wore signs of mourning—black armbands and gloves for the men, black caps and aprons for the women.

  Perhaps sickness and death explained the overall chill, but this hall, lit palely by a domed skylight, could never be cozy. The floor and walls were gray marble, the wall broken at regular intervals by black half pillars separating black alcoves holding white classical statues.

  There was not a touch of color.

  Could the St. Brides ever warm this place or would it freeze them to death? She felt only relief when a gentleman in elegant black bowed and said, “Lady Austrey awaits, sirs, ma’am,” and led them down a corridor.

  Once away from the hall, the house did have some color. As the corridor curved—it had to be one of the arms—the walls were painted blue to better show off landscape paintings. They passed through a door and into another hall, but this time a small one, paneled in rich golden wood. Their usher tapped on a door and they entered a room made gloomy only by drawn curtains. It was a drawing room of modest size, well warmed by a fire and with a flowered carpet on the floor.

  The slender woman rising from a sofa, dressed in deepest black, must be the widow, Cousin Dorothy, Lady Austrey. She dismissed a hovering maid and smiled with obvious effort.

  “Uncle Sim, thank you for coming. And Simon. I didn’t know you had returned. How good that is for everyone. I’m sorry to send for you, but there are so many things.” She gestured vaguely. “Legal matters, the funeral. Everyone seems to need direction. And I simply can’t . . .”

  Jancy had thought Lady Austrey calm, for the death couldn’t have been a shock, but perhaps she had hoped until the end. She certainly looked exhausted, and the prominent bones of her face were probably not her natural state.

  Simon’s father took her hand and sat her down, taking a seat beside her. “Of course not, after all that nursing. Simon and I will see to everything, never you fear, my dear. How is Marlowe?”

  She sighed and simply shook her head.

  Mr. St. Bride sighed, too. “Ah, well. Now, here’s Simon’s wi
fe, Jancy. Will it be all right if she sits with you while we have a look at how things are? And what about Lady Taverley or one of your sisters?”

  “I’ve sent for Mama, but she’s in Harrogate. I hope she’ll arrive tomorrow.” She looked at Jancy and tried a smile. “I’m sorry. What a way to meet.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, my lady, but let me take care of you.”

  “Oh, not ‘my lady,’ please! Cousin Dorothy.”

  Jancy winced at the mistake but didn’t let it distract her. She turned to the men. “I’ll look after things here.”

  Simon smiled his thanks, and the men left.

  “I’m so happy for you,” Lady Austrey said.

  Jancy realized she was still smiling after Simon and gathered her wits and sat near the widow. Remembering how much she’d wanted to talk about Jane, and how horrible it had been not to be able to, she said, “How long have you been married, Cousin?”

  Lady Austrey was clutching a black-edged handkerchief, but her eyes were dry. “Eight years. Austrey is ten years older than I, but we never expected this. He was only forty and always so healthy until last year.”

  Jancy prompted her to continue to talk, hoping this was the right thing to do. It was slow to begin with, but then words spilled in a torrent, about courtship, plans, her husband’s love of horses, two darling daughters, and the tragedy of a dead baby son.

  A tragedy for so many, Jancy thought.

  She better understood Simon’s concern. The Brideswell community could never move to this chilly, formal house and thrive, but they would hate to be divided. Even a few months here could erode the health and welfare of Simon’s parents. Even so, they would feel they must.

  This was like a deathwatch of a different, but no less terrible, kind.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Cousin Dorothy talked on, detailing treatments, many of them horrible as the doctors became more and more desperate. Improvements had all proved fleeting, leading to a painful, drawn-out end. Jancy would rather not have heard about it but hoped spilling all this would bring the poor woman ease.

  But then Lady Austrey started. “Oh, what am I doing? And you just arrived from a long journey! Refreshments! Would you like tea? Dinner? What time is it?”

  Jancy took her agitated hand. “Don’t concern yourself about such things, Cousin Dorothy. I don’t want to take over your home, and Marlowe is certainly much grander than anything I’ve had to do with, but please let me handle housekeeping matters for now.”

  The sunken eyes studied her. “It seems an imposition. You are so young. But then, I suppose . . .”

  . . . this will one day be yours, Jancy heard.

  Far, far in the future, thank heavens.

  For now, firmness would be merciful. “It will be no imposition,” she said. “Would you like tea, Cousin? When did you last eat?”

  Lady Austrey stared into space. “I’m not sure.”

  Perhaps the question should be, when did she last sleep?

  Jancy posed the question, adding, “I have lost people very dear to me, and I know how it can be. Let me take you to your bed. You’ll be more comfortable there, and can have a tray.”

  She put an arm around the widow and raised her to her feet—heavens, she was down to her bones—and guided her toward the door. “Where is your bedroom?”

  “Next door. But . . . Aeneas is there.”

  For a moment, Jancy didn’t understand. Oh, her dead husband.

  “Where have you been sleeping recently?”

  “On a pallet. There.”

  What now? She could make the widow comfortable on a chaise, but she needed a bed. A new thought occurred. “Cousin Dorothy, where are your daughters?” Were the poor mites abandoned somewhere?

  “I sent them to my sister weeks ago.”

  Thank heavens for that. “Do you want them summoned to return?”

  “Oh, no. Funerals are so dismal. I will join them after their father is laid to rest.” She stated it fiercely as if someone, Jancy even, might insist she stay.

  “Of course,” Jancy soothed. But what to do? Then she realized that there must be a bedroom somewhere prepared for herself and Simon. Trusting Dorothy to stand on her own feet for a moment or two, she went to the bellpull. A footman appeared in seconds.

  “Where are my husband and I to sleep?” she asked.

  “In the guest wing, ma’am.”

  There was a wing especially for guests? Hoping the widow wouldn’t object to being far from her husband’s corpse, she said, “Take us there.”

  She supported a good deal of Dorothy’s slight weight as they made their way back along the arm, through the hall and a library and into another wing. The footman opened a door into a warm, modestly sized bedroom.

  “Take away our luggage,” Jancy instructed, “and find Lady Austrey’s maid. Send tea and light food here.” She thought quickly. “And tell the housekeeper I wish to see her in the library. And I’ll want a tea tray there, too.”

  At least she knew where that library was, and she didn’t intend to return to the other wing if she could help it. Should she order refreshments to be sent to Simon and his father? She had no idea where they were, and if they wanted food, they should be up to the task of ordering it themselves.

  “Very good, ma’am.” He picked up their valises and left.

  Jancy sat the widow in a chair and found a blanket to tuck around her, amazed at how she was taking command. Perhaps her various trials had toughened her. His rock, Simon had said. She would be that if she could.

  The brief visit to Long Chart had been a blessing in preparation for this. If she’d come here with only Brideswell for experience, she might be as staggered as the widow.

  In moments the maid appeared, the one who’d been with Cousin Dorothy before. She was swollen-eyed but anxious to do anything necessary. Possibly she was protective of her place at the widow’s side. Jancy could understand that, but not how the woman had failed to take care of her mistress by making her eat and sleep.

  She wanted to get Cousin Dorothy to bed but thought she might not want a stranger helping her to undress. So she waited only until the tea arrived and the widow had drunk one well-sugared cup.

  “Persuade your mistress to go to bed,” she instructed the maid and left.

  She followed the arm back to the main house, grateful that the geography of Marlowe was simple. No rambling corridors here. Instead an arrangement of neat cubes. In the library, a somber, white-haired lady awaited her, and a tea tray sat on a small table beside a chair in front of the fire.

  The housekeeper curtsied and introduced herself as Mrs. Quincey, housekeeper at Marlowe for over thirty years and employed here all her life. It sounded like a challenge.

  Jancy’s confidence wavered. Did it seem as if she were rushing in gleefully to take possession before one master was buried or the other even dead?

  Rock, she reminded herself and sat by the tea tray. “Please sit, Mrs. Quincey, so we can discuss how to go on.”

  The woman did so, but stiffly upright.

  Oh, Lord, she probably shouldn’t have invited her to sit, but she could hardly keep such an elderly lady standing. Impatience came to her rescue. Be it right or wrong, she had no time for games at a time like this.

  “Mrs. Quincey, I look to you for advice. I am young and have no experience with a house like Marlowe, but clearly Lady Austrey must not be asked to manage here for a while, so together, we must do our best.”

  Astonishingly, honesty worked.

  The woman relaxed, accepted a cup of tea, and began to talk—but she, too, wanted to talk about the deceased. Apparently she’d known him from the cradle and truly grieved his death and the manner of it.

  “His brother died in the war,” she said. “Crushed at some siege. It seemed so tragic a fate then, but it was mercifully quick. It’s a sorry business to be so long adying.” She put down her cup. “But it’s the living that needs us, isn’t it, ma’am. So what do you require?”
/>   “Everything. Explain how the house is managed, please.”

  Jancy soon understood the basics, in theory, at least. Stewards, butlers, underbutlers, senior footmen, junior footmen. Mrs. Quincey had an assistant housekeeper and a maid who acted as her servant. Jancy would have been in a panic if it wasn’t clear that the house almost ran on the wheels of its own routines. Here, she clearly would not have to go to the kitchens to help prepare food for the funeral guests, even though Mrs. Quincey apologized for the lack of a chef.

  “We couldn’t keep one, ma’am, with no call on his skills. Mrs. Renishaw does well enough for sickrooms and servants, but . . .”

  “I’m sure she will be adequate for some time.”

  The woman’s eyes turned anxious. “Will . . . When the time comes,” she said, “will the new earl wish to live here?”

  Clearly the household understood the situation and were fearful.

  Jancy fell back on honesty again. “It hasn’t been discussed.”

  The old woman sighed. “Very well, ma’am. You and the gentlemen will wish dinner. At five?”

  Jancy agreed to that.

  “There is the question of where dinner should be served, ma’am.”

  “Why?”

  “The grand dining room is in the main house, ma’am, but generally only used for large gatherings. The family dining room is in the west wing.”

  In other words, near the dead body. Jancy remembered she and Simon going to the kitchen to eat because Isaiah’s body was laid out in the dining room. At the end, great and small, death was much the same, but here, the kitchen was not an option.

  Feeling as if she stepped onto difficult ground, Jancy asked, “Should Lord Austrey be elsewhere, perhaps? What has happened in the past?”

  “It’s forty-two years since the death of the earl’s father, ma’am, but I believe he lay in the chapel.”

  “There’s a chapel?”