The Governess

by Mary Kingswood

  “Now what was that for?” he said, smiling down at her so warmly that she blushed and lowered her eyes. “I beg your pardon, Miss Winterton, I did not mean to pry. Your thoughts are your own. How are your sisters? Suffering from cramped fingers, I suspect, from all the letter writing they do.”

  That made her laugh. “They are all well enough, although their lives are not smooth at the moment. They all have… difficulties to contend with. Well, not Rosamund, I think, apart from the usual minor complaints to do with her condition.”

  “Rosamund is Mrs Robin Dalton, is that right? Her husband is heir to Lord Westerlea, a baron, I think? But he was a younger son, too, as I was, whose brother reached adulthood before he died. It is strange how these things come about. Illness can strike any of us, at any age.”

  “Or accident,” Annabelle said. “Mr Richard Dalton was thrown from his horse and broke his neck while hunting, just a few days before he was to marry Rosamund.”

  He stopped and half turned. “But how tragic! And so she married the younger son, instead. That was sensible.”

  “Rosamund was always the practical one of the family,” she said, smiling fondly. “When Richard died, she had never met Robin and the two were very different, yet they were married within a month. I thought her very cold-hearted at the time, although it has worked out very well for them both and they live in perfect harmony together.”

  “That is a great joy when it happens,” he said. “She sounds like a sensible lady, so I imagine she had very good reasons for her decision.”

  “For the marriage, yes, but I cannot see why she could not have waited a little. It seemed so disrespectful to Richard’s memory. Oh look, the sun is coming out at last.”

  They had come to the point where the oak tree stood with the seat around its trunk. He gestured towards it. “Miss Winterton, will you sit with me for a while? I promise not to mention mistletoe.”

  She laughed and agreed to it, and he spread his coat on the bench to preserve them from its dampness. She was both pleased and disappointed that his coat was large enough to permit him to sit well away from her. The mistletoe above her head made her wonder, not for the first time, what it would be like to kiss Allan — to be kissed by him. Would he sweep her away to some magical place where nothing else existed but the two of them? Would he warm her insides and make even her toes wriggle in delight? Or would it be a prosaic, mundane experience? And if so, could she put herself into the hands of so passionless a man? She could not say. She wanted to, for marriage to Allan would be a pleasant and comfortable life, with nothing to trouble her, but could she live without love? Without passion?

  “You are very thoughtful today, Miss Winterton,” he said. “But perhaps I can alleviate one concern, at least, since we have agreed to share whatever we discover on the matter of my wife’s death. I talked to Mr Willerton-Forbes first thing this morning, and he is coming to the view that my wife’s death was an accident. The mixture which killed her was so strong that there were few people with the knowledge to create it deliberately. It would involve picking just the right part of the plant at the proper time in the growing cycle, and then treating it in a certain way… only a trained apothecary, well versed in the latest thinking, would be capable of it, and he can find no evidence of such knowledge in either Dr Wilcox or Mr Burton, nor have they the slightest reason to wish Eloise dead. So Mr Willerton-Forbes is minded to suppose the whole incident to be an accident. Perhaps it is as you said, that Eloise obtained a receipt from someone and made the mixture herself, inadvertently selecting the wrong plant for her needs. After all, the label is written in her own hand.”

  “That is indeed a great relief,” Annabelle said. “I wonder, however, if Miss Hancock’s information will make a difference to his opinion.”

  “I had forgotten about her,” Allan said. “I confess, my dislike of her creeping ways allowed me to suspect her of murder, and that was wrong of me. Just because she sneaks about eavesdropping does not make her culpable of anything worse, and her willingness to come here to tell her side of the story is testament to her fundamental honesty. It seems her journey was wasted, for she can have nothing of interest to say now.”

  “I would not be so sure,” Annabelle said. “Mr Willerton-Forbes and Captain Edgerton seemed very surprised by her information.”

  “Oh, she has been questioned already? And you know of it?”

  “I was asked to act as chaperon to Miss Hancock. She was nervous about being alone in a room with three gentlemen.”

  He laughed. “How very particular! But why you, and not one of the servants? Oh, but you are so conveniently placed, with the schoolroom being next door. What did she have to impart? Something scurrilous, I dare say, for she knew all the gossip.”

  Here was the opening Annabelle had hoped for to implement her plan. Yet now she had second thoughts. It had seemed a clever way to determine to her own satisfaction that he was innocent, but now, it seemed, such a stratagem was no longer necessary. If Lady Brackenwood’s death was deemed an accident, there was no threat of Allan being hanged, and the revelation of his child could only grieve him to no purpose.

  “Annabelle?” Allan said gently. “Is it something bad? It must be if you do not want to share it with me.”

  “I do! I do want to share it, but… it will distress you, I fear. Miss Hancock believed that Lady Brackenwood was with child when she died.”

  To her great surprise, Allan laughed. “No, she is mistaken on that score, I assure you. It is impossible.”

  Annabelle looked at him in amazement. “She seemed very confident about it. She said that a personal maid always knows about these things.”

  “No, no, she is quite wrong,” Allan said. “There is no—” He stopped and his face changed, reddening. “No! She would not—? Surely not.” He looked so dismayed, almost angry, that she was shocked and could say nothing. He jumped up and paced about, muttering, “No, it cannot be,” from time to time. It was almost as if he had forgotten Annabelle’s presence.

  Abruptly, he mastered himself, and said, “Forgive me, I am neglecting you shamefully. Shall we walk on?”

  Willingly, she jumped up but at once, he turned to her, one hand to his forehead. “No, I cannot pretend this is nothing. You must think me insane, but I assure you that my reaction is a natural one in the circumstances.”

  She could not prevent herself from saying, “Is it?” in surprised tones.

  He looked at her fully then, his eyes softening as he smiled at her. “Ah, Annabelle, you do not know all. This news from Hancock would distress me, you said, and so it has, but not in the way you expected. May I explain? I would have no secrets from you.”

  She nodded her agreement, and they sat down again.

  “I must be blunt, and I therefore beg your forgiveness in advance for mentioning subjects that no delicately brought up young lady should discuss, still less with a man. But I cannot explain it in roundabout terms, so therefore I will come straight to the point. If Eloise had got herself with child, it was none of my doing.”

  “Oh!” Annabelle’s hands flew to her hot cheeks. “Oh, but then…”

  “Yes. She must have had a lover. It is an irony, is it not? You expected me to be despondent at the loss of my child — a son, perhaps, who knows? Instead, I am despondent for a different reason entirely.”

  “You did not suspect her condition?” Annabelle said carefully. “Or the existence of a lover?” For if he had… that might drive a man to murder.

  “Not in the slightest. Nothing in her behaviour gave me the slightest cause for alarm, and she never went anywhere or stayed away from home, not even for a single night. I cannot imagine how she managed it or who it could be.”

  Annabelle looked at the flowers still clutched in her hand, and recalled the other flowers picked from the garden of that isolated little cottage, and later pressed between the pages of the notebooks for remembrance. She recalled, too, that the dowager knew something bad about Dr Wilcox. With a
heavy sigh, she said sadly, “But I can.”

  20: The Merest Trifle

  Allan was so abstracted as Portman dressed him for dinner that night that the valet said, “Are you quite well, milord? Do you wish to see Dr Wilcox?”

  This made Allan laugh so hard that his cravat was quite spoilt, and he had to begin again. Yes, indeed he did wish to see Wilcox, but not for any medical reason. ‘Good morning, Wilcox. What fine weather we are having, are we not? Is the road from the village abominably dusty just now? Shall we have a good harvest this year, do you suppose? And by the way, were you bedding my wife?’

  He was still laughing when he went down to the saloon. Marisa was the only person there.

  “I am pleased to see you in better spirits, Allan,” she said. “You have been too long-faced these past weeks. It does my heart good to see you enjoying life again. Shall you share the joke, or is it some secret amusement?”

  She rested one elegantly gloved hand on his arm, and it was a testament to his good humour that this did not irritate him as it normally would.

  “It is my experience that a joke loses much of its entertainment when spoken aloud,” he said.

  “What, even when shared with a very good friend?” she said, simpering coyly at him. “Come now, do tell.”

  “No, indeed, for it is the merest trifle, not strong enough to withstand scrutiny,” he said pleasantly. “How have you occupied yourself today, sister? Have you been out walking? I can recommend the exercise now that the heat has dissipated a little.”

  As he watched her pretend not to mind the snub, and half-listened to her answers to his polite questions, he wondered for the hundredth time why she lingered on at Charlsby. Three months it had been, now, and there was no sign that she wished to be elsewhere or cared much about the children she had left behind in Devonshire. He had thought he understood her reasons for coming, but since their last shocking conversation on the subject of marriage, she had neither raised the topic again, nor shown any other possible reason for her presence. Yet here she was. It was vexing.

  Gradually, the others trickled into the saloon. Annabelle had left off her black gloves again, he saw, after a month’s mourning for her aunt. That was not long, but then she had never met the lady, so it was hardly surprising. He trusted his Annabelle to follow the correct form.

  His Annabelle… how proprietorial he was getting! And yet she might still turn him down, he knew that. She might look at him, at the dull, boring Earl of Brackenwood, and remember the handsome, fashionable, oh-so-personable Mr Keeling, and his kisses that roused the sleeping maiden, and decide that she would far rather stay single. And then what would he do? How could he go on being distantly correct with her, when he wanted so badly to sweep her into his arms and smother her with kisses of his own. Just because a man was quiet and restrained and not articulate did not mean that he was insensate. He looked at her softly rounded shoulders and way her hair fell so gently and her smooth cheeks, and he ached to hold her, to touch her, to run his hands over her and—

  “Dinner is served, my lady,” Plessey intoned.

  Were all butlers so pompous, he wondered irritably? He had no idea. He remembered one from his boyhood who had been a pleasantly unassuming, paternal figure, but all his replacements since had been stiff and unapproachable. Eloise had gone through three of them in the eleven years she had been mistress of Charlsby, but they were all the same — so full of their own importance, grander, in many ways, than he was himself. Still, as long as the house ran smoothly and meals were served on time.

  The difficulty with sitting at the head of the table was that he could see everyone clearly. His eyes would keep wandering to Annabelle’s dear face. Lord, but he was in trouble there. He had never wanted a woman the way he wanted her. Even Marisa. His eyes turned to his sister-in-law, chattering animatedly to George, and he could not deny that she was a very handsome woman. Handsome, lively, quick-witted — everything that her sister was not. Yet he could barely remember now his youthful love for her. That had been nothing but a rush of excitement brought on by her kiss, for he had known her only a matter of days. One could not truly love a person so quickly. One might fall in love, in a heart-stopping, stomach-churning moment, but a love that would last for years could only be founded on the respect that grew from time and friendship. In the six months he had known her, his feelings for Annabelle had grown slowly, from early admiration to respect for her teaching skills and modest demeanour until he was utterly enchanted by her, helpless to resist. And again his eyes were drawn to her, listening composedly to Aunt Beth.

  Marisa turned her attention to Mr Willerton-Forbes, sitting across the table from her. She had to raise her voice to be heard. “How does your investigation go on, Mr Forbes? Have you added any names to your list of possible murderers?”

  “Fortunately not, Mrs Pargeter,” Willerton-Forbes said politely. “I have, however, managed to remove a few. I am now satisfied that the Dowager Lady Brackenwood had nothing at all to do with the death of her daughter-in-law, for although Dr Wilcox prescribed medicine of the same type that killed Lady Brackenwood, it was in fact merely sugar water.”

  “What?” the dowager said. “You mean Wilcox has been charging me five guineas a bottle for sugar water? I shall have words with him about that, you may be sure. But what about my granddaughters… you cannot still suspect them?”

  “No, I do not believe the Ladies Dorothea, Florence and Frederica had anything to do with their mother’s death. They had not the knowledge or opportunity to make or obtain the fatal mixture.”

  “You’re beginning to show some sense, then,” the dowager said sourly. “Have you taken Allan off your ridiculous list yet?”

  “I must always be at the top of the list, Mother,” Allan said equably. “At least until the true murderer is known, or it is determined that Eloise’s death was not murder.” And as he spoke, he wondered why Willerton-Forbes did not announce to the whole company that he now suspected an accident rather than murder.

  “And I expect my name is still there,” George said cheerfully. “I stand to gain if Cousin Allan is hauled off to be hanged.”

  “Hanged? What nonsense!” the dowager said robustly, but Allan laughed.

  “Have no fear, Mother, I shall not be hanged, since I am innocent of any crime.”

  “Ah, such confidence,” George said. “Men are hanged every year for crimes they did not commit. I can but hope, eh?” And he winked broadly.

  Allan was pleased to see George making the effort to appear like his normal self. In company it was hard to tell there was anything weighing on his mind, as he flirted with Marisa and joked raffishly with the men. But when he thought himself unobserved, the convivial expression vanished to be replaced by a look that Allan could only describe as despair. Poor George, in the throes of unrequited love!

  He knew that feeling well enough. For years he had wondered what might have been, if he had only had the courage to defy his mother and marry Marisa. And yet two days after meeting her again, he had developed such a disgust of her as could never be overcome. How glad he was now that he had not been trapped with a wife who had so few moral scruples, and so little understanding of his position. It still astonished him that she could imagine he would defy the church’s ruling and marry his late wife’s sister. Such marriages happened amongst those of lower rank, but in the nobility it would be madness.

  “And what about me?” Aunt Beth said timidly. “And my sister? And Uncle Jeremiah? You have not mentioned us. Surely you do not—”

  “Oh, no! Not at all, Lady Elizabeth,” Willerton-Forbes said. “You and Lady Anne and Mr Jeremiah Skelton have never been under the least suspicion.” Mr Penicuik cleared his throat, his eyes wide. “And I am satisfied that Mr Penicuik was not involved, either. He has been… very helpful. I have talked to Miss Hancock today, and have taken her name off the list, too.”

  “Your list is getting rather small,” Marisa said.

  “Indeed it is, and perhaps
it may vanish altogether soon, for I am not certain that this is a question of murder at all. The sleeping draught which killed Lady Brackenwood resided in a bottle labelled in her own hand.”

  “Exactly!” Marisa said, in triumph. “Written in her own hand, and what could that mean except that she made the contents herself? There is no other explanation.”

  “But there is,” Annabelle said, then hastily lifted her napkin to her mouth, as if to unsay the words. “I beg your pardon, pray forget I spoke.”

  “You are quite right, Miss Winterton,” Willerton-Forbes said gently. “It is possible a harmless sleeping draught concocted by Lady Brackenwood herself was poured away, to be replaced with the potent mixture which killed her.”

  “But anyone might have done so,” Marisa said. “Anyone in this house might have done such a thing.”

  “Indeed,” Willerton-Forbes said. “It is a puzzle, is it not, Mrs Pargeter?”

  ~~~~~

  After dinner, Mr Willerton-Forbes asked to speak to Allan privately, so they withdrew to the library.

  “Brandy?” Allan asked him.

  “Thank you, but no.”

  “Not a social visit, then,” Allan said, stoppering the decanter regretfully. He had a feeling that he would need brandy before the night was over.

  Willerton-Forbes gave a wintry smile, waiting politely until Allan had seated himself in one of the large wing-chairs beside the hearth before taking its pair for himself. “Did you know your wife was with child?” he said abruptly.

  “No, I did not.” He could not quite keep the anger out of his voice.

  “You are not surprised by this news, from which I surmise that Miss Winterton informed you of it?”

  “Was it confidential? She did not want to tell me of it, for she thought it would distress me to learn that a child of mine had died with my wife. My response was not what she expected.”