The Lady Fan Series: Books 1-3 (Sapere Books Boxset Editions)

by Elizabeth Bailey

Ottilia was looking down the stairs to the basement. “I am not convinced our marauder came this way.”

  “Why not?” he asked, vainly trying to banish a feeling of being dismissed.

  Her glance returned to his face. “Because I would have heard the door slam.”

  Struck, Francis looked at the door again. His subsequent emotions had driven from his mind the difficulty in shutting it.

  “It’s you who have the head, Tillie.”

  He turned back as he spoke and caught her regarding him with a look unfathomable in her grey eyes. He was tempted to ask for her thoughts, but a barely acknowledged caution held him back. Instead, he raised a questioning eyebrow. Instantly the look was gone and her glance moved quickly away from his face.

  “There is nothing more to be done here. I must go back to bed.”

  Without speaking again, he unburdened her of the extra candle and took the lead up the flight to the ground floor. A half-formed yearning came upon him to prolong this illicit idyll. He paused, holding up the candle to look into her face and gestured to the dining parlour door behind her.

  “Would you care for a nightcap? To help you to sleep?”

  Ottilia did not look at him. “I thank you, no. I had best go straight up.”

  “Then, since that candle is less than useless, I shall escort you.”

  At last her gaze found his. “We have a puzzle of identification, my lord. Tomorrow we must discover who did this.”

  “Bowerchalke?” Only half-aware of finding means to detain her, Francis worried at the puzzle. “In the press of events that night, suppose he had no time to return the key to Emily? There was Huntshaw, waiting to put her to bed. Then Randal entered when Emily was only half-undressed —”

  He paused, struck by a sudden shift in Ottilia’s features. Her eyes widened and she looked suddenly stricken.

  “What is it? What ails you, Ottilia?”

  She was staring at him, but Francis had the impression she was almost looking through him, as at some scene in her mind. Absently she spoke, a species of censure in her tone, which proved to be directed at herself.

  “I have been unforgivably slow.”

  “How so?”

  “To overlook a thing so obvious. Two o’clock? No, no. He must have been in the house well before that. What would Mary do for an hour or more?”

  Confusion wreathed Francis’s brain. “What in the world are you talking of?”

  Ottilia blinked at him, and then a faint little smile crossed her mouth. “Francis, will you be so kind as to lock that dressing room door? I believe you have the key.”

  Acutely disappointed at her lack of response, and daunted by the matter-of-fact tone, Francis was thrown off-balance. “Certainly.”

  She started up the stairs and he followed, holding the candle high to light her way. Halfway up the second flight, she halted abruptly and he very nearly lost his footing. One hand upon the banister, she turned to confront him, eyes alight with eagerness.

  “He did have a key!”

  “Who?”

  “The intruder. He had a key to the dressing room door.”

  No early opportunity was afforded to apprise the dowager of the previous night’s discoveries, for which Ottilia was a trifle relieved. She could only hope the startling facts would serve to gloss oyer the impropriety of her having wandered around the house with Lord Francis in the middle of the night, and in her dressing robe.

  Although the family foregathered in the dining parlour for breakfast, the imminent departure of Lady Candia with the countess formed the main topic of conversation. The girl was pale but composed, the focus of her pleadings to her grandmother falling upon her wish for her brother to post up to Dalesford as soon after his return as was possible.

  “You will make him come to me, won’t you, Grandmama?”

  “Be sure I shall despatch him post-haste. But you must not expect him to remain long, for his duties are likely to multiply.”

  Lady Candia’s large eyes showed apprehension. “What duties?”

  Ottilia saw Sybilla throw a harassed glance towards her daughter and son. She evidently felt she had said too much. Lord Francis came to the rescue.

  “There is more for a fellow to do upon an event of this kind than for a female, Candia. But you may depend upon having the comfort of Giles’s presence for days at a time. Meanwhile, you have Aunt Harriet and your cousins. You will not lack for company.”

  Lady Candia did not look abashed. On the contrary, her features took on a mulish look of rebellion.

  “You are all keeping something from me, I know you are.”

  “Nothing of the sort,” said the dowager with a little of her usual snap.

  “Yes, but you are,” insisted the girl. “You think I don’t see it, but I do. You are forever whispering in corners. And whenever I enter the room, you fall silent and smile, as if you were speaking of something you do not wish me to hear.”

  A note of hysteria sounded in the child’s voice, and Ottilia longed to intervene. She could not feel it her place, no matter the licence allowed her in the matter of discoveries concerning the murder. She withdrew her attention from the ensuing barrage of reassurance from Lady Candia’s relatives and gave her mind up to secret contemplation of last night.

  But it was neither the intruder nor the key that occupied her thoughts, which turned rather upon the strange conduct of Lord Francis.

  She might have believed the sense of intimacy had been engendered by the atmosphere of the hour, for the night was apt to exaggerate and enliven one’s imagination. But she could in nowise account in this way for that “Tillie” which had sprung spontaneously from his lips. There was no getting away from the fact that he had meant it for a nickname. And nicknames were either an insult or an endearment. She could not accuse Lord Francis of wishing to insult her.

  In a night of much tossing and turning, Ottilia had relived those little moments of oddity in his attitude towards her, in between the business in which they had been engaged. She was ready to believe herself mistaken in reading more than she ought into a certain look in his eyes as they met hers, or a quality in his voice that caused an echo to resonate within her. But “Tillie” spoke deeply to a scarcely acknowledged hope.

  She came to herself to realise that Lady Dalesford was making noises indicative of her wish to begin upon the journey. Almost Ottilia regretted it, for she hardly knew if she could maintain her composure in relating to Sybilla the adventures of the night. She dared not look towards Lord Francis, and was relieved to notice his attention concentrated upon his niece.

  There was a flurry of hastening, a tinkling of the bell for the servants, and the travellers about to leave the breakfast parlour for their chambers to make last-minute preparations.

  Then to Ottilia’s ears came sounds without the room in the hall beyond that argued a similar jostle and fuss. Doors were opening and closing, there was a far jingle of harness and horses, as of a shifting of hooves upon the cobbles. She had not heard the knocker, but there were alien voices mingled with others she thought she recognised. Cattawade?

  In a moment it was clear the hubbub had penetrated to the ears of the other occupants of the breakfast parlour. One by one they stilled. One by one, and speedily, they trod upon one another’s words.

  Lord Francis exchanged a glance with his mother. “An arrival? Surely it is not ...”

  His voice died, but Ottilia caught the instant mix of hope and apprehension in Sybilla’s face. “I am sure it is only ...”

  The countess strained towards the door, a frown upon her brow. “Mama, you don’t think ...”

  Then an unfamiliar and vibrant voice, raised in impatient accents, penetrated clearly through the walls.

  “Let be, man. By God, but this officiousness is beyond what I may tolerate! Do you suppose I am about to escape from my own house?”

  Chapter 16

  Lady Candia was first to act, running to the door and shrieking as she went.

  “Pap
a! It is Papa. Papa! Papa!”

  She wrenched the door open and disappeared through it. Lady Dalesford was close upon her heels.

  “It is Randal.”

  Ottilia saw the dowager clap a hand to her breast and seize the back of a chair. Quickly she moved to her assistance.

  “Take my arm, Sybilla. Lord Francis, your mother is unwell.”

  He had begun to follow the others to the vestibule, from whence a cacophony of exclamation could be heard, above it all the sobbing of Lady Candia, still crying out for her papa.

  Halting, Lord Francis looked back. “Mama?” He moved towards her, glancing briefly at Ottilia. “It’s the shock.”

  The dowager, leaning heavily on Ottilia’s supporting arm, waved him away. “I am all right. Go on and I will follow presently.”

  Lord Francis looked dubious. “I am happy to wait.”

  Sybilla shook her head. “Go and greet him.”

  He disappeared with alacrity and Ottilia looked with concern at the dowager.

  “Would you like to sit down, Sybilla?”

  “No. Give me a moment only.” Her breath drew heavily in and out, but she managed to speak. “I am so thankful, and yet I dread to see him. There is so much to be said.”

  “Presently, ma’am,” Ottilia soothed. “Let the first greeting be one of pleasure, if it cannot go as far as rapture.”

  The dowager grasped her hand and held it tightly. “Sensible as ever. You are the greatest comfort to me, my dear.”

  Ottilia smiled. “I am glad.”

  But as Sybilla began a slower progress across the room than had her descendants, Ottilia could not help but wonder if anything she had to offer could afford the afflicted family any real degree of relief.

  Francis stepped into the vestibule and rounded the corner into the long hall, where he halted, struck by the extraordinary number of persons assembled.

  Candia had thrown herself on Randal’s broad chest, still sobbing, and his brother held her, patting her back and murmuring soothing words, while his eyes signalled a harassed message to Harriet, hovering nearby. To one side of Randal’s large frame and a little in his rear stood a burly fellow of stolid aspect, greatcoated and with a slouch hat pulled low over his forehead. His fixed gaze remained upon Randal’s back and he seemed oblivious to the troop of servants shifting back and forth under the direction of his brother’s valet, Foscot, and the stern eye of the butler, burdened with a multitude of bandboxes and portmanteaux.

  Momentarily astonished at the quantity of his brother’s luggage, Francis eyed the passing servants in bewilderment.

  Then a little coterie of persons caught at his attention. Standing against the wall to the unoccupied side of the open front door and looking as if they were desirous of shrinking into the background, stood a well-dressed female and two youngsters sheltered within her arms. Francis eyed the woman, a tenuous thread of alarm seeping into his gut as he caught a vague feeling of familiarity.

  Before he could identify the source, his brother’s glance found him.

  “Fan, old fellow!”

  Looking round, Francis saw that Candia had been transferred to Harriet’s care. A rush of affection swept over Francis and he moved quickly to embrace his brother, holding strongly to the large form that had inspired in boyhood an awed fascination.

  “You fiend, Randal,” he managed out of the hoarseness of sudden emotion. “Where the devil have you been?”

  His brother’s arms tightened briefly and then let go. Randal stepped back a little, but his grip held on Francis’s arms and the familiar quirky smile warmed his heart, though his brother’s eyes were wet.

  “D’you think I’d have gone, my boy, had I known? What, light out and leave you to pick up the pieces? You know me better.”

  Francis wished fervently he might never have wasted a second in the suspicions that had poisoned the past few days. His doubt must have shown in his face, for Randal’s smile crumpled and a quick frown took its place.

  “Devil take it, you did think it!”

  Francis seized his hand and gripped it. “For a moment only. My God, Randal, if you had seen —” He broke off swiftly, recalling the press of persons about them, including his innocent niece. “Never mind that. You are here now, and we will very soon set everything to rights.”

  A look of dull misery crept over his brother’s face. “Everything? I doubt it, old fellow.”

  Then, with his characteristic energy, he released himself from Francis’s grasp and swept a wide arm towards the stolid individual behind him. Contempt was in both voice and eyes. “For a start, try if you can dislodge our friend Grice here.”

  “Grice?”

  The fellow indicated transferred his gaze and Francis was taken aback to find himself thoroughly appraised by the man’s look as he nodded.

  “Benjamin Grice, sir, and I’ve me duty.”

  This was said with the flat inflexion of one determined to stand his ground, come what may. An explanation for the man’s presence leapt into Francis’s head.

  “Confound it, you are the Runner!”

  “And he sticks as firm as a plaster.”

  Randal’s bitter intonation excited Francis’s sympathies, but his immediate reaction was against the family’s man of business.

  “So much for Jardine’s boast. He swore his man could outwit any Bow Street minion.”

  “He did,” said Randal, not without a note of satisfaction. “By the time Grice caught up with us, we had already begun our journey home.”

  “Bow Street Runner?”

  His mother’s acid and infuriated tones, coming from the vestibule behind, alerted Francis to a fresh danger. He leaned to murmur a warning to Randal. “Take care! Mama is like to skin you alive.”

  “Do you tell me a Bow Street Runner has had the temerity to enter this house?”

  His mother’s imperious tones immediately accomplished what Randal’s contempt and his own dignity could not. Benjamin Grice did not quail, but his eyes showed definite apprehension as the dowager started forward. Rather to Francis’s relief, his brother intercepted her, shifting quickly into the vestibule.

  “You here, Mama? What, is the whole family residing in the house?”

  Deflected, his mother halted. “I thank God you are come at last, Randal, but I shall soon be wishing otherwise if you mean to utter such foolishness. Naturally we are here at such a time.”

  She held out her hands to her elder son, who took them in his, kissing them one by one and then saluting her cheek.

  “I might have guessed I could rely on you, ma’am. I imagine everything has been in uproar. Have they taken Emily?”

  “Days since,” Francis told him, stepping through to join the pair. “Tretower arranged everything.”

  “A good man, George. Well, I must arrange for the obsequies.”

  “It is all in hand.”

  By this time, the whole party, bar the servants and the newcomers, had followed into the vestibule, Grice the Runner resuming his station at Polbrook’s shoulder.

  “Randal!”

  He returned his attention to his mother, and Francis’s heart sank as he noted that, the way now being clear to notice them, her grim gaze was fixed upon the group of strangers near the door.

  The dowager gestured towards the woman who had her arms about her two bewildered offspring. “What is this?”

  “Ah.”

  For the first time, Randal’s confident air faltered. Francis held his breath. His brother set an arm about their mother’s shoulders and gently moved her into the hall in the direction of the trio.

  “I must beg your indulgence and kindness, Mama. I know you will receive Madame Guizot and her unfortunate children with every sympathy.” He paused a little way towards them and lowered his voice, and Francis strained to hear his words. “They are refugees, Mama. I got to them just in time. We were able to bring away but a handful of their effects, for we had need of haste. I beg you, Mama, on my life, do not repudiate them.”
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  Francis knew by the rigidity of his mother’s back that she was excessively angry. Had she guessed, as he had, the import of this invasion? But she shook off Randal’s arm and moved forward, holding out her hand and greeting the lady in her own tongue.

  “You are very welcome, madame, and your children also.”

  Madame Guizot, looking almost as fearful as her offspring, took the hand in a delicate one of her own and curtsied.

  “Madame is very kind.”

  “Come, you must be tired after your journey. Let me arrange for your disposition. Then you may rest and refresh yourselves.” Turning with a magnificent assurance that drew Francis’s appreciation, his mother motioned the butler. “Cattawade, have Mrs. Thriplow come to me immediately.” Then she ushered the forlorn trio of émigrés into the parlour. For this they undoubtedly were, despite Francis’s fears of their connection with his brother.

  Candia was reclaiming her father’s attention, the shrill note of panic echoed in her fearful eyes.

  “What does this mean, Papa? Why have you a Bow Street Runner in your train? What does he want with you?”

  Harriet, to her credit, attempted to brush the matter aside. “Is this a moment to be plaguing your papa with awkward questions, child? Let us come away, for we must begin upon our own journey, remember.”

  But his niece categorically refused to move. “You do not think I am going now? With Papa returned? No, Aunt Harriet, I cannot think of deserting him. Papa!”

  Randal, who had half followed towards the parlour, looking highly troubled as if he feared what their mother might say to Madame Guizot, turned back at this appeal. “What is it, child?” The testy note should have warned her, and Francis marshalled himself to intervene if Randal was so thoughtless as to vent his no doubt confused emotions upon the poor girl.

  “Papa, I was going with Aunt Harriet, but I want to stay with you. Pray let me stay!”

  Randal received her impetuous advance with a worried frown, catching at her shoulders and holding her off from him. “No, my dear. Matters are likely to prove extremely complex just at present. It is better for you to be out of the way.”