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

by Elizabeth Bailey

  Effectually silenced, Ottilia endured the fussing until her spouse at last took himself off. Left alone, she removed the cushion and flung it across the room, at which precise moment her mother-in-law entered the parlour.

  “An efficacious remedy for ill-temper, my dear Ottilia,” said Sybilla, retrieving the cushion and seating herself on the sofa.

  Ottilia cursed inwardly. She had left the dowager out of her calculations. But at least she need not mind her tongue. “I am wedded to a tyrant.”

  Sybilla laughed, leaning to warm her hands at the fire. “All men are the same with the first baby. Wait until you are on your third or fourth. He will not bat an eye.”

  “Allow me to get through one first, if you please.”

  An understanding smile came her way. “I gather Francis has been suborned by your brother.”

  “The wretch has put the fear of God into him.”

  “Upon what difficulty?”

  Ottilia let out a sigh. “Oh, that in a woman of my age a first child may be dangerous.”

  Sybilla lifted her brows. “Loath as I am to draw your fire, Ottilia, that is generally regarded to be true.”

  “I know it, but it does not make it any easier to bear. I find the restrictions such a curse. I may not do this or that. I must take care of my health. And the worst of it is that Fan is perfectly correct. I am easily fatigued.”

  “It won’t last. I’ll wager in another month you will begin to bloom.”

  “Very likely.” She was all too familiar with the probable pattern from her experiences assisting in her brother’s surgery. “But it does not help me now, especially when I need all my strength with this excessively tricky business of Sir Joslin’s demise.”

  Sybilla’s eye gleamed. “Now we come to it. And you need not think I failed to notice my son’s uncertain mood. May I enquire what is chafing him? All he would tell me is his fear you would be at it like a dog with a bone and I cannot imagine why that should trouble him, since such is your invariable practice.”

  Ottilia’s irritation subsided, turned aside by the quandary of how she should answer. Little though she wished to introduce the subject, she could see no real advantage in concealment. Her mother-in-law was too astute to be long kept in ignorance of her grandson’s potential danger.

  “Well?” came from the dowager on a sharper note. “You need not dissemble, Ottilia, for I know that look. What is amiss?”

  She capitulated. “I’m sorry to distress you, Sybilla, but we met Giles at Willow Court.”

  The dowager’s features tightened and her black eyes snapped. “Did you indeed? Then he is dangling after the wench?”

  Ottilia plunged in. “It is worse than that. Tamasine sent to him at an early hour this morning, requesting him to come to her there.”

  “Before Sir Joslin died? But she was here early this morning, breaking into my house!”

  “I don’t think Tamasine’s movements have much bearing on the case. The point is —”

  “I am perfectly aware of the point, I thank you,” snapped Sybilla, cutting in without apology. “You would have me believe, I dare say, that Giles was in a plot with the girl to rid her of her guardian. Poppycock!”

  “I have not suggested anything. Moreover, I should not for a moment believe your grandson capable of such an act. But —”

  “I will tolerate no buts!”

  Rising from her chair, the dowager moved restlessly to the door, glaring at the clear pane freshly inserted by the handyman Grig, who had found time to come over from Polbrook. Turning there, she fixed Ottilia with a stare from eyes vibrant with wrath.

  “Do you think I can bear to go through all that again? You know, better than anyone, what I suffered to think that Randal —”

  She broke off to draw a shuddering breath and Ottilia, her compassion stirred, remained silent, unwilling to pour coals on a flame she knew to be dangerous in its capacity for heat. The black gaze left her face, darting about the room as if it were unfamiliar. After a moment or two, Sybilla regained command and returned to resume her seat on the sofa. She looked across at Ottilia with eyes as bleak as they were before violent.

  “Why should I suppose the son to be any more sensible than the father?”

  Ottilia summoned a smile. “Yes, but I think Giles has more consideration. Although if as Fan thinks, he is besotted with the chit, one cannot hope to argue him out of it. Much less get him to acknowledge what is lacking in her.”

  Sybilla nodded, but returned to the heart of the matter. “Is there something in his conduct that must make him suspect?”

  “Not in his conduct. It is her public assertion that they may now be married that damns him, if anything.”

  A snort escaped the dowager and she cast up her eyes. “As if any person of sense would believe a word the child utters.”

  “She is not a reliable witness, it is true. But I’m afraid there is a little more to it than that.”

  With no roundaboutation, she put her mother-in-law in possession of what Francis had told her of his conversation with his nephew. Sybilla did not speak for a moment, but the snap of her black eyes gave notice of her thoughts.

  “The addlepated fool,” she said at last, on a sighing breath that spoke her inner despair.

  “Just so. But there is no need to fall into the dismals, ma’am. We are not yet at the point of determining anything more than the cause of death. If it was an overdose of opium, as Patrick suggests, there is yet the question of how it was administered.”

  “Not to mention who did the administering. I suppose I need not ask if you hold by your theory?”

  “I don’t yet have one. But if you mean to ask whether I remain suspicious, then I must say yes.”

  “But why, Ottilia?”

  “Because Willow Court is a hotbed of passions, Sybilla. I should doubt whether any one of the inmates, bar the lower servants, may be eliminated as a possible murderer, Tamasine included.”

  “But, notwithstanding her abominable request of Giles, is she capable of planning to do away with her guardian?”

  “Yes,” Ottilia said baldly. “It is well to argue her mental state, but there is an uncanny streak of apparent rationality. I think she is eminently capable of ridding herself of the man she saw as standing in the way of her future plans.”

  The dowager balked. “What, to marry Giles?”

  “I was thinking rather of this Simeon fellow. He is the one involved in her scheme of revenge, after all. Though whether Tamasine comprehends the intricacies of whatever plot was afoot between them, I strongly doubt.”

  The discussion was interrupted as the maid Biddy entered the parlour. “Lady Phoebe Graveney, my lady.”

  Ottilia all but started. Could there be a more inopportune moment for the arrival of Giles’s prospective bride? Throwing a glance at Sybilla, she saw her thought echoed in the dowager’s features before she schooled them to an enforced look of welcome.

  The maid stood aside and a young woman came through the door. Curiosity overtook Ottilia and she regarded the visitor with interest. She was elegantly and expensively clad, as befitted the daughter of an earl, with a countenance pleasant rather than striking. The nose was neat, the cheeks tending to lean and the mouth well shaped, but the girl’s best feature was a pair of speaking eyes, their colour indeterminate somewhere between blue and green.

  Recalling Francis’s inability to describe her, Ottilia could not altogether blame him. Her hair, under a pretty bonnet, was certainly on the dark side. But the melancholy thought struck that the poor child could not hold a candle to Tamasine Roy.

  Lady Phoebe was greeting Sybilla with polite enquiries as to her health and the satisfactory nature of her Christmas festivities, but it was apparent the girl was labouring under strong emotion. Beneath the spurious air of calm, several wayward muscles in her face shifted, and deep in those giveaway eyes Ottilia detected a trace of anxiety. Or was it anguish?

  “Phoebe, allow me to present to you my daughter-in-
law, Lady Francis Fanshawe.”

  Ottilia concealed her too close scrutiny, producing a friendly smile. “You will forgive my not rising, I hope. I am increasing and thus obliged to take my ease.”

  The young lady commented suitably and was persuaded to take a seat next to the dowager, who proceeded through a fund of commonplace enquiries.

  “Are your parents well?”

  “Oh, yes, I thank you. Mama sends her compliments to you.”

  The girl’s responses appeared to Ottilia as mechanical as the dowager’s questions concerning Lord and Lady Hemington’s sojourn with the latter’s sister, and she began to wonder if this visit betokened more than mere courtesy. In a bid to test her theory, she waited a suitable moment to inject a dart designed to discover its validity.

  “Have you seen Giles since your return, Lady Phoebe? I gather the two of you are well acquainted.”

  The visitor’s cheeks grew pink and she fumbled with her fingers in her lap. “Oh. No, I have not. I mean, yes, we have known each other from childhood.”

  “But you have not yet seen him?” persisted Ottilia, ignoring a glare from her mother-in-law.

  Lady Phoebe moistened her lips with her tongue, but her eyes gave her away. “I believe Giles has been excessively occupied.”

  “Yes, with the family. It has not been comfortable for him at home,” cut in the dowager, black orbs snapping at Ottilia.

  “No,” agreed the girl in a hasty way, “although he has likely contrived to amuse himself elsewhere.”

  Sybilla stepped in quickly. “Oh, well, you know Giles. He hates wrangles. It is like him to escape if he can.”

  There was a silence, and Ottilia could not but feel for the girl. Was she wondering whether or not to ask the burning question no doubt hovering on her tongue? Ottilia took the bull by the horns.

  “I was privileged to meet the extraordinary Miss Tamasine Roy this morning.” The girl’s eyes widened, revealing apprehension. Ottilia paid no heed to the dagger look she received from her mother-in-law. “Have you met her, Lady Phoebe?”

  “No.”

  It was a breathy gasp. Ottilia held the girl’s gaze and smiled sympathetically. “My poor child, you are dying to ask, are you not?”

  “Ottilia!”

  “Well, but is it not better for us to be open with Lady Phoebe? She will only imagine worse than the truth if she is not told, Sybilla.”

  A horrified look was the dowager’s only answer, and Ottilia hastened to give her a reassuring glance. She had no intention of making free with the worst of what she knew to Giles’s discredit.

  The visitor glanced from one to the other of them. “Then he is dangling after her.”

  “No such thing,” snapped the dowager, just as if she had not said exactly the same herself. “And he could get no good by it if he were. The girl is wanting in wits.”

  Lady Phoebe’s dark brows snapped together. “The rumours are true?”

  Ottilia chose to take this herself. “She is not in her right mind, if that is what you mean. But as yet I have no reason to believe she is fit for incarceration.”

  “You said you met her this morning, Lady Francis?”

  Ottilia laughed. “With a vengeance.”

  A wistful look crept into Lady Phoebe’s vulnerable eyes. “Is she very lovely?”

  “Oh, a clap of thunder,” said Ottilia frankly. “Even my husband was deprived of breath at first sight of the creature. You must not set any store by Giles having been bowled over.”

  “Ottilia, I wish you will be quiet.” This from Sybilla, in severe irritation.

  “Oh, no, ma’am, I had rather be given the truth.”

  Sybilla let out a sound of defeat. “In that case, you had best hear what has occurred this day. You are bound to get a garbled version otherwise. Ottilia?”

  Obligingly, Ottilia gave a brief account of the day’s events, dwelling on the oddities of Tamasine’s visit and her guardian’s subsequent death, and omitting all mention of Giles’s presence in the house and the incriminating conversation.

  “So you see must see, my dear Lady Phoebe,” she finished, “that Giles will realise at last there is nothing to be gained by courting a girl who is not in her right mind.”

  “But is he courting her?”

  Lord, but the girl was dogged! How to answer that? She prevaricated. “I hardly think it is serious.”

  Sybilla added her mite. “Certainly not. Giles has more sense.”

  This blatant falsehood appeared not to convince Lady Phoebe. “Has he? But Lady Francis said he had been bowled over.”

  “So must any man be upon first sight of the girl. Even I thought her like to a fairy princess.”

  Lady Phoebe’s mouth took on a mulish look. “In that case, perhaps you will tell me why Giles should be haunting Willow Court, which I am reliably informed is the case.”

  Before Ottilia could respond to this, the little conference was brought to an end by the entrance of Sophie Hathaway, leaning heavily on Miss Mellis’s arm.

  Chagrin struck into Phoebe’s bosom. Just when she had been getting somewhere! Indeed, she was persuaded both the dowager and Lady Francis were concealing something. She had not failed to note a couple of meaning looks that passed between them. But all attempts to garner the information she sought were now in vain, and Phoebe looked with scant approval on the newcomer.

  She was a faded blonde, who must have had at one time more than a passing claim to beauty. It was marred by a discouraging aspect of debilitation, accompanied by a languid tone of complaint as she broke into instant lamentation.

  “I could not get off at all, and I do so hate lying all alone.” She sank into the armchair next to Lady Francis, but reached out to pat the hand of the woman who had assisted her into the room. “I could not keep poor dear Teresa hanging about me. That would have been most unfair.”

  “Poor dear Teresa has little else to occupy her,” said the dowager, taking opportunity to present Phoebe.

  Expressing herself suitably, Phoebe turned as soon as she could to the dowager’s companion, for whom she always felt a little sorry. Her faded cheeks had pinked up a little, and Phoebe recalled the dismissive fashion in which Giles tended to treat the poor woman. A sliver cut at her heart at this remembrance of another black mark against him.

  “How do you do, Miss Mellis? How is your leg? Do you feel it in this inclement weather?”

  The companion coloured up even more. “Oh! Thank you. A little, Lady Phoebe, but it is of no moment.” With which, she scurried to a straight chair in the corner, effacing herself as was her custom.

  “What a pity you did not have Patrick to mend your leg, Teresa, for I’ll warrant it would not trouble you so greatly,” said Mrs Hathaway, taking up the conversation again. “Yet my poor husband’s skill has proved unequal to my unfortunate ailment, though he does his best.”

  Phoebe listened with only half an ear, for she caught Lady Francis looking at her, an expression in her face for which Phoebe was unable to account. She had heard a deal about Giles’s new aunt, and none of it false, if she was to judge by the manner in which Lady Francis had thrust her anxieties into the open.

  “You can have no notion how I suffer,” Mrs Hathaway was saying. “Oh, I don’t complain. It is so tedious for everyone to be hearing about one’s woes all the time. Only it is so melancholy to be permanently ill, though I make every effort to appear cheerful. One cannot be parading one’s misfortune to one and all.”

  “What is your misfortune, Mrs Hathaway?” asked Phoebe, not with any desire to know, but merely in a bid to keep the woman talking so that she need not speak herself.

  Nothing loath, the lady launched into a dismal catalogue which Phoebe would have found depressing had she been paying it the least attention. Instead her mind revolved around the lamentable intelligence that proved out all her suspicions and blasted the fond hopes in which she had basked these many years, secure in the conviction that her affections were returned, if not with ardour
, at least in a measure sufficient to satisfy her.

  She could almost wish Lady Francis had held her tongue, although it was better to know the worst. A pang smote her as remembrance struck. She had thought the worst had been and gone with the after effect of the scandal attending the death of the Marchioness of Polbrook. At the time, in the joyous anticipation of welcoming Giles home from his extended travels abroad, Phoebe’s world had come crashing down when suspicion for his wife’s death had fallen upon the marquis. The Earl of Hemington had all but forbidden the banns, repudiating the erstwhile arrangement and declaring that nothing would induce him to allow his daughter to ally herself with the Polbrook family.

  Staunchly loyal, Phoebe had held out against Papa. The understanding between herself and Giles had been of long duration, although they had entered upon no formal engagement. Phoebe had been content to have it so, believing wholeheartedly in his constancy. Her breath shortened and all the discomforts that beset her bosom came tumbling to the fore. Her trust had been misplaced. Rumour did not lie, and the dear friend who had long captured her heart was in thrall to the beautiful Tamasine Roy.

  Without thinking what she did, Phoebe rose abruptly from her seat, cutting into Mrs Hathaway’s continuing monologue without ceremony. “Forgive me! I must go.” Aware that her voice was husky, Phoebe struggled for calm.

  “Good heavens, Phoebe, you have scarcely been here a moment.”

  Phoebe gave the dowager her attention, aware of a shake in her voice. “I came only to pay my respects, ma’am.” She threw a tiny smile at Mrs Hathaway. “I must crave your indulgence. I hope you may feel better directly.”

  Then she hastened to the door and slipped out of the room. Alone in the hall, Phoebe halted a moment, catching at the newel post at the bottom of the stair in a bid to recover her equilibrium. Aware of having given herself away, she could only hope the visitor was too self-absorbed to notice. It was too late to expect as much from Giles’s grandmother and aunt. Phoebe could only trust nothing would be said to Giles himself, for she knew Lady Polbrook for a fiery matriarch whose command over the whole family was absolute. But she doted on Giles.