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[Lord and Lady Calaway 03] - A Murderous Inheritance

Page 12

by Issy Brooke


  “Do you think it is because of the ... baby, such as it was?”

  “Perhaps. Or more likely, because of his actions after that terrible event. Yet they are not the first couple for this to happen to, and in truth, is it not common for most women to experience something like this? I have been so dreadfully lucky, I know.”

  Theodore had to nod in agreement. “Sometimes it is so early that the woman barely knows the babe has been lost; and yes, it is common enough but no less awful for all that.” He didn’t want to carry on. He was an objective medical man who spoke nothing less than the truth to his patients – often to the detriment of their wellbeing – but this was an area that he found surprisingly difficult to cope with. It surprised himself, at any rate. He told himself he should be much more hard-hearted and practical but every loss was like a stab to the heart and he simply didn’t know how to talk to Adelia about that. He knew that Percy was likely to be feeling the same way, and he ached for the younger man. It was something they were never going to be able to discuss, he felt. How painful it was to be a man, alone with such unspeakable emotions.

  He also got the feeling that Adelia had no idea what it was like for him or for Percy.

  Adelia said, “I wonder if there is anything else between them. She was so very brusque to him. Not quite as if she was scared of him, but there was some reaction that was hard to fathom.” She crossed the room, heading for the smaller side room where she could dress in privacy. A maid would already be waiting for her. “I don’t suppose he voiced any suspicions about Knight’s death? Does he know of anyone who might have wished the man ill?”

  “He did not. He changed the subject and spoke again about Felicia.”

  “His mind went from the murder to his wife?”

  “Do you think that’s significant?” Theodore asked with an uncomfortable feeling growing in his belly. He decided to assume he was simply hungry.

  “She’s strange. I know she’s our daughter but ...” Adelia stood now at the door, her hand on the handle, her back to the room. She spoke to the wall as if she couldn’t face her husband as she said the next thing. “Could – could – she have been responsible?”

  Theodore sat up and swung his legs off the bed. “She could have done it – but by God, she would not have been responsible for it!”

  Adelia leaned forward, pressing her head against the wall as if it was needed to prop her up. She whispered in a cracking voice, “You mean, if she truly is insane?”

  Theodore could not reply. He was glad that his wife could not see the tears in his eyes.

  Fourteen

  Adelia’s fears were not allayed in the slightest the next morning when she went to find Felicia. Felicia had not come down to breakfast, and ordinarily Adelia would have left the couple well alone; Percy had been away for months and would naturally wish to spend some time with his wife. But he had come to breakfast alone, and then stayed downstairs, apparently engrossed in the newspapers which had been delivered. Adelia didn’t disturb him but instead slipped out of the breakfast room and spoke to one of the chambermaids who said that “My lady is unwell.”

  “The usual?”

  “Oh, it is never usual,” the woman replied with a grimace.

  Adelia knocked on Felicia’s door and pressed her ear to it to listen for a reply. None came. She glanced at the maid. “Was she awake?”

  The maid nodded. “She has been awake most of the night, pacing and rubbing at her wrists.”

  Adelia knocked again and started to slowly open the door, saying, “Felicia?”

  “Don’t come in! Don’t let them in!” Felicia slammed herself against the door from the inside and Adelia was thrown back into the corridor.

  “Stand back. I am coming in, but I promise you that I am alone,” Adelia commanded and pushed the door open. Felicia tried to resist but Adelia was stronger. Felicia gave up, and retreated to the bed, clinging to one of the posts and staring with wild eyes at her mother.

  “Oh! It is only you.”

  “Yes. Who did you expect? Percy?”

  “Percy?”

  “Your husband.”

  “Why would he come in?”

  “Because he is your husband.”

  “But he’s not here.”

  “Felicia,” said Adelia, her alarm growing. “He returned from his travels yesterday. Don’t you remember?”

  Felicia blinked at her. She seemed to be shivering, almost twitching, her mouth working as if she were chewing something. “He did, he did! I remember. Oh mama, I have not slept and my head hurts so very much.”

  “I am going to get your father to come and see you. Wait here.”

  Adelia fled to fetch Theodore. She could not bear to see her daughter in such a state. As soon as she told him, he ran ahead of her, and she fell back, letting him go in to deal with her.

  Something was very, very wrong with Felicia. Was it originating in her body or her mind? Adelia cast her memories back to Felicia’s girlhood. Yes, she’d been an overly sensitive girl; but had they missed the signs of this current madness?

  Had they raised her wrongly?

  Adelia wanted to cry. But she set her jaw, stood up straight, and walked briskly downstairs as if nothing was wrong, leaving Theodore to hopefully do something. She walked confidently back into the breakfast room, where Percy was still reading the newspapers, and sat down very noisily alongside him.

  He looked up in surprise. She stared fixedly at him until he closed the paper and said, “She’s not well again, is she?”

  “She is not. When did all this start? When was the first – attack?”

  “It’s hard to say. I’m not here very often...”

  “Well,” Adelia snapped, “Perhaps you ought to be.”

  Percy stared at her in shock. Clearly no one ever spoke to him like that. He wanted to be angry at her, she could see that; but he could hardly begin to shout at his mother-in-law.

  Adelia began to see how her own mother-in-law, the Dowager Countess Grace Calaway, wielded her power. She pressed home the advantage given to her by her gender and her age. “You have responsibilities as a husband now and I am telling you this out of love for both my daughter and for you. Don’t waste these years with your wife. And she needs you. She needs certain things from you that only you can give her. She wants you here.”

  “She doesn’t really want me. You saw how she reacted to me yesterday.”

  “Now, you listen to me! She is unwell and struggling but she will feel better if you are here – just give her a chance to get used to you being around again. One of you needs to be strong in this relationship. It has to be you.”

  “Because I am the man, I know.”

  “Actually, no. Sometimes she will be strong for you. But only if you can be there for her – right now. A marriage is a matter of sharing the burden and sometimes you take turns at it. Stop hiding down here pretending that you need to look at the latest news. You should go upstairs when Theodore has finished and be there. Just sit there. If she is asleep, keep her company anyway. Step up to the challenge, man!”

  “What is Lord Calaway doing?”

  “I hope that he is helping to ease her fevered mind.”

  “God, I hope so too. I do want the old Felicia back, you know,” he said, turning around on his chair so he could face her. “I really do. I miss her so much.”

  “I know.” She allowed him a small smile. After a pause, she asked another question that had been bothering her. “Are you actually glad to be home?”

  “Everything seems a bit strange,” he confessed to her, idly folding one corner of the newspaper over and pressing the crease firmly with his fingers. “I suppose that’s what happens. I say, I just want to ask you, as we are speaking together so frankly... I heard that your husband is rather concerned about the unfortunate death of Knight. He was talking about it to me yesterday. He ought to leave it all to the police, you know. I don’t want him to be bothered by unpleasantness like that.”

  “T
he police have closed the case,” she told him.

  “Quite, quite. So there really is no need for him to be worried.”

  “He’s not worried, but I think he has a few unanswered questions. Do you have any idea why Knight had been in the ice house?”

  “He has always been in charge of – everything. I suppose he took it as part of his duty.”

  “Took what?”

  Percy shrugged helplessly. “Supervision? I don’t know. The household has always run on its own, if I’m honest. I don’t get involved.”

  “Maybe you should?” Adelia felt her tone sharpen again but really, this man deserved it, she thought. Felicia and Percy were well-matched in some ways – both were as passive as the other. Neither seemed willing to take charge of the castle and its staff. It had been so easy, over the years, to mistake their energy for something active. But energy without focus was just meaningless noise.

  “Yes,” he said idly. “Perhaps I should but ... well, like I say, it all runs perfectly well without me.”

  “A man died in your ice house. I would hardly call that an example of things running ‘perfectly well’. Would you?”

  “Ah, well, no. Perhaps not.”

  There were far too many instances of “perhaps” and not nearly enough actual action coming from Percy. Adelia was going to have to sit on her hands to prevent herself from shaking him. Luckily Percy saved himself from that by suddenly leaping to his feet, staring out of the window. The breakfast room looked out onto the nicest parts of the lawns. From here, you wouldn’t know you were in a half-neglected castle at all.

  “What’s wrong?” she said in alarm, following him to the window.

  “I saw a figure. I am sorry. They’ve gone. It will be one of the gardeners. Do forgive my jumpiness. Events must be getting to me.”

  Hardly, she thought, you haven’t been here for all these events. She said, “It might have been Oscar Brodie. The young man puzzles me. He is your nephew, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. Lady Katharine’s my older sister. She was such a terror when we were younger – I suppose all older sisters are!”

  “Goodness, was she? She seems such a quiet, reserved lady now.”

  “Oh, I suppose life has not been kind to her. She never recovered from being married and widowed. Marriage rather beat her down, you know. Literally,” he added in a dark voice.

  “You mean...?”

  “Yes. Her husband Jacob was a filthy animal, and I do not beg your pardon in saying so. He was a mean brute who ought to have been shot.”

  Adelia didn’t mind his strong words at all. This was the first time Percy had been roused out of his passivity. “What happened to him?” she asked. She knew the rumours and the gossip but she wanted to hear it confirmed from the lips of one who had seen it first-hand.

  “He died when he was young but not young enough – he had had time to thoroughly cow and destroy my sister. And poor Oscar too, he’s like a boy in some ways.”

  “Yes, we had both remarked upon it. Now I understand.”

  “We?”

  “Theodore mentioned it. Oscar seems to have latched onto my husband and is keen to follow him everywhere.”

  “Yes, that sounds like Oscar. He does it to me when I am here, and I do my best to like him, but there is something about him that makes my skin prickle. Now that is an unworthy thought and I do have to beg forgiveness for it. It is a terrible thing to say and I am ashamed of it but when I look at the lad, I see his father, and my feelings are hard to control.”

  “How perfectly terrible for everyone,” Adelia said, and she wondered who Lady Katharine saw when she looked at her son. Did she see the cruel ghost of Jacob looking through her son’s eyes? “Was this Jacob Brodie a commoner? I seem to remember so...”

  “His family were wealthy and well-connected but he brought no title to the marriage so she remained as Lady Katharine. Indeed, he brought very little wealth to the marriage and I often wondered how it had been allowed to happen at all. The Countess supported it, so no one else had a choice I suppose. Anyway, nothing will go to Oscar.”

  “Except the lands, surely?”

  “What little Jacob brought with him, he sold; it was all sold for drink and gambling and who knows what else. I’ve paid for Oscar’s education and I’ll pay to set him up in a career but he cannot decide what to do. I know that he doesn’t want to leave his mother alone, and that is to his credit. She is so very inward-looking and my heart breaks for her.”

  “Was there anything between Oscar and Hartley Knight? Antagonism, arguments?” Adelia asked bluntly.

  Percy shook his head. “Goodness, no. Why would there be? And do not tell me that you, too, are investigating alongside your husband!” He smiled with an indulgent air.

  She bristled. No one knew how much she had contributed to all the previous cases. She wanted to tell everyone but she also had to preserve a certain air of decorum. And she also thought, how would Percy know if anything was between Oscar and Hartley or not? Friendship, enmity, whatever it might be: it was all unknown to Percy. He was never here. She tried a small smile in return and said, “I am merely curious and surely you must be, too? What was he up to?”

  “Very well.” Percy heaved a deep sigh and began to cross the large room, picking up the newspaper as he headed to the door. “Yes, I am curious. I don’t want to make too much of it, though, and cause Felicia more alarm. It seems to me that the best thing to do is move on, swiftly, and act as if nothing is wrong. Yet ... you are correct. I am interested and I understand why you both are, too. So if your husband wishes to make very careful and discreet enquiries into the matter, then he may do so – but I trust that he will do nothing to upset Felicia’s delicate mind any further.”

  “He would never harm her in any way and her wellbeing comes before the matter of Knight’s death.”

  “Good.” Percy opened the door but before he could leave, he made a noise and took a step backwards into the breakfast room. “Oh.”

  “Who is it?” Adelia heard voices and she went to his side. “Ah! This is early, Mrs Carstairs. And good morning, Captain Everard.”

  Percy greeted them equally politely.

  “Lord Buckshaw, I am sure you forgive our intrusion,” Mrs Carstairs said, using a tone of voice that essentially informed him that he was forgiving her whether he liked it or not. “We are here, of course, to speak business.”

  “To me? Goodness.”

  “Oh, no, but thank you for the offer. I may take you up on that.”

  “What offer? What business?” Percy was getting panicked and he said in a low voice to Adelia, “What have I committed to?”

  Mrs Carstairs rumbled on. “We are here to speak to Lady Calaway, of course, about the Floating Ball. The time fast approaches! And your support will be most welcome. I shall send you a note outlining a few things that you can assist with, with my most heartfelt thanks. Now, where might we settle ourselves so that we can go over the plans for the food?” She addressed that final sentence to Adelia, as if she were in charge at Tavy Castle.

  Percy made a strangled noise and melted back into the breakfast room. Typical of the man, Adelia thought. She smiled brightly at Mrs Carstairs and Captain Everard, who was standing slightly to one side and looking incredibly uncomfortable. “I am sure we can use one of the reception rooms down here. Please, do follow me.”

  Mrs Rush, who had been waiting behind them, nodded as Adelia led them past, and Adelia knew she was off to arrange some refreshments.

  And, it transpired, she also went to let Lady Agnes know that Captain Everard had appeared. Lady Agnes joined them in the reception room a few moments later and murmured something about late-flowering anemones and some pests that had attacked them, to which he replied with a suggestion that he ought to see the plant to diagnose the problem.

  They left.

  Adelia was somewhat astonished and she stared at Mrs Carstairs. “Was this all part of a plan?”

  “Oh, no, of course not,”
Mrs Carstairs said with a pink tinge to her cheeks. “That would be so utterly crass.”

  Adelia wanted to roll her eyes. But she let the matter drop, and turned her attention to the menus that Mrs Carstairs was spreading out on the table. The theme was to be the sea, of course, and it seemed that lobster was going to figure in some fashion for almost every dish. Adelia braced herself in case that even included the sorbet.

  Luckily, it did not.

  That was going to be prawn.

  “But mostly lemon,” Mrs Carstairs added hastily. “Almost entirely lemon. With a hint of prawn.”

  “I am not sure that anything ought to have a hint of prawn.”

  “Oh, hush now! Let us try new things and be adventurous. Surely being in this castle must infect you with a desire to explore and be bold? It is the seat of many generations of explorers, after all.”

  “I suppose that it is. Lady Katharine does not seem to have inherited that tendency, however. Did you know her late husband at all?”

  “Oh, the odious Mr Jacob Brodie? I did not know him and I did not care to know him and I do not care to even think of him – and I can tell you that Lady Katharine is of the same mind.”

  “Do you know Lady Katharine?”

  “Indeed yes. I have been a support to her throughout her dark times, as I try to support all ladies of reduced circumstances in the area. And I know that most people take me for a gossip and I’ll admit I do enjoy my parties and my At Homes and my soirees. But it is because I love all that so much that I feel so dreadfully sad about women like Lady Katharine who find themselves completely thrown to one side. I have visited her regularly for years.”

  “Goodness. That is good of you. I paid a call recently but she did not seem to want to converse.”

  “She is a quiet woman but a pleasant one once one has built a rapport with her. Yes, it often seems as if I supply both halves of the conversation, but I am happy to do so. Mr Carstairs often says I have enough words to play both parts, and he is able to go to sleep as I can carry the discourse perfectly well on my own. He means it as a jest but it can be a strength.”

 

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