“The stub will serve. I have only to cut the wick.”
His suppressed emotions found expression in irritation. “Yes, if you have a knife or scissors about you, for I have not.”
She looked up at him. Francis read puzzlement in the clear gaze and regretted his tone. There was something in her voice to which he could not put a name.
“I will do it later. It need not go to waste. Besides, it will not do to leave the thing here for the servants to find and wonder about.”
Finding nothing to say that would not prolong a pointless discussion, nor assuage his conscience, Francis merely nodded.
“Let us proceed.”
Once upon the stair, Francis went ahead, holding the candle to the side to throw light for Ottilia.
“Can you see?”
“Well enough, I thank you.”
He was relieved to hear normality in her tone once more. She was adept at recovering herself, he reflected, recalling instances when she had looked briefly disconcerted. It could be a tempting game to try to discompose her. But he had done enough tonight. Besides, he liked her too well for that.
The realisation filtered into his consciousness. He did like her, far too well. The question was, whether his liking was to any degree reciprocated.
Before he could lose himself in the agreeable recollection that Ottilia had shown herself to be at least enjoying his company on occasion, he arrived at the ground floor.
“Where now? The front door or the back?”
“The back, I think. It must be by far the fastest route.”
As he started down towards the lower landing, Francis recalled adventurous forays of his own. A laugh escaped him.
“I used to creep out to the garden as a child to escape my tutor. I little thought I should resume such madness in my riper years.”
“It just shows one never knows what one may come to,” said Ottilia from behind him, and the note of mischief Francis was coming to recognise struck him with pleasure.
Arrived at the landing, he paused before the door. “Have you the key?”
She produced it from her pocket and gave it to him, taking in its stead the candle as he handed it to her.
“Hold it lower.”
He stood aside so the light fell upon the keyhole. The key fitted perfectly, and he turned it.
“Eureka!”
The door opened onto blackness and a whoosh of cold air. Francis hurriedly went to shut it again and found the wood warped so that he was obliged to thrust hard enough to make the door slam.
“The devil! Let us hope no one was awakened by that.”
Ottilia said nothing and he turned to find her eyes fixed upon the door. Francis remembered the look. Her mind was otherwhere.
“What is it?”
She blinked and seemed to come back to him. “There is one mystery solved.”
“You are to be commended.”
She gave a light laugh. “Hardly. It was your mother who first suggested the possibility of the marchioness supplying a lover with a key. And if Venner had not alerted me, I should likely have dismissed this one I found in the night table.”
“But you said at the outset there must be a way for a lover to get into the house without being detected.”
“True. But by being supplied with a key? I can think of few more dangerous enterprises.”
“Well, it certainly proved dangerous enough for Emily.”
He saw a shiver shake her and felt instantly remorseful. But she spoke before he could voice it.
“I meant only that to be giving anyone access to your house is foolish. Suppose the key were to fall to some other hand?”
“According to Quaife, Emily only loaned the key long enough for the fellow to come in. I cannot think she would have given it wholly over to anyone.”
“No, not if she was prone to change her lovers in the way she changed her clothes.”
Francis was startled. He had never before heard her speak so acidly.
“If anyone kept a key,” she went on, “it would be Quaife, for he appears to have remained longest in her affections.”
“You don’t approve of her, do you?”
She looked away. “I dislike any form of betrayal. Too many people take their marriage vows lightly. If one is fortunate enough to inspire affection, one should strive to deserve it, do you not think?”
He was struck by the passionate undertone, and a memory slipped into his mind. In just this way had she spoken that very first day, and upon this very subject. It seemed to Francis an age since that moment.
“Time has overtaken us, Tillie. I feel as if I have known you for weeks.”
She was staring up at him, searchingly, he thought.
“What did you call me?”
Francis thought back and could not remember. He gave a self-conscious laugh. “I hardly know. I have fallen into the way of using your given name, though I should not, I know. It is as I said. I have lost track of time.”
Still she gazed at him. “You called me Tillie.”
Something in her clear eyes tugged at his senses. Francis was hardly aware of smiling at her. He wanted to set his hands either side of her face and hold her so.
“If I did, it was instinctive,” he said, hardly aware that he spoke. “It suits you.”
A moment longer her look held, and then a slow flush mounted into her cheeks and she drew away a little. Francis was conscious of regret for a moment lost.
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 over 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 posthaste. 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.
“Papa! 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 Gilded Shroud Page 26