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.”
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.”
Candia’s face crumpled. “But I want to be with you. At such a time! It is not fair. There is something horrid going on and no one will tell me what it is. It is to do with Mama’s passing, I know it is.”
Randal’s harried glance fell first upon Harriet and then swung towards Francis. He gave a tiny shake of his head, knowing his own eyes must echo something of the anguish in his brother’s orbs.
“Candia, my dear, you must be sensible,” Harriet pleaded, trying to extract the girl from the frantic clutch she had upon Randal’s arms.
“No! I will not be put off.”
“Candia, enough!”
Her father’s sterner tones had only the effect of reducing the girl to noisy sobs. Francis moved in.
“Candia, pray be calm.” He added sotto voce, “Randal, for pity’s sake, deal gently with her!”
And then, like a balmy wind, the cool tones he was coming to know so well poured gentleness into the maelstrom.
“Dear Lady Candia, you are perfectly right. We have dealt foolishly with you, for are you not a woman grown, endowed with common sense and practicality? Come, if you please, with me and let your father see to his affairs. Your aunt and I may tell you just how things stand, and then you will decide for yourself how best to help your papa.”
How did she do it? Before Ottilia was halfway through this masterly speech, Candia’s lamentations ceased as if by magic. Admittedly she was gazing at her grandmother’s companion as if she might have descended from the moon. But such was the force of that calm personality that his niece allowed herself to be led, meek as a lamb, back into the dining parlour.
Harriet cast him an eloquent look as if to indicate her own astonishment, and Francis jerked his head to her to follow after the pair. He turned to his brother to find Randal staring, his mouth at half-cock, as if he had been caught a blow in the chest. His stunned gaze came around to Francis.
“What in Hades was that?”
Francis bristled. “That, my dear brother, is Mrs. Ottilia Draycott, officially Mama’s companion, but in reality our saviour in this hideous predicament.”
Randal’s brows shot up. “You speak in riddles, my boy. Explain.”
Francis took his arm. “I shall do so, but let us repair to a less public spot.”
He began drawing his brother towards the library, but Randal held back, his anxious glance going to the parlour door, into which at
that very instant was hurrying Mrs. Thriplow.
“Leave Mama to attend to them,” Francis advised.
“Yes, but I am not at all sure—”
“You need have no fears. Mama is perfectly well able to behave with all the discretion in the world. You need not suppose her incapable of compassion.”
“Yes, I daresay, but I am thinking of Violette. And the children are already overwhelmed.”
Francis fairly pulled him into the smaller lobby. “Let them be settled, man. Did you not see Thriplow going in? There will be time enough for explanations.”
At last Randal allowed himself to be shepherded to the library door, and it was instead Francis who halted, realising they had a follower. He turned on the man Grice.
“What the devil are you at, fellow? Do you think my brother is going to make his exit via the book room window?”
Randal let out an exasperated breath. “He accompanies me everywhere, damn him!”
“Well, he is not coming in with us.”
Benjamin Grice held his ground as Francis glared at him. “I’ve me orders, sir.”
“I have not the faintest interest in your orders,” Francis told the man, vainly trying to control a spurt of fury. Everything else, and now this! “I have private matters to discuss with my brother, and your presence can well be dispensed with.”
The man did not even trouble himself to shake his head, but looked squarely into Francis’s face. “I’ve to keep the quarry in sight at all times.”
“Damn your impertinence!”
Grice did not even blink. Francis found his fixed stare peculiarly unnerving. His brother uttered a mirthless laugh and gave him a familiar buffet on the shoulder.
“No use, old fellow. Do you think I haven’t tried to be rid of him by every means I could think of? I’ll say this for Bow Street: They train their fellows well. Grice is up to every ruse in the book. Aren’t you, Benjamin, eh?”
The mock familiarity and the jocular tone were so typical of Randal that Francis had the oddest sensation of his presence. As if he had only fully taken in the reality of his brother’s return at this particular instant. He sighed defeat.
“Let him stay, then.” And turning to Grice, “But you’ll remain out of hearing at the window, if you please. The library, thank God, is a wide enough room.”
With which he ignored any effect his words might have had, turned his back upon the Runner, and tucked his hand companionably into his brother’s arm as he headed through the book room door.
Dinner was necessarily a stilted affair, the presence of Madame Guizot putting a stopper upon any freedom of conversation. Her children, Bastien and Lucille, who were respectively twelve and fifteen years of age, as Lord Polbrook informed the company, had been put into the charge of the housemaid Jane until such time as a French-speaking individual could be engaged. Whether this was to be a maid or a governess had already become, Ottilia gathered, a matter of altercation.
“Randal will have it that their education must be continued in French,” Sybilla had ranted in a brief interchange conducted in her bedchamber, whither the dowager had come to find her for the purpose, Ottilia suspected, of venting her spleen. “Of what use to teach them in French, said I, when they are destined to live in England? I might as well have spared my breath. It seems this Madame Guizot—” muttered in a tone of ill-concealed scepticism “—has no notion of settling in this country, fondly imagining the day will come when she may return to her homeland.”
“I fear she is doomed to disappointment,” Ottilia said mildly.
“Just what I said to him. But he is adamant the woman must be humoured. As if there were ever the slightest use in encouraging false hopes.”
“Did you say so?”
“How could I, with the dratted female in the room? I have had no opportunity for private speech with Randal all day, for if she is not there, that wretched Runner must needs be like a shadow at his back.”
Ottilia had commiserated with Sybilla’s frustration, but a reprieve from this latter scourge at least had come just before dinner was to be served. A message had arrived for the man Grice from Bow Street, upon receiving which he had departed the Hanover Square mansion.
Amazed, Lord Polbrook had watched him leave the parlour where the family had foregathered and turned to his brother. “How did you manage it, Fan?”
Lord Francis had grinned. “I sent a note to George, begging his intercession with Justice Ingham.”
“Good gad, then I am much in his debt!”
“More so than you know,” had murmured Lord Francis, sending a glance across to Ottilia.
Randal had claimed his attention, grasping his hand. “And to you, brother. You have been sorely tried these past days.”
“Randal, I must speak with you alone,” said the dowager, urgency in her voice.
Lord Polbrook rubbed a hand across his chin. “Yes, presently, ma’am. But Francis has given me an account of events, you know.”
“I do not wish to talk to you of events.”
Lord Polbrook looked decidedly uncomfortable, Ottilia thought. And no wonder. She imagined everyone in the room, including Madame Guizot from the apprehensive expression in her eyes, was perfectly aware of the intended subject of discussion.
The Frenchwoman spoke very little English, but Ottilia suspected that, like all foreign language speakers, she understood more than she was able to express herself. Lord Polbrook was fluent in French, and both Sybilla and Lord Francis had a good command of it. Ottilia’s was indifferent and she therefore bore little part in the dinner table chatter, although she gathered enough to know it was confined to innocuous subjects.
At liberty to indulge her own thoughts, Ottilia seized the chance to take stock of the gentleman whose absence at a crucial moment had caused all manner of difficulties to his relatives.
He was a much larger man altogether than Lord Francis, whose lithe figure had a grace wholly lacking in the brother. He was not nearly as good-looking, although the resemblance was marked. Both had the lush hair and dark eyes of their mother, although Francis’s locks were much lighter than those of either of his siblings, but the elder brother had heavier jowls and his cheeks were broad. Ottilia judged him to be of mercurial temperament, for a peevish tone often underlay his apparent good humour.
This would scarcely surprise Ottilia under the circumstances, was it not patent Lord Polbrook was not in mourning for his wife. The irony of his returning one week to the day of a departure made in ignorance of Emily’s violent and tragic death had clearly passed him by. His attention seemed to be taken up primarily with the plight of Madame Guizot and her children, and if it were not for the nuisance of the marchioness having met her end in a manner that enforced a priority of interest upon him, was Ottilia’s cynical thought, she was ready to believe he would have welcomed his newfound freedom.
Barely had this thought passed through her mind than a thunderous knocking was heard upon the front door. The Frenchwoman started more nervously than the rest of the company, and Ottilia reflected that the events of the past days had done much to inure them all to sudden shocks. Possibly in response to Madame Guizot’s reaction, Lord Polbrook chose to take a high-handed attitude, turning to the butler.
“What the deuce is that infernal row? Cattawade, go and tell whichever fool is battering on the door that we are not receiving. And if it is that fellow Grice back again,” he called after the butler, who was making his stately way towards the door, “let him kick his heels in the street until we are finished.”
Almost without her realising it, Ottilia’s eyes went to Lord Francis. She found him tight-lipped, his dark eyes burning. Was he angry at his brother’s insouciant resumption of his position as head of the family, just as if nothing had happened? She could sympathise, for he had been left to deal with the calamity, and his life had been turned inside out. Though to be sure Lord Polbrook had not known what was to happen within hours of his departure.
The dowager was uncha
racteristically silent, but Ottilia saw her with eyes trained upon the wall, as if she sought to see through into the hall beyond, from where the sounds of an altercation were springing up. She could hear Cattawade’s deep tones against a high-pitched feminine wail, both of which were overborne by a voice that began at once to be familiar. Evidently Lord Francis recognised it also, for he started up from his place.
“Hell and the devil!”
His brother’s eyes turned swiftly towards him, a frown creasing his brow. “What’s to do, Fan?”
But there was no opportunity for Lord Francis to respond, for hasty footsteps sounded without, the door was wrenched back, and Lord Harbisher thrust through the aperture, closely followed by his wife, the butler bringing up the rear.
The earl’s violent glance swept the room and fixed upon Lord Polbrook seated at the head of the table.
Chapter 17
Lord Harbisher started forward. “Ha! I knew it. Murdering fiend! You dare show your face, do you? Damned if I don’t smash it to pieces!”
The marquis, plainly astonished, sat blinking under the onslaught until Harbisher, with a howl of rage, launched himself at the man.
“Hugh, no!” shrieked his wife.
Polbrook had no time to do more than half rise from his chair before the earl was on him, fists pounding wildly. The victim fell back, raising his arms in an attempt to fend off his attacker, grunts of protest issuing from his throat.
Ottilia shot out of her seat with no very clear idea of what she could do, but Lord Francis was already in the fray, yelling at the footman who had been assisting the butler to serve dinner and was hovering by the sideboard.
“Abel, don’t stand there like a stock, you fool! Help me seize him.”
A cacophony of voices, one distinctly French, added to the hubbub as the two rescuers heaved at Harbisher’s shoulders. Lady Harbisher darted about them, alternately hectoring and pleading. Ottilia went to the woman and pulled her apart without ceremony.
“They will do better alone, ma’am. Pray calm yourself.”
“I tried to stop him,” she uttered tearfully, “but the moment the message came, nothing would do for him but to come round at once.”
The Gilded Shroud Page 27