The window swung shut. Good. Julia was apparently content to let Phoebe handle matters. Eva caught up to her on the path and fell into stride as Phoebe resumed her trek around the house and across the gardens.
“My lady, are you sure it’s a good idea for you to confront Mr. Shelton?”
“Someone has to, Eva.” She skirted a dormant flowerbed and clambered over an ornamental footbridge with a Japanese design.
Eva’s footsteps matched hers. “Yes, but he isn’t the mild-mannered gentleman we once thought. He can be reckless and spiteful, not a good combination. You could be putting yourself in harm’s way.”
“I can handle Ernie Shelton.” A cold breeze slapped Phoebe’s cheeks and reached down her nape, making her wish she’d taken time to don a hat and scarf. Too late now. Jester’s barking drew her attention once more behind her, past Eva to where Fox and the Staffordshire terrier scrambled after her.
“What’s going on, Phoebe? Why are you racing across the grounds?”
Phoebe didn’t stop, not even when another voice beckoned. “Phoebe, I can see you’re headed toward Ernie’s cottage. I demand you tell me what’s going on.” It was Julia, who hadn’t been content to stay in the house, after all. Next it would be Amelia hot on Phoebe’s trail.
At the south edge of the garden, she trudged through a stand of trees and onto a graveled road wide enough to allow the passage of vehicles. She heard the crunching of the others over dried leaves and foliage. She wished Julia would go back before she tripped over the uneven terrain.
“Eva, convince Julia to return to the house. Go with her, please.”
“I’m not going back to the house, Phoebe,” Julia declared before Eva could respond. “Not until you tell me what you’re up to.”
With a corner of Ernie’s cottage with its thatched roof now in view, Phoebe finally came to a stop. She turned to her sister, and Fox as well, who had kept pace along with Jester. “Ernie hired a solicitor to see how to dislodge you from Lyndale Park until your child is born. In other words, he’s trying to throw you out.”
Julia blinked and tightened her coat about her. “Is he?”
“Yes, Julia, he is. But I’m not going to let him.”
“I won’t, either.” Fox came to stand, shoulder to shoulder, with Phoebe. Jester stood at his side, looking happy to be included. “Ernie’s a greedy blighter and he won’t get away with this.” He glanced down at the dog. “Isn’t that right, Jester?”
Jester let go an eager bark.
“Get away with what?” Julia laughed. “Just because he’s hired a solicitor doesn’t mean he’ll have me out. I’ve already talked with Grampapa’s solicitor, and there’s really nothing Ernie can do at this point. So leave him alone and let’s all go back to the house.”
The ire that carried Phoebe all this way receded like rainwater down a gully. “Are you sure? Don’t you want to at least put him in his place?”
“Why? He’ll still be the same greedy blighter as before, as Fox so eloquently put it. Besides, I don’t need you or anyone else to protect me, Phoebe. The only person who needs to hover over me is Hetta, and that’s more for her own sake than mine. The dear thing is frightfully protective, and I haven’t the heart to dissuade her. Now come along, let’s all go back to the house.”
Julia didn’t waste a moment, but turned around and started back through the trees. That left Phoebe, Eva, and Fox lingering and looking to one another for a hint as to what to do. Phoebe didn’t like leaving Ernie to his shiftless devices, and she could see by their expressions that Eva and Fox liked it no better. Even Jester seemed to expect some sort of action from them, given his tensed, ready stance to be off and doing something.
“Well?” Fox said for all of them. Jester released an impatient whine. “What now?”
Phoebe turned and cast a long stare at Ernie’s cottage, where he’d been living since obtaining his degree in veterinary medicine. The home had been provided free of charge by Gil Townsend in exchange for Ernie’s tending to the estate animals. The two-story cottage contained a room that served as Ernie’s surgery, and he had made a good living administering to the pets and livestock of Langston and the surrounding area. But that apparently hadn’t been enough for Ernest Shelton, who had these many years yearned after Gil’s title and estate. Julia and her child certainly posed an inconvenience to his plans.
She very clearly made out a hand behind a pane of glass, holding back the lace curtain. She raised her gaze to behold Ernie’s face staring back at her. Had he overheard the commotion? What about their words? Did he know she had come to give him a thorough dressing-down?
Eva’s hand came down lightly on her shoulder. “I suppose we should all go back. My lady?”
Yes, Phoebe supposed they should, and yet she couldn’t. “You two go back. I’ll just be a few moments.” With that, she trudged to the cottage.
CHAPTER 10
Phoebe pretended not to notice that Eva and Fox waited near the trees, rather than go with Julia back to the main house. Jester, however, had sprung forward to follow her, and now trotted alongside her. Fox had admonished him to stay put, but the dog apparently had other ideas.
She reached the paneled front door, painted pale blue to match the trim around the windows. The cottage walls were beige stucco, painted fairly recently, and smoke curled from one of two chimneys. Tidy rock borders defined two small flowerbeds, merely mounds of dirt now, on either side of the front door. The place had an aspect of calm respectability, the home of a country professional who was content with his life. If only that were so.
Phoebe knocked on the door. Upon receiving no answer, she called out, “Ernie, I know you’re here. I saw you looking out the window. Open the door, please.”
After a pause she heard the bolt slide back and the door opened a few inches. “What do you want, Phoebe?”
Jester barked. Not a threatening sound, just a friendly hello, but it prompted Ernie to slam the door in Phoebe’s face. She knocked again. “He’s friendly, Ernie. You needn’t be afraid of Jester. Besides, you’re a veterinarian. You should be used to all manner of animals.” She waited a moment, received no response, then called out again. “How do you know I didn’t come because he needs medical care?”
The door opened, once again only a few inches. “Have you?”
“No. Let me in.” Phoebe shoved with both hands, forcing Ernie to step aside or be struck by the door. Jester followed her into the vestibule. Ernie tried to block the way through into the parlor, but she simply strode around him and kept going until she stood before the cheery fire crackling away in the stone hearth. She unbuttoned her coat and let the heat pour over her. “Thank goodness. It’s really quite cold out.”
“Phoebe, what can I do for you?” Ernie’s tone implied no desire to do anything for her, but rather a grudging courtesy he felt obliged to offer. Jester ambled into the room, and Ernie nearly lost his balance when the dog nosed the backs of his legs. “Will you control this mutt, please!”
“He’s not a mutt, he’s a Staffordshire bull terrier, and I’ve already told you, he’s completely friendly. And, besides, why would a veterinarian shy away from any dog? It positively makes no sense, Ernie.”
“It’s not the dog,” he said with a sigh. “It’s you. Mildred’s been telling tales, I suppose.”
“They’re not tales if they’re true, Ernie.” Phoebe glanced down at the dog. “Jester, come here.” When the dog complied, wagging his stub of a tail as he did, she asked, “How dare you attempt to toss a pregnant woman out of her rightful home? What’s got into you? And what happened to the sensitive, kindly man we met in Cowes? Did he ever exist, or was he merely an illusion?”
He neither sat nor invited her to do so. Instead he paced past her to the fireplace and rested a hand beside the rosewood mantel clock. “Yes, he existed. Long ago, before he had dealings with Gilbert Townsend.” He turned, his face gripped by sadness. “Even for a while after that. But Gil’s constant insults and offenses
had a way of wearing a body down. Lucky Julia. Your sister escaped a fate like mine. She won’t become jaded and callous as I have.”
Phoebe studied him a moment, taking in his rolled-up shirtsleeves, his wrinkled trousers and waistcoat, his mussed hair. Had he been sleeping in his clothes? Yes, he’d had to endure a good deal of abuse from his second cousin over the years, had been the butt of many of Gil’s jokes—mean ones. But did that give him license to treat others in kind? She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Ernie, but you’ve failed to rouse my sympathies.”
“You saw how he treated me at the wedding. Do you think it was ever any different with him?”
“No, I don’t. I believe Gil treated you badly. Unfairly. But I don’t believe that’s what changed you—or that you were ever different from the way you are now. Had you been that kindly young gentleman you suggest you were, you’d have carved out a life for yourself where you could find contentment. Your profession, for instance. But I understand you’re barely practicing anymore.” She waited for him to correct her on that. When he didn’t, she said, “The moment Gil died, you moved in for the weighty handout you expected from his will. You and Mildred. Do you deserve a share of Gil’s fortune? Assuredly so. Do you deserve to inherit everything?” She shook her head again.
“Easy for you to say, Phoebe. You’re the granddaughter of an earl, one who dotes unabashedly on all of you. He’ll do right by you, you’ve no fears about that. Try putting yourself in someone else’s place for a change. Imagine believing for years in an inheritance that would eventually come to you, only to find out at the eleventh hour that you’re cut off, left out in the cold. And this after years of service to the estate you’d pinned your hopes on, and to the man you detested but tolerated because it would one day pay off. Only then, it doesn’t.”
Hunching as if he’d be ill, he turned away, set his hands on the mantel, and ducked his head. He stood there for several seconds, making Phoebe wonder if she’d been summarily dismissed. But then he turned back, avarice and anger glittering in his eyes in equal measure. “No, it doesn’t, because some chit of a woman—oh, yes, admittedly a beauty—flirts her way into his life and his bed. So easily she works her charms on him—without a thought to whom she was cheating.”
“Julia didn’t cheat anyone,” Phoebe said low, barely maintaining a hold on her temper. “And she did not flirt her way into Gil’s bed. That was something they saved for their wedding night. It was done honestly, and Gil was as much a willing participant as Julia.”
Ernie laughed, a snide little sound. “We’ll see, won’t we, if your sister gives birth to an eight-month baby.”
The implication made Phoebe want to fly at him. Instead she gritted her teeth. “She won’t.”
He held her gaze, unblinking. “But if she does, it will only strengthen my case that the inheritance is rightfully mine, not her illegitimate whelp’s.”
“You have no case, Ernie. You never will. Come, Jester.” She retraced her steps to the door, but once there, her hand on the latch, she turned, still able to see Ernie through the parlor doorway. “I’m sorry I came here. I should have known there would be no reasoning with you. Do what you must. And Julia and the rest of us will do what we must.”
* * *
Eva sat on the floor of the master bedroom, her legs tucked under her skirts, Jester stretched out against her as she administered a thorough petting. He seemed to be systematically getting to know the whole group of them, from Fox to Lady Phoebe to Amelia, and now her. He had even spent a few minutes sniffing in friendship at Hetta, but Hetta had been too busy tending to her mistress to give him more than a perfunctory pat on the head. Jester had yet to cozy up to Lady Annondale, but perhaps he sensed that she carried a new life inside and felt particularly vulnerable now.
Not that she’d ever admit to it. No, Julia Renshaw Townsend would rather go through life with her teeth clenched than reveal anything she viewed as a weakness. Thank heavens, then, for Hetta, who watched over her mistress like a she-wolf and anticipated her needs almost before Lady Annondale herself did.
The siblings were ranged about the bedroom: Fox on the Aubusson rug near Eva, where he could lean over and stroke Jester’s back; Phoebe and Amelia on the dark burgundy leather settee, both sitting cross-legged; and Lady Annondale half reclined on the gigantic bed, with its massive mahogany posts, her legs hanging over the side and dangling several inches from the floor, like a child’s.
Phoebe had described her encounter with Ernest Shelton in great detail, which elicited anger in Fox, indignation in Amelia, and silent if intense anger in Eva. Her blood boiled at the suggestion that Lady Annondale carried an illegitimate child. Illegitimate? How dare he? She knew for a fact, Lady Annondale had gone to her marriage bed a virgin. If not for Jester’s warm coat beneath her palms, her fingers might have curled into fists.
But the revelation produced only a shrug from Lady Annondale herself. “What did I tell you, Phoebe? There was no point in confronting him.”
“At least now we know exactly where he stands,” Lady Phoebe pointed out.
Lady Annondale treated her to another shrug. “I believe we knew where he stood when we learned he’d hired a solicitor.”
“I don’t understand how a man with an affinity for animals can be so selfish.” Lady Amelia put out her hand. “Animals aren’t selfish, are they, Jester?”
The animal lifted his head, seemed to debate a moment, and hefted himself to his feet. He trotted over to Amelia and submitted his head to her gentle touch. Eva recognized a natural amiability in the terrier, a deep-rooted desire to both please and trust. Poor dear, he had no notion of what his master faced. No doubt he believed Trent had temporarily gone away, as he habitually did when returning to school, for instance, and viewed his stay at Lyndale Park as a kind of holiday.
“Animals can certainly be selfish,” Fox countered. He sat up straighter, then leaned back on his hands for support. “Not to mention vicious if they’re treated badly. I suppose Ernie was treated badly all those years.” He darted a sheepish glance at Lady Annondale, who didn’t like hearing anyone speak ill of her husband. She had worked through much of her guilt concerning Lord Annondale’s untimely death, but there lingered in her a deep sense of remaining a loyal and, yes, dutiful wife to him.
But Lady Annondale made no comment. She cocked her head to one side as though deep in thought. Her silence continued as a little shadow deepened between her brows.
“Well, badly treated or not, he had no right to insult Julia as he did.” Lady Phoebe also reached down to pet Jester, who accepted her overture with a lap of his tongue. “There’s no excuse for his boorish behavior, and if I—”
“Whose boorish behavior? Are you speaking about Ernie?”
They had left the bedroom door open, and Eva looked over to see Miss Townsend filling the doorway.
“He’s hired a solicitor to try to press his rights over Julia’s when it comes to this house,” Phoebe explained.
Much like Julia herself, Miss Townsend shrugged her shoulders. “He can try, one supposes.” She took a couple of steps into the room and paused. When no one protested, she ventured farther in. “I suppose I don’t care who inherits this old pile. It’s nothing to me, is it?”
“Nothing?” Lady Annondale slid her feet to the floor and stood. “Why would you say that, Veronica? This is your home. It has been your entire life.”
“You needn’t remind me.” The dour statement reminded Eva that Miss Townsend had once been engaged to marry, but her brother had refused his permission. Miss Townsend had never had another opportunity to become a wife. “I suppose no matter who inherits—your child or Ernie, or even Mildred, I’ll be sent packing. Ernie, at least, has made that abundantly clear.”
“Has he?” Lady Phoebe’s voice rose in outrage.
“How beastly,” Amelia put in.
Lady Annondale approached her sister-in-law. “I’m sure the terms of your brother’s will make allowances for you to remain
here as long as you wish.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps. But even so, would I wish to remain among people who don’t want me?”
Lady Annondale’s expression revealed sincere perplexity. “Actually, I have no intention of asking you to leave. As Amelia said, that would be beastly. It’s true you and I have not become friends, and perhaps we never will. We’re very different, you and I. But we can be civilized, can’t we.” It wasn’t a question; it was a statement of intent. And it sent a furious blush to Miss Townsend’s countenance. Obvious confusion garbled her next words.
“I . . . s-so unexpected . . . really? N-not a joke? You’re sure . . . I h-hardly deserve it after . . .”
There was no embrace, no words of sisterhood or newly forged friendship. There was merely one woman recognizing the needs and fears of another, and putting her mind to rest. Today showed that despite her sometimes icy if beautiful exterior, Julia Renshaw had grown a compassionate heart, the heart of a woman born to look after others, as the lady of a great estate was meant to do. Eva felt a surge of pride in her.
“I’ve been thinking about what you and Ernie discussed today,” Eva said later as she laid out Phoebe’s and Amelia’s clothes for dinner. “Ambition and, yes, greed drove him to do some reprehensible things. I don’t know that I agree with you that there was never a time when honesty and honor drove his actions.”
Lady Phoebe took a necklace from her jewelry box and held it up to the light. “You believe he wasn’t always the wheedling man we see today?”
“I’d like to think Eva is right about that.” Lady Amelia stood before the full-length mirror, holding up her hair this way and that in an attempt to devise a new style for herself. “I still believe a man who sets his life course for the benefit of animals can’t be all bad.”
Eva laid a rose chiffon dinner gown across the bed. “His comments put me in mind of Moira Wickham. When I listen to her talk about her own ambitions, I believe there are noble ideals and worthwhile intentions. She is right that whoever possesses talent should move ahead in their field, regardless of their gender. But when I hear the anger and resentment running through her argument, I feel”—she inhaled deeply—“a kind of dread. It’s a sense that she is indeed capable of a dishonest or even underhanded deed to achieve her goals.”
A Sinister Service Page 13