“I suspect you shouldn’t have named the house Quod Lamia, then,” Amelie had offered, and Fanny had given way to one of her unexpectedly roguish and wholly delightful grins.
“I suspect not.”
They hadn’t discussed the matter again, but as time went on, the vicar’s mania became more pronounced. Amelie supposed it had something to do with his sister having left his house to come to work for them. Not that the vicar especially liked his sister—Amelie decided he didn’t like anyone—but he viewed her decampment not only as a personal affront, but as a sure sign that the two women at Quod Lamia had used unnatural influence to tempt her into their midst. In actuality it had been much simpler: They’d offered her a wage.
Fanny had stopped at the bottom of the stairs and was glaring up at the vicar, even from the disadvantage of her inferior height appearing far more commanding.
He looked up from swatting at his trousers and his lip curled. “Your house is dirty, Mrs. Walcott. You ought to teach that slatternly creature you call a maid how to use a feather duster and a mop.”
He was talking about Violet Beadle—though using the term maid in reference to the girl was stretching the definition of the word a bit. He started down the steps.
Fanny held her ground. Fanny always held her ground.
“Though,” he intoned darkly, “I think we both know that the furnishings are not the only unclean things about this household.” He stopped a few steps above her.
For a long moment, they locked gazes, but then Fanny smiled and began calmly mounting the stairs, deliberately heading straight to where the vicar stood. He had no choice but to move or risk being knocked aside. And both Amelie and the vicar knew Fanny was quite capable of such an act.
With an angry sputter, he leaped out of her way just in time to avoid a collision. Fanny sailed past with regal disregard, turning at the top of the stairs.
“I’m surprised you’d sully yourself by entering the house,” she said.
“I have a duty to the sister who has chosen to dwell in this—”
“Den of iniquity?” Fanny cut in.
“Insolent, irreverent wench,” the vicar shouted. “How dare you mock me?”
“Well, why not go for broke, Vicar?” Fanny drawled in that scornful manner with which she verbally lashed anyone who dared speak rudely to either her or Amelie. “If you must be a caricature, you might as well speak in clichés.”
Despite knowing Fanny could handle the vicar, Amelie fidgeted. She wished Fanny would not bait the man. He’d turned an alarming shade of red and actually stomped his foot. His hand clenched into a fist. Fanny yawned, delicately hiding her mouth behind her hand.
“You needn’t worry about Miss Oglethorpe,” Amelie offered, trying to console him. He looked like he might strike Fanny. “She dislikes us, too. And she is a most devout…” Oh, Lord, what denomination was Vicar Oglethorpe? She wasn’t sure she even knew… No. She didn’t. “Whatever it is you are.”
His eyes bulged and she hurried on, at the same time backing up. “She is always praying over us. I hear her in the kitchen…” She trailed off.
Her attempt at conciliation had been in vain. Oglethorpe raised a shaking hand and pointed a finger at her.
“You. You are the root—”
“Of all evil?” Fanny again cut in. “No, that would be money. Though Amelie does look to come into scads of that someday.”
“Quiet, Lilith!” the vicar thundered, and stormed past Amelie without glancing at her, which, Amelie suspected, had been Fanny’s goal all along. They watched him go, sending up little puffs of dust.
Fanny was a genius at deflecting the vicar’s attention from her. Indeed, Amelie was not sure whom the vicar considered the greater threat to his flock—assuming he had one somewhere—the witch or the witch’s keeper.
“It’s a good thing you’re not the witch, Fan,” Amelie said, winning a startled glance from Fanny, “or the vicar would have had you burnt at the stake by now.”
“Yes,” Fanny agreed in an odd tone. “It is, isn’t it?”
Chapter 9
It was her. Francesca Brown.
Grey’s pulse was still racing from the initial shock of recognition. He almost laughed at the absurdity of it, of finding her here after so many years. He’d thought it was her when he’d spied her across the street, but there had been something unfamiliar in the way she walked: open and relaxed, the angle of her head high. Quite unlike the tremulous, wraithlike girl in the Mayfair apartment.
But then, he reminded himself, con artists were chameleons, adapting to their environs. The only quality Fanny Walcott shared with Francesca Brown was the intangible sense of separateness he’d noted so long ago. As though she were only second cousin to mankind, and not an immediate relative. No matter. It was just another illusion.
“I should have let my valet come along,” Hayden suddenly blurted out, catching Grey off guard. He hadn’t been attending his nephew, immersed in his own thoughts as they made their way on foot to Bernard McGowan’s house, having accepted an invitation to lunch so that they could see his stamp collection.
“I told him his services wouldn’t be required up here in the wilds of Scotland,” Hayden said disconsolately. “I told him we would make do with the servants that had gone ahead to air out the place. Ha.”
Grey nodded. Hayden didn’t need a response. In fact, no conversation had been required of Grey since they’d left McGowan’s bank, for the simple reason that Hayden was quite content to carry on a monologue—mostly about what a pretty and pleasant young woman Amelie Chase was, and how could anyone imagine she was a witch? An angel? A stunner? A charmer? Yes and yes and yes. But a witch? Most definitely not. And why hadn’t his father told him about her?
Grey had told Hayden that the last time his father, Lord Collier, had seen Amelie, she’d been a pimply-faced adolescent, but his remark fell on deaf ears. Hayden ignored him, babbling on.
So it went. They walked along the road following the river’s bank as it left town and climbed into the foothills of the surrounding mountains. Past the blue disk of an inland lake, they reached a drive marked by two mossy boulders. The low stone house McGowan had described stood at the end of it, an iron fence surrounding it.
“Colonel Chase’s old hunting lodge,” Grey said. “Dour sort of place. Though I suspect the fish in that lake we passed are attractive.”
Hayden wasn’t attending. “Damn.”
“Some new crisis?” Grey asked mildly.
“No. The same one, as you’d realize if you’d only been listening. What am I going to wear?”
“Wear?”
“Oh, it’s all very fine for you to go about looking like you do. No one expects anything of you anymore. But there are those of us who seek not to offend every time we appear in a drawing room.”
Grey regarded his nephew in amused surprise. He was more used to hero worship from the young man than criticism.
“I must go immediately to the lodge and unpack and see if I have anything suitable in which to appear at a young lady’s table.”
“We’re not dining there until Thursday.”
Hayden’s young jaw set stubbornly. “I shall not feel comfortable until I am assured I can present myself to Miss Chase—and Mrs. Walcott—in an acceptable fashion. I may have to hire a mount and ride to…the nearest town that offers gentlemen’s collars or stockings.”
“Yes,” Grey said, knowing that to argue would be futile. “You’d best plan to do that.”
“Give my apologies to the Scotsman,” Hayden said.
“McGowan.”
“Yes, that’s it. Tell him I’ll look at his butterflies some other time.”
“Stamps.”
“That’s right. Stamps. Thank you. I’ll meet you at the house later.” Hayden’s handsome face finally relaxed. “And don’t worry, Uncle. I shall look for something suitable for you to wear, also.”
“Too kind,” Grey replied.
Hayden strode off,
leaving Grey to continue on to McGowan’s house. He was not unhappy. As diverting as it was to see Hayden go all mooncalf over a slip of a girl, it was the girl’s keeper who interested Grey. More than interested him, in all truth. But then, she always had.
Six years ago, he’d left her husband’s apartments vowing he would return later to confront her. But by the time he had, she’d disappeared. He’d been confounded by his reaction to her, knowing his attraction was unworthy of him—not only because she was, presumably, a married woman, but because she was a cheat, a petty criminal, and a seductress. The exact type who’d ruined his father and come close to bankrupting his family.
Soon after, word reached him of Brown’s death in a French railway accident. Driven by an unexplored urgency, he’d used his contacts to find out more. Specifically, whether or not she had been with him and hurt as well. She hadn’t. His relief had been as palpable as it had been inexplicable. He’d been unable to discover anything else.
Now, he smiled. He’d always known their paths would cross again.
The gall of the creature. To imagine she could deceive him with her straight-backed hauteur and her purloined respectability. She could have worn sackcloth, shaved her head, and donned dark spectacles, and he would still have recognized her.
Soon enough she’d learn better than to underestimate him. For the time being, let her think she’d fooled him, because only then would she go forward with her scheme, and he had no doubt there was a scheme. It was what she did, who she was.
Oh, he knew about Colonel Chase’s bequest to her. His brother-in-law had shared with Grey the terms of the colonel’s will. Once the terms of the will were met and Amelie turned twenty-one, Fanny would be well compensated for her years here. Enough to live comfortably for decades. But confidence artists did not ply their trade for mere comfort; they did it for wealth.
As Alphonse Brown’s wife, Fanny had once been well on her way to being truly rich. Would a woman like that have hidden herself up here for six long years with the only payoff in sight being comfort? He did not think so. Not from what he knew of professional frauds. No. There was a scheme.
She must have added a mesmerist’s tricks to her arsenal of weapons since they’d last met. What else could account for the suspension of time, the impossible sense of affinity with her he’d felt? He’d even checked his pulse to ascertain whether he was having some sort of physical event.
Anticipation uncoiled in his veins, as intoxicating as those moments in the bank when their gazes had locked. Whatever her game, he would discover it. He only needed to ascertain what she was playing for and determine whether the girl was victim or co-conspirator.
By God, it ought to be fun, he thought, arriving at McGowan’s house. He passed the heavy gate, to be greeted by an explosion of ferocious barking. At the side of the house, two enormous brown dogs flung themselves against the thick links of the chains tethering them. They had heads the size and shape of anvils, massive jaws, and thick, muscular bodies. They did not appear happy to be receiving company.
“Brutus! Caesar! Quiet!” McGowan shouted, emerging from the front door. With grumbles of discontent, the beasts ceased barking and settled into pacing at the end of their chains, digging further into the well-worn track that marked the limit of their range.
“Please come in, Lord Sheffield,” McGowan welcomed him, stepping aside. “I hope the dogs didn’t alarm you?”
“Damn right they did,” Grey said. “Quite some pets you have there.”
McGowan smiled. “Oh, they’re not pets. Not at all. They protect my collection.”
“They must do one hell of a good job. I can’t imagine any sane man challenging those beasts for the sake of a stamp,” Grey said, following McGowan into the hallway.
McGowan laughed. “Clearly, you’re not an enthusiast. Brutus is a replacement for an earlier guard dog, one shot by a rival collector who thought I didn’t deserve the cover I outbid him for.”
Grey had no reply for such inanity. He liked dogs. He did not like fanatics. He looked around. There was little furnishing and less decoration in the halls or to be seen through the open doors leading to cavernous rooms. “You have spartan tastes for a banker, McGowan.”
“Oh, I have expensive taste, I assure you. It’s just that I limit my extravagances to one area: my stamps.” His smile was self-deprecating. “But where is the young man?”
“My nephew sends his apologies, but I’m afraid a sartorial crisis has claimed the rest of his day.”
McGowan accepted the excuse with good humor. “He’s very young.”
“Yes.”
“It will be good for Miss Chase to be with someone of her own age for a change.”
“I’m sure my nephew thinks so.”
McGowan’s expression grew faintly melancholy. “She’s an enchanting young lady.”
“So I’ve been told.” Good God, was he to be forced to listen to yet another simple-minded sot drone on about Amelie Chase’s virginal perfection? He decided to preempt the possibility. “Did you know her father well?”
“I was in his command for a short while in India. After I left the service I contacted Colonel Chase and we began a correspondence. In one letter he mentioned the need for a bank in Little Firkin and encouraged me to look into it.” Bernard smiled. “Ironic, when you think of it. I originally wrote him because I’d hoped he might have kept some uncanceled Indian stamps.”
McGowan had been a soldier in India? Grey would never have tagged him as such. He seemed too fastidious, too prim.
“I wish I could arrange for her to leave here so that she would not have to put up with such ridiculous slander,” the banker fussed.
“You could always marry her.”
The man blushed, and Grey, who’d been speaking ironically, felt his interest sharpen. Well, of course, it made perfect sense. A lovely, extremely wealthy orphan ripe for the matrimonial plucking? Of course.
“Oh, my,” said McGowan. “I don’t know that I dare have hopes in that direction. I mean, perhaps I am too old for her? Too stodgy?”
Well, there was that.
McGowan waited for Grey to contradict him. He didn’t.
“Besides, I could not ask her to enter into a marriage without her first experiencing something of the world. It would be unfair.”
And there was that, too. “Most levelheaded,” Grey said. “Unfortunately, levelheadedness is the one quality the young never seem to appreciate.”
McGowan nodded gravely. “Your years have given you wisdom, Lord Sheffield.”
Years? Wisdom? The ass. He had less than a decade on McGowan. Any latent tendency to goodwill toward McGowan vanished.
“Clearly, you are a man who could appreciate the sublime beauty of everyday objects,” McGowan went on.
So much for McGowan’s discernment. Grey had no more of an artistic sensibility than he did a sartorial one.
“Come, let me show you my collection,” McGowan said.
Seeing an opportunity to interrogate McGowan about Francesca Walcott, Grey followed him down a bare hallway to an equally bare room, its only furnishings three neat rows of glass-covered cabinets. A sheet of white paper had been rolled down the center of each display, and each sheet of paper held a single widely spaced row of stamps. Above these had been positioned magnifying glasses so that a viewer, gazing through the glass top, would be able to see the most minuscule detail of the stamp below.
McGowan stood aside, his face alight with pride. “Look around. Take your time. There are stamps here that are unique.”
Dutifully, Grey approached the nearest cabinet and peered down at a little brown rectangle.
“A Dove,” McGowan informed him, shaking his head mournfully. “Alas, canceled.”
“Alas,” Grey agreed. “Do you know Mrs. Walcott well?”
“What?” McGowan asked in surprise.
“Mrs. Walcott,” Grey said impatiently. “Do you know her well?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.�
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“What do you know of her? Her character. Her temperament.”
“She’s a fine woman.” McGowan must have read Grey’s dissatisfaction with the answer, for he went on. “Very, ah, forceful. I mean resourceful.”
Oh, Grey already knew that. The sound of “angel wings” that she and her husband had somehow produced was one of the few effects he’d never been able to debunk. How had they achieved that? The question had plagued him for years.
“Of course, she has had to be,” McGowan went on, as though worried that being resourceful was a feminine shortcoming. “Colonel Chase did not live long after coming to Little Firkin, and he was weak. A good deal of the overseeing of the building of Quod Lamia fell to Mrs. Walcott. Yes, indeed, an extremely efficient woman.”
“Anything else? Anything, say, a detractor might mention?”
McGowan looked mildly affronted but replied, “Some might find her brusque and perhaps unapproachable, but I think her candor is quite bracing and her self-containment laudable.”
“She’s intolerant?”
McGowan scowled. “She is not shy about offering an opinion, and she does not use emotion in place of reason. Before he died, she and Colonel Chase had some spirited debates.”
“Cold, is she?” Of course she was cold. Coldblooded. As were all her type.
“I would say aloof,” McGowan said, clearly disliking the conversation.
“A woman like that would find the society in a place like Little Firkin most confining,” Grey said. “She must resent that the terms of Colonel Chase’s will make it impossible for her to leave here before Miss Chase without forfeiting her bequest.”
At this, McGowan laughed. “No, I’m afraid you have it wrong, Lord Sheffield. Mrs. Walcott wouldn’t leave without Miss Chase regardless of the terms of the will. She may not be the most demonstrative woman, but her devotion to Miss Chase is unquestion— Oh! I see you’ve spied the Neubaum cover. Three Hawaiian Missionary one-pennies.”
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