by Mary Balogh, Jo Beverley, Sandra Heath, Edith Layton, Laura Matthews
“Perfectly well, thank you.”
“And your father? I understand he is somewhat indisposed.”
“Physically, there is nothing so very much the matter with Him. It’s his mind that suffers. He’s not able to concentrate, and often his memory is very poor.”
“I am distressed to hear it. He is not well enough, then, to welcome visitors?”
Drucilla bit her lip. “No, I fear not. He spends all his time in his room, with an attendant to care for his needs. He’s entirely comfortable, you understand, when his routine is not interrupted.”
“I should like very much to see him, to speak with him.”
“Certainly. Directly after luncheon I will take you to him, but you must not expect him to recognize you.”
“I could hardly expect him to do so after sixteen years.”
“Well,” she said hesitantly, “that is not precisely what I meant. If he had been introduced to you this morning, he would not likely recall who you were.”
The viscount regarded her curiously. “You are describing a very distressed man, Miss Carruthers. I don’t perfectly understand how he has been able to manage Tarnlea, suffering under such a handicap.”
“He has excellent assistance in our estate manager, John Thomas. And I myself understand Papa’s wishes on most matters.”
“Do you? That is fortunate.”
Drucilla’s pointed chin came up a little. “Yes, I believe it is.”
“But it must be very difficult for you.”
“Not at all. I have John Thomas’s guidance, and the encouragement of our local vicar, and the affection and cooperation of our Tarnlea staff.”
The viscount nodded, but said, “I don’t doubt you’ve risen to the challenge of your father’s illness most admirably, Miss Carruthers. I am all admiration.” Lord Meacham actually offered a lazy smile, and shifted one long leg over the other. “However, according to his note, Sir Lawrence’s solicitor has not been consulted. Perhaps you had some reason for not including Mr. Wicker in your circle of advisors?”
Drucilla dusted a feather from the skirt of her old muslin gown. “Mr. Wicker’s advice was not sought because I felt it would put him in an awkward situation. His responsibility regarding the entailment of the estate, and to you as heir, might have caused him to recommend ignoring matters that would have been an expense to the estate. And yet, as you will see, those expenses were very necessary. My other advisors had no such conflict of interest.”
“Sometimes, however,” he said diffidently, “we are not given the best advice when we are faced with difficult choices. Others often have a different and, shall we say, more self-interested agenda.”
“Lord Meacham, I can assure you that everyone who surrounds my father has his very best interests, and those of Tarnlea, at heart. Perhaps you have been misled.”
The viscount was pensive for a moment, toying with a quizzing glass he had removed from his pocket. “It is remotely possible, I suppose. Mr. Wicker sent me an account of the situation as he understands it, begging for my intervention on behalf of the estate. I am, as you have said, you father’s heir.”
“Oh, yes, I have always known. You told me yourself when I was five.”
“I did? How very impertinent of me. And it cannot have been quite true, either. Your father might yet have produced a male heir.”
Drucilla regarded him with almost ingenuous eyes. “Well, you did mention at the time that he might marry again.”
“When your mother had just died? I do beg your pardon, Miss Carruthers. I was, I fear, a bit of a prig when I was that age. I trust you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”
There was something whimsically hopeful in the depths of his dark eyes as he framed his apology. Drucilla was not proof against the viscount’s abashed charm. “Of course, my lord. If you wish it.”
“I do wish it. I wish, in fact, that I had visited Tarnlea quite some time ago. I have been most remiss.”
“Not at all. We had no expectation of your concerning yourself with our affairs.”
Lord Meacham watched his quizzing glass spin at the end of its black ribbon. “Though your father is alive, he is apparently unable to fulfill his position as head of the family. As his nearest male relative, I must certainly concern myself. I regret that I am, because we are so distantly related, a virtual stranger to you, but believe me that I have come to offer any assistance in my power.”
“Did Mr. Wicker suggest that my father should be legally declared incompetent?”
Lord Meacham said dryly, “Mr. Wicker is not satisfied that matters are being handled appropriately in the absence of Sir Lawrence’s hands on the reins. He feels there is some urgency, though he did just mention that this state of affairs had existed for ‘quite some time.’ ”
“Much he knows,” Drucilla muttered darkly, not meeting the viscount’s lifted gaze.
“He seemed to think that you, ma’am, had been attempting to conceal from him the extent of your father’s mental deterioration. I believe he has not actually visited your father for some little time—put off with excuses and distractions.”
Drucilla could not resist, with a decided sparkle in her eyes, admitting that this was true. “For two years.”
“Two years? My dear girl, you must be extraordinarily inventive.”
At that moment Miss Script hastened into the room, clasping her hands tightly together at her spare bosom. “The fire has been laid in the salon and Hastings informs me that Lord Meacham’s chamber is ready. Perhaps, sir, you would prefer to be shown to your room before luncheon.”
Having risen when Miss Script entered, Meacham bowed in acknowledgment of her offer. Brushing a feather from the sleeve of his coat, he said, “Yes, I think that would be wise. I’ve been on the road for several hours.” He bent on Drucilla a decidedly rueful look. “I trust there will be nothing to keep us from visiting your father directly after our meal.”
“I’ll let his man know that we’re coming.”
“Does your father always know you?”
“So far he has.”
Drucilla watched as he strode unhurriedly from the room. With a tsk of annoyance, more at herself for being disarmed by the viscount’s diverting manners than at the inconvenience of his unexpected visit, she said to Miss Script, “I am very much afraid his lordship is not going to be so easily managed as Mr. Wicker.”
“No, my dear, I think not. For all his pleasant address, he strikes me as a determined young man who expects affairs to be conducted very much as he wishes them. I shall be surprised if he doesn’t press for an immediate competency hearing, and place himself in charge of your father’s estate.”
Drucilla pursed her lips in a thoughtful grimace. “And yet there is something about him that is not what I expected. He’s a handsome devil, isn’t he?”
“The Winslows are said to be uncommonly handsome.”
“Perhaps I could cozen him just a bit.”
“I’m not at all sure it would be wise to do so, even if you could, which I doubt. He surely has a greater knowledge of the world than you, my dear.”
“Well, I shall flirt just a trifle with him, as the London ladies must do.” Drucilla fluttered her eyelashes in what she considered an imitation of a practiced debutante. At Miss Script’s disapproving frown, she said, “I am quite sure that is how Caroline Russell does it.”
“But Miss Russell is sixteen and not out of the schoolroom, Drucilla. You are one-and-twenty and have taken it upon yourself to rectify an injustice. Which is all very well, but you have placed yourself in an awkward position. Lord Meacham may hold you very much at fault.”
Drucilla found this somehow a lowering thought. She rose from her chair and said bracingly, “Never mind. I shall change into something more appropriate before luncheon, and you will speak to him with your usual good sense. We cannot fail to convince him that we are totally unexceptionable.”
Lord Meacham came away from their light repast with the impression that
his distant cousin was something of an original. No doubt it could be laid to the Pact that she had spent her entire life tucked away in the country. For all its beauty, the Lake District did not necessarily expose her to a great deal of society. Surely there had been money enough, and the right connections, for her to be presented in polite London circles at the proper age. He wondered why she had not been.
In fact, as Meacham followed his hostess up the branching main stairway of Tarnlea, he found a variety of inconsistencies surrounding him. Although the house was clean and the servants well trained, there was no exhibit of the wealth to which Sir Lawrence could surely lay claim. The furnishings were well kept, but hardly new, and had it been his own home, the viscount would have considered a deal of remodeling in store, to say nothing of the replacement of aging carpets and draperies.
Meacham understood that the baronet’s passion had been hunting, even in this indifferent country, and he directed a question to his guide. “Are there still hunters in the stables, and kennels with hounds?”
Drucilla shook her head sadly. “No. Most of them have been sold. It’s been years since Papa was able to hunt.”
She led the way down a long corridor untouched by the day’s wintry sun, to a room far removed from the main body of the house.
“This is surely not the master suite,” Meacham commented in surprise.
“No, but it is the suite of rooms my father prefers because of its view of Buttermere Lake.”
Meacham was mulling the possibility that Sir Lawrence had prematurely been stripped of his dignities when the door was opened before him into a large space that could have been a schoolroom, except for the grand four-poster bed in a far corner. There were toys scattered about the room, and several tables and chairs in various states of disorder.
Sir Lawrence himself was seated in a large chair, rocking back and forth, his gaze on the rugged hills and the rippled gray lake in the distant view. He was chortling to himself and pounding one fist on the arm of his chair in a rhythmical way that Meacham found rather discomposing.
His companion walked over to the chair and laid a hand gently on the old man’s shoulder. “Papa, I have brought you a visitor, Julian Winslow, Lord Meacham.”
Meacham stepped forward, making a bow to the baronet. “Sir Lawrence, I’m pleased to see you again.”
The baronet, who had looked up but not spoken when his daughter addressed him, turned a frowning gaze on Meacham.
“Julian, bouillon, cotillion, vermilion,” he said.
Meacham regarded him gravely. “Sir? Can you understand me?”
Sir Lawrence turned agitated eyes to his daughter. “Where’s Nelson?” he demanded in a querulous voice.
“He’ll be back in a minute, Papa,” she promised.
Meacham studied the lined face and the alarmed eyes, which were a lighter blue than his daughter’s. “Can I get you something, sir. Perhaps a blanket?”
“Blanket? Blanket? Is it winter, then?”
“Yes, it’s December, and quite cold out, sir. Do you see the snow on the hills around Buttermere? This room is a little chilly. Shall I ring to have the fire built up, or bring you the blanket from the bottom of the bed?”
Sir Lawrence merely looked confused. “Fire. Dangerous. I used to have a pipe,” he said hopefully. “Is my pipe there?”
Drucilla shook her head at Meacham while she straightened her father’s disordered hair with capable fingers.
“I’m afraid there’s no pipe, Sir Lawrence.”
Sir Lawrence had already forgotten the pipe, but he frowned at Meacham. “I don’t approve of servants wearing starched collar points of that height,” he said sternly.
Drucilla flushed. “You must forgive my father. He is often confused.”
Sir Lawrence had turned his attention to the view once again, and Meacham said, “Is he ever perfectly lucid?”
“He always recognizes me and often calls me by name, but sometimes he thinks I’m my mother, or even his own mother.”
“So your father is not capable of making any real decisions with regard to the estate.”
Drucilla continued to stroke her father’s head, which seemed to calm his agitation. “No,” she admitted.
Miss Carruthers, Meacham realized, had been responsible for Tarnlea, the house and the estate, for her father and herself, for the staff, for everything, for a very long time. What could a girl of her age and situation know of estate management? It seemed perfectly plausible to the viscount that one of the people on whom she relied for advice was taking advantage of her. The estate agent might be lining his pockets, or the local vicar urging excessive good works on her. Mr. Wicker had certainly hinted at an alarming outgo of capital.
“I think we needn’t trouble your father any further this afternoon,” Meacham said. “But you and I should talk.”
Mutely, Drucilla nodded. She kissed the top of her father’s head and he awkwardly patted her hand. “I shall come again later, Papa.”
As she closed the door behind them, she said, “If you would give me an hour to see to some household matters, I would be grateful. Everything is a bit topsy-turvy because of your arrival.”
“Of course.”
Drucilla took care of her more pressing concerns before joining her companion, who was comfortably ensconced in the salon, a fire blazing on the grate. Miss Script was doing her fine filigree needlework, but she looked up at her former charge’s entrance to ask, “Has Lord Meacham been to see your father?”
Drucilla seated herself at the small cherrywood desk by the window. “Yes, and I believe he now has a good grasp of my father’s mental condition. There is nothing amiss with the viscount’s understanding.”
“Was he distressed by Sir Lawrence’s condition?”
“Distressed? It was hard to tell. He was gentle with Papa, and merely said he and I must talk.” Drucilla looked worried, but set herself to ordering the menus for the viscount’s stay. She quickly decided to replace the simple boiled neck of mutton and vegetables with a crimped cod in oyster sauce as well as a fricasseed chicken.
“Do you suppose Lord Meacham would like a cabinet pudding?” she asked Miss Script.
Her companion looked up from her needlework and pondered the question. “I believe gentlemen generally prefer mince pies or apple tarts. And of course plum pudding at this time of year. Mrs. Kamidge will have several plum puddings soaked with Sir Lawrence’s good brandy.”
“Yes, it has been a real joy to dip into the best of his cellar,” Drucilla admitted with sparkling eyes.
The door from the hall was behind her and she had not heard it open to admit the viscount. “Whose cellar?” Meacham inquired in a lazy drawl.
“My father’s,” she responded readily enough. “He laid down a remarkable collection of spirits and wines. You shall of course sample some of them during your stay, Lord Meacham. My father is no longer much interested in such refreshment, and the doctor does not believe it is beneficial for him, in any case. His pipe has been taken away because he tends to burn holes in his clothes.”
Miss Script, seeing the determination in Meacham’s eyes, immediately excused herself. His lordship moved to stand by the fire, leaning his broad shoulders against the high mantel and bending a quizzical look upon Drucilla. “Your father is in much worse case than I had suspected. Since he is not capable of even the least decision regarding his own fate or that of his estate, I assume the full burden has fallen to you.”
“I have had help, and we contrive as best we can,” Drucilla replied, setting down her quill. “My father is still the baronet, after all, and his responsibilities must be carried out.”
“How long has he been as bad as this?”
“About two years.”
Meacham shook his head in wonder. “That is quite a lengthy period, Miss Carruthers.”
“Well,” Drucilla confessed, “he hasn’t been perfectly all right for five years, but at first it was merely gaps in his memory. Now he is...” She shru
gged her shoulders eloquently. “... as you see.”
“But in these last few years, according to Mr. Wicker, there have been very large expenses to the estate. I wonder if perhaps your agent has not taken advantage of you, Miss Carruthers.”
Drucilla looked amused. “John Thomas? Oh, no, I don’t think so, Lord Meacham.”
“I shall just have a word with him.”
“As you please, of course.”
As the estate agent was not on the premises, Meacham sent word that he would meet with John Thomas the next day. He enjoyed a sociable dinner and evening with Miss Carruthers and her companion. They played a few hands of cards and sang Christmas carols, accompanied by the young lady on her pianoforte.
Miss Carruthers, her fair curls framing an animated face, made a charming hostess, full of questions about his home and family, open in her answers to his questions. She directed their conversation in a lively fashion, discussing their neighbors (“You will meet Lady Nibthwaite, the most delightful woman. She once asked Miss Script if she had ever stolen anything.”) and staff (“Nelson was formerly a blacksmith’s assistant and, though I cannot at all fathom why, has suited the position of attendant to my father admirably.”) in such a delightful way that he could not resist its humor.
After the ladies had retired for the night, he sampled the baronet’s mellow old brandy and relaxed into an almost soporific state before the blazing fire, watching snowflakes drift down outside the window. There was a peacefulness at Tarnlea that lulled him into perfect charity with the world. And if his mind drifted from time to time to the memory of Miss Carruthers seated on the sofa, that wicked gleam of laughter in her vivid blue eyes, well, who could blame him?
But early the next morning he made himself known to John Thomas, a much younger man than he had expected, and sat down with the estate books for the last five years. He was not actually in the habit of going over his own estate books, having several individuals, including a young man just down from Oxford as his secretary, whose business it was to just bring the salient points to his attention.