by Dorothy Mack
Sarah found herself being rushed down the staircase and across the great hall at a pace that required an undignified skip on her part to maintain, and she decided it was high time she asserted her independence.
“I’ll be black and blue for weeks,” she declared waspishly, jerking her elbow out of his grasp.
Some of the sternness died out of the dark-brown eyes that gazed down into her mutinous face, to be replaced by a trace of sympathetic amusement. “I’m sorry. I do seem to tow you about a good deal, don’t I?” He slowed his pace to allow her to catch her breath. “Tell me, what is Mrs. Glamorgan’s part in this charade?”
“The new housekeeper? She hasn’t one. She has not yet arrived.”
His eyebrows shot up. “So she could pop up at any moment to round out the cast of this merry little farce. I had Coke, my London agent —” he laid stress on the name and grinned boyishly at this reference to their earlier set to — “give her enough money to hire a post chaise from Marshfield, so her arrival will be unannounced.”
Sarah sighed. “I feel as though I am traveling through a bad dream. No matter how I struggle to escape, my feet keep taking me deeper into a dreamworld.”
“Now, do not, I beg of you, become fanciful. We are about to call a halt to this deception.”
Lord Eversley’s confident expectations received a rude setback at the door to Sir Hector’s apartment. The ubiquitous Somers was at his post, and he was not in the least intimidated or influenced by the viscount’s insistence on disturbing the general “for five minutes only.”
“I’m that sorry to refuse you, sir, but the general had a bad night and he’s sleeping now. I cannot disturb him. Indeed, you wouldn’t want to destroy his first real rest in days, would you, sir?”
Lord Eversley knew when he was defeated. He smiled ruefully at Sarah, who accepted the situation with a philosophical little shrug. “We can scarcely barge in on an eighty-six-year-old man enjoying his first repose in days,” he agreed, but the thoughtful stare he bent on the implacable Somers would have wilted a lesser man.
“The general said as how he’d be available to visitors after lunch, sir,” the valet offered as they prepared to leave the suite.
“Then you may expect us directly after lunch, Somers,” Lord Eversley said.
As he and Sarah left Sir Hector’s drawing room, he smiled into her grave countenance and pleaded in the tones of a conspirator, “Do you think you could arrange to be lurking somewhere in the shadows when I knock this afternoon? I’d prefer not to run the gamut of your relatives if at all possible. I can imagine what they thought when I followed the housekeeper out of the room a few moments ago.” He watched the parade of emotions passing across his companion’s features ranging from slight surprise to a mischievous comprehension that dissolved into apprehension at his last remark.
“Now, do not start worrying again. This strange situation will resolve itself very soon now.”
“It is most generous of you to wish to support me in my meeting with my grandfather, sir. I have no right to expect anything of the sort.”
“I involved myself by frightening you at our first meeting at your grandfather’s bedside. Had I been less threatening, we might have succeeded in straightening out the tangle of mixed identities then and there.”
As they were now in the great hall near Joseph’s chair, and the footman was coming forward to see Lord Eversley out, Sarah was unable to do more than give him a low-voiced confirmation of their next meeting after lunch.
The men of Beech Hill returned from their morning ride a few minutes before lunchtime, and Horace Ridgemont was not pleased upon entering his apartment to find waiting for him a message from his sister desiring him to wait upon her at his earliest convenience, with the word “earliest” underlined twice. An exclamation of annoyance forced its way between his lips, but he did not consider for more than a second postponing the confrontation until they should meet at table. It never was any good to try to avoid Adelaide when she was on one of her rampages — she had the devil’s own persistence — but his mood was anything but conciliatory as he entered her antechamber a few minutes later. His sister was pacing the length of the room wearing a look of aroused fury that boded no good for anyone crossing her path. He decided to go on the attack first.
“It’s of no use, Adelaide, to rail at me because Father has refused to see you. He wouldn’t see me this morning either. Somers said to try again after lunch.”
“That isn’t why I sent for you, Horace.” Lady Townsend stopped in front of her brother and demanded, “What do you know about this person who calls herself a housekeeper?”
“Mrs. Boston? I don’t know anything about her. What is there to know? She seems very young for the position, but Father says she’s the best housekeeper he’s had in years. She’s only been here a few days, but she organized the staff to prepare for our arrival on very short notice, and it went quite smoothly.”
“Bah, that woman is no more a housekeeper than I am!”
“What are you raving on about?”
“Does she look like any housekeeper you’ve ever seen?”
Horace stirred uneasily. “Just because a woman is young and attractive, it does not follow that she is incapable of doing the job. Dammit, Adelaide, she is doing the job.”
“She gives herself away every time she opens her mouth.”
“She’s perfectly polite and respectful and possesses a quickness of understanding too. She no sooner saw that William was limping than she offered to change him from a suite upstairs to one on this floor, and all done with no fuss or —”
“Idiot! I’m talking about her speech. No servant ever spoke without a trace of some accent that betrayed their origins, even Grace Medlark, whose mother was Mama’s dresser for years. I knew there was something phony about that Boston creature the instant I clapped eyes on her, and now I have proof that she is not what she claims to be.”
“What do you mean? What kind of proof?”
Lady Townsend walked over to a large ornately carved table under a Venetian pier glass and returned holding a small object that she thrust into her brother’s unwilling hand with an exclamation of triumph. “This!”
Horace Ridgemont looked from his sister’s face, alight with vindictive satisfaction, to the tiny gold brooch in his hand. It was in the form of a lover’s knot, he saw, completely made of delicate filigree work, except for one pale opal in the centre that glowed with soft colour as he turned the pin over in his fingers. “This is your proof that Mrs. Boston is not what she claims to be, a brooch?” His eyes questioned his sister, whose angular features assumed an even more offensive degree of superiority.
“Well, all I can say, Horace, is that if you have forgotten the brooch our mother wore for years, which was given to her by our father, I have not. This is that brooch.”
There was a short silence, then Horace asked almost reluctantly, “How did you come by this, Adelaide?”
“As I said, I suspected that woman from the beginning. Today I had Dawkins, my abigail, search her room for some evidence of her real identity. She found this,” Lady Townsend replied with an assumption of nonchalance that did not quite ring true. She went on quickly as an expression of distaste spread over her brother’s hawkish features. “The question that you should be asking is how did this Boston creature come by our mother’s brooch?”
“And do you have an answer to that question too?” he asked, dropping the pin into her hand as if contact with it burned his fingers.
“I should think it would be as plain as the nose on your face. No one could have taken that pin but Gerald. Somehow, Gerald has learned of Father’s illness and he has insinuated into this house that woman with her misleading meekness and the sort of insipid good looks that might be expressly designed to impress a sick old man. It would not be the first time a rich old man has been charmed out of his money by a clever young woman with a honeyed voice and a gentle manner. The woman is an adventuress, I tell you. We�
�ve got to get her out of this house.”
“How do you plan to accomplish this?”
“I tried to see Father after Dawkins brought me the brooch, but Somers said he was sleeping. He promised Father would be receiving visitors after lunch, however. That is probably all to the good. I am persuaded it will be better for us to confront him with this together.”
“But I am not at all sure I wish to be with you when you break this news to Father,” her brother said mildly. “Tell me, Adelaide, does it not trouble your conscience at all that you violated someone’s privacy by searching her belongings?”
“A servant? Don’t talk rubbish, Horace. What would our position be now without this brooch? We cannot stay here forever. All that woman would have to do is wait out our visit until the house was clear again so that she would be free to employ whatever arts of fascination she chose on a doddering old man with no one to impede her. Would you like to wake up one morning to find Father dead and Gerald and this woman in possession of our inheritance and that of our children?”
He did not answer her at once. There was a puzzled frown on his face and he said as if musing to himself, “How could Gerald have found out about Father’s illness? The last I heard of him was that he had gone to America many years ago. And how could he get the woman in here in the second place? Father told me Eversley found Mrs. Boston for him, or at least his agent in London did.”
“Eversley! Horace, Eversley was here this morning and his behaviour was most peculiar. We were all sitting in the drawing room when Mrs. Boston came in to speak to me. When she left, Eversley excused himself to go after her with some trumped-up excuse about a package he’d brought for Father. Eversley must be working with Gerald in this.”
“Now you are letting your imagination run away with you, Adelaide. Eversley was only a child when Gerald went away, and he is a good friend to Father. To accuse him of trying to harm Father would be a grave error on your part, believe me.”
“I’m not so stupid as to accuse him of anything,” Lady Townsend retorted, firming her already decided chin, “but I shall certainly discover how he came to send that Boston woman here before the day is much older. Are you going to come with me to see Father or not?”
Mr. Horace Ridgemont stared into his sister’s challenging eyes for a long moment, his own troubled. Then he said quietly, “Very well, I shall go with you after lunch.”
CHAPTER 7
Joseph had barely relieved Lord Eversley of his hat and gloves in the hall of Beech Hill after lunch when Sarah glided through the archway leading to the west staircase and came down the great room toward them.
“I’ll take Lord Eversley in to see Sir Hector, Joseph,” she said with a tiny smile.
“Very good, ma’am.”
Mark examined her pale face as they headed silently across the hall. “Is anything wrong, or are you simply suffering from nervous anticipation?”
She raised amber eyes full of distress to his. “Someone searched through my belongings this morning. I don’t believe anything is missing, but I cannot be certain because I neither packed nor unpacked for myself this time. Lottie packed for me in London, and Grace Medlark unpacked for me and put my things away that first day while I was feeling too ill to pay much attention. I’ve not been able to wear anything but this wretched gown since I came here, so I haven’t been through the drawers thoroughly, until I noticed just before lunch that some of my things had been disturbed.”
“You are quite sure these items were disturbed by other hands?”
“Oh, yes,” she replied with a little shudder. “It’s a horrid feeling to know that someone has been snooping among one’s personal possessions.”
They had reached the door into Sir Hector’s drawing room by now and were greeted by Somers as usual, but not the usual Somers. The thin little man’s unencouraging aspect of this morning — indeed, of the last few days — had been transformed into a semblance of a benevolent smile.
“You may go right in Lord Eversley, Miss Sarah. The general is expecting you.”
With his foot halfway over the threshold, the viscount pulled up mentally. Miss Sarah? As he took in the scene in the bedchamber, his hand went out in an unconsciously protective gesture toward Sarah, then dropped to his side. By habit his eyes winged to the big bed, which today was devoid of its recent occupant and made up smoothly with a colourful quilt. He felt the girl beside him stiffen and gently nudged her a step or two forward with a hand at her waist.
Sir Hector was sitting up in a maroon velvet wing chair by the fireplace clad in a gorgeous dressing gown of a bright-blue brocade frogged in black. A white silk scarf was folded neatly at his throat, and his abundant white hair, rivalling it in brightness, was carefully brushed. He was wearing the breeches and silk stockings of an earlier day, and his feet, resting on an ottoman that matched the chair, were shod in soft house shoes.
“Come in, come in,” he invited with a beckoning wave of his hand.
Benevolence here too, Mark marvelled, until he checked the expressions of the other two people in the room.
Sir Hector’s children were seated side by side in a pair of armless walnut chairs of the Queen Anne period, and their faces were anything but welcoming. Horace Ridgemont had the embarrassed mien of a man caught stealing sheep, and Lady Townsend’s expression was so eloquent of malicious satisfaction that, without actually moving, Mark aligned his body closer to Sarah’s. He noted with interest that Sir Hector’s benevolence had vanished and his face, as he glanced at his daughter, mirrored the expression on hers as she glared at Sarah and burst into speech.
“Your entrance is well-timed, Mrs. Boston. Perhaps you will be good enough to tell your employer just who sent you here and how you came to have in your possession a gold brooch that belonged to my mother.”
Sarah stared at her aunt, appalled. “You searched through my belongings?”
“Don’t be impertinent! Of course I did not search your —”
“You merely ordered the search, Adelaide?” Sir Hector asked in a deceptively genial tone, but with a look of disgust quivering about his thin lips that sent a tide of red surging up from his daughter’s throat.
She shot back defensively, “You will be grateful that I did when you discover who this adventuress is and who sent her here.”
“No one sent me here —” Sarah began, only to be drowned out by the general’s best military roar.
“I know exactly who this young woman is. Come here, child,” he ordered much more softly, holding out a compelling hand to the white-faced girl, who obeyed him mechanically, though the eyes that flashed to his face were terrified. The general took her trembling fingers into a decidedly strong clasp of his thin gnarled hand, but his eyes were on the others in the room as he waited for their reactions to his suave announcement. “Horace, Adelaide, Eversley, I have the honour to present my granddaughter, Sarah Ridgemont.”
The reception that greeted Sir Hector’s little bomb was almost everything he could have wished.
Sarah gasped and clutched at the arm of his chair for support.
“So that accounts for it,” exclaimed Horace Ridgemont, his eyes devouring his niece.
“You knew?” whispered Sarah, her eyes all for her grandfather.
The general chose to ignore the girl by his side for the moment. “Accounts for what?” he asked his son in tones of deep interest.
“Something … some elusive something about her that bothered me, teased at my memory, though I was sure I’d never met her before.”
Adelaide Townsend had not uttered a sound in her consternation, though shock, disbelief, and fury all warred for prominence on her countenance for a time. Now she challenged hoarsely, “How can you possibly be sure she isn’t tricking you? You have no proof.”
Her father gave a snort of laughter. “Oh, she tried to trick me, all right, into believing she was a housekeeper.”
“I didn’t … that is, I did not intend —” blurted Sarah, to be ruthlessly over
ridden.
“But all it took was one look at her standing in the candlelight that first night to see that, except for the silly hole in her chin and somewhat lighter-coloured eyes, she is her grandmother to the life. I can tell you it gave me quite a turn.”
“It is probably no more than a romantic fancy,” protested Lady Townsend. “The girl appeared at your bedside at a time when you were thinking of Mama, and you invested her with a resemblance that exists only in your mind.”
“You think I dreamed it up, do you?” the general snapped, reaching into a drawer in the table beside his chair. “Perhaps you also think I am heading into my dotage. Did I dream this up too?”
He held out a small framed painting, and after a slight hesitation, Horace Ridgemont leaned forward and took it from him. Silently Lord Eversley came forward to study the likeness of a young woman that Horace was holding for his sister’s frowning inspection. The young woman pictured wore the elaborately coiffed hair of the middle years of the eighteenth century, but the unsmiling face was uncannily like Sarah’s as the latter stood wide-eyed and tense, enduring the measuring looks of the others as they glanced from the portrait to her and back again.
“I do not really remember Mama like that,” Horace said half-apologetically. “In my memory she was older, still lovely, of course, but more smiling, at least for most of the time that I lived at home.”
“There is a resemblance,” Adelaide admitted grudgingly, “but that doesn’t constitute proof that she is Gerald’s legitimate child, and what part does Gerald play in all this anyway?”
“No part. He’s dead,” snapped her father.
In the silence that greeted this terse pronouncement, Sarah, who had been gradually coming out of a state of shock, turned to her grandfather and pleaded, “If you knew who I was all the time, Sir Hector, why did you permit this … this…” She hesitated, and he finished for her.