A Convenient Fiction

by Mimi Matthews

  Laura walked along at Henrietta’s side as they returned to the house. A footman in immaculate livery opened the front door of Edgington Park for them. He waited in the marble-tiled hall as they divested themselves of their hats, gloves, and bonnets.

  “We’ll have some refreshment in the music room,” Henrietta informed him. “And tell Cook we shall have three additional places at dinner.” She looked to Laura. “You are staying, aren’t you?”

  Laura shook her head. The hour was growing late. There was still much to be done at home. “I promised Aunt Charlotte I’d be back before nightfall.”

  Henrietta’s mouth pursed. “Really, Laura.”

  “Really, Hen. I have time enough to play a song or two for you, but then I must set out. I’m traveling to London in the morning.”

  Henrietta’s pout softened. “Are you? To see that odious solicitor of yours? I can’t begin to fathom why he won’t attend you here.”

  Laura felt the weight of Mr. Archer’s gaze upon her. She ignored it. “Mr. Weatherwax is a very busy man. He hasn’t the time to come to Lower Hawley.”

  “When will you return? Not until the following morning, I daresay. Which means I shall have no one to chaperone me all day.”

  Laura refrained from pointing out the many other ladies in Lower Hawley who might be willing to play chaperone. “I shall be home by Wednesday afternoon. You may send someone for me then. Or come to Bramble Cottage yourself if you’d like to call on my aunt.”

  “I may at that,” Henrietta said. “Perhaps we all shall.”

  Two hours later, as dusk settled over the Surrey countryside, Laura was conveyed home in a one-horse gig driven by an aged groom from Squire Talbot’s stables.

  It was but a short distance by carriage—past the boundary of Edgington Park, along the border of Talbot’s Wood, and to the gate of the ramshackle cottage which housed the remaining members of the Hayes family.

  After climbing down from the gig and bidding the groom safe journey, Laura stood at the gate for a moment. The garden was woefully overgrown, the warm evening air heavy with the perfume of summer roses. They were everywhere. An explosion of fragrant yellow and orange blooms ran wild along the walls, framing the windows and arching over the front door.

  She inhaled deeply.

  Perfume was in her blood. The redolence of roses. The exotic sweetness of jasmine. And the clean, wholesome bouquet of lavender.

  She wasn’t her father. She couldn’t create new fragrances—and didn’t aspire to. But she knew the importance of scent. It was love, and loss, and memory. A single sniff was all it took to bring the past alive.

  But there was no future in it. Not for her, and not for Teddy. Not so long as Mr. Weatherwax held the reins.

  A candle flickered from Teddy’s third-floor window. He was still awake—and still drawing, no doubt.

  She made her way inside and up the creaking stairs. A short rap at his bedroom door was enough to announce her presence.

  “I saw the gig from the window,” Teddy said as she entered. He was hunched over his desk, the candle sputtering beside him. “Good thing Aunt Charlotte didn’t.”

  Magpie was stretched out on Teddy’s bed. Laura gave him a scratch on the head as she passed. “Where is she?”

  “Gone down the lane to look in on Mrs. Pole’s baby. She said she’d be back in a quarter of an hour.”

  Laura leaned down to brush a kiss against her brother’s temple. With his inky black hair and gray-blue eyes, he might have been her copy. But there was no fire in him. No vibrancy. As a boy, he’d had more strength of will. Now, however, on the cusp of reaching his majority, Teddy seemed to have given up. In the past month alone, his face had grown thinner, his shoulders narrow.

  “What have you been working on today?” she asked.

  “Preliminary sketches of the birds.” His face was pale in the candlelight, his complexion sickly for lack of sunshine. “I’ll begin painting tomorrow.”

  “Outside?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She pulled up a chair beside the desk and sat down. “This won’t do, you know.”

  “I’m not in any mood for a lecture. I’ve already had enough of them from Aunt Charlotte.”

  “I’m not lecturing.”

  He cast her a baleful look. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t do what makes me happy. You’re always running away to the pond. No one stops you from going.”

  “I wish you’d come with me.”

  “In this?” He made an impatient gesture at his wheeled chair. “No, thank you.”

  “Yardley can carry you down, and then we—”

  “Don’t be daft. Yardley can barely carry himself up and down the stairs. He’s pushing seventy.”

  “He’s not a day over sixty,” Laura said. “But I take your meaning.”

  John Yardley had worked for the Hayes family for as long as Laura could remember. He was butler, footman, and manservant. Capable enough for most things, but not as able to perform his physical duties as once he had.

  “It’s the rheumatism, Miss Laura,” he’d confided to her only last week. “It does give me a twinge on occasion.”

  Laura leaned back in her chair, regarding her brother with a thoughtful frown. “There’s no use dithering about it any longer. We must simply hire another footman. Someone younger and stronger who can be more of a help to you.”

  “How do you propose we pay him?”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  Teddy gathered his sketches into a pile, shuffling them straight before thrusting them into a drawer and slamming it closed. “I wish you would confide in me.”

  “I do confide in you.”

  He snorted. “You don’t.”

  “Would it set your mind at ease to know every miserable detail?”

  Teddy bent his head, his mouth pressed tight. “Our circumstances are miserable, then.”

  “I have it all in hand.”

  “Do you?”

  “As near as can be.” She reached to smooth a lock of Teddy’s hair from his brow. “You need only concern yourself with getting well.”

  Teddy drew back from her touch. “You’ll speak with Weatherwax tomorrow?”

  Laura’s hand fell to her lap. “I will.”

  “And if he—”

  “He won’t. He can’t. The law is on our side.”

  “The law is an ass,” Teddy muttered. “That’s what Shakespeare says.”

  “I daresay he’s right,” Laura replied. “But it’s all we have at present.”

  Alex didn’t drink to excess. Didn’t do anything to excess, really. When one had only one’s wits to rely on, one couldn’t afford to have one’s senses addled. Fortunately, Squire Talbot wasn’t the sort of gentleman to press food and drink on his guests.

  Indeed, as dinner progressed in the cavernous dining room at Edgington Park, the squire seemed to cede the whole of his duties as host to his daughter.

  It led Alex to wonder whether Miss Hayes might not have been exaggerating when she’d told him that the squire fiercely guarded Miss Talbot’s reputation. As one course led to the next, Alex began to get the impression that Squire Talbot wasn’t in the habit of doing anything fiercely. He was, it seemed, little more than a country farmer. A man more interested in the workings of his estate than in his daughter’s matrimonial prospects.

  “You must come back tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “I’ll take you round the home farm. We have the finest pigs in Surrey.”

  “Really, Papa,” Miss Talbot protested. “Mr. Archer isn’t interested in pigs, of all things.”

  “But I am,” Alex replied. “Keenly interested. I should be grateful for a tour.”

  Squire Talbot looked down the table at George. “And you, Wright?”

  George held out his wineglass for a footman to refil
l it. It was his fourth refill thus far, and he was starting to show the effects of it. His cheeks were ruddy, his manner less formal. “Can’t say I’ve ever been interested in farming. I prefer city life to a country village. Far more civilized, to my mind.”

  “Rubbish,” the squire said. “There’s nothing more civilized than orderly crops, healthy livestock, and modern machinery. Prosperous farms like Edgington Park are the backbone of England. Your father understands that well enough. He’s often complimented my methods of—”

  “I beg you, Papa,” Miss Talbot interrupted. “No more talk of farming. Not when our guests have only lately returned from the continent. I’d far rather hear about Paris than pigs.”

  Squire Talbot gave his daughter an indulgent glance. “Quite right, my dear. Plenty of time to talk about farming tomorrow, when I take Mr. Archer out on the estate.”

  Miss Talbot was true to her word. She kept the conversation to fashionable topics, presiding over the remainder of their meal with all the aplomb of a society doyenne. And when they’d finished the final course, drunk their after-dinner coffee, and indulged in another round of soulful duets in the music room, it was she, and not her father, who walked them out to the drive and bid them adieu.

  “Call on me again soon,” she said as Alex and George climbed into the vicar’s carriage. “When Miss Hayes is back from London.”

  The carriage rolled away, the coachman clucking to the horses.

  Alex settled back into the shadowy corner of his seat, arms folded.

  “My father will be home,” George said with a hiccup. “Shouldn’t have drunk so much wine.”

  “Does your father disapprove of drinking?”

  “He disapproves of anything that brings a man pleasure.” Another hiccup. “Must be why he wants me to marry. Knows I’ll be miserable. Even if…”

  “Even if what?”

  George scrubbed at his face. “I wouldn’t marry her. Couldn’t.”

  “Miss Talbot?”

  “Miss Hayes,” George said, slurring his speech. “Laura.”

  Alex’s gaze sharpened in the darkened interior of the coach. “What about Miss Hayes?”

  “Made her an offer, last time I was home. Not at all the thing.” George’s mouth spread into a stupid grin. “She slapped my face. Hard. I fancy I can still feel it.”

  Alex’s jaw hardened at George’s admission. The mere idea of it…George and Laura Hayes.

  Not but that he hadn’t suspected something of the sort.

  He’d have had to be blind not to recognize the dark undercurrents that ran between the pair of them. He would have liked to question George on the subject—to find out more about what had happened between him and the mysterious Miss Hayes. But mere seconds later, George was snoring contentedly, his head lolled against the seat.

  It didn’t matter, in any case.

  Alex hadn’t come to Lower Hawley to ensnare himself with a penniless water nymph. He’d come to ensure his future.

  He’d acquired some degree of wealth in the years since he’d left North Devon. Substantial winnings in nefarious London gaming clubs, and at the tables in private gaming establishments all over France. It had been sufficient to assure his comfort in a suite of luxurious rented rooms, and to procure first-class passage on railways and steamships. But it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough without property.

  Property was the thing.

  And for a man of his pedigree, the only way to attain such property was to marry an heiress.

  Fabricating his antecedents had been simple enough. He’d spent decades on the continent. Who was to say his parents hadn’t died during the cholera epidemic? As for Baron Reynard, should anyone go looking, they would find the old sharper alive and well in Biarritz—and more than willing to claim Alex as his godson.

  All that had remained was to garner a proper introduction. An entrée into the world of some country squire’s daughter. A wealthy young woman Archer could woo and win.

  When George had first described Henrietta Talbot, she’d sounded like just the sort of young lady Alex was looking for.

  She was beautiful, and accomplished, to a degree. But she wasn’t as canny as she thought she was. Alex was confident he could catch her, by fair means or foul. Catch her, marry her, and secure his future.

  The prospect should have been appealing. It certainly had been when he’d first conceived the idea. Now, however, a growing sense of unease had invaded his peace. Things weren’t as they seemed in Lower Hawley. He had the distinct feeling that he was rushing toward a destination that was spinning rapidly out of his control.

  And he didn’t like to be out of control.

  The carriage came to a rattling halt in front of the vicarage. He opened the door and jumped out before turning to assist George.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d hauled George Wright’s drunken carcass out of a coach. At one time or another, Alex had delivered George back to his rooms reeking of alcohol, smoky with opium, or stinking of the cheap scent of a third-rate whorehouse. It all depended on the night of the week—and on how much ready coin George had in his pocket when that night began.

  Alex had come to view it as the price of doing business with the man.

  As he hoisted George up, the front door of the vicarage swung open. A small, gray-haired gentleman in dark trousers and a well-worn frock coat emerged. Had Alex any doubt as to his identity, the leather-bound Bible clutched in the gentleman’s hand would have confirmed it.

  “Oh dear, he’s been at Squire Talbot’s port, I see.” The vicar urged Alex into the house. “You must be Mr. Archer. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to receive you. But you’ve had a good meal at the Park, I trust.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “Squire Talbot’s cellars are rumored to contain some of the finest vintages in Surrey. My son seems determined to prove it. Put him in the parlor, if you please. He can sleep there tonight. No one will disturb him.”

  Alex did as the vicar bid him, half dragging George into the vicarage parlor and dropping him onto an overstuffed sofa near the hearth.

  George yawned mightily, one booted foot stretched out on the cushions and one set on the floor.

  “Oh, dear,” the vicar said again as he looked at him. And then he raised his gaze to Alex. There were crinkles around his eyes. Evidence of a man who smiled more than he frowned. “Leopold Wright, at your service.” He extended his hand.

  Alex shook it. “Alex Archer. Thank you for having me to stay.”

  “You’re very welcome, sir. I was just reading my scripture for the evening. The parable of the prodigal son. It seems rather apt at the moment. If you’d care to join me?”

  It had been a long time since Alex had opened a Bible, let alone read a scripture. But when the vicar gestured toward the pair of winged chairs near the cold fireplace, he sat down without a word.

  The vicar lowered himself into the remaining chair and opened his Bible on his lap, his finger holding his place in the text. “Many view the parable as one of repentance and forgiveness. Of a man brought low after riotous living. But the scripture is much more than that. It’s a story of homecoming. Of reconciliation. ‘For this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.’”

  Alex felt something deep within him give way as the vicar recited the scripture. He didn’t want to think about homecomings. About brothers resurrected from the dead.

  “My son hasn’t been home for a long while,” the vicar said when he’d finished reading the parable. “I believe he’s come back due to your influence. For that, I can only thank you.” He looked at Alex over the rim of his wire-framed spectacles. “Do you have a family, sir?”

  Alex returned the vicar’s gently enquiring gaze. “I did. A lifetime ago.”

  “Are they still living?”

  Were they? Alex had done his be
st not to find out. Nevertheless, there had been no avoiding the news that Justin Thornhill had wed the daughter of a wealthy nobleman last September. An earl’s daughter, if one could believe it. The announcement had been in the London papers for all to see. It had been the very incident that had sparked Alex’s own interest in finding a wealthy wife.

  As for Tom Finchley and Neville Cross…

  Alex didn’t know. He didn’t want to know.

  The orphanage at Abbot’s Holcombe was a part of his past. The ache of hunger. The ice-cold dormitories. The ever-present fear of punishment. Of death. It had been a lifetime ago. So long ago that he could almost fancy it had happened to another person.

  “Some of them,” he said. “I don’t know about the others. It’s been many years. Decades.”

  The vicar nodded. “Then I shall pray that you will be reunited with them, as my son has been with me.”

  Laura stepped out of the crowded railway carriage onto the busy platform at London’s Waterloo Station, her valise clutched in her hand. Porters shouted over the blare of the whistle, and travelers hurried past her, striding every which way through the smoke and steam. They scarcely spared her a glance. It was a relief, really. She never felt entirely at ease venturing into the city, especially when unaccompanied.

  She could think of only three occasions she’d done so in the past three years—once right after Papa’s death, and then twice more when Teddy’s health had necessitated that she appeal to Mr. Weatherwax for a larger allowance.

  Harold P. Weatherwax was a distinguished solicitor in his middle forties. Their father had employed him to write contracts and other documents for the family business, as well as to draft his will. Weatherwax had been a young man then, with precious little legal experience. His services had come at a bargain. Now, however, he was a canny practitioner with a stable of clients far more important than the Hayes family—or so he claimed. It was the chief reason he was never at liberty to call on her in Lower Hawley.

  She smoothed a hand over her dark blue traveling gown as she walked to the nearby cabstand. There, she hired a hansom to take her to Fleet Street. Mr. Weatherwax was expecting her at half past two. She had no time to spare.