by Joan Wolf
Needless to say, this was not a recommendation to me. “Oh?” I said coldly. “Well, I am not acquainted with you, Mr. Wickham, and I have nothing to say to you. Good day, sir.”
“I know who you are,” he said surprisingly. “You are Mrs. Saunders.”
His pale blue eyes regarded me as if I were a very interesting specimen he was about to dissect. I did not like the man at all. I particularly did not like the way he was looking at me, as if he knew something I did not know.
I said, “Mr. Wickham, I don’t wish to be rude, but I wish you will go away. I am not interested in your relationship with Lord Devane. In fact, I am not interested in Lord Devane, period. I am simply waiting here for the return of my escort, and once he arrives we shall be leaving.” I bestowed upon him a dismissive stare. “Goodbye,” I said.
He bared his teeth at me in what I imagined he thought was a smile. “You don’t mince words, do you, Mrs. Saunders?”
“No,” I said baldly, “I do not.”
He stood up. “I’m putting up here at the Black Swan for a while. Perhaps I will have the pleasure of meeting you again.”
“I doubt it,” I replied. “Good day, Mr. Wickham.”
He sketched me a mocking half-bow and moved away toward the door of the parlor. I watched him go and wondered who he could possibly be and why he had accosted me in such a manner.
Could Roger have insisted that we stop here so that this man could approach me? But why?
I was still puzzling over this problem when Roger came back into the room. “Are you ready to leave, Gail?” he asked as he stopped at my table.
“Yes,” I replied. As I stood up I said, “The oddest thing happened while you were gone, Roger. I was approached by a man named Wickham. He knew my name and insisted on sitting down and telling me all about his friendship with George.”
Roger’s fair brows drew together. “Did he bother you, Gail? I’m sorry. I had no idea anyone would have the nerve to approach you in here.”
“You don’t know anyone called Wickham?” I asked.
“No.”
“That’s odd,” I said. “He knew you.”
Roger gave me a sharp look. “What did he look like?”
“He was very dark. He was just back from India, he told me. His eyes were light blue and looked quite extraordinary in his sunburned face.”
No sign of recognition appeared on Roger’s face. He shook his head. “I don’t know him.”
The landlord, a tall, rather elegant-looking man, appeared at our table. “That will be two shillings, Mr. Melville,” he said to Roger.
“Oh, just put it on his lordship’s account, Murchison,” Roger said carelessly.
“I am sorry, Mr. Melville, but his lordship told me himself that I was not to charge any more of your bills to his account, that you were to pay for them yourself.” The landlord’s voice was apologetic but firm.
Roger went white to his lips. “Good God, Murchison! It’s not as if two bloody shillings are going to bankrupt Savile.” Roger took the coins out of his pocket and threw them on the table so hard that they bounced and would have rolled off it had the other man not put out his hand to stop them. Then Roger stalked out of the parlor.
I was left behind, looking at the landlord. The tall man gave me an apologetic look. “I am very sorry, ma’am, but I did not feel I could disobey his lordship’s orders.”
“I perfectly understand,” I said. “I am just wondering, Mr. Murchison, by any chance did his lordship give you this instruction two nights ago?”
The innkeeper thought for a moment, then apparently decided that there could be no harm in replying to my question. “Why yes, he did.”
I remembered that two nights ago Raoul had left the dinner table to go in search of Roger. Apparently he had found him there at the Black Swan, and I would have wagered anything that Roger had been gambling. I wondered if the mysterious Mr. Wickham had been Roger’s gambling partner.
I went along out into the stable yard where Roger and his phaeton were waiting for me. I allowed a groom to help me up to the high seat and we pulled out of the stable yard rather faster than was safe.
“Slow down, please,” I said sharply. “You are too close to town to be going this fast.”
He ignored me.
“Roger, I said slow down.”
Very slightly he raised his hands and the blacks speeded up. The phaeton’s seat rocked unsteadily. I reached out, grabbed the reins from his hands, and stopped the horses.
He had not expected me to do that, and he swung around to look at me, his blue eyes murderous.
“If you wish to kill yourself, then go and jump in the lake and drown,” I said pitilessly. “Don’t take innocent people with you.”
“I do not want to kill myself,” he said furiously.
“Then slow down this phaeton.”
We stared at each other, and the anger that emanated from him was so palpable that he frightened me. “Didn’t you know that Raoul had cut off your credit?” I asked him finally.
He stretched out his hands for the reins. I put them into his fingers and he began to drive forward again, this time more slowly. “He told me he was going to do it, but when Murchison would not allow me to charge two shillings! Well, I rather lost my temper.”
This, I knew, was the only apology I was likely to get from him.
“I am sure that Raoul did not mean for you to be embarrassed like that,” I said soothingly, although privately I thought that Roger could certainly have plunked down two shillings for my lemonade without trying to make Raoul pay for it.
“It is exactly the sort of thing that he would want,” Roger contradicted me bitterly. “He wants me to grovel, to be humiliated, and all because the luck has run against me of late. The luck never runs against Raoul! He doesn’t know what it means to scramble for money like the rest of us do. He’s had complete control of Savile and all its resources since he was twenty-one years old, for God’s sake.”
“Does Raoul gamble too?” I asked with some surprise.
“Oh, no more than is expected. He doesn’t have to gamble—he already has everything.”
It seemed to me that Roger’s argument was definitely specious, but I thought this was probably not the wisest time to point that out to him.
“That damn woman,” Roger said viciously. “This is all her fault. I had the title, I had the property, I could have kept my head afloat perfectly well. And then she turned out to be increasing.”
“There is a good chance that you will still be Lord Devane, Roger,” I said. “After all, Harriet has certainly shown a propensity to produce girls.”
“That is true.” The tense expression on his good-looking face relaxed slightly. “Once I have access to the rent roll of Devane Hall, my financial pressures will be alleviated.” He shot me a very blue-eyed look. “Although any extra cash I can put my hands upon immediately will certainly be appreciated.”
I thought I knew what he was talking about. “If you can convince Raoul to relinquish Nicky’s money to you, then I will agree to it,” I told him. “Frankly, however, I think your chances of getting Raoul to agree are slender.”
“Well,” he said lightly, “it’s worth a try.”
I gave him a pleasant smile. “Certainly it is. I wish you luck.”
The rest of our trip was uneventful, but as we drove home through the cornfields my mind was filled with questions. Roger was evidently in dire need of money. Had he brought me out with him to see if he could get me to agree to his trying to get Nicky’s money out of Raoul? And what, if any, was Roger’s relationship with Mr. Wickham?
* * * *
We returned home to catastrophe. John met me at the door with news that Nicky’s pony had gone berserk in the woods, throwing Nicky into a tree.
My hands flew to my mouth. “Oh my God,” I said through their white-knuckled pressure. “Is he all right, John?” Then, as John hesitated: “Is he all right?”
“He’s still uncon
scious,” John said. “The doctor is with him now, Gail.”
“Unconscious.” I began to run toward the stairs. “I must see him.”
“He’s not in his room,” John called after me. “We didn’t want to haul him up three flights of stairs, so we put him at the end of the hall here, in the countess’s bedroom. Come, I’ll take you.”
We turned to the right from the Great Hall and went into the withdrawing room, which was the room that separated the public from the private rooms on that side of the house. I had rarely been in this section of the house before, and at the time I was in no condition to notice anything, but later I would discover that the withdrawing room was followed by Raoul’s businesslike office, after which came a pretty morning room, and then, at the corner of the house, the countess’s dressing room, then finally the countess’s bedroom, which was where they had put Nicky.
I noticed nothing about the massive and ancient room as I rushed in the door. All I saw was the small figure lying in the huge, silk-hung bed. An elderly gray-haired man wearing a brown riding coat and brown boots was standing next to the bed talking to Raoul. Ginny stood next to the bed, watching Nicky.
I ran up to the other side of the bed and stood looking down into Nicky’s still face. His eyes were closed and he was very pale. I bent over him to touch his cheek with my lips and he didn’t move. Terror washed over me. “What happened?” I said through lips so stiff I could scarcely speak.
It was Raoul who answered me. “According to Mr. Wilson, he and the three boys were riding through the Home Woods when it happened, Gail. The ponies were perfectly calm when all of a sudden, for seemingly no reason at all, Squirt went berserk. He reared and bucked and plunged off the path, knocking Nicky’s head on a low-hanging branch. Nicky came off, and when they ran to see how he was, he was unconscious. Mr. Wilson brought him back home immediately and we sent for Dr. Marlowe.”
The bed was quite high but I leaned over it so that I could scan my son’s face carefully. There was an ugly bruise on his right temple.
“His brain has had a shock, Mrs. Saunders,” the doctor told me gravely. “It is essential that you keep him quiet, even after he wakes up.”
I spoke my deepest fear. “He is going to wake up, doctor?”
“Let us hope so,” the doctor said.
My heart jolted. “Hope so? Is there a chance that he might not?”
“In these cases, when the injured person is breathing normally as Nicholas is, the patient almost always wakes up, Mrs. Saunders. From what I can determine, he has no serious injury other than the blow to the brain, and we must just wait until that heals itself.”
By now I was so terrified that I could scarcely breathe. I bent my head until my lips were close to my son’s ear. “Nicky,” I said in a voice that was sadly unsteady. “Can you hear me, Nicky? Mama’s here.”
There was no response on the small pale face.
“Gail,” Raoul said softly. “Sit down before you fall down.” I felt his hand on my arm. “Come. I’ve brought a chair for you. Sit down.”
I obeyed the pressure of his hand and sat in the chair that he had placed next to Nicky’s bed. I put my hand over my son’s, and it seemed to me that his fingers stirred slightly under mine. My breath caught in hope, and I looked up at the doctor. “How long?” I demanded. “How long before I can expect him to wake up?”
“It might be a matter of hours. It has even been known to be a matter of days,” the doctor said. “But you must not expect him to remember anything of the accident, Mrs. Saunders. That is a memory he will probably never recover.”
“I see.”
“I will take Dr. Marlowe out, Raoul,” Ginny said, and as she passed me she gave me a gentle pat on my shoulder. “He’ll be all right, Gail,” she said. “You know how resilient boys are.”
After Ginny and the doctor had gone out, I looked up at Raoul and said, “Squirt would never go berserk like that.”
Raoul’s face was unreadable. “What if a bee stung him?”
“He would have run down the path. Squirt’s instinct is always to run. He would not have taken Nicky into the woods. What really happened out there, Raoul?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. Then: “Gail—Squirt is dead.”
“What?”
“Apparently he had some kind of a fit. Wilson said he had never seen anything like it; after he threw Nicky, the pony just flung himself down on the ground and threw himself around as if he were having a major colic attack.”
“Colic does not happen that suddenly.”
“Not usually, no, but perhaps Squirt got into something that made him ill.”
I thought for a few minutes. “The only thing I can think of that might cause the kind of reaction you are talking about is deadly nightshade, and I certainly cannot imagine that you allow that particular plant within the vicinity of your stables.”
“Of course I don’t,” Raoul said soberly. “In fact, I can assure you that no horse in my stables has accidental access to any dangerous plants.”
It was a few moments before the word accidental registered with me.
“Raoul?” I said fearfully. “You don’t think anyone deliberately tried to hurt Nicky, do you?”
He came to stand next to me and gently smoothed a tendril of my hair behind my ear. “I love your ears and your neck,” he murmured. “They are so finely modeled, so delicate.”
I pushed his hand away. “Answer me! You do think someone tried to hurt Nicky!”
I jumped up out of my chair to face him.
His face and voice were very sober. “I don’t know how to answer you, Gail, but I will confess that I don’t like the way that pony died. And I don’t like the way that bridge was damaged, either. John swears to me that it was checked on schedule only last month and that at the time it was fine.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Then he asked the question that scared me almost as much as Nicky’s accident. “Gail, is there any reason you can think of for someone to wish harm to Nicky?”
I looked up at him, making myself meet his eyes. “No,” I whispered. “I can’t, Raoul.”
He said carefully, “There are no…circumstances…attached to Nicky’s birth that might render him vulnerable to an ill-wisher?”
His golden eyes were perfectly nonjudgmental, perfectly steady.
I turned my eyes away from him, back to Nicky. “No,” I said. “There are no such circumstances.”
“Very well.” His voice was quiet. “I had to ask, Gail.”
“Yes.” My voice now was merely weary. “I suppose you did.”
* * * *
I spent the night in the bed of the Countess of Savile, with Nicky lying comatose beside me. There was a connecting door between the countess’s bedroom and the bedroom next door, which belonged to the earl, but no one had even hinted that Raoul’s proximity might be improper. It seemed that the circumstances of Nicky’s illness took precedence over propriety.
Of course, what no one knew was that Raoul never went to his room at all but settled down in a chair on the other side of Nicky’s bed to watch with me over my son. I didn’t even suggest that he seek his own bed; my need for the support of his presence was too great.
“I once took a knock on the head like Nicky’s,” he reassured me. “My horse stopped dead at a jump and I went over his neck and hit the ground headfirst. It took me five hours to wake up, and I survived the ordeal perfectly fine, Gail. And I promise you, so will Nicky.”
I was immensely grateful for his encouragement and clung to it like a lifeline.
It was two hours after midnight when I felt Nicky stir a little beside me. I scrambled to my knees and bent over him.
“Nicky?” I said. “Nicky?”
Raoul was beside me in an instant. We had kept the bedside lamp burning all night, so Nicky’s face was illuminated clearly enough for us to see that his eyelashes were fluttering.
“Nicky,” I said urgently, “can you hear me, sweet
heart? It’s Mama. Can you hear me?”
His eyes opened. “Of course I can hear you, Mama. Why are you shouting at me?”
“Oh thank God,” I sobbed. “Thank God.”
I felt Raoul’s warm hand on my shoulder.
“My head hurts,” Nicky said. “It hurts bad, Mama. What happened?”
“You had a fall from Squirt, Nicky,” Raoul said. “You have been unconscious for a few hours, and your mother has been quite worried about you. I’m afraid that your head is going to hurt for a day or two.”
Nicky frowned irritably. “I fell off Squirt? I don’t remember that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Raoul said calmly. “Dr. Marlowe said that you probably wouldn’t remember. There is nothing for you to worry about.”
Nicky blinked a few times, as if trying to get us into focus. “Is Squirt all right?” he asked.
“Squirt is perfectly safe,” I replied softly. “Now, can you sit up for a little and have something to drink?”
Raoul and I managed to get Nicky up to use the water closet and to drink some water. By that time Nicky was in tears from the pain in his head and all he wanted to do was lie down again. We put him back to bed and I got in beside him and held his hand.
“Go to bed yourself,” I said softly to Raoul. “You must be exhausted.”
But he sat back down in his chair. “I’ll wait until he’s gone off again.”
It did not take Nicky long.
“He’s asleep,” I said to Raoul some minutes later.
“That’s good.” He unfolded his long body from the chair in which he had been helping me keep watch, stood up, and stretched. He came across to my side of the bed and stood there silently looking down at Nicky’s sleeping face.
I looked up at Raoul.
His hair was hanging down over his forehead, there was a faint stubble of gold on his cheeks and chin, and he looked tired. More than that, he looked worried.
“You do think he is going to be all right?” I asked urgently.
His eyes moved from Nicky’s face to mine and he smiled. “He will be fine, Gail. He’ll have a hell of a headache tomorrow, but he’ll be fine.”