‘You should have said if you lack reading material, Miss Wood,’ Mary said. ‘My brother’s library is packed from floor to ceiling with more books than you can imagine on every possible subject.’
‘Thank you, Lady Mary, but if I had asked to browse it would have seemed like I was putting myself forward, to say nothing of giving the ladies anxious to attract him ideas.’ She chuckled. ‘Beranger Court would suddenly have been filled with the most ardent bibliophiles this side of Oxford.’
Flora smiled, thinking she spoke a great deal of sense.
Their carriage turned into the wide mews attached to the Dog and Bull, Swindon’s leading watering hole. The others followed directly behind them, sending the grooms scurrying to attend to the sudden influx. The gentlemen on horseback added to the chaos.
‘Come along,’ Mary said, glancing over her shoulder as Carlton approached them. ‘Let’s get to the shop first and snap up the best bargains. The others can follow at their leisure. It’s hard to get lost.’
Mary and Miss Vaughn went ahead, with Flora and Miss Wood following directly behind.
‘Can you tell me where to find the library?’ Miss Wood asked, raising her voice so that Mary would hear her.
‘Oh, in the town square. Would you like me to show you the way?’ She sounded reluctant because, Flora knew, she had an urgent need for silver buttons.
‘Don’t worry,’ Flora said. ‘I’ll show her and see you later back at the carriage.’
Flora and Miss Wood sauntered along without urgency or the need for words. They found the library without difficulty occupying a large amount of floorspace in a newsagent’s establishment. Flora was content to browse while Miss Wood make a selection. It took her some time and she thanked Flora for her patience as they left the shop.
‘I tend to lose all track of time when contemplating literature,’ she admitted, tapping the heavy tome she carried beneath her arm. ‘I shall probably finish this before we leave and am most grateful to you for offering to return it for me.’
‘I am glad to oblige.’ The church clock struck the hour. ‘I should imagine that luncheon will soon be ready. It has been arranged for us in a private room at the tavern.’
‘The gentlemen will probably prefer the taproom,’ Miss Wood remarked. ‘It will be interesting to see if the desire for good ale overcomes their protective instincts.
Flora smiled. ‘Quite so. Shall we return to the tavern or would you like to walk some more first?’
‘Oh, the tavern by all means.’
Others had already returned and Flora followed the sound of familiar voices to a large room at the back of the establishment. As she did so, a sense of foreboding so strong that it literally made her shudder swept through her body. Miss Wood had gone ahead of her, the passageway being too narrow for them to walk side by side and so didn’t notice her reaction and feel compelled to comment upon it. Flora looked wildly about for the cause of her sudden presentiment. Her attention was caught by a wisp of burgundy twill as a lady disappeared around a corner beyond the room where the Beranger Court party were assembled.
And Captain Carlton followed directly behind her.
Her senses on high alert, Flora would most definitely investigate. But first, she needed to ensure that Mary was safe and that Carlton hadn’t somehow detached her from the rest of the party. She put her head round the door where their group had gathered and was reassured to see her there. Sam, the only male Beranger in attendance, presumably under sufferance, stood behind his sister. Mary smiled and waved. Flora indicated that she would be but a moment, leaving Mary with the impression that she required the facilities. Hopefully, no one would miss her for a while, or come in search of her if she was gone for too long.
She turned the corner that Carlton had just taken and found herself confronted by a half-closed door. She rolled her eyes, anticipating yet another session of eavesdropping. But at least on this occasion, if caught she could pretend to have lost her way in search of the facilities she was supposed to require. She heard voices and chanced a peep around the door. Her involuntary gasp sounded deafening to her own ears, but clearly didn’t penetrate the room since none of its occupants reacted to it.
Carlton, his cousin and the lady that Flora had seen in Swindon on that first day with the countess and felt such a strong antipathy towards were in the room together. Carlton was holding the woman’s hand and gazing lovingly into her eyes. It was a different look to the ones that he had conjured up for Mary and Miss Vaughn. No artifice was required. Flora sensed that Carlton was completely and totally besotted with the woman’s beauty, and that for some reason the lady was using both members of the Carlton family to interfere with the earl’s family.
She leaned against the wall, taking a moment to assess what she now knew and attempting to make sense of it. The woman—Mrs Simpson—held strong feelings for Luke Beranger, there could be absolutely no doubt about that, but there was such a thin dividing line between love and hate that Flora couldn’t judge which emotion governed her behaviour. It was clear that she had drawn Carlton in with her wiles, but why was his cousin also playing along? She wanted to marry the earl, so what did she hope to gain by working against his interests? Did Mrs Simpson know something to the girl’s detriment that she had threatened to make his lordship aware of if she didn’t help her? Flora suspected that must be the case and was intrigued.
Mrs Simpson’s voice snapped Flora out of her reverie.
‘I am disappointed in you, my love,’ she heard her say, impatience in her tone. ‘Since when was making gullible young ladies fall in love with you such a difficult task?’
‘Don’t tease him,’ Miss Carlton said curtly. ‘He is trying to help you.’
‘It’s not my fault if Mary has a heart of stone.’ Flora wrinkled her nose in disgust when Carlton attempted to place the blame upon Mary. But still, if he was in love with Mrs Simpson, it explained why his efforts to woo other ladies had lacked conviction. ‘But fear not. Miss Vaughn is already eating out of my hand and her dowry is almost as substantial.’
Money. Of course. Everything was always about money, or the lack thereof.
‘I should have liked you to marry one of Luke’s sisters.’
‘I know that he treated you badly and you are anxious for your revenge, my darling,’ Carlton said in a tone Flora had never heard him use before—supplicating, subservient, devoted. ‘But Swindon’s sisters are proving almost as contrary as the man himself. If I had more time…’
‘Miss Vaughn will just have to do. How about you, Lily? How are you doing with Luke?’ There was an edge to Mrs Simpson’s voice as she asked the question. ‘As long as he falls for your charms, Peter’s lack of success is less important.’
‘He has not declared himself yet,’ Miss Carlton replied with obvious reluctance. ‘I have pulled out all the stops, you must believe it, but he barely notices me.’ Flora heard her inhale sharply, clearly mortified by the admission. ‘It is my belief that he has absolutely no intention of marrying at this point and we have all wasted a week of our time.’
‘Is there anyone else who holds his attention?’
‘Only the chit who cares for his grandmother.’
‘No!’ Miss Carlton cried hotly. ‘He wouldn’t lower himself.’
‘Perhaps not, but I have seen her coming out of his library on two separate occasions,’ Carlton replied.
‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ Mrs Simpson said after a tense pause. ‘No one else?’
‘No,’ Miss Carlton said. ‘And I have been watching him. I would know if there was.’
‘We are running out of time.’ There was frustration in Mrs Simpson’s tone. ‘I have played my part in forcing his hand. I thought I could depend upon you two to do the rest. You know what’s at stake. Now pull yourselves together. You will be missed if you don’t get back soon.’ Mrs Simpson paused and when she spoke again there was a calculating edge to her voice. ‘You will just have to be caught in a compromising position
with him, Lily, and force his hand.’
‘I would prefer him to marry me because he wants to.’ Miss Carlton’s voice sounded petulant.
‘We cannot always have what we want,’ Mrs Simpson said briskly. ‘The indirect approach has failed so you will have to be more devious.’
‘How am I supposed to do that?’
‘Leave the ball before him tonight and slip into his room.’ Flora heard Miss Carlton gasp and only just stopped herself from following her example. ‘Don’t look so shocked.’ There was amusement in Mrs Simpson’s voice. ‘It won’t be the first time that you’ve visited a gentleman’s bedchamber.’
Hmm, Flora thought. Had Lily Carlton surrendered her virtue and did Mrs Simpson somehow know it? It certainly sounded that way and would guarantee Lily’s cooperation in whatever contemptible scheme Mrs Simpson had cooked up to revenge herself upon the earl. Such things happened, Flora knew, and the families of the ruined girls moved heaven and earth to cover up their indiscretions, often by marrying them off in haste to men who would not normally pass muster. But Miss Carlton—so cool, composed and outwardly perfect in every way? Was it really possible?
‘Wait for him in his room,’ Mrs Simpson said, more forcefully. ‘Take your hair half down first and rip your bodice, so that it seems as if you’ve been attacked. Peter, loiter out of sight in the corridor. You’d best have Lily’s maid with you. She can be trusted to keep her mouth shut, can she not?’ Lily presumably nodded since Mrs Simpson continued talking. ‘Wait with her until you see Luke enter his room. When he does, Lily, hide until he’s half-undressed, then emerge and scream as loud as you can and grab hold of him.’
‘What if his valet is there?’
‘I doubt whether he will be. He uses Paul Dalton and Dalton will be at the ball. I happen to know that Luke and his cronies often fend for themselves. But if he is there, you will just have to remain hidden until he leaves, then act. You barge in, Peter, having heard the scream and find Lily trying to fight Luke off. Or that’s how you and Lily’s maid will say it looked. Explain that the maid came to ask you if you had seen her mistress. She had been watching the ball from the gallery and seen her come up some time before, but she had not reached her room.’
‘All well and good,’ Miss Carlton said, ‘but will anyone really believe he did something so out of character?’
‘Not so very out of character,’ Mrs Simpson replied, chuckling.
‘It will be this week. He’s barely spared any of us single girls a second glance.’
‘He will be well on his way to being foxed by the end of the evening, and drink loosens inhibitions,’ Mrs Simpson said forcefully. ‘Stop making difficulties, Lily. It will work if you play your part convincingly enough. Luke is honourable and will not risk his family’s good name by failing to do the right thing by you, even if he does so reluctantly. But still, you don’t care one way or the other if he resents you. Remember what it is that you’re really hoping to achieve.’
‘Very well.’ Flora could hear the reluctance in Lily’s voice. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘Oh, I know you will.’
Flora heard someone call her name and slipped away from the door before she was found there. She turned the corner and smiled at Mary.
‘Sorry,’ she said, linking arms with the girl. ‘I got lost. Is luncheon served? I’m sharp set.’
*
Luke took refuge with Paul and Alvin in the library whilst an army of servants turned his house upside down in preparation for the evening’s ball. A hundred guests would join those already in residence at the appropriate hour.
‘Cheer up, Luke,’ Alvin said cheerfully. ‘After tonight your home will be your own again.’
‘Ah, but will he be a condemned man?’ Paul asked, winking at Alvin. ‘He’s playing his cards close to his chest in that regard.’
‘Can’t see it myself.’ Alvin shook his head. ‘He can barely bring himself to be civil to any of the chits here.’
‘I am in the room, you know,’ Luke said, moodily kicking at the edge of a rug. ‘And I’ll have you know that my grandmother just buttonholed me for a full half an hour, threatening dire consequences if I offer for any of the females here this week.’
‘I thought you intended to marry for the family’s sake,’ Alvin said, looking perplexed.
‘I did. I do.’ Luke threw up his hands. ‘It’s a hell of a muddle.’
‘These things have a way of working themselves out,’ Alvin said, not without sympathy in his tone. ‘And talking over old ground won’t change anything. We’d be best advised to go for a long ride somewhere and get out of the way of all this upheaval,’ he added, when the sound of furniture being moved penetrated Luke’s sanctuary.
‘That’s the most sensible thing either of you has said all week.’ Luke stood, thought of Onyx who was overdue for exercise and guaranteed to be lively, and felt slightly more enthusiastic.
‘I hate to put a dampener on proceedings,’ Paul said apologetically, ‘but I have more information about Magda’s situation that you really should know about.’
Luke fell back into his chair, his expression dour. ‘Tell me,’ he said wearily.
‘Well, I thought it odd that Simpson failed to provide properly for her, so I did a little sleuthing. It transpires that he left almost all his estate to his son, and I wondered why. He’s a serving soldier too, so I took a chance and wrote to him care of Knightsbridge barracks. It was a long shot that he would be in England and would respond to a letter from a stranger even if he received it. But, against all the odds, he sent me a cable and said that if I wanted to talk about his step-mother, there was plenty he wanted to get off his chest. So, I took myself up to London yesterday.’
‘So that’s where you disappeared to,’ Luke replied, leaning forward.
‘Unsurprisingly, Major Simpson did not approve of his father’s marriage to a woman the same age as him, but as he put it to me the old man wasn’t thinking with his brain at the time, and nothing his son said could dissuade him. So, the major took it upon himself to keep a watch on Magda, or more to the point, set a man to do it for him. The marriage was not two years old when Magda exploded into our lives. The major is convinced there were other dalliances before that, but he had no definitive proof.’
Alvin nodded. ‘But when Archie fell for her so hard—’
‘We all did, in fairness,’ Paul pointed out. ‘We were too young to know any better. Simpson wasn’t the only one not thinking with his brain.’
‘But you fell on your sword, for Archie’s sake,’ Luke said, nodding at Paul. ‘And ruined your future into the bargain.’
Paul shrugged. ‘I had the least to lose.’
‘Even so…’
‘When Archie died, Major Simpson knew the time had come to sit his father down and tell him a few home truths about his wife’s character, but this time he had the evidence to back it up. Apparently, he searched her belongings and found notes from Archie, very explicit notes, and references to all of us. Simpson was forced to accept the truth, but never confronted Magda. Instead, he restricted her allowance, pretending economies were necessary when they were not. We all know she only married Simpson because he was independently wealthy. Anyway, he saved his revenge for his deathbed, at which point she would have discovered that the coffers were full but very little of their wealth would find its way to her.’
‘The ultimate revenge of a cuckolded man who knew he’s been an idiot,’ Luke said, nodding his approval. ‘She told us she’d shut up the London house to save face, Alvin. In actual fact, she didn’t inherit it and is no longer welcome there. There were no stock market losses, either.’
Alvin inclined his head. ‘It explains why she’s turned up here. She had to go somewhere and had friends here willing to take her in.’
‘The major was eager to meet with me and put us on our guard,’ Paul said. ‘He doesn’t hold our behaviour when we were students against us. He told me that Magda tried her wiles on him when she reali
sed she’d been disinherited.’
Luke grunted. ‘That doesn’t surprise me.’
‘Apparently Magda confronted him after the funeral when she learned she had been left near-destitute and he took great pleasure in telling her that his father had known the truth about her ever since she dallied with Archie and ran wild with the rest of us.’
‘And she blames us for her straitened circumstances,’ Luke said, nodding. ‘Nothing was ever Magda’s fault. But what she hopes to gain by turning up in Wiltshire is less obvious.’
‘There’s nothing she can do to harm any of us,’ Alvin said, standing and slapping Luke’s shoulder. ‘Well done, Paul, for solving that mystery. Now come on, let’s take that ride, stop for a tankard of ale or two and forgot all about the femme fatal who robbed us of our dearest friend.’
Chapter Fifteen
It was vital that Flora to return to the estate and warn the earl. Now. Immediately. There wasn’t a second to be spared. And this time he would have to believe her—no intuition involved. Annoyingly, no one else seemed to be in any particular hurry to leave Swindon. She was obliged to suppress a groan when someone suggested stopping at the local village of Ashton Keynes, situated midway between Swindon and Beranger Court on the return journey. Thankfully, little enthusiasm was shown for the suggestion and nothing came of it. Even so, the party dallied over luncheon and Flora trembled with a plethora of pent up frustration by the time they finally climbed back into the carriages.
As soon as they reached Beranger Court, she went directly to the earl’s library. She tapped on the door and walked straight in…to an empty room.
‘Botheration! Where is he?’
She asked Woodley, who informed her that the earl and two gentlemen had gone riding.
‘I doubt whether they will return until it’s time to change for dinner. Young gentlemen don’t like upheavals of this nature,’ he said, tutting when a footman, wilting beneath the weight of a potted palm, crashed clumsily into a side table.
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