Captain Durant's Countess

by Robinson, Maggie

  “They are getting your things together now. You’ll want to go upstairs and make sure they don’t overlook anything.” It was the only way, really. If he stayed, she would not be responsible if she flung herself into his arms and wept her heart out.

  Could one love two men at once?

  It seemed one could.

  Oh, that is ridiculous. She could not possibly be in love with Reynold Durant. She barely knew him. He was a stranger. She was just confused by the circumstances she found herself in. The past few days had been too much for her, had made her lose her good sense.

  Reyn looked like a stranger, his expression inscrutable, his black eyes dull. She felt his withdrawal almost as a physical thing, as though the air between them was becoming thinner.

  “You’ll let me know.” It was no longer a question, but an order.

  “I-I will. But you mustn’t come back.” She’d have to deal with David Kelby alone.

  “As you wish, Countess.”

  And then he was gone. There had been no kiss, to her hand or any other part of her, no more words. That was what she wanted, wasn’t it? A necessary break.

  Maris walked to the fireplace. No matter how many coals were burning, she thought she’d never be warm again.

  Reyn headed straight for the library. The phalanx of footmen was back at their positions, their green frockcoats augmented with black mourning armbands. That was quick, but he supposed, at a moment’s notice, they were ready for anything at Kelby Hall.

  He would leave—couldn’t wait to leave—but first he’d go against Maris’s express wish and speak to Dr. Crandall. He found the man in whispered conversation with Amesbury outside the library door. Both men looked up at his interruption and Reyn rearranged his temper.

  “Good morning. I wonder if I might have a word with you, Dr. Crandall.”

  “Who are you?” The doctor was a portly fellow who seemed annoyed to be ripped away from his breakfast at the early hour.

  “Captain Durant is the antiquities expert the late earl engaged,” Amesbury explained.

  “What do you want?”

  “I was just wondering if the earl expired of natural causes.”

  Amesbury turned a bit gray. The doctor opened his mouth, but it was a while before “What?” came out.

  “I realize the Earl of Kelby was an elderly man in precarious health. But he seemed quite well when I spoke with him the other day.”

  “I am sure he did. The earl enjoyed good days, except when he did not,” Dr. Crandall replied testily. “I can assure you there is nothing suspicious in the manner of the earl’s demise. Frankly, I’m astounded that you should think so.”

  “It’s just . . . a feeling,” Reyn temporized. “I get them in my line of work, which is why I’ve been able to make such valuable discoveries and whatnot.” It was true he’d always had a bit of intuition, which had saved his skin a few times. “I wonder, Amesbury, did the earl receive any visitors last night?”

  “Not to my knowledge, Captain. He went into the library shortly after dining with the countess. You were the only one about last night, according to John.” Amesbury meant Aloysius.

  Well, I stepped in front of that bullet. Reyn had had a brief conversation with the bleary-eyed young footman when he’d admitted him into the house. Reyn frowned and considered asking to see the body, but that really would cause comment. And what would he know if he examined the earl? Yes, he’d seen many dead men—hundreds, thousands if he thought about Waterloo, which he tried very hard not to do—but he was not trained to recognize the signs of murder.

  But he couldn’t go away without knowing. “Was there any indication of a struggle?”

  The doctor’s face turned scarlet. “Captain, you are overstepping your bounds by a great many miles. I presume people hire you because of your trustworthiness and discretion. If I were you, I’d stop being such an ass about blighting the family’s good name. The Earl of Kelby lived a long, successful life and His Maker finally came calling.”

  “Thank you for your opinion, Dr. Crandall,” Reyn said.

  The man would never take a second look. Nothing could be proven anyhow. Unless Henry Kelby had suffered a gunshot wound, there would be no reason for anyone to doubt why he died.

  But Reyn wouldn’t put it past David Kelby to have popped out of the bushes and frightened the old earl through the library windows. Perhaps even entered through the French doors and argued with him. Kelby had appeared disheveled in the moonlight. Reyn had attributed that to a tryst, though it could have been something much more sinister.

  There was nothing left to do but go upstairs and round up his meager belongings. He hadn’t known how long he’d stay when he packed. It turned out not so very.

  He was nothing to her, Reyn reminded herself. She’d said it. He’d have to remember it. Reyn was simply a means to an end. It would be a miracle if they’d achieved what the old Earl of Kelby sought, but stranger things had happened.

  Maris was free, but she didn’t want him. Why should she?

  He was nothing.

  Chapter 19

  The Dower House, Kelby Hall, April 1821

  “There is no question in my mind, Lady Kelby,” Dr. Crandall said, smiling down benevolently at her. “You are quite a ways along now. It’s a wonder you did not suspect, though I suppose you’ve been under shocking stress lately. How pleased your husband would have been.”

  Betsy gave her a triumphant grin. How humiliating to be proved wrong by a girl who was almost two decades younger than she.

  “Yes,” Maris said faintly. She couldn’t quite believe it. The past few months had been such hell. She had been scrupulous about keeping Kelby traditions alive when all she’d wanted to do was crawl into bed and feel sorry for herself.

  Henry’s funeral had been a grand affair. Even the king came, which had caused an inordinate amount of fuss. She’d arranged it all from the Dower House, since David had banished her there immediately.

  She’d taken Betsy and a few other servants with her—Betsy’s John, who turned out to be named Phillip, his friend Aloysius, and Mrs. O’Neill’s niece Margaret, who served as housekeeper and cook. A couple potboys and a maid even younger than Betsy rounded out the staff. She could “borrow” people from the big house if she needed to, but a woman in mourning really required very little.

  Christmas had been a grim affair, but she had done her duty and distributed baskets to the needy, decorated the church in Kelby village, knit lumpy caps and stockings for the tenants’ children. She couldn’t leave anything up to David. For all he cared, his people could go cold and hungry.

  The New Year’s Eve Dance had gone on as scheduled—the servants and tenants looked forward to it every year—and she’d organized the details between bouts of weeping and wishing she was dead. Betsy had said it had gone very well, with a moment of silence for the seventh Earl of Kelby before the fiddling commenced.

  Maris had taken Henry’s manuscript with her to her own little library, and she’d spent the rest of the winter readying it for publication. Henry’s handwriting had become increasingly difficult to read in the last chapters, and she struggled with it even though it was once as familiar to her as her own. The book would be printed in time for the symposium at Oxford. Henry would have been pleased about that, too.

  Maris had not felt unwell, but she’d been exhausted and depressed. Battling wits with David when he turned up at Dower House to harass her was enough to give anyone the blue devils. Fortunately he spent most of his time in town, spending his inheritance.

  “You truly are sure? I haven’t lost my breakfast or had any of the other symptoms of pregnancy.” She’d blamed her age for the fact that her recent courses had been spotty and light, too dispirited to hope for anything better.

  “Every woman is different, my dear, or so the midwives tell me. Some women still bleed a little in the beginning as you did, but you are in a safe stage now.”

  Maris didn’t feel safe at all.

 
; “You’ve got an unpleasant task ahead, though, don’t you?” Dr. Crandall continued. “I don’t envy you, Lady Kelby. Lord Kelby—that is to say Mr. Kelby won’t like the news.”

  “It may be a girl,” Maris said. Lord, she hoped so. As horrible as David was, she didn’t want to cheat him out of his birthright. What she had done she’d done for Henry’s sake, but now that he was gone, what difference did it make? She had no heart for true deceit.

  “Do you want me to be present when you tell him?” Dr. Crandall’s eyes shifted uneasily to a painting of lambs gamboling in a green field.

  She couldn’t put him through it. “That’s very kind of you, but no. I’ll manage somehow.” Maybe she’d get Mr. Woodley to do it. She’d write to him at once. Woodley had warned David that the title might be held in abeyance waiting for word from the Countess of Kelby, but he’d scoffed and ordered her out of the house.

  Maris was only too happy to go, which had surprised her. She’d lived at Kelby Hall her whole life, but now that it was obscured through the woods from vision, she didn’t miss it at all. It suited her to be in a smaller dwelling with a much smaller staff. She had to remind Mrs. O’Neill it was no longer her place to decide thorny household issues, although Maris believed the woman came to her a few times a week just to be kind. Amesbury and Mrs. O’Neill were perfectly capable of running the house for its absentee owner, far better than Maris had ever been.

  Henry had bought a manor house outside the village of Shere for her, in the event she did not want to spend the rest of her life in the Dower House. She could let it for extra income if she wished, and it would serve as a daughter’s dowry. Maris had not felt equal to moving to Hazel Grange last winter, but perhaps it would be wise to do so now.

  She had seen the house only once when Henry first purchased it for her eight years ago. It was made of mellowed brick, neat and square, with a hipped roof and an Ionic columned entryway. She would have to furnish it, which would be a challenge. She realized she did not even know what her tastes were. She’d been surrounded by generations of Kelby choices. The thought of her very own home with her very own things—and her very own child—made her feel somewhat giddy.

  Maris looked around the paneled bedchamber with its pastoral pictures of sheep and horses and cows that some previous Dowager Countess of Kelby had selected to adorn the walls. In contrast, there was plenty of land for real animals and a first-rate stable block at Hazel Grange. She could ride every day.

  Perhaps not. She’d talk to Dr. Crandall about it when her thoughts were more settled. Maris tied her dressing gown back on and saw Dr. Crandall to the door herself.

  When she returned to her bedroom, Betsy was bouncing up and down. “See? I told you so, my lady!”

  “Yes, you did.” And Maris had not wanted to believe her. She would have to write to Reyn, something that caused her stomach to do a little flip.

  She’d heard nothing from him since he’d left Kelby Hall, which was as it should be. Since Henry’s death, she had forced herself to be busy at all hours of the day and night. But she had not been too busy to forget the captain, especially as she lay in her solitary bed.

  Maybe she wouldn’t tell Reyn just yet. The news was so extraordinary Maris wanted to keep it to herself for a little while. Once she moved into Hazel Grange and got settled, there would be plenty of time to notify him. Months. It was not as if he could do anything, and a visit from him to Dower House would only engender gossip.

  Maybe he wouldn’t want to see her, anyway. She’d been crystal clear about sending him away. Pushing him away. That had been for the best. No possibility of anything permanent existed between them.

  Maris went to her desk and began to write. Mr. Woodley could take care of the details of telling David about the baby and arranging for her to move some twenty miles away to Shere. She would take her little crew with her if they’d go. Betsy and she might spend a few days in Guildford, buying furniture and other necessities for the new house. Margaret would need to be consulted about kitchen equipment; she should come too.

  Actually, Maris supposed they should all inspect the property first. She had been uncomfortable during her only tour of it. The thought of Henry dying and leaving her alone had frightened her. They had been married a mere two years then and he was still a vigorous man despite his difficulties in the bedroom. She’d had hopes . . . but they’d come to nothing.

  Now there was reason to feel joy. And trepidation as well. Bringing a child into the world without a father would not be easy. If she had a son, protecting him from a bitter David would require every ounce of strength she possessed.

  She couldn’t bring up a son at the Grange. He’d have to learn his patrimony, to understand what Henry had intended for the family. The museum he’d been so keen on would come to pass, with Maris at the helm.

  Once that would have excited her beyond reason. But oddly, she no longer gave a fig for Henry’s grand plans. She was having a baby! She touched her lips to prove to herself she was indeed smiling.

  Yes, it was time to move, to start fresh. To surround herself with her own things and her own people. To smile more.

  Even if it was just for a few months. All around her things were growing and blooming. Wild daffodils were scattered in the wood, their yellow heads bowing under the sun. She’d take a walk to bid them good-bye, get some roses in her cheeks.

  Henry. She hoped he was looking down upon her, smiling himself.

  The move was accomplished without any major hiccup. Hazel Grange was found to be solid, partly furnished and well cared for. An elderly caretaker, Mr. Prall, lived in a cottage on the grounds with his two bachelor sons. He had hired day girls from the village to keep the house clean since the last tenant vacated the property, so Maris was not choked with dust on the day she visited.

  She had overspent in Guildford. Pretty sprigged and striped paper covered the drawing room walls, plush sofas and chairs were in place to collapse in, crockery had been put away in the kitchen, and a crib was set up in her dressing room. She had bought pictures of her own for her bedroom—no bovine or equine oils, but pastel architectural renderings of famous Italian buildings to remind her of her youth abroad. The garden held no imposing statues, but had been planted lavishly by Mr. Prall and his two sons and was in glorious bloom. The house and outbuildings were really quite perfect.

  Dr. Crandall had tutted over a horse, but Maris purchased two and went riding every day with Mr. Prall’s younger son, Stephen. They took sedate, quiet country explorations over her own land, no hell-for-leather gallops, which suited her at present. Maris was becoming bulky. There was no other word for it. She was quite thick through the middle. If one did not know of her condition, she might appear simply a stout widow.

  She had not sought the company of her neighbors, nor had they come to her. The servants had put it about early on that she was in mourning and refusing visitors. Maris was thus spared from making small talk with the local gentry. In fact, merciful heavens, she did not even attend church services. No drifting off while some well-meaning parson tried to explain the universe from one badly translated ancient book. Let them think of her what they would. She knew God had gifted her with a miracle and thanked him from the privacy of her garden and her boudoir every single day.

  One grayish cloud was still on her horizon. She had not yet written to Reynold Durant. He might not even be in London for all she knew. The emerald would have opened up the world to him. Perhaps he’d gone back to Canada and taken his sister. She hoped so. An ocean between them would serve her purposes quite well.

  Or so she told herself. Not a breath of scandal should be associated with the seventh Earl of Kelby’s child.

  Chapter 20

  May 1821

  What were the odds? Reyn shifted in his seat in St. James’s Church and gave Ginny’s young vicar a gimlet eye. The man had managed to somehow get the living at Shere and his sister had never said a thing about it, the sly puss. She was blushing as they sat at the bac
k of the church in a patch of stained-glass sunlight, in better health than she’d been in weeks and hanging on the new clergyman’s every word.

  The move had been difficult for her. Had been difficult for him, too. If he’d known the trouble the emerald would cause, he would have tossed it back at Maris’s not-so-dainty feet.

  It had been the devil to sell once he’d returned to London. He’d half-expected to be clapped in irons as a thief as he went from jeweler to jeweler. There was no provenance, no bill of sale. His fictional explanations as to how he’d acquired it seemed weak even to him, but he’d finally found a gem dealer who was less than particular.

  Less than generous as well. Reyn had known he was being cheated, but he’d had no choice, accepting what the man would give him. Fortunately, it was enough to buy Merrywood Farm, a rather run-down horse breeding operation, from a gentleman who was not particular, either, and rather anxious to get out from under his failing enterprise. The sale had been accomplished in record speed that had made Reyn’s head spin with legal logistics and reams of paperwork, and by the end of January he was more or less landed gentry.

  If one was not too particular.

  Bravo for all those whose standards were low. Reyn possessed a ramshackle house, tumble-down stables, and sufficient acreage to support two dozen fillies of various pedigrees. Phantom, old war horse that he was, ruled the roost, though if he hadn’t been gelded would no doubt have been much happier in his new environment.

  Reyn had been gelded himself. He had no time to return the flirtatious glances of the young and not-so-young ladies of Shere, who fluttered a bit every time he entered St. James’s on Sundays or the village when he was absolutely forced to leave his occupation behind. He was up to his eyelashes in hay and muck and repairs and loving every minute of it. He knew he needed to hire more help eventually, but at the moment he was reveling in the backbreaking labor required to set up his new business with the help of only a freckle-faced boy who had seemed to come with the property. Working with his hands kept his mind occupied, almost enough for him to forget a few days last December.