by Amanda Scott
Sybilla held out her hand. “I spoke out of turn a while ago, Miss Bradbourne, and I want to apologize. It is not your fault that my father behaves so dreadfully, and I was wrong to speak as I did to you.”
Nell’s gaze flew to Manningford, but he shook his head, and she turned back to her hostess and said, “You have nothing for which to apologize. I took no offense, I assure you, and I do understand that your father’s eccentricities must be extremely difficult to live with.”
Sybilla laughed. “You may say so,” she said, “but I want you to know that I look forward to your visits. You must come as often as you wish—or as he wishes—and do not be thinking you must run away afterward. I know that after having been such a time today, you will not want to linger, but do come again soon. Ring for someone to see her to the door, will you, Brandon?”
“No, for I mean to see her home myself,” he said.
“That is not necessary, sir,” Nell said, rather shaken.
“Nonsense,” he retorted with a quizzical gleam in his eyes, “you cannot be walking unattended across Bath.”
“Oh, piffle, as Aunt Flavia would say,” she said, giving him look for look. “I can very well hire a chair, you know, and even if I did choose to walk, ’tis broad daylight.”
“Women cannot always be certain of being allowed to go unmolested, even in Bath,” he said, and since she could not, in view of Mrs. Prudham’s recent experience, argue the point, she said no more, having, in any case, no real desire to dissuade him. And when he informed her that since Max had returned to Bath they might as well take him along to protect them both, she laughed at him but made no objection.
XIII
A WARM BREEZE WAS BLOWING soft white clouds across an azure sky when they stepped outside, and the only thing to mar the peaceful afternoon was Max’s vociferous determination, once Manningford had freed him from confinement, to gambol ahead of them, straining at the lead. Ruthlessly calling him to heel, Manningford apologized to Nell for the dog’s bad manners.
“I sent him down to Westerleigh, you know, to my brother, but he refused to eat, Charlie said, and Clarissa insisted he be sent back to me, so I am quite puffed up in my own esteem, for I am sure no one has ever cared so much for my company before as to starve without it. Still, I suppose, it is the outside of enough to foist his company onto you, particularly since our respective visitors’ arrival has postponed, for the moment at least, our plan to see more sights and take that ride on the downs.”
His casual attitude giving her instantly to know that he had no intention of teasing her anymore about her outrageous behavior in the study, Nell smiled at him, tucked her hand into the crook of his free arm, and said, “I assure you, sir, I have not the least objection to Max’s company, though he is not the sort of dog one is accustomed to see on the streets of Bath. Generally, such animals are the fat, spoiled, very rude companions of dawdling elderly ladies. Max is worth any number of them.”
“He is, isn’t he? Yes,” he added when the dog’s ears perked up, “we are discussing you. Try, if you will, at least to affect the manners of a gentleman, and do not disgrace me.” They walked in silence for some minutes after that until, upon reaching the top of Gay Street, Manningford said, “There was one small matter I wished to discuss with you, if you don’t mind.”
She glanced up at him and said warily, “No, of course not, though I hope I have done nothing to vex you.”
He smiled and said, “Not in the least, my dear, though you have certainly given me food for thought. But that is not the point at hand,” he added when she blushed and looked away. “As you know, I’ve been looking after my father’s private affairs since I arrived here, and because of that, something occurred to me this morning that I ought to have realized some time ago. You once told me that your father’s cousin had made a number of changes at Highgate, did you not?”
“Yes.” She looked up at him curiously. “But I must tell you, sir, that the alterations he has made are nothing less than commendable. One of Jarvis’s more vexatious traits, in fact, is that he frequently does admirable things, especially where the family is concerned, that make it difficult to continue to detest him as thoroughly as one wishes to do. Of course, one instantly wonders why he does them.”
“Well, but that is precisely the point,” Manningford said. “If he has been putting his own money into the estate, there is nothing more to be said, though anyone would be curious about why he would do such a thing when the land is not yet his own.”
“Oh, but he has not,” Nell said. “I know, for he is quite puffed up over having shown, as he believes he has, that good management makes all the difference. Moreover, I am certain that the allowance he makes me is from Highgate money, for he said so, and he must know that I should refuse to take any of his.”
Manningford nodded. “Then it is as I suspected. I daresay you know nothing about this sort of thing, for I didn’t myself until recently, but one cannot simply take over another man’s affairs so easily as that. My father had to provide me with his power of attorney before I was able to attend properly to his affairs or to those of the house, and I have had to produce it on more than one occasion before being allowed to act. Jarvis must likewise have got your brother to provide him with one.”
“He did get some sort of authority,” Nell said. “I thought I had told you. ’Twas only a note of hand and not sufficient for all he wants to do, but he has had it since that fatal night, for he told me it was a good thing he had had the foresight to get it before Nigel left the country.”
“But why should it have occurred to him then that such a document might be necessary?”
“Why, surely because—” Nell stopped short on the flagway and stared at him in dismay. “Good God, Papa was still alive then, and Jarvis could not possibly have known that he would kill himself! The only reason he could have had for demanding Nigel’s permission to act on his behalf was that he knew he would need it. Jarvis did murder Papa, just as I have long suspected!”
“Gently, gently,” he said, urging her onward. “Not only are you leaping rather impulsively to conclusions, but you’ll soon have all the quizzes ogling us. No, Max, you may not cross the square. We are turning toward the bridge now, if you please.”
“It is of no more use to try to silence me, sir,” Nell said grimly, “than to try to convince Max that he should walk tamely at your heel. If that odious man killed my father, I mean for the entire world to know about it.”
“I’d have thought, in the event that Jarvis had murdered anyone, he’d have been more inclined to have murdered your brother,” Manningford said in a musing tone, “for with Nigel dead and Jarvis the heir, your father would have been unlikely to have argued with him any further over that idiotic wager. Indeed, I have been wondering about that for some time now. I cannot think why he didn’t kill him.”
“Well of all the things to say!”
“I meant no insult to your brother, but since Jarvis did not kill him, one must think it unlikely that he killed your father either. Indeed, his having exerted himself to get your brother out of the country makes no sense at all.”
“It would if you had a single ounce of family feeling,” Nell said tartly. “No one can be surprised that you have none, of course, but you might at least try to understand those of us who do. For all his faults, Jarvis has a proper sense of his duty to protect the family name.”
“If that is indeed so,” he said thoughtfully, “one begins to wonder if your father’s death was not even more of a shock to Jarvis than it was to everyone else.”
“Well, I don’t believe it was,” Nell retorted. “You may talk ’round the point all you like, but now I am convinced that he killed Papa. Or can you tell me why he might have got that paper from Nigel before Papa had killed himself?”
Manningford did not reply at once, and when he did it was to say slowly, “Your brother may well have an explanation for that, you know, but if he doesn’t and Jarvis did commit a murder, I am rap
idly coming to agree with you that we shall be unable prove it at this late date.”
Sobered by a conviction that he was right, Nell debated the point no further, but when they reached Laura Place to find Nigel alone in the drawing room, solacing boredom with one of the more lurid gothic tales in his great-aunt’s collection, she demanded as soon as she had performed the introductions to know if he had given Jarvis his power of attorney.
“Some such thing, certainly,” he said, watching Max flop gracelessly to the carpet and begin to lick his paws. “I say, does Aunt Flavia allow you to bring large dogs into this room?”
“Of course she does,” Nell said. “Nigel, Jarvis must have murdered Papa, and that’s all there is about it.”
“Good God,” he exclaimed, staring at her in astonishment, “what makes you say such a thing?”
“Because he had no reason to ask you to provide him with authority to act until after Papa was dead and you had become master of Highgate,” Nell said. “Until then, you had nothing to do with the affairs of the estate.”
Relaxing, with a glint of amusement in his eyes, Nigel said, “There was, however, the small matter of my affairs in town. Even such a nipshot as I was, my dear, had a flat and horses to dispose of, servants to pay, and a banker and creditors to placate.”
“Oh,” Nell said, deflated, “then I suppose it was not so odd of him to ask for a note of hand before you boarded the packet.”
“Well, no, particularly inasmuch as he also gave me every farthing he had on him—a considerable sum, I might tell you. Dashed generous I thought him, too, for I need scarcely tell you that my pockets were all to let at the time.”
Anger flashed in Nell’s eyes. “Do you mean to tell me that Jarvis has been franking you all this time, that in fact, though he has insisted he had not the least notion of your direction, he has known where you were all along?”
“Of course he has not been franking me all this time!” Nigel said indignantly. “A pretty fellow you must think me!”
“You needn’t snap her head off,” Manningford said sharply. “Not only has your cousin continued to insist that your direction was unknown to him, but it was certainly unknown to your sister. Before you take offense, Bradbourne, you might at least admit that you ought to have written to inform her of your safe arrival and to notify her of your whereabouts.”
“Jarvis thought it better that I write to no one,” Nigel said, glaring at him, “so I did not.”
Nell thought his excuse a weak one, but he had never been a good correspondent; and, in fact, she had fastened upon another point. She said, “Nigel, you cannot have had enough money to have kept you these eight months past, certainly not in such style as you appear to have commanded.”
“Well, it ain’t so difficult as you might think,” he said sulkily, “for I had more than one run of luck at the tables, and I scarcely ever dined in my own flat. A single gentleman, you know, is always welcome somewhere or other. I doubt Jarvis realized how well I should contrive, especially since he’d advised me to stay clear of Paris, but that would not have suited me, for there is nothing to do anywhere else, so to avoid any more jobations, I simply neglected to tell even him my exact whereabouts. Thus, you see, he told you no more than the truth.”
“I begin to think,” Manningford said, “that it was just as well for you that he did not know where to find you.”
“Good God, do you think he’d have tried to murder me? I doubt it. It would not have disturbed him to have learned of my death, I daresay, but I doubt he would have actively sought it.”
Nell glanced at Manningford to see that he was looking thoughtful, but if he had more doubts about her cousin’s behavior, he said no more about it then. Nor did she have the benefit of his counsel the following day when the Marquess of Axbridge’s man returned from London to inform his master that, after a full but necessarily discreet inquiry, he had been unable to discover a single charge laid against Lord Bradbourne with the Chief Magistrate at Bow Street. Even more surprisingly, none had been laid against him in the County of Somerset.
Axbridge carried the news to Nigel at once, and so although Nell had spent her usual time with Sir Mortimer that afternoon, it was from her brother, at home, that she learned of it. She wished she might have discussed it with Manningford, but since she had spent a good part of her time in Royal Crescent that day attempting, unsuccessfully, to induce Sir Mortimer to admit Sybilla to his bedchamber, she rather thought it as well that the other gentlemen had been out when she left him. In any case, she had more opportunity than she wanted to talk about Axbridge’s news, for Nigel seemed unable to discuss anything else and continued to speculate long after his great-aunt and sister had tired of the subject, without arriving at any new conclusions.
“I should like to know just what Jarvis thinks he is about,” he snapped suddenly halfway through dinner. “In point of fact, I should like to know where he is hiding himself, for there is more than one home question that I should like to put to him.”
It was not the first time he had made either statement, and since neither lady wanted to encourage him to list his questions, Lady Flavia said matter-of-factly, “Dear boy, one knows just how you must feel, but I remind you, once again, that it will not do to be seeking him out. We know you are not mentioned by name in any charge; however, we know, too, that his lordship’s man, fearing that to mention the incident so soon after naming you might link the two in someone’s mind, did not inquire into the known details of Mr. Bygrave’s death. And you promised his lordship that you will remain quietly here until he has had time to set additional investigations in train.”
“Well, I’d just like to speak to Jarvis, that’s all.”
Nell, tired after her long afternoon, roused herself to say, “I told you before, Nigel, that he has gone to London to see about getting the wager honored by a Court of Chancery.”
“Well, I can stop that nonsense,” he retorted.
“Perhaps,” she agreed, “if we discover that you need not fear the hangman. But I am beginning to wonder if the Chancery Court has been only a bogey to frighten me into agreeing to marry him, for I cannot believe he sets as much store as he pretends by that wager. And you need not snort like that,” she added tartly, “for having taken it into his head that my life was ruined by Papa’s suicide, if not your exile, I think he really did believe that accepting his offer of marriage was the only way left me to protect my good name. It ought not to surprise you that he might think that way, you know.”
“What surprises me that no word of my supposed doings appears to have got about, even here in Bath. At all events, I can scarcely be said to have ruined you.”
Lady Flavia said, “But my dear Nigel, no one has said that; however, people do know that your father blew his brains out, and that alone is enough to make them look askance at your sister, even if they do not know why he did it. Indeed, that they do not know may make it all the worse, for then insanity must be suspected, you know, and no man of sense wishes to ally his house with one of tainted blood, particularly where there is no great fortune to offset the risk.”
Nigel could not remain interested in Nell’s problems when his own seemed to him to be much more pressing, but though he might rail at his cousin’s continued absence and deplore his own forced inactivity, she was grateful to discover that he had no immediate intention of flouting Axbridge’s advice. He did refuse the marquess’s invitation to enjoy the hospitality of Axbridge Park until the whole business might be resolved, however, declaring that he was not going to allow Jarvis to send him into hiding. And since she was certain that he still wanted nothing so much as to confront his cousin and demand explanations from him, she could only be grateful that Jarvis continued to remain absent from Bath.
In the days remaining before Lady Flavia’s presentation to the Regent, Nell continued to spend a portion of each afternoon in Royal Crescent, but though she frequently saw Manningford, neither he nor Axbridge had additional news to disclose. She did
manage at last, however, by the simple means of declaring her refusal to sit with Sir Mortimer again until he had admitted his daughter to his presence, to convince him to do so.
Having told Sybilla only that he had asked to see her, not why, and then having left them alone together, Nell had second thoughts about the wisdom of interfering when she discovered that Sybilla was greatly shaken by the meeting.
“He is so very altered,” she said when Nell, having wondered if all was well, came upstairs again to find her, much subdued, sitting on the padded bench on the landing. “He did not even shout at me, Nell. Indeed, he apologized for being such a paltry parent—his very words, and though they are true, I found I did not like to hear them upon his lips. I have made of him a sort of beast behind a cage door, you see, for I have rarely seen him since Ned and I sorted out our own troubles and I agreed to put my marriage ahead of my duties here. Now, for all Father tries to seem the same, he speaks so haltingly and looks to be such a sickly old man that it is quite dreadful. I own, I never looked for a responsible thought in Brandon’s head and was astonished—perhaps even resentful—to learn that he had taken control of this household, but now I am grateful that he has done so, and even more grateful that Ned is to take me home again tomorrow. I do so long to see my children.”
Sir Mortimer appeared to be no more thankful for their reunion than Sybilla was. In fact, he did not speak of it, and when the Axbridge party departed the following day, Nell was more relieved than sorry to see them go—and not only because Axbridge had promised to go on to London as soon as he had got Sybilla settled, to see if he could discover what Jarvis was up to.
Having arrived as they were departing, she found herself, some minutes later, alone with Manningford in the front hall. Encountering a speculative look that made her remember rather guiltily that he might have cause to be vexed with her, she was not surprised, when the porter and a young footman came in behind them, to hear him suggest gently that she accompany him upstairs.