Dear Deceiver

by Mary Nichols

  ‘Do you think that is why Emma has taken against Sophie—she sees her as a threat?’

  Mrs Standon smiled. ‘In more ways than one, I’ll wager.’

  ‘So, you think Emma is out to make trouble?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘No. I cannot believe that. She had no idea of my connection with the Mountforests when she came to us, I know because I asked her.’ It did not occur to him that if she had lied about her identity she could have lied about that too.

  ‘Perhaps, but she does love her brother and you have only to hear her speak of Major Mountforest to know she adored her father. What would you do in her place?’

  ‘I’d fight tooth and nail to have his name cleared.’

  ‘Then, nephew, you have a problem on your hands. And do not tell me it is nothing to do with you, because I am not blind. I can see the way the wind is blowing, even if you cannot.’

  Dominic put his head in his hands. ‘Why didn’t she tell me? I gave her every opportunity to confide in me…’

  ‘Are you talking of Emma or Sophie?’

  ’emma, of course.’ Sophie was the last person on his mind at that moment. ‘How could she deceive me like that?’

  ‘She could only have gulled you if you wanted to be gulled. You knew she was not who she said she was, didn’t you? And yet you would not confront her with it and send her away. You even made it more difficult for yourself by telling everyone she was your cousin. I say again, I wonder why?’

  He did not answer but got up and, for a minute or two, she watched him pacing the floor. ‘Nothing has changed, you know,’ she said. ‘I’m not the only one to have doubts about that killing, but all the witnesses are dead, and Mountforest will not recognise the boy.’

  ‘You think I should tell Emma that?’

  ‘I doubt you need to, she is not a fool. But I do think you need to speak to her about it.’

  ‘I asked Captain Greenaway to make some enquiries for me in Calcutta…’ He shrugged. ‘It makes no difference now since you have told me what I wanted to know. What is more worrying is that I believe the brig is lost and the good Captain with it. I feel that very keenly…’

  ‘Has it ruined you?’

  ‘Not quite, but I shall have to sell more land and cancel the improvements Sophie has put in hand. She won’t like it above half, but it cannot be helped. And I’ll have to let Bertie have Cavenham Prince. I’m going over to see him about it now.’ He tapped Emma’s letter. ‘I told Emma I would deliver this.’

  ‘Then do that. The ride will give you time to think about what you are going to do.’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’ he asked miserably.

  ‘Oh, yes, you have a choice.’ She smiled knowingly. ‘The question is, will you make the right one?’

  He put the letter in the pocket of his riding coat and went out to the stableyard, collecting his hat and gloves from the table in the hall as he went. His actions were automatic, his mind was elsewhere, as he mounted Prince and set off at a trot, which soon slowed to a walk, as if he were in no hurry to reach his destination.

  Emma had pulled the wool over his eyes, given him a false reference, made of him the biggest gullcatcher in Christendom and yet, try as he might to fuel the flames of his anger, he could not condemn her. He had loved her from the first, which was why he had condoned what she had done, had even said she was his cousin to silence the tattlemongers, and he loved her still. Nothing she had done could change that. Supposing he told her so? What would happen then?

  He would also have to tell Sophie. And what would Sophie do? The thought that she might free him lifted his spirits for a moment, but then he realised that he would be condemned in the eyes of the world, and rightly so, as a man who jilted his betrothed. Not only jilted her, but turned to her cousin instead, the sister of the true Mountforest heir, because that story would all come out too.

  They would say he had his eye on the main chance, an impoverished peer looking for a fortune. He could not do it. He laughed harshly. Aunt Agatha was wrong; he had no choice, except that between misery and dishonour which was no choice at all.

  Deep in his reverie, he did not hear someone shouting his name until it had been repeated several times, each time more loudly and urgently. He turned and saw Martin galloping up behind him, waving frantically. ‘My lord!’

  He stopped and waited for the groom to reach him.

  ‘My lord, the Silken Maid has been sighted.’ He handed Dominic a letter. ‘This came by messenger just after you had gone. Mrs Standon said to catch you with it.’

  Dominic took the letter and quickly scanned its contents, then he turned and galloped home as fast as Prince could take him, having first given Emma’s letter to Martin to deliver. In less than an hour he was on his way to London. He did not see Lucy and Emma returning from their outing.

  That afternoon, Emma sat disconsolately looking out of the drawing-room window, watching the wind swirling the fallen leaves into heaps. This was her first autumn in England and, in spite of a warm log fire, there was already a damp chill in the air which made her shiver. She missed her home in Calcutta, missed her Indian servants, who were so much more to her than servants, missed the rich colours and noise of the bazaars, even the smells, the rotting vegetation, the dust, the heady scent of the yellow kikar blossom, the jasmine and frangipani. None of that would have mattered if she could be with Dominic. But she could not and there was an end to it; she was suffering this heartache to no purpose.

  They had come to England on a wild goose chase. It was not necessary to clear their father’s name because whatever was thought of him nearly thirty years before had no relevance to the present. To everyone who had known him since, he had been an honourable and courageous man, devoted to his family. What better reputation to take to the grave? Making the Viscount squirm, as Teddy put it, would not bring Papa back to life.

  So many other people would be hurt, not least Dominic, Lucy and Mrs Standon, because no one would believe those good, kind people were ignorant of who she was and what her intentions were. When mud was thrown it stuck, even on those who were merely bystanders.

  If she and Teddy went ahead with what they had planned, they would set in motion a whirlwind which, like the wind swirling the leaves in the drive, would scoop everyone up and tear them apart. Revenge would not be sweet, it would be as bitter as gall. Could she make Teddy understand that?

  She had said nothing of her thoughts in her letter; she had simply explained there was a horse needing help and she wanted to talk to him. She assumed Dominic had taken it as he said he would; it was no longer on the salver in the hall where she had left it.

  Even if Mr Cosgrove allowed Teddy to leave for Cavenham at once, she could hardly expect him for some time. The waiting was affecting her nerves; she was jumpy as a frightened deer and could not concentrate on sewing or reading.

  She looked across the room to where Lucy, in a blue merino afternoon gown, was playing Patience, a new card game recently introduced. Mrs Standon, cap askew as ever, was sitting at the table writing in a notebook.

  To the outward eye it appeared a normal family scene, but the atmosphere was vibrating with tension, as if they were all waiting for something to happen. She supposed some of it was down to the news that the Silken Maid had survived, but no one knew in what condition, and Dominic had rushed off to London.

  But it was more than that. Mrs Standon had looked at her once or twice as if she meant to speak to her and then changed her mind, and Lucy was on edge, possibly because now the brig was in, Fergus might be sent to India, after all.

  ‘Oh, this will never come out!’ Lucy exclaimed, scooping up the cards. ‘Whoever invented this game must enjoy tormenting people.’

  ‘My dear, that is why it is called Patience,’ her aunt reproved her. ‘Try again.’

  Patience, Emma thought, wishing Teddy would hurry up and come. She could not leave without seeing him first and the waiting was almost unbearable. Would he want to c
ome too? She did not think that would serve; he was in a situation he enjoyed with the chance to make a name for himself, it would be a pity to uproot him. She must try and convince him she knew where she was going and what she was going to do. But what was she going to do?

  Whatever she did, it were better done soon; the longer she delayed the harder it would become to put Cavenham House and everything she had come to love behind her.

  ‘Please excuse me,’ she said and, without waiting for Mrs Standon’s consent, hurried from the room.

  She dashed into her bedroom and began filling her portmanteau with underwear, stockings and gloves from the drawers of the chest which stood beneath the window, then pulled out her tin trunk and lifted the lid.

  Her sari lay in tissue in the bottom of it. She took it out and ran the silk through her fingers, remembering the night of the ball, hearing the music, feeling Dominic’s arms about her as they waltzed, remembering the taste of his lips when he kissed her. Memories were all she would have, memories that were sweet as honey and bitter as aloe.

  Brushing tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, she folded the sari back into the trunk and opened her wardrobe, looking with dismay at the rows and rows of garments hanging there. Dominic had paid for those; she had no right to them.

  She sorted through them, pulling out the mauve sarcenet, the brown bombazine, the green riding habit and one or two other gowns brought from India. She folded them carefully and put them in the trunk on top of the sari, then turned to the tigerskin rug which lay across the carpet at the foot of the bed.

  The glass eyes of the dead tiger stared balefully back at her. Every morning she had padded across its lovely striped skin in her bare feet to go to her washstand and every morning it had reminded her of the father she had loved and respected. She knelt beside it and put her arms around its glorious head, hugging it to her as if embracing her father. ‘Oh, Papa, what am I to do?’

  She had been sitting there for several minutes, stroking its head when her attention was caught by a row of stitches under one of its ears, one or two of which had been broken. There was something there, something hard which was not part of the stuffing. It did not take much poking to reveal a velvet pouch. She fetched a pair of scissors from her sewing bag and gently enlarged the hole.

  A minute later the contents of the pouch had been upturned in her lap and she found herself gazing in astonishment at a fortune in precious gems, diamonds, rubies and other lesser stones, which winked up at her. She sat looking at them, mesmerised by their sparkle, unable to move or think.

  Slowly she put out a hand, wondering if her eyes were playing her false and she was imagining them. They felt hard and unyielding under her fingers, no figment of her imagination. They were real. She was sure they were valuable. Papa had provided for them after all, and handsomely too—to think she had nearly sold the skin!

  If the gems were valuable enough to make her and Teddy independent, then her life was about to change dramatically. She had already decided she could no longer stay at Cavenham House; now that decision had been reinforced and miraculously a way forward had been found. It was as if fate had taken a hand.

  She was about to put the jewels back in the pouch when she realised there was a piece of paper folded inside it, which had not come out when she tipped it up. Opening it out, she found herself staring at her father’s handwriting.

  ‘My dearest children,’ he had written. ‘If you have these gems, then it means that I am dead and Chinkara has fulfilled his promise to tell you of them.’ She stopped for a moment, recalling the little Indian who had served her father all his life. He had died with his master and so could not have revealed the hiding place, an eventuality her father seemed not to have considered.

  She scrubbed at her eyes with a handkerchief and resumed reading. ‘They were honestly acquired years ago, before the Regulating Act banned Company soldiers from private trading. Sell them and spend the money wisely. They are all I have to bequeath you in the material sense, but I hope I leave you with a greater inheritance: a sense of pride and honour, compassion and forgiveness. Do what is right and be happy, my children.’

  Emma could not read the signature for the tears which blinded her. Carefully she folded the paper and put it back in the pouch along with the jewels and put the pouch in the pocket of her skirt. Then she stood up and made her way back downstairs, wondering how she was going to break the news to Lucy and Mrs Standon.

  She had barely reached the ground floor when a footman hurried towards her. ‘Mister Woodhill has arrived, miss. He told me to tell you he would be in the stables.’

  She thanked him and went on past the door of the drawing-room where she supposed Lucy and Mrs Standon were still sitting, and out of the side door to the stables, where she found Teddy in Brutus’s stall with Martin, administering to the animal.

  He looked up. ‘Hallo, Em. This is a bad business, don’t you think?’

  ‘What? Oh, yes. Teddy, I must talk to you.’ Even the poor horse’s plight had been driven from her mind by her discovery.

  ‘In a minute, when I’ve finished here.’

  She watched, hopping from one foot to the other like an excited child, while he finished tending the horse.

  ‘He should do well enough now,’ he said to Martin, wiping his hands on a piece of cloth. ‘Give him that mix in his drinking water, it will keep him calm while the wounds heal. You’ll need to be very careful when you try to mount him. He’ll not like it.’

  ‘No, I’m sure he won’t, but being able to ride him again was more than his lordship expected. He will want to add his thanks to mine, I am sure.’ He smiled and shook the young man’s hand. ‘Now, I’ll leave you to talk to your sister.’

  Emma waited until he had left, then grabbed Teddy’s hand and drew him down beside her on a bale of straw. She did not speak, but simply spread out her skirt and tipped the contents of the little bag into her lap.

  ‘Good God, Emma! Where did they come from?’

  ‘I found them in Papa’s tiger less than half an hour ago. He put them there.’

  He picked some of the jewels up and weighed them in his hand. ‘It’s a fortune!’

  ‘Yes, and they’re ours. This was with it.’ She handed him the letter.

  Teddy read it quickly and was reduced to tears. Unable to hold back her own, Emma held him close, just as she had done when he had been a small child and had fallen and hurt himself, and they wept together. ‘We’re rich!’ He laughed, through his tears. ‘Papa didn’t forget us. We’re rich. We need not be servants, at a master’s beck and call.’

  She wiped the tears from her cheeks with a handkerchief and smiled at him. ‘No, but first we have to turn them into hard currency. And London is the place to go if we want a good price. Then we must decide what we are going to do.’

  ‘I know what I want to do. I want to buy a stud farm and breed race horses. But first, there is the matter of the Viscount…’

  ‘Oh, Teddy,’ she said. ‘I do think we should reconsider…’

  He turned to her in surprise. ‘Reconsider what?’

  ‘What we said. Vengeance is not for us. It can achieve nothing…’

  ‘But our father was wronged. Have you forgotten that?’

  ‘No, I have not forgotten, but we cannot prove anything. The only other witness was Mr Cosgrove’s father and he is long dead. There is no one alive who remembers what happened except our uncle and he will not admit he was at fault.’

  Teddy was obviously reluctant to let go. He glowered at Emma. ‘I know what it is. You are thinking of your precious Lord Besthorpe, not Papa at all.’

  ‘No, I was thinking that the desire for revenge is a destructive emotion. It diminishes the soul. Papa’s was a good life with much love in it. You must not spoil that by doing something which would shame him. I think that’s what he meant in his letter when he spoke of forgiveness.’

  ‘I will not shame him,’ Teddy insisted. ‘But I want Viscount Mountforest to
know that while I live he will never be free of what he did.’

  ‘I think he knows that already,’ she said.

  He was not fully convinced, but he had been very moved by their father’s letter. Balanced as he was between childhood and manhood, his anger on his father’s behalf was weighed against his sister’s more gentle nature. She sighed with relief when his scowl turned to a smile.

  ‘Well, I am not hiding behind a false name any more. I am my father’s son and I am not ashamed of it. From now on, I am Edward Mountforest and our uncle may please himself what he does about it.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘But we can’t do anything until we have sold the stones. I can leave straight away. I had been planning to go anyway.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked, momentarily diverted from the prospect of wealth.

  ‘It’s a long story and doesn’t matter now,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll not let you go alone. I’m coming too.’

  She could not dissuade him and in truth she would be glad of his company. So they agreed that he would ride back to Newmarket to return the horse Mr Cosgrove had lent him and tell him he was leaving, then he would take the stage in Newmarket the following morning which called in at the Jolly Brewers in Cavenham on its way to the capital and Emma would board it there.

  Emma’s task was to look after the jewels, explain to Lucy and Mrs Standon that she had to return to London on family business and make sure she was at the inn at eight o’clock the following morning.

  Telling Lucy and Mrs Standon she was going was, as she expected, not easy.

  ‘Why?’ Lucy demanded. ‘I thought you were happy here. You said you would stay until…’ She stopped and looked from Emma to her aunt, who knew nothing of Captain O’Connor. ‘You must stay for Dominic’s wedding. Why, it is less than a month away.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Lucy, but my business cannot wait.’

  ‘What business? You never spoke of family affairs before.’

  ‘Lucy, do not quiz Emma like that,’ Mrs Standon put in. ‘It is not polite, you know.’ She turned to Emma. ‘I am sorry, my dear. We shall miss you. How will you manage? Have you any money?’