The feast itself was elaborate, expensive, and exhausting. Course after course was brought out by increasingly breathless footmen. Plates of game pies were followed by fish mousses which were followed by a clear soup, after which came stuffed fowl, and then hot slices of roast beef, all washed down with a different wine or port. The puddings and desserts when they arrived were spectacular and, to Xanthe’s mind, triumphs of ingenuity given that the cook must work with an ice house rather than a refrigerator and no freezer. There were towering jellies and blancmanges, confections of spun sugar over tropical fruits that must have cost a small fortune in themselves, and syllabubs and sweet biscuits and all manner of nuts glazed, roasted, or pulped into pralines. There were no speeches as such, although Mr. Wilcox did rise to toast the bride and groom. After nearly two hours at table, the guests were invited to repair to one of the grander rooms, which had been set up for cards and singing. Fairfax and Petronella led the way. Once the party had settled in these more relaxed surroundings, the atmosphere became more convivial, helped in no small part by the amount of alcohol people had consumed with their meal. There was general chatter, some of it quite loud, and everyone was able to mill about and speak with whomever they wished to. As Xanthe circled the room she heard gossip being savored, family news being shared, and one or two risqué tales being recounted by the more exuberant men, most of whom appeared to be friends of Henry’s and cut from the same cloth.
She was completely taken up with observing the fascinating interactions of so many aristocrats and high-society people who had let down their ordinarily impenetrable walls of manners and etiquette to allow a glimpse at how they truly lived their lives. She was so intrigued by them that she had not noticed Fairfax come to stand beside her. His voice made her start.
“Miss Westlake, I trust you are enjoying the celebrations.”
“You have stepped into the role of master of Corsham Hall so easily, Mr. Fairfax, one might almost believe you deserved it.” She glanced about to make sure they were not overheard before adding, “If, that is, one did not know you as well as I do.”
“A lack of generosity of spirit in a woman is quite unbecoming. You might wish to consider that, if you aim to make your own way in society.”
“The only society I am interested in is that of the Spinners. As soon as I have done what I came here to do I shall leave Corsham and return home. So, the sooner we make our exchange the better. You said it must wait until after the wedding.”
“As you wish. Let us meet at the folly, as agreed, at midday tomorrow.”
“You will bring the astrolabe.”
“I shall. And you, little Spinner, will bring the book. Do not think to cheat me of it. I have defeated far more worthy opponents than you, and they did not live to talk of it.”
“Save your threats, Fairfax. Tomorrow. Midday. Don’t be late,” she said, turning to smile at Evie, who was taking her place beside Liam at the pianoforte. She walked quickly away from Fairfax, choosing to stand beside Mr. Wilcox, willing her anger to subside so that she could put out of her mind what was to come the next day. For now, all she wanted to do was watch Liam play and enjoy listening to little Evangeline sing.
* * *
It was properly dark when Xanthe was finally able to speak to Liam. Many of the guests had left, their carriages being summoned to bear them away into the sultry night. The more hardy partygoers remained, mostly men, taking up residence in the music room or the larger of the drawing rooms. The level of conversation was of lower quality and higher volume. Evie had long since been sent to bed. The groom was making the most of every minute of the festivities. Petronella sat quietly with two maiden aunts and a cousin awaiting the moment when she and Fairfax would retire to their bedroom. Xanthe put a hand on Liam’s arm.
“Let’s step outside for a while. I can’t bear to watch him crowing and her suffering any longer, and it is so hot and stuffy in here.”
“An excellent idea,” Liam agreed. “Just a second.” He paused on their way out of the drawing room to help himself to a brandy decanter and two glasses.
They walked across the grand hall and into the main reception room, the windows of which had been thrown open. They stepped out onto the veranda, both sighing with relief at the cooler, cleaner air that greeted them. Liam led them to a low stone seat that allowed a good view of the vista from the front of the house. He took off his jacket and put it on the stone for Xanthe to sit on.
“Always the gentleman,” she said.
He smiled as he poured two generous measures of brandy and handed one to Xanthe as he sat next to her. “Must be all these posh clothes and manners,” he said. “Beginning to rub off on me.”
“It’ll all fall away when you get home. That’s what I’ve found, anyway. All the strange mannerisms and stilted patterns of speech—you think they’ve become a real habit, but as soon as you are back in your own time, they fade away.”
“Probably just as well. Not very practical gear for working on oily motors.”
She sipped the fine French brandy. She was about to bring up the subject of her meeting with Fairfax when the sound of more carriage wheels distracted her. As they watched, a small but smart gig, pulled by one dappled grey, was driven around to the front entrance. It was something like a phaeton, built for speed and short distances, open topped and beautifully painted with polished brass fittings. The door of the house was opened by a footman and a figure emerged. Even in the low light provided by the torches placed around the driveway Xanthe recognized the man who trod heavily down the steps.
“It’s Petronella’s father,” she said. “He must be going to the dower house. She said it is where he would be living now, but I hadn’t expected him to leave so soon.”
“Can’t have two masters in one house,” Liam pointed out.
Mr. Wilcox paused as the driver held the door of the carriage open for him. He turned slowly, a full circle, as if taking in the house that had been his, the home that he had been head of, the place where his wife had lived and died, for the last time.
“It will never be the same for him,” said Xanthe. “It might still be home for his girls, but it belongs to Fairfax now. He will only ever be a guest.”
At last, Mr. Wilcox climbed aboard and the driver shut the door and sprang up into his high seat. With a click of the tongue and a flick of the reins the horse picked up its hooves and trotted briskly along the drive, carrying its somber passenger away from his old life and toward his new one.
“Petronella’s not the only one with adjustments to make. And what will it be like for poor Evie? She doesn’t even like the man.”
“She’s a good judge of character.”
“I feel like I’ve failed.”
“You haven’t.”
“The wedding dress called me here. It must have been to help Petronella, and all I’ve done is sit and watch as Fairfax gets what he wants. Petronella. The estate. How have I helped her?”
“Your mission is to take Fairfax’s astrolabe away and stop him abusing his Spinner’s gifts. You can’t fix everything. You have to concentrate on that.”
She nodded, swirling the dark liquid in the deep, round glass. Liam put his arm around her, drawing her close, letting her rest her head on his shoulder. For a while they sat in silence, listening to sounds of increasingly raucous merriment drifting out from inside the house, and the distant call of young foxes exploring the summer night. She knew she should discuss their plan for what was going to happen the next day, but she felt suddenly overcome by weariness. It had been a long day, with too many people, and too much food, and more than enough tension. It was blissful just to sit, leaning on Liam, feeling safe, wrapped in the darkness, breathing in the scent of climbing jasmine as it surrendered its perfume to the moon.
18
Breakfast the following morning was one of the most awkward meals Xanthe had ever had to sit through. Fairfax sat at the head of the table in what had been, until only the day before, Mr. Wilcox’s plac
e. To his right sat Petronella, subdued and pale, her lack of appetite obvious to everyone. Liam was doing his best to lighten the atmosphere in the dining room but with little success. Xanthe found herself eating quickly, keen to be anywhere but sitting among the sorry remnants of the family, finding the smug expression on Fairfax’s face unbearable. Evie’s chair was empty.
“Evie is late down this morning,” she commented. “She’s usually hungry as a hunter and keen to be attacking the day.”
Petronella looked at her sister’s vacant seat as if only just noticing her absence. “I imagine she is tired after the long celebrations of yesterday,” she said quietly. “Let her sleep. There are no appointments arranged for today and she has no lessons with Miss Talbot, it being Sunday. We can attend evensong in place of morning prayers.”
Liam accepted more scrambled eggs from the footman. “Nothing like a good breakfast after a late night, I find. Best cure for a hangover.”
“What is a hangover?” Petronella asked. “It sounds frightful.”
“Oh, a London expression,” he explained. “It refers to suffering the aftereffects of too much drinking.” Xanthe was impressed at how adept Liam had become at explaining away his anachronistic speech and vocabulary. Their plan for him to be the moody silent type and say as little as possible had never worked. She saw that she should have trusted him to be capable of finding his own way of being a Regency gentleman. He was really quite good at it.
“I see. Father takes raw egg with a dash of vinegar in it when he is similarly out of sorts.” Her face brightened for an instant as she spoke of her father and then looked sad again as she glanced at the man who had taken his place as head of the household.
The lady’s maid who attended both the young Wilcox girls entered the room looking more than a little flustered. She hurried over to Petronella as if to speak to her privately but Fairfax was having none of it.
“Elsie? Whatever is the matter that you should interrupt your mistress’s breakfast in such a way. You look alarmed, and that in itself will alarm my wife.”
Xanthe winced at the way he spoke of Petronella.
Elsie bobbed a curtsey and spoke quickly.
“Beg pardon, Mr. Fairfax, sir, but it is Miss Evangeline.”
Petronella put down her spoon. “Is Evie unwell?”
“Not unwell, Miss … Mrs. Fairfax. Missing.”
“Missing?” Now Petronella was truly alarmed.
“Not in her room, and, by the look of it, her bed has not been slept in.”
Petronella rose from her chair, the sound of the wooden legs scraping against the floor echoing through the brief silence in the room. “Elsie, please ask the servants if anyone has seen her this morning.”
“I will, ma’am. Shall I have them search the house?”
“Please do,” Fairfax interrupted.
“She won’t be indoors,” said Petronella. “Evie loves to be outside.” A sudden thought made her face light up again. “She might have gone to Father! Elsie, wait, have the gig sent round. I will go to the dower house directly.”
Fairfax stood up. “As you wish, my dear. Mr. Westlake, will you join me in a search of the estate? I shall have Henry roused from his bed. Little Evie may have taken it into her head to go on a woodland walk. We three can cover a deal of ground mounted. Do not distress yourself, my dear,” he said to Petronella, taking her hand. “We will find your sister, I am certain she has come to no harm.”
Xanthe frowned at him, annoyed that he should put the idea in her head. “Shall I accompany you to the dower house, Petronella?” she asked.
“Oh, would you be so kind as to remain here? In the event Evie returns to the house I should not like her to find it empty.”
“Of course,” she said, registering the notion that if only servants were in the building it was deemed to be empty.
Fifteen minutes later, Petronella was already on her way to her father, and saddled horses were being brought to the front of the house for the three men. Xanthe spoke to Liam as he mounted.
“Petronella will be inconsolable until she is found,” she said.
“Do you think she’s gone to her father? She was sad about him moving out of the Hall.”
“It’s possible.”
“I’m going to have a word with Henry about which route we’re taking. Try not to worry too much,” he told her, before riding his horse over to where Henry was having his stirrup leathers adjusted.
Fairfax was already on his grey horse. The weather was threatening to break, the sky heavy with the promise of a storm. Fairfax’s horse was beginning to sweat in the clammy air. He maneuvered it to stand uncomfortably close to Xanthe, so that he was able to speak to her unheard by anyone else.
“It is a fool’s errand we undertake, you should know that.”
“You don’t think you’ll find her in the park somewhere?”
“Evangeline will not be found until I deem it opportune.”
She stared at him. “What have you done with her?”
“She is quite safe. For now.”
“But, why would you take her? She must be terrified. What can you possibly hope to gain by stealing her away and causing Petronella such anguish?”
“Let us say simply that I have her in my keeping against your being … impetuous. There is no reason to fear for her safety, as long as our exchange goes smoothly. Until noon, then,” he said, touching his hat to her and then wheeling his horse about to lead the others off at a gallop, giving Xanthe no chance to tell Liam what she had just learned.
As she watched them disappear across the parkland her thoughts raced for a solution to this development. In two hours she would face Fairfax and try to take the astrolabe from him. She had turned the thing over and over in her mind and decided that he would not be satisfied with having only the book. He could not risk losing the device that might still be crucial to his time traveling. Which meant he would try to get the Spinners book from her and keep the astrolabe. Which was something she could not allow to happen. She had been prepared to use her Spinners gift of time-within-time to take him to another point in an earlier century and leave him there. It would not have been easy, but it was the only way she could be certain he would no longer pose a threat nor recklessly break all the Spinners’ codes for his own gain. But now, with Evie hidden somewhere only Fairfax knew of, there was no way she could carry out her plan. She paced up and down in the walled garden, furious that he could have done something so awful. She could not risk Evie’s life, not even for the Spinners. It seemed Fairfax had her trapped whichever way she turned. Somehow she had put herself in a situation where she would have no choice but to give him what he wanted. And then what? He would have the astrolabe and the book, and her, if it came to it. All she had done by traveling to his time was to make him more powerful, to feed his craving for power over other people and to make himself unassailable. At that moment, more than anything she was furious with herself for allowing him to outwit her. She had no idea what to do next except give in to his demands. She thought of going to Mistress Flyte and asking for her help, but after what she had seen in her past, and the resistance the old woman had offered to Liam’s presence, she no longer felt she dare trust her completely. There was no one she could turn to to sort things out. It was down to her. A fierce determination grew inside her. She would get Evie back; that was her first priority. And if that meant giving Fairfax the book, so be it. She would get it back. She would part with it only temporarily to ensure the girl’s safety, and, hopefully, to part Fairfax from the astrolabe. She wasn’t totally reliant on the book to do her work as a Spinner. She had proved that to herself. Fairfax might have won this point, but the game was far from over. She would do what she had to do, even if it meant being separated from the book for a while. In the end, she was cleverer than him. She was more determined. She would get it back.
* * *
When Xanthe set off for the lake the lowering sky was still withholding the much-needed rain it ca
rried. By the time she reached the folly, however, it had released its grip, and the resulting downpour was startling. The parched soil released its wonderful petrichor as it drank in the long-awaited water. She was soaked through in minutes and thankful for the fact that she was wearing her cotton rather than her muslin dress. The flowery print clung to her but at least it was not rendered transparent. She had also kept the Spinners book in its wrapping of cloth, so that it was at least protected. The pins the maid had styled her hair with were no match for her long curls when weighted with water, so that the shape quickly unraveled. She climbed the stairs of the tower cautiously. They had been uneven but dry on her first visit. A wash of fast-moving rain had rendered them hazardously slippery. When she reached the turret she thought at first she had arrived before Fairfax, but then, looking over the edge, she saw his horse tethered on the other side of the wall.
“I am pleased to see you did not think to keep me waiting, Miss Westlake.”
Xanthe turned slowly to face her adversary. He was still dressed in his woolen riding coat and long leather top boots complete with spurs. Rain fell from the brim of his black hat. She regarded him through a blur of water, having no hat of her own. She blinked away the rain that poured into her eyes, and held the Spinners book tightly, her arms folded across it.
“Where is Evangeline?” she demanded.
“Somewhere none of those devoted searchers will ever find her,” he said with a dismissive wave of the hand. “Her continued safety lies with you now, my little Spinner. Give me the book.”
“Give me the astrolabe,” she replied.
Fairfax smiled, taking the device from his pocket and holding it up. “Such a wondrous thing,” he said, turning it so that the rain coursed over its intricately worked surface. “And so very important to me. Why would you think I would ever part with it?”
The Garden of Promises and Lies Page 26