“The fellow who rode off — should we not follow him? He may lead us to Sharp.”
“Unlikely. I gave him a letter for Mr Harcourt, should such a person ever come to the house. Undoubtedly he has gone to the mail coach station in Churlswade to forward it to Mr Harcourt. Or Sharp. Whatever he is calling himself at the moment. It contains an invitation to visit me at High Morton, and I tried to make it enticing — a very subtle suggestion that I would maintain silence about his activities for a consideration. He will probably not bite, but one never knows. It would be a mistake to underestimate the greed of such a man. My very rough calculations suggest that he has pocketed some two hundred thousand pounds of the marquess’s money over the years.”
“Two hundred thousand!” Gus said, appalled, and even Carson whistled.
“It could easily be more,” Merton said. “Once we find him, we can certainly recover some of it, anything that is in property, for instance, or held in the banks or otherwise invested. But a great deal of it has undoubtedly gone for good.”
“My God!” Gus said, and Jupiter danced with alarm as his hands clenched the reins. “When I catch the villain, he will wish he had never been born!”
“Oh, the law will deal with him, make no mistake about it,” Merton said grimly. “He will hang for this.”
17: A Walk In The Woods
Gus had never resented so much the daily summons to the duke’s presence for dinner. All he wanted to do was to mull over their discoveries with Merton, and perhaps pore over the maps to try to determine where in all the emptiness of Northern England a man like Sharp may have hidden himself. Instead, he had to don his stockings and knee breeches and make polite conversation with an irascible old man and his gaggle of hopeful duchesses.
The gaggle was rather larger than it had been. In the three days he had been away, another five candidates had appeared on the scene, and the old man was distinctly less irascible. When one of his flock glanced coyly at him from behind her fan, he pinched her arm, called her a naughty puss and cackled with glee. When another strolled by to give him all the benefit of her rather splendid figure, he raised a quizzing glass and positively ogled her. And if any of them openly flirted with him, he roared with laughter.
“Whatever is going on?” Gus whispered to Emma. “I had to talk him into this, grumbling every step of the way, and now he seems to be as lively as a song bird.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “We shall be inundated with widows and old maids before long. Most unseemly. Let us hope he will make his selection soon, or settle on two or three for a more intensive regime of flirtation and ribald humour, or else the castle will burst at the seams. The poor butler! He has not seen anything like it for decades, I daresay. Did you know that Bedford is some kind of poor relation to the duke? In fact, all the servants in the keep are poor relations, or…” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Children. You know what kind I mean. But have you ever heard of anything so bizarre? One is always beset with poor relations, but one does not engage them to wait at table.”
“I daresay it is a form of charity,” Gus said, and then, with a pang of sorrow, thought at once of Mrs Walsh, whom the duke had also described as ‘a charity case’. But the information confirmed that she was no poor relation, or she too would be donning her apron to wait on the duke.
The meal was slower than usual, for the ladies liked to remark upon every dish, which would be passed around the table for comment, providing each with an opportunity for boasting about the superiority of her cook, or the tenderness of the game from her own coveys. The duke was unimpressed, but he chortled with delight at every evidence of the competition raging between them.
When the ladies had finally been prevailed upon to withdraw — “Go on, get out, the lot of you, and let the men talk about important matters,” he said genially — the duke finally turned to Gus.
“You see how I am situated, Marford. You must not go off and leave me to the mercy of these avaricious women again, do you hear? I had only Forbes to protect me, and he is too terrified of them to be of the least use. Whereas a great tall fellow like you can keep them at bay easily enough, I should wager.”
“Should you like me to?” Gus said. “I daresay with a couple of footmen, I can clear them out of the castle in no time at all. Then you could be comfortable again. You have only to give the word.”
The duke grunted. “Hmpf. Well. I suppose they are not doing any harm. What do you think of them, eh? One or two pretty ones amongst them, would you not say? And one or two that would be amusing to play with.”
“Duke, you are choosing a future duchess and the mother of the next duke, not a toy. And it matters not a whit what I may think of any of them. You must make your own choice.”
“Eh! How boring you are, Marford. As bad as Forbes there. He will not give an opinion, either. But how then am I to choose, hmm? They all have their good points and their bad points, and there is not one that seems to be any better than any of the others.”
“Then settle it some other way,” Gus said, impatiently. “Let them turn over cards — first to produce an ace wins you. Or throw dice. Or… let me see, hold an archery competition or some such, and marry the winner. Lots of ways to decide, if they really are all the same to you.”
The duke huffed, and pretended to be annoyed but his heart was not in it, and Gus suddenly realised the reason — the wheeled chair was nowhere in sight. The duke’s gout must be very much improved, and his mood with it, just as Emma had foretold.
“So was your expedition successful, Marford? Your note was very cryptic — something about your agent, but in my experience, one does not go chasing round after one’s agent, one summons him and tells him to explain himself.”
“Ah, if only we could,” Gus said. He explained the bones of it, and the duke nodded and soon lost interest.
“Well, well. Unpleasant, but the fellow cannot run for ever,” he said vaguely. “What about your business, Forbes? Have you satisfied yourself yet of my ownership of the stud?”
“The matter is still under consideration, Duke, but there is a question I would ask you, if I may.”
“You may ask,” the duke said. “I may not answer, but you may ask.” And he laughed mirthlessly.
“It seems that quite large sums of money were made over to the Marquess of Darrowstone by Lord Edward Winfell. That seems… surprising, for the younger son to subsidise the older.”
“What, that Edward was so much richer than Henry, you mean? The money came from their mother, who was a very wealthy woman by the end of her life. Always had a good dowry, but she inherited some money and there were some excellent investments… when she died, the money was to be divided amongst her unmarried daughters and any surviving sons, other than the eldest, since he was well provided for. By then, the girls were all settled, George was gone, so Edward got the lot, the lucky fellow. Well, well, so he was funding Henry, was he? That was like him — always a generous soul. He would not have seen his brother go short. But what has that to say to anything? It has nothing to do with the stud.”
“It might have,” Willerton-Forbes said, his voice rising to a nervous pitch. “I have not yet tallied all the dates precisely, but it is possible that Lord Edward’s money paid for the purchase of the horses, in which case he may properly be said to own them.”
“And since he is dead, then all his property reverts to me and I own them,” the duke said, chuckling. “You are chasing your tail, Forbes. Chasing your tail.”
“Did Lord Edward leave a will, Duke?” Willerton-Forbes’s voice was a mere squeak.
There was a long silence. The duke rose to his feet, towering over the two men as they jumped up from their seats. “Let us rejoin the ladies,” he said, before sweeping majestically from the room.
And so they moved into the interminably dull part of the evening. Gus was drawn into a game of cassino, and was heartily glad that Humphrey was not there to observe his embarrassingly bad play. He tried his best to concentrate,
but his thoughts circled endlessly round this new information. If Lord Edward had been a wealthy man, he would surely have left his wife well provided for. Even if they were not married, he would have made provision for her. Yet Mrs Walsh lived on the charity of the duke. It was a mystery, and he could make nothing of it.
As soon as they returned to their parlour, Willerton-Forbes poured brandy with shaking hands.
“Well, I am in the suds now, and no mistake,” he said. “I am tolerably sure that Lord Edward funded all those horses at the stud, and therefore has a claim to them, but unless I have sight of the will I cannot be sure.”
“How would the will help?” Gus said, his brain too full of other thoughts to make sense of it.
“I am trying to establish the intent behind the transfer of money,” Willerton-Forbes said. “If it was a personal gift, freely offered with no preconditions, then the marquess was free to spend it as he chose. But if it was a loan, or an investment, that would be a different matter.”
“But Lady Darrowstone has papers showing ownership of the horses in her late husband’s name, and he left everything to her.”
“That confuses the issue, certainly, but it is not definitive. The stud itself is composed of more than the horses. There is the land upon which it is situated, the buildings, the equipment and grooms… it is not a simple matter of horses. Tomorrow I shall visit the stud to examine the books there, and see if I may tally the payment from Lord Edward with the purchase of specific horses. And if, as I expect, I find that it is so, then I must brave the lion’s den once more and ask for sight of Lord Edward’s will.”
Gus laughed. “I wish you good fortune, and offer you my support on the occasion, for I should very much like to see the will myself, if there is one. One has to wonder why the duke is so reluctant to show you.” Was it, perhaps, because it mentioned Ned in some way? But no, Lord Edward would have known nothing of Ned. But perhaps he had mentioned Mrs Walsh. Surely he would have made provision for her?
“Indeed,” the lawyer said, the brandy glass pausing on its way to his lips. “But I daresay there are mistresses and love children mentioned in the will, and that is why the duke is so secretive about it.” He looked conscious for a moment. “And if it should happen that I am granted sight of the will, I shall be sure to convey any information of particular interest to you.”
He looked meaningfully at Gus, who could not pretend to misunderstand him.
“Your friend Edgerton is a dreadful rattle,” the lawyer said, with a slight smile. “He has drawn certain conclusions about your little lady friend and her child. So I shall take careful note of any bequests to mistresses. As to your offer to accompany me, I should be most grateful.”
“Excellent,” Gus said, trying for a light tone, although his heart sank at the mention of mistresses. “For I should very much like to hear his response. We had better take care there are no ladies present.”
“I fervently wish that I need not be present,” Willerton-Forbes said, refilling his brandy glass. “Indeed, I may very well need to be extremely drunk before I have the courage to make my request.”
“Good heavens, man, he is only a duke,” Gus said, amused. “He is nothing to be afraid of. He will shout and bluster and insult you and your entire line of ancestors, but in the end he will do what is right. Myself, I should be more alarmed to cross Lady Darrowstone, or almost any of the ladies now assaulting the duke. A lady makes a far more formidable enemy, I assure you. They never, ever forget.”
~~~~~
Until she heard Ned’s squeal of delight from upstairs, where he had stationed himself to watch for the first sighting, followed by the thump of his feet on the stairs, Amaryllis had not dared to hope that Gus would come back to see them. Each time he went away she became convinced that he was gone for good. Each time he visited she was sure that he would be recalled to London the very next day and she would see him no more. For herself, it was of no consequence, but Ned would feel the separation acutely. It was for her child’s feelings that she worried. Or so she told herself. And if a little voice in her head whispered that she looked forward to Gus’s visits every bit as much as Ned, she suppressed it firmly.
Her fears were unfounded, for he came with hugs for Ned and smiles for herself, and the glow of happiness inside her burned bright. She could not help smiling back at him, and could only hope she was not betraying an unbecoming warmth in her manner. That would never do! She was right to promote his friendship with Ned, but for herself she must keep her distance and offer him no encouragement. A difficult path to tread. Yet when he had swept Ned into his arms, and kissed the top of his head, he had looked up at her with such a light in his eyes that she had blushed and looked away.
For a while Ned monopolised him, and the talk was all of tin soldiers. The boy’s excitement made them all laugh, and even Maggie smiled over her sewing in the corner.
After a while, when the discussion of archery and bows turned to talk of yews, Ned cried, “There is one in the forest! Mama, may I show Gus the yew tree?”
“Perhaps we might all go?” he said. “It is a pleasant day for a walk.”
She agreed to it, and Maggie fetched bonnets and cloaks. The air was cool under the trees, and damp still, after the recent rain, but it was not unpleasant. At first Ned ran ahead, and Gus, with his long legs, strode after him, with Amaryllis and Maggie some distance behind. But after the yew tree had been admired, and the discussion of bows exhausted, it was Maggie who went ahead with the child, and Gus dawdled behind with Amaryllis. She was not uncomfortable, though, for even though they lapsed into silence often, they were restful pauses, as between friends who knew each other well enough not to chatter on. If she asked him a question, he answered readily enough, but otherwise he said little.
“How is his grace?” she said.
“Very well,” he said, then paused, with a quick glance at her. “Have you heard? He is… planning to marry again. Or so he says, although I am not sure how serious he is, or whether he is just amusing himself.”
“I had heard a rumour to that effect,” she said. “He is a good age to be considering matrimony, but why not, when there is nothing but a touch of gout afflicting him? I wish him very happy, I am sure.”
Again, the sideways glance. “One can understand his problem. Now that he has no heir—”
“He has an heir,” she said, amused. “The duke does not like the present heir, that is all. But that is the nature of inherited titles, is it not? Sometimes unexpected jumps occur.”
“It is undignified in a man of his age to be scrambling for a wife,” Gus said.
“You disapprove? Yet it shows that he takes his position and its responsibilities seriously. If he feels his heir is unsuitable, it is up to him to do something about it.”
“That does not mean rushing to produce a new heir. He could undertake to instruct the one he has, take an interest in him and teach him the proper way for a duke to behave. That is how the process is meant to work in a hereditary system. My brother found the burden of the marquessate onerous even after one and twenty years of training for the role. How much more difficult must it be without such training. I have heard recently of two cases where a man came into a title and fortune unexpectedly, and found the change something of a challenge. Better by far to know something of the necessary responsibilities before the need to undertake them.”
“If a man has been given sound principles and brought up in proper Christian humility, he should have no difficulty adapting to any change in his circumstances,” she said gravely.
“You are correct, of course,” he said. “But still I feel it is better for a man to mingle with his own kind beforehand, wherever possible, and grow accustomed to the manners and expectations of the peerage.”
“The manners of the peerage ought to be no different from the manners of the gentry,” she said softly. “A gentleman is still a gentleman.”
“In the broadest sense, that is true,” he said, and he was so ear
nest that she was tempted to smile. “But there are subtleties and nuances… it is not easy. Every society has its own customs and habits, in manner of dress or speech or demeanour. When I walk into an inn, the innkeeper knows at once that I will want the best parlour, several dishes at dinner and a decent claret. I do not have to tell him that, he understands it from my clothes, the way I speak, even the way I walk. And when I go to London, I know exactly how to behave, whether it be dancing at Almacks or playing cards with the Prince of Wales or simply walking down Bond Street, because I have been brought up amongst others who move in those circles. If I were to take you to London, Mrs Walsh—” He stopped, and turned to face her, laughing. “No, I do believe you would be perfectly at your ease there, and would no more fret over the right way to dress your hair for an evening at Carlton House than my sister would. But for those less composed than you, like Mr Richard Winfell, the duke’s heir presumptive, it would be the greatest trial, I assure you. I have seen how such people go on in such society, how their nervousness makes them silent or clumsy or, even worse, gabble unstoppably and behave in the gauchest manner. I have also seen how society derides them for their ignorance. I do not wish it on anyone.”
At that moment, Ned came running back towards them, shrieking, and she had no opportunity to frame a response. She was not entirely convinced by Gus’s argument, but at least she understood a little better his concern about Ned’s isolation. And deep in her heart, where it would warm her through many a lonely hour to come, she buried his charming compliment — that she could move in the highest circles. And for the first time she wondered, as she had never dared to before, how it would feel to be part of that world, part of the ton and think nothing of meeting the Prince of Wales.
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