Audrianna would not mind confiding in Daphne, but tonight she was not sure how to explain, or what to say. She needed a long rest before she sorted out the events and implications of her disastrous journey.
She rose and took her plate to the washbasin. Daphne continued sitting there in pale, lovely serenity.
Audrianna bent and closely embraced her cousin, who as always felt rather cool in a refreshing way. “I will retire now. I will see you in the morning. Thank you for your concern. I apologize that I worried you.”
Daphne turned her head and kissed her. “Sleep well, dearest.”
Just as Audrianna reached the door, Daphne spoke again.
“Oh, there is one more thing I must say, lest I forget. Audrianna, the pistol that I keep high in the library’s cabinet has gone missing. If you come upon it, please let me know at once.”
Sebastian winced while he slid into the blue frock coat that his valet held. His upper left arm rebelled at the movement.
A surgeon had arrived at dawn to apply salves and a new dressing. He had announced that the wound appeared uncorrupted. It seemed that the worst consequence would be this current damnable stiffness of the entire limb for a few days more.
He checked his pocket watch to make sure it was ten o’clock, then headed downstairs to his brother Morgan’s chambers.
He did not have to make this visit every morning that he was in town, but he did anyway. He knew his brother looked forward to everything about their hour together. To the silent companionship while they drank coffee and read the newspapers and mail. To the discussions about the gossip and strategies occupying the government. To the respite of being normal, in a day when there would be too many reminders that very little remained the way it was supposed to be.
Dr. Fenwood came out to the front sitting room just as Sebastian entered it. Fenwood was not really a doctor, but instead a manservant of significant strength and appropriate circumspection. Morgan had first called him Dr. Fenwood as a joke, but had never stopped.
Now everyone called him Dr. Fenwood, so that Morgan could maintain the small pretense that the person who helped him in appallingly intimate ways was a medical professional. There were a lot of illusions like that in this house, as everyone tried to preserve a good man’s dignity.
“The marquess’s health is fine this morning,” Fenwood said. The title had gone to his head a bit, and he offered his opinion as if he knew the difference between fine and not fine. “My lord’s disposition is good too.”
That was the information that Sebastian really wanted. His brother often succumbed to bouts of melancholy. The real physicians had warned from the start that this was often common with invalids.
He entered the chamber that served as a small drawing room in the master’s extensive apartment. His brother did not hear the door open, and continued reading his mail. There was quite a stack of it. Society still sent invitations, knowing they would never be accepted. And Morgan, third Marquess of Wittonbury, read every one, as if he might choose to attend a few dinner parties.
Morgan’s chair abutted a window, through which he could look down on the town. Both the table and a dark blanket obscured any view of the lifeless legs that had kept him a prisoner of these rooms ever since he was carried home from a war that he had joined nobly, idealistically, belatedly, and impulsively.
That Morgan had bought that commission so late in the war always struck Sebastian as an impossible irony. One might wonder if the French retreat in the Peninsular campaign had been timed just so fate could ruin Morgan’s life.
Sebastian took his place in a chair that faced his brother and poured some coffee from the waiting pot. No servants or footmen hovered to intrude upon this daily hour that they shared.
Morgan looked up from his letter. “I am glad to see that you are back.”
“I was unexpectedly delayed by the rain yesterday.” Normally if he were going to miss these morning visits, he let Morgan know. Yesterday, that had not been possible, of course.
Sebastian did not mind this demand on his time. He had created it himself, by starting the habit and allowing his brother to depend on it. Morgan had so few visitors now that the company of family was all that broke up the day for him.
And yet, as Sebastian made his explanation for yesterday’s absence, he did not miss how his own life had changed along with his brother’s. The paralysis that kept Morgan in these chambers, living a tragically altered life, had radically changed Sebastian’s fate too.
“I was down near Brighton,” Sebastian said. “I was looking into something related to that ordnance matter.”
“It might have just been negligence, like everyone thinks.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“No.” Morgan looked out the window, but his sight really turned inward. To the memories of war, Sebastian suspected.
Morgan had followed that ordnance scandal closely, shaking his head over the newspaper reports of a company left defenseless by bad gunpowder. The Marquess of Wittonbury wanted those dead soldiers to have justice, and Sebastian wanted his brother to know the satisfaction that his comrades in arms had finally been vindicated.
“Did you learn anything?”
“I may have discovered a man who knows something. It may turn up information that dislodges the truth in the end. Finally.”
Morgan nodded absently. He picked up one of the neatly ironed newspapers waiting for his attention.
Sebastian did the same. These visits had become routine. Ritualized.
“Our mother visited yesterday afternoon,” Morgan said while he perused the paper. “She wanted to talk about you.”
Now, that was not routine. “Did she now?”
“Mmmm. She wants me to tell you that you must marry. She has picked out several girls who are suitable.”
“I am sure she thinks they are.”
“I told her that she should not fool herself that you have changed that much. I suggested that what she sees as a new leaf is merely foliage rearranged to obscure the old bark. Discretion is not the same as repentance or reform.”
“Thank you.”
“She became very determined and imperious—well, you know how she can be.”
“Is she visiting you often these days?”
Morgan shrugged. “More than before.”
“Too much, then. Tell Fenwood that you are not receiving when she comes next time. Do not allow her to make this apartment hers to enter as she chooses.”
There had always been the danger that their mother would turn Morgan back into a child if given half the chance. She would intrude and coddle and dominate until he lost his right to be a separate man.
That was why Sebastian had moved back into this house upon his brother’s return from war. His presence ensured that their mother could not expand her rule too much, especially when it came to her older son.
“You were always better at managing her than I was. Like so much else,” Morgan said.
There was nothing to say to that, so they both returned their attention to their papers.
“You said you were down near Brighton yesterday? Did you hear anything about this spectacle at the Two Swords?”
“Spectacle?”
Morgan peered at the print in front of him. A grin broke. “Some fellow’s lover shot him. Now that must have been good theater. Not dead, it seems. Still, it must have been all the talk down there.”
“What are you reading there?”
Morgan flushed. “One of our mother’s scandal sheets.”
“From Brighton?”
“London.”
Damn. Sir Edwin had been correct. The gossip had probably arrived in town before either of its victims. Evidently, no names were in that scandal sheet, however.
Yet.
The ritual ended at eleven o’clock. Sebastian took his leave and returned to his own chambers. His valet greeted him with a sealed letter in his hand.
“The directions were not accurate, sir.”
“Mrs. Kelmsleigh does, and Miss Sarah Kelmsleigh. However, Audrianna Kelmsleigh does not. The footman inquired and was told that she has taken residence in Middlesex near the village of Cumberworth.”
Sebastian carried the letter into his dressing room. He opened a drawer and gazed at the pistol that he had carried away from the Two Swords. His attempt to initiate arrangements to return it discreetly had been for naught.
He could send the footman to Cumberworth. If Miss Kelmsleigh had been rusticated there, a few queries should locate her. He could pack up the pistol and give it to the footman too, and be done with this.
He saw that pistol in a soft, feminine hand. He saw a woman’s green eyes flashing spirit, then sparking with fascination and passion, and finally dulled by melancholy. He pictured her walking through the inn to the coach, pretending not to notice how the other patrons stared and whispered.
He told his valet to call for his horse.
Chapter Five
Cumberworth remained a country village, but London moved closer every year. It had already been absorbed into the environs of the city, one of many small Middlesex hamlets that saw newcomers mix with old residents, and land developers carve farms into small estates for the prosperous families of its larger neighbor.
Sebastian’s arrival therefore did not raise much notice. He rode down the main lane, past shops in old, half-timbered buildings and stone homes lined shoulder to shoulder. He looked for a tavern.
The Baron’s Board was not busy at two o’clock, and Sebastian received his ale quickly. He stood while he drank, and submitted to the proprietor’s curious inspection.
“Weather this damp in town?” the man asked while he wiped some pint mugs.
“Worse,” Sebastian said.
“You be on your way to someplace drier?”
“No, I came here looking for someone on a matter of business. Perhaps you know her. Miss Kelmsleigh.”
The proprietor chuckled. “I know her, and her friends. Everyone in Cumberworth knows Mrs. Joyes’s houseguests.”
“Do they now? I believe Miss Kelmsleigh is a cousin, not a houseguest.”
“Hard to know what to call those women, now isn’t it? The rest aren’t relatives, I don’t think. Just a collection of females who came to visit and never left.”
“Does Mrs. Joyes live in the village?”
“She has property outside of it a short ways. Nice house and a good bit of land. She grows flowers there in a big conservatory. She sells them in London to fancy flower shops. Her house is back off the road some, so right where you have to turn off, she has a painted sign. The Rarest Blooms, she calls her trade.” He chuckled again. “Nice enough women. Keep to themselves mostly. No reason to think anything disreputable is about them, but people will talk, won’t they?”
Undoubtedly. Sebastian finished his ale and asked for directions to this sign of The Rarest Blooms.
Fifteen minutes later he turned down the private lane that took him to Mrs. Joyes’s house.
It was the sort of good, solid home that could be found all over England. Handsome in its smoothly dressed gray stone, it was too big to be called a cottage and too small to be called a manor. It rose two levels high beneath its steeply pitched attics, with only carefully proportioned windows decorating its plain facade.
No groom appeared to take his horse, so Sebastian tied the reins to a post. The time he waited after his knock on the door suggested that few servants worked here, despite the way the property insinuated good fortune.
Eventually the door opened. A very thin housekeeper of middling years peered at him from beneath her cap’s ruffle. She read his card and peered again. Her gaze lingered on the oblong wooden box under his arm.
“I am told that Miss Kelmsleigh lives here,” he said. “I have come to return something that she lost.”
A pretty blond girl stepped into view. She also read the card. “I will take care of this, Mrs. Hill.”
The older woman slipped away. The blond girl bid him to enter. “You should speak with Mrs. Joyes,” she said. “She owns this house. She is in the greenhouse. I will take you to her.”
She ambled off, leading him to the back of the house. They passed a library with handsome cases and many upholstered chairs. A second sitting room occupied the rear of the house. He could see a conservatory through one of its windows.
Situated twenty yards behind the house, the conservatory was much larger than the ones normally found at country homes unless they were very large estates. Glass formed the upper half of all the walls in a mosaic of rectangular panes held together with iron.
Entry to the conservatory came at the end of a corridor that gave off from the sitting room. His guide opened a door and humid warmth flowed over him. He looked up. Half of the pitched roof consisted of small panes of glass too.
“Wait here, please.” She disappeared around a huge potted palm. A few moments later she stepped back into view and gestured for him. She pointed him toward Mrs. Joyes, then took her leave.
Mrs. Joyes worked at a table covered with soil-filled pots. The same soil spotted her apron, hands, and cap. As he approached, she lifted a rag to clean off the worst of it.
She had a beautiful face. Very pale. Very perfect. Dark gray eyes. She possessed a natural elegance that even affected the way she stood. If he had never seen her before, he might have struck him dumb. Except he had seen her before. He was sure of it.
“Lord Sebastian Summerhays, we are honored. We do not often have such illustrious guests. Are you seeking a special flower as a gift for a loved one? We have rare pelagoriums of our own hybridization that are always appreciated.”
“I am seeking a woman who I am told lives here. Miss Kelmsleigh.” He nodded to the box he carried. “I must return something of hers.”
“Miss Kelmsleigh is not at home. I expect her to return very shortly, if you would like to wait. Or you can leave the box with me.”
Well, there it was. He could set the box down and walk out. There was no reason not to trust Mrs. Joyes to give it over when Miss Kelmsleigh returned. If he required she not open it, she most likely would swallow her curiosity.
“If you expect her soon, I should give it to her personally.”
“I will send word that she come here as soon as she returns, then.” She turned her head. “Lizzie, would you—Now, where has she gone? She was here just before Celia brought you in, and even read your card . . .” She clucked her tongue and displayed exasperation. “Please wait here, Lord Sebastian, while I personally tell the others to send Miss Kelmsleigh to us.”
She left him amid the greenery. The air carried a lush scent that contained a bit of everything within its moist density. Citrus and roses and even the clean hint of grass. A person could get drunk on such perfume. He poked at the soil in one pot that Mrs. Joyes had been working. His finger touched the mass of a bulb.
He ambled down the aisle, past several potted lemon trees and tables of blooming flowers. At the end of the building a grape vine grew inside the glass. It was rooted outside, but its thick core entered through a low hole in the brick wall. Its various tendrils wove up sturdy supports, then rambled across iron bars two feet above his head. A stone table and four chairs sat under this leafy indoor arbor, creating a Tuscan vignette.
“That was an experiment,” Mrs. Joyes said as she rejoined him. “The grape vine. I did not think it would work.”
“It must be pleasant to sit at this table on sunny days in winter. You have a remarkable conservatory here.”
“It is a greenhouse. Most of what people call conservatories are really greenhouses or forcing houses. I suppose that does not sound fancy enough so the wrong word has become common. A real conservatory does just that, conserve plants over winter while they are dormant. We have one of those too, at the back of the garden.”
&
nbsp; Her face arrested his attention again. “Please excuse me, but I believe I have been unintentionally rude. We have met before, I am sure, but I cannot remember where.”
“We have indeed met, years ago. I was a governess for the family of the Duke of Becksbridge. You and I were introduced at a garden party which I was allowed to attend with the eldest of my charges. You have an excellent memory for the insignificant people whose paths you cross in life, Lord Sebastian.”
If she were indeed insignificant, he might deserve the praise, but he doubted any man forgot meeting her. “There were other parties where the children were present. I do not recall you at those.”
“I was only with them one year before I met Captain Joyes and left my situation.”
There had been no talk in the town of any man at this house. “Is your husband in the naval service?”
“He was in the army. He died in the Peninsular War.” The question did not alter her graceful manner, but her eyes darkened enough to suggest the subject still brought her sorrow. “If you will excuse me again, I will go and see what is keeping Audrianna. She should have returned by now.”
Audrianna stared at the card Daphne had left with Celia. Lord Sebastian Summerhays was here.
Why? And how had he even found her?
The answer came to her within an instant of the question. He must have gone to her mother’s house first. Mama would be writing to her soon, wanting to know what had provoked her father’s persecutor to notice them again.
“Sit, please, Audrianna. I can barely reach even standing on my toes,” Celia said.
Audrianna sank into a chair so Celia could fuss with her hair. Celia was the best among them with dressing hair. She presented her own blond locks in an endless variety of styles.
“She did say right away.” Audrianna reminded Celia of the message she herself had given upon Audrianna’s return to the house.
Ravishing in Red Page 5