Summerton (Lady Eleanor Mysteries Book 1)

by Becca St. John

  “Spy on them?” Sir Michael blustered.

  “Discreetly. I’m afraid I don’t have much faith in Mr. Howlett’s concerns.”

  “You doubt him?”

  “Don’t you? Mr. Howlett is a man familiar with charming. But he’s revealed his temper this evening.” She put her needlework down on the piano bench, “I fear he is at his wit’s end, and he could be dangerous.”

  “But we’ve already ruled him out. He hasn’t been here and he appears genuinely concerned for Caroline,” Sir Michael argued.

  “Has he?” Eleanor looked up. “Are we certain of that?”

  “I saw him,” the magistrate confirmed, “at the Fox and Hound, shaking off the dust just as we were.”

  “Did you see him pull into the yard?” Eleanor asked.

  “Can’t say as I did, but what difference does that make? Only reason to be at the Fox and Hound would be traveling between here and Manchester, and he hadn’t been here.”

  “You must be right.” Eleanor nodded absently. “But perhaps it would be best if Summerton observed them.”

  “I’m going to do just that,” he agreed. “But Aunt, we’ve plenty of men around the grounds. Nothing should happen.”

  Before he quit the room, Eleanor suggested, “Take a footman or two with you.”

  He stilled in the doorway to study Eleanor. She did not waver.

  “That worrisome?” he asked. “Despite the men already there?”

  “I’m afraid it might be. Don’t dawdle.”

  He called for Hitches as he hurried to the back of the house, where he could slip out unseen from the back gardens.

  “And me?” Sir Michael asked.

  “You and I,” Eleanor rose, “will have a word with Mr. Little. I expect him at any moment.”

  ***

  The air was musty from the ground they disturbed, and the scent of apple blossoms filled the night.

  “Thank you for suggesting a walk.” Her leash had been too short these last few days. Caroline hadn’t realized how much she missed walking outdoors. “Spring is so rich and full of new life.”

  “That it is, pet, that it is.”

  “I’m sorry you had to come all this way for nothing.”

  “It isn’t nothing, Caroline. Very important business, these marriages and settlements.”

  It shouldn’t be. How awful it would have been to share what she and Summerton had shared that very afternoon with someone you loathed. She shuddered. “I was awful to you, uncle. I had no idea you were that worried or that he would turn out to be such a wonderful man.”

  “Is he? Barely spoke two words to you before you married.” He turned down a tunnel of a path, trees arching overhead, high and green.

  “I’ve never been this far.” She hesitated. Summerton had asked her to stay in sight, but her uncle had already demonstrated that he cared for her safety. Apologies could be shown, as much as said. She needed to trust him.

  She took his arm. “Summerton faced heavy demands. Even if he’d wanted to, there was no time for me. Not then.” She squeezed his arm. “If the two of you sat me down and talked to me…”

  He tsked. “Caroline, you are a woman. You need to trust us men to know what’s best.”

  “Without any say?” She looked at him.

  He shook his head, chuckling. “And you tell me you’re happy, so it appears it did all work for the best, which means we were right, weren’t we?”

  “Father always gave me the opportunity to consider options…”

  “Your father spoiled you, and it wasn’t well done of him. The world does not work that way.”

  “He trusted me with his interests.” They were a long way from the hall, far from sight. She looked back, over her shoulder, into total darkness. “Uncle.”

  He ignored her tug. “That was badly done, Caroline. Very badly done on his part.”

  What was badly done? “I think we should return.”

  “Do you? But it’s been so long since we’ve had the chance to visit.”

  “Uncle.” Again, Caroline tried to pull back, but he held her tight.

  “Do you remember the Robinson affair? The boy who lost his arm?”

  They’d had a row, she and her father, her uncle teasing her for being too soft. In the end, her father had relented, grudgingly. They’d reimbursed the family for work lost and found the boy a job he could do with one arm. “It was our responsibility.”

  Robert smiled. “It was his responsibility to do his job so he didn’t get hurt. Yet you set the business on a course it should never have taken. An example was set.”

  “He did his job right. The machine broke.”

  “Life isn’t always fair.”

  She tried to pull free again. “You’re hurting my arm, Uncle.”

  “I was with your father from the beginning,” he said, ignoring her. “Before you were a sparkle in his eye. I made things easier for him, softening folks he’d insulted, easing situations he’d turned into battles.” He patted her hand on his arm. “Getting rid of people in the way. He never appreciated that.” His sigh whispered on the night air. “All this, I did all this, but he listened to you.”

  “He took your counsel, had you by his side…”

  “On a leash. He had me on a leash.” Anger twisted his smile, more malevolent for the deep shadows.

  She stopped, firm. He’d have to drag her to get her further. “Uncle Robert.” The tunnel of greenery grew ominous. “We’ve come a long way.”

  As quickly as fury rose, it settled. Malevolence transformed to cosseting concern. He released her, adjusted the shawl on her shoulders. “Come on, then. Let’s get you back inside.” And offered his arm again, to head back.

  They didn’t speak. The chirps and croaks of frogs around them the only sounds, as Caroline considered her father, her uncle, and their relationship. “You’ve been angry with him for a long time?” Caroline asked.

  His hand tightened on hers, then relaxed. “Anger is such a harsh word, Caroline. We were brothers. There’s always a little rivalry with brothers. Pay no attention. I said too much.”

  “I never realized.” But she had, somewhere, deep inside. Robert had moods. That’s what her father called them. Your uncle is going away for a time, pet. He’s in one of his moods.

  “Water under the bridge.”

  He let go of her and stepped back. “Brotherly rivalry,” he mused, shaking his head. “Ruined everything. The whole reason I never married.”

  She stilled, as he stopped to remove a thin silver cheroot holder. Foolish to be afraid, he was taking her back to the hall. There was nothing to worry about.

  Even as she thought that, she worried over wearing skirts that would tangle if she needed to run.

  But she wouldn’t need to run.

  He held up a cheroot. “Do you mind? I know,” he chuckled, “terribly lower class, but there you have it. I never took to snuff.”

  She shook her head. “How will you light it? No candle or tinder to be found out here.”

  He snapped the silver lid closed with a decisive click. “Instantaneous lighter. I’ll show you, if you’ll give me a moment. The idea is not quite perfected, but I believe I’ve got the hang of it.”

  A bird rustled, twittered. Disturbed by them or something else? Caroline looked around, tried to look into the wood, further down the path.

  Robert tapped the end of the cheroot against the case, drawing her attention. When she realized he was watching her, studying her, she stepped back. He stepped forward, as though her walking backward and his advancing were a perfectly normal way to conduct a conversation in the middle of the woods on a dark night.

  “Your mother was supposed to be mine,” He tsked and tilted his head, smiling. “But then she was, in the end.” He held the tobacco. “To think, you could have been my daughter.”

  “My mother?” Her mother had been strangled by highway robbers. Uncle Robert had been out of town. In one of his moods.

  Hadn’t he?
>
  “Of course she loved me.” He lifted the cheroot to his lips, patted his coat. “Ah, here it is.” He pulled a vial from an inside pocket. “But she was as much a whore as any woman,” he said, with such ease, as if discussing the most mundane of topics. Caroline questioned her hearing. “And your father with his bloody Midas touch.” He put the cheroot to his lips, his face scrunching, nostrils flaring, as he snapped the glass vial apart.

  Flame surged from the broken glass, which he lifted to the tip of his cheroot. The light cast his features in sepulchered shadows, creating a monster behind him in the night.

  Only, it wasn’t a monster. It was Biggs, revealed in the halo of light, looming over him, arms spread wide, ready to engulf him.

  Caroline screamed, then turned and ran straight into Roger Little’s arms.

  “Put him down,” Roger demanded, holding Caroline tight. One arm pinning both of hers, the other wrapped around her neck.

  “No, Roger!” she warned. “You won’t get free this time. There are men everywhere.”

  “And I’m one of them.” He laughed. “I’ve been hired as a guard.”

  “That’s my boy!” Robert Howlett smiled with pride. “You can let me down now, Biggs.”

  Biggs did not release him.

  “What do you mean, ‘my boy’?” Caroline asked.

  “He’s my father, isn’t he?” Roger explained.

  “Your father? What about Mr. Little?”

  Roger tightened his hold on her. “Quiet, you, or I’ll break your neck,” he whispered in her ear.

  “True,” Robert cooed, as if she were a toddler. “He will, little Caroline. Best keep mum.” Then to Roger, “Go ahead, tell her, my boy. My heir.”

  Mad. They were both mad.

  Roger chuckled. “Mr. Little had to go to London with your father, didn’t he? Took your ma, too. But they didn’t take Mrs. Little or my father. Deed done, and here I am. Spitting image, wouldn’t you say?”

  And he was. Of course he was. How had she missed that? He looked exactly like her Uncle Robert.

  “Roger Little died, son. Do you remember? After that girl in Edinburgh?”

  “And Edward Howlett was born.”

  “Exactly.” Robert Howlett struggled to get free, barking, “I’m warning you, Biggs, I don’t like it when you interfere with my games.”

  “Mr. John pays me to interfere.”

  “But Mr. John is dead. I’m the Mr. Howlett you must listen to now.”

  “Mr. John may be dead, but he’s still paying me.”

  Roger was watching the confrontation and had loosened his hold, but Caroline didn’t think, for a moment, she could pull free. Even if she could, her blasted skirts would keep her from running far.

  Instead, she went limp, dropping like dead weight, taking Roger by such surprise, she easily pulled him with her when she tucked and rolled.

  Down they went, her skirts falling indecently as she landed on top of him, both of them on their backs. He’d been winded by either fall or the shock of falling, she neither knew nor cared which.

  She flipped over, and with a swift, hard jerk, she raised her knee between his legs, then scrambled free of his convulsive curl to protect himself.

  Breathing heavily, she stood and brushed her hands as Robert howled and Summerton plowed through the undergrowth, six men fast on his heels.

  “You screamed!” He looked as ready to kill as the footmen who’d surrounded the whimpering, prostrate form of Roger Little, who’d curled in on himself, gagging.

  “Your lordship?” Biggs said. “I’ve got him, just like I told you I would.”

  “You were there?” Caroline asked.

  “Shh, my love, I’d not let anything happen to you.”

  “You were there?” She couldn’t quite fathom it.

  “Just in time to see you topple him,” he admitted. “Good Lord, I’ve never been so…amazed, proud, afraid, in the whole of my life,” he admitted, pulling her close for a quick, hard kiss. “Now, let’s get these men back to the house so we can hand them over to Sir Michael. I don’t ever want to see them again.” He winked at Caroline, “And I don’t think this one—” he shoved Roger with the toe of his boot, “—will care much for seeing you.”

  “I haven’t done anything wrong,” Mr. Howlett wailed.

  “Aye, you have, Mr. Robert. Lady Eleanor says you killed those girls. Says she can prove it, besides,” Biggs told him.

  “What, a woman? They are going to take the word of a woman over…” Biggs ignored his blathering, put him out with one punch, and slung him over his shoulder. “That will keep ’im quiet for a bit.”

  As the footmen looked down at Roger, one of them shook his head. “Don’t think we can move him yet, your grace.”

  “You’ve rope?”

  “Just like you said.” Another of them held up a coil.

  “Tie him up. Bring him when you can.” Summerton flinched.

  “Did I injure him badly?” Caroline asked.

  “The cad deserved that and more. You took your lesson to heart.”

  That very afternoon, Summerton had explained a few facts about male anatomy and suggested reliable ways she could protect herself. In the most dire of circumstances, of course.

  “You weren’t the first man to suggest that defense,” she told him.

  “There was another?” She couldn’t help but smirk. She’d shocked him. Obviously, he’d forgotten she’d been raised by a man who didn’t share his refined sensibilities.

  “My father knew the dangers of mill yards and factories.” She frowned, realizing he may have been more concerned about the danger of his brother. “He was very direct. Told me it was my best defense, but that I would only have one chance.”

  “To use it in the direst of situations.”

  Caroline bit her lip. “This felt rather dire.”

  “It was, my love. I just don’t want the power to go to your head.”

  “Ah,” she smiled, a secret little smile, knowing it would worry him for years.

  CHAPTER 27 – Loose Ends

  As was their habit, they gathered in the study for tea and port. Summerton chose to forego his usual spot—standing in the shadow, leaning against his desk, to sit beside Caroline on the settee. Lady Eleanor and Sir Michael took their regular places and Mr. Little, who had not participated in this part of the evening on his last visit, had been invited to take a seat in a spare chair, pulled up to the group by Summerton.

  “They’re secured for the night,” Sir Michael announced, referring to Roger Little and Robert Howlett. “We’ve spoken with Jeremy and Biggs. Appears Biggs’ function was to watch over Robert Howlett, not watch out for him. Stop him from hurting others.”

  “Well done,” Summerton said, squeezing Caroline’s hand. She squeezed back.Even Lady Eleanor offered a smile.

  “What I want to know,” Mr. Little asked, “is how Lady Eleanor knew I was at the Inn?”

  “You knew?” Caroline asked.

  “Oh, yes.” Eleanor, with her ever-present needlework in hand, said, “I knew he wouldn’t leave until Roger was found.”

  “Yes.” He scratched his jaw. “Well, he was supposed to be in Scotland, but one never knew for certain, not once he matured, and once I heard about Alice, well, I feared the boy had a hand in it.

  “My father was quite harsh with Roger, banning him as he did.” Caroline wondered, “Do you think that affected Roger, perhaps turned him bad?

  “Harsh? I don’t know what I would have done if he hadn’t stepped in. And it was his responsibility, by Jove. Roger never would have existed if your father had taken his brother in hand.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Robert Howlett wanted your mum from the moment he set eyes on her. Caroline’s father had just started courting her, but when Robert showed his hand, John didn’t waste any time wedding her. That’s when we were young, our futures no more than dreams in our heads.”

  “But Robert didn’t take it well?” Eleanor
suggested.

  Little snorted. “John called them ‘Robert’s Moods.’ Each time he fell into one, John would send him off to the old farm where Robert’s mother lived. She was not the sort of woman who made good company. Being around her probably made it worse.”

  “I’d forgotten they were half-brothers, the two Mr. Howletts. But are you saying their father never married Robert’s mother?” Sir Michael asked.

  “Never. Didn’t even know that he had another son until the lad was four or five years old. But looks told out,” Little said.

  “He looks just like my grandfather did,” Caroline confirmed.

  “Bitter about it, then?” Summerton asked. “Even though he weathered better than other boys born out of wedlock? At least he was recognized, cared for.”

  Little snorted. “Not that he sees that. Matters grew worse when John’s Ellie took with little Caroline here. John’s excitement over the expectation only deepened Robert’s bitterness.”

  “But he always seemed so jovial!” Caroline said.

  “Oh, always the life of the party, was our Robert, but he stuck more daggers in a chuckle than other men could do with a sneer.” Sad-eyed, he reminded her. “Actions, Caroline, always look to actions rather than words. Your father knew that. So, though your mother was carrying you, he risked taking her with us on business rather than leave her at home alone. Didn’t dare with Robert about.”

  “Oh, dear.” Eleanor’s hand went to her mouth. “So he struck out at the closest woman he could get.”

  Little nodded. “My wife’s happiness was destroyed for new equipment. The sort of business that made John the man he became. I had to go to negotiate contracts. None of us suspected he would turn on my Ellie.”

  “And during that trip,” Summerton suggested, “Roger was conceived.”

  Little rose and walked to the French doors overlooking the yard they’d crossed to capture Robert Howlett. “We were gone a month. He kidnapped my Ellie. She did not go voluntarily. I came home to a house full of toppled furniture. There was blood on the floor and strands of her beautiful hair, yanked clear out of her head.” He leaned against the doorframe. “I stood amid that mess, lost, lost to the world, when Robert brought Ellie into the house. He said they’d had a nice visit with his mum. Out of town. Hoped I didn’t mind.” His fist crashed against the door frame. “I wanted to kill him, would have, but Ellie stopped me. The look of her, I don’t think she would have survived anything, but to get the man out of the house. So, so fragile, my poor girl.