by Louise Allen
‘Absolutely,’ Guin said earnestly. ‘As close as possible. Mr Hunt – Lord Ravenlaw, I should say – is my bodyguard.’
‘Oh yes. A servant.’ She reached one of a row of doors in a wide corridor, opened it and swept in.
‘Lord Ravenlaw is too much a gentleman to sit around bemoaning the injustices of fate and sponging off others to live.’ Guin looked around the room with a perfectly genuine smile: it was, after all, charming. ‘He does what it takes to support himself honourably.’ She laid the faintest emphasis on the last word and saw it strike home. Yes, I know what you did. But she would not show any overt antagonism, that was not the plan that they had hammered out over three days of discussion, letter-writing and speculation.
Now she kept the smile in place, moderating it towards sympathy. ‘It must be very hard to have to entertain guests while you are in mourning. How long is it since your husband died?’
‘A month. I am amazed that Jac – Jared did not know of it.’ Bella moved around the room shifting the position of a vase of flowers, aligning the edges of the books on the bedside table.
‘I doubt he scours the death notices – or any others, for news of Yorkshire,’ Guin said. ‘It must all have seemed very remote to him.’ Nor had she seen anything and she thought she would have noticed news of a death so close to Allerton, even though she did not know the family. The accidental passing of the heir to an earl who lived quietly in the country with no political ambitions was hardly something that would attract great notice.
Her conscience was troubling her, a little. If Bella and William had resorted to such an appalling subterfuge to wed, this had been a love match. ‘You must miss your husband very much.’
Bella shrugged. ‘One becomes used to marriage, of course. One grows up and becomes oneself, not a girl anymore. One sees that it is not all rose petals and champagne, does one not?’
She fell out of love with him and he with her. This is a woman who needs rose petals and champagne, not life on a windswept moor with a father-in-law who disapproved of her and a husband who did not deliver the fairy tale romance she had perjured herself for.
‘Your daughters must be a comfort to you. You have three, do you not?’
‘They are with my mother in Whitby. I saw no reason why they should be shrouded in gloom here.’
The gloom was within their mother, Guin thought. And within their grandfather, of course. No wonder Bella made friends with the Quentens when they arrived in the neighbourhood. Perhaps it had been almost a welcome distraction to support Elizabeth in her troubles – the family’s financial woes, her anguish over Francis. I am becoming all too sympathetic, she thought. Time for that once we have stopped these murderous games.
‘You do not wear mourning,’ Bella observed, her hand on the door.
‘No. Augustus did not like it.’
Bella made no observation on that, merely observing, ‘There will be tea in the Green Parlour in a short while,’ as she closed the door behind her.
What does she know, I wonder?
‘You want me to invite a murderer into my house?’ His father sat back in his desk chair with a grunt of disbelief.
‘I want you to invite your neighbours the Quentens and a complete stranger to join your house party and to set a trap. When I tell you the history of this I think you will agree.’
They would not be overheard, not with Dover taking a leisurely interest in the trophies of arms set along the passageway outside. Jared set himself to explain the history of Guin’s marriages and Theo’s inheritance.
When he finished the Earl sat up, thumped his fist on the desk. ‘The woman’s insane.’
‘She is certainly not in her right mind. Her servant, Thomas Bainton, is plainly in possession of all his faculties. Whether he is acting out of warped devotion to his mistress or for gain, I do not know.’
‘They have killed Northam, attempted to implicate his nephew and harassed Lady Northam in the most serious manner,’ his father summarised, suddenly looking like the magistrate he was. ‘These are people I have entertained in my house, neighbours my daughter-in-law is intimate with.’
‘I have no idea whether Quenten himself realises what is going on,’ Jared said. ‘No proof either way.’
‘And we need to entertain them again, offer hospitality under our roof.’
‘And give her the opportunity to murder.’
‘Is this what your life has been since you left?’ his father demanded suddenly. ‘Murder, treachery?’
‘Not so much. There were moments when I was travelling around the globe with Calderbrook when having one’s throat cut was a daily danger and there have been moments of some drama since, but I was settling down to perfect tranquillity as a swordmaster with my own salle d’armes and a prospect of peaceful respectability.’
There was a snort from across the desk. Jared found that he was beginning to like the man, which was a surprise. ‘To be accurate about these invitations – the complete stranger is already on his way and should be here tomorrow along with the Quentens.’
His father waved a hand in acceptance. ‘This is your home, invite who you wish.’ Then his gaze sharpened. ‘Am I making assumptions? Are you going to stay or are you leaving again, back to London and your alias and your swords?’
It was the question Jared had been avoiding asking himself, but he knew the answer. ‘I am staying.’ Not that he liked that answer but there was one thing he could not walk away from and that was a title that would always follow him and an estate full of people who relied on him for their livelihoods. And generations of history that were strangely compelling now the responsibility of carrying them was in his hands.
‘I’ll keep the salle d’armes as an investment and because I am interested. I’ll find a swordmaster to run it.’ And move my big carved bed and my copper bath into the Huntingford London house. He pushed away the worry that he was never going to see Guinevere in that bed. ‘I’ll use the Town house if I may, move between there and here.’
‘Good.’ There was the sort of pause that, with an English gentleman of a certain stamp signalled an outpouring of emotion, then his father cleared his throat. ‘Will the Quentens accept the invitation?’ the Earl asked.
‘I don’t see how they can resist – Guinevere and Theo under one roof.’ He found his fingers were on the hilt of his rapier and smiled.
Bella poured tea, Theo and Jared ferried cups around, Guin smiled brightly. They were all on their best behaviour and the tension was crackling like static electricity. Or perhaps she was the only one who could sense it. Jared seemed utterly relaxed, his father was being bluff and hearty, Bella chilly and Theo seemed determined to charm his cousin by marriage, Elizabeth Quenten.
Elizabeth sat next to her husband Julian, a polite social smile on her lips. Guin searched for some resemblance to Francis and found it only in her eyes, her one fine feature, blue and long-lashed in her oval face.
The more she saw of Julian, the more she could see the family resemblance to Augustus in looks. Intellectually he appeared rather dull, the kind of man of no great intellect or enterprise who was swept along on life’s currents. When things went wrong, as they apparently had with their finances, he would have no resolution and drive to get the family out of trouble, allowing them to sink in a welter of ineffectual lamentations.
He was a gentleman, therefore he could not work, but as a landowner he had no enterprise. Elizabeth, his Lettie, had that, clearly. Why not apply yourself to rescuing the family fortunes by some honest means, you foolish woman? Guin thought, accepting a biscuit from the plate Theo offered and nodding earnestly at the tale of how young Master Charles Quenten had mastered his latest Latin text.
‘His tutor must be an excellent instructor,’ she remarked.
‘He studies with the Vicar,’ Mr Quenten said. His wife cleared her throat. ‘A notable scholar in his time,’ he added hastily.
Beside Lord Huntingford sat the latest arrival, Sir Andrew Hewson. He had be
en introduced as an old friend of the Earl’s, travelling from Nottinghamshire to some business in Newcastle and breaking his journey for a few days. They were, Guin thought, most convincing with their occasional mentions of student life at Oxford and mutual acquaintances.
Sir Andrew seemed a trifle vague in manner, but the sleepy grey eyes showed some amusement when they settled on Theo and Guin found them uncomfortably assessing when she met his gaze for a few moment.
They had got through dinner the night before, and the day so far before the arrival of the Quentens, and then Sir Andrew, by the simple expedient of rigorously formal good manners with the widowed Lady Ravenlaw. No-one made any attempt to overcome Bella’s antipathy and now Guin watched for signs that she knew what was in her friend’s mind. There seemed nothing, no covert exchange of glances, no attempts to go off and talk more privately.
‘I understand that condolences are owing to both you ladies,’ Sir Andrew said suddenly. ‘I had heard, of course, of my friend’s tragic loss.’ He inclined his head towards Bella’s elegant black draperies. ‘But I understand from the newspapers that you too are recently bereaved, Lady Northam.’
Guin, who was wearing deep blue lustring with blonde lace and paler blue ribbons, guessed that this lack of tact was all part of the plan. Jared had been sparing with detail. ‘My late husband disliked ladies wearing mourning. I choose to follow his wishes.’
‘Lady Northam was hardly out of mourning for her first husband when she married Northam,’ Lord Huntingford remarked.
‘Lady Northam has been most unfortunate,’ Bella remarked. ‘I do feel for her.’
But what is it that you feel? Guin wondered, inclining her head in acknowledgment. ‘As we are amongst friends,’ she said with a complete disregard for the reality, ‘I can admit that my first marriage was a disaster from start to finish. I allowed myself to be seduced away from home by a scoundrel, made a Scottish marriage and then lost him to an accident.’
‘Dashed bad show,’ the Earl said, taking a large bite from a macaron. ‘But all for the best, eh? If he was such a shady cove, that is.’
‘Absolutely,’ Theo said, cheerfully heaping coals on the blaze. ‘The man sounds a complete wastrel, one of those charming types who prey on innocent young ladies. But if it hadn’t been for him then I would never have acquired such a delightful aunt, would I?’
Guin saw Jared shift in his chair as though to adjust the cushion at his back. He was looking at Mrs Quenten, she realised, and risked a glace in that direction.
Her former sister-in-law sat perfectly still, the picture of rather stolid respectability pretending to ignore the somewhat tactless comments of the gentlemen. Her eyes were blank, expressionless, and fixed on Guin.
Guin put down her cup and saucer before the instinctive recoil sent tea everywhere. That had not even been hate in those blue depths, only a nothingness, a horror of emptiness. Augustus had told her that he had once been on a ship when the sailors had caught a shark and hauled it up onto deck still alive. He had said its eyes had held nothing but the utter blankness of something devoid of conscience, devoid of anything but the instinct to kill. It had given him nightmares for a long time, he had said with a shudder.
This woman, so close she could touch her, had willed Augustus’s death, had harassed and frightened Guin, had schemed to see Theo hang for her crimes.
Chapter Twenty Four
‘Excuse me,’ Guin said to Theo who was sitting next to her. ‘I have a slight headache. I must step outside for some fresh air, I think.’ She gestured to the gentlemen to resume their seats and stopped beside Bella’s chair. ‘Would you be so kind as to show me how to get out onto the terrace, Lady Ravenlaw? Perhaps we could stroll for a few minutes.’
‘Of course.’ Bella stood and went to the door. ‘We can go out this way.’
They paced along the terrace side by side for a while, then Guin said, ‘Is Mrs Quenten quite well, do you think? She seems strangely subdued to me.’
‘She lost her brother some time ago. It affected her deeply.’ Bella did not look at Guin.
‘How sad.’
‘I think you would describe him as somewhat of a loose screw,’ Bella added drily. ‘I never met him.’
They reached the edge of the terrace and turned. ‘But they lost their parents young and Lettie was more a mother to him than anything and she doted on him,’ Bella continued. The amusement had gone now. ‘She is a fiercely loyal woman. Her brother, her sons – I think she would do anything for them.’
Does she suspect? Is she afraid that her friend has stepped over the boundary into obsession and murder? ‘That can be admirable, if not carried to extremes.’
‘Yes.’ They walked on a few more steps. ‘It is very lonely here,’ Bella said abruptly. ‘Sometimes it gives me the shivers. One makes friends where one can.’
‘Allerton Grange belongs to Theo now. I have to admit to being quite pleased that I can retreat to London and leave it to him to decide whether to come up here in the winter.’
‘They say… Forgive me, but the rumours… They say he – ’
‘Murdered my husband and is having an affaire with me? No, neither of those things are true. If they were I would not need a bodyguard,’ she added, watching to see what the reaction to that would be.
‘But I thought my father-in-law said the problems you had been having were not serious, that they are more like practical jokes than attacks.’
‘The kind of practical jokes that could go seriously wrong very easily, jokes involving firearms and explosives,’ Guin said drily. ‘And then when we were coming back from Whitby, that day when you and Jared met, there was a serious attempt to kill all of us.’
‘Surely not?’ Bella stopped short of the balustrade and took Guin by the forearm. ‘Surely not.’
‘I do not know how else you would categorise weakening the axle and damaging the brakes on a carriage about to travel fully loaded over that road.’
‘But that is…’
‘Not a practical joke, no. Difficult to know who would have reason to dislike me so much. Although I suppose this latest attack may have been aimed at Lord Ravenlaw.’
‘Why would anyone want to attack Jared?’ Bella released her arm and went lean on the balustrade and look out over the moorland beyond the walls.
‘Hard to say. Of course, sometimes when people do something despicable to another person then they grow to hate the victim as a way of managing their own guilt.’
‘That is directed at me, is it not?’ Bella still did not turn. She gave a twist of her shoulders, a kind of shrug. ‘You are quite right of course. I was young and selfish and so very angry that I could not have what I thought I wanted because the Earl looked down on my family.’
‘Were you happy when you had it?’
‘Not very.’ Bella did turn then.
Perhaps she is talking to me because I am showing no hostility, simply a cool curiosity, Guin thought. And perhaps she really is lonely. If her only friend is a bitter and grieving woman obsessed with her dead brother, then who will help Bella?
‘William was just as young and just as selfish as I was. And then I could not give him sons, so both he and his father despised me. And Jack, Jared, hates me, doesn’t he?’
‘You would have to ask him. He was very badly hurt by both his father and his brother, I can tell that. But I do not know if you were important enough to him for what you did to hurt enough for hate.’
‘You do not need to carry a rapier, do you?’ The lovely curve of Bella’s mouth twisted into an ugly line. ‘That was as good a stab wound as Jared could inflict.’
‘I am not sure whether Jared is capable of hate. I think he has had long enough to come to terms with what happened, but you could apologise and see what happens,’ Guin suggested.
Bella raised her eyebrows. ‘Apologise? For something as bad as that?’
‘Why not? You have the nerve, I imagine, and you aren’t happy now, it might help.’
&nbs
p; ‘Why are you being so kind to me?’ Bella’s mouth trembled, became beautiful again, vulnerable. She bit down on it and the familiar expression of bored disdain returned.
‘Because I know what it is to be young and foolish and alone. To be full of regrets. To be lonely.’
‘Will you be my friend when you are mistress here? When you marry Jared?’
‘When I – I am not going to marry him. I am quite unsuitable for the heir to an earldom.’ And that was tactless, Guin.
‘After me? The Earl will accept you and be thankful. Besides, I doubt anyone says no to Jared these days. The way he looks at you makes what he wants quite clear.’
‘He looks at me because he is guarding me.’
‘He is in love with you. If I am right, will you be my friend or will you take his side?’
‘If – I am your friend now if you make your peace with him.’ Could she trust the other woman or was this sudden display of trust a way of putting Guin off her guard, allowing Elizabeth’s ally close access?
‘I will try. Lady Northam – ’
‘Guin.’
‘Guin, be careful. You know who is behind these attacks on you, don’t you? No.’ She held up a hand. ‘Don’t say anything. Why should you trust me? Just be careful and I will try to return the friendship you have offered me.’ She turned before Guin could reply, walked rapidly across the terrace, the wind tossing the ends of her hair and the ribbons of her dress, her arms tight around her body as though she was holding in her unhappiness by sheer force.
The door opened as Bella approached and Jared stepped out. He had been watching them, Guin realised. Watching her. Bella stopped dead, half turned as though to push past him and then hesitated, raised her head to look him full in the face. Guin saw her lips move, but she could not hear what she said. Jared shook his head, then smiled, nodded and said something.
Bella covered her face with one hand for a second then turned, wrenched open the door before Jared could reach it and vanished inside.