Gail Eastwood

by An Unlikely Hero

  “Never mind, never mind. It was purely an accident,” Gilbey mumbled, rising slowly to test whether the wine had quite finished its travels. He was certain the carpet beneath his feet was worth a hundred times the value of his modest clothing. When he looked up he realized that all the eyes around the table were turned toward him.

  So much for not attracting attention, he thought with a sigh. The sooner he retreated from the dining room the sooner the rest of them would return to their meal and forget him. Certainly he was not needed to help chaperon anyone in such a structured setting as dinner. Perhaps he could even escape the inevitable evening of cards that was bound to follow.

  “Oh, my dear sir! Your poor coat!”

  “How terribly clumsy! That footman should be turned off.”

  The fuss was beginning and would only escalate. It would be ungentlemanly to point out that Lady Adela was most at fault, but Gilbey did not want to see the poor footman lose his position.

  “My fault, all my fault,” he murmured. “No one to blame but myself, please—just what comes of making a wrong move at the wrong moment.” He would make certain to speak to Nicholas and the duke later. With polite apologies to his host and the gathering in general, Gilbey turned tail and fled.

  ***

  Much later, after hours of whist and six-handed loo with various partners, including Lord Cranford, the twins had finally begged leave to retire to their rooms. They had changed into the night rails carefully laid out for them and, after dismissing their maids, were reviewing their evening while they took turns brushing each other’s hair.

  “Netia, you were positively wild this evening!” Vivian said wonderingly, submitting to her sister’s ministrations. “What did you think you were about? Such deep play, for casual card play among our guests. I thought Father would have apoplexy.”

  Venetia laughed, although she did not miss the note of mild reproval in her sister’s voice. “He was not the only one who was disturbed. But did you not think it a good way to discover which of our suitors does not mind dipping into his pockets? It does little good to marry a rich husband if the man is tight-fisted.”

  “I suppose you are right. It is also wise to discover which of them is bitten with the gamester’s habit.”

  “Lord Munslow and Lord Chesdale seemed a bit inclined that way, I thought. We will have to test that out some more.” She paused, working the brush carefully through a tangled bit of Vivian’s hair. “Of course, I like a man with some spirit of adventure. It doesn’t do to be afraid of taking risks.”

  “I think Lord Cranford was relieved not to be at your table.”

  “Do you? Hm. I wonder about him.” Venetia gave Vivian’s hair a final stroke and the twins exchanged places. “You do realize of course that Lord Cranford was not the one who spilled his wine at dinner,” Venetia said, settling herself on the sofa. She handed the hairbrush to her sister.

  “I could not see what happened at all from where I was sitting.”

  “It was all Adela’s fault, but you know she would never admit to it. I saw the whole thing happen.”

  Vivian gave her sister’s hair a mischievous tweak. “Yes, you did seem to be paying attention to that end of the table.”

  “I was trying to guess which of our guests was the secret poet. Or did you forget about that in your efforts to draw out the taciturn Lord Ashurst?”

  Venetia’s back was turned to her sister so she could not see if this sally was met with a blush. “You did seem quite occupied with him, Vivi, or am I mistaken?”

  For a moment the strokes of the brush stopped. “He did not seem so bad as his reputation,” Vivian said noncommittally. “I do not recall that he made any disrespectful remarks, and although he seemed rather solemn, he responded well enough when I asked him intelligent questions.”

  “Well, that is better than it might have been. All of our guests must have been on their best behavior. Lord Wistowe seemed quite charming, although I suppose that comes naturally to a rake.”

  “Did you come to any conclusion about our poet?”

  “No. The only conclusion I have made after the entire evening is that it must not be Lord Amberton. I don’t believe he has the wit to put two rhyming lines together and have them make sense.”

  “Oh, Netia!”

  The two young women lapsed into giggles. Just as they quieted, however, they heard a small sound at the door of their chamber and turned to see that a slip of paper had appeared under it.

  “Oh, no, not another poem,” groaned Venetia.

  Vivian moved to retrieve the folded note. She broke the wax seal and stood by the door scanning the contents.

  “Don’t read it now, Vivi—open the door and see if anyone is still in the passage!”

  But Vivian did not open the door. Instead she sagged against it, all color drained from her face.

  Venetia was on her feet in an instant. “Oh, Vivi, not a seizure. You’ve been doing so well!”

  Before she reached her sister’s side, however, Vivian shook her head. “No, I am all right. But ’tis not a poem, this time.”

  Chapter Four

  With a mixture of alarm and curiosity curling through her, Venetia took the paper from her sister’s trembling fingers and read.

  Lady Venetia,

  I will save you the great trouble of choosing a husband by casting myself in that role. If you do not agree, I will inform the entire world that your sister has the falling sickness, and the name of St. Aldwyn will become synonymous with scandal and deceit. I will reveal myself on the day of the betrothal ball. Looking forward to our future together, I remain for now your Secret Admirer.

  Anger boiled out of her. “This is blackmail, Vivi! We can’t give in to this. Who could have written this? Who could know? It isn’t even right. You don’t have the falling sickness. You’ve never lost consciousness during a seizure and you’ve never fallen. It’s not even a sickness. What do they know about it? How could they know?”

  Thoroughly distraught, Venetia paced in front of the door, turning each time her words reached a new crescendo. She shook the paper in her hands as if somehow the words written on it could be forced off into oblivion where they belonged.

  Placing gentle hands on her shoulders, Vivian steered her twin to the sofa and made her sit down.

  “You begin to sound like Father, Netia. Don’t. You know ’tis true I have epilepsy. Denying it as he has will never make it go away.”

  Venetia had tears in her eyes. “Oh, Vivi, I know.” She swallowed and could not go on. There was so much shared pain that she could never express, and so much grief. Until six years ago their lives had been so trouble-free, and then in one night so much had changed!

  “I hate that name for it, and I hate how ignorant people are about it. I hate the fact that we have to hide it from everyone. If we didn’t have to hide it, if people were not so afraid and so unreasonable, no one could write us a hateful note like this!”

  “Shh, Netia. We cannot change the way things are,” Vivian hugged her sister and removed the blackmail note, now badly crumpled, from her fingers.

  Venetia jumped up from the sofa. “How can you remain so calm? Does it not make you angry? It is all so unfair!” She began to pace about the room again.

  Vivian sighed. “Of course I get angry! But most of the time I consider it a gift that I am alive at all. ’Tis a gift that Mother was not granted, and mine is a conditional gift—I must accept the circumstances. I have come to terms with it better than you have, but perhaps that is just my nature. No one knows better than you how angry I was in those first months after the accident, when the seizures began.”

  Vivian smoothed out the note, her calm motion at odds with her words. “I do still feel angry when Father tries to gloss things over with some reference to my ‘delicate nerves,’ or when Aunt
Alice insists I do it purposely for attention. But if I have to live with this, as I must, there is just one thing I would change, Netia, and that is Father’s insistence that I marry.”

  “That is but another thing that makes me angry, Vivi. How can he be so blind? Does he not see the possible jeopardy in which that places you? Your husband could have you shut away for life! But do not fear. No blackmailer will make me break my vow. I will not marry until we have found the right husband for you.”

  Vivian went to her and they clasped hands silently, allies against an uncertain future.

  After a moment Venetia managed to smile. “If such a paragon does not exist, then poor Nicholas will simply have two spinster sisters on his hands in the future.”

  They moved back to the sofa and Vivian picked up the note. “I wish I had opened the door,” she said ruefully.

  “It does not matter,” Venetia reassured her. “In such a matter as this, I doubt the writer was also the bearer. He probably paid one of the servants to deliver it.”

  “What shall we do?”

  “We must find him out, Vivi. Only by discovering who he is can we then find some way to stop him. We cannot allow him to carry out his threat.”

  “Nor can you marry such a blackguard! I would rather be exposed than see you meet such a fate. But how will we discover him? We have shown little enough talent in that line. We could not even discover our anonymous poet.”

  “We will not go to Father, that much is certain. We will question the servants and pay more attention to our guests, and we’ll try to discover some clues. To begin, let me see that note.”

  ***

  Down in the yellow drawing room many of the Rivington guests clearly intended to continue their card play into the morning hours. Like the twins, however, Gilbey had retired for the night. Ensconced in a huge, old, heavily-carved oak bed with simple hangings of crimson worsted, he watched the flickering light from the dying fire dance over the substantial stone walls of his room.

  In the four hundred and thirty-nine years preceding his arrival, how many other people had lain here doing the same thing? He tried to distract himself by imagining those people, and failing that, tried to perform a numbers game to determine how many nights that had been, allowing for leap years and the change in the calendar.

  Nothing successfully kept his thoughts away from the events of this particular evening. After the fiasco at the dinner table, he had escaped to his room, thoroughly dismayed by his apparent inability to avoid attracting attention. Twice in one day! It was as if the Fates had decreed some other plan for him. Was he destined to play the fool? Invisibility was a far more comfortable way to ensure he attracted no romantic entanglements here.

  He had barely begun to consider the disastrous effect the wine stains were going to have on his limited wardrobe when one of the many chamber servants employed by the duke appeared, ready to assist him and take charge of the damaged clothing. Gilbey was more than a little impressed. His brother-in-law’s estates were well run, but this palatial residence tended by scores of servants ran so smoothly it seemed as if the very walls must have eyes and ears.

  He had hoped to stay in his room for the remainder of the evening, certain that the portion of dinner he had eaten would be sufficient. But the valet’s arrival had been followed by a tray laden with delicacies, and a short while after that a note had arrived from the duke himself, summoning Gilbey to the great man’s study.

  Escorted by a footman, Gilbey had traversed endless echoing corridors and passed through many rooms he recognized from Nicholas’s tour. He had yet to formulate an accurate plan of Rivington in his mind—it seemed to defy logic with its many additions and odd changes in levels. He thought moving through the house was almost like a journey through time, so many centuries were represented there.

  When he finally arrived at the duke’s study, Gilbey was not at all surprised to find the room far grander than its name implied. Although the light from a number of handsome multi-branched candlestands illuminated the room, much of its magnificence was still lost in shadows. Within its cavernous depths Gilbey made out several sculptures set on pedestals, including a few that looked genuinely antique to his educated eye.

  Seated behind a massive flat-topped mahogany desk ornamented with ormolu, Nicholas’s father was dwarfed by the proportions of his surroundings. For a fleeting moment, Gilbey was struck by the thought that His Grace, the Duke of Roxley, for all his wealth and power, was after all no more than a man, and an aging one at that.

  “Please sit down, Lord Cranford.”

  The duke indicated a chair with a nod of his head, and Gilbey realized that he had already been discreetly deserted by the footman. He knew he should have felt honored to be summoned for a private audience with the duke, but given the way his visit had been going so far, he felt somewhat uneasy. It helped that the duke’s voice and even his tone of unmistakable authority sounded so much like Nicholas’s.

  He was mistaken, however, about the footman. The servant had merely disappeared into the shadows; he reappeared instantly when the duke offered Gilbey a glass of port.

  “I was concerned when you did not rejoin us at dinner by the time the ladies withdrew,” the duke said. It was clear that he expected an explanation.

  “I apologize if I caused any concern or offense. Your Grace,” Gilbey replied carefully, accepting a glass from the footman. “None was intended. I did not think I would be missed.”

  “I am responsible for the welfare of all my guests. I must apologize for the accident that befell you at dinner. If your garments cannot be cleaned, they will be replaced, of course.”

  “That is most generous of you, sir, but altogether unnecessary. I’ve no wish to be any trouble to you.”

  “Hmph, no doubt.” The duke set down his own glass and leaned back in his chair, interlacing all but his index fingers and tapping those thoughtfully against his pursed lips. His face had been shadowed before but now light from the candles nearest him shone upon his face, revealing an expression Gilbey could think of only as calculating.

  “At the risk of being offensively candid, I would like to ask what it is that you do wish to accomplish here, Lord Cranford. As we are not at all acquainted, I trust you will forgive my bluntness.” He smiled a lopsided smile and arched an eyebrow exactly the way Nicholas did. Gilbey knew he really was not being offered any choice.

  “As a duke I am granted amazing license in polite company,” His Grace continued. “You must realize that you are here merely by the request of my son, suddenly thrust among a very carefully selected group of guests who have been assembled for a particular purpose. What exactly, sir, is your own business at Rivington?”

  So that was it. Gilbey smiled in a way he hoped the duke would find reassuring. Reading people was a talent the viscount had discovered he possessed at an early age, and he understood very well what the duke, despite his declared frankness, had left unsaid. His Grace wanted to know if Gilbey posed any threat to his well-laid plans to marry off his daughters, or if Gilbey had come seeking political favors or hoping to ingratiate himself with the powerful elite gathered here. He wanted to know Gilbey’s credentials as well as his intentions.

  Gilbey didn’t blame the man one bit. After all, Gilbey was a stranger. By confronting him, the duke could test his personality and social skills. The choice of strategy impressed him. He hadn’t the slightest doubt that it had been quite deliberate.

  “Your Grace, allow me to reassure you—I hope without seeming unappreciative of your hospitality—that I have come here for no purpose of my own at all. I promise you I have no wish to attract the attention of your daughters, or anyone else for that matter, and I seek nothing. I had no intention of coming here, even after Nicholas—uh, Lord Edmonton—invited me. However, your son has rather admirable powers of persuasion, as I am sure you are aware.”

 
“You do not find my daughters attractive?”

  Now, that was a sticky question. Gilbey took a gulp of his port. Wouldn’t do to offend his host, or to give him a wrong idea, either. “My first impression of your daughters is that they are both beautiful and charming, Your Grace. If I were seeking a wife, I would be sorry indeed that my station is so far below what they deserve. But as Nicholas—uh, your son—is well aware, I have only just finished my stint at Cambridge and am newly named a Fellow of my college.”

  “Don’t wish to give up the stipend before you’ve even begun to collect, eh?”

  Gilbey felt the cursed tingling of a blush start in his face. “No, sir—that is, it’s not the stipend. I have studies I wish to complete and traveling I wish to accomplish before I am tied down to a wife and family. I am rather young yet to be married.”

  “Yes, you are.” The duke leaned forward. “Perhaps you can enlighten me as to why my son was so keen to have you here?”

  Gilbey set down his glass. “That, Your Grace, is a question you would do well to ask Nicholas.” Gilbey was not about to risk offending the duke by telling him his son thought he would not adequately supervise his daughters. But the sooner Gilbey could extricate himself from these treacherous waters, the better. “I must say that I am delighted to have the opportunity to see Rivington, Your Grace. It is even more magnificent than I expected from the descriptions I have read.”

  “Have an interest in architecture, have you? What was your field of study at Cambridge?”

  “History. Roman civilization in particular.”

  “Ah. Perhaps you might recognize this, then.” The duke picked up a small object from his desk. Quite unexpectedly, he tossed it in Gilbey’s direction.

  With his heart in his throat Gilbey leaned forward and caught the object. Opening his hands slowly, he examined what lay there. It appeared to be a miniature axe, made out of bronze, somewhat oxidized and eaten away by time.