by Joan Smith
“What was it like there?”
“Everything is controlled by the heat. The early mornings—and I mean before breakfast—are the only times cool enough to do anything active. Races, riding or whatnot all take place in the morning, then a little of what we jokingly called work in the forenoon. By noon every shutter is closed, and nothing more is attempted till evening, when we get down to serious entertainment. A trip to the New Playhouse or the Harmonic Tavern, followed by a staggering dinner where the food is so heavily spiced you must accompany every bite with a glass of wine, then on to a ball or party. The balls last till morning. I have known ladies to die as a result of those balls.”
“It sounds rather fun.”
“Oh yes, they died laughing. The British make it as British as they can, import their horses and carriages and even wear their British clothing—a dangerous thing. Import their wine and some women, but still it is no place for a human being.”
“And where did you live? In what city, I mean?”
“Calcutta for the most part, on the hot and humid banks of the Hooghly. My nawab liked the bright lights.”
“Is that a river, the Hooghly?”
“Yes, a mouth of the Ganges, and what a sewer that is! The baths at Bath are nothing to it for communal bathing. Quite a family affair. I mean the large family, including animals. Calcutta is the finest of the cities. A sort of imitation British decor. The Esplanade is its showpiece, with Palladian buildings, the stucco already crumbling away and showing the brick beneath. All along the riverbanks from Garden Reach to Barrackpore the nawabs have built their mansions, resembling country gentlemen’s homes, with porticoes and pillars and invariably green shutters to keep out the sun and heat. The Maidan, actually a military place but used as a park for riding and racing, is the Hyde Park of the place. There is a wretched amount of drinking that goes on to make life tolerable. Three bottles an evening for the gentlemen, and one for the ladies. It has ruined more livers and complexions that you can count. I think I got out with my liver intact, but of course I have lost my maidenly pallor forever. I will no doubt look like a blackamoor for the rest of my days. My hide is tanned like a piece of leather. Even my back and chest, as I did quite a bit of swimming. But then I am not vain.”
“That is why I took you for a gypsy the day I saw you in the woods,” Aurora said. “You were so very dark, and wearing rough clothing too.”
“You’re no help at all, you know,” he said, turning to her with a roguish smile. “I thought I was beguiling that episode from your memory with all my Indian tales, but you revert to it. I took you for a servant. A poor excuse for molesting you, of course, but I hadn’t kissed an English girl since I left eleven years ago, Aurora, and was eager to try it.”
“You got little enough pleasure from it, if memory serves.
“I wouldn’t say that,”
“You already have, sir. You advised me strenuously not to take up lovemaking as a career, as I hadn’t the knack for it.”
“But I didn’t know you were a lady then. One expects a proper frigidity from a lady. I expect this whole conversation is not at all the thing. Swat me down if I pass the bounds of what is acceptable, won’t you? I have not been properly schooled in how to disport myself with a well-bred female. However, there can be no harm in saying I still advise you not to take up lovemaking as a career, but as an avocation I recommend it highly.” He took his eyes from the reins long enough to cast a questioning glance at her.
She felt some stricture ought to be delivered, but decided instead to reform him by turning the conversation to a more discreet topic. “I imagine the countryside looks unusual to you after India,” she attempted.
“I find it refreshingly green, like the girls,” he said, returning determinedly to his preferred subject, with a bantering smile.
“You didn’t seem to find the gypsy girl green.”
“No, she’s half Indian, like myself, and a married lady to boot.”
“Married!”
“She isn’t awfully strong on monogamy. Has lost one husband already, and he was destined to be the gypsy chief, too. Sometimes they choose their leader on his abilities, and sometimes he inherits, like our present string of Hanoverian Georges, despite his lack of them. The present chief is Ghizlaine’s papa-in-law. She was first married to his son, and thought she had herself set up to be queen, but the husband unfortunately died.”
“How did he die? In a duel defending her honour, I expect.”
“Possibly. I hinted around once, but she was coy with me. Maybe the new gent who bought her had a hand in it. She dislikes him for some reason.”
“Bought her?” Rorie asked, astonished.
“You haven’t been taken in by that old canard that the best things in life are free? A rumour started by those who already have everything.”
“It seems hard that she should be sold outright to a man she dislikes.”
“Don’t weep for her. She is trying to convince me I ought to do him in and become the chief when old Killu ends his days. That’s the chief, Killu. Do you think I’d make a good gypsy prince, Aurora? Or should I say gypsy baron, considering my own title? I wouldn’t care to relinquish it entirely, after all the trouble I am having to claim it.”
“You would make an extremely elegant gypsy chief, and have the complexion for it too.”
“But then Ghizlaine is so dark she reminds me of the half-caste mistresses of Calcutta, and I hope to get away from all that. A nice blonde is what I’m keeping an eye out for.”
As Marnie and Lady Alice were both blonder than herself, Aurora could read no compliment into this, and turned to another subject instead. “Did you and that old gypsy hag fix it up between you for her to come and read Marnie’s fortune? She came spouting off about a tall, dark stranger that Marnie should help.”
“She was supposed to say dark and handsome,” he confessed. “I told her to stress the need to help. Now had I known you were there, I would have sent a message for you as well. Did she read your fortune?”
“She prophesied a future as dull as my past. I think you might have done a little better by me.”
“Had I known, you may be sure I would have consigned the dark stranger to your particular care. You were the only one who was a stranger to me, actually. But you might be nice to me without a gypsy’s urging, you know. Now that I have remembered for you how I got my fingers burned, I hope you will stop staring at me as though I were a ghost every time I enter your door.”
“I’m sure I didn’t!”
“But you did. I always take careful notice of the reactions of all pretty young ladies, and you did not react at all well. I was unsure whether it was my brown face or my black behaviour in the forest that had got your hackles up. As they seem to be settling down, may I conclude I am forgiven—for both?”
“Naturally I wondered, and if you were Horace Rutley, I could not like to accept you as Kenelm.”
“They do poor old Horace an injustice to make him out so crafty. He had a little devious twist in him, of course, but he was not at all a scheming fellow from what I ever heard. Well, his mother was not bright, and I fear he inherited a little of her paucity of brains. Father’s main worry was that he lacked the wits to stay out of trouble. Here we are discussing the thing again; it’s hard to stay off the subject, isn’t it? Papa used to worry what was to become of Horace once he began growing up. He had some schooling and it was hoped he might be got a position in London, but he wasn’t bright enough. The fact that he ended up in that grave with a bullet in his back pretty well shows it. Clare knew he was a near moron too, and for her to be pretending now that she thinks I am he, devising some elaborate scheme to snatch Charlie’s title . . .” He stopped a moment and shook his head. “I don’t understand the woman. Nothing she does makes any sense. She knows I’m Kenelm; knows bloody well Horace is in that grave, and likely put him there herself. She wasn’t a bit surprised at what she saw—the uniform, the rings. But still the r
ings make me wonder. I don’t see her burying those rings. It would have been the last straw if the emeralds had been there too. I get the feeling she is dashing from pillar to post—from expediency to expediency, I mean—as things turn out differently from what she expected. I wonder what she’ll do next.”
Rorie cleared her throat and said nonchalantly, “Clare is going up to London tomorrow on some business connected with the case.”
“To London? But her man Coons is here, and it will do her no good to go pestering the judge. Why the devil is she doing that, I wonder? How did you find out, by the way? I hadn’t heard.”
“She told me. I am going to Raiker Hall to mind Charles while she is away.”
“Oh,” Kenelm said, and looked at her in open astonishment.
“She does not like to leave him alone because of the gypsies—alone with the servants, I mean.”
“I see,” he answered automatically, but sounded unconvinced. “Why doesn’t she send him down to the Dower House? You will be lonesome there alone. I would offer to call if I dared, but it would be taken as unwarranted meddling. In fact, she probably asked you there to see I don’t decide to pay her a call. The servants would gladly welcome me.”
“I don’t think you had better come.”
“I shan’t. How long will you be there?”
“Just two days.”
“Two whole days!” he objected, frowning. “You could bring Charlie down to the Dower House for a visit if you were at all eager for my company,” he suggested. “I shall undertake to neither kidnap nor poison him, and it seems the only way I might see you. I should like to see you.”
“You will have plenty to do,” she countered, blushing with this unexpected show of gallantry.
“Indeed I shall. Any spare moment my case leaves me will find Sally in my pocket too. I think you might help me extricate myself from her. It is damnably hard to set her down when I am accepting her father’s hospitality. I’m likely to find myself compromised, but it is such a good base for me, housed so respectably with old Dougall, that I don’t want to give it up. It allows me to keep an eye on the competition too—Hanley,” he mentioned with a quizzing smile. “Come now, let me be able to tell her I have an appointment at the Dower House tomorrow afternoon at three.”
“You can go to the Dower House without my being there.”
“I could, but it would not achieve my aim. Berrigan will take the notion I’m making up to Marnie, too, and he’s already so jealous he’d like to think I’m Rutley. I don’t mean to turn a soul against me till I’m wearing my full title and dignities. Then I’ll tell him he’s an upstart, and none of his dashed business either if I want to help Bernie’s family into a decent house.”
“They have a decent house.”
“It will soon be only half one, and never mind diverting me. Say you’ll go, and bring Charlie. I’d like to see him. He’s my half brother, and I’m never allowed a single peek at him.”
“He’d tell her you were there. She wouldn’t like it.”
“That’s not my concern. She has asked you to mind him, not lock yourself up in an airtight room. I won’t hurt him.”
“I know that. That’s not why I refuse.”
“I shall be there tomorrow, at three, and if you can overcome your scruples, I hope you will be too, with or without Charlie. The servants could mind him for an hour. But enough of Indian manners. I do know better than to force my attentions on a reluctant lady, I hope. I haven’t been gone that long. Ah, I see the Dinsmores have painted their barns. They used to be gray. I don’t like them nearly as well in red. Stick out like a sore thumb.”
The talk turned to mere chit-chat, and soon Aurora was taken home. Raiker did not again urge her to come to the Dower House the next day, but did make a point of saying to Marnie and Malone before leaving that he would be there the next day, if it was convenient for them.
“I’m sure we’d like to see you,” Malone told him, casting a scathing eye on Aurora, who still had not offered to scour the Hall for clues or evidence, after being low enough to go to the place at all.
“We may appear very backward not to be helping you to the best of our ingrate abilities, but at least you’re welcome to come and take a cup of tea.”
“I shall be here at three then,” Kenelm said, with a questioning look to Aurora, then he bowed and left.
“There’s a lad that’s ripe for the plucking,” she informed Miss Falkner. “He’ll be snapped up before the summer’s out by some wide-awake thing. A pity you’re half asleep.”
* * *
Chapter 11
Lady Raiker was up, dressed and had her carriage standing ready at the door when Aurora Falkner arrived the next morning. “Just make yourself at home, my dear,” she advised her. “You must not feel you have to be with Charles every minute. His tutor has him in the morning, and he amuses himself pretty well in the afternoon. It is more for the night that I wish someone in the house. With the gypsies about, I do not like to leave the house without someone I trust.” She narrowed her eyes at Aurora in a suspicious manner as she said this, causing her trusted friend to wonder if she had heard so soon about the outing with Kenelm—as indeed she had, and a pretty underhanded stunt she thought it, too.
“I do not let Charles out alone,” she added. “Oh, at the stables or whatnot is allowed, but I have warned him he is not to go beyond the immediate area of the buildings alone. Well, I am off. Wish me well.”
“I wish you a pleasant journey,” was the farthest Aurora could stretch her duplicity. She went into the house, to face two days’ isolation from her friends and family. She had brought books with her to read, some needlework to busy her fingers, letter paper and her own favourite pen, and long before lunchtime had had a go at these occupations. All were equally tedious when carried on in a still house, disturbed only by an occasional servant entering a room on soft feet. To have some company, she had Charles down to lunch with her, a diversion from his usual habit of eating with his tutor. She liked Charles, a handsome and clever boy approaching twelve years; she discovered traces of both Bernard and Kenelm in him.
“May we go out for a ride this afternoon, Aunt Rorie ?” he asked. She was not actually his aunt, but from confusion with her sister he had addressed her so from his early years, and continued to do so.
The day was fine. The sun shone in through the mullioned windows to the table where they ate. The trees waved languorously in the breeze, and most of all to lure her, there was the knowledge that Kenelm would be at the Dower House at three o’clock.
“It might be best not to, with the gypsies camped nearby.”
“We would go by the post road. They wouldn’t bother us on the public road. We can take a groom if you’re afraid. You shouldn’t be afraid with me, Aunt Rorie. I would defend you,” he said, in all seriousness.
“In that case, we shall go for a ride,” she agreed, suppressing a smile.
“I haven’t seen Aunt Marnie and Mimi for ages. Are they angry with me? Mama says they’re angry, but you aren’t. Why are they?”
“They are not angry, Charles. How foolish.”
“Mama says they’re angry because the courts made me Lord Raiker. I would rather be their friend than Lord Raiker,” he said a little sadly.
“I don’t think your mother would want you to go to visit them.”
“I asked her if I might, and she said you wouldn’t take me. She didn’t say I shouldn’t if you would take me,” he added with the winning smile that seemed to run in the males of the family. “Will you, please?”
“Very well, baggage,” she answered, laughing. “And if your mama has my scalp for it, remember you are to defend me.”
“I will. She must do what I say. I am the head of the family now,” he said happily, and applied his fork to his meat.
It was barely half past two when the two headed their mounts down the road to the Dower House. This was due not only to eagerness. Rorie salved her conscience by plotti
ng to get Charles off to the nursery with Mimi and Malone, so that he would not be exposed to his half brother. She felt Clare could have no real objection to his visiting his other relatives, and did not like it that the boy was being led to believe the family was angry with him. Her plan worked well. Mimi met them at the stable and ran into the house with Charles. Both children lacked for suitable playmates and enjoyed each other’s company.
Malone met Rorie at the door. “Well, have you found out anything?”
“Yes, I have found out Clare must be bored to finders all alone at that house for days on end. The morning seemed sixty hours long.”
“Did you find the receipt?” Malone asked more pointedly, meaning the receipt for sale of the emeralds. Just why this incriminating document should exist, and be left lying about if it did, was of course a mystery.
“I haven’t stumbled across it, Malone. It wasn’t left out in the saloon with the latest papers. I’ll let you know if I find it.”
“No cause to be sartorial about it. It wouldn’t hurt you to bestir yourself while you’re there, right in the liar’s den. Your sister’s gone out with Berrigan, to take tea with his sister. He’s nearly screwed up his courage to pop the question. This is the first time he’s taken her to be approved by the sister, at least. Said when she mentioned the Gypperfield place, as she always makes a point to do when he’s around, that if it was the leaded windows she liked so much, his place has leaded windows. Flat. Him six and thirty, and not the gumption to ask a lady proper.”
“What did Marnie say to that hint?”
“Said she didn’t realize his place was up for sale. As bad as he is. She ain’t giving him an inch. Well, it’s a good thing you came, then; young Kenelm is to call this afternoon, and would have had to make do with me for a flirt if you hadn’t showed up. Figured you would,” she added knowingly. “Better run a comb through your hair and sprinkle on a bit of scent. You smell of horse.” She strode off to ride herd on her two charges, while Rorie flew to her room to make a fresh toilette.