by M C Beaton
“To Miss Winters, Sir Peregrine has left Manley Court, his estates and all other properties, and the income therefrom. Miss Manley and Mr. James Manley may reside at Manley Court subject to Miss Winters’s permission.”
Harriet ran her tongue across her dry lips. James turned a dull purple. “The diamonds,” he spluttered. “What of the diamonds?”
“I will read what Sir Peregrine has written,” said Mr. Summers, settling his pince-nez and peering at the paper with maddening deliberation.
“‘My fortune in diamonds, with the exception of the Manley diamond collar, which goes to Emily Winters, I leave to—’”
“Yes. Yes!” said Harriet, her face thrust forward like a gargoyle.
“‘I leave to my dog Duke.’”
“What?” cried everyone in the room.
“‘On Duke’s death,’” continued Mr. Summers, “‘the diamonds will be divided equally among the following: my sister, Harriet; my brother, James; my cousin, Mrs. Clarissa Singleton; and my nieces, Fanny and Betty Kipling.’ And now, Miss Winters, I have the Manley collar here.” He opened a black box and threw back the lid. The heavy collar of diamonds flashed fire in the candlelight. Mr. Summers stood up and held it out to Emily.
Like a sleepwalker, she moved forward and took the collar and stared down at it.
Then she turned and looked around the room.
Duke was sitting up in an armchair by the fire, his head cocked to one side, watching the proceedings.
Emily walked forward and fastened the collar of diamonds around the dog’s neck and then stood with her hand on his head.
She gave a harsh, ugly laugh. “Look well on us,” she said. “The mongrels have the diamonds!”
Duke lifted his black lips in a long slow grin while the diamonds blazed and flashed among the shaggy gold-and-black fur at his neck.
It was just about then that Harriet Manley began to scream….
Chapter 4
Two days after the reading of the will, Miss Emily Winters was sitting in the drawing room before the fire, hemming handkerchiefs, while a blizzard raged outside.
On the other side of the fire, Lord Storm sat reading a five-day-old newspaper. He had been unable to return to his home because of the snow, and so he had been put under a sort of house arrest, confined with a girl he would now like to avoid.
Lord Storm was very much a product of his class and upbringing. Illegitimate girls with serving-maid mothers were promptly classed as “persons” in his mind. He now viewed Emily through this distorting glass, and, had it not been for the snow, he might have gone out of his way not to see her again. He was, however, a well-meaning man and was unfailingly polite to Emily, and would have been quite shocked had he known that she recognized the change in him and knew the reason for it.
Emily had wept long and hard after the reading of the will—that is, as soon as she managed to escape to the privacy of her bedchamber. She did not want to think of the selfish Sir Peregrine as her father, and she could not mourn the mother she had never known.
She had barely seen Harriet or James or Clarissa since the reading of the will. The ladies had mostly kept to their rooms, and James had fled to the rectory directly he had heard the bad news and could not return because of the snow.
And so she and Lord Storm had been left much in each other’s company. Emily knew he would never make advances to her again. That sensuous, brooding look in his hooded gray eyes had disappeared, replaced by a cool clear disinterested gaze. Now that he was indifferent to her, she found to her horror that she could not look at him without remembering the feel of his lips on hers and the hard, firm feel of his hands on her body. She bitterly put it down to lustful thoughts engendered by her low origins.
She covertly studied the hard, tanned planes of his face, the square chin, and long mouth, all under the shadow of the two wings of white-blond hair which sprang from his forehead. His hands holding the newspaper were strong, with long fingers and polished nails. At that moment, he raised his eyes, and she felt herself blushing and looked around for Duke.
“He is snoring over on that sofa—that is, if you are looking for that cursed spoiled mongrel,” he said. “Have you considered, Miss Winters, that the dog’s life is now very much in danger? That that reprehensible carriage rug over there stands between five people and a fortune in diamonds?”
“I hadn’t thought…” said Emily, plucking nervously at the material of her gown.
“And what do you intend to do with Manley Court?”
Emily looked at him wide-eyed. “Sell it, I suppose,” she faltered.
His lips folded in a grim line. “Just as one might have expected,” he remarked, picking up his newspaper again.
“And why is that just what one might have expected?” demanded Emily sharply. “And furthermore, my lord, you are reading that newspaper upside down!”
He threw the newspaper away with a dramatic gesture which was spoiled by the newspaper’s landing in the fire. He had to leap to his feet and pick up the flaming paper with the tongs and stuff it down under the logs so that it would not fly up the chimney and set it on fire.
“There are a great number of people, Miss Winters,” he said glacially, “who have served Manley Court for many years, and their fathers and mothers before them. Think of Mrs. Otley and Rogers.”
Emily flushed. “I didn’t think,” she said, “and I’m not to be blamed for that. I know nothing of the running of an estate.”
“You have a steward—Mr. Hardy—and Mrs. Otley and Rogers run the house.”
“And what do I do with the terrible Miss Manley?”
“You can simply order her to leave. Mr. Summers says she has a great deal of money of her own. There is no need to sell the house from under her.”
The double doors leading to the drawing room were closed, Emily now being considered able to dispense with a chaperone, since Lord Storm was a guest, however unwilling, and she was mistress of Manley Court.
A great gust of wind shook the house as Lord Storm was talking, and one of the doors to the drawing room blew open.
Duke stirred and awoke, and then his beady eyes became fastened on something that lay beyond the doors in the hall.
“I am not afraid of Miss Manley!” said Emily hotly as Lord Storm walked over to close the door.
Duke dived from the sofa and scampered into the hall before Lord Storm could reach the drawing-room door. The dog seized the object of his fixed attention, a large marrow bone, and bounced happily into the drawing room with it, then laid it down on one of the best oriental rugs preparatory to chewing it.
Before his jaws could reach it, Lord Storm had bent down and whipped the bone away from under his nose. Duke gave a low growl and sprang at Lord Storm with his teeth bared. His lordship struck the dog a heavy blow with his arm, and Duke went sailing across the room and landed in a heap in the corner.
“Monster!” shrieked Emily. She flew to Duke and, sitting down on the floor beside him, cradled his head on her lap.
Lord Storm picked up the bone and threw it on the fire, then fastidiously wiped his hands on his handkerchief.
“First the newspaper, now the poor dog’s bone!” raged Emily. “Have you gone quite mad? What else are you going to burn? The furniture?”
Seeing that Duke was unharmed, Emily bounced to her feet, trembling with anger, unaware that the anger had been seething and burning in her since the reading of the will and that now it had found a handy target.
“What else?” she went on, striding up to him and stamping her foot. She looked around wildly until her eye fell on the work basket. “Take this, my lord. ’Twould make a splendid blaze!” And picking it up, she threw it into the flames.
“Of all the hysterical, foolish…” began Lord Storm coldly.
“Oh, hysterical and foolish, pooh! You great starched beast! Take away your fine clothes and what is there to distinguish you from the lowliest peasant?”
She drummed her fists against his
chest, quite beside herself.
He seized her wrists and clipped her arms behind her back so that she was pressed against his chest, then looked down into her flushed face, his eyes alight with sudden mockery.
“Would you like to take away my fine clothes and see what I look like, Miss Winters?” he asked, his voice light and teasing.
“No, I would not!” raved Emily. “You are nothing but tailoring and pomade and starch. Why, you probably wear corsets.”
He grinned down at her, holding her wrists behind her back prisoner with his one hand and moving his other between their bodies to unfasten his jacket.
“No, I do not wear corsets, Miss Winters. There is nothing between us now but my thin shirt and your thin gown. I can hear your heart beating.”
“Let me go,” pleaded Emily, shaken by a sudden wave of treacherous passion. “Let me go!”
“I think you should pay a forfeit for such behavior,” he said. “Kiss me, Miss Winters.”
“I had rather kiss a… a… a crocodile,” said Emily wildly.
“No, you would not, for crocodiles have exceedingly sharp teeth and would bite your pretty mouth so.” He bent his head and took her full bottom lip between his teeth.
“No,” mumbled Emily against his mouth.
“Yes,” he said huskily, his lips closing over her own. His hands released her wrists and came up to hold her chin as his mouth moved caressingly over her own.
Then, abruptly, he let her go, standing back, his eyes wary.
“My apologies, Miss Winters,” he said stiffly. “My manners are abominable, but the provocation was great.”
Emily translated that in her mind into “I’m sorry, Miss Winters. I forgot you were a person of the lower orders.”
She felt bereft, shaken and rejected. “Why did you strike Duke and take his bone away?” she asked. She could not meet his eyes but looked at the floor.
“Because, my dear Miss Winters,” he said, walking away toward the window and affording her a good view of his elegantly tailored back, “sooner or later someone is going to realize Sir Peregrine’s worst fears and murder that brute. I thought it very opportune that a marrow bone should be lying conveniently in the hall.
“The servants would put it in the dog’s dish, and no one else in this house would dream of giving that animal a treat. I do not like to speak ill of Sir Peregrine, because he was your father, but that will was downright malicious.”
“Indeed! Perhaps you feel Manley Court was left in the wrong hands?”
“It is more a case of a fortune in diamonds being left in the wrong paws,” he said, turning around.
There was a low snore, and Emily glared at Duke, who was once more spread out on the sofa fast asleep. He had not budged an inch when Lord Storm was kissing her. His lordship could have been strangling me for all that wretched animal cared, thought Emily bitterly.
“Not a very good guard dog, is he?” asked Lord Storm, reading her thoughts.
“No,” agreed Emily. “I would have expected him to have guarded me from unwanted attentions.”
Obscurely, she wanted to goad him into some further demonstration, but he looked at her enigmatically and said, “I think it would be better for both of us if you could manage to overlook my lapse in behavior.”
Emily gave a chilly nod. There was nothing else to do.
She swung away from him and stared down into the fire, where the charred remains of her work basket were being licked by the yellow flames.
“It is all very well, being rich,” she muttered. “But I am not used to being idle. I cannot go out because of the weather. This is going to be a very long day.”
“On the contrary, you have plenty to do,” he said. “Mr. Summers is in the library, I believe. It would be a good opportunity to sit down with him and discuss the extent of your inheritance and what you mean to do about your future.”
“My future?” said Emily blankly. “What future?”
“You are a woman,” he said testily. “You will wish to be married and have children, no doubt. A steward, even a good one like Hardy, is all very well, but this estate needs a man to run it.”
“Hardy is a man.”
“Now you are being deliberately obtuse. It needs an owner. Someone who will keep the land in good heart so that his son will be ready to step into a good inheritance.”
“I have not the slightest interest in getting married. And who would marry me? I am illegitimate.”
“You will find that illegitimacy, backed by a great house, and estates and generous yearly income therefrom, is not the disadvantage it would be had you no fortune.”
“I would not wish to marry anyone who just wanted to get their hands on Manley Court,” said Emily hotly.
“Oh, my dear, dear girl,” he drawled. “Be sensible. Who ever heard of anyone marrying for love? You have too much responsibility now. You need someone with a fortune to match your own so that your estates will continue to prosper. You need—”
“I think I need to sell the whole lot, lock, stock and barrel—and perhaps enjoy myself a little.”
He remained silent. Duke snored, the fire crackled, and the clocks ticked.
“You talk of marriage,” went on Emily. “But the circumstances of my birth certainly prevent anyone like yourself from marrying me.”
“Perhaps,” he said in a considering voice, talking more to himself than to her. “I have a responsibility to my name, to my—”
“To your arrogance, to your false pride,” Emily finished for him. “Oh, yes. You would gladly offer me your protection were I not mistress of this house. But you would never marry me.”
“One would almost think you were trying to goad me into a proposal,” he said.
“I would not have you,” sneered Emily, wild with hurt. “You with your groping hands and… and…”
“And my corset. Let us not forget my corset.”
“Rot your corset, sir!” said Emily, working herself into a passion again.
“Dear me! What are you shouting about, Miss Winters? Your nose is turning quite red with emotion,” said a light, amused voice as the vision that was Clarissa Singleton floated into the room.
She wrinkled up her pretty nose. “Ugh! What a foul odor, and the fire is full of black stuff. What have you been burning? Dead dog, by any chance? Or is that too much to hope for?”
Lord Storm’s eyes were alight with mocking humor as he made his bow to Clarissa. “Dear madam,” he said, kissing her hand. “Miss Winters and I were having a little Guy Fawkes party. Duke, as you can see, is sound in wind and limb. Does he plan to wear all those diamonds, Miss Winters?”
“No,” mumbled Emily, feeling like a sulky child. Clarissa’s beauty and poise made Emily feel very young and gauche.
Duke slid down from the sofa and ambled, yawning, over to Emily and shoved his wet nose in her hand. “I must take him out,” said Emily.
“My dear Storm, let me tell you the latest on-dit,” cooed Clarissa, leading him to the sofa vacated by Duke.
She sat down and patted the place next to her invitingly. He sat down and leaned toward her. Clarissa seemed to take his whole interest.
“I’m going, my lord,” said Emily from the doorway.
Clarissa bent her flaming head close to Lord Storm’s and began to talk in a low voice.
“I’m going,” said Emily again, but neither looked up, and so she trailed off miserably with Duke at her heels.
After she had exercised Duke in the comparative shelter of the kitchen garden, she began to think that it might not be such a bad idea to discuss her future with Mr. Summers.
When Duke had been rubbed down and fed, Emily made her way to the library with the dog at her skirts.
Mr. Summers surveyed her over his pince-nez and rose hurriedly to his feet. “My dear Miss Winters! I was wondering whether we should have a chance to talk, but I felt perhaps you should be allowed to get over the shock you have received. Poor lady! I wish I had been able to break
the news of your birth to you in a more conventional manner, but your father was an unfeeling man in many ways. Oh, well, De mortuis nil nisi bonum.
“It was a distressing thing to do, leaving that fortune to the dog. Most of the diamonds are single gems, you know. They have not been set into any jewelry as yet. They are locked up in the bank in London, and I suggest you should leave them there for safekeeping. As I told Mr. and Miss Manley, a dog does not have a very long life at the best of times, but they did not seem to be consoled. Now, how can I help you?”
Emily sat down in a chair by the fire and leaned her head against the back. She looked very young and very tired. Duke stretched out at her feet. Emily looked around the room, at the firelight flickering over the gold lettering and calf binding of the books which lined the walls, and remembered another library and a happier day.
“I don’t know,” she said dully. “I must put my life in some sort of order, but I cannot stay here. I wish to sell Manley Court, but Lord Storm says I must consider the welfare of the tenants and servants. But surely they would be just as happy with another landlord?”
“Not necessarily, particularly these days,” said Mr. Summers.
He placed the tips of his fingers together and surveyed her over the steeple made by them.
“There are a great many absentee landlords among the aristocracy. They live in London and hardly ever visit their estates in the country.
“I personally feel that if a man—or a woman—draws a large income from an estate, then he or she has a responsibility toward every soul on that estate. But you are very young, and this responsibility has fallen on your shoulders very suddenly. I have a suggestion to make. Why don’t you go away for a little?”
“Where?” said Emily blankly. “I have no friends, apart from a few poor souls left back at the orphanage, and I have no relatives. I refuse to think of any of the Manleys as my relatives.”
The lawyer scratched his wig in perplexity, and then his face cleared.
“I have a sister living in Bath,” he said. “She is Lady Bailey. She is a widow. Her husband, Sir Desmond Bailey, was an army man. She lives very quietly but would enjoy some young company, and she would sponsor you at the assemblies in Bath.