There was none of the twinkle she was used to seeing in this fellow’s eyes. ‘It’s a terrible time,’ she said impulsively. ‘For all of us; family and staff.’
Something flickered in his expression. ‘At Mountstanton, we all think of ourselves as family.’
‘Of course you do.’ With this footman, Ursula felt none of that distancing Benson had achieved. ‘And in the time I have been here with Miss Seldon, I feel I have become part of the family as well.’ For an instant, Ursula imagined Helen’s frozen rejection of these words.
Ursula walked swiftly towards the library. She tapped on the door and, without waiting for an answer, entered.
A fire was burning and lamps had been lit but there was little warmth in the room.
Helen, dressed in a black silk evening gown that provided a flattering contrast to her intricately arranged blonde hair, was walking in a distressed manner up and down the room, her face frozen into a mask that betrayed nothing of what she was feeling.
The Colonel had also changed for dinner. He stood against the stone-mullioned windows that ran almost from the ceiling to the floor. The curtains had not been drawn and the unforgiving dark outside seemed to push against the glass and demand entry.
The Colonel’s expression was also unreadable.
‘Where has Belle gone?’ Ursula demanded, ignoring preliminaries.
‘How should I know?’ said Helen angrily. ‘I get a message from the stables that she’s taken my horse and galloped off. The girl has no idea how to behave.’
‘Which do you care more about, your horse or your sister?’
Helen stopped her pacing, fury in her eyes. ‘How dare you speak to me like that!’ She raised her hand and advanced on Ursula. The Colonel caught her arm.
‘Please! This will get us nowhere. Miss Grandison, we are desperately worried about Belle. We have no idea where she has gone or where to start looking for her.’
Helen threw herself into a chair. ‘Where have you been, anyway? Charles said you and that … that investigator went to see Gray about his preposterous letter. But that was hours ago. So what have you two been up to?’
She made it sound as though their behaviour had been highly suspect. Ursula tried to control herself. After the violent death of the Earl, Helen must be in a highly emotional state. Little wonder if she was unable to deal with Belle’s disappearance.
‘There was an accident,’ she said, forcing herself to speak slowly and quietly. ‘We ended up in a ditch. The trap was damaged and we had to walk back here with Barnaby. Mr Jackman is explaining the situation to the groom.’
Helen looked incredulous. ‘In a ditch? Hard to believe when you don’t seem to have a hair out of place.’
‘Come and sit down, Miss Grandison,’ the Colonel said. ‘It sounds as though you and Jackman have had quite a time. I hope neither of you have suffered any injury? How is that ankle?’
‘She was able to walk on it,’ Helen said waspishly.
‘Please, Helen,’ said the Colonel wearily. ‘We all have to work together.’
‘We, we! That means you and Ursula, does it not? Don’t think I don’t know what you are both up to.’ Suddenly she broke into floods of tears. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m so worried about Belle.’
Ursula’s anger melted away. ‘Of course you are worried, we all are. We only want to help.’ She walked over and gently stroked the back of Helen’s hand. Helen closed her eyes.
The Colonel went to the drinks table and poured three glasses from a decanter. ‘I think we all need a little brandy,’ he said.
Helen took the glass he offered and drank down half immediately. Her cheeks were wet but the tears had stopped.
Ursula accepted the glass offered to her and sat. The Colonel stood in front of the fire. ‘Now, please tell us, Miss Grandison, exactly what happened. You assured me you were able to drive the trap.’
He seemed genuinely concerned to hear the facts. Ursula drank a little of the brandy; its warmth was comforting. ‘We saw Belle – she galloped headlong towards us. She did not seem to realise anyone was on the road but herself, or that we had crashed.’
‘Had she lost control of the horse?’ the Colonel asked.
‘Pocahontas is not an easy ride; Belle can’t be capable of controlling her,’ Helen exclaimed.
‘She seemed in perfect control,’ said Ursula.
‘Richard said he was impressed with her horsemanship when she rode Pocahontas before,’ the Colonel said unexpectedly. ‘So, we know the road she took. That is a start. Miss Grandison, can you identify where you were when Belle appeared?’
Ursula explained as best she could, then said, ‘Why was she taking a horse out at that hour?’
‘I … that is to say, we do not know.’ The Colonel looked at Helen.
‘She and I had a misunderstanding,’ said Helen in a monotone. She fiddled with the stem of her glass.
‘What about?’
Helen raised her head. ‘It was after that very upsetting talk we had when you and Charles showed me that stupid letter,’ she burst out.
Ursula waited and the Colonel said nothing.
Helen drank the rest of the brandy. ‘She … she misunderstood something she saw,’ she added in a low voice. ‘I was very upset … that letter … the imputations it made … I went to Richard’s study; I thought I might find something there …’
‘What sort of thing?’ asked the Colonel in a level voice. It seemed to Ursula that he was forcing himself to be dispassionate.
Helen held out her glass. ‘Might I have more brandy?’
Without a word the Colonel refilled her glass. He looked towards Ursula, but she had hardly touched hers.
Helen raised her full glass and, with closed eyes, swallowed all the contents. ‘Mr Warburton was there.’
‘Ah!’ The Colonel said as though that explained everything.
‘He could see how upset I was,’ Helen protested. ‘He comforted me.’
‘And then Belle entered the room,’ Ursula said quietly. She had no doubt as to what had happened and how devastated Belle would have been.
Helen nodded. ‘I tried to explain but she wouldn’t listen. She ran at William … at Mr Warburton and shouted at him. She was incoherent; neither of us could make out a single thing she was saying. She seemed to think …’
‘To think what?’ asked Ursula, as Helen appeared to have come to a halt.
‘That he had betrayed her,’ Ursula whispered.
‘What happened next?’ she asked.
Helen sat up straighter in the chair, looked at the empty glass, then placed it on a small table beside her. ‘She ran off. I asked Mr Warburton if he knew what she meant but he said he didn’t; that they had a friendly relationship but nothing more.’ She looked at the Colonel with wide, innocent eyes. ‘I was concerned about my sister, of course. I went to her room but the door was locked and she would not answer me. I thought I should let her calm down before I asked for an explanation.’
The Colonel placed his hands in his pockets and turned to face the fire.
‘And then?’ Ursula asked as the silence stretched.
‘I went back after an hour,’ Helen said reluctantly. ‘Only to find out from her maid that Belle had gone riding. So I sent to the stable and discovered that she had taken Pocahontas.’ She looked across at Ursula. ‘What do you know about Belle and Mr Warburton?’
The Colonel turned. ‘Do you know anything, Miss Grandison?’
‘Only that Belle had a definite tendre for him.’ Why oh why had she not tried to find out exactly what had passed between her and Mr Warburton? Ursula was sure that the young man was a fickle fortune-hunter. It looked as though he had held hopes of enticing Belle into marriage then, when the Earl died, decided that a greater prize was now available. ‘Have you talked to her maid?’
‘Pouf! No point, Belle does not like her. She would not have told her anything.’
The library door opened and the Dowager Countess entered.
She stood majestically. Her gaze flickered over the brandy glasses, dismissed Ursula, now on her feet, as insignificant, and her son’s greeting as irrelevant, until her eyes fastened on her still-seated daughter-in-law.
‘Well, Helen, this is a sordid can of worms your family has landed us with.’
‘Mama!’
She waved an imperious hand at the Colonel. ‘Leave this to me, Charles. Well, Helen?’
‘I am not sure what you are referring to, Mama.’
‘Don’t play games with me, girl. Barnes has told me everything.’
‘What does your maid know about the matter?’
‘Tush! You know as well as I how servants gossip. That French bit you saw fit to employ for your sister could not wait to share the news with the staff at tea time that her mistress had had a rush of blood to the head, taken the Countess’s favourite horse and ridden off who knew where.’
‘And Barnes could not wait to share the information with you,’ Helen said bitterly.
The Dowager Countess sat and looked at Helen for a long moment. ‘Barnes, my dear, knows that the interests of this family matter more to me than anything else. I cannot be surprised at the girl’s behaviour but I am concerned that it should not bring scandal upon the rest of us.’
‘Scandal, Mama?’ exclaimed the Colonel. ‘Surely that is going a little far? Belle has only gone for a ride. She was distressed and may have met with an accident. When you entered, I was on the point of sending to the stable to inform them of the road she took so that a search party could be organised.’
‘Then do so, Charles. No, don’t ring the bell, go yourself.’
For a moment it seemed as if the Colonel would protest, then, giving his mother a hard look, he left the room.
The Dowager turned back to her daughter-in-law. Ursula wondered if she should also leave the room but decided that she would have been dismissed if her presence was not wanted. She sat down again.
‘I heard you say as I entered that you did not think it worth questioning Belle’s maid.’
‘There would be no point,’ Helen said coldly.
‘My dear, you have no idea how to handle servants. Barnes’s news, together with what I have observed taking place in this house, disturbed me profoundly. The obvious course of action was to extract what had been happening from the girl’s maid.’
‘You did not think to question me?’ Helen said bitterly. At the look her mother-in-law gave her, she picked up her glass and helped herself to more brandy.
‘So, what information did you “extract”, Mama?’ she asked, returning to her seat.
For the first time the Dowager seemed to falter. She looked across at Ursula. ‘I see you, too, have been supplied with some strong spirit. Perhaps you would be good enough to pour me a small glass.’
With a deepening sense of foreboding, Ursula gave the Dowager a brandy.
She drank a little then set the glass down. ‘It took some time but eventually the wretched woman confessed that your sister not only believes herself in love, no doubt that’s what infatuation seems to her, but appears to be with child.’
Cold fingers clutched at Ursula’s heart.
Helen looked horror-struck. ‘She can’t be?’ she exclaimed. ‘Anyway, how would Didier know?’
‘Does your maid not know the passage of your monthly courses?’ The Dowager drank more of her brandy.
‘She could merely be late,’ Helen blustered.
‘Why should the girl be so nervous and worried if that was all?’
‘Nervous and worried? Is that what you were told?’
‘As I said, nothing can be hid from one’s maid.’
‘Did she also vouchsafe you the name of Belle’s amour?’
The Dowager sighed deeply. ‘Helen, by now you should know better than to try and dissemble with me. Of course she knew; you knew, I knew, and I am sure Miss Grandison knows.’ She turned and fixed her penetrating gaze on Ursula. ‘You do, do you not?’
Ursula repeated what she had said earlier.
‘A tendre? I repeat, the girl thinks herself in love.’ The Dowager was scornful.
‘Were you able to learn why Belle went riding so suddenly and recklessly?’ Ursula asked.
‘The maid found her, as I believe they say in romantic novels, “crying her heart out”. Didier isn’t a woman I warmed to and she does not show much respect for her mistress. She said the girl was incoherent. The fact that the woman’s command of English is far from perfect may have had something to do with that. However, she said that Belle eventually got angry. Apparently she said she needed to “get away from here” and insisted on changing into her riding habit. The girl then left and the maid went down to Mrs Parson’s sanctum for tea.’
‘She didn’t think it strange Belle should want to go out riding at that time?’ Ursula said, astonished.
‘The woman’s a fool. Had it been an English maid,’ the Dowager threw a contemptuous glance at Helen, ‘she would have raised the alarm immediately. Now I only hope that the idiot girl can be found.’
Suddenly there were the sounds of a scuffle outside the library with shouts that grew louder and more acrimonious.
The door opened and in came the Colonel and Thomas Jackman. Between them they held a still-struggling William Warburton.
The Colonel forced the young man into a chair. ‘Now, are you or are you not a murderer?’
Chapter Thirty
William Warburton tried to rise from the chair. ‘How dare you!’ he spluttered. He had changed for dinner; his black tie was now adrift and hung down his white pique front. The dark hair was mussed and the blue eyes narrow and ugly. The easy charm had vanished.
Thomas Jackman pushed him down again. ‘To think I should catch up with you here,’ he said joyously.
The Colonel stood back and regarded the young man with a cold gaze.
‘A murderer!’ exclaimed the Dowager.
Helen had risen and for a moment Ursula thought she was about to dash forward. Then she sank back into her chair, a fist to her mouth, gnawing at her knuckles.
Suddenly Warburton surged up, attacking Thomas Jackman with a cry of rage. His fury was so intense Ursula expected he would knock the investigator to the floor before the Colonel could intervene. But with remarkable coolness Jackman laid hold of one of the young man’s arms and twisted it behind him, turning the aggressor into a helpless, pain-racked prisoner. A moment later, he was once again in the chair with Jackman standing over him, his breathing only slightly faster than normal.
‘You have no right to lay hands on me,’ the secretary spat out, massaging his arm. ‘Tell him, Stanhope.’
The Colonel stood with his arms folded, his expression chilling. ‘I would prefer to hear the charge against you, Warburton. Right, Jackman, tell us what you know. Out there,’ he nodded towards the door, ‘you accused him of being a murderer. An innocent man, Warburton, would not have reacted with the violence you displayed. So, I repeat, I want details.’
The Dowager advanced, her back ramrod straight. ‘Rise, you miserable excuse for a man.’
She waited, implacable, and after a moment William Warburton struggled to his feet.
To Ursula it seemed as though, beneath her iron exterior, the Dowager was controlling an anger of volcanic proportions.
‘I knew you were trouble as soon as you arrived,’ she said, her voice like steel. ‘I told my son to tell you to go. No, he said. You were the Marquis’s nephew and the Marquis was his friend. Noblesse oblige, were the words he used. He said he’d learned them from me.’
She was tall for a woman, dressed all in black, her hair in a severe knot, her gaze unyielding.
‘You seduced that girl, Belle Seldon,’ she sounded as though she could hardly bear to utter Belle’s name. ‘You seduced her under our roof! Now she is with child.’
‘What!’ Ursula saw this was something he had not known. He rapidly assimilated the information, then smirked. With an attempt to recapture some
of his customary insouciance, he said, ‘If that is indeed the case, our engagement should be announced immediately.’
The Dowager slapped him hard across the face.
Helen screamed.
‘Mama!’ protested the Colonel.
Mr Warburton’s knees buckled and Jackman took a grip on one of his upper arms.
‘You are worthless,’ the Dowager said without emotion. Then she swung round to fix her daughter-in-law with her basilisk stare. ‘You have brought heartache and little else to Mountstanton. You are uncontrollable. I told my son how it would be. He would not listen. Nor would his father. He congratulated Richard, said he had done a great thing. What great thing?’
Helen gazed at her, white-faced.
‘Mama,’ repeated the Colonel, ‘Please! This is not achieving anything. Leave it to me.’
‘And this investigator you have brought in. How could you think we had anything that needed investigating?’ She gave Jackman a scorching glance then brought her attention back to Warburton. ‘Belle Seldon is a stupid girl but she is under our protection. You are venal. At the very least you have abused our hospitality. She is like the rock that lies beneath coastal waters waiting for luckless ships, merciless when they are fouled on her granite. You, on the other hand, are scum,’ she said. With a last glare at William Warburton, she left the room.
Helen sat shaking, her head in her hands.
Ursula placed a hand beneath her elbow. ‘Come with me,’ she said and led her, unprotesting, towards the door.
The footman had said they were all a family at Mountstanton; but what an unhappy one. Ursula thought that having to live with the Dowager could make anyone seek comfort elsewhere. When Richard became Earl, he should have pensioned her off to some far county, not allowed her to establish a redoubt in the west wing. No wonder the Colonel spent so little time at Mountstanton.
At the door, Helen turned. ‘Charles?’ she pleaded.
He offered no comfort. ‘Go with Miss Grandison,’ he said evenly. ‘With Jackman’s help, I’ll sort this out.’
Helen stumbled into the corridor, Ursula supporting her.
Once in the pretty boudoir, Ursula settled her into an armchair. ‘Shall I ring for your maid?’
Deadly Inheritance Page 35