Ariel smiled at the older woman. She knew her very well by now. “No doubt you also hope to discover something useful while you are there?” she hazarded shrewdly.
Mrs. Merriweather’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment she did not look pleased. But then she nodded approvingly. “I’ve said you have your wits about you. You are right, of course. I do hope to learn something useful. If, as the colonel suspects, a member of the ton is behind the thefts at the museum, I may hear something of use if I sit with the tattle boxes and toss out a useful tidbit or two myself.”
Ariel shook her head. “No wonder you were such a formidable governess!” she said. “I shudder to think what it would have been like for any poor girl trying to outwit you!”
Mrs. Merriweather drew herself up to her full height and sniffed disdainfully. “I should hope the girls I had charge of had the wit to realize how pointless it would be and did not do so more than once.”
Ariel laughed, not in the least deceived by the air of reproof. “Confess,” she said. “You enjoyed matching wits with your charges and would have been sadly disappointed had they lacked the strength of character to try!”
“Well, perhaps,” Mrs. Merriweather conceded. “So long as they did realize in the end that I had their best interests in mind.”
They both grinned at each other, but then Mrs. Merriweather reached out and put a hand on Ariel’s arm. “I cannot help but think this is a difficult time for you, my dear. Do you mind being left alone this evening while we go to the ball? If you wish, I could stay home with you.”
Ariel was touched by the other woman’s kindness, and yet, if anything, she felt too hemmed about with the kindness and concern that led the others to keep such a close eye upon her. But of course she could not say so. Instead, Ariel smiled and replied, “Please go to the ball. I would like to think of you having fun or, at any rate, discovering something that might tell us who was behind the thefts at the museum and perhaps even my father’s and Tom’s deaths.”
Mrs. Merriweather dropped her hand from Ariel’s arm and nodded. “I do think your father would have approved. He would have wanted us, I think, to find the answers—if not for himself, then for Tom.”
She paused, and a bleak look came into her eyes. “That poor simple young man,” Mrs. Merriweather said. “His death still haunts me. They must have known he could do them very little harm. And it positively infuriates me that the museum trustees are willing to pay Bow Street to find your father’s killer but will not spend a penny to find Tom’s. To be sure, the colonel has offered to pay Mr. Collins to find Tom’s killer since the trustees have taken over the cost for your father, and in any event, the two person’s responsible may be one and the same, but it still rankles.”
“And you care, even though Tom was a stranger to you,” Ariel said.
“For twenty years I was a governess,” Mrs. Merriweather said quietly. “And for twenty years I knew my place. But I never forgot that once I had been a young lady, too. That had my father not died penniless I might have married well and been one of the ones who hired women like me. And for twenty years, there was not a day that went by when someone did not make clear to me how unimportant they thought I was. How little someone in my position was valued.”
“Except the families who employed you,” Ariel countered gently.
Mrs. Merriweather nodded. “I was fortunate. By the time I was called in, the families were so desperate for someone to bring their daughters to heel that they would not have dared do something so foolish as to snub me. But there were always others. Sometimes they were other servants. Sometimes it was visitors to the house or the more distantly related connections. But one way or another, I was never allowed to forget that I was not as valued or important to society as the families who hired me. So I feel, in many ways, very much like poor Tom, and when they say his life did not matter, it is as though they say the same of mine.”
Just at that moment a maid came into the room, a somewhat frantic look upon her face. “Mrs. Merri- weather? Nurse asks that you come upstairs at once! It seems your daughter is, er, being difficult.”
With a sigh, the older woman left the room, and Ariel, curious to see the child of a former governess, indeed the child of this particular former governess, followed. Surely the child of the infamous Miss Tibbles ought to be a paragon of virtues? Prettily behaved and clever and well educated? Somehow, it did not sound as if this was precisely the case.
Upstairs, a rather harried-looking older woman greeted Mrs. Merriweather at the door to the nursery. “You must speak to your daughter, ma’am,” Nurse said firmly. “She won’t listen to a word I say.”
Mrs. Merriweather advanced into the nursery. “Elizabeth!”
A little girl with bright lively eyes looked up at her mother. In the calmest of voices she said, “Yes, Mama?”
“What have you been doing now?”
“Decorating the nursery, Mama. It needed decorating,” the winsome child replied with wide, innocent eyes.
The nurse muttered something about devil’s spawn. The maid whispered to Ariel, most improperly, that the child was a real terror and none of them wanted the task of feeding or bathing her.
Mrs. Merriweather looked around at the splashes of paint that now covered the walls and tables and said, “To be sure, it brightens up the room, Elizabeth, but this is not our house and it is not your place to decorate. They might like it drab and dingy in here.”
The nurse gasped in outrage. Ariel had to smother a giggle of amusement. The maid listened avidly, and there was no doubt she meant to regale the staff below stairs with a vivid description of all that was taking place.
The child merely looked at her mother and set down the paint. She put her now brightly stained hands behind her back. “Yes, Mama,” she said with a meekness that deceived no one, not with the evidence of her true nature so pointedly in front of all of them.
“Someone will need to clean this up,” Mrs. Merri- weather persisted.
The child stared up at her mother. “I’m too little,” she said.
“Oh, no, you’re not!” Nurse said briskly. To the maid she added, “Go fetch cloths and hot water. Miss Merri- weather is going to be very busy over the next few hours.”
“But I’m hungry,” Elizabeth said wistfully.
“And you’ll be a good deal hungrier before you’re done,” Nurse snapped at her.
“I’ll miss my nap?” Elizabeth offered hopefully.
“So you will! Or rather, you’ll take it later. Indeed, now that I think about it, you needn’t worry, for you’ll be going to bed far earlier than usual tonight,” Nurse told her roundly, her face deep red with anger.
“Well, perhaps she could . . .”
Mrs. Merriweather didn’t get any further than that because the nurse rounded on her. “I’ll thank you not to interfere with my taking care of the child, Mrs. Merriweather. I know what I’m about! You know very well that mothers are too softhearted to do what ought to be done with their children.”
“Now look here. I was a governess for twenty years,” Mrs. Merriweather tried again.
“Yes, and knowing that was so, I can’t understand how or why you have done such a poor job with your own child,” Nurse retorted. “Now I will thank you to clear out and let me do my job. Elizabeth, you will clean up this mess the moment Betsy returns with the hot water and cloths and you will not eat until you are done.”
“Mama?”
It cost Mrs. Merriweather a great deal to answer as she did. Ariel could see the difficulty with which she controlled her temper and her voice. But in the end the former governess looked at her daughter and said sternly, “You will do as Nurse tells you.”
“Yes, Mama.”
The child’s expression was mulish, and Ariel would not have taken bets that she would behave once they were gone. Nonetheless, she found the entire exchange vastly educational as well as entertaining. Apparently Mrs. Merriweather realized that she did so, for she turned to Ariel and sn
apped at her sharply. “Well? Come along! We aren’t needed here to distract my daughter! Indeed, I cannot think what you are doing here at all.”
“Yes, Mrs. Merriweather,” Ariel said meekly. “I was just curious. I have not much been around children, you see. I thought to learn a little of what they are like. And I was curious to see how one ought to raise a child.”
Mrs. Merriweather glared at Ariel, as though suspecting the younger woman was roasting her. But apparently she read nothing but honesty in Ariel’s eyes because after a moment she relented. Indeed, even her shoulders seem to lose a little of their stiffness.
“Yes, well, I suppose it is only natural that you should wonder. Particularly as you are of an age, indeed past age, to be thinking of marrying and setting up a nursery of your own. It is not always like that, you understand. It is the strange surroundings here in Lady Merriweather’s house that are upsetting my daughter. Naturally, at
home she would not dream of behaving in such a manner!”
“Naturally,” Ariel murmured in reply.
Again the other woman looked at her sharply and again decided not to take offense. “Yes, well, we were talking of other matters, but I cannot recall what they were.”
“Nor can I,” Ariel admitted.
Mrs. Merriweather consulted the clock over the fireplace as they entered the drawing room. She clucked her tongue. “This day is passing far too quickly,” she complained. “Soon I shall have to go and dress for the ball. I do wish I could dance, instead of having to sit with the tabbies, but I suppose it can’t be helped. Oh, well, my dear. When you are again able to go to such things, you must dance enough for both of us.”
Ariel would have protested that she did not think she would have so very many opportunities to do so, but Mrs. Merriweather was already moving out of the room and toward the stairs, muttering about stitching up a tiny tear in the flounce of her gown.
And Ariel was once more left alone, a circumstance that suited her perfectly. She went to her own room. Outside, the rain still came down steadily and ran dirty rivulets on the outside of the window glass. She traced one of the rivulets with her finger and wondered if this grief, this emptiness inside her heart since her father’s death, would ever go away.
19
The colonel and Mrs. Merriweather regarded each other with mutual concern. “You will be careful, Marian, won’t you?” he asked, a stem note to his voice. “You do understand that you are not to alarm anyone with your questions? Nor to confront Mr. Kinkaid, or anyone else for that matter, with your suspicions?”
Marian fiddled with the lace at her wrists rather than meet his eyes. This was not the time, she decided, to tell him that she had secreted both a knife and a pistol on her person. Instead, she sniffed and said, “As if I could be in any danger in the midst of a ball! No doubt it will be a dreadfully conventional and boring evening.”
“Perhaps,” he conceded reluctantly. “But who is to say what might happen after you leave, or the next day, should you ask the wrong questions of the wrong person? My dear, you must promise me that you will be careful!” She looked at him then, and there was concern in her eyes as she replied, “You must be careful as well, Andrew! You are the one running the risks tonight. Must you stand guard at the museum? Why can you not have the Bow Street Runner, Mr. Collins, do so?”
The colonel sighed. “Collins will be there. But I must be there as well. We must catch these thieves, Marian. If we are fortunate, we will find they are also the ones who killed Mr. Hawthorne.”
“And Tom,” Marian added.
“Yes, of course, and Tom,” the colonel replied impatiently. “But one man cannot do it alone. Therefore the Runner and I shall both go.”
“What about Stanfield? Why not take him with you?” Marian persisted. “Would three not be better than two?”
“No doubt,” Colonel Merriweather conceded. “But he is to go to the ball tonight and see what he can learn among the gentlemen.”
“Why couldn’t you do that?” Marian asked. “Then we could dance together,” she added coaxingly.
The colonel reached out and pulled her into his arms. “Minx!” he said. “You know very well that I should much prefer to be dancing than hiding out in a dusty comer of the museum. But Stanfield knows these men far better than I do. They are more of an age with him, and he has not been out of society, as I have for so many years. He will have a much better chance of discovering something useful than I ever could. Besides, with his injured arm and leg, he will seem much less of a threat than I would, should anyone begin to suspect him of too great an interest in the wrong things.”
“I do not like it,” Marian said, drawing back and allowing herself a heavy sigh. “I do not like either of you placing yourselves in the slightest danger.”
“But you do not hesitate to do so yourself,” the colonel pointed out sternly. “Indeed, if I had my way, you and Elizabeth would be bundled into a carriage and sent straight back home at once! I should never have brought you with me to London. I certainly would not have done so had I had the slightest inkling there could be any danger here. Now, go with my aunt to the ball and enjoy yourself. And remember—if anyone should ask, I am suffering from a touch of the gout and in no fit mood to be seen in company.”
“As if you have ever suffered from gout in your life,” Marian retorted disdainfully.
“Yes, well, in circumstances such as these, I should far rather our opponents underestimate than overestimate me,” he said roundly. “Now, go! My aunt will be downstairs already, and you know how she hates waiting.”
Marian turned to go. Over her shoulder, however, she could not resist tossing one last charge at him. “Yes, and I think that is the crudest thing you have done, both to your aunt and to me, insisting that we spend the evening in each other’s company! She may have accepted our marriage, but she has never come to like it—or me.”
And with that parting shot, she was gone. The colonel looked after his wife for a very long moment before he drew on his gloves and checked his pistol to make certain it was loaded. He also decided to take with him a rather nasty-looking knife, just in case. The Runner, Collins, had promised to bring rope, enough for each of them to have a length of it, just in case they should be so fortunate as to catch the thieves tonight.
Then he waited. The colonel had no wish to encounter his aunt, or to have Marian plead her cause one more time, before they left. Only when he was certain they must be well on their way, did he go downstairs and out the front door. He was pleased to note that the rain had stopped.
The Duchess of Berenford’s ball was crowded, which was not in the least surprising, for she was a noted hostess and there were few people who would turn down an invitation from her. Even the weather had cooperated, turning fine just in time for guests to depart for the ball.
This was all to the good, Captain Stanfield thought. It meant there would be a great many gentlemen hiding out from the ladies in the card rooms. And a great many conversations to surreptitiously listen in on. One could toss out a question and let others carry the conversation, and if it didn’t prove promising, one could move on without being noticed.
It would also, he told himself, be useful to be seen in conversation with several young ladies. It was amazing how much they sometimes knew and would tell about their families without realizing they ought not to do so. Anyone seeing him would simply assume that he was trying to throw his mama off the scent! After the other night, at Lady Jersey’s house, he knew bets had been placed at White’s as to whether he was finally going to succumb to the parson’s mousetrap and marry the notorious bluestocking, Miss Hawthorne. No one would wonder at his desire to put paid to such speculation by speaking with as many young ladies as possible.
As he bowed to yet another dowager, William noted that Mrs. Merriweather and the colonel’s aunt had just come into the ballroom. He had no doubt she also meant to make her own inquiries, but that would be among the older ladies of the ton. Well, that was all to th
e good. They would certainly tell her things he could not possibly ask without arousing just the sort of speculation he most wished to avoid. The colonel, he knew, would be at the museum, if not at this very moment, then soon. And he thought that a very good thing as well.
“Ah, Stanfield, my boy!” a hearty voice said nearby.
William turned to see Lord Lowell surrounded by a circle of friends. “Lord Lowell!” he said with genuine pleasure. “How are you?”
“I am in excellent health. Come join the group of us in a game of cards. I want to hear all about the museum and the goings-on there. I’ve heard that you knew the man who was killed.”
Since this accorded well with William’s own plans, he was happy to agree. In any event, Lord Lowell had been a good friend to his father, and he always enjoyed the man’s company. One card game led to another, and conversations swirled all around. William didn’t even have to try to bring any of the conversations around to the subject of the museum because Lord Lowell did so for him.
“Tell us, my boy, about the death of Mr. Hawthorne. Shocking thing. Positively shocking! They say he was stabbed. Were you there?”
“I arrived that morning at the museum after he was killed,” William replied.
“Any notion who did it?” another gentleman asked.
“I wish I knew,” William said with perfect honesty. “But I’ve no more notion than anyone else.”
Miss Tibbles Interferes Page 16