The Stanforth Secrets

by Jo Beverley

  The Duchess looked shrewdly at her granddaughter, then slowly took a number of sips of tea.

  “Well, Grandmama?” asked Chloe impatiently.

  “Just thinking,” said the old lady. “You don’t make rash plans when you’re my age. Next week’s a full moon. I prefer to travel when the moon’s full even though I’ve no intention of carrying on after dark. Accidents can happen, and at least one can press on by moonlight.”

  “Next week, then,” said Chloe with a sigh. Seven days seemed an age with Justin an ever-present temptation to foolishness.

  “Don’t look so fretful. You can’t run away before your dinner party, and you’ll need a few days to put Justin in the picture. He may have taken over things here, as is proper, but there must be a lot he doesn’t know. Then there’s Randal. He’ll escort us to the Towers, but he’s only just got here and deserves a few days with his friend. If the weather’s fine, we could leave next Tuesday.” With that, the Duchess pushed herself out of the chair and picked up her stick.

  “Well,” she said. “If we’re to be rushing off, I’d best go talk to my maid. Get things in order.”

  Chloe sat alone. Rushing off, indeed. She wanted to be gone now, today. With Stephen, that had been the way of things. Form a notion, carry it out. No hesitation, no planning. Was she in fact more like Stephen than she had ever supposed?

  If so, all the more reason not to marry again. Stephen had made a poor husband, but he’d have made a worse wife. Chloe shrugged and turned her mind to the more interesting speculation—had Frank been pushed off the Head, and if so, by whom?

  There was one person in the house who knew a great deal about Frank Halliwell.

  Chloe went to the suite of rooms used by Belinda—a bedroom, a boudoir, and a room used as a nursery for the baby. At Chloe’s scratch, she was admitted by Belinda herself.

  “Yes?” Aromas of rose and lavender, mint and citrus wove out of the doorway and gave Chloe her excuse for coming here.

  “I was wondering,” said Chloe, improvising, “if you would show me how you make potpourri, Belinda. Yours is delightful. I know it’s an accomplishment which every lady should have, but I was never an attentive student and, running off with Stephen so young, I missed some of my lessons.”

  “I suppose you did,” said Belinda as she let Chloe in.

  Was there a trace of reluctance in her manner? It was hard to tell with Belinda, and her stolidness might be a concealment for grief, as with Katy Stack. Chloe wondered if she should not bother the younger woman at this time, but Belinda seemed composed as she walked over to a small table on which rested a bowl full of fresh rose petals.

  “My mother taught me. Did yours not?”

  Chloe smiled a little bleakly. “My mother taught us nothing but prayers and manners. I do believe we studied potpourri at Miss Mallory’s, but I didn’t pay attention and mine went moldy.”

  “Well, it does take care,” said Belinda with a sliding glance that Chloe could only interpret as being superior.

  It came as a surprise to her that perhaps Belinda shared the world’s view and saw her as a silly, unreliable chit. But how could she think so, after Chloe had run Delamere for years? Then she realized Belinda was probably unaware of much of the work of running a big house, thinking the servants could do it all without guidance.

  Such speculating wasn’t what Chloe had come here for, however. She went over to Belinda’s worktable and ran her fingers through the fresh petals, savoring the perfume.

  “Do you only use rose?”

  “Some do,” said Belinda, moving the bowl out of reach as if Chloe’s touch could contaminate it. “Some like to mix all kinds of blossoms, herbs, and citrus.”

  She opened a cupboard to show a number of jars on a shelf. They were plain white china, each about a pint in size. She took one down and opened it.

  “Smell this. It has coriander and orange in it.”

  Chloe tested the aroma. It was delightful, not perfumed so much as tangy. “Lovely!”

  Belinda took down another. “This has some pine in it.”

  By the time they had sniffed at all the jars, Chloe’s nose was feeling ticklish and she was overwhelmed by perfumes, but she continued to be appreciative. Belinda made her mixtures with an artist’s gift for aroma and beauty. The same could be said of her extensive collection of jars in glass and porcelain. They were of many shapes and sizes, and all had lids to preserve the perfume.

  “I saw the lovely pot you put in the Dowager’s room. You are very kind to her.”

  “Poor lady,” said Belinda comfortably. “She’s easy to please.”

  “Well, she is delighted with it. I couldn’t help noticing it would be a little difficult to fill, though. All these have either a removable mesh, or a top which lifts off entirely. . . .”

  Belinda smiled. “It’s so pretty, though. Worth the trouble.”

  “Yes,” said Chloe, idly lifting one of the plain storage pots which stood upon the table.

  As she opened the lid, Belinda said, “It’s empty.”

  Indeed it was, but Chloe had already raised the pot to her nose. “It still has a sweet aroma, though,” she said, “and potent, to be sure. Let me see. I smell the roses, but there is another dominant fragrance. Honeysuckle.”

  She looked up at Belinda to see an intriguing expression on that lady’s face, which almost could be alarm.

  “Is something the matter, Belinda?”

  In a blink the stolid gaze had returned, but Belinda turned away. “Not really. I just remembered I forgot to collect honeysuckle this year.”

  Belinda then quickly began a lecture on the making of the fragrant mixes. “The main thing is to dry the petals thoroughly,” she said, “unless you want to make a damp mix, in which case you need salt . . .”

  Chloe tried to look attentive, but she was wondering about honeysuckle. She was also seeking a way to bring the discussion around to the subject of Frank, the real reason she had come to Belinda’s rooms.

  “It’s quite simple,” Belinda concluded, then added, somewhat pointedly, “if you have the patience.”

  “Yes, I see it is,” said Chloe. “I really must try it.” She abandoned the search for a subtle approach. “What a shame you had left the rose garden before Frank passed through, Belinda, or you might have saved him.”

  Belinda turned away again and began to spread the rose petals out to dry. “I can’t see me being able to stop a great fellow like Frank from flinging himself off the Head.”

  “Well no. But presumably, he wouldn’t have done it if you and the baby had been there.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not.” Belinda ceased her work and looked at Chloe. “I see you’ve heard he was sweet on me,” she said. “It’s true. I’d told him and told him there was no hope, but he wasn’t a man to take no for an answer. I think finally I’d made him see it was hopeless, though. It wouldn’t be fair to Dorinda, now would it, to give her a stepfather such as Frank Halliwell?” Belinda lifted a handful of petals, then let them drift back down into the bowl. “If he flung himself off the Head,” she said quietly, “it was probably because of me. I know that. But there’s nothing I could have done about it, now was there?”

  Was the question a plea? Chloe did not know and had no wisdom to offer. She and Belinda had little in common.

  Thanking the girl for her lesson, Chloe took her leave and went to her favorite refuge, the Sea Room, to sit on the window seat and consider the conversation.

  The idea had crept into her head that it was possible Belinda pushed Frank off the Head to conceal their relationship, but the genuine feeling in the younger woman’s voice made that unlikely. Besides which, Belinda had been out with Dorinda and the maid. Concealing a past illicit relationship was a feeble kind of motive for murder anyway, Chloe thought, then reconsidered. She might not kill anyone for such a reason, but people took lives for trivial motives every day. To Belinda, in her precarious social position, Frank might have seemed a terrible threat. . . .


  Justin came upon Chloe there, deep in thought. He sat down beside her and took her hand.

  “Chloe? What is it? Are you troubled by what happened this morning?”

  It took willpower to do so, but Chloe removed her hand. “Yes, I am a little. After all, a young man died. Just now, though, I was thinking about Belinda. I did form a notion she might have had a hand in his death. Is that not absurd?” She then recounted her conversations with Katy Stack and Belinda.

  “You’re correct, I think,” said Justin. “Even if he had been her lover, Frank presented little real threat to Belinda. How would he, a groom, spread poisonous rumors to the people who really matter?”

  Hesitantly, Chloe voiced her other suspicion. “What if Dorinda is not George’s child?”

  “Frank’s?” queried Justin, unsurprised. “It’s a distinct possibility. It could have been a problem if she had borne a boy, but as it is . . . It’s unlikely Belinda would kill to prevent an accusation so impossible to prove. The child was born a full nine months after the wedding, which is all that counts.”

  “A struggle?” said Chloe. Then she shook her head. “Oh, this is terrible. Just because I don’t particularly like Belinda—and I am sure that is outright snobbery—I am trying to make her a murderess! It’s not as if she even had the opportunity. It is hardly likely that Rosie would keep silent about her mistress pushing the groom off a cliff. And after all,” added Chloe with a cool look, “you men are quite convinced it was suicide.”

  Justin grinned wryly. “Not so much that, my dear. Randal put it more exactly. We decided, after looking into the matter, that there was no chance of sorting it out, and we might as well let the matter lie.”

  “Oh,” said Chloe with a raised brow. “Is that how you keep the world spinning smoothly?”

  Justin grinned. “I don’t know how the civilians do it but it’s pretty much the way the war is run. No point stirring matters that’ll stay down if allowed to.”

  “But someone could have come upon Frank after Belinda had gone around the side of the house. If he was killed, don’t we have to do something about it?”

  Justin took her hand again, gently playing with her fingers. Chloe let him retain it this time. In seven days, she’d be gone.

  “It depends on why he was killed,” Justin said thoughtfully. “In other words, will the killer strike again?”

  “Strike again?” she echoed faintly, more alarmed by the effect he was having on her than his words.

  He made her alarm the excuse to take her other hand. “Have I upset you?” he said gently. “I’m sorry. Perhaps this is, as Sir Cedric says, no matter for a lady.”

  “Sir Cedric would say that,” Chloe remarked, her consciousness centered on her hands, and his hands. Did she look as flustered as she felt?

  There was an intensity in Justin’s eyes as he looked at her. “I had the feeling, when talking to him, that he sees himself as a suitor, my dear.”

  “I suppose he is,” she admitted a little breathlessly. “He is the only marriageable man in these parts.”

  Justin smiled slightly. “Not anymore.”

  Chloe had been able to handle Randal with scarcely a moment’s thought, but now she found herself in a panic. She pulled her fingers from Justin’s and stood, looking away from him. “Randal noted much the same thing this morning,” she said with an attempt at banter, “and then absolutely denied he had any interest in my hand. Are you also toying with a lady’s affections?”

  He had risen with her. Now he turned her to face him again. “Does the lady have affections?” he queried. A slight smile mirrored the lightness of his tone, but his brown eyes were serious and made tantalizing promises.

  Chloe collected herself. “I am tolerably well-disposed toward the world,” she said, meeting his gaze boldly.

  He stroked her cheek with a finger and grinned. “Far too broad-cast a style for me, my dear. I would want a lady to be particular in her affections.”

  “Well,” said Chloe, moving out of his hold before she lost every shred of common sense. “I would lay odds Belinda would be most particular—if you’ve a steady foot on a cliff, that is.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Still a vixen, aren’t you?” Then, to her alarm, he sobered. “Be careful, Chloe. There’s just the smallest possibility there is someone hereabouts who is . . . unhinged.”

  With that he went on his way, leaving her adrift. Was he going to woo her? What on earth was she to do? Her brain knew marriage to Justin would be foolish, but she was not at all sure her brain could control her wayward heart.

  Later, Chloe wondered, with shock, whether his final words had indicated suspicions of her mother-in-law. Chloe had to confess she wouldn’t be surprised to find the Dowager had pushed Frank off the cliff, if she’d taken it into her head he was evil. Fortunately, Miss Forbes was able to attest that the Dowager had been in her company all day. Feeling rather ridiculous, Chloe also checked on the Duchess and found she had still been in her bed breakfasting when Frank had died.

  At that point, Chloe had to face the implications. Justin and Sir Cedric had already established that none of the staff could have been on the Head with Frank. The only person at Delamere who could possibly have pushed Frank off the cliff was Justin himself.

  It was with this disturbing thought in mind that, later in the day, Chloe knocked at the door of the office and was told to enter.

  Justin looked up with every evidence of delight when he saw her. Chloe told herself that was because he was sick to death of the piles of notes and ledgers which surrounded him.

  “How are you managing?” she asked. She was already dressed for dinner. She had not examined too closely her motives in choosing yet another becoming gown, this time of a clear, turquoise blue.

  “All the better for seeing you,” he said with obvious sincerity as he rose. “You look like the summer sky, my dear.”

  Chloe knew she was blushing. She should have spent less time wondering about Frank’s death, and more deciding what she was to do about an amorous Justin. “That’s blue for you,” she said prosaically. “What would you say if I was wearing yellow?”

  “That you look like a field of daffodils up Yealand way? That seems a little trite, though. Give me notice and I’ll work at it.”

  Chloe picked up a battered quill and fiddled with it. “Practicing for when you go hunting a bride, Justin?” She looked up to see a glint of humor in his eyes.

  “Are you suggesting I need practice?”

  Justin was looking at her like a man studying a text. Chloe had never been aware until this moment how little experience she had with serious flirtation. Married out of the schoolroom, and mured up at Delamere since becoming a widow, she had no idea how to behave when a man was serious in his intent.

  Was Justin serious in his intent? What should she do? She decided to behave as she had when she was safely married.

  She cast him a teasing glance. “Practice? Probably a little. After all, you’re a rough soldier, aren’t you?”

  He grinned. “Am I? I thought the tailors had disguised me better.”

  “I wouldn’t let it concern you overmuch,” she continued. “Your handsome face will speak for you if you become tongue-tied.”

  He walked slowly around the desk until he stood close in front of her. Chloe could feel her heart pounding as the smile fled from her face.

  “And what does my handsome face say?”

  Betrayed into honesty, and perhaps with the notion of breaking the intimacy of the moment, Chloe said softly, “It speaks of sadness and unspeakable things.”

  The laughter fled from him, and after a startled moment he turned sharply away. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh no,” Chloe exclaimed. “It is I who should be sorry. I don’t know why I said such a thing.”

  He turned back, sober but calm. “As always, you speak the truth. When we first met, you were still a child, younger even than you thought. You still believed in honesty and made no
attempt to dissemble. We were all children then, but Stephen and I were not so innocent as you. You have learnt some sophistication, Chloe, but do not learn too much. We all have need of honest souls.”

  Chloe raised her chin. “Then why did you turn away?”

  He shrugged. “Do we all not flinch under the knife?” He looked at the dancing flames in the fireplace. “War leaves its scars, my dear. I recommend, when you choose another husband, that you not choose a soldier.”

  Chloe swallowed and summoned up a smile. “You will have to take that up with the Duchess. She recommends a soldier, or a naval man. She thinks I’d do better with an absentee Lord and Master.”

  A trace of humor lightened his expression. “It would be a damned waste.”

  It was as if a power had been born in the room, leapt between them, drew her. . . . Then Chloe remembered, with relief, her main reason for coming to the study. Any suspicion of Justin seemed ridiculous but still must be pursued.

  “It would be a damned waste, as you put it, for my husband to be around all the time,” she said. “For then I would never have the opportunity to employ my management skills. Do you find everything in order?”

  Seemingly at ease, passion fled, he strolled over to stand beside her. She could sense him there, like the heat of a fire.

  “I thought it was your hand,” he remarked, “making all those notes on Scarthwait’s records. You have worked hard, my dear. Should I pay you a salary?”

  Chloe moved away a few steps. “Stephen provided for me handsomely, thank you, and I would have died of boredom without occupation. Besides which, I find I cannot tolerate seeing things in disorder. Have you really looked through all these?” she asked, indicating a pile of papers. If he had, he surely must have spent the morning hard at work.

  He made no attempt to pursue her. “Yes. I haven’t fine-combed them, but I am willing to trust you and Scarthwait on the whole. I am merely trying to familiarize myself with the estate.”

  Chloe spotted one thin ledger in the pile he had not yet touched. “Did you see the figures on the goats we started as an experiment?” she asked. “I think it is going famously.”