“Papa!” Clarinda exclaimed, running into his arms. “Papa, someone tried to kill Harry!”
The squire gaped in horror as he took in the scene. “By God, I knew no good would come of the old man’s family poking about. Damn fortune hunters!” he bellowed, his ruddy cheeks becoming a darker shade that Harry well recognised by now. “Throw ‘em all out, my lad,” he carried on as his rage increased.
“Throw who out?” came a revolted voice from the doorway as another figure appeared on the scene. Harry turned and experienced a jolt of pure fury as he discovered Edwin Preston surveying the scene with disdain. His poor, permanently terrified-looking wife dissolved into tears at the sight of the dog and Beryl was forced to her senses to intervene before the frail creature fainted.
“I assure you that Mr ... Thompson, or whatever your name actually is,” Edwin drawled, completely ignoring his wife’s distress and looking Harry over with much the same expression as he’d granted the dead dog, “has no power whatsoever to remove any one of Lord Preston’s blood relatives - and rightful heirs - from their property.”
“You,” Harry said, the rage that had been brewing under his skin since he’d first found poor Ratty overflowing at the sight of the supercilious creature in front of him. He took a step closer to the man, towering over him, his voice filled with menace. “You did this.”
Edwin was a slight man, shorter by far than his older brother Wilfred, and of the same whippet-thin build. The long face and long nose that seemed so evident in their strain of the family was also present, with mean, dark, little eyes – ones that presently held a glimpse of terror. Yes, Harry thought with satisfaction, this is how it feels when a bigger man bullies a weaker one, you damned coward. This is how your wretched wife has felt her whole bloody life, by the looks of her.
“I-I have no idea what you are talking about,” he said, trying to regain his dignity whilst taking several hasty steps away from Harry. “I’ve been with my wife in our room all morning.”
“B-but,” his wife began, and was silenced with a look of such venom that Harry wanted to knock his blasted head off there and then.
“You listen to me, Edwin,” Harry growled, holding onto his temper by a fraying thread. “I don’t know what game you and your damned brother think to play here, but don’t think I’m about to let you get away with murder.” He took another step towards Edwin, who looked like he was about to run for his mother. “If I find out it was you who did this, you’ll wish you were dead.” Harry held up once massive fist, filled with, for the first time since he’d killed Joe, not only the desire, but the will do to another man harm. “Now get out of my study!” he snarled in fury.
Edwin did, pausing only on the threshold to bark his wife’s name and demand she follow.
“Mildred can stay here!” Harry bellowed in return, before slamming the door in the man’s face.
He turned to look at the astonished faces of the others still in the room, including a look of pure adulation from the unfortunate Mildred. He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, his voice rough, illustrating his desire to go out and pound something into the ground.
Preferably Edwin Preston.
“Not at all, not at all,” the squire muttered, eyeing Harry with a slightly alarmed expression. “Bound to happen, not every day a fellow escapes murder, is it? Eh, lad?” he said with a nervous chuckle.
“Oh, Harry,” Clarinda, sobbed, rushing to him and taking his hand. She held on for dear life despite the audience, and Harry couldn’t reprove her for it as he didn’t want her to let go either.
“It’s all right, Clara, love,” he murmured, squeezing her fingers tightly.
“No. It isn’t,” the squire said, shaking his head and looking down at the dog. Harry imagined, perhaps unfairly, that the squire was seeing his daughter’s title slipping from his grasp. “The law,” he said after a moment, his voice sure and full of certainty. “That’s what you need. And I know just the fellow.”
***
“But why, Harry?” Clarinda begged. They were standing outside now, just out of earshot of the driver of her carriage, which had been brought around to take her home. Reggie had been left the deeply unappealing job of removing poor Ratty from the study, and Beryl had returned to the sanctuary of her kitchen, still sobbing, and with the fragile figure of Mildred clinging to her arm - whether for sympathy or support, Harry wasn’t sure. Clarinda’s father had also left moments earlier. He’d clearly gone on ahead with the intention of giving them time for a fond farewell, and, today, Harry could only be grateful.
His nerves were all on end and he felt like the scrawny boy he’d once been, with the spectre of Joe looming over him with a red hot poker. Someone had meant him to be cold in his grave by now. The idea made his flesh creep even as rage boiled in his gut.
The squire’s helpful recommendation of a certain Mr Formby hadn’t helped. In normal circumstances, he might have leapt at the opportunity of having an unbiased law man come in and dig through the Preston’s family affairs. Only, it wouldn’t just be their affairs he dug into, it would be his.
The likelihood of the man coming up with something more than a dead dog was too big a risk to take.
The squire had argued until he was blue in the face, and Harry had grown weary with finding excuses to refuse him. The man had even offered to pay for Formby’s expenses, thinking perhaps he’d inherited Alistair’s miserly tendencies and it was the cost of the investigation that he’d have to bear that was holding him back from plain good sense. In the end, he’d given in and said he’d think about it, but Clarinda hadn’t been convinced by the half-truth and had continued to beg him to reconsider.
“Just give me one good reason,” she pleaded, still clinging to his hand.
Harry sighed and drew her fingers to his lips, wishing both that she didn’t have to leave, and that she was as far from this wretched situation as was possible, both at one and the same time. He kissed her fingers, smiling a little at her wistful sigh.
“I told you before, love,” he said, his voice low. “I didn’t run away from my old life, my old name, for no good reason.” He squeezed her fingers and dropped her hand reluctantly, stepping away a little, as though he might not contaminate her with his past if he kept a little distance between them. “What else do you think this Formby fellow might turn up if he starts poking about?”
“But he’ll be working for you, Harry,” she insisted as Harry just laughed and shook his head.
“That won’t necessarily stop a fellow prosecuting me,” he said, his tone dark. “Especially if he’s really the trustworthy, honest sort your pa reckons he is. Now maybe I could pay to keep him quiet if he’s not so honest as the squire thinks, but that only works if I win this whole case. If Wilfred and his kin prove I’m not the heir, I don’t know if I’ve blunt enough to silence him. And if I do win, well, if he’s the kind to take a bribe, maybe I have a blackmailer on my hands for the rest of my days, ready to bleed me dry.”
“Oh, Harry,” she said again, defeated by his argument, for now, at least. “I don’t want to leave you here alone, with all these horrid people.” She moved forward and laid her head on his chest.
He wrapped his arms around her, dropping a kiss on her forehead and feeling his heart ache with the desire to keep her with him.
“Ah, come now, Clara, love. I’m a big boy now,” he protested, even though he was loath to have her go.
“Promise me you’ll be careful,” she pleaded, her blue eyes so full of love and fear for him that his throat felt a little tight. Still, he mustered a smile and gave her hand one last squeeze, aware that they were in full view of the house.
“I promise to be very careful. You have my word.”
With that, she had to be satisfied, and he handed her up into the carriage and watched as it rolled off into the distance.
***
Harry spent the next couple of days feeling like he was cons
tantly looking over his shoulder. He took to eating in the kitchens, propriety be damned. At least here Beryl could ensure no one tampered with his meals. Sleeping less and less, he took to sitting up late and reading by the fire in his room, or occasionally in his study, poring over Alistair’s old ledgers and dreaming of the things he could do if he actually got through this alive.
He had little interaction with the family, thank God, as he kept mostly to his room, the study, or the kitchen, much like Alistair had, he realised with stab of amusement. Today he’d been surprised as he’d made his way to the kitchen, hopeful of finding a cake and tea being offered, and found Mildred Preston there.
She was sipping at a cup of tea and looking around the room with wide, grave eyes, as though she expected her husband to loom from the very walls at any moment and drag her out by her hair. From the way Edwin sent Harry’s instincts all on edge, he couldn’t say he blamed her.
On seeing him, she leapt to her feet in horror. “L-Lord Preston,” she stammered, her already pale face blanching further and making her grey eyes look enormous in her sweet little face.
Harry stopped in his tracks and held out his hand.
“Please don’t get up, Mrs Preston, you are very welcome here,” he said, keeping his voice gentle.
She stared at him in wonder, as though she’d never heard a kind word in her life, and sat back down again. Harry watched with a sickening feeling in his belly as she tugged at the long sleeves of her dress, covering ugly, dark bruises. He looked up to see Beryl giving him a knowing look that suggested she had seen, too, and given the woman leave to come here whenever she wanted.
“I was hoping for some cake,” Harry said, trying to keep his tone light-hearted. “Have you had the privilege of tasting Mrs Fletcher’s cake, Mrs Preston? It’s a thing of rare beauty and wonder,” he said, laughing, wondering why Beryl was gesticulating madly to him behind the woman’s head. As he met Mrs Preston’s amused and faintly chagrined expression, he remembered that the Preston family had not been treated to Beryl’s best efforts.
“Ah,” he said, mortified.
To his surprise, however, Mrs Preston simply gave a nervous little laugh. “I don’t blame you in the least for making us unwelcome,” she said, her voice so tiny and frail that Harry had to step closer to catch the words. She glanced up at him, then, an uncertain smile at her lips. “But I would love to try some, if I may. I promise not to breathe a word to the others,” she added, pulling herself up a little straighter as though the words had taken great courage. Harry didn’t doubt it.
He grinned at her, then, and sat down at the table.
“Well, in that case,” he said giving her a conspiratorial wink. “I think we should get the works. What do you say, Beryl?” he asked, finding the woman grinning at him as he turned his head. “Tea, cake, scones, jam, and cream?” he asked with a hopeful lilt to his voice.
“I’d say that was a right good idea, my lord,” Beryl replied, rolling up her sleeves and bustling about the kitchen with satisfaction.
Once Mildred had gone, after being stuffed with as much cake as one small woman of middling years could feasibly hold, Harry stayed on to speak to Beryl as she washed up the crockery.
“What do you think of her?” Harry asked, taking a tea towel and drying up the clean dishes as Beryl placed them on the side.
“Give me that!” she said in horror, snatching the tea towel from him with irritation. “Viscounts do not do the drying up, my lord.”
Harry snorted and tugged it from her grasp again. “I don’t suppose they do,” he retorted. “I, however, do.”
Beryl tutted, wagging a finger at him, her eyes narrowed. “You, my lad, are Viscount Stamford, like it or not. So act the part.” With that, she snatched the tea towel back again, giving him a look that threatened retribution if he disobeyed her.
Harry put up his hands in defeat and backed up to lean against the kitchen table.
“As for that poor, poor woman,” Beryl continued, her expression filled with pity. “What a sad little dab of a creature she is. I reckon this afternoon is the most pleasure she’s had in years.”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “I felt that, too. Good God, what I wouldn’t give to wring that blasted, scrawny neck of her husband’s.”
“For heaven’s sake, don’t say such things aloud,” Beryl scolded him, shaking her head. “Though I can’t say I don’t agree with the sentiment,” she added, giving him a pained look. “She lost her son, baby boy it was, when he was just a little lad,” she said on a sigh, her voice full of sorrow. “Influenza, by all accounts. She could never have another. He blames her, of course,” she added with a disgusted sniff. “Typical man.”
“Hey,” Harry objected. “We’re not all the same, you know.”
Beryl’s face softened and she reached out and patted him on the arm. “And thank heavens for that,” she said with feeling.
Chapter 23
To make the cull easy or quiet - to gag or kill him
- The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, by Francis Grose.
Harry’s day got off to a bad start when he was accosted by both brothers in the Baron’s Hall.
“Ah, Thompson,” Wilfred said, his contemptuous voice ringing out across the vast space like a cracked bell.
Harry kept on walking, ignoring Wilfred’s lean figure and his younger brother trotting at his heels like a blasted whippet.
“We have a witness.”
Harry stilled despite himself, a cold, sickening sensation shivering over him. The dreams he’d had of coarse rope being looped about his neck seemed all at once real and terrifying. Holding himself rigid, lest he should betray his alarm, he turned back to the brothers.
“What the devil are you on about, Wilfred?” he asked, keeping his tone lazy and bored and seeing the irritation leap in the man’s eyes. Harry allowed his lip to curl a little, realising that it must gall Wilfred beyond anything that Harry sounded more like Alistair’s heir than he did.
“A witness,” Wilfred repeated, folding his arms and staring back with those cold, dark eyes that both brothers shared. Alistair’s eyes had been dark, too, but more brown than that glassy, almost black they’d inherited from the malignant Mariah. Alistair’s had never been filled with such cruelty, either. Even at his worst and most miserly, Alistair had never been cruel. “We have found your mother.”
Harry stared at Wilfred in real astonishment for a moment as the man stared back in satisfaction, and then burst out laughing. “Good Lord, Wilfred,” he said, wiping his eyes as relief made his amusement all the sweeter. “I’ll admit, you had me going for a minute there.” He shook his head, staring down at the brothers from his greater height with all the disgust he truly felt. “Unless you’ve found yourself a really good clairvoyant, which I sincerely doubt, you’re going to struggle there. My mother died when I was a small boy.” He took a step closer, enjoying the feeling of looming over them. “A long time ago,” he added with a smile that showed too many teeth and could perhaps be interpreted as a snarl.
“So?” Edwin said, his long face staring up at Harry with that glittering malice only too evident. “We have a woman who’ll swear she’s your mother, and that she never met Alistair Preston in all her days.”
“Why, you ...” Before Harry could bring himself under control, his hand had curled around Edwin’s scrawny neck and begun to squeeze.
“Harry, no!”
Clarinda’s voice penetrated his fury and he dropped Edwin like a hot coal
“You see, Edwin,” Wilfred said, his thin lips drawn back over yellowing teeth in a smile that was pure vindictiveness, and ignored the fact his brother was gasping for air. “This is the kind of low-born, murderous filth that Alistair would rather leave the estate to. Just to spite us.”
“I’m hardly surprised.”
Harry turned, and even Wilfred and Edwin looked a little taken aback at the vision of Miss Clarinda Bow in a white rage. She crossed the hall, her lovely figure taut
with fury, her eyes flashing as she stalked towards the brothers.
“I have known Lord Preston most of my life, sir,” she said with all the contempt a very spoilt rich girl had at her disposal. “And I know how dearly he loved Harry and how he loathed and detested you both. I admit I had wondered, given Alistair’s occasional eccentricities, if he had been hard on you both.” She gave them a sweeping look from head to toe with an expression that implied there was a rather unpleasant smell lingering. “I see he was quite correct, when he referred to you as a regular Captain Huff. You are a nasty bully, sir, with no more regard for your uncle than a dog for a bone. Come, Harry,” she said, taking his arm with such a regal tilt to her head he could only stare at her in admiration. “I don’t wish to stay with such people a moment longer. They’re obviously bad ton.” They began to walk away and Clarinda looked up at him with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “You know,” she said, her voice carrying across the hall. “I should have listened to the Duke of Ware when he told me to avoid the lesser Prestons; vulgar and nasty, the lot of them, he said.” She emphasised her words with a sniff of disdain as Edwin was heard to express an oath of fury behind them. Clara just winked at Harry. “Still,” she added in a soothing tone. “You can’t help your family, Harry.”
They’d barely shut the door behind them when Clara clapped a hand to her mouth in shock. “Oh, Harry,” she said, and he wasn’t sure if she was more amused or horrified at her own behaviour.
“You were marvellous, love,” he said, grinning at her as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her, feeling a sense of incredulity that he was allowed to do so. She melted into him, every limb soft and pliant as he sank into the warmth of her mouth. Oh Lord, he shouldn’t have done it. It had been an impulsive gesture born of relief, but now that she was there, he didn’t wish to release her.
He pulled back a little, looking down at her and noting how breathless she was with satisfaction. “Did the Duke of Ware really say that?” he asked, not really caring for anything other than that soft, wondrous look in her eyes.
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