His eyes widened. Slowly, he leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and stared at me. “And you leaped some vast canyon of reason to assume I had invited her there.”
Inwardly I winced, but I refused to lower my guns. “The implication was clear. The whole household believes her to be your mistress.”
The Hammersley blue eyes flashed lightning. “Let me make sure I perfectly understand you. Because Justine has been seen outside my door in the middle of the night, my entire household assumes I have been cavorting with her as my mistress. In my home. With my wife deathly ill in her bedchamber right next door.”
Put that way, I had to admit the tale told by Bess and Martha made less sense. Anger fading, I dropped my gaze to my lap.
“Well might you hang you head,” Thayne mocked. “Allow me to tell you how it has been. Perhaps then you will understand why I am so anxious to remarry.”
After long moments of silence, I sneaked a peek at him, to find him leaning toward me, as if preparing to confide a deep, dark secret to a friend. He was so close I felt him in every pore.
“It started long ago,” he told me, “when Helen was increasing with Violet. “Justine was ever a flirt, but her words, the language of her body became more overt. She would brush against me, by accident of course. Lean over to show off her bosom. Her eyes spoke volumes. At first I found her amusing, but as her conduct worsened, I was appalled.” Thayne straightened, played with the quill in his standish, his gaze fixed on the past.
“The problem worsened, to the point where I had to forget I was gentleman, Justine my wife’s cousin, and speak plainly. I confronted her here in this room, telling her I would tolerate no more of her nonsense. That Helen was my wife and I wanted nothing more.” Thayne shook his head. “Things deteriorated into rather a row, but she finally flounced out, ostensibly returning to her role as Helen’s friend and companion as if she had never considered anything else. Violet was born, and all seemed well.” Thayne drummed his fingers on the desktop. “Until Helen’s illness. This past year has been a nightmare in more ways than one. I—” He broke off. “You will think me a fool to be unable to order my own household, but Helen clung to Justine, I could not tell her she must leave.”
He heaved a sigh and added, “Justine was so rapacious I was forced to install a bolt on my bedchamber door and on the dressing room door that divides my chamber from Helen’s. So, let me assure you, Serena, no matter how many times Justine was seen in the corridor outside my bedchamber, she never got inside.”
I wanted to believe him, truly I did. Even as I wondered at my own naivety.
“So now you know why I wish to be married post-haste, casting a proper period of mourning to the four winds.”
After several moments of silence, I ventured: “It would appear we have both rushed onto Swallowin’ Sam. I am not at all certain we can negotiate all the pitfalls, even if I am willing to sink my reputation by marrying a man whose wife is barely in the grave.”
“A dilemma, to be sure,” Thayne returned drily. “But surely better than continuing to suffer Falconfell as it is at the moment.”
I stood. “It has been a difficult day, my lord. I need time to sort truth from fiction. Please excuse me, I must return to my sewing.” I bobbed a curtsy and fled.
I have learned many things since my first and only Season in London, primarily how to value myself, how to stand on my own two feet and cope with the world. I treasure the times I have been praised for confronting problems head on, for not shilly-shallying as so many do. Which may explain my shame as I clung stubbornly to my bedchamber or the nursery, venturing down to supper only to sit mumchance and scurry directly back to my room when the dowager led the ladies from the dining room. I used our great sewing project as an excuse, but I lied. When I looked at Thayne, doubts consumed me. And at the sight of Justine sitting at table, alternately flirting with Thayne, Avery, and Ross, rage claimed me.
A spinster of nearly thirty shaken by the dark side of love is a sad thing to see. I avoided mirrors as well.
Thayne was mine for the asking. All I had to do was ignore every tenet of proper conduct and accept.
But at what price was he mine? Would I be his glorified housekeeper while he crept to her bed each night?
Or should I make the leap of faith and believe what he told me?
I finished the last stitch of the hem on the blue kerseymere, knotted and cut the thread, and held the garment up for inspection. A simple T-shape, gathered at the neck and with long sleeves—one of Violet’s old sashes would do to belt it above her waist. Truthfully, I was proud of myself. In the past I had stitched baby garments as gifts and spent many hours mending, but this was my very first gown from cutting-out to final product. I bounced to my feet, dress in hand. I would have Violet put it on, and we would go for a walk.
Ten minutes later I was looking out one of the nursery windows while Nanny helped Violet change into her new gown, when movement near the edge of the woods caught my attention. I studied the area more closely and was rewarded by a glimpse of wavy blond hair and broad shoulders. The gamekeeper? With someone more slight beside him . . . wearing the brown country tweed jacket which seemed to be Avery’s favorite attire. There were a hundred reasons the two might be talking, so why did I get an impression of furtiveness in their movements? Disgusted with myself, I shook my head. So far my curiosity had brought nothing but disaster.
No, not quite. Violet had new clothes from garments found in the attic.
As Violet and I exited through the front door, I promised a frowning Fraser we would not go but a few feet beyond the bridge. “Yes, miss,” he responded woodenly, still looking anxious.
But before we could walk down the drive, Violet had to renew her acquaintance with each flower and bush she had encountered during our earlier circumnavigation of Falconfell. At last, after long minutes of sniffing and petting and exclaiming, we wandered slowly down the drive toward the bridge. I repeated the cautions I had already given in the nursery. She was not to go near the riverbank, but we might pause on the bridge and safely look down at the rushing stream. Solemnly, she nodded.
It was only when we arrived at the bridge that I had an inkling why Fraser had remained concerned. From my adult viewpoint, the bridge was quite safe, its wooden railing standing nearly chest high on both sides. My chest, I realized with horror. Thayne’s waist. Violet’s head. The slightest mis-step and she could slip beneath the railing. Dear God! Each day at Falconfell, I became a greater fool! I grabbed a handful of Violet’s cloak, making sure I had a grip on the kerseymere as well.
As we approached the railing, I bent down and wrapped both arms around her. “Just think,” I said, “the water we’re seeing now is rushing down the valley until it joins a bigger river, which will join an even bigger one, which will finally flow into the English Channel and become part of the sea.”
“Not as blue as my dress,” she said, as if my attempt to broaden her horizons had quite flown over her head. “More like Mama when she died.”
I almost dropped her. I swayed against the railing, jumping back instantly as I realized the folly of putting my faith in its strength. After I’d pulled us back to the middle of the narrow bridge, I knelt down and looked Violet in the eye. “I am so sorry,” I said. “For a moment I feared we might fall. Violet dear . . . what was that you said about your Mama?”
Her dark eyes took on depths no child’s eyes should ever have. “Mama was blue. Even before she died, she was blue.”
Merciful heavens, no one mentioned Helen’s heart was weak, and I knew of nothing else that would cause . . .
Except . . .
Clearly, I couldn’t question Violet. Perhaps Nanny . . .?
In an instant Violet was gone, running down the winding road away from the house. I hiked up my skirts and ran after her. The rocky cliff I had climbed to the shake holes was to her left, a gradually increasing drop down to the river on the right. And I suspected Violet was running blindly, tears obsc
uring her sight. Anything could happen.
I had done many things in my years of service to my family, a number I did not care to think about. Running was not one of them. It is, I assure you, humiliating, as well as agonizing, to be out-run by a five-year-old. I caught her only when she ran into an outcropping—fortunately earth instead of stone—and was plopped down hard on her backside, winded but unharmed. Tears streaked a face marred by her encounter with grass and dirt, her body shook with sobs. But after ascertaining there didn’t seem to be a drop of blood, I simply sat on the road and hugged her tight.
Every ounce of common sense I possessed said I must leave Falconfell, but how could I? Who would care for Violet? Events had already demonstrated that to the other residents of Falconfell, she was “out of sight, out of mind.”
Not to Thayne, perhaps, but what clue did men have about raising a girl child?
We sat there so long Fraser sent two footmen to find us. Fortunately, I saw them coming and was able to wipe Violet’s tears and clean her face before they arrived. One of the footman, bless him, picked Violet up and carried her back to the house. Alas, by the time Fraser opened the door into the hall, we had an audience—Thayne and the dowager both looking like a storm about to break. Avery, however, appeared sympathetic—but with Violet or with me? Justine looked as if her horse had just won at Newmarket.
I was in disgrace. Again.
Chapter Twelve
At a terse command from Hammersley, the footman continued to carry Violet straight up to the nursery. An annihilating look dispersed the gawkers in the hall, and a sharp, “Miss Farnborough!” paused my foot on the first step of the stairs up to my room. I heaved a long-suffering sigh and followed the master of the house into his study.
“You might have spoken to the poor child,” I exclaimed as I flounced into my customary chair. “And would giving her a hug have brought the roof down around our heads?”
“I beg your pardon.” He could not have looked more startled if I had seized his hand and bit him.
“She’s five years old, Hammersley. She’s just lost her mother. And you let a footman carry her straight by without so much as a smile! Have you all gone mad?” I paused for breath, though clearly not for thought, and added, “You are her father, are you not?”
He slumped back in his chair, hands over his eyes. I stared. Dear God, what had I said?
“There seems to be some doubt about that,” he said at last. “A mystery we will never solve, as Helen herself didn’t know.”
Clearly, Falconfell provided its own brand of entertainment. But that Helen had taken a lover before giving her husband an heir was truly shocking. Even in licentious London wives did not betray their husbands until after providing an heir.
At least I thought not. But what did I know about such things beyond the on dits that were bandied about at every gathering of females? Serena—sheltered daughter, sister, aunt—who had no idea what it was like to break the rules.
I took a deep breath and said, “Nonetheless, she is a child and she needs you. You are the only father she has.”
Thayne sat up, running his hand through his chestnut hair hard enough I feared he might pull some out by the roots. “You are right, of course. I will attempt to do better. Now tell me what happened just now.”
“We were simply out for a walk,” I told him, “inaugurating the first of Violet’s new gowns. We paused on the bridge to look at the water. I held her tight,” I added hastily. “She looked down and said something odd. That the water was the same blue as her mother when she died. And then she ran from me, down the road as fast as she could go. When I caught up with her, she was sobbing, her whole body shaking. So we sat there on the road, Violet in my lap, until she cried herself out. After that, we continued to sit because . . . I suppose because we both needed to compose ourselves before returning to the house.”
I bit my lip, unwilling to admit to weakness, and yet . . . “It has been a difficult week, my lord. At that point I fear my own tears were threatening to soak the ground.”
Silence stretched between us, though oddly not as awkward as it should have been between master and sometime governess.
“Violet is correct,” he said at last. “Helen’s lips and fingertips were blue—they’d gone that way before she died. Gradually. I didn’t even notice at first.”
“Did she have a bad heart?”
“The doctor never spoke of it.”
Surely the veriest quack could recognize a bad heart. Then why . . .? I frowned, opened my mouth to ask Thayne why he had not questioned the doctor more closely, then snapped it closed again. Men with no experience of the sickroom did not question the doctor. And, an insidious voice nagged, perhaps the lord and master of Falconfell had not wanted to know.
Worse yet, perhaps he had not needed to know. Had he enlisted Miss Maud with her knowledge of stillroom potions to rid himself of an unfaithful wife? Peach or apricot pits, ground fine, made an effective poison. And turned victims blue, particularly lips and fingertips—knowledge I had acquired through the years by reading every herbal I could find, almost all of which contained a section on poisons. It was remarkable how many healthful or medicinally beneficial trees and plants could also kill.
“Serena? You have the most odd look on your face.”
“I beg your pardon. It’s just all so sad,” I murmured. “May I go to my room now, Thayne? I fear I am as worn by Violet’s tears as she is.”
Whether he was mollified by my use of his name or not I don’t know, but he waved me on my way. I dragged myself up the stairs and threw myself, face down, on my bed, rigid as a board. The thoughts running through my head were quite impossible. Absolutely untrue. They had to be. Thayne would never . . .
Justine would.
But surely Maud would never help her . . .
Maud declared herself a witch. Who could fathom how her mind worked.
I could not stay.
Violet.
I could not leave.
Violet, a possible cuckoo on the Hammersley family tree.
A child, that’s what she was. A suffering child. And I could not leave her in this den of depravity.
I raised my head as a thought struck. Perhaps Violet might benefit from time away from Falconfell. I could ask Cressy if I might bring her to Laytham Hall, where she would have a playmate in Cressy’s eldest, age four.
I almost flew off the bed, penning the letter before all the ramifications of such a retreat from Falconfell could change my mind. Hammersley would frank it, having no idea it was anything more than a letter to my sister.
Bess came in while I was writing, her face wreathed in a smile so cheerful it struck me like a blow. “Look, miss,” she said, holding up a stack of colorful fabrics. “The merchant from the village just delivered these himself. That pleased he was to be asked to provide goods for Falconfell. I’ll take these straight to Martha, but I knew you’d want to see them first.”
I gave her such a blank stare she looked at me queerly. “Is everything all right, miss?”
“Of course,” I returned. “And what a fine selection from such an unlikely source. Yes, take them to Martha straightaway, if you please.”
I spent what was left of the afternoon in the nursery, reading to Violet and playing counting games, at which she was remarkably adept. I felt almost content. The die was cast. I would take Violet and leave . . .
And then the bubble burst, as I realized I could not take Violet away without asking Hammersley’s permission.
It seemed to be my day for revelations. We were in the middle of dinner that night when Rab Guthrie’s name was mentioned in an exchange between the Hammersley cousins, Thayne and Ross. For some reason I happened to be looking at Avery and saw the conscious look that crossed his face, the telltale stain that flushed his cheeks. Oh! Oh my! It wasn’t that I didn’t know about such things, but somehow I had not expected to find the unnatural here in these rugged mountains. Avery and Rab Guthrie? I swallowed a sigh. Wh
y was it so many of the most beautiful men . . .?
But such an interest would explain why Avery visited Falconfell so frequently and why his mother encouraged him. Sodomy was a capital offense, much better practiced far from the eyes of government.
I sat in a corner of the drawing room after dinner and watched the residents of Falconfell as if they were actors on a stage. And surely only a book by Monk Lewis could rival Falconfell for sin and high drama. It seemed I could eliminate Avery and Rab Guthrie as Violet’s father, though perhaps not. I’d heard some shocking tales in my time of men with an appetite for both sexes. But Ross seemed a good candidate—was all that charm false, or did he treat every woman so, even poor drab spinsters like me?
Then again, Violet had Maud’s eyes and dark hair, which also seemed to rule out Avery and the handsome gamekeeper with Hammersley blue eyes. As for Helen’s untimely death . . .? Did the dowager suspect she had been murdered? Maud did, I was nearly certain. And what about Avery? Was he so wrapped up in his affair that he never noticed what was going on around him?
And Thayne? Was it possible he had been so heedless he never suspected?
Or had he committed the act himself? As punishment, or so he could marry a woman who would produce an heir he knew to be his own?
The dowager I dismissed as a suspect, for she had nothing to gain by Helen’s death. There was, however, one more suspect, I finally realized. Mrs. Maxwell. No matter that Thayne had her purring at the moment, I could not like the woman. Was it possible she would go as far as murdering the mistress of the house so she could continue her reign over Falconfell, unfettered?
Once again, Maud came to mind. Though she had her lucid moments, there could be little doubt her sanity had slipped a cog or two. She might not have needed a valid reason to do away with Helen. Doubt about Violet’s parentage might have been enough.
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