“The addlepated fool,” she said at last, on a sighing breath that spoke her inner despair.
“Just so. But there is no need to fall into the dismals, ma’am. We are not yet at the point of determining anything more than the cause of death. If it was an overdose of opium, as Patrick suggests, there is yet the question of how it was administered.”
“Not to mention who did the administering. I suppose I need not ask if you hold by your theory?”
“I don’t yet have one. But if you mean to ask whether I remain suspicious, then I must say yes.”
“But why, Ottilia?”
“Because Willow Court is a hotbed of passions, Sybilla. I should doubt whether any one of the inmates, bar the lower servants, may be eliminated as a possible murderer, Tamasine included.”
“But, notwithstanding her abominable request of Giles, is she capable of planning to do away with her guardian?”
“Yes,” Ottilia said baldly. “It is well to argue her mental state, but there is an uncanny streak of apparent rationality. I think she is eminently capable of ridding herself of the man she saw as standing in the way of her future plans.”
The dowager balked. “What, to marry Giles?”
“I was thinking rather of this Simeon fellow. He is the one involved in her scheme of revenge, after all. Though whether Tamasine comprehends the intricacies of whatever plot was afoot between them, I strongly doubt.”
The discussion was interrupted as the maid Biddy entered the parlour. “Lady Phoebe Graveney, my lady.”
Ottilia all but started. Could there be a more inopportune moment for the arrival of Giles’s prospective bride? Throwing a glance at Sybilla, she saw her thought echoed in the dowager’s features before she schooled them to an enforced look of welcome.
The maid stood aside and a young woman came through the door. Curiosity overtook Ottilia and she regarded the visitor with interest. She was elegantly and expensively clad, as befitted the daughter of an earl, with a countenance pleasant rather than striking. The nose was neat, the cheeks tending to lean and the mouth well shaped, but the girl’s best feature was a pair of speaking eyes, their colour indeterminate somewhere between blue and green.
Recalling Francis’s inability to describe her, Ottilia could not altogether blame him. Her hair, under a pretty bonnet, was certainly on the dark side. But the melancholy thought struck that the poor child could not hold a candle to Tamasine Roy.
Lady Phoebe was greeting Sybilla with polite enquiries as to her health and the satisfactory nature of her Christmas festivities, but it was apparent the girl was labouring under strong emotion. Beneath the spurious air of calm, several wayward muscles in her face shifted, and deep in those giveaway eyes Ottilia detected a trace of anxiety. Or was it anguish?
“Phoebe, allow me to present to you my daughter-in-law, Lady Francis Fanshawe.”
Ottilia concealed her too close scrutiny, producing a friendly smile. “You will forgive my not rising, I hope. I am increasing and thus obliged to take my ease.”
The young lady commented suitably and was persuaded to take a seat next to the dowager, who proceeded through a fund of commonplace enquiries.
“Are your parents well?”
“Oh, yes, I thank you. Mama sends her compliments to you.”
The girl’s responses appeared to Ottilia as mechanical as the dowager’s questions concerning Lord and Lady Hemington’s sojourn with the latter’s sister, and she began to wonder if this visit betokened more than mere courtesy. In a bid to test her theory, she waited a suitable moment to inject a dart designed to discover its validity.
“Have you seen Giles since your return, Lady Phoebe? I gather the two of you are well acquainted.”
The visitor’s cheeks grew pink and she fumbled with her fingers in her lap. “Oh. No, I have not. I mean, yes, we have known each other from childhood.”
“But you have not yet seen him?” persisted Ottilia, ignoring a glare from her mother-in-law.
Lady Phoebe moistened her lips with her tongue, but her eyes gave her away. “I believe Giles has been excessively occupied.”
“Yes, with the family. It has not been comfortable for him at home,” cut in the dowager, black orbs snapping at Ottilia.
“No,” agreed the girl in a hasty way, “although he has likely contrived to amuse himself elsewhere.”
Sybilla stepped in quickly. “Oh, well, you know Giles. He hates wrangles. It is like him to escape if he can.”
There was a silence, and Ottilia could not but feel for the girl. Was she wondering whether or not to ask the burning question no doubt hovering on her tongue? Ottilia took the bull by the horns.
“I was privileged to meet the extraordinary Miss Tamasine Roy this morning.” The girl’s eyes widened, revealing apprehension. Ottilia paid no heed to the dagger look she received from her mother-in-law. “Have you met her, Lady Phoebe?”
“No.”
It was a breathy gasp. Ottilia held the girl’s gaze and smiled sympathetically. “My poor child, you are dying to ask, are you not?”
“Ottilia!”
“Well, but is it not better for us to be open with Lady Phoebe? She will only imagine worse than the truth if she is not told, Sybilla.”
A horrified look was the dowager’s only answer, and Ottilia hastened to give her a reassuring glance. She had no intention of making free with the worst of what she knew to Giles’s discredit.
The visitor glanced from one to the other of them. “Then he is dangling after her.”
“No such thing,” snapped the dowager, just as if she had not said exactly the same herself. “And he could get no good by it if he were. The girl is wanting in wits.”
Lady Phoebe’s dark brows snapped together. “The rumours are true?”
Ottilia chose to take this herself. “She is not in her right mind, if that is what you mean. But as yet I have no reason to believe she is fit for incarceration.”
“You said you met her this morning, Lady Francis?”
Ottilia laughed. “With a vengeance.”
A wistful look crept into Lady Phoebe’s vulnerable eyes. “Is she very lovely?”
“Oh, a clap of thunder,” said Ottilia frankly. “Even my husband was deprived of breath at first sight of the creature. You must not set any store by Giles having been bowled over.”
“Ottilia, I wish you will be quiet.” This from Sybilla, in severe irritation.
“Oh, no, ma’am, I had rather be given the truth.”
Sybilla let out a sound of defeat. “In that case, you had best hear what has occurred this day. You are bound to get a garbled version otherwise. Ottilia?”
Obligingly, Ottilia gave a brief account of the day’s events, dwelling on the oddities of Tamasine’s visit and her guardian’s subsequent death, and omitting all mention of Giles’s presence in the house and the incriminating conversation.
“So you see must see, my dear Lady Phoebe,” she finished, “that Giles will realise at last there is nothing to be gained by courting a girl who is not in her right mind.”
“But is he courting her?”
Lord, but the girl was dogged! How to answer that? She prevaricated. “I hardly think it is serious.”
Sybilla added her mite. “Certainly not. Giles has more sense.”
This blatant falsehood appeared not to convince Lady Phoebe. “Has he? But Lady Francis said he had been bowled over.”
“So must any man be upon first sight of the girl. Even I thought her like to a fairy princess.”
Lady Phoebe’s mouth took on a mulish look. “In that case, perhaps you will tell me why Giles should be haunting Willow Court, which I am reliably informed is the case.”
Before Ottilia could respond to this, the little conference was brought to an end by the entrance of Sophie Hathaway, leaning heavily on Miss Mellis’s arm.
Chagrin struck into Phoebe’s bosom. Just when she had been getting somewhere! Indeed, she was persuaded both the dowager and Lady Francis
were concealing something. She had not failed to note a couple of meaning looks that passed between them. But all attempts to garner the information she sought were now in vain, and Phoebe looked with scant approval on the newcomer.
She was a faded blonde, who must have had at one time more than a passing claim to beauty. It was marred by a discouraging aspect of debilitation, accompanied by a languid tone of complaint as she broke into instant lamentation.
“I could not get off at all, and I do so hate lying all alone.” She sank into the armchair next to Lady Francis, but reached out to pat the hand of the woman who had assisted her into the room. “I could not keep poor dear Teresa hanging about me. That would have been most unfair.”
“Poor dear Teresa has little else to occupy her,” said the dowager, taking opportunity to present Phoebe.
Expressing herself suitably, Phoebe turned as soon as she could to the dowager’s companion, for whom she always felt a little sorry. Her faded cheeks had pinked up a little, and Phoebe recalled the dismissive fashion in which Giles tended to treat the poor woman. A sliver cut at her heart at this remembrance of another black mark against him.
“How do you do, Miss Mellis? How is your leg? Do you feel it in this inclement weather?”
The companion coloured up even more. “Oh! Thank you. A little, Lady Phoebe, but it is of no moment.” With which, she scurried to a straight chair in the corner, effacing herself as was her custom.
“What a pity you did not have Patrick to mend your leg, Teresa, for I’ll warrant it would not trouble you so greatly,” said Mrs Hathaway, taking up the conversation again. “Yet my poor husband’s skill has proved unequal to my unfortunate ailment, though he does his best.”
Phoebe listened with only half an ear, for she caught Lady Francis looking at her, an expression in her face for which Phoebe was unable to account. She had heard a deal about Giles’s new aunt, and none of it false, if she was to judge by the manner in which Lady Francis had thrust her anxieties into the open.
“You can have no notion how I suffer,” Mrs Hathaway was saying. “Oh, I don’t complain. It is so tedious for everyone to be hearing about one’s woes all the time. Only it is so melancholy to be permanently ill, though I make every effort to appear cheerful. One cannot be parading one’s misfortune to one and all.”
“What is your misfortune, Mrs Hathaway?” asked Phoebe, not with any desire to know, but merely in a bid to keep the woman talking so that she need not speak herself.
Nothing loath, the lady launched into a dismal catalogue which Phoebe would have found depressing had she been paying it the least attention. Instead her mind revolved around the lamentable intelligence that proved out all her suspicions and blasted the fond hopes in which she had basked these many years, secure in the conviction that her affections were returned, if not with ardour, at least in a measure sufficient to satisfy her.
She could almost wish Lady Francis had held her tongue, although it was better to know the worst. A pang smote her as remembrance struck. She had thought the worst had been and gone with the after effect of the scandal attending the death of the Marchioness of Polbrook. At the time, in the joyous anticipation of welcoming Giles home from his extended travels abroad, Phoebe’s world had come crashing down when suspicion for his wife’s death had fallen upon the marquis. The Earl of Hemington had all but forbidden the banns, repudiating the erstwhile arrangement and declaring that nothing would induce him to allow his daughter to ally herself with the Polbrook family.
Staunchly loyal, Phoebe had held out against Papa. The understanding between herself and Giles had been of long duration, although they had entered upon no formal engagement. Phoebe had been content to have it so, believing wholeheartedly in his constancy. Her breath shortened and all the discomforts that beset her bosom came tumbling to the fore. Her trust had been misplaced. Rumour did not lie, and the dear friend who had long captured her heart was in thrall to the beautiful Tamasine Roy.
Without thinking what she did, Phoebe rose abruptly from her seat, cutting into Mrs Hathaway’s continuing monologue without ceremony. “Forgive me! I must go.” Aware that her voice was husky, Phoebe struggled for calm.
“Good heavens, Phoebe, you have scarcely been here a moment.”
Phoebe gave the dowager her attention, aware of a shake in her voice. “I came only to pay my respects, ma’am.” She threw a tiny smile at Mrs Hathaway. “I must crave your indulgence. I hope you may feel better directly.”
Then she hastened to the door and slipped out of the room. Alone in the hall, Phoebe halted a moment, catching at the newel post at the bottom of the stair in a bid to recover her equilibrium. Aware of having given herself away, she could only hope the visitor was too self-absorbed to notice. It was too late to expect as much from Giles’s grandmother and aunt. Phoebe could only trust nothing would be said to Giles himself, for she knew Lady Polbrook for a fiery matriarch whose command over the whole family was absolute. But she doted on Giles.
This reflection served only to deepen the tumult under which Phoebe was labouring and she could not withstand letting out a groan.
“Dear me, that sounded perfectly despairing,” said a voice behind her.
Phoebe turned quickly. “Lady Francis!”
The newcomer took her arm and drew her willy-nilly towards the dining-parlour situated off the hall near the front door. “Let us slip in here for a space. I dare say the fire has not died and it should be warm enough.” Once inside, Lady Francis closed the door and drew Phoebe away from it towards the window. “There, now we may speak freely.”
A pair of grey eyes surveyed Phoebe and she felt her face grow warm. Embarrassment threw her into speech. “I have nothing of import to say, Lady Francis.”
“Call me Ottilia. Or Lady Fan, if you prefer,” said the other with a smile that warmed Phoebe unexpectedly. “After all, we are going to be related, are we not?”
Phoebe tugged on an unsteady breath. “That is debatable.”
“Has he offended beyond forgiveness?” The lady’s gaze, disconcertingly clear, did not shift from Phoebe’s face. “I beg you will set no great store by this little interlude.”
“Little!”
“There can be no future in it, you know. Giles will realise that before long, and then you may be comfortable again.”
Phoebe’s gorge rose. “Comfortable? I shall never be comfortable again. Even if he recovers his senses, how could I trust him after this?”
Lady Francis did not speak for a moment, but a faint frown creased her brow. “I understood it was an arranged alliance between you?”
“And he may therefore spurn me for another with impunity?” She bit her lip on the fury rising in her bosom, noting the other woman’s raised brows. Her tone became clipped. “I should not say so. There has been no formal offer.”
“But you consider yourself promised, I take it?”
“As I thought he did. Evidently I had it wrong.”
Lady Francis did not speak, but the sympathy in her features almost overset Phoebe. She turned and swept to the window, gazing out upon the drive without seeing it, struggling to regain her composure. The thought flitted across her mind that her father would never tolerate the match should he hear of this fresh disaster, with Giles’s inamorata involved in the guardian’s death.
Remembrance broke into her thoughts. There was something more, was there not? On impulse, she turned on Lady Francis. “I wish you will tell me the whole, Lady Fan.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Impatience overtook Phoebe. “You need not look so startled. It is plain to me that you and Lady Polbrook are holding something back. What is it? What more is there to this business with Miss Roy? And pray don’t try to fob me off!”
A little smile appeared. “Indeed, I should not dare attempt it.”
Warmth crept up Phoebe’s cheeks, and her voice became stiff despite every effort to maintain a cool tone. “You must excuse my bluntness, ma’am.”
�
�I like it,” said the other unexpectedly. “I must confess to a similar candour on occasion.”
“Then exercise it now, I beg of you.”
“Very well, if you insist. I am afraid Giles being in close association with Willow Court has put him in a little danger, should it prove out that Sir Joslin did not die a natural death.”
Blankness invaded Phoebe’s mind. “I don’t understand you.”
“Then let me be plain. I have a suspicion Sir Joslin was murdered, possibly by an overdose of opium. Giles was sent for to the house by Tamasine Roy this morning, and it appears that there was — when we do not yet know — some jest between them of the necessity to have Sir Joslin out of the way.”
Shock clouded Phoebe’s brain as she spoke her thought aloud. “You mean he may be suspected of making away with this man?” The memory leapt into her head of Giles’s distress, when she had received his confidences on the subject of his mother’s death. “It cannot be so! After what has passed? No, no, I dare not believe it to be possible.”
But a seed of doubt rose. Lady Fan’s next words fostered it.
“Not even if he were head over ears in love?”
A shaft sliced through Phoebe’s bosom, and she felt the tremble at her lips. She suppressed it, meeting the other woman’s steady regard. “I would wish not to think so. Yet one cannot truly know another’s mind.” She tried to bite back the words, but they would come. “If he was utterly dazzled, who can say? He might do a great deal for a woman if his heart was touched.”
Lady Fan’s gaze did not waver. “Have you reason to know as much?”
With difficulty, Phoebe spoke, unable to help the bitter note. “I thought I had, but it seems I was mistaken.”
“You love him, don’t you?”
The abruptness of the question pierced Phoebe to the heart, but she did not think of prevarication. “All my life.”
“Yet you can still find it in you to fear his involvement in a possible murder.”
Phoebe’s eyes pricked. “Is it disloyal of me? I have never been blind to his faults. Indeed, this episode fills me with dismay as well as jealousy.”
The Opium Purge (Lady Fan Mystery Book 3) Page 11