The maid grinned. “She keeps the pot going for you, my lady, my lord Francis having told Agnes as you’re partial to the brew.”
This thought for her pleasure and comfort on her husband’s part threw Ottilia into disorder. Francis was apt to tease her, claiming her liking for coffee as an addiction. But here had he paved the way for her to be served with it whenever she wished. And she had treated him to nothing but tantrums.
“Thank Cook for me, if you please, Biddy.”
“It won’t be above a moment, my lady.” The girl dropped a curtsy and withdrew.
After this revelation, it took an effort for Ottilia, inclined to dwell upon a resurgence of her troubled conscience, to return to contemplation of the tangled affair of Sir Joslin Cadel’s death. The tray arrived promptly, bearing the coffee pot, a jug of cream and an unnecessary bowl of sugar. A hardened drinker of the beverage, Ottilia preferred the taste without sweetening. A sip or two of the restorative had an efficacious effect and she was soon able to bend her mind back to the matter at hand.
Recalling her last thoughts of the fellow Hemp, she turned her attention to his colleague Cuffy. The older footman had been in a privileged position with Sir Joslin, besides holding him in high regard. Could she find an opportunity to question him? In spite of Miss Ingleby’s expressed doubts, Ottilia’s past successes gave her confidence in her ability to prise some detail out of the man, particularly in the aftermath of loss when people tended to open up more readily than otherwise.
She had just bethought her of the other two possible witnesses, the butler Lomax and the housekeeper Whiting, when the door opened and Francis entered the bedchamber.
Gratified by the sight of Tillie at rest upon the daybed, Francis yet forebore to comment upon it, remembering how she had become unreasonably irritated at his earlier insistence upon her putting her feet up. But the smile with which she greeted him put all recollection of that out of his head and he responded instantly to the welcoming hand she held out towards him, setting down her coffee cup.
“My dear and dearest love,” she uttered in a tremulous tone that caught at the deeps of Francis’s affection.
He did not speak, but took hold of her hand and allowed her to draw him down to perch on the edge of the daybed. Next instant, her arms were about his neck and he was gathering her close, though unable to help wondering at this sudden access of warmth. He murmured words appropriate to the moment and did not venture to question her until she at last sat back, one hand firmly tucked within his own.
Francis raised an eyebrow and she blushed prettily.
“Don’t say it.”
“Are you a mind reader all of a sudden?”
A quick little sigh escaped her. “Oh, you are astonished at my change of mood, you need not tell me.”
Francis reached out his free hand to caress her cheek and tip up her face so that he might plant a kiss on her lips. “I’m well acquainted with your conscience, my dear one. Though I confess to curiosity as to what brought it on this time.”
She broke into the gurgling laugh that never failed to warm his heart. “Fiend! If you must know, it was the intelligence, conveyed to me by Biddy, that Cook keeps the coffee boiling for me only because you told Agnes I am fond of drinking it.”
“So it is Cook who has earned my thanks, is it?”
Her grasp tightened on his hand. “Don’t be absurd. You know very well it was your thought for my comfort that reminded me how lucky I am to have you.”
This was deserving of reward, and it was a little time before Francis released his wife and allowed her to resume her interrupted potations. She lifted the cup to her lips.
“Did you find Sutherland?”
Recalling his mission, Francis sat back. “We did, and he applauded our foresight in locking the door. He is going to arrange for the undertakers to remove the body this afternoon, and has invited Patrick to accompany him so they may confer upon his findings.”
“That is excellent,” Tillie said in a relieved tone. “I was afraid he might take it in snuff that Patrick usurped his authority.”
“That is not in Sutherland’s style. I know him of old and he is not one of these practitioners who insist upon their rights.”
“Then he will let Patrick assist at the post-mortem?”
“I imagine so. But his first task, as we expected, is to call in the coroner to decide if an inquest is needed.”
“Or failing him, the local Justice of the Peace, I presume?”
Francis’s mind kicked. “My God, I hope not! The fellow is related to the Graveneys. We’ll have him arraigning Giles or some such foolishness.”
“Oh, he came here,” Tillie exclaimed. “Did Sybilla tell you?”
“No, for I came straight up on hearing you had retired.” A feeling of foreboding gripped him. “What happened? I know I could make no headway with the boy. He’s as headstrong as Randal.”
“And as misguided,” put in Tillie drily. “He managed to quarrel both with Lady Phoebe and his grandmother.”
Francis was conscious of a rise of annoyance. “Drat the boy! And I told him how things stood with Mama’s temper.”
“As to that, it was rather Sybilla who fell foul of her own tongue. She compared him to his mother, she told me, and Giles took a pet and ran off.”
“Dear God,” groaned Francis, and a longing to escape overcame him. “How soon can we leave this infernal hellhole, do you think?”
Tillie set down her cup without speaking, and Francis eyed her with suspicion. Had he not known it? She was set upon seeing this thing through. He was sorely tempted to burst out with a direct prohibition and insist upon leaving as soon as possible, but he hesitated to jeopardise the better relations between them due to her change of mood. Belatedly it occurred to him that they could hardly depart the moment her brother and his family arrived.
“I suppose we are doomed to remain for the duration of Patrick and Sophie’s stay.”
His wife’s warm smile appeared. “And we can hardly leave poor Sybilla alone to deal with your nephew’s love tangles. Not to mention his involvement in a possible murder.”
“It’s not our affair,” Francis protested, feeling all the attendant annoyance at becoming involved himself. “Nor, I may add, is it Mama’s role to settle Giles’s future.”
Tillie’s brows rose. “Dear me, Fan. Do you suggest this business may safely be left to Randal to sort out? What in the world do you suppose he is going to do when he learns about Giles’s possible inclusion in a list of suspects for murder? Besides, you know he is not to be trusted to act in anyone’s best interests save his own.”
This was too close to the truth to be borne and Francis jerked up from the daybed. “I’m damned if I take on the burden of my brother’s son as well as everything else!” Turning, he read a retort in Tillie’s eye and threw out a hand. “Nor allow you to do so either. We have our own lives to lead.”
For a moment his wife said nothing, only regarding him with that clear gaze as if she weighed up her response. Francis waited, gathering his forces to withstand any pleas she might make. Then she smiled.
“Very well, my darling Fan. We will do just as you wish.”
Suspicion leapt into his breast and he frowned at her. “I don’t believe you. You are merely trying to lull me so that you may cajole me at your leisure.”
Her characteristic laugh escaped her. “I only wish I was, Fan.” Then she sobered, her grey gaze contrite. “I have vexed you enough. It is your family and you must decide how to act. I own I had rather not leave matters thus unchallenged, but I will not wilfully add to your burdens. In my present uncertain mood, I am already a burden.”
Francis was swept with a tide of emotion, not all of it felicitous. The protests would not be contained. “Ottilia, you unmitigated wretch, don’t do that! You know perfectly well you could never be a burden to me, for one thing.”
“No, I don’t know it. A complaining wife is the very devil, for I have seen my poor bro
ther driven near demented with it.”
“That is beside the bridge. And don’t compare yourself to Sophie, for pity’s sake!” He shook a finger at her. “I know what you are trying to do. You think if you act the quiescent wife, I will turn the tables and allow you to do as you please. Well, it won’t work.”
To Francis’s satisfaction, Tillie sat up in a bang, throwing her hands in the air.
“What do you want of me, Francis? If I insist upon staying, you will rail at me. And yet you refuse to have me give in to you. Do you want to battle it out? Or is it that it gives you pleasure to be proved right when I am unable to resist the temptation to interfere in matters you insist are none of my affair?”
Francis pounced on this. “Aha! You admit as much. You do want to involve yourself in the business.”
“I have never denied it.” The despairing note caught at him. “But I had rather give it up than vex you beyond all bearing. It may, after all, be a storm in a teacup, if the post-mortem proves void.”
He frowned at this turn, recalling her vehemence last summer in the village of Witherley when she was in real personal danger, but a murderer was still at large. “You don’t feel it touches your honour this time then?”
“Not in the least.”
“But you would hate to leave it, wouldn’t you?”
“Have I not just said so?”
Francis knew he was beaten. He had always admired Tillie’s candour. And if he was honest, his own conscience would not allow him to walk away while a member of his family was in difficulties. Had it not been for Giles’s involvement, he might well have stuck to his guns. Or would he? No, for the unpalatable truth was that Tillie’s desires were paramount with him. But a few months married and already nothing would do for him but that his wife’s every whim must be humoured.
He came to the daybed and sat down again, gathering her hands into his and holding them fast. His tone was rueful, for he noted the uncertain light in those clear orbs.
“Forgive me, sweetheart. I love you too much, that is the top and bottom of it, and I can’t help rebelling against it. If I could, I would give you the moon. But it hurts to be so much at the mercy of my feelings for you.”
Tillie’s lip trembled and her eyes misted. “And I was foolish enough to be jealous for the moment when you admired Tamasine’s beauty.”
So that was it. He recalled the oddity of her look earlier, which subsequent events had driven from his mind. His fingers tightened on hers. “Foolish beyond permission, Tillie. A man may admire beauty without being touched by it. Especially when there is nothing in the world more vital to him than his own wife.”
Tillie did not laugh, and a frown marred her clear gaze. “You fear for my life, don’t you?”
He could not deny it. “More so now.”
“Dearest, because you lost Julia does not mean you will lose me too.”
The mention of his first wife gave Francis a familiar twinge, but he shrugged it away. “I know that.”
“But it makes no difference.” She nodded. “I understand just what you mean.”
Francis brought one of her hands to his lips and kissed it. “You always do.”
Her smile warmed him utterly. “Shall we see how matters work themselves out in the next day or two before deciding just what to do?”
“A compromise, Tillie?”
“Well, we can’t leave yet in any event, and the post-mortem must certainly develop things in one direction or another.”
Francis agreed to it and immediately found himself the target of one of Tillie’s pertinent questions.
“What did you think of the butler and Mrs Whiting? I scarcely spoke to either. Were they of the West Indies party?”
“Both, yes,” Francis said, recalling his conversation with the housekeeper. “She was certainly more forthcoming than Lomax, but I suspect he may have more to contribute. He queried the reason for his master’s death instantly, and his manner was evasive.”
“Not to say downright insolent,” stated Tillie, interest in her tone. “Now why, I wonder?”
Before Francis could think this over, there was a brief knock followed by the immediate opening of the door. A youthful blond head peered round.
“Auntilla? Can we come in?”
Ottilia threw an apologetic smile at her spouse and called out an invitation. “Of course, Ben.”
The older of her two nephews swept in, his brother close behind. Until this visit, Ottilia had not seen them for the better part of a year except for a day or two upon the occasion of her marriage when they had been allowed home from school to attend. As she had previously been much in their company, she was struck by the change in them. Apart from their grey Hathaway eyes, both boys had always seemed to her to favour their mother, sporting her curly blond locks, tip-tilted nose and pretty bow mouth. But at nine and ten years of age respectively, the erstwhile childish plumpness of cheek that had graced Tom and Ben had grown lean, showing the high cheekbones on their father’s side.
“Goodness, but you are beginning to look so like your papa,” she exclaimed, regarding them both as they stood side by side before the daybed, Francis having risen to give place.
“Huh!” came scornfully from Tom. “I wish we looked utterly like him, then we’d not get such a ragging from the other boys.”
“You wouldn’t believe the insults we’ve had to endure, Auntilla,” put in Ben, fisting his hands on his hips in a mannish way that brought an unaccountable lump to Ottilia’s throat.
“Dear me,” she managed, trying to keep her voice even. “I suppose I need not ask whether you have indulged in fisticuffs to punish the offenders.”
“’Course we have,” said Tom. “We soon sent them to the rightabout.”
“Well, some of ’em at least,” amended Ben conscientiously. “We took a drubbing from the bigger ones.”
“Yes, we did,” agreed his brother enthusiastically. “I was sporting a beautiful painted peeper for days, Auntilla.”
“Great heavens, you must have been quite the hero,” said Ottilia admiringly.
Both boys gave out loud guffaws at this, and a light laugh escaped her husband, who had retired to stand before the fire and was resting one arm along the mantel. “I wish my own nurses had taken such a novel view.”
Ben looked round at him. “Auntilla ain’t our nurse, Uncle Fan.”
One of his eyebrows quirked. “Oh, I beg your pardon. I had understood she cared for you all these years.”
“’Course she did, but she ain’t a nurse, nor a guvnor,” said Tom.
“That’s governess, you donkey,” corrected his elder brother. “At any rate, Auntilla weren’t a governess or anything like that.”
“No, she was just … just…” Tom frowned, struggling for a way to express his concept of his aunt’s purpose in his life.
“She wasn’t anything,” Ben said firmly, to Ottilia’s amusement. “She was just Auntilla.”
“Yes, it was rather a mouthful for toddlers to manage.” A mental image of the two little mites Ottilia had first taken in charge superimposed itself upon the grown features before her. “I dare say you consider yourselves too old now for a hug?”
For an instant neither boy spoke, and then as one, they threw themselves upon her in the old way, and Ottilia found herself both laughing and crying together as she hugged first one and then the other impartially.
“Now look what you’ve done, you horrid creatures,” she complained, as at last they consented to release her. “You’ve turned me into a watering pot.”
The boys shouted with laughter, Tom remaining seated on the edge of the daybed close by with one hand possessively grasping Ottilia’s hip, while Ben took a stance on the other side of the bed, leaning over its back. The latter looked across to the fireplace, addressing himself to Francis.
“Uncle Fan, when are you and Papa going to get the body?”
It warmed Ottilia to see how the two boys had adopted their new uncle without question. B
ut then they had ever been friendly souls, easy-going and comfortable with all. Just like Patrick, she reflected.
“We’re not getting the body, Ben. That is a job for the undertakers. But I have the key to the room where it is laid, so I must accompany your father.”
“Can we come?” asked Tom eagerly.
“Papa said no, Tom,” his brother reminded him severely.
“But I want to see the corpse.”
“You’ve seen hundreds of corpses.”
“A slight exaggeration, Ben,” Ottilia put in. She threw an apologetic look at her husband. “I hasten to point out, Fan, that they weren’t actually permitted to attend post-mortems, but these two imps have a habit of finding ingenious ways to do what one would prefer they did not.”
“Yes, but we never get to see the body before Papa starts cutting it up,” complained Tom, disregarding this recital of his and his brother’s misdeeds. “And we want to see where the murder happened.”
“We don’t know there has been a murder,” Francis pointed out.
“Auntilla, has there been a murder?” demanded Ben, turning his interested gaze on Ottilia. “Was it the madwoman who killed the fellow?”
“How in the world should I know the answer to either question?” countered Ottilia.
“’Cause you always know answers, Auntilla,” came scoffingly from Tom. “You just don’t want to tell us.”
Before Ottilia could think how to respond, Francis intervened. “I wish you will stop plaguing your aunt, boys. She is supposed to be resting.”
Two disbelieving faces went from Francis to Ottilia and back again. Then the boys broke out with scorn.
“Auntilla never rests.”
“She ain’t like Mama, Uncle Fan.”
“Anyway, she can’t rest now,” said Ben in a tone that clinched the matter, “because there’s a black fellow at the kitchen door who’s come with a message for her from the madwoman.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ottilia had crossed the road and begun the ascent up the incline leading onto the gardens of Willow Court, the footman Hemp at her side ready with an arm to help her at need, before she realised they were accompanied. Turning, she beheld the creeping figures of her nephews a little way behind. Both boys froze on being spotted, their angelic looks belied by the almost identical expressions of guilt-ridden hope that leapt to their faces. Ottilia regarded them with a resurgence of the ancient exasperation that had so many times attacked her when she’d had them in charge.
The Opium Purge (Lady Fan Mystery Book 3) Page 13