“Lavinia is not my guardian.”
“No, but in the circumstances, you are in some sort in her charge.”
Tamasine blinked, as if the idea puzzled her. “But Simeon is here now.”
The thought of his inamorata being in the charge of Simeon Roy did nothing to allay Giles’s disquiet, but instinct bade him hold his tongue on that score. It was plain Tamasine held the fellow in high regard, and it would be impolitic to criticise him in her presence. Giles dismissed the fleeting notion that the resulting tantrum would be both embarrassing and distressful.
“I’m sorry to say my family are not sympathetic to our union. I fear it may take a little time to accustom them to the idea.”
Tamasine had nothing to say to this, although she gave him a narrow glance in which he thought he detected a faint echo of malignance. But that could not be. Tamasine was nothing if not pure in heart. He was persuaded she could not wish harm to anyone.
“I dare say it will be best for me to await the coming of your aunt, my dearest, and apply to her formally for permission to marry you.”
To his astonishment, Tamasine let out a trill of her characteristic laughter, making him wince. “I haven’t got any aunts, silly Giles.”
He halted in the middle of the drive and turned to stare at her. “But I understood that your aunt is your nearest living relative. Mrs Delabole, is it not? Your Aunt Ruth?”
She met his gaze with blank incomprehension in her own. “I don’t have any Aunt Ruth.”
“Have I misunderstood then? Your father’s sister?” It was clear from her expression that this meant nothing to Tamasine. Belatedly it occurred to him that she might never have met the woman. And she was so very young. “Perhaps she did not visit Barbados. Or you were too young to remember. But your father must have mentioned her.”
Tamasine’s countenance broke into the radiant smile. “We shall get married quickly. Now, before they come back. Then no one can stop us.”
So innocent! “I’m afraid it isn’t as simple as that, my dearest. Not in this country. I must first procure a licence. Besides, I would not wish to put your reputation in jeopardy with an elopement. We must be married in form and with the consent of your guardians, whoever they prove to be. You deserve no less.”
To his dismay, her brows began to lower and a scowl twisted her lovely features. She pulled away from him. “Don’t you want to marry me, Giles?”
“Of course I do. You know I do.”
He tried to capture her hands but she evaded him.
“You will have to catch me first!”
Laughing, she scampered towards the lawns where pockets of snow in the hollows bore witness to the recent poor weather. Giles went after her, as one in honour bound, but without any real sense of enthusiasm. Tamasine’s peculiar upbringing was promising to create no end of difficulties. She was ignorant of the many rules of conduct and decorum which to him were second nature. How could he explain the obstacles in their path?
He caught up with her in a trice and caught at her shoulders. “Tamasine, we must arrange a meeting. We cannot talk like this, where we may be interrupted at any moment.”
Her laughter tinkled. “I shall find you in the forest.”
It did not suit Giles’s sense of propriety to continue to meet her clandestinely, especially with his grandmother’s prohibitions nagging in his head. Nor could he approve the notion of her wandering into the forest on her own. But as things stood, he could see no other way of ensuring their privacy for long enough to enable him to clarify everything satisfactorily. Without troubling to enquire into his suddenly urgent need to treat the secret betrothal with as much circumspection as he possibly could, Giles reluctantly agreed to the scheme.
“Very well, if you wish. Let us meet tomorrow early.”
“I can’t escape before breakfast. Lavinia locks me in at night.”
Shocked at this news, Giles was nevertheless conscious of a sliver of relief somewhere inside him. At least she could not get into mischief as she had done on the day of her guardian’s death.
“At ten then? I’ll seek you in the hollow where I saw you first. You remember the place?”
She tinkled at him, the blue eyes sparkling. “Giles, Giles, Giles. I remember where you kissed me.”
He winced. “Don’t remind me. I am ashamed. It was shocking conduct.”
Tamasine’s eyes became abruptly glassy. “I liked it. You liked it too.”
“I liked it excessively, but the fact remains —” He broke off, feeling all the futility of continuing to argue the point. He smiled instead. “Then we are agreed? Ten o’clock in the hollow?”
“Ten o’clock in the hollow,” Tamasine repeated, like an echo, her bright eyes still holding that disturbing look.
Giles hesitated, warily watching her. It struck him that he was anxious, as if he confronted a snake and did not know what it might do. The random thought streaked across his mind, leaving him with a hollow feeling inside and the first stirrings of a whisper of panic. To what had he committed himself?
Then Tamasine’s expression altered completely, and a melting look of adoration overspread her lovely countenance. “You are my hero, Giles. A hero for the sugar princess.”
She came up to him and threw her arms around his neck, clinging so tightly that he almost choked. The gesture was over before he could protest, and Tamasine stepped back.
“Now I am going to find Simeon,” she stated in a voice so matter of fact that Giles was startled at the change.
Before he could do or say anything more, Tamasine was off, running like a hare towards the far corner of the house. Reaching it, she ducked down the side and disappeared from sight. She had not looked back.
Ottilia had allowed herself to be dissuaded from attending the inquest, which was to be held before Justice Delaney. Her capitulation was ostensibly in response to Francis’s suggestion that those inmates called to give evidence might reveal more in her absence than if confronted with someone they knew to be somewhat biased. She had been chastened at the thought.
“Am I biased?”
“They think so, which is the important point.”
Ottilia eyed him. “Do you think so?”
To her surprise, her spouse grinned. “I think you want to be, my dear one, but your innate honesty will not permit you.”
She was obliged to laugh. “Wretch! How dare you read me so well?”
They were in the privacy of their bedchamber and Francis kissed her. “Have you not yet realised that I am a keen student of Ottilia?”
“You are a cozening rogue rather.”
“A deserved scold,” he conceded, his unruly eyebrow quirking, but he grasped her hand loosely. “Will you take my advice?”
“This is not yet another attempt to ensure I don’t exert myself unduly?”
His mouth twitched on a smile. “That too, of course.”
Ottilia was tempted to give in at once, merely because he asked it of her. But if truth be told, she did not believe any new evidence was likely to arise at the inquest, and she had not been called, despite having been the first person with any medical knowledge to examine the body. She had no authority and with two doctors on the case, her testimony must be superfluous.
“Well then, I shall keep Sybilla company.” She added with a mischievous look, “As long as you promise faithfully to regale me with the whole.”
“Would I do otherwise? This is the advantage of an elephantine memory. I shall bring you a word for word account.”
Ottilia bubbled over. “A summary will do. Unless there is something new, of course.”
Not that she had any such expectation, since the coroner had ordered the inquest on completion of the investigations of Sunderland’s apothecary. To Ottilia’s disappointment, the confection proved to have insufficient opium content to account for Sir Joslin’s death, although the apothecary conceded that it was a strong dose. She had taken it up at once with Patrick.
“Stronger than tha
t prescribed for children?”
“To a degree. But, as I told you at the outset, not strong enough to kill.”
Ottilia did not again pursue the idea of the effect of several of the sweets in one go. Her brother was bound to pooh-pooh it again. But she filed the notion in the back of her mind, unwilling to abandon the confections altogether.
The news from the bottle of laudanum was no better. It contained the expected amount. And the mysterious bottle from behind the chamber pot proved to contain a mixture of rum, sugar and again opium, but nowhere near enough to kill Sir Joslin. Had he downed a combination of these items? Some answer there must be, for the testing of the contents of his stomach suggested the man had indeed ingested a severe overdose of the drug.
“I would not be in the justice’s shoes for a fortune,” she observed to her mother-in-law when the two of them were alone in the parlour.
Sophie Hathaway was enjoying a rare period of release from her own ailments and was intent upon taking advantage of it. The dowager having made it abundantly clear that a couple of excursions in Mrs Hathaway’s company were more than enough, it had fallen to Miss Mellis’s lot to escort her, along with her protesting offspring, upon an expedition of pleasure to take in a little of the surrounding country while the weather held.
“If you cannot unravel it, Ottilia, I dare say Robert Delaney will find it an impossible task. He is a severe sort of man and painstaking, but I have never thought highly of his powers of observation. ”
“You must at least be relieved Giles’s involvement is unlikely to be entered into it.”
“Yes, if those wretches from Willow Court do not make it their business to point the finger at him.”
“I doubt the question will arise at all as things stand.”
Sybilla drew an obviously taut breath. “It is to be hoped it does not. Delaney makes a point of directing his juries and, since my idiot son must needs make a scandal throughout the county, the fellow is not above putting Giles in the frame merely upon principle.”
Ottilia clicked her tongue. “Come, Sybilla. If he is as painstaking as you say, surely he will not act with such prejudice?”
“I wonder if Phoebe thinks so. She is a favourite with him, I know, and if he feels she has been slighted, which one can scarcely deny she has —”
“I am persuaded you need have no fears on that score,” said Ottilia, and made haste to change the tenor of the conversation. “What is certain is that Delaney will not be given any of the information we have already unearthed. He and the jury will be obliged to go on what Patrick and Sutherland have been able to supply.”
The dowager stared. “Then why in the world should he call the companion and the rest of them?”
“Miss Ingleby was with Sir Joslin when he died, and Mrs Whiting and Lomax are the senior occupants of the house. I imagine they will only be called upon to corroborate times and circumstances prior to the death. No one is going to label Sir Joslin an opium-eater, and all three can testify to the poor condition of his health.”
Aware that Sybilla was eyeing her with her usual sharpness, Ottilia raised her brows in enquiry. The dowager let out an irritated breath.
“You think he is not going to bring in a verdict of unlawful killing.”
A laugh escaped Ottilia. “I don’t see how he can. The best I can hope for is an open verdict, though it is more likely to be accidental death.”
“For which I will be thanking my maker, even if it disappoints you, my dear Ottilia.”
“I won’t be disappointed precisely.”
“What then?”
She sighed. “It will make it a lot more difficult to pursue my enquiries, for the wretched creatures will be quick to reject any further effort to uncover the truth.”
“Undoubtedly.” Then Sybilla sat up with sudden energy. “But they won’t stop me from doing all in my power to extract my grandson from the toils of that dreadful girl.”
Ottilia cocked her head to one side. “You think it will be necessary? For my part, I suspect he will find out his own folly soon enough.”
It was evident her mother-in-law was not so sanguine. “I wish I might agree with you, but my experience of young men argues the contrary. For all I know, he is planning to elope with the chit.”
“If he does, I doubt they will get beyond the first stage before he realises his error. Make yourself easy, Sybilla. Difficult as I find Miss Ingleby, I cannot accuse her of neglecting her charge. She might give them the slip now and then, but as a rule, I doubt Tamasine is permitted to leave the house at all without an escort.”
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than a tapping at the glass of the French window was heard. Looking across, Ottilia perceived the child Tamasine herself. And she was not alone.
The dowager had also seen the visitor, for she groaned aloud. “Why cannot the wretch use the front door?”
“You had as well ask why she threw a stone through the glass the last time,” Ottilia pointed out, rising from her chair and crossing towards the windows.
“Who in the world has she brought with her?” demanded Sybilla.
As Ottilia reached the French window, she attracted Tamasine’s wide smile and the child gestured with excitement to the man standing a little behind her, who looked to be young and personable. A wild presentiment shot into Ottilia’s brain as to his identity and she hastened to unlatch the door and pull it open.
“I have brought Simeon to see you,” said Tamasine without the slightest preamble. “I said he would come.”
“You did indeed.” Ottilia was pleased to find her surmise had been correct as she took in the fellow’s dark good looks. “Mr Roy, I think? Do come inside, both of you.”
Moving aside to allow the two access, Ottilia took stock of this Simeon about whom she had heard so much. He entered, moving with a natural grace and ease that was reflected in his smile.
“How do you do, Lady Fan?”
His drawling voice was as rich as the molasses he had no doubt had occasion to make in Barbados, and his confident figure held something of a swagger. He wore his dark hair loose, in the shaggy cut currently in vogue among young men. His lips were full, his nose straight and his eyes, in which a gleam of calculation was immediately apparent, were a liquid brown. Ottilia wrote him down as a charming rogue.
His use of her nickname gave rise to a slight feeling of antipathy, but since he must have had it from Tamasine, she did not trouble to correct him. She took time with an introduction to the dowager, over whose hand Simeon Roy bowed with exaggerated courtesy.
“Tamasine has given me an account of your kindness to her, ma’am, upon the occasion of her accident.”
Sybilla’s reception was frosty. “Indeed? I had not thought Miss Roy recalled the occasion.”
Mr Roy’s smile would have melted butter. “Oh, she tells me everything, ma’am. We are avid correspondents.”
The blatant untruth of this assertion struck Ottilia at once. Even could Tamasine write, which was in serious doubt, any such intimacy must have been clandestine, considering Sir Joslin’s views. And if Ottilia was any judge, Tamasine was incapable of the needed secrecy.
She urged the visitors to sit down, and was not surprised to see Simeon dispose himself upon the sofa in an attitude of careless languor. Tamasine immediately took up a position beside him, her blue eyes fixed upon his handsome face.
“Tamasine tells me, Lady Fan, that you have been of invaluable assistance in this tragic hour.”
Unlikely as it was that the child could have expressed herself in such a fashion, Ottilia took it as if at face value. “I am happy to have been of service, but I believe Miss Ingleby is more than capable of dealing with any matters which may arise.”
A faint look of scorn crossed the young man’s features. “Oh, Lavinia is efficiency itself. Yet she will be relieved of her responsibilities soon enough.”
Sybilla cut in without ceremony. “By whom? Yourself, for instance, Mr Roy?”
Si
meon Roy threw up hands of mock horror. “I? Heaven forbid! The last thing in the world I could wish is to be saddled with settling affairs at Willow Court.”
“Yet you are here.”
He fetched an elaborate sigh. “I could hardly absent myself at such a moment. With my cousin in need of my support? No, no, ma’am, it would be cruel in me to refuse her plea.”
Ottilia raised her brows. “Tamasine asked you to come?”
Simeon was smiling into the girl’s adoring eyes. “Her entreaties could not be ignored, could they, my dear little Tam?”
Tamasine’s blue gaze roved his features. “I knew you would come.”
Which was scarcely a straightforward affirmation, and Tamasine had said as much to Ottilia days since. She watched the young man raise a hand to lift the girl’s chin a little, a teasing note entering his liquid voice.
“How could I resist you? You know well I am as wax in your hands.”
A delighted ripple of Tamasine’s bell-like laugh emerged and she caught his fingers in both hands, clutching them tightly. “Simeon, Simeon, Simeon. If they don’t like it, we will hide from them, and Hemp will tell them we have run away.”
“Ah, now, that is an excellent plan, Tam,” said her cousin in an indulgent fashion, but he withdrew his fingers from her grasp and wagged a finger in her face. “But I have a better one.”
Tamasine’s eagerness was child-like. “What is it?”
“That you shall know presently.”
Ottilia thought this air of mystery must be deliberate. She could not but acknowledge that Simeon appeared to be adept at handling Tamasine’s wayward manner. She sought a way to prick through his self-satisfaction.
“Am I right in thinking that it is some time since the two of you have met, Mr Roy?”
He was not in the least disconcerted, merely fetching another sigh. “Alas, yes. But we have contrived nevertheless to remain the best of friends as well as cousins, have we not, my pet?”
Thus appealed to, Tamasine added her mite, turning to look at Ottilia. “Simeon writes to me all the time.”
“And do you write back?” asked Sybilla shrewdly, sending a glance of question in Ottilia’s direction.
The Opium Purge (Lady Fan Mystery Book 3) Page 21