Consequences of Sin

by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

  “Actually, Ayres, I’d appreciate it if you could take me to him. To be honest, I’m sick to death of being cooped up in this drawing room.”

  Ayres seemed to be weighing his response to this before finally nodding and leading her out of the room and up the main staircase. Ursula followed him along the landing and through the long picture gallery that led to the west wing of the hall. She had never come to this part of the house; the west wing was, as far as she was aware, shut up entirely.

  Ayres paused outside a heavy oak door. “I believe his lordship is inside. Would you care for me to announce you?”

  “I should like to announce myself, if you don’t mind,” Ursula replied, with her most charming smile. “What is this room?” she asked as Ayres turned to leave.

  “Why, miss, it was his lordship—I mean the sixth Baron Wrotham’s library.”

  “Lord Wrotham’s father, you mean.”

  “A great man, his father. Breaks my heart to see the library in its current state. I can tell it affects his lordship, too. Comes here often when the Dowager is visitin’.” Ayres checked himself suddenly, and Ursula realized he thought he had given away too much.

  “Thank you, Ayres,” Ursula replied. “I think I understand.”

  Ayres bowed briefly before disappearing along the long gallery and down the central stairs.

  Ursula knocked softly, then opened the door and entered.

  Inside, Lord Wrotham rose to his feet from a deep leather armchair. He was in a peculiar state of dishevelment for him, with his evening jacket discarded and his tie undone. On the floor beside the chair was a glass and a half-empty decanter of red wine.

  “I hope I am not intruding,” Ursula said, mindful of her own embarrassment. The library was little more than a shell. Most of the furniture was covered in dust sheets, except for a large oak desk and the leather armchair. The bookshelves that rose to the ceiling were nearly bare, and yet on the floor there were books piled high. Ursula wasn’t sure if they were being removed or in the process of being replaced.

  “As you can see, I am alone,” Lord Wrotham replied curtly.

  A fire in the huge stone fireplace roared furiously.

  Lord Wrotham refilled his glass and moved to stand by the fire. He seemed irritated by her intrusion. For a moment she wished she had not entered; however, something in the way he stared bleakly into the fire stirred her compassion. She had never seen him look so vulnerable. Instinctively, she walked over to be closer to him.

  “Tell me about Lizzie,” Ursula asked softly.

  Lord Wrotham merely continued to stare at the fire.

  “Your mother said—” she continued, but Lord Wrotham cut her off.

  “My mother!” He nearly spit the words out. “My mother wants you to think that I suffer from the torment of some long-lost love!”

  “And you don’t?” Ursula asked quietly.

  “No,” he replied coldly.

  Ursula was confused. What she saw in his eyes belied his words.

  “Then why…?” She let the question hang in the air.

  Lord Wrotham prodded the fire with the iron poker impatiently. “My mother enjoys dragging up the past. I was nineteen. Lizzie was the sister of a good friend of mine at Cambridge. Only our families knew of the betrothal. A few months after we became engaged, Lizzie, headstrong as always, agreed to a wager—that she would beat her cousin in a race from here to Corby. Her horse failed to make it over a fence. She was left in a coma and subsequently died.”

  Ursula extended her hand to touch his arm, but Lord Wrotham pulled away sharply.

  “I found out the truth soon after her death.” His words were laced with bitterness. “She never loved me. She was used to spreading her favors among many. Oh, her family knew, all right. Only I was blind to it all. The youngest son, with no prospect of wealth or title—I was a fool not to have guessed.”

  Ursula found herself gazing into unfamiliar eyes, eyes that were fierce and watchful, reflecting a struggle to hold back emotions that threatened to flood over them both.

  “You are too young to understand,” he finally said, and his lips pursed in apparent disdain.

  Ursula flushed. “You think I don’t understand!” she cried. “After everything that has happened, you still have the temerity to insinuate that I don’t understand loss? I who have lost everything!”

  Ursula’s eyes stung with tears. Lord Wrotham was standing no more than two feet away, but the gulf between them had never seemed wider than at this moment.

  “Now you have your title, my lord,” she continued, her voice breaking as she tried to maintain self-control. “I’m sure there are many girls who would marry you for it. Maybe you will find yourself an American heiress or a gaiety girl? Or maybe a widow like Lady Ashton.”

  Lord Wrotham blinked. “Lady Ashton?”

  “I’m not some helpless young creature in need of your protection!” Ursula exclaimed wildly.

  Lord Wrotham arched one eyebrow. “I never said you were.”

  “And I certainly don’t need to have marriage to Tom Cumberland thrust down my throat!”

  Lord Wrotham stared at her for a moment. “You think I want you to marry Tom Cumberland?!”

  Ursula could feel the ferocious heat of the fire through the folds of her dress. The atmosphere in the room prickled with anticipation. She felt a frisson of electricity surge between them. Then, like a flash of lightning, it was gone.

  “I do not know what to think.” She searched his face, but he was stern in his resolve. “I’m sorry for having intruded upon you. I really must be getting to bed. Good evening, Lord Wrotham.”

  “Good evening, Ursula.”

  Later that night she heard footsteps along the landing. They stopped just outside her door; she could see a shadow cast by the light of a lamp being carried. Ursula rose silently and picked up one of the pewter candlesticks from the table under the window. She drew it up above her shoulders and moved toward the doorway. She half expected some ghoul to fling open the door and gun her down just as her father had been. She waited, beside the door, her breath shallow and fast.

  At length the shadow moved away from the door, and she heard footsteps retreating down the hallway. Uncertain, Ursula continued to hold the candlestick in one hand but slowly turned the handle of the door with the other and peered out into the hallway.

  The narrow corridor was gray and gloomy, except for the dim glow of a light disappearing down the hall. She almost laughed with relief. Then there was a momentary flutter—what had Lord Wrotham been thinking as he paused outside her bedroom door? Ursula closed the door quietly. There was no fire to warm her, so she quickly got under the covers and pulled them around her. She lay still, trying to quiet her mind and let sleep return, but instead she found herself imagining over and over what might have happened if Lord Wrotham had opened the bedroom door.

  Fourteen

  After an unsettled night of obscure and tangled dreams, Ursula awoke with a dull headache. She rang for some hot water and fresh towels and then attended to trying to make herself look less wretched. She moved quickly, for the bedroom was chilly despite the new fire that had been lit that morning. She saw that the Dowager Wrotham’s maid had washed, ironed, and laid out her dark indigo walking suit. Still in mourning, Ursula also wore a dark blue blouse and placed her mother’s enamel locket, the one that contained her father’s photograph, on a rose gold chain around her neck. After dressing she pulled on her sturdy brown walking boots and made her way downstairs.

  The grandfather clock in the passage chimed nine o’clock. Ursula wasn’t usually this late, and as the Dowager had taken to having all her meals in her room, Ursula found herself alone in the private dining room. She helped herself to some kippers and scrambled eggs from the breakfast warmer on the mahogany sideboard and poured herself a strong cup of tea from the silver pot, but she took barely two bites of food before pushing her plate away. She tried to clear her mind of thoughts, but she was overcome with memor
ies of London. She saw her father’s body lying beside her, his eyes glassy and cold. She heard Mrs. Stewart screaming, felt herself being torn away from her father’s side. Ursula massaged her temples fiercely. She needed to be brave. She couldn’t afford to be maudlin at a time like this.

  Usually at this time of the morning, before the breakfast items had been removed, Lord Wrotham could be seen returning from his early walk, his two Scotch collies by his side. Gazing out the French doors that led from the picture gallery onto the terrace, Ursula could see no sign of him this morning.

  It was then she noticed voices coming from beyond the anteroom that connected the picture gallery to Lord Wrotham’s private study. Ursula quickly made her way down the passage, but as she came through the anteroom, before she could enter the study, she heard the distinctive voices of Inspector Harrison and Lord Wrotham. Both their tone and their words made her stop in midstride and prick up her ears.

  “What have you got for me?” Harrison asked.

  “An offer of five thousand pounds.”

  “To buy his silence on the Radcliffe expedition?”

  “Yes.”

  “An allegation of conspiracy to murder, even one over twenty years old, is not something easy to ignore.”

  “You heard the offer.”

  Ursula did not hear Harrison’s reply. There was a pause before she heard Harrison again, this time in a voice loud and clear. “And the charges against Miss Stanford-Jones?”

  “My only concern,” Lord Wrotham responded, “is that the Marlow family’s reputation is not sullied by any of this. Do what you will with Miss Stanford-Jones. She is Pemberton’s concern now, not mine.”

  Harrison’s familiarity of tone surprised Ursula. This was quite a different exchange from what had taken place in front of her that morning in the parlor at home in Chester Square.

  She couldn’t make out what was discussed next, until Harrison raised his voice and said, “Of course I understand. I have not forgotten my loyalty to you—how could I after all that you did for my family—but you must realize that in this matter my hands are tied. Bates is nowhere to be found. Sources say he could be halfway ’round the world by now.”

  “I know, and believe me, I appreciate all that you’ve done.”

  Appreciate all that you’ve done! Ursula thought angrily. When Harrison is happy to let Freddie hang for a crime she did not commit, when he is willing to let Bates go free and be bribed just to silence the investigation into the Radcliffe expedition!

  Suddenly Ursula heard movement of chairs and footsteps—sounds indicating that Harrison was making ready to leave. Quickly she moved behind one of the marble pillars in the anteroom and kept out of sight.

  Harrison and Lord Wrotham proceeded to the front door.

  “I’ll see you out myself. Thanks for coming all this way,” Lord Wrotham said.

  “If you hadn’t removed yourself and Miss Marlow here, I would have visited you in town,” Harrison replied sharply.

  Lord Wrotham sighed and opened the door. “I’m glad Ursula’s out of London. She can at least be spared the indignity of seeing her father’s name vilified in the press.”

  “One last thing, m’lord,” Harrison said as he walked through the doorway. “About Miss Marlow. Is she likely to be leaving the country soon? I don’t wish to seem impertinent, but I had heard she may be accompanying Lady Ashton abroad—then I also heard that there was the possibility of an engagement to a man called Tom Cumberland…?”

  The question hung in the air.

  Ursula could not see Wrotham’s reaction. He did not reply at all.

  Harrison coughed. “Of course, it’s really none of my business…but I had to ask. Miss Marlow will have to be available to testify at Miss Stanford-Jones’s trial next month. I trust you will ensure she does so.”

  “But of course.”

  Ursula waited until she heard the sound of Harrison’s motorcar start and Wrotham close the front door and retreat back to his study before hurrying to make her way to her room, undetected. She snuck into the picture gallery, only to run straight into Ayres coming out of the doorway that led to the servants’ stair.

  “Miss Marlow,” he said before she could utter a word. “You have a visitor. Mr. Tom Cumberland is waiting for you in the drawing room.”

  “Oh.” Ursula drew in a deep breath. Tom was the last person she wanted to see. After two unanswered letters from him, she had little doubt about the reason for his visit. “Just give me a moment, Ayres.”

  Ayres bowed his head and took a step backward. Ursula ran her fingers across the bridge of her nose and rubbed her eyes. She glimpsed a dim reflection of herself in the dark bronze urn that was perched on the side table beneath a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds. She looked disheveled and tired, her throat pale and white against the deep whorls of ornamentation.

  The drawing room was aptly called the Green Room, for its walls were papered with pale green quatrefoil wallpaper and adorned with gilt-framed portraits. Two Louis XIV carved walnut armchairs and a green velvet parlor sofa stood in the center, framed by the tall windows that looked out over the front of the estate. A fire roared in the Carrara marble fireplace on the west wall.

  Tom was standing with his back to the fire, hands clasped behind him, surveying the room.

  “Ursula!” he exclaimed with a thin-lipped smile that never quite reached his eyes.

  Ursula was all politeness. “Tom. It was good of you to come, but you really should have telephoned.”

  “I’ve been wanting to come for days but was called away on business. When you didn’t answer my letters, I knew I couldn’t wait another moment and had to come right away to see how you were holding up.”

  Ursula took a seat on the sofa, tucking in the skirt of her walking suit as she sat down. “Well, as you can see, I’m holding up as well as can be expected.”

  Tom remained standing. There was something in his stance, the way he was framed in the light from the tall windows, that tickled a memory in the back of her mind. Ursula dismissed it from her thoughts. She knew what she had to do.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t replied to your letters,” she began awkwardly. “I’m sure you would like an answer. You deserve an answer.”

  “Well, of course, but I understand completely if you need more time…in the circumstances.”

  “No, no…it’s fine. I don’t need any more time.” Ursula felt sick to the stomach, but she knew she had to continue. “It was my father’s wish that I marry you…and I…I do want to abide by his wishes….” She hesitated.

  Tom was by her side in an instant. He clasped her hands in his. They felt clammy and hot. His thigh pressed against hers as he leaned over and kissed her fingers. “Oh, Ursula!”

  Ursula tried to extricate her hands, but he merely bent over and kissed them again.

  “We must marry as soon as we can!” he murmured into the folds of her skirt. “There can be no delay.” As Tom raised his head, a stray curl of sandy blond hair fell onto his forehead. It was slick and sinuous, and Ursula could smell the sweet and sickly scent of macassar oil.

  “Tom, please, can you not be content to wait? You have my answer, but the thought of marriage so soon after my father’s death…. No…we must wait. Let this just be between us…for now….” Ursula stammered.

  “But I can’t wait to show you off to the world,” Tom said earnestly, trying to catch her eye. “We shall plan a grand tour, yes, that’s what we shall do,” he continued. “I want to take you away from all this—imagine, Paris, Rome, Constantinople…You can forget all about England. Forget all your troubles. Forget everything.”

  “But what of Winifred’s trial? She needs me more than ever now….”

  “Miss Stanford-Jones…” Tom mused. “I had all but forgotten about her.”

  “Well I certainly haven’t!” Ursula cried and pushed him away as he leaned in again toward her.

  Tom straightened up. “Dash it all, Ursula, I’m just so excited! Can’t thin
k straight at all. You must do as you will….”

  “And besides,” Ursula continued, “I may be going abroad as a companion to Lady Ashton after the trial.”

  Tom’s eyes narrowed slightly but his demeanor didn’t change. He still assumed an air of casual conviviality.

  “But of course, you can start the wedding plans while I am gone…” she continued lamely.

  “An excellent idea, my darling!” Tom exclaimed. “Some time with Lady Ashton will be good for you. Clear your head and all that—is it to be Europe then?”

  “America, actually,” Ursula replied. “I spoke to Lady Ashton yesterday and she has had to change her plans. An elderly aunt is dying and she wants us to visit her in Rhode Island.”

  He pulled out his pocketwatch. “Well, my dear,” he said lightly. “I really must be off. I need to be in London by tonight. McClintock wants to meet early tomorrow morning.” He bent over Ursula and kissed her on the cheek. “Now I can reassure him that the Marlow empire is in good hands.”

  Ursula remained silent, determined to conceal her unhappiness.

  Tom cupped her face in his hands and tried to kiss her once more. Ursula turned slightly so his lips brushed her cheek instead.

  “I’ll call on you in Chester Square. You are back next week, are you not?”

  Without waiting for a response, Tom hastened across the room, pulled open the door, and bade her adieu. Ursula waited a few minutes before exiting the drawing room. She wiped her hands discreetly on her skirt. But they still felt damp and dirty.

  A sudden draft of cold air caused her to spin around. Coming in from the garden, Lord Wrotham was holding open one of the French doors at the end of the picture gallery. His two dogs bounded in and shook their sable-and-white coats, sending a shower of water across the wooden floorboards. Lord Wrotham straightened up, unbuttoned his Norfolk jacket, and smoothed down his hair with the palm of his hand. He caught sight of Ursula and gave her a questioning frown. Their eyes met. Ursula steadied herself, assumed a look of calm indifference, and turned away.