by Jane Ashford
But there had to be one. The alternative was just too random and cruel. Violet sat up straight. She was going to find out what it was, the mysterious thing that had so oppressed her life. And then… Well, then they would see.
Violet folded her list and put it in her reticule. As she made her way back to their lodgings, determination built in her, and another list began to fill her head—ways and means of family research.
She found Furness in her bedchamber when she went to remove her bonnet.
“The new green silk gown arrived, my lady,” said the dresser. “And a footman brought a note for you.” She indicated a heavy cream envelope propped up on the dressing table.
Violet went over and picked it up. At the sight of the royal crest embossed on the flap, her heart sank. A private communication from the Prince Regent was the last thing she wanted. Why couldn’t the Regent see when his attentions were unwelcome? And how did he imagine his communications would remain private when he used this distinctive stationary? She slipped it into her reticule to look at later. The envelope barely fit. Her list crackled against the heavy paper.
If she’d had any hope that the crest hadn’t been noticed and discussed, it died when Violet turned and saw Furness’s disappointed expression. Clearly, her maid was curious about the note’s contents. “You know that you can trust me with anything, my lady,” said Furness, confirming Violet’s apprehensions.
“Thank you, Furness.”
Though it was clearly a dismissal, the lady’s maid remained. She folded her hands at her waist and looked mournful. “Was there something else?” Violet wondered.
“I fear so, my lady.”
Apprehensive now, Violet said, “What is it?”
“I’m sure I’m very sorry to have to mention it to you, my lady. But I believe Mr. Cates has stolen the key to your jewel case.”
Violet gaped at the slender, dark-haired young woman. Whatever she might have expected to hear, it was not this. “Stolen?” she repeated. Surely she had not heard correctly.
Furness nodded with downturned lips.
“But…” Nathaniel’s valet was the most proper creature on Earth. “Why in the world would he do that?”
“To make me look bad, my lady.” Furness’s posture remained stiffly correct, but her brown eyes smoldered. “He’s saying that I must have lost the key, but I never would. I’m ever so careful with your ladyship’s things. It’s only because of the razor.”
“The…razor?” Violet’s bewilderment increased.
“Mr. Cates has misplaced his lordship’s second best razor, and he’s claiming I moved it when I was tidying up. But of course I never touch his lordship’s things.” Furness positively exuded virtue.
This was more than unfortunate, Violet thought. Here in lodgings, the two attendants had to share working space. And she’d thought that Furness and Cates were getting along quite well. “I know we are in rather close quarters here,” she said. “We must all make allowances. I’m sure this must be a simple misunderstanding. Cates has been with his lordship for many years.”
Furness answered this implied threat with a sniff. “I declare I’m not accustomed to such treatment, my lady. If I’d known when I took the position…”
The counter threat was clear—Furness would look at her other options. Violet didn’t want to lose her. “I’ll…look into it.”
“Thank you, my lady.” Furness dropped a curtsy and went out.
Violet tried to imagine asking the eminently decorous Cates about the theft of a key, and could not conjure the scene in her mind. She would…she would think about it later.
* * *
Early in the afternoon, Nathaniel came in to find Violet sitting at the writing desk by the parlor window. A blank sheet of paper lay before her, and she held a pen, but the nib looked quite dry to him. “Writing letters?” he asked.
She started as if she hadn’t heard him enter. “Oh! Yes, to my mother.”
“Ah. No need for that,” he said.
“What?”
“I have just seen both your parents. I passed their traveling carriage as I was returning to town after my ride.”
Violet blinked. She put down the pen. “Really?” Then she nodded as if she should have thought of this before. “Grandmamma must have sent a messenger to get them here so quickly. I wonder if Lady Dunstaple is prepared for that many guests? Not that Grandmamma will care.”
“You think she sent for them?”
“Undoubtedly. They had no plan to visit Brighton. Papa hates the sea.”
“Hates?”
“He says that sea air clogs his lungs and stops up his nostrils.”
“I’m surprised he came then,” said Nathaniel.
“Oh, they would never oppose my grandmother. In anything.”
As far as he had observed, this was true. “But why bring them here, if your father…?”
“To harry me back ‘into line,’” Violet replied. “She will get Mama to cry and Papa to bluster…”
“You’re not joking, are you?” How different this sounded from his own family, he thought. He couldn’t imagine anyone persuading his parents to enact such a drama. And his brothers might be irritating, but they wouldn’t stoop to tactics like that.
“Not in the least. She has them well trained. They’ll be here to visit as soon as they’re settled. Or before. I daresay Grandmamma is already chivvying them in our direction.”
“Shall we go out?” offered Nathaniel. “For the remainder of the day? And the evening?”
“No, this is perfect.”
He didn’t understand her attitude. She’d been distraught when her grandmother appeared. And it sounded as if more of the same was coming. Perhaps it was having some warning that bolstered her spirits? “You don’t mind?”
“There’s something I need to find out, and it will be much easier in person.” She looked down at the letter paper before her. “In fact, I suspect it will be possible only in person. One can always ignore a letter.” She turned back to him and smiled. “For once, Grandmamma has done me a service.”
“And what is this mystery?”
“My cousin Delia,” said Violet.
It took Nathaniel a moment. Then he remembered their earlier conversation. “Ah.”
“I refuse to believe we are treated so differently because of some whim of Grandmamma’s. She doesn’t actually indulge in baseless crochets. It must be more, and I am going to find out the true reason.”
Her eyes were positively snapping now. It was a pleasure to see. It was also rather enticing. “If I can be of any help…”
“Be sure I will call upon you.”
The bell rang below. Violet gave him a mischievous smile. “Didn’t I tell you?”
“You think it’s your parents?”
“I’d wager ten pounds on it.”
Nathaniel shook his head. “I don’t believe I’ll take that bet.”
* * *
It was a wise decision. In a moment, the housemaid came up to announce that Violet’s parents and grandmother had called. As Violet told her to bring them up, Nathaniel murmured in her ear, “I wonder if she even let them step out of their carriage?”
Thus, when the Earl and Countess of Moreley and the dowager countess entered the parlor, they found the Hightowers laughing. The sight appeared to disconcert them. Which kept Violet smiling as she went to kiss her parents. “Mama, Papa. I had no notion that you were coming to Brighton.” Her parents did look as if they’d been hustled over here without an opportunity to refresh themselves. They wore creased traveling dress and looked tired. Violet felt a little sorry for them. But why couldn’t they just refuse her grandmother’s tyrannical demands? This thought led her to add, “Has Papa overcome his aversion to sea air?”
Her father put a hand to his throat and looked apprehensive.
“No doubt they missed you,” said Nathaniel. “And wanted to see how you were getting on.”
When her father and grandmother looke
d surprised, Violet’s spirits sank a bit. She’d been enjoying the new game, but this cut a bit close to the bone.
“Indeed we did,” said her mother in a tremulous voice.
She nearly always spoke that way, Violet thought. The present Countess of Moreley was a creature of tentative opinions and disregarded wishes, easily crushed by her formidable mother-in-law. I suppose I learned submission from her, Violet thought. She felt a bit disoriented. She’d longed for her life to change with marriage. Now that it had, she found the sudden shift in perspective unsettling.
“Of course,” declared the dowager. “Precisely. That is why we are here, to discuss how Violet is getting on.”
Pleasantries over, Violet thought, battle joined. “Come and sit down,” she said.
Her parents sat side by side on a sofa, rather like errant schoolchildren awaiting punishment, Violet thought. Her grandmother took the large, comfortable armchair by the hearth, punctuating her choice with a rap of her cane on the wooden floor. The smaller side chairs were left for the Hightowers.
“I have told your parents how you treated Renshaw,” the dowager intoned. “And about your lapses in conduct. Of course they can see perfectly well for themselves.” She condemned Violet’s dashing gown and hair with a sweeping gesture.
Her mother looked distressed, her father very uncomfortable. As they always did on these occasions, Violet realized. Watching their faces, she felt as if she’d fallen into a frenzy of observation, seeing her childhood world from the outside. She scarcely knew her father. She’d been told he was an exceedingly busy man. But the truth was, he took himself out of the house at every opportunity. A picture rose in her mind: the earl talking with a group of his male cronies in a card room in London. She’d been hurrying by, occupied with some drama of her own, but the image had remained with her somehow. He’d looked like a different man—at ease, jovial.
Here and now, however, he was the familiar peevish presence of her youth. “Must listen to your grandmother,” he blustered. He glanced at the old woman, then away.
Violet’s mother was near tears. She was so often near tears. That creased, desperate expression and mournful trail of liquid down her cheek had so often brought Violet to heel. She’d hated to see her mother so unhappy. She still did, but today she also wondered why Mama didn’t object to her mother-in-law’s presence in her household. She was a married woman, and a countess. And then a simple fact struck Violet like a thunderbolt. The Moreley estate had an empty dower house, at the far end of the park, about a mile from the main residence. She’d ridden past it countless times without thinking. The building was attractive and commodious. It was run down, but could easily be refurbished. Why didn’t her grandmother live there? Many older noblewomen removed to such a place when their eldest sons married. Why hadn’t her mother, her parents, insisted upon it? She gazed at them with incomprehension.
“Are you listening?” her grandmother demanded.
She wasn’t. She was lost in the past. What had made her so blind? She looked over at her family, noting that all three seemed surprised at her silence. Grandmamma had just been there, she thought, since she was born. And a small child didn’t question…reality. She’d simply followed her parents’ lead and submitted to it, year after year. Grandmamma was the center of attention and the arbiter; all activities revolved around her. There was no other choice. She was unstoppable. Violet felt the old drag into hopelessness threaten.
“Have you nothing to say for yourself? ” her grandmother said now, clearly frustrated.
But as she started to slump in her chair, Violet remembered. Cousin Delia. This fatalistic view didn’t explain Delia.
“Answer your grandmother,” said her father gruffly.
Violet turned to him, meeting his pale eyes, holding the gaze. He blinked and looked away. Not him, Violet thought. And it was obviously no good trying to talk to her grandmother, or in her presence. She needed to get her mother alone…
With the thought, Violet suddenly realized how little time they had actually spent alone, just the two of them. Almost none, really, since she’d been quite small. That was odd. Wasn’t it?
“This is ridiculous,” said Nathaniel. The words seemed to burst from him, as if he couldn’t hold them back another instant.
Violet had almost forgotten he was there.
“There have been no ‘lapses in conduct,’” he went on. “And if you’ve been summoned here upon that pretext, then you’ve made a long journey for nothing.”
Violet’s heart warmed at the indignation in his face, his voice. Her grandmother looked dumbfounded, which was gratifying. She couldn’t seem to learn that Nathaniel wasn’t the least bit afraid of her. Violet’s parents gaped like beached fish.
“You’re welcome to call…” Nathaniel continued.
She couldn’t let him take on the whole burden, or give them the impression that she required his defense. “Of course,” said Violet, putting as much warmth as she could muster into her tone. “We are glad to see you, if we can agree that there is no need for…criticisms. Perhaps we could go together to—”
The dowager cut her off with another hard thump of her cane. “Do you refuse to listen to sense?”
“Well”—Violet drew in a breath—“yes.”
Her grandmother rose, glaring. She gathered Violet’s parents with an imperious gesture. “You have not heard the end of this!” she promised.
Violet stood and moved to intercept her mother on her way to the door. “We could do a bit of shopping tomorrow, Mama.”
Her mother checked. She seemed to search for a reply.
“Harriet!” snapped Violet’s grandmother. “Come along!”
With a start, like a rabbit flushed from cover, she obeyed.
She’d been overeager, Violet thought. Of course she shouldn’t have spoken in front of her grandmother. But she would find an opportunity to reach her mother. She would not be denied. And then they would see. The prospect filled Violet with nervous excitement.
“Are you all right?” asked Nathaniel.
She nodded.
“What are you thinking? It’s fascinating to watch you think.”
“It is?” Violet was startled by the idea.
Nathaniel nodded. “It seems to me that you think more intensely than anyone else I know.”
“I?” It was an entirely novel concept to her. “How can you tell?” she asked.
“Something in your expression. And then, of course, the things you come out with.”
This statement in itself made Violet thoughtful. “I didn’t used to think very much at all,” she replied. “In fact, I don’t understand how I could have done so little thinking. But now I am…making up for that, I suppose.”
“How?” he asked.
“I’m making plans.”
He moved closer. “Do they involve me?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so.”
“Alas. I’m disappointed.”
At his pretense of woe, Violet laughed and threw her arms around his neck. “I have other…different plans involving you. You came to my rescue so valiantly again today.”
He pulled her close. “It was my pleasure, my lady.” Bending nearer, he murmured, “Shall we…discuss those other plans of yours in the bedroom?”
She smiled up at him. “Now? In the middle of the day? What will the servants think?”
“It is of no interest to me what they think. In fact, here is a plan of mine. Let us lock the door and forget all about them.”
Violet was only too happy to agree.
Nine
As he walked along the Steine the following morning, wishing he was at Fairleigh and could take out a fishing rod or hack across country, Nathaniel noticed a shop that sold playing cards, silver loo counters, and other games, mementos of Brighton, and a general welter of small items. The cluttered display called to mind one of Sebastian’s requests, and he turned to go in. He was met by a tall, thin shopkeeper in a blue coat with brass b
uttons, perhaps designed to give him a nautical air. The man’s receding hairline further lengthened a long, dour face that seemed quite at odds with the frivolous nature of his merchandise. “Good day, sir,” he said. “How may I serve you?”
Nathaniel was scanning the crowded shelves. “Can you recommend any…uh…games, playthings that would fascinate a fifteen-year-old girl?”
“Fascinate?” the man repeated.
“Yes. Oh, and a thirteen-year-old girl as well.”
“Thirteen?” the shopkeeper asked. His eyebrows moved up, the corners of his lips down.
Nathaniel nodded. “Or, both together, I suppose. Yes, both together.”
“Fascinate them, both together,” the man repeated woodenly.
“That is what I said,” replied Nathaniel, wondering if the fellow was slow-witted, or perhaps a bit deaf.
The shopkeeper stared at him as if memorizing his features. “Perhaps if you told me a bit more about your…daughters…sir.”
Nathaniel frowned. Did the man imagine he was old enough to have a fifteen-year-old daughter? Technically, yes, he supposed…if he’d been markedly precocious. But what had that to do with his request? The query was impertinent. “They are not my daughters.”
“Nieces, then?”
“They are no relation to me, and I do not see what that…” Nathaniel broke off, noting that the skinny shopkeeper was positively radiating disapproval. How did he sell anything if he treated customers in this manner? And then something in the fellow’s pale blue eyes struck him. “Oh my God, man. It’s nothing like that.”
“‘That,’ sir?”
“I don’t want to ‘fascinate’ them. I don’t even know their names.”
“Indeed?”
Nathaniel would not have thought it possible, but the man’s face grew even more censorious. “It isn’t even for me,” he added. “It’s my brother.”