A little scandal

by Patricia Cabot

  “Well,” Bishop said. “The case never went to trial. Because the person named in it—Peter Mayhew—died the day before it was to have begun—the trial, I mean.”

  “Died?” Burke dabbed at his bloodied lip with his shirtsleeve. “In the fire, you mean?”

  Bishop eyed him. “Kate told you about that, did she?”

  He nodded. “She said both her parents died in it.”

  “That’s right,” Bishop said with a nod. “They did. I wasn’t here that night, you know—I was away at university. But some of the servants here still speak of it. Flames shot twenty, thirty feet into the sky. It’s a wonder anyone lived, but everyone did, with the exception of Kate’s parents. Every single servant, and Kate herself, got out. Even that damned cat of hers survived it. The fire was contained to only one part of the house, you know—you can’t see it from the street, and the new owners have done wonders rebuilding. Just Kate’s parents’ bedroom was destroyed. Rather uncanny that, don’t you think?”

  Burke knit his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, a fire that hot, you’d expect it to take down the house, but it burned rather slowly after that initial explosion of flame. They were able to put out the flames rather handily—”

  “What are you saying?” Burke glared at him. “I haven’t time for games, you know, Bishop. If there’s something you’re trying to say, just come out and—”

  “All right.” Bishop made a face. “You always were a bit of a stick in the mud, Traherne. What I’m trying to say is that afterward, there was a certain amount of suspicion that the fire had been set deliberately. There was a strong smell of kerosene, more than if a simple lamp had been knocked over—”

  “You’re saying,” Burke said slowly, “that someone murdered Kate’s parents?”

  “Good God, no.” Bishop shook his head. “No, the feeling at the time was that Peter Mayhew set the fire himself. To avoid the humiliation of a trial.”

  Burke stared at the younger man. “Suicide?”

  “Well, murder-suicide, to be technical about it. I mean, I doubt his wife had any say in the matter. They found her still abed—well, what was left of the bed, anyway. It’s doubtful she ever woke ....”

  “Good God,” Burke said, through lips that had gone numb, but due to neither Bishop’s knuckles nor his whiskey. “I ... I had no idea.”

  “No.” Bishop, apparently tired of sipping his whiskey from a glass whose rim kept interfering with the cravat he was holding to his nose, chose instead to unstop the decanter, and drink directly from it. “You wouldn’t, I suppose. It was in all the papers, but ....”

  “I read only the sporting section,” Burke confessed.

  “Ah. Well, then, you’d have no way of knowing. And Kate wouldn’t have told you. She never speaks of it ... understandably, I suppose. But also ... well, I think she’d prefer to forget it. And who wouldn’t? I doubt a single one of her employers—and she’s had a few—know who she is, or that there was a time when she enjoyed the very same privileges as a good many of her charges.”

  Burke took the decanter from him, and poured a generous amount of whiskey into his mouth.

  “She was never the same afterward, really. The servants found her, quite unconscious, in a stairwell, and someone carried her to safety. What Kate was never able to say was how she got into that stairwell. There are those who believe her father put her there, before even starting the fire, in order to ensure she got out. But Kate ...”

  Burke eyed him. “Yes?”

  “Kate has always insisted it happened a bit differently. Well, you can’t blame her, really. It can’t be pleasant, the thought that your own father would kill himself and his wife simply in order to avoid some prison time—and public humiliation, of course. So Kate concocted this story that I believe, to this day, she still considers the truth of what happened that night”

  “Which is?” Burke asked, though he thought he knew the answer already.

  “Well, that the young man—the one who invented the diamond mine—came back in the dead of night, and set the blaze himself in order to keep Peter Mayhew from testifying. Because of course Mayhew and his attorneys were determined that they could prove his innocence, if only they could find that young man who’d run off with all the money ....”

  Daniel Craven. Who else could it have been? What had Kate said, when he’d asked her why she seemed so discomfited by Mr. Craven? That she was put out with him for having skipped out on her parents’ funeral? Lord, what a fool he’d been. She suspected him of having killed her parents. No wonder she went so pale every time he came near ....

  And he, the great, dunderheaded fool that he was, had accused her, that night in the garden, of fraternizing—a polite word for what he’d thought she’d been doing—with such a man. The man she thought had burned her parents alive.

  Burke stared at the earl. He was, he knew, quite drunk by now—it was, after all, only just noon, and he had consumed most of a quart of whiskey. Still, that could not explain the maudlin thought that kept creeping, uninvited, into his brain.

  “So,” he said, enunciating carefully, since he knew he had a tendency to slur his words when he was this besotted. “Strictly speaking, Kate’s father was not, in fact, a thief.”

  “No,” Bishop said. “Just a fool.”

  “A fool,” Burke said. “But also a gentleman.”

  “A foolish gentleman.”

  “But still,” Burke persisted. “He was a gentleman. Which would make Kate a gentleman’s daughter.”

  “Yes,” Bishop said, after some consideration. But the word came out sounding like “yesh.” “But what difference does it make? Gentleman’s daughter or not, a man’s got an obligation to treat a woman honorably.”

  Burke eyed him. “Are you saying I did not? Treat Kate honorably, I mean? Is that what she told you, in her letter?”

  “No. Only that she couldn’t stay in London anymore, and would I be so kind as to forward her things to her.” He snatched the decanter from Burke, and took a long pull at it. “That’s all I am to her, you know. An address, at which she can store her things.” Then the earl narrowed his eyes. “And what, precisely, do you mean by calling her Kate? It should be Miss Mayhew to you, Traherne. Unless there’s a reason I don’t know about for why she quit your place so suddenly.”

  “And where,” Burke asked, in a tone he fancied was slyly without emphasis, “does she require you to send her things?”

  When Bishop lowered the bottle, he was giggling. “Do you think I’m a fool, Traherne? You think I’d tell you? Even if she hadn’t stipulated—very explicitly, I might add—that I wasn’t to tell you, no matter how hard you hit me?”

  Burke laughed along with him. “But of course you’re going to tell me,” he said, “because we’re quite good friends now, you and I, and you know that I only have Kate’s best interests at heart.”

  “But you don’t,” Bishop said. “I know perfectly well that you don’t. You have the same interest in Kate that I have. The only difference, of course, is that I want to marry her.”

  He glared at him. “How do you know I don’t want to marry her, too?”

  “You?” Bishop guffawed. “Marry Kate? Impossible!”

  “Why?” Burke demanded, bristling. “Why is it impossible?”

  “Everyone knows you swore off marriage forever, after your divorce, Traherne. Even Kate knows it.”

  Burke looked at him carefully. “And how precisely does Kate know it? I never told her any such thing.”

  “You didn’t have to. I told her. I told her you would probably only debauch her and then give her the boot when you tired of her.” Bishop nearly dropped the decanter as he turned to stare accusingly at his new drinking companion. “That’s not why she ran off, is it? Did you debauch her, you bastard?”

  Burke could think of no answer to this. He had, in fact, debauched her, although it hadn’t seemed like debauchery at the time. And that was, clearly, why she’d run off. But he cert
ainly wasn’t going to admit as much to the Earl of Palmer. He couldn’t, he suppose, blame the earl entirely for what had happened, since he had been an active participant, as well ... after all, he had quite enthusiastically outlined for Kate the details for their future in sin together. When what he ought to have been doing, of course, was making wedding plans.

  But how was he to have known? She had never said a word about where she’d come from. How was he to have known she was a gentleman’s daughter?

  That was no excuse, of course. He oughtn’t to have treated any woman the way he’d treated Kate, gentleman’s daughter or not. But he hadn’t even entertained the idea of marriage for seventeen years. How was he to have thought of it that night?

  He ought to have thought of it. If he had, he wouldn’t be sitting here amidst the wreckage of a morning room, drinking whiskey straight from the decanter on a Monday afternoon, wondering how a man who had no heart could be so certain his was breaking.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Dear Lord Wingate, the note read.

  Well, of course. What had he expected? That she’d call him by his Christian name? She had done that only once, and only because he’d asked her to. She wasn’t likely to do it in a letter telling him why she could never see him again.

  Dear Lord Wingate, it read.

  I know you are probably angry with me, but I felt I had to leave. I’m afraid I cannot be your mistress. I would very much liked to have tried to be, but I know that I am just not cut from that sort of cloth, and should have made both of us unhappy in the end. I hope you will forgive me, and that you won’t mind my sending this letter to Lord Palmer to give to you. I feel it would be far better for me if I didn’t see or hear from you for a while. Please give Isabel my love, and try to make her understand why I had to leave, without, of course, telling her the truth. And do keep her from eloping with Mr. Saunders. He mentioned trying something of the sort to me once.

  I can only add, God bless you, and please know that I am, and shall always remain, very truly yours,

  Kate Mayhew

  Burke, after having read the whole letter, looked up to the top of the page—hardly even a page, really. Half a page, written on a piece of foolscap, the kind that could be purchased in any village shop. Well, Kate wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t going to write him on a piece of hotel stationery, which might be easily traced—and read it again.

  But no matter how many times he read it, the words remained the same.

  No recriminations. Never, anywhere in the text, did she curse him. Nor was there any sign that she’d wept while writing it. The ink was nowhere blotched. He wondered how many drafts she’d written before settling on this one. She had cleverly kept from dropping a single clue as to where he might find her. And she never expressed the slightest hope—however unconsciously—that he might endeavor to do so.

  Well. It was more than he deserved, he supposed. He hadn’t expected a letter from her at all. And he hadn’t quite believed his eyes when Bishop slapped it into his hand as he’d been taking his—rather bloody and drunken—leave that afternoon. In fact, he’d thought it a hastily drawn bill for all the damage he’d done to the dowager’s morning room.

  “It’s from Kate,” the earl had said, his voice muffled beneath the cloth he held to his still-dripping nose. “She sent it, along with my letter. I wasn’t going to give it to you at first, but ... well, looking at you now, I think you better have it.”

  Instinctively, Burke had flipped the note over, checking the seal. Bishop, still quite drank, had let out a bitter laugh.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I didn’t read it. Didn’t want to. Whatever the hell happened between you two .... Well, to tell you the truth, I just don’t want to know.”

  Burke quite agreed with him. He didn’t want to know, either. He wanted to forget. He wanted to forget everything that had happened since that foggy night he’d first encountered her. Which was why, six hours later, he was sitting in his study—not the library. He had not been able to bring himself to go into the library since the night he and Kate ... well, that was another thing he was trying to forget.

  He sat there, drinking his own whiskey, reading and then rereading her letter. This activity, he knew, was not particularly conducive to forgetting her, but he could not seem to put the letter down, since it was the only thing he had of hers with which to remember her. Well, with the exception of her nightdress and peignoir, which he had rescued from the library floor before they could be found by one of the maids, and which he now kept balled beneath his bed pillows.

  Sentimental? Yes. Insufferably maudlin? Quite so.

  And yet he would not part with them, or the letter, for all the money in the world.

  It was as he was reading her letter for what had to be the hundredth time, hoping some line in it would change, that the door to his study was thrown open.

  “Excuse me,” Burke rumbled, without looking up. “But I closed that door for a reason.”

  “And I opened it for a reason.” Isabel, dressed in her evening wear, stood before him with tears glittering in her eyes. Her hair was too tightly pulled back, and then burst into some kind of explosion of curls at the back of her head. It was not a flattering look. It was not a hairstyle Kate would have allowed her to leave the house wearing.

  “I walked into Miss Mayhew’s room a moment ago,” Isabel said, her voice filled with something that was just barely suppressed, “to return a book of hers I borrowed, and what do you think I found there? What do you think I found?”

  Burke lifted his glass to his lips and drained it. Never mind. He had plenty more whiskey in a bottle right at his elbow.

  “She’s gone!” Isabel’s voice throbbed dramatically. “Papa, she’s gone! The books are gone! Miss Mayhew is gone!”

  “Yes,” Burke said, pouring himself another drink. “I know.”

  “You know?” Isabel cried. “You know? What do you mean, you know?”

  Burke said, in a toneless voice, “Miss Mayhew has found that her relative—the one that was ill—needs her more than she feels we do, and so she has regretfully tendered her resignation.”

  He glanced at her to see how well this lie had worked. It seemed to have gone over well enough. Isabel was pale, certainly. And tears were gathered beneath her long black lashes.

  But she did not look angry. At least, not just then.

  “But I don’t understand.” Isabel shook her head. The explosion of curls at the back of her head trembled. “Papa, Miss Mayhew had no relatives. She told me so. Who is this ill relative of hers?”

  Burke sipped his drink. There was something about whiskey. It numbed one so pleasantly. And when he woke in the morning with a headache, all he would need to do was drink more of it. Headache gone. If he could just ensure that a steady supply of whiskey was poured down his throat, morning, noon, and night, he might be all right.

  “Wait a minute.” Isabel’s green eyes narrowed dangerously. But he was too drunk to see the danger. At least just then.

  “Wait a minute,” Isabel said again. “You’re lying.”

  Burke lifted an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me. You’re lying to me, Papa. Miss Mayhew isn’t with any sick relative.”

  Burke said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Isabel. She wrote you herself—”

  “She was lying, too,” Isabel declared. “No one writes in a letter that a relative is sick. They write ‘my aunt,’ or ‘my cousin,’ or ‘my grandfather’s brother’s wife.’ They don’t say ‘my relative.’ Miss Mayhew was lying, and so are you.”

  Burke leaned his head against the back of his leather chair, and sighed. “Isabel,” he said.

  “Tell me,” Isabel said. “You must tell me. I am not a child anymore. I’m a grown woman, practically engaged to be married—”

  “You are not,” Burke said emphatically, “practically engaged to be married. Not until I say you’re practically engaged to be married.”

&nb
sp; Isabel said, “Fine, then. I’m not engaged to be married. But I am still an adult, and I demand that you tell me. Where is she, Papa?”

  Burke studied the ceiling. “I don’t know,” he said simply.

  Isabel’s voice rose. “What do you mean, you don’t know? Where were her books sent?”

  “To Lord Palmer’s,” Burke said to the ceiling. “He’s sending them on to her, wherever she is.”

  “What do you mean, wherever she is? You don’t know where she is?”

  He shook his head. “No, I told you that. She won’t say.” Then, looking at her finally, and seeing her stricken expression, he added, holding his hand out toward her, “I’m sorry, Isabel.”

  “You’re sorry?” Isabel’s voice rose another octave. The emotion which had been suppressed now broke through the surface, and overcame her. That emotion was, as near as Burke could tell, hysteria. “You’re sorry? What did you do to her, Papa? What did you do?”

  He couldn’t tell her, of course. He could only shake his head some more. Then, to his surprise, Isabel flung herself down upon her knees before his chair, and let out a heart-wrenching sob.

  “You did something,” she said, pounding on his thigh with a fist. “The night in the garden, when Mr. Craven came, you did something to Miss Mayhew. You lost your temper. You lost your temper with her, didn’t you? You’re the one who made her go away. You’re the one. You did it.” She shook her head with such violence that the explosion of curls came tumbling down about her shoulders, just as tears were tumbling down her cheeks. “How could you, Papa?”

  Burke stared down at her miserably.

  “Isabel,” he said. “I’m sorry. I said I was sorry.”

  She reached up and wiped away her tears with a bent wrist—a gesture that so reminded Burke of her childhood that he had to blink, thinking, for one drunken moment, that she was four years old again. “Of course you are,” Isabel said, in a more reasonable tone. “Poor Papa.” She sniffled a little, then blinked at him. “Are you very sad? You look sad.”

  What he was, of course, was very drunk. But he couldn’t tell her that. Much as he couldn’t tell her the real reason behind Kate’s sudden departure.