“Is there much left?”
“It is nearly three quarters empty. Not that it tells us anything other than that the fellow was apt to drink the stuff.”
Ottilia took it from him and held it out to her husband. “Put it in your pocket, Francis.”
He came to take it but did not immediately do her bidding. “You want me to impound it?”
She opened her eyes at him. “Of course.”
His brows drew together. “What do you think it will tell you? You can’t know how much has been drunk.”
“It is a precaution, Fan. We don’t want anyone removing the bottle.”
“Except yourself,” put in Patrick drily.
She ignored her brother. “Besides, there is no saying but that the bottle had been tampered with. Patrick may find the dosage well over what should be there.”
“Oh, I am to test it, am I?”
Ottilia gazed at him. “Why should you not?”
“No reason beyond an utter disbelief in this ridiculous notion you have taken into your head.”
“For my part,” put in Francis with feeling, “I am ready to sanction any number of tests, if only to prove there has not been a murder.”
“Yes, but I’m afraid there has been,” Ottilia insisted. “Tamasine herself said she had killed her guardian.”
“You will hardly believe anything that wretched girl says, when you’ve already suggested she is deranged.”
“Which is just why she may have spoken the exact truth.”
Patrick cast up his eyes. “She has the bit between her teeth, Fan. She will not rest now until she is satisfied of the facts.”
“Don’t I know it,” said her husband, taking instant and, in Ottilia’s view, unfair advantage of this support. “I wish to heaven that wretched girl had not set foot in the Dower House.”
Ottilia dismissed this at once. “Even if she had not, our involvement was inevitable.”
“Because of Giles, you mean. Damn the boy! Why must he choose to make a cake of himself over this of all females?”
“I shouldn’t trouble your head about it, Fan. Ten to one, the whole idea of foul play proves void.” Patrick glanced at his sister. “I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill, Ottilia, and with little to go on.”
“You have not met the inmates of this house. I think I may be pardoned for being suspicious.”
“How so?”
Francis was evidently unwilling to travel further upon this route, but she could not let it lie. “Have you not observed the cross-currents of secrets and passions in this house? I dare say every person in the place has something to hide.”
“But that does not need to have led to murder,” Patrick interjected.
“Precisely so,” said Francis. “You must admit, Tillie, there is nothing to support such a supposition. You can have no real reason to be interfering further in their lives.”
“You say so only because of Giles,” Ottilia objected. She went to him, setting a hand on his chest. “Do you not think your apprehension will be better served by pursuing the matter, if only to make certain there is no reason for alarm?”
“But you have no real evidence of wrongdoing.”
“As yet.”
Francis eyed her in a frustrated way. “If you wish to know what I think, it is that you are so desperate for distraction, you will clutch at any straw.”
This Ottilia could not deny. She gave him the smile reserved for him alone. “I admit it freely. But you will take the bottle? Indulge me in this, dearest Fan.”
Before he could answer, Ottilia’s brother irritatingly shoved his oar in again.
“You may as well give in at once, Fan. If you suppose you can stop Ottilia in full flight, you must have windmills in your head.” He gave a short laugh. “Or else you’re a more successful husband than I in managing your wife.”
“For shame, Patrick. What sort of a wife do you take me for? I am perfectly biddable where my husband is concerned.”
Francis fairly snorted. “If I did not know you better, my darling, I should be begging Patrick to take your pulse.”
But he slipped the bottle into his pocket and Ottilia smiled her thanks.
“Lock the door again, Fan, won’t you?” she said the moment they were all outside the room. “We don’t want anyone touching the body until Patrick and Doctor Sutherland can conduct their post-mortem.”
Patrick gave a shout of laughter. “What did I tell you? She’s incorrigible!”
It had not been easy to persuade the fellow Cuffy into guiding Giles to the upper floor to Tamasine’s bedchamber. He had been obliged to resort to bribery since his representations of his inamorata’s urgent need to speak to him, as evidenced by Hemp’s message that morning, failed of their intent.
“I know, sir, but now Master is dead,” objected the man. “Miss Tam is resting now. Is not a good time.”
Giles balked. “She has been left alone? At such a time?”
“No, sir. Hemp stays with Miss Tam now.”
Shock rode him. “In her bedchamber?”
Cuffy merely stared, his features giving nothing away. Giles suppressed the urge to slam a fist into the fellow’s jaw, but his determination to see Tamasine redoubled. The thought of that innocent in company with the burly footman, and without a vestige of a chaperon, made his blood boil. Had they no care for her reputation? He abandoned further argument and dug a hand into his fob pocket.
To his cynical satisfaction, Cuffy eyed the gold coin with the age-old look of avarice Giles recognised in those less fortunately placed than himself. He raised questioning brows at the man. “I will not keep Miss Tamasine above a moment.”
A brief hesitation, and then Cuffy nodded, holding out his hand. Giles dropped the guinea into it. Without a word, the fellow took off, leading him up a back stair and through a collection of corridors, halting at last before a door upon which he knocked.
Giles waited, dismayed to feel less than joyful anticipation in his breast. His last sight of Tamasine being herded up the stairs returned to him, and as footsteps sounded within the room, he remembered Hemp was in there and recalled, with discontent, how she had leapt into the footman’s embrace.
He heard the key turn in the lock and the door opened a crack. Cuffy murmured in a strange patois, in which Giles barely recognised the odd English word, and Hemp’s dark gaze met his as the fellow pulled the door wider.
“You wish to see Miss Tam, sir?”
“I fully intend to see Miss Tamasine,” corrected Giles, taking a high hand at the outset.
The man looked him over in a manner as irritating as it was disrespectful and Giles felt his fist itch again. For two pins, he’d knock the fellow into Kingdom come. Except that, even in his wrath, Giles was aware that if the man fought back, he was likely to get the worst of it.
Relief came in Tamasine’s voice from within the room. “Is that you, Giles? Pray come in at once. Hemp, let him in!”
The fellow Hemp exchanged a glance with his colleague, who had stood back to allow Giles access. “Go in, sir. I will wait here.”
Hemp held the door wide and Giles entered the room. His eye fell immediately upon Tamasine and he caught his breath. She was seated on the edge of a four-poster, and he felt warmth rush into his cheeks at the sight of her in such an intimate setting. Her smile was dazzling and she beckoned him to come closer, pointing to a little table on which a squared off board was set with little figures in various positions laid out upon it.
“See, Giles. We are playing at Fox and Geese.” She held up a goose token.
A trifle nonplussed, he approached, taking in the board with its pattern of holed points and the plethora of geese stuck into holes around the unfortunate fox. Was this a ploy to take her mind off her grief? Or, as the treacherous thought entered his mind, was she truly untouched by her guardian’s death? The late discussion with his uncle crept back, disturbing him at a deeper level he did not care to examine.
He shrugged
the thoughts away and summoned a half-smile as he reached to take the hand she held out to him and clasp it warmly. “I was concerned about you, after the way your companion treated you. Are you all right?”
Her response was bright. “Lavinia is writing letters, so Hemp came to play with me. Would you like to watch?”
He was disconcerted. “Certainly. I mean, no. Tamasine —” He glanced swiftly towards the door and was chagrined to see the fellow Hemp standing before it. He lowered his voice, leaning down. “I wanted to talk with you privately, Tamasine.”
She gave him her brilliant smile and patted the coverlet beside her. “Sit with me, Giles.”
He was reluctant to do anything that might be wrongly construed, but the temptation proved stronger than his resistance, and he took his place to one side. His eyes strayed to the servant still standing stalwart at the door, but then Tamasine pointed an imperious finger.
“To the corner, Hemp.”
For a moment Giles thought the fellow would object, his glance shifting from one to the other. Then he crossed to a corner at the further end and turned his back to the room. Giles’s gaze returned to Tamasine, and he was about to speak when she put a finger to her lips, enjoining his silence.
Mystified, Giles nodded. Tamasine stood up, slipped out from behind the little table and tiptoed across to the door. Grasping the handle, she turned it. The door did not open.
A mewl of frustration escaped Tamasine, and the door handle was rattled with some violence. Giles leapt up and went towards her, but before he could reach her, she flew across the room and began beating at the footman’s back, screaming.
“You stole the key! You stole the key!”
Stunned, Giles could not move. He watched the man stand and take the blows, neither turning nor flinching, but only bowing his head a little. Infuriated growls issued from Tamasine’s lips and something in Giles could not endure it.
“Tamasine, stop! Tamasine, please don’t do that!”
He was moving swiftly now, hardly aware of what he did. Reaching her, he tried to take hold of her, but the girl evaded him, escaping under his arm and running to the bed, where she overturned the little table with a furious kick, sending both board and figures flying. Then she flung herself down on the bed and burst into heart-rending sobs.
Giles glanced at the fellow Hemp, who had not shifted from his position. Distress swamped Giles. “Help her, can’t you?”
Hemp looked briefly over his shoulder. “No, sir. It is better to leave her.”
“In such distress?” The callousness of it struck Giles to the heart, and he went swiftly to the bed and reached down to the afflicted girl, hardly knowing what he said. “Tamasine, don’t weep, pray. You have had a wretched time of it, my poor love.”
To his combined discomfort and astonishment, Tamasine tumbled over and flung herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck and crying muffled pleas into his chest as he automatically held her to him.
“Take me away from here, Giles! Marry me and take me away! They are all against me. They hate me, Giles, they hate me! They are cruel and wicked and I will never be free if you don’t take me away.”
Appalled, Giles clasped the weeping bundle in his arms, perforce sinking down upon the bed and allowing Tamasine to cuddle wholly into his embrace in a fashion as indecorous as it was harrowing. Somewhere inside a bolt of strident common sense told him he was going to regret this, but the heady sensations that beset him in the present moment which seemed to promise him his heart’s desire were overwhelming.
“Don’t weep, my darling girl, don’t weep! I will do anything you wish for, dearest, I promise you.”
Tamasine stilled all at once, and then pulled away a little. Her lovely tear-stained face gazed up at him, woebegone and desperate. “Can we be married? Am I yours, Giles?”
For one breathless second, he hesitated. But Tamasine lifted her face to his, puckering her lips in mute invitation. It was too much.
Giles kissed her, wholly uncaring about the presence of the footman in the corner of the room. Drowning in the magic of her innocence and beauty, he groaned. Tamasine’s lips left his and he opened his eyes. Her smile was radiant, all the erstwhile misery vanished.
“We are betrothed, Giles!”
A tiny voice inside his mind rose in violent disavowal, but Giles chose not to hear it. His honour, as much as his heart, was in play as he uttered fateful words.
“Yes, my darling Tamasine, we are betrothed.”
She leapt from his embrace and began pirouetting about the room, throwing her hands in the air and twirling in a fashion that made Giles feel a trifle giddy. For his head was whirling as a plethora of difficulties leapt up, throwing him into disorder. For one thing, his suit had met with disapprobation in this household. For another, his father was going to explode.
Recalling his conversation with his uncle earlier, the infelicity of becoming engaged under these circumstances hit him abruptly. Urgency overcame him, and he got up, moving to catch Tamasine in mid-twirl and grasp her hands.
“Tamasine, listen to me!”
She gave him her bright smile, the china-blue eyes triumphant. “I will listen to you forever, Giles.”
“But just at this moment, it is important to listen carefully.” Why he emphasised the point of care, he did not wish to examine too closely, but apprehension was riding him. “We must keep this secret, Tamasine. Just for now.”
To his surprise, she looked delighted. “A secret! And they will never know.”
“Yes. Well, in due course we may tell them. But for now, with your guardian’s death in question, we must be circumspect.”
She crowed triumph. “They will never guess!”
Giles was conscious of impatience. Had she understood him? Had she taken in the difficulties? All at once, he recalled the presence of the footman. He shot the man a glance and found Hemp had turned at his place in the corner and was watching them with an expression Giles could not read. He turned to his newly betrothed.
“Tamasine!”
She opened her eyes at him. “Why are you whispering?”
“You must insist that Hemp tells no one.”
Tamasine looked blank. “Hemp?”
“Yes! He must have heard everything. Can you persuade him not to tell anyone?”
She gave the bell-like tinkle of a laugh he loved so much. “Hemp will never betray me. Hemp is my best friend. Aren’t you?” She left Giles and ran across to the footman, putting out her hands. “You won’t tell them, will you? On pain of instant death.”
The tone was gay and light, but the words sliced into Giles’s mind like the cut of ice on skin. Giles shook the burn of it from his mind. She did not mean it. It was Tamasine’s notion of a joke. In poor taste at such a time, perhaps, but she was too innocent to be troubled by shibboleths of that sort.
“I will not speak, Miss Tam,” came Hemp’s deep tones.
Giles breathed more easily. But the footman took hold of Tamasine’s hand and, as if he led a child, brought her up to Giles.
“You should say goodbye now, sir. Miss Tam must rest.”
Tamasine made no objection, rather to Giles’s surprise, instead breaking into laughter and raising a hand to wave at him. “Goodbye, Giles. Come and see me again soon.”
With which, she floated dreamily to the bed and lay down, closing her eyes with a sigh. Giles found Hemp waiting for him by the door, which the fellow was unlocking.
“Go now, sir.”
Giles did not relish the semblance of an order, though the tone was polite enough. Bemused and not a little confused, Giles found himself obeying. In the doorway he looked back. Tamasine might as well have been asleep, for all the notice she took.
The door closed behind him and he heard the key turn in the lock. Cuffy was waiting. “You are ready, sir? We will go.”
There did not seem to be much else he could do. Giles nodded and followed the man along the corridor, his mind beset with so many conflicting notion
s he scarcely knew what to think. Everything had happened so fast, his brain was afire with conjecture.
But one thought emerged from the maelstrom as he descended the stairs. He was betrothed to Tamasine Roy, and there was nothing he could do to change that. Not that he so wished. Yet a regretful thought snaked into his mind. As a man of honour, he was committed. He could not draw back.
Ottilia was guiltily relieved Patrick needed her husband’s aid to hunt down the local doctor. Both men, accompanied by her eager young nephews, were to be off in Lord Polbrook’s phaeton, borrowed for the duration of the Fanshawes’ stay. Sophie Hathaway, always sickly, elected to retire to her room to lie down, attended by Teresa Mellis with a plethora of remedies on offer, leaving Ottilia with the welcome prospect of being alone for a while.
A belated and boisterous breakfast, attended by the whole party, had been enlivened with the tale of the doings at Willow Court, although Francis had the sense to refrain from mentioning Giles’s involvement. Once or twice, his clipped tone drew a frowning glance from Lady Polbrook, but she made no remark. When the talk turned upon Ottilia’s condition, her patience rapidly eroded. Between her sister-in-law’s dismaying tales of her own pregnancies and Patrick’s dire warnings, the distraction afforded by the events at Willow Court gave way to severe irritation.
She managed to contain her spleen while Francis guided her to the parlour and into a comfortable chair by the fire, but an insistence on her using a footstool nearly resulted in a quarrel.
“I am not an invalid, Fan.”
“No, but Patrick says it is essential to put your feet up daily in order to avoid swollen ankles.”
Ottilia consigned her brother to a place of great heat, a remark Francis pointedly ignored, instead fetching a cushion from the sofa to set at her back.
“I am perfectly comfortable without that.”
Francis leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead. “Indulge me, my dear one.” A teasing light came into his eye and he patted his pocket. “Tit for tat, Tillie. I need scarcely remind you of Sir Joslin’s bottle of laudanum.”
The Lady Fan Series: Books 1-3 (Sapere Books Boxset Editions) Page 78