“I dare say there was urgent need for it. My cousin Joslin’s death was wholly unexpected, I understand.”
Giles gazed at him, reflecting that the fellow did not yet know the half of it. He could not speak of his aunt Ottilia’s suspicions before Tamasine, however. “I thought Tamasine was your cousin.”
“Joslin too, though a trifle more distant. Matthew, Tamasine’s father, you must know, was my first cousin through our fathers. Joslin hailed from the distaff side.”
“Giles, you didn’t kiss me,” chimed in Tamasine with impatience.
Feeling warmth rising in his cheeks, Giles withdrew a pace. “Not in public, Tamasine.”
Her laughter tinkled. “It’s only Simeon, silly. He won’t mind.”
“Well, I do.”
Giles with difficulty held back a glare as his glance swept the look of cynical amusement in the other man’s face. Tamasine paid no heed, but reached up to catch at Giles’s shoulders, raising her face to his. He dipped his head and gave her a quick peck on the lips, unable to help his gaze from shifting to Simeon Roy, who was openly grinning.
Laughing again, Tamasine turned her radiant smile on her cousin. “We are betrothed, Simeon. Giles is going to marry me.”
Horrified, Giles shot a look at the fellow’s face. Roy appeared entirely unmoved, merely raising a pair of dark brows.
“Indeed? I must congratulate you, my dear Tam. An excellent catch.”
Giles cut in swiftly. “It is not generally known. I must beg you to keep silent on this subject, if you will.”
The brows rose higher. “Oh? Did not my cousin Joslin approve your suit? Now, how improvident of him. I must confess myself astonished he did not jump at the chance to offload — I mean, to see young Tam so suitably established.”
The slip had not escaped Giles and a sliver of apprehension shot through him. There was no visible change in Tamasine’s expression. With luck, she had not understood the implication. He felt compelled to defend.
“Sir Joslin was unwilling to see Tamasine betrothed to anyone before her come-out, but I had felt hopeful of persuading him to change his mind before long.”
Simeon Roy openly laughed. “Come-out? You are jesting?”
Giles frowned, as another of those uncomfortable shards attacked him. “Why should you think so?”
But at this, the fellow raised a deprecating hand and fell back a little. “My dear Lord Bennifield, if you don’t know, far be it from me to enlighten you. I would not care to do my little cousin such a disservice.”
Undecided between demanding an immediate explanation or planting the fellow a facer, Giles hesitated too long.
“And now I fear I must leave you, my dear Tam,” said Roy with another flourishing bow. “I trust my valet will have unpacked by now and I may hope to remove the travel stains from my person and freshen up in general.”
Tamasine had watched the give and take of words without, to Giles’s relief, apparent alarm, but at this she entered a protest. “You are going? But Simeon, I want you to stay with me.”
The fellow smiled and chucked her under the chin. “But you have your betrothed to amuse you.”
A daunting scowl marred Tamasine’s exquisite features for a moment. “But I want you!”
“Now, now,” said Roy on a chiding note. “No tantrums, my child, or I shall be sorry for having come all this way to see you.”
Tamasine stamped her foot. “I hate you, Simeon!”
To Giles’s faint and reluctant admiration, Roy refused to rise to the bait. He laughed instead, seizing his cousin’s hand and lifting it to rest against his cheek for a moment, in a gesture peculiarly intimate. It was also distinctly possessive and made Giles’s hackles rise all over again.
“No, you don’t. You love me really. And I shall be with you again in a trice, never fear.”
With which, he released her hand and walked quickly away towards the rear of the house.
Giles looked at Tamasine, half fearful of an explosion, but found her once again wreathed in smiles as she turned to him.
“Simeon is going to save me.”
Save her from what? But he did not ask. Instead, he offered his arm. “Would you like to walk a little, Tamasine?”
With a cry of delight, she tucked her hand into his arm and set out beside him, walking as sedately as any debutante as he led her around the drive towards the lawns at the front of the house. His doubts faded.
“I am sorry we cannot announce our betrothal just yet, my dearest.”
Tamasine flashed him a frowning look. “Why can’t we?”
“I fear it would be thought a trifle callous, with your guardian but just dead.”
“But if he is dead, how can Joslin object?”
“I don’t mean that. Besides, I’m afraid Miss Ingleby will not countenance my suit.”
“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.”
&nb
sp; 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 that 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.
The Lady Fan Series: Books 1-3 (Sapere Books Boxset Editions) Page 89