“His things, compliments of Miss Co-co-col—” he stumbled over the Scots surname.
“It’s Colquohoun,” I told him. “That’s why I call her Morag.”
William smiled. He was a kindly lad, and grateful to me for arranging his future rather neatly over Christmas—neatly and entirely to his satisfaction. He took the chance to peer into the basket.
“He’s got his eyes open—and yet not crying. That’s a wonder,” he told me.
“Is it? I’m afraid I’m not much use with babies. There was only Mr. Valerius younger than me, and none of my nieces and nephews were born here.”
“Oh, yes, my lady. I’ve six younger than me at home, and what I don’t know about babies isn’t worth knowing. He’s a fine little lad, he is. But the eyes are unusual.”
“How?” I asked, coming a little closer to the bed.
“They’re green. Most babes have blue eyes when they open, unless they’re meant to be dark. But his are a fine green right now, and that’s a thing to behold.”
He remarked upon the shining cap of silky black hair and the sturdy grip, and he showed me how to give him a feed and even how to remedy the discomfort of wet undergarments.
“There, nothing to it,” he said cheerfully when I managed on my fourth try. “The trick with babies is they don’t know any better. You can be an old hand or green as an unripe plum, but this little fellow will never know or care.”
I gave him a grateful smile. “You’re going to be a fine father, William. When is the happy event?”
He beamed at me, his pink complexion going quite red. “Midsummer, my lady. We mean to marry by the end of January, and the cottage will be ready for us in time for the spring planting. I’ll be a proper undergardener by then,” he added, fairly bursting with pride.
“Good luck to you both,” I told him. He smiled again and took his leave, promising to look in again later when his duties permitted. The rest of the family had given up heaving and hurling and were resting quietly after their poisonous oysters, while the staff had collapsed over steaming vats of tea and piles of toast, he had told me, grateful the worst was over. All that remained was for them to rest and recover their strength, and with three days left until the Revels, it seemed possible that they should still be held.
A quiet storm rose as the twilight faded, large soft flakes of snow falling silently over the Abbey. I thought of Brisbane, out in the cold, searching for a frightened young woman who had made a terrible choice, and I prayed to a deity I did not entirely believe in for both of them.
Poor Lucy. And poor little John, I thought as I lifted him from his basket. He was indeed a fine specimen. He would thrive, in spite of his harrowing introduction to life. But under whose care? His mother was in flight, terrified of the monstrous man she had married, and in fear of her life. What sort of life was that for a child? And even if safe haven could be found for her, with us in London perhaps, was Lucy stable enough to have the care of a child? She had been highly strung and nearly hysterical the day I had visited her in the cottage. Black Jack’s game of chase had played havoc with her nerves, fretting them to nothing, and she was as fragile as the child she had left behind.
He regarded me solemnly, his plump cheeks pink against the pale, perfect alabaster of his skin. Like Black Jack, like Brisbane for that matter, his hair was black, only a little dusting of it as yet, but it would grow thick in time, I imagined. And I wondered if I should be there to see it. How would it look, that black Brisbane hair with the bright green of the March eyes?
When Brisbane returned hours later, mud-spattered and tired from his inquiries, he found us tucked into bed, the child fed and sleeping sweetly as I wept into his blanket.
“Hey, now, what’s this?” Brisbane asked, settling himself on the bed next to me.
“I want him,” I said, snuffling through my tears. “I did not think I wanted a child, but when we lost ours—” I broke off. “I still don’t know that I want children. But I want this one. He’s half Brisbane and half March. He is ours. And do not tell me Lucy wants him back. I do not think I could bear it.”
He slipped his arm around me, pressing his lips to my shoulder. “I could not find her. She left behind a note that would indicate she has taken her own life, and one of the village lads found her shoes and gown by the river.”
I looked at him in horror, but he raised a hand. “She is not dead. I would stake my reputation on it. She merely hopes to throw my father off the scent should he come this far. It may take time, but I can trace her.”
“Your father has tried these last months and always she has eluded him,” I reminded him.
“I am better at this than he,” he told me.
I said nothing. He was entitled to his confidence. He had well earned it.
He looked down at the slumbering face of his half-brother. “Do you mean it? About keeping him?”
“We have no choice,” I told him, wiping my eyes. “Where will he go? A foundling home? Could you do that to a child of your own blood?”
“Of course not,” he told me softly.
“Neither could I. There is no decision to make. Lucy has made it for us. She knows we could not bear to turn him away. We must keep him.”
“But will such a thing make you happy?” he persisted.
The child’s tight little rosebud of a mouth puckered in his sleep. “Before today I would have said it was impossible. And I expect I shall be hopeless as a mother. But I mean to try.”
Brisbane said nothing for a long moment. Then he spoke, his voice resolved. “I will tell Morgan the Apiary cannot be. I will keep to private enquiry work. It isn’t much safer but it will keep me closer to home, I suspect. And we will need a bigger house than Mrs. Lawson’s in Half Moon. I will tell her we rescind the offer, and we’ll start looking for lodgings tomorrow.”
“No,” I said firmly.
“No?” One handsome black brow quirked upward.
“No. We must begin as we mean to go on. We are neither of us happy without purposeful work, and we shall have it. There will be those to care for him when we are not there, and he will learn the value of a job well done from both of us. We will move into Half Moon Street as we planned, and you will work with Morgan to form the Vespiary,” I said, stressing the correction.
He smiled. “And what will you do? You will never be happy with teething biscuits and silver spoons.”
“No more than you,” I agreed. “But I will do as I have done. I will organise our household because, let us be frank, my love, I am better at it than you. I will work with you on cases that interest me. I will advise on the Vespiary when you think I can be useful. I will have my photography. And we will have…” I hesitated then said it for the first time and with ringing conviction, “our son.”
He looked down at the sleeping boy. “Our son,” he said, and in his voice was a note of wonder.
CHAPTER TEN
I had rather adopt a child than beget it.
—Othello, I, iii, 189
Contrary to his prediction, Brisbane unearthed no trace of Lucy outside of Blessingstoke. It made me uneasy that we could not find her, but I held out the hope that if Brisbane could not run her to ground, neither could Black Jack. Other matters were resolved to greater satisfaction. The Twelfth Night rehearsals continued smoothly, apart from my sister Olivia twisting her ankle and claiming she could no longer play the Turkish Knight. Bellmont stepped in with alacrity, and waved the great sword with tremendous enthusiasm, nearly taking off Valerius’s nose in the process.
“I think he is quite suited to playing the Turkish Knight,” Portia told me. “His pomposity is perfectly appropriate.” She smiled at me, and we exchanged conspiratorial looks, as if we were schoolgirls escaped from our lessons.
Jane the Younger was tucked up in the nursery as was John Nicholas, both of them far too young for the chill of the Twelfth Night Revels. For the weather had turned again, briskly beautifully cold, with a frosty nip that caused the air to sparkle in the torchlight. Portia handed me a cup of Plum’s special punch, brimming with spices and potently intoxicating.
As we drank, my eyes lingered on Perdita, costumed as a woodland mushroom. I had neglected to take her back to the cottage with me, and she had accepted my apology with her usual eccentric grace.
“That’s quite all right, Aunt Julia. If I had been there, Cousin Lucy might not have confided in you.”
“Is that so important?” I asked, intrigued.
She nodded solemnly. “Without that meeting, she might not have decided to give you little Jack.”
I opened my mouth to correct her, but she was already gone, flown away to some other place like the bit of thistledown she was. I turned to Brisbane. “Did you hear that? The family have decided to call him Jack. I don’t know that I like it. It has overtones of your father.”
“Well, he definitely isn’t a John,” he told me. “John is a very simple proper name, and what he did on the wall of our room last night was neither simple nor proper. It took Morag the better part of the morning to clean it off, and the paintwork will never be the same.”
“Serves her right,” I said mildly. “She insisted on being his nanny instead of my lady’s maid. I have almost never called upon her to clean up my bodily functions.” But I was still thinking of Perdita.
It was Perdita, much to the chagrin of Tarquin and Quentin, who discovered that the oysters had been deliberately left out in the warm kitchens to poison the family. The undercook, jealous of Cook’s position, had hoped to shift the blame on her ailing superior. But Perdita unmasked her villainy, and after Aunt Hermia boxed the undercook’s ears and sacked her without a reference, justice was served. Brisbane, impressed with Perdita’s abilities, promised her a job one day, and I was not entirely certain he was jesting. But before I could enquire too closely, the Revels were upon us.
For the first time in ten years, the March family gathered to perform the Twelfth Night Revels for the village of Blessingstoke, just as they had done in Master Shakespeare’s day. The dragon breathed fire while the Turkish Knight brandished his sword at St. George, and when it was finished, the resurrected saint and his sad dragon stood in tableau while the white-robed chorus, of which Portia and I made two, sang of the blood-berried holly and the sweetly clinging ivy. Rather like Brisbane and myself, I thought fancifully. Both evergreen and hardy, one sturdy, one tenacious, and forever undivided. But now there was a new little branch grafted to our union.
I glanced to the nursery window, glowing warm and yellow against the black walls of the Abbey as Jane the Younger’s nanny and Morag looked down upon the frolics. I turned to see Brisbane’s eyes fixed on me, a slow smile spreading over his face. I knew what he was thinking. We had a new life ahead. New home, new work, new child, new cases. One case in particular would prove particularly intriguing, and it was that case that persuaded me that little Jack was forever and completely mine. But that is a tale for another time.
* * * * *
1. SILENT NIGHT
2. THE DARK ENQUIRY
3. DARK ROAD TO DARJEELING
4. THE DARK ENQUIRY
Don’t miss any of the Lady Julia Gray stories! Rediscover the mystery and romance of Deanna Raybourn’s bestselling series in this classic novella.
It’s the autumn of 1890, and almost a year has passed since—much to their surprise—Lady Julia and her detective husband, Nicholas Brisbane, became parents. Just as the couple begins to adapt, a solicitor arrives with a strange bequest. Nicholas, it seems, has inherited a country house—but only if he and his family are in residence from All Hallows’ Eve through Bonfire Night.
Neither Lady Julia nor Nicholas is likely to be put off by local legends of ghosts and witches, and the eerie noises and strange lights that flit from room to room simply intrigue them. Until a new lady’s maid disappears, igniting a caper that will have explosive results…
Originally published in 2014
Bonfire Night
Deanna Raybourn
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
CHAPTER ONE
London, 1890
“Julia, how did you misplace the baby? Again?” my sister asked with more than a touch of asperity.
I gave her the most dignified look I could muster under the circumstances. “I did not misplace him,” I informed her in lofty tones. “I forgot him.” The fact that this was now the fourth time I had walked into the park with the child and left without him was mortifying—and not something my siblings would let me soon forget.
“Oh, that makes it quite all right then,” chimed in our brother Plum. I put my tongue out at him, but before I could form a suitable reply, my husband spoke.
“It’s my fault entirely,” he said, his voice silken. “Julia was generous enough to take on a case of some delicacy. She was rather preoccupied with breaking the alibi of a jewel thief.”
Plum twitched in his chair. “The Enderby case? I thought that was put to bed last week,” he protested. The theft of the Enderby opals was the most important investigation that my husband had allowed Plum to undertake on his own authority. He had been single-minded in his pursuit of the culprit—so much so that Lady Enderby’s maid had nearly been arrested for the theft after only an hour’s investigation.
I smiled sweetly at my brother. “Yes, the maid was the most obvious thief, wasn’t she? But the solution seemed a little too simple to Brisbane. He refused to have her arrested until I had spoken with her.”
Plum flushed pink to his ears and shot an accusing look at Brisbane. “It was my case,” he repeated.
“And it was mishandled,” my husband returned coolly. “The case against the girl was damning, but I was not persuaded.”
“She confessed,” Plum retorted, his jaw set stubbornly. But the more enraged he became, the calmer Brisbane remained. It was a trick I had seen him employ a thousand times, and usually upon me. Brisbane had learnt long ago the most effective way of handling any member of the March family was to remain utterly unmoved in the face of strong emotion. Goading him out of his sang-froid was one of my favourite pastimes, but my decidedly intimate methods would never work for my brother, I reflected with a delicate frisson of remembered passion.
“She confessed because she is French and therefore away from her home, her country, her friends. She told me about the accusations you lobbed at her,” I chided. “You practically called her a thief the moment you sat her down. What did you expect her to do?”
“I expected her to tell the truth,” he said.
“Careful,” Portia warned. “Plum’s getting into a pet and you know his sulking puts me off my food.”
I waved a hand. “If we have dinner at all, you may count yourselves fortunate. The workmen have moved into the kitchens and twice this week Brisbane and I have dined on bananas.”
“Why bananas?” Portia asked.
“Gift from a grateful client,” Brisbane returned. “His Excellency the ambassador of the Emir of Ranapurcha was very generous with them. We have forty pounds left.”
Portia blinked. “He gave you forty pounds of bananas?”
“You misunderstood, dearest,” I corrected. “We have forty pounds remaining. There were one hundred to begin with. Mrs. Lawson has put them into, salads, sauces, soufflés—I think at one unfortunate
meal she even managed to make them into soup.”
“Do not remind me,” Brisbane put in with a curl of his handsome mouth. “It was grey.”
I went on. “But she has left us at last, bound for a peaceful retirement at her sister’s cottage in Weymouth, and we are left with a new cook and a larder full of ripe bananas.”
“That explains the smell,” Plum said. He still looked a trifle sulky, and I knew he was not over his mood. His next remark confirmed it. “So,” he said, fixing me with a gleeful look, “you were telling us about losing the baby. Again.”
I cursed him inwardly. Plum had only ever been third favourite amongst my brothers, and I was reminded why. He was always a little too quick to find my soft spots and prod them. Pointedly.
Portia sat forward, her expression avid. “Yes, I only ever forgot Jane once, and that was because I saw the most delicious first edition of Bacon’s essays in the window of a bookshop. I left her pram on the pavement without a thought.”
Plum snorted. “You’ve never pushed a pram in your life. You left the nanny is more like it.”
Portia’s gaze was glacial. “The nanny’s presence was immaterial. I still forgot the child. Although,” she added, turning to me, “I’ve never forgot her four times.”
I looked to Brisbane. “I can’t decide if she is trying to defend me or accuse me,” I told him.
“A little of both,” he decided. “She wants you to know that she sympathises with your peccadillo but would never be quite so daft as to commit it herself. At least not four times.”
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