by Nancy Butler
Bryce rubbed at his chin. “Mary is not what you would call awake on all suits. And she was afraid she would get into trouble for loitering in the front yard when she was supposed to be washing linens in the stable yard. She had a beau, you see—that goose boy who almost broke my horses’ necks the other morning. He passes by the inn every afternoon. Mary was playing truant from her duties and waiting for him near the road when the Wellesleys came back.”
“What made her tell Tolliver now?”
“Mr. Fletch, in all his fearsome splendor, was asking questions at the inn yesterday. Mary thought she would be sent to prison if she didn’t confess.”
“Poor girl,” Jemima murmured.
“Oh, Mary will bounce back. Tolliver merely ripped into her a bit.”
“No,” Jemima said with a chuckle. “I meant Lovelace. She must be devastated by this latest news. The Minstrels could be anywhere.”
“Actually Lovelace thinks they’ve gone to Grantley, as we suspected, which is where the Randolph whelp’s family lives. Although she said they might possibly have gone to Brighton, where she was being courted by another young man who offered to carry her off to Gretna and marry her over the anvil.” Bryce gave her a wry smile. “She has led a…rather eventful life for a girl not yet turned seventeen.”
Since Jemima could recall no suitors who offered to take her driving in the park, let alone carry her off to Scotland, she made no comment, except to say, “Perhaps I should go in and sit with her.”
“No,” Bryce said. “Your brother has taken a break from his opus and is at present composing limericks in the front parlor to distract her.” Leaning down, he tapped his forefinger on her book. “I think you should stay right here and practice. I’ll want to see what you’ve accomplished when I get back. Remember, loose, easy strokes. And keep your wrist fluid and flexible…”
His words drifted off. She was looking up at him intently, her face dappled with a sprinkling of sunlight that had filtered down from between the hemlock boughs. He was torn between the desire to draw her in that pose, her face tilted up to him, the pinpoints of sunlight playing over her hair—and the urgent need to rip the sketchbook from her hands and tumble her back onto the soft moss that grew beside the fountain. His indecision hung in the air between them, a shimmering tension that was broken when a linnet flew into the pine tree behind them and began to carol out a song.
Bryce knew his opportunity had passed. Jemima was now fussing with her book, her gaze returned to her lap. He bowed briefly, flicked the back of one finger over her cheek, and then went striding away along the bricked path.
* * *
After a brief luncheon with her brother and a fretful Lovelace, Jemima returned to her sketching in the garden. By midafternoon, she had mastered not only the nasturtium, but a stand of hollyhocks, and a grouping of lupines. She was too engrossed in capturing the dovecote and its overhanging willows to notice when an elegant traveling coach came bowling up the drive. She was too far from the front of the house to hear the hearty shouts of “Halloa!” or the sound of her brother’s voice raised in welcome.
Three gentlemen climbed down from the dark blue coach and formed a semicircle around Troy, who had come out onto the porch wearing a beaming smile of surprise.
“This is all that is wonderful,” he pronounced. “I had no idea you were staying in the neighborhood.”
“We weren’t,” a whip-thin young man with a high forehead and thinning, sandy hair replied. “We heard in London that you were involved in some sort of murder—”
“And we thought to ourselves, why should Troy have all the fun?” This was from a brown-haired fellow with a pair of genial blue eyes and the extreme shirt points of a confirmed dandy.
“London is grown dashed dull,” the thin man added.
“Leave it to you, Troy, to be in the thick of things, even here in this little backwater.”
Troy’s glance shifted to the speaker, a man somewhat older than his two companions. He was handsome in a florid way, with broad shoulders and a wide, muscular torso that was just beginning to thicken at the waist. The afternoon breeze fluttered his black curls out of their stylish arrangement.
“It wasn’t my doing, Army,” Troy responded. “Jemima’s the one who landed us in this place. She’s playing duenna to the chit who witnessed the murder.”
“Ah, the fair Jemima,” Harold Armbruster purred. “It’s been an age since I’ve seen your sister, Troy.”
“Well, she’s about somewhere. Pity Bryce isn’t here to receive you; he rode out hours ago. But I’m sure he won’t mind putting you up. Er…you were planning on staying on, weren’t you?”
The thin man stepped forward. “Don’t like to descend on a fellow unannounced, Troy. We’ve taken rooms at the Iron Duke—left our baggage coach there. Likely looking place, that.”
Troy shook his head. “No, Bryce will see to you, I’m sure of it. He’s a capital fellow, Kimble, in spite of what the tabbies say about him. And you and Carruthers”—he bowed to the brown-haired dandy—“and Army, can help me to pass the time. Come inside now, and we’ll have drinks in the drawing room.” He put an arm companionably over Kimble’s narrow shoulders. “There’s a trout stream here, old chap. Now, doesn’t that whet your appetite to stay on?”
* * *
When Jemima returned to the house, her brother was just coming down the main staircase. He was dressed for riding, the claret-colored coat a rich contrast to his gilt hair.
“Where are you off to, Terry?” she asked with a slight frown.
He gave her a wide smile. “It’s the greatest thing, Jem. Some of my friends have come down from London. They heard about the murder…and well, you know my friends…they want to be in at the kill, so to speak. I’ve left a note for Bryce, asking if they can stay with us here at the Prospect. We’ll have a jolly house party with those fellows about.”
Jemima wanted to point out that there wasn’t anything very jolly about hiding out from a murderer, but merely said, “So which of your cronies has been rash enough to abandon the excitement of London for the quietude of Kent?”
“Kimble and Carruthers…you know they live in each other’s pockets. Oh, and Armbruster is with them, as well.”
A sudden pallor had washed over Jemima’s face.
“Don’t know how I could have forgotten to mention Army,” he continued, oblivious to his sister’s distress. “I didn’t think to see him with Kimble and Carruthers, though—he’s not part of their usual circle. They’re a bit too sporting mad for Armbuster’s taste. But all three of them joined Bacchus this winter, so maybe that explains the connection. I’m to have dinner with them tonight at the Iron Duke.”
Jemima drew in a sharp breath. “Troy, I want to return to London.”
“London?” He stopped toying with his riding crop. “That’s a daft notion, Jem. Now that I have my friends with me, we’ll have a splendid time. You’ll see.”
“I do not wish to stay here any longer,” she said forcefully. “I miss my friends, for one thing.”
“But what of Lovelace?” he asked with a puzzled frown. “I thought you needed to stay here and play chaperon.”
“She can come with us. Bryce has some nonsensical notion that the murderer might follow her to London, but I cannot credit such a thing.”
Troy leaned toward her. “What’s really bothering you, Jem?”
She shot him a disgusted look. “Is it so wrong that I should desire to return to my own home?”
“Ah,” he said, pointing a finger at her. “Don’t foist Socratic method on me, Button; answering a question with another question. You are obviously avoiding the truth.”
“Don’t call me Button,” she huffed. “I disliked it when I was a girl and it hasn’t improved one whit with time.”
“Well, then, stop acting like a cranky child.” Troy ruffled her hair and received another dark look. He winced. “Lord, I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately. Bryce has been generous in the extr
eme to let us stay here. He’s given us the run of the house and of the grounds. I told Kimble I can’t wait to have a go at his trout stream.”
“Trout,” she muttered under her breath.
“And,” he continued, overlooking her grumbling, “he’s got a stable full of high-bred horses who are at present languishing for lack of use. I’m taking one of them out for a gallop before I head to the inn. There’s some interesting countryside hereabouts and I could use a bit of inspiration for my new poem. Why don’t you change into your habit and ride out with me? There’s plenty of time before dinner.”
“I’ve already seen the countryside,” Jemima hissed darkly. “I want to see London.”
“Well, London ain’t going away, Jem. It will still be there when we get back. Now I’m for the stables.”
He was just reaching for the latch of the front door, when Jemima cried out, “Terry!”
Troy rolled his eyes as he turned to her. There was a great deal of the elder-sister-who-would-not-be-brooked in her tone. “Yes?” he said wearily.
She closed the gap between them. “I am very…uneasy in this house.” She struggled furiously to come up with a valid excuse, one that would free her of Bryce Prospect before her brother’s friends descended on them. She opted for a reason that was very close to the truth. “Bryce makes me very…uncomfortable.”
“Bryce?” Troy looked baffled. “He’s a topping fellow, Jem. Sets a better table than most, I can tell you. And his cellar is sublime, though I reckon that’s because he’s so near the coast—smugglers, you know.”
“I am not talking about his wine cellar,” she said between her teeth, barely keeping a leash on her temper. “I am talking about his reputation.”
Troy raised her hackles another notch by actually having the gall to laugh. “Oh, you mean all the on-dits about his many amours?” He waved his ringers through the air. “You of all people needn’t worry about that. By all accounts Bryce’s taste runs more to well-endowed little ladybirds with ebony curls. No, you’re not his style at all, Jemima. Even if your age didn’t preclude the possibility.”
Squeezing her shoulder solicitously, he added, “There, now. Haven’t I eased your mind? Though I must say, you surprise me. You’ve never been a stickler before this. Lord knows, most of my friends are in the petticoat line and you haven’t held it against them.”
He gave her an encouraging smile and without waiting for a response he went out the door. Jemima heard his boots crunching over the graveled drive.
Damn the boy! She nearly screamed out the words. She had a mind to appropriate Troy’s carriage and hie herself off to London alone.
Because there were some people she feared more than crazed French murderers and languorous libertines. And one of them was about to visit Bryce Prospect at Troy’s instigation. And if her sainted brother wouldn’t stir himself to protect her from Beecham Bryce, he certainly wouldn’t protect her from one of his bosom boys.
Chapter Eight
Jemima had to fight off a light-headed feeling of disbelief as she made her way up to her room. She knew she should probably seek out Lovelace, now that Troy was no longer there to distract her, but she was too overset by her own worries to face the girl. And there was, in truth, a bit of simmering resentment toward Lovelace in her heart. If the girl hadn’t been wandering in the woods that first afternoon, Jemima would not now be under siege in this house—beleaguered by the unwanted stirrings her host aroused in her and frightened out of her wits by the prospect of seeing her nemesis again.
She had assiduously managed to avoid being in company with the man for close to a year, since the night she and Terry had stayed in Leeds during their journey to Scotland. The night an idle, harmless flirtation had turned into something ugly and degrading. Jemima still couldn’t recall the incident without a frisson of fear and a mortifying, deep-seated shame.
As she lay on her bed, trying to compose herself, she had a startling insight—she could enlist Bryce as an ally. He had vowed yesterday that he wouldn’t let any harm come to her in his home, and she knew she could hold him to that promise. At least where any outside threats were concerned. She suspected he hadn’t been referring to his own designs on her when he’d uttered those words of reassurance.
And there was also the possibility that Bryce would refuse his hospitality to Troy’s friends. He already had enough on his plate without the addition of three town beaux cluttering up the landscape. But she of all people knew how persistent Troy could be when he wanted something.
After she laid out her gown for dinner, she rang for the housemaid that Bryce had assigned to assist her. Prudie was a local girl with a merry face and deft hands. She prattled on in a soft voice as she skillfully arranged Jemima’s hair into a loose chignon.
“My sister and me,” she said, as she coaxed a few tendrils to whisper down along Jemima’s throat, “we can’t hardly sleep at night, what with this Frenchy on the loose.”
Jemima wondered how Prudie knew the man was French, in light of Mr. Fletch’s insistence on secrecy. But then she recalled how frequently servants knew of things that went on behind closed doors, oftentimes more than their masters themselves did.
“And there’s more, miss. My brother who works down at the mill swears he’s seen a strange man ridin’ about on the estate. Seen him more than once, he has.”
“I saw a stranger yesterday,” Jemima commented idly. “That is, I don’t know if he was a stranger to the estate or not. But he didn’t look like a farmworker, more like a sailor, with his blue jacket and beard—”
“That’s him!” Prudie squealed. “You saw the murderer!”
Jemima started to protest. “Surely he wouldn’t be riding about in broad daylight.”
Prudie merely pursed up her round mouth. “Who is to say what a murderer will or won’t do?” she said sagely. “Especially a French one!”
As Jemima made her way down to dinner, she wondered if the rider she’d seen was the same tall, bearded man Lovelace had described to Mr. Fletch. She shivered a bit at the thought. Though beards were uncommon in London, having been out of fashion since the Tudor era, some countrymen still sported them. And sailors, of course. But they were still enough of an oddity to occasion notice.
She’d best tell Mr. Fletch about the stranger when he returned from interviewing Sir Richard. The sooner the mystery was solved, the sooner she could drag her indolent brother away from the bucolic pleasures of Bryce Prospect and back to London.
As she entered the drawing room, Bryce curtly informed Jemima that they would be dining alone. Lovelace, he told her, was still upset by the news that the Wellesleys were mistakenly pursuing her and a phantom swain half across Kent and had asked to have her dinner sent to her room on a tray.
After that pronouncement, he went to stand at the window, gazing out at the dark sky while he toyed idly with his glass of sherry. Jemima noticed the tension in his shoulders and the taut line of his cheek. He’d been so mellow in the garden, playful and charming, and not at all high-handed when he had coached her with her drawing. But now he seemed distracted and remote. She had thought to show him the sketches she had so carefully—but loosely—toiled over, and had purposely left her sketchbook in the drawing room so she could demonstrate her progress to him. Now she moved to the sofa where the book lay and casually slipped it behind one of the cushions. He looked to be in no mood for offering criticism, or rather, he looked far too critical for her to risk another scathing string of “dreadfuls.”
During the meal Bryce still seemed preoccupied. Jemima attempted to fill in the frequent conversational gaps with a stream of amusing anecdotes, which even to her ears sounded brittle and forced. She wished once again that she possessed a smattering of Lovelace’s easy coquetry.
At one point, during a particularly convoluted tale involving Troy and the driver of a Greek donkey cart, Bryce stopped her and suggested brusquely that she “save her conversation for her brother’s friends from town.” He then motione
d to the footman to refill his wineglass for the sixth time.
“Oh,” she said, feeling suddenly deflated. “So you have agreed to let them stay here.”
He shot her a look of exasperation. “Your brother didn’t leave me much choice. I was just riding into the stable yard as Troy was setting off to meet them. He insisted it was what you would want—something to distract you until this murder business gets sorted out.” He then added in a clipped voice, “I gather the present company is not stimulating enough for your tastes.”
Her eyes flashed. “Troy has a great deal to answer for. It was concern for his own comfort, not mine, that motivated his request.”
She expected that Bryce would snatch up this opportunity to elaborate on his favorite theme—Troy’s cavalier treatment of his sister, but he merely raised his glass to his mouth and drank deeply.
“More to the point,” she continued as she leaned forward, her elbows on the table, “why would you want a gaggle of idle coxcombs lounging about your home?”
Bryce shrugged and looked away from her. “Perhaps I do not find the present company stimulating.”
Jemima was too stunned to answer. He had never been overtly rude to her before. Something had riled him, and he was taking it out on her. She wondered, as she poked at her green beans, what could have vexed him so dreadfully in the relatively short space of time since they had been together in the garden. Maybe something had happened while he was on the coast to put him in such a beastly mood.
They subsided into an awkward silence until the port was brought in. After the footman had filled his glass, Bryce sent the man out of the room. Jemima started to rise, but he motioned her to stay seated.
“I’m sorry you don’t want Troy’s friends here, Jemima,” he said in a slightly conciliatory tone. “But it’s too late now for me to rescind the invitation. Besides, your brother claims he writes better with his friends about. It doesn’t make any sense to me, but who am I to stand in the way when his muse calls.”