The Hazardous Measure of Love: Time Into Time Book Five Page 10

  ‘What if someone falls in and is drowning?’ That was Matthew, of course. I had a vivid image of him as a teenager and shuddered.

  ‘If that happens you run and get help,’ Luc said sternly. ‘Now – do I have your word?’

  ‘Yes, Papa,’ they chorused obediently. Matthew, I could tell, was already trying to think of an honourable way around their promise, but at least they had been brought up to regard breaking their word as just about the worst sin they could commit.

  ‘Better drowned than duffers, if not duffers won't drown,’ I quoted from Arthur Ransome, then had to explain what duffers were and all about Swallows and Amazons.

  Lady Radcliffe was making copious notes on what need to be done with furnishings, cleaning and the kitchen, James and Luc cast knowledgeable eyes over roofs, gutters and brickwork and I was consumed with house-envy. It was gorgeous and I wanted it.

  One of the first things I was going to do when I was back in my time was to check it out. Was it still there? Hopefully. Was it for sale? Unlikely. Could I ever hope to afford it? Never in a million years. Was it three times larger than I could possibly need? Yes. That didn’t stop me organising, decorating, furnishing…dreaming.

  ‘What are you brooding about?’ Luc asked when he found me slowly rotating in the middle of the drawing room.

  ‘This house. I love it.’

  ‘If it were mine I would give it to you,’ he said, suddenly very serious. ‘If we could be together, always, I would give you your heart’s desire.’

  ‘You are my heart’s desire,’ I told him. ‘And I will learn, somehow, not to yearn for what I cannot have.’ I found I was crying, soggily, and not at all prettily, all down his shirt front. ‘Sorry.’ I scrabbled for a handkerchief, realised there were no pockets in the walking dress I was wearing, and snatched at the linen square that Luc produced from somewhere. I blew my nose, mopped at my eyes and said, ‘Sorry,’ again.

  Luc swore, scooped me up and strode out of the room, across the hall and up the stairs. I love it when he does that, it is the most romantic thing, but I always worry he is going to put his back out. Fortunately he reached the landing unscathed, and without anyone seeing us. He swept into a bedchamber that I assumed was his, dropped me on the bed, jammed a chair under the door handle muttering something about no keys, and proceeded to rip his clothes off.

  As he very well knows, that would be enough to cheer me up even if we happened to be on a sinking ship in a hurricane, and it certainly worked. It was ridiculous to be weeping for the moon when this was what I had now.

  Before I could whip anything off he pounced, threw up my skirts, said something (fortunately unintelligible to a woman buried in yards of fabric) when he encountered my sensible knickers (I don’t care what he says, I refuse to go without in approved Georgian manner – far too draughty), yanked those off and –

  Yes, well… To be honest, after that, everything was a blur. We emerged, considerably happier, in time to dress for dinner.

  * * *

  The next morning we all assembled in the hall looking like a collection of very well-dressed crows. Or possibly magpies, given the men’s white shirt fronts and the deep blue, relieved with cream, that Lady Radcliffe deemed correct for ladies who were not related to the deceased.

  ‘It would be bad form to wear deep mourning, as though to claim a relationship with the deceased,’ she explained. ‘We appear sombre, but not do pretend any excess of emotion.’

  ‘Is Lord Tillingham’s mother still alive?’ I asked. It was bad enough for his surviving uncles and cousins, but I flinched mentally at the thought of offering condolences to a bereaved parent.

  ‘No. She died some years ago. A consumption, poor soul. Alexander Prescott is married to Georgina – Adrien’s mama, of course. She was a Wilmott, I believe. One of the Wiltshire Wilmotts. Their eldest son, Marcus, is married to Clarissa, one of the Hendersons who have a very remote connection to the Duke of Sutherland. Charles, the next son, is married to Anne. Her father is a banker: always convenient,’ she added wryly. ‘Then the youngest of poor Henry’s uncles, Horace, married Prunella Lambert, daughter of Sir Digby Lambert. She is a foolish creature. None of their three sons are married and I blame her entirely – she is making no effort with them whatsoever.’

  ‘I have met Jerald, who is the youngest, I think.’

  ‘Quite the charmer, but very immature,’ Lady Radcliffe said. ‘The sort of boy who keeps imagining himself in love – the more hopeless, the better. He needs a sensible wife to steady him and stop this romantic nonsense. They all do.’

  James made a poor attempt at stifling a snort of amusement, possibly because his mother blithely ignored the fact that he was never going to settle down with a nice sensible wife. ‘They aren’t so bad. There’s nothing vicious about any of them, I’d have said. They are just enjoying the fact they have no personal responsibilities and a father who gives them a reasonable allowance.’

  * * *

  Tillingham Hall was impressive, although not as large as Whitebeams, Luc’s Suffolk home. The park was smaller, the stable range far simpler and the house was a single block without wings, I noted, feeling a proprietary pride on Luc’s behalf. It was rather stolid-looking, with a central, flat-roofed part flanked by sections with one more floor on either side, giving the effect of two towers.

  There were a number of carriages spilling out from the stable yard towards the carriage drive in front of the house where a long black vehicle was standing, draped in black and with poles at each corner topped by black ostrich plumes. Grooms were leading out a team of four black horses with black drapery over their backs and more nodding plumes fixed between their ears.

  ‘We are in good time,’ Luc said as our footman opened the carriage door. ‘I will walk you in, discover who else is attending the interment, then James and I will take our places in the procession.’

  It took me a moment to work it out, then I realised that the carriages following the hearse and family coaches would be in order of the precedence of their occupants.

  The front door was draped in evergreens and black swags and stood wide open. The butler bowed us in and took Lady Radcliffe and me through into the house while Luc spoke to a footman.

  I was not certain what to expect, but the ladies filling the large drawing room were not in any obvious great distress and certainly there was no weeping going on. We were announced and a middle-aged woman, who I assumed was Georgina, Adrien’s mother, came forward to greet us. She was, with Doctor Prescott unmarried, the ranking lady of the family and I wondered how long it would be before she was the actual mistress of this house. At least it was a pleasant July day and the sickly new Viscount did not have to contend with rain or bone-chilling winds: those would probably finish him off.

  I curtseyed and shook hands and murmured my sympathies and then another lady came forward and took us off to introduce us around the room.

  Lady Radcliffe knew most of them, of course, at least by sight, but I had to concentrate hard to memorise the Prescott wives. I did not try too hard with anyone not named Prescott, because there had appeared to be no motive for any of the relatives not in the direct line.

  Finally we came to someone I did recognise, Miss Jordan. I curtseyed to Lady Jordan, seated beside her with a face like a wet Wednesday, and gestured to the chair on the other side. ‘May I?’

  I didn’t wait for a reply, but sat next to the bereaved fiancée. ‘I am so sorry to have to meet you again at such a very sad time.’

  Arabella gave me a faint smile and I thought how she had changed in only a few days. Black did not suit her, her pink cheeks were white, her glossy brunette hair was scraped back into a painfully severe style and I could have sworn she had lost weight. Her eyes were haunted, although perhaps that was only a result of the dark shadows beneath them.

  I asked if she was making a long stay and she nodded. ‘Everyone has been very kind. Mrs Alexander says that she would welcome my company as she has no daughters of
her own. Mama is staying too, but Papa must return home this afternoon.’

  Her voice was expressionless and I remembered that her father had estates to the south of here, adjoining other Prescott properties. Why were she and her mother staying on? Was it because Mrs Alexander Prescott had two unmarried sons, Bertram and Adrien, I wondered? Adrien, of course, considered himself betrothed to Rowena McNeil, but I wondered if his mother had an eye on Arabella Jordan for Bertram.

  Presumably the prescribed period of mourning would allow Arabella to re-join the Marriage Mart next Season, but perhaps her mother thought that a younger son of a man soon to be a viscount was better than risking a less prestigious match when Arabella would be a year older. Despite her gloomy expression she must have been glad of the invitation for a prolonged stay: the two mothers could get together and conclude the business before the late Viscount was more than a few days in his tomb.

  Arabella’s clear unhappiness was a puzzle, though. Had she really been in love with a man thirteen years her senior, who had not been particularly good-looking and appeared to have a particularly bland and staid character? Admittedly, I had not seen the murdered viscount at his best…

  There was a stir amongst the whispering crowd of ladies, sounds from the hallway beyond the closed doors, and Mrs Alexander stood, followed by her daughters-in-law and her sister-in-law. They moved to the windows and the rest of us stood too, watching as the coffin was carried down the steps and slid into the hearse. It moved off at a walking pace, preceded by black-clad men carrying long staves and followed by a cortege of at least twenty carriages.

  We stood until the last vanished from sight, then Mrs Alexander tugged the bell pull. ‘I imagine we would all welcome a little refreshment.’

  I certainly would. It was now midday and the atmosphere of gloom and restraint was giving me an appetite, for some reason. I appreciated what Mrs Alexander considered a little refreshment: the staff, clearly poised for the bell, came in almost immediately with the tea urn and plate after plate of dainty savouries and little cakes.

  Lady Radcliffe had briefed me thoroughly on what to expect and I knew that when the men returned from the family vault in the nearby church they would be accompanied by other, less exalted, gentlemen who had not followed behind the coffin – the squire, the vicar, the local doctor and so forth, all accompanied by their wives and adult children.

  When everyone had gathered, more of the ground floor reception rooms would be thrown open and food laid out in the form of a buffet, thus enabling mingling. It would also allow the humbler folk to make a discreet exit after a certain time, followed by the higher-ranking guests.

  ‘Although there are always one or two who will hang on, when all the family want to do is take off their uncomfortable shoes, have a large brandy and either sigh in relief or retire to their rooms to weep,’ Lady Radcliffe remarked. ‘It is usually an embarrassing second cousin once removed, plus one or two of the local spinsters who seize on the chance to escape their lives of genteel poverty for an hour or two.’ She had smiled indulgently. ‘I always send them home in a carriage with a basket of treats.’

  Meanwhile the ladies were tucking into the little snack with enthusiasm and it certainly lightened the atmosphere. I went to fetch cups of tea for Lady Jordan and Arabella which gave me the opportunity to study the Prescott ladies more closely.

  I had to agree with Lady Radcliffe’s assessment of Mrs Horace Prescott as a foolish creature. She had crammed an abundant figure, which would have been handsome if left to its own devices, into a gown better suited to a slender debutante and was reclining on a chaise, dabbing at her (dry) eyes with a black-trimmed handkerchief while holding forth to a crushed-looking female – whether a companion or cousin escaped me – on how devastated she was. She struck me as an unlikely Lady Macbeth figure.

  Mrs Alexander, though… I watched her dispensing tea, talking graciously to anyone within range. Oh yes, she was going to enjoy the title she never thought would be hers. But would she kill for it? Was I looking at a woman so cold, so scheming and ruthless that she would stab an earnest, decent man through the heart? But if it would never occur to her to do such a thing for herself, or her husband, what about for her sons?

  The elder would now inherit the title in due course and his brothers would benefit from the general enrichment of the family in both cash and land. And prestige.

  ‘So sorry.’ A willowy blonde jostled my elbow causing the tea to slosh into the saucers. ‘Clumsy of me.’ She gestured to a footman. ‘Do take these and – who were they for? – Take two fresh cups to the ladies seated over there.’ She turned back to me. ‘You are Lady Radcliffe’s companion?’

  This was Clarissa, married to Marcus, the eldest of Alexander’s sons. She was the probable future viscountess. I had only been introduced by name, so she had clearly leapt to conclusions. ‘No. I am a friend of the family. A very distant connection from Boston in America. Cassandra Lawrence.’

  I held out my hand and she took it, almost visibly recalibrating my status from paid companion to family friend. She would have to learn more subtlety for her future role, I thought.

  ‘What a tragedy,’ I said gravely. ‘Lord Tillingham had such a promising political career ahead of him, and he was a most charming gentleman, from what Adrien has told us. You must all be devastated.’

  ‘It was a terrible shock.’

  That was better, I thought. She had managed to evade an opinion about the murdered man entirely.

  ‘It must have been. And creating such a change in the future for you and your family,’ I sympathised earnestly. ‘Such responsibilities.’

  ‘I am sure we will cope,’ she said, through tight lips and glanced across the room to where the men were beginning to come in.

  I could not decide whether she was annoyed at my tactlessness – which was quite reasonable – or because she had something of a guilty conscience at feeling pleasure at her family’s enhanced prospects, or whether she knew or suspected that someone in the family was responsible for the crime.

  ‘Of course you will,’ I said, and made my escape. I wasn’t going to extract anything useful from her in that setting, I decided, looking around for a familiar face and spotting Jerald Prescott. At least he appeared suitably subdued and bereft, although I was withholding judgment on whether that was because he had lost a relative or a source of hand-outs.

  He was gazing across at Miss Jordan and gave a start of surprise when I came up beside him and spoke. ‘Mr Prescott.’

  ‘Er… Miss Lawrence, is it not?’

  ‘Yes. We met when you came to your unfortunate cousin’s house that day.’

  ‘Mmm,’ he said, his gaze returning to Miss Jordan. ‘It is a dam– a confounded mess,’ he burst out suddenly, turning to look at me.

  ‘Yes, grim,’ I agreed. ‘Bad enough that Lord Tillingham should die so young, but for it to be a murder…’

  ‘It might have been an accident,’ Jerald said.

  ‘Surely not? There was no weapon on the scene, so he could not have slipped and fallen on a knife or some such thing. And, if someone else was involved, it seems highly improbable that they should have entered and left so secretly and were involved in a fatal accident in the middle of that.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ He sounded much younger than his age, which I guessed at about twenty, a few years younger than Adrien, compared with whom he seemed decidedly immature.

  He had hunched a shoulder and was looking at Miss Jordan again.

  ‘I wonder what will happen to her now,’ I mused.

  ‘Bella? Oh, she will do the Season next year,’ he said. ‘Lady Jordan won’t lose the opportunity to snare another title,’ he added, with something of a sneer.

  ‘It will not help her prospects, I presume, her being that much older. She must be nineteen now.’

  ‘Just,’ Jerald said. ‘It was her birthday two weeks ago.’

  ‘You seem to know her very well.’

  ‘We all grew up
together,’ he said with a shrug. ‘My brothers, my cousins, Bella and her brothers and sisters. The estates all cluster together.’ He waved a hand vaguely in what I assumed was a southerly direction.

  ‘I can see you are concerned for her,’ I said. ‘That is neighbourly.’

  Jerald shrugged again. ‘She was an annoying chit when we were growing up, but, yes, one has to look out for neighbours.’

  I thought he was rather more concerned than his almost adolescent attitude revealed, like a sulky teenager complaining about his sister and then defending her furiously if she was in trouble.

  ‘Why not go and say something to her now?’ I suggested.

  ‘No. No, best not,’ he added, almost under his breath.

  ‘Which are your brothers?’ I asked, puzzled over his attitude. Perhaps he was simply gauche and uncertain how to behave in this situation.

  ‘Percy – my oldest brother – is over there.’ He nodded to where a taller, much more assured version of himself was managing, despite maintaining a suitably solemn expression, to flirt with a pretty redhead on the far side of the room.

  ‘He appears to have found a distraction from the solemnity.’

  ‘Of course. That’s Jane Peterstoke. The family live near Aylesbury. Not so well bred as the Jordans, but much, much, more money.’ His smile became spiteful and he turned abruptly and walked away.

  Interesting. Of course, the junior branch of the family – Jerald and his two brothers – had no hope, short of a catastrophe, of inheriting the title and lands, so cash was far more attractive to them than the opportunity to enlarge the ancestral estates, which the marriage with Arabella Jordan would have done for the late Viscount. It was a useful reminder that none of them appeared to have a motive. Still, it would be interesting to see what, if anything, they gained in the way of legacies when the will was read.