“Dear Miss Derwent-Jones.”
She turned, frowning as she always did whenever Mr. Ffalkes addressed her with such hideous formality, which he did every time he saw her. She managed to erase the frown, striking a cool smile that she’d managed to cultivate during the past two years, exactly two years on the morrow it would be when he’d hauled Owen to Honeymead Manor to woo her. She’d known Owen all her life, and even liked him upon occasion, but that visit started them off in a horrid new direction, their childhood well and truly gone. Ah, what a tortuous drama they’d played, more like a comedy many times.
The father was a pompous ass, his son a weakling, a young man who would never be allowed to become a man until his father shucked off his mortal coil. But Owen was nice for all that, in a bewildered sort of way, despite his wretched father. Mr. Ffalkes and Owen had been here only three days and she’d wanted to strike her guardian down with the fireplace poker after only twenty minutes. They’d come for her birthday, Mr. Ffalkes had announced, rubbing his hands together as he looked about the entrance hall that had been built by the Countess of Shrewsbury herself in 1587 or thereabouts. Owen would have been utterly distressed if he’d missed her birthday, his fond father had continued, beaming down at her, his eyes cold as his mouth smiled. Owen had stood there, his ears sticking out from his head, and said nothing, as usual. Yes, the indulgent father had said, slanting a sideways look at the son, dear Owen was so fond of his cousin, so very devoted and concerned with her future and her happiness. Ah, then he’d gone on, laughing now, all fond tolerance, how Owen rhapsodized about her beautiful golden hair (actually it was a neat brown with perhaps a few strands of blond, cooked lighter under the summer sun) and her brilliant violet eyes—plain green her eyes were, if one were intent on reporting but a nodule of truth. On and on it went, until he’d gotten to her teeth. Then he’d failed utterly, finally comparing her teeth to the white cliffs of Dover, and that had made her laugh for she’d expected flawless pearls at the very least, but he’d run out of poetic nonsense and had to fall back on a geological formation.
She realized then that she’d been standing there, just staring at him. She shook herself, trying to remember if he’d said anything else.
“Hello, Mr. Ffalkes,” she said, her own smile every bit as frigidly warm as his. “The sun is finally shining. Perhaps the manor will warm up in a couple of weeks if the warm weather holds.”
“Perhaps, but it isn’t important. I expect you were woolgathering, dear Miss Derwent-Jones. Well, that’s what one expects from charming young ladies, isn’t it? You are up and about quite early for a young miss who spent a late night in—dare I say it?—romantic sylvan pursuits? It’s only just now eight o’clock.”
“Is this a law of nature I’ve not heard about? A young lady is supposed to stay in bed all day after evening jollity?” She thought fondly of that eager young man she would marry when she was a doddering old crone leaning on a cane.
“You jest as usual, my dear. You are forever jesting with me, a charming part of your character, I would say, if I were at all charmed by such things. Owen is charmed by your repertoire of jests, but he is young and has no discrimination in such matters. Now, I should say, from my own experience, that young ladies don’t have the stamina or the, er, vigor, to remain up at all hours as you were last night.”
“I retired at nine-thirty, sir.”
“Did you, now? But I thought you and Owen were strolling in the gardens and—”
“Perhaps Owen was strolling, sir. Perhaps he was comparing the roses to crimson velvet draperies or to red blood drops from a cut finger, though I don’t see how he could have done that since it was quite dark last night and drizzling most of the time. Ah, you don’t recall, do you? You were busily drinking my father’s brandy, toasting yourself in front of the only fireplace that was lit, Mrs. Tailstrop hovering over you offering crumpets. No, last night, sir, there wasn’t a single star to be rhapsodized over. Actually, Owen doesn’t care for flowers at all. They make him sneeze. As for myself, I was in my bed dreaming birthday dreams. I have been dreaming them for some time now.”
“Oh,” he said, confounded and, she knew, doubtless angry at his son for letting her escape his net, also doubtless angry because it was true, he had been swilling her father’s brandy with Mrs. Tailstrop nodding agreeably at whatever came out of his mouth. That, she’d told Caroline many times, was one of a lady’s prime duties—to listen and nod and smile and offer food and drink. It was a litany that always drove Caroline quite mad.
She looked at Mr. Ffalkes from beneath her lashes. He still looked on the angry side, and also a bit uncertain of how to proceed. Oh yes, Caroline could just imagine the detailed instructions he’d forced down his son’s skinny throat to seduce her, and Owen had let his sire down. He cleared his throat and said, all calm and charm, “As for your birthday, dear Miss Derwent-Jones, I had thought to have just the immediate family here for a luncheon for you.”
She didn’t care if she spent her birthday on the moon. She nodded. “That’s fine, sir. It’s a pity that I have no more immediate family in the area.”
“Owen and I will be most attentive to you. I believe Owen has bought you a birthday present that—dare I say it?—could perhaps also double as an engagement present?”
He’d come out into the open at last. She was nonplussed for a moment, but just for a moment. She smiled widely at him. “How very kind of Owen, but I believe it’s too soon for that, sir. Mr. Duncan has, of course, proposed, but we decided to wait until next month to announce our betrothal. We will wed at Christmas. No, I couldn’t possibly accept a present from Owen until Mr. Duncan and I have announced our engagement formally.”
“Mr. Duncan! Who the devil is this Mr. Duncan?”
He looked as if he would expire from apoplexy, his face all red and puffy. It pleased her enormously. She could practically see him falling down the front steps of the manor, flailing and foaming at the mouth in his rage. “Why, sir, he’s a neighbor. I call him my own dear squire. Duncan is a local name, here for hundreds of years. We have been close for the past three years. Such a handsome gentleman he is, a very strong chin and ears that lie flat to his head. Yes, sir, we plan to marry and join our properties.”
“You have never mentioned this man to me, dear Miss Derwent-Jones. Indeed, I have never heard of a Mr. Duncan. This is not what I want and you well know it. I will speak to Mrs. Tailstrop about this. I will tell her what I think of her wardenship.”
“You were not often here, sir, until two years ago when you came so very often Mrs. Tailstrop thought we should keep fresh sheets on your bed. I hadn’t thought of Mrs. Tailstrop as a warden. Still, what does it really matter now? To be honest, when you were here all the time, I tended to keep dear Mr. Duncan away.”
“Owen was nearly always with me. You were with him a great deal of the time.”
“Fresh sheets for Owen as well, sir.”
“Your humor lists like a sinking boat, dear Miss Derwent-Jones. I have noticed that you have even grown more fully into this humor of yours just in the past few days. Mrs. Tailstrop tells me you have become more amusing by the year, but I informed her that it was her duty to curtail this eccentric habit of yours. Young ladies are to be demure and modest. How else will they attach a husband?”
“I managed it quite easily. Don’t forget Mr. Duncan.”
“So you say, so you say. Now, I would that you strive to answer me cleanly and directly.”
“A wit should be a wit for all occasions. I’m distressed that you disapprove. Very well, sir. What would you like to know?”
“I would like to know about this Duncan fellow. I would like to meet him and ascertain his intentions toward you. You will be a rich young lady come tomorrow and I want to convince myself that he isn’t a fortune hunter. Indeed, I insist upon meeting him. This evening, for dinner. It is only fair to Owen, don’t you think? Even frivolous young ladies should strive for a modicum of sensitivity and goodwill toward
young men who are truly in love with them.”
Owen in love with her? She and Owen were like two bored dogs who would eye each other and yawn. Not only did her fatuous guardian dislike her humor—her only weapon against him—he believed her stupid and ineffectual, which perhaps she was, for after all there weren’t any fires in any of the fireplaces, were there?
“I don’t know if Mr. Duncan will be free for dinner this evening.”
“You know, dear Miss Derwent-Jones, I cannot, in good conscience, allow you to enter into an alliance that I haven’t approved. It would be against your best interests. I wouldn’t be fulfilling my responsibility toward you. Indeed, there is a clause in your father’s will that allows my discretion in the matter of your marriage. I naturally hadn’t thought of it until now since I believed you and Owen would make a match of it.”
She stared at him. No, she couldn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it. She managed to keep her outrage behind her tongue and said, “I didn’t know of any stipulations about my marriage, sir, or my lack of marriage. Actually, before I met Mr. Duncan, I hadn’t planned to marry at all. I would like to see my father’s will.”
“Certainly, Miss Derwent-Jones.” There was no dear this time, which was an improvement. “However, I hardly expect a young lady to understand it. There are legal terms that would surely confound a lady’s faculties.”
“I will contrive to raise my level of wit, sir, just for the occasion.”
He looked at her as if he would like to strike her, and that pleased her, for surely she would like to stick a knife between his ribs. “Shall I read this part of my father’s will right now, sir?”
“Unfortunately your father’s will is in my office, in London. It will require some time for me to write to my clerk and more time for him to send it here to Honeymead Manor.”
“I see,” she said, and was very afraid that she did indeed see.
“In brief, your father wanted my approval of any suitor to your hand, Miss Derwent-Jones. If I refuse my approval then I am to continue as your guardian until you reach twenty-five or find a gentleman of whom I do approve.”
“Very well, sir, you force me to admit to another wretched jest. There is no Mr. Duncan. There is no man I wish to marry. Therefore, sir, tomorrow, on my nineteenth birthday, I come into my parents’ money—all of it—and you, sir, are no longer snapping the whip over my head.”
“I thought as much,” Mr. Ffalkes said, and she knew then he’d outmaneuvered her. He’d lied about that stipulation in her father’s will, and she’d fallen for it. Then he struck a conciliatory pose, his palms upward. “You and I shouldn’t be adversaries, my dear. Indeed, I have much admired you since you became such a lovely young woman. As has my son. Now, it’s true that you will come into your fortune tomorrow. However, it is also true that I will continue as your trustee until you wed.”
“And just what are a trustee’s duties as opposed to a guardian’s?”
“As a trustee, I will advise you on investments, oversee all legal matters, grant you a sufficient allowance to meet your needs, see to your continued well-being. I was your father’s cousin, Miss Derwent-Jones. He trusted me to care for you, to see you well placed. I am pleased there is no Mr. Duncan. Men aren’t always what they seem, you know. No, you don’t know, do you? You have been protected, sheltered from gentlemen who would take advantage of your innocence. I will continue to protect you, Miss Derwent-Jones.”
Just as he’d protected her by sending her to Chudleigh’s Young Ladies’ Academy in Nottingham, whence she’d managed to escape only three years before. She’d believed a convent couldn’t be more stifling, more deadening than the echoing chambers at Chudleigh’s, with all its giggling girls with naught on their minds but the dancing master’s dimples. The mistresses had been so unrelenting in their quest to make every single girl just like every other single girl, all of them to be stupid but somehow charming to men, to nod and pretend to listen until their brains quite froze through, and to stitch samplers until death would thankfully overtake them, after, naturally, they’d produced a suitable number of surviving offspring.
Thus when she’d been sixteen, she’d come down with something akin to the plague that had scared even the headmistress, Miss Beemis, into near incontinence. She’d been packed quickly back to Honeymead Manor and dear Mrs. Tailstrop. The spots, made from walnut dye mixed with a thick gray clay and smashed oak leaves until it resembled oozing boils, had finally washed off.
“Yes,” Mr. Ffalkes continued, “I will continue to guide you. Perhaps you will be content to remain here at Honeymead Manor, Miss Derwent-Jones. Owen much loves the country.”
“I doubt that, Mr. Ffalkes. I doubt that very much.”
“That Owen loves the country? Of a certainty he does.”
She said nothing. She turned and walked back into the manor. Tomorrow she would shriek at him to her heart’s content and then she would order him off her property.
It was Morna, the upstairs maid, who grabbed her sleeve, placed her finger over her lips, and hissed in her ear, “Come, miss, quickly, quickly!” She ran after Morna down the long first-floor hallway to the small estate room tucked at the rear of the manor, a quite ugly chamber that she avoided because it reminded her of too many men grown tedious and dull over the generations, all of them pondering and brooding in this room, doubtless worried about their groats.
The door wasn’t quite closed. Morna nodded to her and gently shoved her closer. It was then she heard Owen’s voice low and clear. “Please listen to me, Father. I know you want me to marry her. You’ve wanted it all along, but just listen to me this once. Caroline isn’t an easy girl. She’s stubborn. She is well used to doing just as she pleases. She doesn’t dislike me but she thinks me a fool. She won’t agree to marry me. I’ve told you that again and again. She won’t change toward me.”
“Yes,” Mr. Ffalkes said finally. “You have mucked it right and proper, Owen.”
She stopped cold and leaned against the crack in the door. She could hear Morna breathing rapidly behind her.
“I can’t very well rape her,” Owen said, sounding as petulant and sulky as a child, as he always did around his father.
“Why the devil not?”
There was complete silence, then Owen said slowly, “She is very strong. You know her well enough by now. She tries to jest her way out of things, but I know that if she had to, she’d fight me and I would have to hurt her, even tie her down to get it done.”
“And?”
“And what, sir? I don’t even know if I could manage to do it.”
“You mean to tell me that my only son would be unable to perform his manly duty?”
“It would be touch and go.”
“You have disappointed me, Owen. On the other hand, you are quite right. She’s a spoiled, arrogant bitch, a haughty creature who needs to learn who is master here. She distrusts me and thus she distrusts you. It’s a pity, but there’s no hope for it, then.” She heard Mr. Ffalkes draw in a deep breath. “Very well, I will take her. She will marry me.”
“Good God, sir, Caroline as my stepmother? She’s not even nineteen!”
“She is a grown woman. Many girls have babes by the time they are her age.”
“That’s frightening. She’s not even motherly. She’s younger than I am. She’s very strong, sir.”
“So am I. What’s more, my son, I would enjoy that particular manly duty. I am not too old to perform it. I should delight in performing it again and again on her. I am also more crafty than she will ever be. She tried to outsmart me just this morning, but I turned it all about on her and left her looking like a fool. Don’t worry. She will be at my mercy. I will tie her down with no compunction at all. I will take her until she agrees to wed me and then I will take her until she is with child. Yes, that is the way it will be. Then she’ll be quite motherly, you’ll see, my boy. Should you like a little half brother?”
“I don’t know, sir. Can’t you just give her the in
heritance and we’ll leave?”
“No, I cannot. I won’t. I need that money, Owen. I’ve kept her fortune wonderfully intact, all legal and right and tight, waiting for her damned birthday. Now that it’s nearly here you expect me to turn tail and leave? Don’t you want that new hunter Bittington is selling? Yes, I can see well enough that you do. Well then, boy, if you can’t get it done, then I must do it. Enough now.”
It was more than enough. She turned, realizing that Morna was standing there, just staring at her, her face flushed with anger. Caroline had never seen Morna angry in her life. She nodded, took Morna’s hand, and ran back up the stairs. She would have to leave, there was no other option now. Mrs. Tailstrop wouldn’t do a thing. It was Mr. Ffalkes who paid her salary. She was on her own. The money would be hers regardless of whether she was here at Honeymead Manor or in Russia. But would she be safe from Mr. Ffalkes when she returned to claim her inheritance?
What she needed was a gun. Barring a gun, she needed a man who was ruthless and smarter than Mr. Ffalkes and would agree to protect her with his life, given enough of her money.
Where was Mr. Duncan when she needed him?
3
THE DOWNSTAIRS CLOCK began its twelve long, deep strokes that resounded throughout the manor. Over the years the booming strikes had become simply night sounds that didn’t rouse anyone, even Mrs. Tailstrop’s annoying pug Lucy. Except this night Caroline was wide awake, listening, waiting, wound as tightly as that clock, only she couldn’t toll or chime or make any noise at all.
When Mr. Ffalkes finally came into view in the entrance hall below, she slipped away from her hidey-hole behind a statue of Aristotle at the top of the landing and ran back into her bedchamber, carefully locking the door. She stood there, silent as the night sky, waiting, waiting. Soon she heard his heavy footfalls coming down the long corridor, closer and closer. He stopped. She could picture him reaching out his hand, but when the knob turned slowly, soundlessly, she jumped even though she’d expected it. She sucked in her breath and held herself very still. The knob turned again and again until he realized that the door was locked. She heard him curse. Then she heard nothing.