Amanda Scott (3 page)

“I don’t know that for certain, my lady, but I have heard it said the master failed to leave a will.”

“Young men often do,” her ladyship pointed out. “What has that to do with anything?”

“I don’t know, my lady, but Mr. Jordan went down to London for the opening of Parliament the first of the month and returned only two days ago. He was closeted with her ladyship for long bits before and after. Young Melanie—the chambermaid, you know, Miss Margaret, though she came to us after your ladyship departed for foreign parts with Sir Harold—she said she once heard them speaking about a petition, whether it would be granted or not. Her ladyship said there was no reason not, so long as they were quick about it. I can tell you,” he added quietly, “I’ve been that worried. Couldn’t think what it was all about, myself.”

Margaret frowned. No will and a petition to Parliament—what could that all mean? “Has his lordship been to call, Moffatt? Perhaps he will know what is going on.”

The butler grimaced. “Hasn’t set foot in the house, Miss Margaret. Not even after the funeral.”

“He did attend the funeral, though?”

“Aye. Stood at the back of the church a-scowlin’ like he does. Saw him myself. But he never showed up for the buryin’ or the baked meats after. And he ain’t been next or nigh the manor since.” Moffatt’s strong feelings were clearly evident in his lapse of grammar. “Like as not he’s dispensed with civility altogether,” he muttered as he followed Quinlan out the door.

Margaret frowned. Such behavior didn’t sound like Abberley, who had been, after all, her brother’s closest friend. They had been housemates at Eton and had shared a study at Oxford. As a child, she had looked forward to their school holidays almost more avidly than they had themselves. No doubt she, being eight years younger, had been something of a pest, but neither of them had ever seemed to mind. They had taken her riding and had even allowed her to trip along behind them when they went shooting rabbits or wood pigeons in the large beech wood between the manor and the hall. She had been, at such times, the despair of her assorted governesses, but she had loved every moment, feeling as though she had two wonderful big brothers instead of only one. That his lordship had not done his best to keep an eye on the manor and on Timothy seemed very strange.

“I have it!” Lady Celeste had fallen into a brown study as she ate, but now she interrupted Margaret’s thoughts, her expression worried. “They have petitioned the House of Lords for guardianship, I’ll wager, and perhaps even for control of the property. Annis and that dreadful offspring of hers mean to live here!”

“S
URELY, YOU MUST REALIZE
that it was the only possible course for us to follow under the circumstances,” Lady Annis said virtuously the following morning in the breakfast parlor when Lady Celeste demanded to know if she and her son had petitioned for guardianship. Then, before the older woman could respond, she spoke quickly to the stiff footman who served her. “A few more slices of that excellent Yorkshire ham, Archer, and perhaps one or two of those delicious apple turnovers. Really,” she added, patting her round, black-bombazine-covered stomach, “Mrs. Moffatt’s cooking has quite ruined my figure.”

“Can’t see that you’ve changed a jot since the last time I saw you,” said Lady Celeste brutally. “That was after the typhus epidemic eight years ago that carried Sir William Caldecourt and your Stephen off within a week of each other, and you told us then that you were wasting away to a shadow out of grief.”

“What circumstances, ma’am?” Margaret asked hastily. Lady Annis, her cheeks unbecomingly reddened, turned to her, bewildered. Margaret kept her patience with difficulty. “Why did you find it necessary to petition for guardianship?”

“Why, the Fates clearly intended that we do so, my dear.” Her ladyship recovered herself quickly. “There was no will, you know—very remiss of Michael, I’m sure, but a common enough failing among younger gentlemen, who think they will never die. In any case, you must see that dearest Jordan, who is practically your only remaining male relative and the heir apparent as well, is the natural person to take charge, both of dear Timothy and of the estate.”

“The
dear
estate,” murmured Lady Celeste incorrigibly.

Margaret’s lips twitched, but because she knew her grandaunt was perfectly capable of repeating her words in tones more audible to Lady Annis if requested to do so, she quickly suggested that perhaps they had not searched carefully enough for her brother’s will.

“Oh, but we did,” replied Lady Annis, wide-eyed with sincerity. “Archer here can tell you that I did not begrudge the least exertion, in spite of my poor health. He, Jordan, and I quite turned out poor Michael’s bedchamber, the library, and the estate office, looking for anything even resembling a will. There was nothing at all, I promise you. Where is your footman, by the by? I confess, we have felt the lack of a third manservant, though I did not think we would.”

“I have given Quinlan leave to visit his family in Dorset for a month,” Lady Celeste told her without apology. “I cannot think why you turned the others off.”

But Margaret, uninterested in domestic problems for the moment, was still thinking about the missing will. “Perhaps Lord Abberley would know where Michael kept it,” she said musingly.

“Lord Abberley,” said Lady Annis with injured scorn, “has not seen fit to pay us so much as a civil visit of condolence. Not,” she added with tightening lips, “that I should have been flattered to have received such a call from the likes of him.”

“Why, whatever can you mean, ma’am? Lord Abberley has ever stood our friend.”

“Then I shall say nothing against him,” said Lady Annis primly.

“Nothing
to
say,” said Lady Celeste, a warning note in her voice.

“That is as may be,” retorted Lady Annis in tones which indicated that she, for one, could say a great deal if pressed to do so. “I do not forget that he is your grandnephew, although it is with difficulty that one realizes he stands as close to you as dearest Margaret does. But you clearly don’t wish me to speak ill of him, so I shall say no more.”

“Dreadful woman,” said Lady Celeste an hour later when Lady Annis had departed at last to take her morning drive—a necessity for the good of her lungs, she had explained at length, and sternly ordered by her doctor. “Quacks herself,” added her ladyship. “How your Uncle Stephen, a sensible-enough man by most standards, managed to bear with her long enough to produce that languid lackey she calls her dearest pet, I shall never understand.”

“Papa said Uncle Stephen fell in love with one of Lady Annis’s elder sisters who was already spoken for and that he decided Lady Annis would do as well. Papa said he learned his error, but not quickly enough, for they were already betrothed by then, and Uncle Stephen couldn’t, in good conscience, cry off.”

“And, of course, there were no more unmarried sisters by then, either,” said Lady Celeste with a touch of sarcasm. “The Earl of Brundage had seven daughters, poor man, but I daresay he’d have had more if he hadn’t cried ‘Enough’ after one look at Annis’s sour face.”

Margaret laughed, but intruding thoughts quickly sobered her again. “Aunt Celeste, I simply cannot believe that Michael failed to make a will. In fact, I’m quite sure he drew one up soon after he married poor Marjory. He had to because of the marriage settlements, I think, and surely he would have added to it or written another when Timothy was born or when Marjory died. He wasn’t an irresponsible man, even if he
was
young.”

“True enough,” Lady Celeste agreed. “He never was the sort of loose screw so many young men seem to be these days. He was very like your father, Michael was, a kind and sober man. I was so pleased when your mama married Sir William, for she was quite my favorite niece. Always the toast of the Season in London, Julia was, before she cast her handkerchief—a diamond of the first water. There were so many men after her—even a duke—that I was afraid she’d be swayed by a title or some ne’er-do-well’s charming words or handsome face. But Julia no sooner clapped eyes on your father than she decided he was the man for her. You are very like her, you know, just as Michael was like Sir William.”

Margaret had heard these words many times before, but although she still felt sad whenever she thought of her parents, her eyes didn’t so much as mist now. Indeed, she had long since decided she had no tears left. She had not even cried after learning of Michael’s sudden death. The last tears she had shed had been for Frederick Culross. “I wonder,” she said now, “what would have become of Mama if Papa had been killed in battle before they were able to wed,” she said quietly.

Lady Celeste had been lost in her own memories, but these sad words brought her head up with a snap, and she said flatly, “Julia would have cried her eyes out and then got on with her life. And if you’re thinking of young Culross again, let me tell you you should put all that behind you now. It has been three years since Waterloo, and you weren’t even properly betrothed to the man, so that’s time and more in which to bury the past. He wouldn’t have done for you, anyway.”

“We weren’t betrothed because Michael refused to allow it with Frederick leaving as he was to join Wellington, but he
had
agreed to allow Frederick to pay his addresses to me and I had agreed to receive them. Why, you never knew Frederick!”

“Well, of course not. It would have been a trifle difficult to effect an introduction when he was with Wellington, trying to catch Bonaparte, and your grandfather and I were in Vienna. Such a welcome change, too, after the Russian court. So gay and everyone having such a lovely time. Of course, no one knew until Bonaparte had been on French soil for over a week that he had even managed to escape from Elba. Then there was a deal of bickering, I can tell you.”

Margaret glared at her. “Never mind that. Why wouldn’t Frederick have done for me?”

Lady Celeste sighed. “Shouldn’t have said that, I expect. It slipped. After so many years in diplomatic circles one might expect I’d have learned to put a guard on my tongue, but I never did. And the fact is that when you talk about young Culross, you always tell me how kind he was, and thoughtful, how he was always exerting himself to please you.”

“He liked pleasing me. What’s wrong with a man being thoughtful and kind?”

“Nothing, but you need a man who will cross you now and again, not one who trips over himself to please you.”

Margaret opened her mouth to insist hotly that her beloved Frederick had been made of sterner stuff than that, but honesty intruded. Perhaps Lieutenant Culross had been rather easily led. In order to keep her sharp-eyed companion from pouncing upon whatever truth she might see in her face, Margaret quickly turned the conversation back to her brother’s will.

“Surely you must agree, ma’am, that Michael would have done his duty where Timothy is concerned. And he would never have named Jordan the boy’s guardian or trustee.”

“No, certainly not. More likely to have named your grandfather jointly with his man of affairs. Who handled Michael’s business?”

“Mr. Jeremy Swift in Royston, but I believe he had a man in London as well. Abberley would know. Aunt Celeste, even if Michael failed to make a will, we cannot stand by and see Jordan take control of Caldecourt Manor.”

“No, indeed. We must contrive a little, I think.”

“We must act,” Margaret said decisively, “and we need help. I am going to ride over to the hall at once.”

“You mustn’t go alone, dear,” her ladyship said firmly. “I shall go with you.”

“Nonsense. You know you like at least a full day to recuperate after a long journey. I shall do fine alone. Moreover,” she added when Lady Celeste stiffened slightly, “one of us must remain here to become acquainted with Timothy. He had scarcely turned four when I left to join you and Grandpapa in Vienna, so I daresay he won’t remember me at all. And it won’t help our cause if he treats us like strangers and appears to be well-acquainted with Jordan and Lady Annis.”

Although giving it as her opinion that if Timothy were indeed well-acquainted with his cousin and Lady Annis, he would express a preference for anyone else to stand guardian in their stead, Lady Celeste was much struck by Margaret’s view of the matter and finally agreed that no great impropriety lay in visiting a second cousin whom one had been accustomed since birth to think of as a second brother. Thus it was that half an hour later, attired in a forest-green woolen habit with gold frogs and military epaulets, Miss Caldecourt set out for Abberley Hall, riding a neat black mare named Dancer from her brother’s stables and accompanied only by an elderly groom.

The ride took the best part of another half-hour. As they rode through the thick beech wood, she was conscious of a damp chill in the air and found herself longing for the moment when they would emerge into open country again and pass through the gate into one of Abberley Hall’s well-tended fields. She wondered idly if it had been possible to begin planting the barley yet or if the fields were still too hard-frozen to plow, but to her amazement the first field, when she reached it, was cluttered with dried stalks and early weeds. Not so much as the normal clearing off had been done the previous fall.

Her groom did not have to climb down from his saddle to open the gate, for it was already open—or half-open—lurching precariously from one rusty hinge. The fence surrounding the field to keep out deer from the forest was in a similarly dilapidated condition, with whole sections broken down.

The second field was in no better condition, and when they passed through the main gate to the hall, Margaret was distressed to note more weeds cropping up here and there along the broad gravel drive and throughout the once plush herbaceous borders. The borders themselves had run amok, and the lawn more nearly resembled a hayfield. Indeed, she found herself dredging her memory for a view of the hall as it should be, set amidst neatly trimmed borders and well-scythed lawns. Even the house seemed to have gone to seed, though it loomed before her now in much of its ancient splendor—a pile of imported stone and local flint, three stories high in the massive central block, with two-story wings flying off at odd angles everywhere. A regular honeycomb, Abberley had been wont to call it. A standing joke in the family, according to Lady Celeste, was that there had been no need for priest holes at Abberley, since Cromwell’s men might have searched the place to their heart’s content and in all the confusion of rooms have overlooked an army of priests. But the building, once so well-cared-for, needed a full-scale cleaning and refurbishing. Two of the windows facing the drive from the central block were cracked, and the woodwork was in desperate need of paint.