An Heir of Uncertainty (22 page)

“I’m relieved to hear it.” She was sure her cheeks must be far brighter than the doctor’s, and she didn’t want to know what he must think of her now, but at least she could content herself she was unlikely to have harmed her baby.

Dr. Strickland hesitated. “But—do be careful.” His blue eyes met hers. “Please. I say this as your friend, not your doctor. Make sure you know what kind of man you’re dealing with.”

“I am,” she said, feeling on solid ground for the first time since leaving Cassie’s room. “I do.”

* * *

Freddie set his plate of kippers, bacon and buttered toast on the breakfast table and pulled out the chair across from Win. “Did I miss anything of importance last night? No one else died after I went to bed, did they?”

“No, Mr. Niven was the night’s sole fatality,” Win said dryly. He debated whether to add
though Lady Radbourne hates me now
—it was the kind of social distinction Freddie tended to miss unless explicitly informed—but decided it would make him sound too much like a lovelorn schoolboy.

Then again, he
felt
like a lovelorn schoolboy. The only difference was that as a youth, he’d never gone further than kissing the vicar’s daughter behind the sexton’s cottage. He had a good deal more to regret now.

He pushed a kipper about on his plate. “I thought Julia could use some fresh air today. I mean to teach her to skate. Care to join us?”

“No, I have work to do at my dovecote.”

Win regarded him through narrowed eyes. “You’re not still climbing the walls there, are you?”

“You made me promise not to,” Freddie said in an aggrieved tone.

“Then what is it you plan to do at the dovecote?”

“I’d like to paint the door today, and oil the hinges.” He took a bite of his toast. “Win, if I need to buy Joe Ibbetson a new crowbar—”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Freddie chewed and swallowed. “Win, if I need to buy Joe Ibbetson a new crowbar, who would pay for that, you or the estate?”

“I can’t say. Who is Joe Ibbetson, and why would you need to buy him a new crowbar?”

“Joe is the abbey handyman, and I’ll need to buy him a new crowbar if he doesn’t find the one that’s missing.”

“Why did you borrow the old crowbar?”

“I didn’t.”

Win gave him a blank look. “Then why should you need to buy him a new one?”

“Because his old one disappeared at the same time as I borrowed his hammer and chisel, and he’s convinced I took it. I told him he’s mistaken and he must have misplaced it, but he hasn’t stopped asking about it.”

“And you don’t want him to change his mind about allowing you to borrow his tools in future.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“I’ll pay for the crowbar.” He might have to watch every penny back at Hamble Grange, but until Lina’s baby arrived, he remained de facto master of Belryth Abbey. “Though as for borrowing his tools in the future, it may be a moot point. We’ll be leaving soon after all.”

“What?” Freddie gaped at him. “You mean going back to Hampshire? How soon?”

“Very soon. Before the week is out.”

“But I thought you wanted to stay and ensure Lady Radbourne was safe.”

“I did, but in the days since I resolved to keep her ‘safe,’ someone killed first the gamekeeper’s dog and now Mr. Niven, and I’m no closer to learning who’s responsible.” He’d also convinced Lina that he was a heartless opportunist, though he didn’t think Freddie needed to know that. “Staying here is doing more harm than good.”

“If you’re worried because the poisoned brandy was likely meant for you, I should think any food that comes direct from the kitchens ought to be safe. The poisoner probably chose the brandy because there were no witnesses in the study, but the kitchens are full of servants.”

“That’s a risk I’d rather not take indefinitely, especially with you and Julia eating the same food I am.”

Freddie’s mouth turned down. “So you’re just going to leave, without even knowing who poisoned Mr. Niven? It isn’t like you to give up.”

Win sighed and leaned back in his chair. “You must be confusing me with someone else.”

“I doubt that’s the case. You’re the only brother I have.”

“That was a figure of speech, Freddie.”

“I mean it’s unlike you to admit defeat,” Freddie insisted. “Take skating today. I remember when you taught me. I thought that day would never end, but you refused to give up.”

Win remembered that day too. After Freddie’s countless spills, complaints and tearful pratfalls, their father had decided the lesson was a lost cause and taken their sisters back to the Grange. Home on leave, Win had stayed out on the ice with his brother for four more hours, until at last Freddie was able to keep his feet under him. By the time they trudged home, they were both chilled to the bone and the sun was sinking fast, but Freddie knew how to skate. “There’s a world of difference between teaching a child a new skill and handling real problems.”

“I still say it’s not like you to give up. You haven’t stopped making changes at Hamble Grange since that wet summer four years ago. And you always did your best to keep Harriet happy, even though she was a dreadful fishwife and past reclaiming.”

“Freddie...” As flattering as his brother’s faith in him was, Freddie had never quite grasped that Win had married above himself. He didn’t know the full extent of the Grange’s financial problems, either.

Freddie sighed. “I know, I know, she was Julia’s mother. But she used to snap at the servants, and she told the vicar I belonged in a lunatic asylum.”

“Harriet really said that?” It was the first Win had heard of it, though he had no doubt Freddie was telling the truth.

“More than once. She hated pigeons too. I can’t think how you endured her as patiently as you did.”

It wasn’t patience, it was knowing I should never have made her promises I couldn’t keep.
And he was no more able to keep Lina safe or to make her happy than he’d been able to maintain Harriet in the style to which she was accustomed. He pushed his plate away. “I’m sorry, but it’s best for everyone if we go back to Hampshire.”

“Even for Lady Radbourne?”

“Especially for Lady Radbourne.”

“How odd.” Freddie frowned. “I thought you were interested in courting her.”

“What gave you that idea?”

“Miss Douglass said you seemed interested in courting her sister.”

“Well, I’m not.” Win swallowed down an illogical anger. “You were just complaining about Harriet. Why would I go through that again?”

Freddie squinted in confusion. “I thought we were talking about Lady Radbourne.”

“I mean, why would I want to marry again when I did such a poor job of it the first time?”

“You weren’t married to Lady Radbourne the first time,” Freddie said reasonably. He tapped his closed fist thoughtfully against his chin. “It’s a shame her husband is dead, and we can’t ask him what kind of wife she made.”

“If he were still alive, why would that be any of our concern?” Win shook his head. Having this kind of conversation with Freddie was an exercise in futility. “I can’t marry Lady Radbourne. What if her baby is a boy, and the next earl? What would I do then, become some rich woman’s plaything?”

“Don’t worry, Win. I expect you’d be quite good at it.”

Win pinched the bridge of his nose. “It doesn’t signify, because we’re leaving for Hampshire this Friday.”

“But what about the poisoner?”

“He’ll be someone else’s problem.” Win pushed back his chair and stood. “I never belonged here in the first place.”

Chapter Sixteen

Do I entice you? do I speak you fair?
Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth
Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?

—William Shakespeare

Lina made her way up the high street in Malton, Jem walking at her side. She’d just been to the stonemason’s to see Edward’s completed monument. Though she was happy with the work, she’d rather hoped Mr. Monkman would take a bit longer to finish it. She had weeks yet before she would receive her first jointure payment, and she’d hated having to tell him she needed more time to settle his bill.

As she neared Hill & Sons, a familiar figure emerged from the shop—Frederick Vaughan, heavily burdened with an armful of merchandise. He had a long-handled paintbrush, a bucket of Emerton and Manby paint, a large tin of linseed oil, a smaller tin of oil of turpentine and a bottle of paraffin oil. He was doing his best to manage it all, but in imminent danger of dropping any one of the items he was holding.

After what had happened to Mr. Niven she had mixed feelings about seeing Mr. Vaughan again, but Jem was with her, and a part of her longed for news of Win. On an impulse, she called out, “Mr. Vaughan!”

He turned, and actually broke into a smile. “Ah, Lady Radbourne. I’m glad it’s you.”

“Why, did you wish to see me?”

“No, I simply meant I’m glad it isn’t your sister. Would you help me carry this?” Clutching the rest of his purchases to his chest, he held out the bucket of paint.

Jem rushed to take it from him—he recognized, even if Mr. Vaughan didn’t, that a gentleman wasn’t supposed to ask a lady to carry his parcels, let alone the heaviest of them—but Lina did relieve him of the paintbrush and the paraffin oil.

“Did you come on foot?” Mr. Vaughan asked. “I did.”

“Yes. I don’t keep a carriage.”

“I’m on my way to my dovecote now. Are you going back to the dower house? You can carry that for me as far as the point where our paths diverge.”

He said it matter-of-factly—not quite as if he was conferring a favor, but not at all as if he was asking for one either. It left her nonplussed, given he’d suggested only the night before that she’d tried to poison his brother. But there was something oddly irresistible about the confidence with which he stated the plan, as if she had no choice but to fall in with such a reasonable request.

“I take it you intend to paint something?” she said as they set off together, Jem trailing behind.

“Yes, the door of my dovecote. I want everything to be ready when I move my birds to their new loft.”

“But aren’t they homing pigeons? Won’t they just return to Hampshire?”

His eyes lit with enthusiasm. “Ah, that’s an interesting question. Normally, yes, they would return to their original loft. That’s the instinct that makes homing pigeons so fascinating, so useful, and so valuable as a breed. But because pigeons are such exemplary parents, they desire even more to stay where they lay. If I keep my birds confined until they start a new brood, the hatchlings will become of paramount importance to them, and they’ll view their loft here as home.”

“I wish all men had the same instinct as your pigeons,” Lina said wistfully.

“To return home?”

She gave a weak laugh. “Yes, that. And to stay where they lay. You see, my father left my mother before I was born.”

He nodded. “Pigeons are not only good parents, but also faithful partners. Unless physically kept apart, they mate for life.”

“Then they’re not at all like men.” She meant to sound arch, but the words came out with a bitterness that shocked her.

“Not like
some
men,” he corrected her. “Take my brother, for instance. He was married to a dreadful witch—I’m speaking figuratively, since to my knowledge she was never a member of an actual coven—but he was as faithful as a pigeon until the day she died.”

Lina listened in silence. For hours after her argument with Win, she’d burned with righteous anger. He
must
have seduced her. Why else would she have given herself to him, when she’d kept poor Edward at arm’s length for three long years? Why would she willingly make the same mistake her mother had made? She’d been sure, somehow, that Win had promised her they would have a future together, only to change his tune as soon as he got what he wanted. He’d preyed on her, plain and simple.

But then she’d talked with Dr. Strickland, and she’d been dismayed—no, horrified—when the doctor had supposed Win must have forced himself on her. As hurt and angry as she’d been until that moment, the look of alarm on Dr. Strickland’s face when he’d said
if he overpowered you
had left her all but tripping over her words in her haste to correct him. She’d wanted to explode in a torrent of denials:
No, Win would never do that. That isn’t what happened!

It had been an instinctive thing, that urge to defend him. That night in Win’s room—she’d literally been in his bed, kissing him, yet he’d released her and apologized the moment she wanted to stop. No, she could no more imagine protective, responsible Win holding her down and raping her than she could imagine strangling an infant with her bare hands. He wasn’t that kind of man—and he wasn’t the kind of man to do the other despicable things she’d accused him of, either.

In a flash, she’d gone from being furious at him to vexed with herself for having blamed him so unfairly.

She’d already regretted the way she’d treated Win. Now, talking to his brother, she regretted it even more. But it was too late to un-say the things she’d said. She could only hope Win would accept her apology.

Loath to dwell on the thought, she glanced across at Mr. Vaughan and held up the paintbrush. “What color will you paint the dovecote door?”

“Naples yellow. I believe the pigeons will find it pleasing, since it’s reminiscent of the color of a newly hatched squab.”

“How thoughtful.” It seemed a surprisingly sweet choice for a nineteen-year-old gentleman to make.

“I considered Paris green, but it owes its color to a combination of copper and arsenic, and I feared that might remind me of what happened to poor Beauty.”

At the word
arsenic
, a chill ran through her. For a moment, she’d almost forgotten the poisonings—and that Mr. Vaughan had more reason than most to want her out of the way. How did he know there was arsenic in Paris green paint, and what else did he know about such things? Didn’t Prussian blue paint have some connection to prussic acid?

Casting a worried look his way, she did her best to sound him out. “What is your thinking on the recent poisonings? You don’t really suspect I poisoned Mr. Niven, do you, Mr. Vaughan?”

“No, I think that was most likely someone else.”

“You did suggest the possibility last night.”

“I said you might wish to poison my brother as a pre-emptive measure,” he replied calmly. “But I was speaking in possibilities, not likelihoods. Win is convinced of your innocence, and I trust his judgment.”

“I’m relieved to hear it.” She hoped she had nothing to fear from Frederick Vaughan, for she was discovering she rather liked him. She’d never met anyone so free of artifice, and if he was tactless at times, he was also unfailingly honest. Certainly his eccentricities hadn’t marred his good looks. As they’d walked through Malton, he’d drawn interested glances from every young lady they’d passed. And he was clearly devoted to Win. She even liked that he’d held out his paint bucket for her to carry—as if he’d never doubted her ability to manage it even though she was a woman, and a small
enceinte
woman at that.

Soon they reached the turning-off point where their paths diverged. Jem set the bucket of paint on the ground, and Lina placed the paraffin oil beside it.

“Lady Radbourne, is there any way you can make your sister stop pestering me?” Mr. Vaughan said as he relieved her of the paintbrush.

Oh, dear. It was a good thing Cassie wasn’t here to hear the word
pestering.
“I’m sorry if she seems a bit eager at times. She’s just trying to be friendly.”

“I’d rather she didn’t. Nothing against her personally, you understand, but it’s difficult to get any work done with her following me to my dovecote.”

Lina blinked at him in surprise. “She’s followed you to your dovecote?”

“Twice so far. And she insists on talking to me while she’s there.”

Lina had thought her sister was more careful of appearances than that, especially after the lecture Cassie had delivered on setting tongues wagging so soon after Edward’s death. “I didn’t know. Yes, Mr. Vaughan, I’ll have a word with her.”

He smiled, and his expression held such an appealing combination of Win’s good looks and his own artlessness, Lina could almost see why Cassie was behaving so imprudently.

* * *

“Are those your warmest gloves?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Good.” Win dredged up a smile for Julia. “All you need is your bonnet, and we can go.”

They left the house together, setting off across the park toward the frozen pond not far from the dower house. It was a gray day, with the gloomy sky matching Win’s mood, though he was determined to appear cheerful for his daughter’s sake.

“When do I put on my skates?” Julia asked, skipping beside him.

“Not until we reach the ice. They’re not made for walking, just for skating.” He had both pairs of skates over his shoulder, hers and the pair he’d bought for Freddie.

“If I learn to skate across the pond, will I be able to skate across the ocean too?”

“The ocean doesn’t freeze, poppet. Only ponds and lakes, and occasionally rivers.”

“Why doesn’t the ocean freeze?”

“Partly because it’s very big, with waves and currents, but mostly because the water has so much salt in it.”

“Why does it have salt—”

“Colonel Vaughan!” came a call from behind them.

Win turned. Mr. Channing was striding in their direction. The magistrate was dressed in his usual country tweeds, though his face was set in a determined expression.

“Might I have a word with you?” He tipped his hat to Julia before his eyes moved back to Win. “Privately?”

Win glanced down at his daughter. “Wait here a moment, Jules.”

He’d no sooner stepped off a few paces with Mr. Channing than the older man demanded, “What’s the name of your estate in Hampshire?”

“Hamble Grange,” Win said, surprised by the question.

“Aye, I thought that was it.”

Win’s brows drew together in a puzzled frown. “Why do you ask?”

“I’ve just come from Pickering, the closest market town save Malton. I went there to make inquiries about Mr. Niven’s death—namely, to learn if anyone had recently bought prussic acid.”

“And had anyone?”

Channing smiled knowingly. “Now, that’s the interesting part. A parcel arrived at the receiving office in Pickering a little over a week ago, sent from a chemist’s in London. I can’t be sure what was inside it, but it raised suspicion even then.”

“And why was that?”

“It was addressed to a person no one in Pickering had ever heard of—a doctor, in fact.”

“And he collected the parcel?” Win said with interest. “What did he look like?”

“The clerk never saw him. A young boy picked it up, likely just an errand boy.”

“Can you find the boy? If that parcel did contain prussic acid, he could lead us to the killer.”

Mr. Channing shook his head. “The clerk didn’t know the boy, and doesn’t remember much beyond his general size and age. I’ll continue to make inquiries, but I’m not hopeful. It was market day, so the town was full of strangers. There must be any number of brown-haired boys between the age of eight and twelve near Pickering.”

Win frowned. “Well, what about the address on the parcel? Did the clerk remember the doctor’s name?”

“He did.” Mr. Channing’s eyes flicked over Win. “It was addressed to ‘Dr. V. Hamble.’”

Win blinked in surprise. “As in Hamble Grange?”

“That’s right.”

“But I’ve only been in Yorkshire two weeks,” Win said in confusion. “I doubt many here even knew of the existence of Hamble Grange until I arrived. That was quick work, to arrange such a delivery all the way from London.” Win’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Though Mr. Niven knew I owned Hamble Grange. He wrote to me there to inform me of the late earl’s death.”

“You could’ve arranged for the delivery before your arrival here.”

Win blew out his breath. Not this again. He thought Channing had discounted him as a suspect. “To what end? Until you and Niven informed me Lady Radbourne was expecting, I believed I was the rightful heir.”

Mr. Channing nodded slowly. “Aye, that thought had occurred to me too. I was just interested to hear what you had to say on the matter.” He glanced sidelong at Win. “Someone is clearly trying to point the finger of guilt at you, Colonel.”

“It would seem so.” Win threw a dark look in the general direction of the abbey. “Fortunately I intend to leave soon. Whoever it is, he’ll have to find a new whipping boy to take the blame.”

“You’re leaving?” Mr. Channing raised one shaggy eyebrow in surprise. “I was beginning to think you fit right in as master here. You look born to the role, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Looks don’t count for much, though, do they?” Win said with an edge of bitterness. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Channing, my daughter is waiting.”

* * *

Walking with Jem, Lina was only a few minutes from the dower house when a rich baritone echoed from the other side of the rise bordering the path.

“That’s it. Now push off with your back foot.”

Her heart skittered at the familiar voice. “That sounds like Colonel Vaughan,” she told Jem, changing direction.

She paused at the top of the rise, surveying the frozen pond below. Win and his little girl were on skates, both with their backs to her. Though his broken arm was still in a sling, with his good hand Win was steadying his daughter.

“Don’t let go,” Julia said in a panicked voice, clutching his coat sleeve in a two-fisted grip. She swayed on her skates.

“I won’t.” Win’s voice was calm and reassuring. “You’re doing splendidly. Don’t worry, I’m not going to let you fall.”