Lord Perfect (34 page)

TEMPER, BATHSHEBA HAD DISCOVERED, WAS not the exclusive
domain of her branch of the family. Now she was aware that the
Dreadful DeLuceys weren't the only ones who knew how to make dramatic
entrances.

She had been too agitated yesterday, too conscious of
being unwelcome and too much occupied in steeling herself against the
hurt and frustration, to study her audience very carefully. In any
case, Mandeville, who'd come storming in like a Visigoth invasion,
took center stage.

Still, she'd been aware of Northwick. Though he'd said
very little and looked very bored, she had felt herself under an
unusually keen scrutiny. Without question, he had made her far more
uneasy than his openly hostile father had done.

Clearly, Northwick was nobody's fool.

She sank into the nearest chair, her heart pounding.
She'd known Rathbourne must be found out sooner or later. But knowing
it was not the same as seeing and hearing it happen.

He did not appear in the least discomposed. "Ah,
then you were not taken in by the 'mad brother Derek' business,"
he said.

"I know Bathsheba Wingate has no siblings,"
Lord Northwick said. "I know Lord Rathbourne has several. One is
named Rupert. I became acquainted with Rupert Carsington a few years
ago when he and one of my cousins had a dispute with some fellows at
a wrestling match. Mr. Carsington threw one of his assailants into a
trough. I recognized the style of combat—and a strong physical
resemblance. Now, perhaps you would be so good as to explain matters,
sir."

"Apart from my not being Derek the deranged
imbecile, it is all as Mrs. Wingate explained yesterday,"
Rathbourne said. "We have come in search of my nephew and her
daughter. But pray be seated. You have no objections to breakfasting
with your cousin, I trust?"

There followed a short, thunderous silence.

A test of some kind, or a challenge.

It was something men did, and the silent language was
one Bathsheba did not fully understand.

Then Lord Northwick said, "No
objections, sir, so long as everybody understands that I would trust
my
cousin
only as far as I could throw one of those rocks at Stonehenge."

Rathbourne's face turned to marble.

Man language or not, it was time to intervene.

'That is fair enough," Bathsheba said. "Lord
Northwick is not obliged to like or trust me. The main concern is
finding the children."

"That is why I am here," Lord Northwick said.
"I came because Mrs. Wingate said Atherton's boy was missing. I
knew Lord Hargate's eldest son had wed one of Atherton's sisters.
When you appeared, sir, I surmised that you were this eldest son.
Such being the case, it seemed the story of the missing nephew must
be true. Still, a number of questions remained. I wondered why you
failed to identify yourself. I wondered why you were dressed in that
bizarre manner. I wondered at your behavior. None of this accorded
with anything I had ever heard or read previously about Lord
Rathbourne."

Rathbourne said nothing, merely regarded him stonily.

He was not going to explain himself, even to a man of
the same rank.

Lord Northwick shrugged. "In any event, my primary
concern was and is Atherton's boy. I am not in the least surprised at
his being led astray by the young person in question. My dear cousins
have at one time or another led any number of people astray."

Including you
,
Lord Northwick might as well have added, for he looked it, plainly
enough, at Rathbourne.

Rathbourne's expression became bored. "I believe
the important question is where my nephew is being led to, and how we
might most quickly intercept him. Mr. DeLucey gave me to understand
that you were willing to assist us in this regard. Or did I
misunderstand?"

Lord Northwick's gaze went from Bathsheba to
Rath-bourne. His jaw set and he said, "I believe I know my duty,
sir. Naturally I shall render you every assistance."

London

The Dowager Countess of Hargate went to bed very late
and woke very early. This, her grandchildren said, was how she
contrived to know everything about everybody before anyone else did.
The volume of her correspondence far exceeded that of King George IV,
his Prime Minister, and the Cabinet combined. She spent a good part
of her day in bed, reading and answering letters. This still left
plenty of time for gossiping with her friends (known to her
grandchildren as the Harpies), playing whist, and terrorizing her
family.

By early afternoon on Monday, she had reached the
terrorizing portion of her program, and sent for her eldest son.

Lord Hargate found her in her boudoir enthroned among
vast heaps of pillows and dressed as always in the grand style
popular in her youth, which involved enough silk, satin, and lace to
drape St. Paul's, inside and out, twice over.

He had greeted and kissed her and was enquiring about
her health when she waved a letter in his face and said, "Never
mind that nonsense! What the devil are you about, Hargate? My
grandson has run off with a black-haired hussy, I am told. He has
been brawling and making a spectacle of himself on the Bath Road."

"Your informant is mistaken," Lord Hargate
said. "Rupert is safe in London with his wife. They are making
arrangements to return to Egypt, my dear. You know as well as I that
Rupert will not run off with anybody but Daphne. He is completely—"

"Not
him
,"
said his mama. "How can you be so thick, Ned? Why should I
trouble to send for you, was it only to announce that Rupert had done
something ridiculous? I should be more likely to send for you if by
some bizarre accident he did something sensible. To my knowledge he
has done so only once in his life, when he married that clever
red-haired girl with the fine fortune. Since this miracle occurred
but a few months ago, I should not expect another in my lifetime."

"No doubt, then, your informant has confused one of
my offspring with one of our cousins," said Lord Hargate.
"Geoffrey has taken his family to Sussex to visit his in-laws.
Alistair is in Derbyshire, awaiting the birth of my grandchild.
Darius has gone to support him in his hour of trial. None of them
could possibly have been anywhere upon the Bath Road in recent days."

"You leave one son unaccounted for," she said.

"You cannot mean Benedict," Lord Hargate said.

She gave him the letter.

BATHSHEBA REGARDED HER surroundings with a sinking
heart.

Throgmorton was immense. Extensive gardens, formal and
informal, surrounded the main house. These gave way to a vast park,
then acres of plantations and farmland. Once the children got in—and
that would be child's play for Olivia—they might stay for days,
perhaps weeks, unnoticed.

The park was amply wooded. Temples, follies, ruins,
grottoes, and other hideaways dotted the landscape. A rustic cottage,
used in summer for picnics, hid within a pine bower. A fishing house
stood at the edge of the lake. The extensive grounds had been
designed for entertaining not only the family but large parties of
guests. While Lord Mandeville and his family spent little time in
London, they were by no means unsociable. Moreover, the house was
open to touring visitors on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was all too
easy to enter and all to easy to wander.

The mausoleum was not part of the regular tour, and
visible only from certain areas of the grounds. Though it stood on a
rise in the southwestern part of the park, the surrounding trees
sheltered it from view of the vulgar masses touring the house and
gardens that sprawled over the eastern side of the property.

At present Bathsheba stood a short distance away on
another, slightly higher rise, with Rathbourne and Lord Northwick.
They were gathered in front of the New Lodge, a structure dating
back, Northwick said, to Elizabethan times.

Thomas was at the mausoleum, studying the terrain. He
was easy to see at present. As Northwick had promised, this was the
best vantage point for observing his ancestors' resting place. From
here she had a fine view of the place, a Roman temple adorned with
finials and elaborate carving. A short, wide flight of steps led to a
portico supported by Corinthian columns. A wide lane led down to the
bottom of the rise, then branched into narrower pathways. One of
these led up to the New Lodge, circled it, and went down the rise
another way. Another followed the contours of the lower part of the
hill. From this, others led into the wooded slopes and down to the
pathway that circled the lake.

"The mausoleum is relatively new," Lord
Northwick was saying. "Building began a few years after Edmund
DeLucey changed professions. My grandfather—his brother
William—often stayed here, to keep an eye on the builders, he
said."

"It would make a fine spot for a secret rendezvous,
I notice," said Rathbourne. "Did your grandfather meet a
lover here or was it his black sheep brother?"

Northwick lifted his eyebrows.

"Rathbourne is a sort of detective," Bathsheba
said. "He is an expert on the criminal mind."

"Do not tease Lord Northwick," Rathbourne
said. "You know perfectly well I did not refer to criminal
behavior."

"You seem to read my mind well enough," she
said.

'That is because you are transparent," he said.

She turned away, her face too warm.

"I merely observed the location," Rathbourne's
deep voice continued behind her. "It is well out of view of the
main house and outbuildings. I considered that William was the eldest
son. I, too, am the eldest, and have been trained since childhood to
protect my younger siblings. Perhaps it is like Mrs. Wingate's
maternal instinct, which is not always connected to logic. I merely
supposed that William acted under a similar sense of fraternal
affection or obligation."

"I had heard you were prodigious clever," said
Northwick. "You suppose right. My grandmother always believed
that William did meet with Edmund here. She said it was to lend
Edmund large sums of money, which he never repaid."

'That seems far more likely than Edmund's making
deposits at Throgmorton, as my family likes to imagine,"
Bathsheba said.

"It almost seems a pity to stop the brats,"
Rathbourne said thoughtfully. "I should dearly love to see how
they would go about excavating the place. It would certainly be good
practice for Peregrine." He'd already told Northwick of
Peregrine's Egyptian ambitions.

"I must confess that I grow curious, too,"
said Northwick. "If it would not send my father into an
apoplexy, I should indulge them. I should dearly love to know what
they propose to dig with. But one must then have people on watch to
make sure they did not bring any finials down on their heads or
tumble down the steps. Yesterday I noticed some crumbling stone that
needs to be attended to. That is not the only problem at
Throgmorton."

"There are always problems," Rathbourne said.
"No matter how diligent the estate manager, he is obliged to
postpone work here in order to do it there. The supply of workers is
not unlimited. One must accommodate the weather. Only so much can be
done."

"You have some experience of managing an estate, I
see," said Lord Northwick.

Rathbourne smiled faintly. "I was not allowed to be
idle. My father taught me farming at an early age."

"Then you understand my concerns," said Lord
Northwick. "Accidents will happen, no matter what precautions
one takes. The trouble is, young people are not notably cautious.
When they keep to the paths, in daytime, they ought to be quite safe.
But I have visions of these two skulking about at night, a prospect
that makes my blood run cold."

"Did you never skulk about at night, in your youth,
Lord Northwick?" said Rathbourne.

Bathsheba glanced back at him. He was not smiling, but
she heard the smile in his voice.

"Yes, and that is why I am so uneasy," said
Northwick. "I have told the groundskeepers to keep the dogs
leashed. I have warned everyone to exercise caution. Yet if one is
suddenly awakened at night, it is all too easy to act first and think
later."

The warnings were part of the "press of duty"
that had kept him from meeting with Bathsheba and Rathbourne until
today. Lord Northwick had immediately begun alerting his staff, the
local constables, and just about everyone else in the vicinity. He'd
even sent messages to the tollgate keepers around Bristol.

"You have taken every possible precaution,"
Rathbourne said. "Already I breathe easier."

"Though I hope Lord Lisle has better sense than to
attempt to enter a property at night, I shall put someone to watch
the mausoleum after dark," said Northwick. "That way you
might get some rest. You should find everything in readiness within."
He nodded toward the lodge. "A servant will bring your dinner
while the rest of us are occupied at table. Is your footman
sufficient for your needs, or shall I send one of my staff to assist
him?"