Midnight Star (3 page)

“I wasn’t about to announce to the vicar that your father’s death wasn’t a tragic accident! Indeed, my dear, it was just that. Dr. Ramsay agreed with me. The overdose of laudanum . . .”

“Why, Uncle Paul? Why did he do it?”

His eyes fell to his slight paunch, held in by a stiff-clothed waistcoat. “I had prayed that I would never have to tell you this, Chauncey.”

“I cannot believe that he would take his own life because of a few bad investments!”

“Not just that. It’s a rather involved story, my dear.” He paused a moment, as if collecting his thoughts. He saw the determination on her face, and said quietly, “Very well, Chauncey, if you must know. In the summer of 1851, your father met an American here in London, Delaney Saxton by name. Saxton was looking for investors. It seemed that he was quite wealthy, having made a fortune in gold in California, but he wanted to increase his wealth. He struck a deal with your father. Your father insisted that I and Saxton’s English solicitor, Daniel Boynton, arrange for the
transfer of twenty thousand pounds to Mr. Saxton. I should have realized that your father had mortgaged everything to raise the money, but I didn’t. Boynton and I drew up papers to protect your father’s investment. If the quartz mine, a sure thing according to Saxton, did not produce the amounts of gold he had promised it would, Saxton agreed to sign over partial ownership of another operating gold mine to your father. He showed proof of the gold mine’s profitability. Saxton left England several months later. We heard nothing, absolutely nothing. Your father was growing desperate. Some two months before his death, Saxton’s solicitor informed me that Mr. Saxton had written to tell him that the quartz mine your father had invested in had not produced the gold expected. Saxton then refused to honor the agreement. Your father took it very badly.”

“But that is incredible, Uncle Paul, unbelievable!”

“Not really, my dear. I must admit that I was somewhat skeptical about the entire business, but your father . . .” He shrugged. “He claimed that this Saxton had influential friends here in London. He trusted him.”

“Just who are these influential friends?”

“I don’t know. For some reason, your father refused to tell me who they were. I, of course, wanted to pursue the matter with them, but he insisted he would take care of it.”

“Obviously they refused to help him. What about Saxton’s solicitor, Boynton? Surely he must have known!”

“Again, my dear, I cannot tell you. You see,
poor Boynton died several weeks before your father, of apoplexy.”

Chauncey stared at him blankly. If only, she thought vaguely, if only she had been her father’s son, she would have been allowed to help him. She said slowly, “You sound as if you do not believe there ever was a quartz mine, Uncle Paul. That this was all a swindle.”

“I think it quite likely. I fear we will never know.”

“But what about the law? Why was nothing done about it?” Her voice rose shrilly.

“My dear Chauncey, Delaney Saxton lives in San Francisco, a city in California. It is many thousand miles distant. Believe me, once your father admitted to me that he would lose everything if Saxton weren’t made to honor the agreement, I notified a banker friend of mine in New York City. He made inquiries, but could not discover anything. To continue would have cost a great deal of money. Neither your father nor I had it. There was nothing left, you see.”

Chauncey closed her eyes a moment. Why hadn’t her father confided in her? Didn’t he realize that she would have done anything for him? To take his life because of money . . . to leave her alone, at the mercy of her aunt. She felt a niggling anger at his cowardly behavior, but firmly quashed it. He obviously was not thinking clearly. He obviously assumed that she would wed Guy Danforth. She laughed, a harsh, rasping sound. “And there is still no money,” she gasped. “Not any! And this crook, this abominable villain, Saxton, goes free!”

“Chauncey, my dear, you are overwrought. You
must calm yourself. I was an unthinking fool to have told you!”

She swallowed the rising hysteria. The world had never seemed more bleak than it did at this moment. She said aloud, “And I shall likely become a shop girl, sewing bonnets.” She laughed again. “It is unfortunate, Uncle Paul, but I can’t sew!”

“Chauncey, please. You will remain with your aunt and uncle. You will marry soon. In time, all this will fade, and you will forget. You will see.”

Chauncey stood up, her shoulders squared, her back rigid. “No, Uncle Paul, I won’t forget, ever.”

Paul Montgomery looked at her distraught face. So proud and so helpless. She likely would not forget, but it wouldn’t help her. No, he thought, nothing would help her, ever. He said not another word, merely escorted her from his office.

Chauncey could only stare openmouthed. “This is for me, Aunt Augusta?”

Augusta presented her with a wide, toothy smile. “Of course, my dear Elizabeth. It is your birthday, is it not? All this black you’ve been wearing, well, it’s time for a change. We want to raise your spirits, my dear. I don’t believe your dear father would have wanted you to go about for more than six months in such dismal clothes.”

Chauncey was filled with a sense of unreality as she fingered the lavender silk gown. Aunt Augusta smiling at her? Giving her gifts? The world had taken a faulty turn! She stared blindly about her aunt’s drawing room with its ponderous dark furniture, heavy fringed draperies, and the endless supply of bric-a-brac that filled every nook and cranny. “Such a scourge to dust all those things!” she could hear Mary saying.

“You will look very beautiful, cousin,” Owen
said, moving toward her. “Though you are lovely just as you are.”

Chauncey raised her eyes to Owen’s face. He was gazing at her with the most sincere of expressions. But he is lying, she realized. He dislikes me heartily!

Uncle Alfred cleared his throat, but at a look from his wife, he kept silent.

“Dear Elizabeth,” Aunt Augusta said slowly, “I realize that the past six months have not been particularly . . . pleasant for you. Your poor father’s death came as a dreadful shock. I will be honest with you, Elizabeth. Your uncle and I were taken aback that Alec had left you penniless. It was our own shock and disappointment, I suppose, that made us behave so unfairly. I can only say that we had been undergoing some financial problems and that quite turned our heads and our hearts. You are such a sweet girl. I pray you will find it in your heart to forgive us.” Aunt Augusta smiled at her and gave her a gentle, affectionate hug.

Chauncey allowed herself to be hugged, and for an instant, warmth flowed through her. To be wanted, to belong again. It was all a mistake. They did care about her, they did want her to be happy.

Uncle Alfred cleared his throat again. “Elizabeth, my dear, we plan to celebrate your birthday this evening. A festive dinner and a play. Does that please you?”

“Yes, yes, of course, Uncle Alfred,” she managed to say.

“Why do you not change, Elizabeth,” Aunt Augusta said. “I have assigned Mary to you as your
personal maid. I know you believed we had dismissed her after your little . . . excursion last week, but we soon realized how very fond of her you are. She is waiting in your room to assist you.”

Chauncey’s feeling of unreality grew. The soft shimmering gown seemed as insubstantial as what had just occurred. “Thank you,” she murmured, and left the salon in a daze.

Mary was waiting for her, just as Aunt Augusta had said.

“I don’t understand it either, miss,” Mary said, reading her thoughts exactly as she helped Chauncey remove the hated black wool gown. “When the agency told me I was to return here, I nearly swallowed my tongue! Turned off and without a reference, I was, and all because I tried to help you pay a visit to that solicitor of your father’s without that old prune knowing about it!” Mary shook her head. “Of course, that miserable squealer Cranke found out and told her ladyship! Such a scene she made with me! A regular sharp-tongued fishwife, that one!”

Chauncey shivered, remembering her own scene with her aunt upon her return from Uncle Paul’s office. She had been treated like a pariah until today, her birthday. Not that she had been particularly aware of it, for her mind had been in a tangle of confusion. No, she amended to herself, not confusion really, rather a cold numbness that had turned to blinding hatred for the man who had swindled her father and caused him to kill himself. She had understood everything Paul Montgomery told her, everything. And she felt so bloody helpless! Delaney Saxton was
thousands of miles away and here she was, stuck in London, without a farthing to her name. She became aware that Mary was looking at her expectantly, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember if Mary had asked her a question. “I’m sorry, Mary, I wasn’t attending. All of this”—she waved her hand toward the lovely gown—“all of this is such a shock! Aunt Augusta apologized to me. Indeed, she even hugged me. I do not know what to believe. It is all such a mystery.”

“Indeed it is, miss. Mind you, I believe in Christian charity, and how it should begin at home, but in this house? Oh, I’m not blind by any means, and I’ve seen well enough how they’ve treated you these last six months. They must want something. Aye, that’s it. They want something. Sit down, miss, and I’ll fix your hair before you put the gown on.”

Chauncey sat on the brocade-covered stool in front of her dressing table. “Mary,” she said after a moment, meeting her maid’s eyes in the mirror, “what could I possibly have that they would want? It makes no sense.”
What I really want is to believe them, to believe that they want me.
“A cat remains a cat,” Hannah, her old nurse, used to say. “They’re unaccountable creatures, and pet them as much as you like, and listen to them purr, they still never change. No, never.”

Mary brushed a heavy tress of hair, curled it deftly about her hand, then pinned it on top of Chauncey’s head. “Lovely hair you have, miss. Every time I think I know the color, you stand in a different light and I’ll see some red or copper or some brown. And so thick it is! Madam Prune Face must hate to see you next to her
pudding-faced daughters! As I said, miss, I don’t understand it, but I fancy you’ll discover their motives soon enough.”

“You don’t believe then that they have perhaps . . . changed?”
Please, Mary, say that it is possible!

“Do oranges grow in London? I doubt it, miss. Now, stand up and let’s see how you look in this gown. It’s from Madam’s own modiste too. I heard her dresser, Broome, say that it was fetched early this afternoon. Some other lady had ordered it and not paid for it. Lucky it fits you, miss.”

The soft lavender silk caressed her shoulders, and a torrent of finely stitched lace spilled over her bosom. The gown fit her well enough. For a moment she felt like the Chauncey of a year ago, twirling about her father’s library in a new gown, laughing when he assured her that she would break all the masculine hearts in Surrey.

“ ’Tis lovely you are,” Mary said, twitching an errant fold into place. “You watch out for that Master Owen, miss. So smooth and handsome he is, but he’s a terror, that one! Cook told me last year that he’d tried to ravish one of the young housemaids, and in the water closet, of all places! Madam turned her off, of course.” Mary shrugged philosophically. “It’s the way of the world, I guess.”

Mary sees things more clearly than I. I must stop being blind and seeing what it is I wish to see. I must grow up and stop being a gullible fool.
“Do you know, Mary,” Chauncey said, only a touch of bitterness in her voice as she slipped on the new
pair of white gloves, “I think there must be something to that saying that you win more bees with honey. I think I shall be drippingly sweet tonight!”

Mary snorted. “Just see to it, miss, that you aren’t the honeypot, and the bee stings you good and proper!”

Owen, Chauncey decided after but a fifteen-minute carriage ride, was definitely the bee. His new, very proper behavior stunned her, and it was all she could do to keep the niggling fear deep within her. He complimented her profusely, and listened to everything she uttered, which wasn’t very much, with flattering attention. Evidently it was no longer his intention to trap her on the stairs. Her smile never faded. By the time the carriage arrived at the Russell on Albion Street, her jaw muscles ached.

“Ah, my dear,” Uncle Alfred said, once they were seated around a charming white-lace-covered table, “you are the loveliest young lady present this evening. I see gentlemen already looking at Owen with envy. We will order champagne, of course, for your birthday, won’t we, love? Ah yes, it is indeed a day to celebrate. Twenty-one. A marvelous age. One has all of one’s life ahead of him . . . or her. You are most lucky, Elizabeth. You live with a loving family—”

“I believe I shall order the roast beef,” Aunt Augusta announced, cutting off the effusions of her perspiring spouse. “You, Elizabeth, though you are as lovely as your uncle says, are a bit thin. You must order whatever you wish, my dear.”

Why cannot I trust you? Why cannot I believe what you say?

“Thank you, Aunt Augusta,” Chancey said aloud.

“I have been thinking, Elizabeth,” her aunt continued, “that you should begin meeting with Cook. You were in charge of your poor father’s household for several years, and I do not want your skills to grow rusty with disuse. You will, of course, tell Cook to prepare whatever meals appeal to you. I am certain your taste is excellent.”

“I should enjoy eating whatever Elizabeth chooses,” Owen said.

“Yes, well, it is decided then. Now, Alfred, where is our waiter?”

Chauncey started to tell her uncle to order for her, but stopped herself. No, she thought, stiffening her back, it is time that I am responsible for myself. She ordered what she thought to be the most expensive items on the Russell menu. At least she hoped, somewhat maliciously, that they were the dearest.

Owen’s rather pale complexion grew florid as he downed his fourth glass of champagne. Chauncey swallowed a giggle, for Aunt Augusta was shooting him dagger glances.

Over a delicious dessert of blancmange and cream, Aunt Augusta leaned over and patted Chauncey’s gloved hand. “My dear,” she said sincerely, “I think it just as well that you did not wed Sir Guy Danforth. He likely would not have made you happy. You would likely prefer a more . . . gentle, yet sophisticated gentleman, one who is not so many years your senior. I believe, Owen, that you have consumed enough champagne.”
Aunt Augusta gave a snorting laugh. “It is not, after all, your birthday, my dear boy.”

Owen bestowed a lavish smile upon Chauncey. “Quite right, Mother. I fear I got carried away.”

Why do I want to burst into laughter? Chauncey wondered. Even Owen, the toad, is amusing. Her thoughts turned again, unwittingly, to her father and to the villain who had murdered him as surely as if he had laced her father’s wine with laudanum. She shuddered with reaction. If I hate him, she thought with sudden insight, I will destroy myself. But how, she wondered, her jaw tightening, could she simply forget? And now this . . . mystery.

Uncle Alfred yawned delicately behind his hand. “Do you know, my dear,” he said to his wife, “I believe I grow too old for all this jollity. Why don’t you and I return to Heath House and let the young people go to the play by themselves?”

“My, what an excellent suggestion, Alfred.”

In a pig’s eye!

“What do you say, Elizabeth?” Owen said, dropping his voice to what he must have thought to be an intimate caress. “I will take good care of you. We will see
Romeo and Juliet.”
He gave her a grin fraught with meaning. “Of course, we aren’t faced with their problems!”

We
? My Lord, Chauncey thought, it is as I suspected. She saw the benign looks on her aunt’s and uncle’s faces. They want me to go with Owen! But why? It hadn’t been too long ago that Aunt Augusta accused her of trying to trap her dear Owen into marriage. It was too much. Hannah had always accused her charge of tempting fate
with her willful curiosity. But what was life without just a bit of risk? She had no doubts that she could handle Owen.

Chauncey very carefully placed her napkin beside her plate, folding it into a small square. She raised her head and flashed a wide smile to the three people looking at her. “Do you know,” she said in a guilelessly innocent voice, “I should much like to see the play. It is so sweet of you to invite me, Owen. Are you certain that you don’t mind, Aunt Augusta?”
I shall be as devious as the three of you!

“Not at all, my dear. I . . . your uncle and I want you to be happy and enjoy yourself. You may be certain that dear Owen will see to your every comfort.”

“Oh yes, Elizabeth, I shall, I promise you.”

The play was dreadful. The actors gesticulated wildly while they declaimed their lines to an increasingly restless crowd, and poor Romeo was at least forty years old. At least she wasn’t bored, Chauncey thought, her lips thinning, for Owen had managed to brush his thigh against her several times. At the intermission, Chauncey allowed Owen to escort her to the large downstairs foyer for refreshments.

“May I have a glass of lemonade, please, Owen?” she asked.

“Your wish, my dear Elizabeth,” he said, and gave her a flourishing bow.

When he returned with her glass, Elizabeth thanked him softly and began to sip the lemonade. She eyed him speculatively over the rim of her glass and said, “I fear the lemonade is too
sour. Would you mind returning it, Owen, and getting me another glass?”

She wanted to laugh aloud at the brief look of anger that narrowed his eyes. It was gone quickly, to be replaced by what Owen must have believed to be a seductive, loving look, but Chauncey knew she hadn’t imagined it. So, my dear toad, she thought as she watched him wend his way through the crowd back toward the refreshment tables, your mother is making you dance attendance on me.

When Owen handed her a new glass of lemonade, Chauncey took a small sip and handed the glass back to him. “Do you know, Owen, I fear I have developed a headache. Would you please see me home now?”

Such a pity, she thought, that the play wasn’t a marvelous production, one that Owen would have liked to see to the end. As it was, her limpid request did not elicit more than a loving nod and a look of concern from him.