The Birth of Blue Satan (13 page)

Gideon picked up his tricorn hat from the chair where he had laid it and started to bow himself out.

Mrs. Kean reached out to stop him. “My lord, if I could be of assistance—perhaps it would help you to hear what is being said?”

A rush of sparkling relief filled his lungs. “If you would do that, Mrs. Kean, you cannot imagine how grateful I would be.”

Obeying her gesture, he threw his hat back down and drew a cane-backed chair to face hers. “Please, tell me, Mrs. Kean.”

He leaned forward, the better to look into her eyes. All he found there was truth and kindness.

“I am afraid I have heard that two of your father’s servants have been questioned repeatedly about the events of that day. One—a groom, I believe—told Sir Joshua that you returned from Rotherham Abbey in a disheveled state, and with a painful expression, as if you might have been injured.”

Gideon grimaced, and she could feel his exasperation. “I have heard something to that effect. Sir Joshua seems to believe my father wounded
me
when I sneaked back into my own house to attack him, and that I managed to conceal my wound and my blood until my cut miraculously opened up on the ballroom floor. Besides the fact that I would have had to ride seventy miles thus injured, it sounds like the final denouement in a tragedy, don’t you agree? I find it impossible to believe Sir Joshua would listen to one discontented servant when all the rest are ready to swear I was attacked in the street.”

“Perhaps it
is
their very willingness that keeps Sir Joshua from wanting to believe those men, my lord.”

He stared. “You mean that he finds a servant more credible who hates his master, even if he lies?”

She nodded unhappily. “If—as you say—the magistrate is biased, and more interested in finding your lordship guilty, he can use such an argument to justify his blindness.”

“True. Go on. Who else among my father’s staff hates me?”

She glanced at her tightened hands, less willing to discuss the next. “Your father’s receiver-general—a Mr. Henry I believe—is said to have related the details of the argument you had with your father. It is rumoured that certain threats were exchanged.”

Gideon shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “There was an argument. I said as much when they came to inform me. I was angry but so was he. My father made some unfortunate remarks I could not overlook.”

She met his next glance with an anxious stare. “I can easily believe that he did, my lord, but what was said has done nothing to help your case. It is believed to have given you a motive for wishing your father’s death.”

“Does your cousin know of this?” he asked, chagrined.

She nodded. “I am afraid that everyone knows it, my lord. As far as I can tell, there has been no attempt to guard your lordship’s privacy.”

“
Damnation!”
Gideon clenched his teeth. “Is Isabella to suffer for my infernal temper? How dare James Henry eavesdrop on a private conversation?”

Then, aware that he had let his temper provoke him to an offensive outburst, he begged Mrs. Kean’s forgiveness.

“Not at all, my lord. It is quite understandable that you should wish to swear. I have sometimes felt the need myself and wished I had the freedom of a gentleman.”

That made him laugh. “If we should ever find ourselves alone again then, Mrs. Kean, and you should feel the need to swear, I will engage not to be offended either.” The smile on his face turned rueful. “Now I can understand why Mrs. Mayfield keeps Isabella from seeing me.”

She hesitated. “There is more to it than that, my lord. In her partiality for Isabella, my aunt finds it easy to convince herself that a gentleman might be willing to do murder to have her. She goes so far as to spread that notion, I’m afraid.

“I am sure,” she added dryly, “that I have heard her mention a hundred times the violent professions of love Isabella has received from any number of gentlemen.”

Gideon felt a flash of pain. And he saw her regret for the words she had let slip. She must know that he had come today to try to secure Isabella’s pledge.

The sound of the constables’ returning, made him sit taller and reach for her hand. He pressed a kiss on its back.

“I must be going. But you have helped me enormously, Mrs. Kean.”

“Have I, my lord?” Standing anxiously, she held on to his fingers, engaging his gaze. “Is there anything I have said that might help you overcome this misfortune?”

“I believe so. I must find out why my father’s agent should wish to cause me trouble.”

They exchanged a quick look, before she added, “I wish you success in answering all your questions, my lord.”

The constables returned, accompanied by Mrs. Mayfield’s butler, who regarded the room’s occupants with an arrogant air. He bowed frostily to my Lord St. Mars.

“Miss Kean,” he said, with no attempt at civility. “Mrs. Mayfield desires you will go to her at once. She has been waiting for your assistance these many minutes, she says, and I am afraid that our mistress is very displeased.”

Gideon felt an instant anger. He could sense Mrs. Kean’s annoyance at being summoned in such a rude manner.

She remained poised, but gave her chin a little lift. He admired her grace.

She started to rise, but he answered for her in a harsh tone he seldom used, “You may tell your mistress that
Mrs
. Kean will join her when we have made our good-byes.”

The servant made an instant bow, much lower than the one he had made on entering the room.

With the butler silenced, Gideon turned back to Mrs. Kean. “Please give your aunt and Mrs. Isabella Mayfield my best regards, with my hope that their indispositions will not long prevent my pleasure in seeing them.”

“I will, my lord.”

As she stood from her curtsey, she seemed to hesitate as if she would add more.

But the constables were looking on, and the butler’s resentment was clearly growing.

“My thanks for your unparalleled kindness, Mrs. Kean.”

She gave him an apologetic smile, and his eyes were drawn to the curve of her lip and to her fine, white teeth. “If there is anything I can do to assist you, I hope you will let me know what that is, my lord.”

Late that night, Hester was alarmed by a visit to her aunt from Sir Joshua Tate. She had been conferring with the cook about the need to pare the extravagance of his menus due to the number of unpaid tradesmen, when the sound of a summons at the front door drew her into the hall. She arrived just in time to hear Sir Joshua ask to speak to Mrs. Mayfield alone on a matter of the strictest urgency. Colley showed him upstairs into the small withdrawing room and went to call his mistress, while Hester followed helplessly.

She passed her aunt on the landing. The eagerness in Mrs. Mayfield’s expression did nothing to reassure her. It was clear that her aunt would do anything to secure Isabella’s fortune no matter what the effect on another person’s life. Hester wondered how Sir Joshua had learned of her aunt’s wish to speak to him, and she determined to try to stop her if she could.

She climbed a few more stairs as if heading for her room. Then, as Colley descended again to his post, she waited and retraced her steps. There was a separate parlour, smaller and behind the withdrawing room. She slipped inside and tiptoed up to the door between them, hoping to hear the two talking. She could not open it without being detected, so she found herself with no choice but the eavesdropper’s undignified pose of ear to keyhole.

As she had feared, little sound made it through the heavy oak door, but by putting her ear against the plate, she was able to pick up her aunt’s tones. Words she had heard so often, she might have invented them herself, began to reach her. “My Isabella . . . all the gentlemen . . . so hot for her”—were all she could hear—those and her aunt’s exaggerated outrage, annoyance, and all the vulgar coyness of which she was so capable.

None of Hester’s usual resourcefulness came to her aid. Short of bursting in and urging Sir Joshua to ignore everything her aunt said, there was no way for her to interfere. And casting herself as a lunatic would only do her harm and be of no service to St. Mars.

She was immeasurably distressed to learn that Sir Joshua would listen to the testimony of a greedy woman. Surely, an honest man would have the gumption to see through her aunt’s obvious machinations. Mrs. Mayfield’s wishes were not proof.

Hester waited until Sir Joshua had gone and her aunt had climbed the stairs to her room, before seeking her own. It would be another sleepless night.

What Time would spare, from Steel receives its date,

And monuments, like men, submit to fate!

Steel could the labour of the Gods destroy

And strike to dust th’imperial towers of Troy;

Steel could the works of mortal pride confound,

And hew triumphal arches to the ground.

This to disclose is all thy guardian can:

Beware of all, but most beware of Man!

CHAPTER 7

Gideon set out for Hawkhurst immediately after their conversation, accompanied by two postilions, four outriders, Sir Joshua’s two constables, and his valet, riding in a separate coach with his baggage. Tom rode Gideon’s favourite horse.

Having never, since achieving the age of eight, suffered himself to be driven in a coach between London and Hawkhurst, he was considerably mortified by the slowness of the journey. The roads in the Weald of Kent were notoriously poor, slick and deep with clay when wet and pitted and rutted when dry. On a horse, he could cover the distance in one day, but he counted himself fortunate that they made it in two by coach. The  stretch of road from Sevenoaks to Tunbridge Wells had recently been turnpiked, else it would have been impassable by carriage at this time of year. The narrow lanes that brought him the rest of the way posed constant hazards to his vehicle. He would have given anything to ride, but he had not yet recouped the strength.

After two miserable days of being tossed about with each turn of the wheels, with a night at an inn on the way, he arrived to find Rotherham Abbey cloaked in a spring rain. A light but steady drizzle soaked the lawn. Carriages filled the drive, nearly obscuring Gideon’s view of the main portal and indicating the presence of visitors. The nobility and gentry for miles around would have come to pay their respects.

As his coach advanced, he saw that the house’s façade had been shrouded in black. Yards of black baize had been draped from every window, and he could see nothing but black through the window of the upstairs room, where his father would lie in state.

Except for the hangings, the Abbey seemed much as usual. The present house had been built during the time of James I, on the site of a former Cistercian abbey that Gideon’s ancestor had been granted at the Dissolution. All that remained of the original buildings was a tumbled set of ruins, the tallest portion being the remnants of the abbey church. A house of enormous proportions, with carved stone windows in prominent bays, had been built upon a neighbouring hill out of abbey stones. The house was a relic of ancient times when the Court of England had wandered from one nobleman’s house to another, when all that could raise one man above the other was the favour of the king.

King James I had often visited Rotherham Abbey, though not so often as to bankrupt his loyal subject upon whom Court appointments and offices had been heaped. Those several honours had been lost in the Civil War. Then, at the Restoration, the chambers had once again been honoured by a visit from a king.

They had been empty now for many years, along with the queen’s chambers in the opposite wing. Gideon’s parents had used the king’s audience chamber for their own.

In spite of its unfashionable character, Gideon loved the Abbey with all his heart. The recollection of what he had to face upstairs in the Great Chamber, however, robbed him of his pleasure in coming home.

His coachman drove up to the central doorway. An outrider had been sent ahead to alert the servants to his coming, and as many of them as could be assembled were awaiting him outside.

Although he had often chafed at his father’s antiquated notions of ceremony, Gideon was grateful for them now, as he faced the scores of familiar servants who had gathered to pay their respects. He paused to speak to each in turn and to receive his condolences, which, for the most part, were sincere. If one or two of the newer servants eyed him askance, he was at least reassured that the ones who knew him well had nothing but sympathy in their gazes.

Then, as he crossed the threshold into the Great Hall, the people inside—his father’s tenants—parted for him, bowing and murmuring words of regret. There were even fewer nervous glances here. If his tenants had heard the rumours of Sir Joshua’s suspicions, they seemed not to have been influenced by them at all.

Inching towards the stairs near the end of the hall, Gideon made his way past the standing suits of armor, and the weapons and beasts’ heads mounted on its walls. He tried to speak to each of his visitors. The traces of their work lingered on them, from the pungent odor of human sweat to the sweeter smell of hay mixed with manure. Those scents reminded him of his childhood among these people, before he had left on his European tour. Their loyalty would be to him now, as would their dependence be on him.