The Stanforth Secrets (30 page)

Chloe looked over at Belinda with understanding and tremendous sympathy.

“Now,” said her grandmother. “About that other letter.”

Chloe was mutinously silent.

“The upstairs maid has it Justin found a letter in your desk and, so the story goes, ‘came over all queer.’ ”

“I am not going to talk about it,” said Chloe with icy clarity. “Not here. Not now. But it is even more urgent that we leave. I want to leave tomorrow.”

“I’ll get the rheumatics again,” said the old lady calmly.

“What?” Chloe stared at her. “It was all a put-on?”

“Well, at my age, a twinge or two is unavoidable, but I thought I’d better make an excuse in case you panicked. I gave that foul-smelling embrocation to the Dowager. Now she has two pots of it. No wonder Belinda has such a reputation as a healer if she always makes stuff like that. Anyone’d get better to avoid it.”

“Grandmama,” said Chloe forcefully, “did you hear what I said? I want to leave tomorrow!”

“Tuesday,” said the Duchess implacably. “Randal!” she called, summoning her grandson. He came over and the old lady said, “Save me from this blasted wench.
You
don’t want to leave tomorrow, do you?”

“Well,” he said, with a glance at Justin. “It depends a bit upon the temperature. But assuming it warms a little, I wouldn’t mind staying another week or two.”

“Getting delicate, are you?” said the Duchess with surprise. “You young people. No stamina.”

Chloe’s gaze had followed Randal’s to Justin. He looked up. She saw the pain in his eyes, and the unwilling suspicion.

She couldn’t endure it. The lighthearted banter of the Duchess and Randal was like an abrasion on her nerves. Chloe stood and walked over to the window, drawing the velvet curtains back a little to look out at the bay. The moon rode high, nearly full, and the rippling waves were silver against the deep.

Someone walked up beside her, and she knew by a shiver of awareness it was Justin. They stood in silence, and a great urge came over her to lean her head upon his shoulder and weep.

“I don’t
want
to believe it,” he said at last, softly.

What could she say to that? A cloud passed over the moon, and all the dancing lights on the tips of the waves were extinguished. She dropped the curtain and turned to him.

“But do you?”

He looked at her, his brown eyes full of pain. “You are so beautiful, and Stephen neglected you. It would not be surprising if you had lovers.”

“I have no morals?”

“Some people would not consider it immoral.”

Chloe fought a shocking urge to violence. She found she would like to score his sun-browned cheek with her nails, like a cat. “I have no loyalty, then, to my country and my king?” she asked desperately.

He hesitated just a moment too long, then said, “I know you would never intentionally do anything against your country.”

Chloe felt a bitterness well up that threatened to choke her. “You think I am merely a fool then,” she said with brittle flippancy. “You are well rid of me, aren’t you? And look, there’s Matthew, come to announce the meal. By all means, let us go and feast!”

Justin watched her walk away, sweetly beautiful in soft creamy white sprigged with pink roses, dark curls nestled at the nape of her long, slender neck. Above the neckline of her gown he could see the beginning of the delicate hollow of her spine.

Why, he wondered with despair, could he not simply have said the words he had intended to say. “That letter is nonsense. It has nothing to do with you. And as for Randal, you are close but not lovers.” Instead, he had found himself unable to lie to her, and now he had surely lost her forever.

And worse still, he had hurt her terribly.

 

 

Chloe was suffering the beginnings of a headache by the time she sat down to dinner. She longed only to retreat to her room at the earliest opportunity, and not emerge until Tuesday. Perhaps
she
would develop the rheumatics.

The conversation was desultory. Only Macy and Randal made any real effort to do their social duty.

“Well,” said Mr. Macy at one point. “Treasure hunt enliven your stay, Ashby?”

Randal smiled slightly. “Turned up a thing or two, I’d say.”

“But no missing will. Knew it all along. Legal men satisfied, Stanforth?”

“I’m sure they will be,” Justin said flatly.

“When I was a girl, at Musterleigh,” said the Dowager Lady Stanforth in stately tones, “we often had treasure hunts. My brother Arnold was very ingenious.”

She sounded so normal, Chloe ventured a question. “In what way, Mama?”

The Dowager seemed to be looking back through the years. “He hid my new satin slippers in the curtains. Pinned them in the middle. I didn’t find them for three days.”

This was such a rational conversation, Chloe really thought she should continue it, but with her headache and general malaise, she simply couldn’t. She looked urgently at Miss Forbes, and that lady began to chat amiably to her charge, not minding if the Dowager suddenly wandered off the subject, or forgot entirely what was going on.

“King’s in a very bad way,” said Mr. Macy, seemingly out of the blue, but everyone could follow his train of thought. The King was reputed to be slipping back into madness. The company discussed the likelihood of the Regency finally coming into effect, and the desirability of it. Macy, a friend of the Prince’s, was all for it. The Duchess was far less so.

“George III has been a good king,” she said firmly. “God willing, his doctors may still bring him back.”

Macy shook his head. “Not this time, Your Grace. Not this time. His daughter’s illness had been the final blow. When the poor Princess Amelia dies—and it cannot be long now—the worst is feared.”

“I must thank you for the
potpourri
, Miss Massinger,” said the Dowager, as if unaware of any other conversation.

“It is no trouble, Lady Stanforth,” said Belinda comfortably.

“Oh, but it must be a great deal of work,” said the older lady as she pushed pork and boiled potatoes around her plate. She seemed to have forgotten what to do with them. “So clever the way you mix it. I only ever used to use roses. . . . What was the name of that rose? Oh dear, my poor memory. Dear Henry planted it, especially for me. . . .”

She sat, frowning, wandering through the wasteland of her memory.

The Duchess spoke up to fill the silence. “I have a lovely wall of red roses at the Towers. When we were married, the Duke had his gardener create a new one for me called Lady Beth. It took years to produce just the bloom he wanted, and dear Clarence did not want it ever to grow anywhere other than at the Towers. He was, I’m afraid, a very possessive man. Since he died, I have given cuttings away quite frequently, whenever I encounter another Elizabeth whom I like. You should plant something, Chloe. There is a satisfaction in seeing a growing thing for which you are responsible.”

“Surely that is what children are, Grandmama,” said Chloe dully. She would doubtless never have children now. Having lost Justin, she would never marry.

“Plants are a great deal more reliable,” said the old lady tartly, and Belinda laughed.

“They are also more controllable,” the young woman said with unusual dryness.

“Devoniensis!” exploded the Dowager triumphantly. “A beautiful perfume, and quite unmistakable. You have it in the
potpourri
you brought to my room today, girl. Devoniensis. So clever. The blend you use is most unusual. You must tell me sometime why you include what you do. . . .” Her voice trailed into uncertainty and she looked around. “Vegetables,” she said.

Chloe wondered if the Dowager thought she was sitting at table with a group of elegantly dressed cabbages. She looked meaningfully at Miss Forbes.

“Did you want more beans, Sophronia?” asked that lady anxiously.

“Beans?” The Dowager studied the long slivers of scarlet runners. “You wouldn’t think they’d have a perfume, now would you?”

“They taste very good,” said the companion desperately.

The Dowager looked at Miss Forbes. “What has that to do with it?” The old lady peered around the table. Chloe saw, with a pang, the remnants of the Dowager’s normal self realize she wasn’t being rational, that she was talking nonsense. Her mother-in-law stood with a sigh. “I am afraid I feel very tired,” she said with dignity. “I will take dessert in my room.”

It was a creditable exit, except for her voice floating back. “Did the King leave, Amy? I didn’t notice. . . .”

Randal moved adroitly to fill the silence. “Did you hear about the time old Grivenham fell asleep in front of the Prince. . . .”

When the ladies retired, Chloe thought to escape, but the Duchess took hold of her arm. “Oh no you don’t,” she said. “Ashbys never run.”

“Grandmama, I have a headache.”

“Play some Bach. It’ll do you more good than a powder.”

So Chloe sat at the pianoforte and desperately played Bach, while the Duchess and Belinda sipped tea and conversed. Since discovering Belinda’s ability at cards, the Duchess had been more kindly disposed to the young woman.

Playing familiar pieces gave Chloe time to think. She shied away from thinking about Justin. She knew she should work on the puzzle of the missing papers, but it all seemed unimportant now.

She let her fingers trail to a stop, and no one seemed to notice. She found she was resting her aching head on her hand. This was ridiculous. Then she heard the approach of the gentlemen. No. She wouldn’t. Her grandmother could go to hell.

She stood sharply. “You must excuse me,” she said. “I am not well.”

She reached the door just as Justin opened it. She sailed through without a word, the gentlemen parting before her. She thought she might have heard his voice saying her name, but if so, she ignored it.

I
N HER BED, the headache was no better, but she had a feeling of security, and time for thought.

It would appear she could never hope to gain a reputation for integrity. Even the man who claimed to love her thought her either wicked or foolish. She found she had the sheets clenched tight in her hands. God damn him for not having faith in her.

Now, however, with a cooler head she could see it was jealousy which tormented him. She knew there could have been a profusion of evidence of treason all around her room, and he would have laughed it off. It was the evidence of her having loved other men which had driven him insane. “Jealousy is the greatest of all evils.” Who had said that? La Rochefoucauld. But then the local people had a saying, “There’s no love without jealousy.”

How would she have felt if she had found a perfumed letter treasured in his room? She imagined it.
“I long for you, my darling Justin, for your kisses and the murmur of your beloved voice in the night, for your hand in mine and the feel of you . . .”
She broke off what she realized was a letter composed from her own desires.

How would she have felt if she had found him in Belinda’s arms, no matter how innocent it all appeared?

Chloe suddenly realized how much she loved Justin. How right he had been to be irritated with her for pretending it was all academic—a matter to be considered and contemplated—when such a flame was burning between them. With disgust at her own stupidity and complacency, she realized she had been playing like a child secure in the knowledge of a parent’s love. Now that his love had gone, she realized how much she valued it.

Had it gone? Not completely, but it was dreadfully strained. What should she do?

The only thing that would mend matters would be to find those papers and discover who had put the letter and the handkerchief in her room. Their only purpose, she now saw, was to distract herself and Justin so the villain would have time to find the papers without competition. Her headache fled, and her mind felt as clear as crystal.

Probably the culprit hoped Justin would actually fight Randal over the handkerchief. That whole brouhaha would have kept everyone busy for days. Even now, she knew, Justin wasn’t putting his mind to the problem.

Who could have authored such a plan? Belinda? Matthew? Could he write French? Macy? Miss Forbes?

Chloe was suddenly distracted by curiosity as to what was going on right now. She had heard Belinda come up a little while ago. It was likely that the Duchess had retired. If the men were still downstairs, would Randal and Justin end up in a fight? Justin was mad with jealousy, and, though Randal had a cool head, if he realized just how deep and unpleasant Justin’s suspicions were, he might well lose control of himself. She imagined them even now in the garden, facing each other over long lethal pistols. Randal was a dead shot. She’d seen him shoot the flame off a candle without touching the wax.

She was out of bed, struggling into her robe, and halfway down the stairs before she thought how peculiar this was going to look. She froze at the sound of voices. Then relaxed.