Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 03] (22 page)

The old lady’s eyes narrowed but there was amusement, not displeasure, in her expression. “I suspect, you have no interest in the earlier journals, miss, merely in the ones beginning before, oh, let us say sixty or so years ago?”

Daintry could feel warmth in her cheeks but she said firmly, “I would be honored if you would let me begin at the beginning and read every single one, Aunt Ophelia, but I will not conceal from you the fact that I hope to find a clue to the roots of that ridiculous feud somewhere within them.”

“You won’t do it,” Lady Ophelia said flatly. “How can there be a clue when I never knew the least thing about it? Men do not confide in their wives, let alone in the women they only hoped to wed. Whatever it was that set those two at odds, it was nothing that they confided to me.

“But still, Aunt, I might learn something about the men themselves, don’t you think? You must have written down your impressions of them.”

“Oh, yes, I am quite sure to have done that,” Lady Ophelia said, chuckling. “Nincompoops, the both of them.” She hesitated, then said, “My journals are reservoirs of my private thoughts, you know. I never meant them to be made public.”

“Nor would I do such a thing,” Daintry said indignantly. “You know I would not. I do understand that I am asking leave to invade your privacy, ma’am. Pray, if you do not like it, say no more. I shall not take offense.”

She meant it, but when her great-aunt made no effort to continue the conversation, she found it difficult not to demand to know if she did not trust her. Later she was glad she had held her tongue, however, for that evening when she was preparing for bed, Lady Ophelia came to her, wrapped in a flowing robe of sky blue wool, and carrying two slim volumes beneath her arm.

“These are my journals for the year of my come-out and the one following it, the years I first came to know Lord Thomas Deverill and your grandfather. As you will see, they figured no more prominently than a dozen other gentlemen. I was,” she added, lifting her chin, “rather a popular young woman.”

“I do not doubt it, ma’am.”

“Well, it was due only to my vast inheritance, I can tell you, for I doubt I ever met a new acquaintance without hearing the amount whispered by someone nearby, and I know for a fact that there were wagers made in the London gentlemen’s clubs on a weekly basis, as to whom I would choose. But, thanks to Papa and Sir Lionel Werring, I fooled them all,” she said placidly. “Your grandfather thought Papa was crazy, for he could never believe any woman capable of managing her own money. He coveted it in the worst way and was always giving me advice that I did not want or need. Years later, of course, he saw that it would be far easier for him—or for his son, I suppose—to manage your mama.”

Lady Ophelia did not linger, and Daintry, shooing Nance out the door as soon as she was dressed for bed, opened the first volume. But within an hour, she had come to the conclusion that her great-aunt was right. The journals would be of little help in her quest for information about the feud.

The writing was detailed, but its focus was not the social world or even the personalities of people her aunt had met. The journals had formed an outlet instead for her feelings about a society that wanted its women to be silent and decorative, and that denied them even the simplest of the rights it granted to men. There were frequent references to novels written by women of the mid-eighteenth century, novels that Daintry knew were scarcely ever read by young women of the present day.

She had read most of the books, though had her father ever read them, he would have forbidden her to do so. Their heroines did not behave in the manner now expected of a young lady of quality. Closing the first journal and blowing out her candle, she lay back against her pillows and tried to imagine Eliza Haywood’s once famous heroine, Miss Betsy Thoughtless, stepping across the threshold at Almack’s or being accepted by members of the
beau monde
into their homes.

She failed, for despite the fact that Betsy had been shown the error of her thoughtless ways and, after many adventures, had married Mr. Trueworth, Miss Haywood’s boldly expressed views of such sexual and social concerns as abortion, divorce, and marriage laws, not to mention the double standards governing men’s and women’s behavior, simply did not bear discussion in most polite gatherings of the present day. Indeed, as Daintry knew well, the so-called polite behavior of even
twenty
years before—when men and women had been more outspoken than they were now—was now thought to have been remarkably uncivil.

It took her nearly a week, reading whenever she found time to do so—frequently in a small unused back parlor, so as to remain undisturbed—to finish the two volumes and learn that although the particular information she sought was not there, Lady Ophelia had described the two gentlemen, albeit briefly, in just the manner one might have expected. Deverill’s grandfather she had liked well enough, while deploring his politics. He was a follower of Tobias Smollett, who believed in retaining a strong monarchy, undermining Parliament, and using citizens like pawns in a chess game. According to Lady Ophelia, Tom Deverill, while professing to love her, had seen himself as a monarch and her as a woman to be mastered. Daintry decided that if old Deverill had truly been the man her great-aunt described, he must certainly have been infatuated ever to have considered marrying her.

She wondered if the present Deverill saw her in the same way his grandfather had seen Lady Ophelia. Remembering that he had said she needed breaking to bridle, she rather thought that was the case, though she doubted that he was infatuated with her.

Lady Ophelia had dismissed the fourth Earl of St. Merryn even more flatly as a man who cared only for money, who counted her dowry in his mind as he prated sweet nothings in her ear. From the succinct notations of the social events she had attended, Daintry realized her great-aunt had been extremely active during both London Seasons covered by the journals, but since she had hoped to read lovely gossipy bits about the famous people of that time, she was sadly disappointed.

Closing the second volume at last and setting it aside, she wondered if there was any point in reading another, and decided there was not. Her time would be better spent, she decided, attempting to compile a list of those persons most likely to know anything about the feud, whom she might question. Nance entered the little parlor while she was considering these possibilities.

“Miss Charley is looking for you, my lady.”

Daintry smiled. “And, being Charley, I suppose she has got every servant in the house searching high and low for me.”

Nance chuckled. “That she has. Says she has leave from that new governess of hers and wants to ride over to Seacourt Head to visit Miss Melissa, and she’s that certain you will go that she’s already ordered the horses saddled. Shall I go up with you to fetch out your habit?”

“Yes, please,” Daintry said, getting up and putting away her list, “but first, tell me something, Nance. Do you know anyone hereabouts who might remember the beginnings of the feud between the Tarrants and the Deverills? About sixty years ago, I think.”

Nance frowned. “Before my time, that was, but my old granny might recall the Tarrant side. She were a housemaid here at the time, and what Granny Popple knows about this family would fill volumes, did she know how to write it all down. Not that she would ever do such a thing, even could she write her letters,” Nance added hastily. “Knows her place, does Granny.”

Nodding, Daintry gathered her things and preceded Nance to her bedchamber, where she found Charley waiting. Smiling at the child, she said, “Are you not supposed to be with Miss Parish, studying your lessons?” The new governess, a vast improvement on the old one in Daintry’s opinion, had arrived at Tuscombe Park during their absence, and seemed to have settled in nicely.

“Miss Parish said Aunt Ophelia wished to discuss my lessons with her, and gave me leave to go riding. Of course,” she added with a calculating gleam in her eyes, “I did not tell her I mean to ride to Seacourt Head.”

“Nor shall you do so,” Daintry said, turning so Nance could undo her buttons.

“But I told Melissa I would ride over frequently, and I’ve not been over once since she went home! Please, Aunt Daintry.”

“No, and there is no use in widening your eyes at me, for I am not to be won over by such tactics. You may ride with me to visit Granny Popple in the village.”

Nance said, “She is not in the village, my lady. She’s gone to stay with my sister Annie on the moor, at Warleggan Farm.”

Daintry nodded. She knew Annie’s husband, Feok Warleggan, for he was one of her father’s tenants. “Is your granny ill?”

Nance laughed, helping her into her habit skirt. “No, miss, she’s meddling, is all. Feok has a brother, and Granny’s took it into her head that he’d make me a fine husband if he gets hired on at the mine again. But I’ve no use for Dewy Warleggan, though I do have to be civil to him now if I’m to visit Granny. He’s in a fidget because he’s got to work the farm now, but he ought to be grateful he’s got any job at all, to my way of thinking.”

Charley said, “I’d rather visit Melissa. May I not go alone, Aunt Daintry? I am quite old enough to ride a mere seven miles by myself—with my groom, of course.”

“I said no,” Daintry said, looking at her in such a way that the child grimaced again and sighed in defeat. “Will you ride with me, or do you prefer to return to the schoolroom?”

“With you, of course, only don’t let Granny Popple pinch my cheek and tell me how plump I am getting. I am not fat, and she makes me think of a witch testing a child for the oven.”

Nance said, “That will be enough of your sauce now, Miss Charley. My granny never was no witch, and she’d not thank you to be going about saying she were one.”

“Good gracious, no,” Daintry said, laughing. “You mind that impudent tongue of yours, or we’ll have Feok Warleggan throwing us right off his farm.”

“As if he would,” Charley and Nance said in unison. They looked at each other then and laughed, and Daintry, shaking her head at both of them, shooed her niece out the door, following as soon as she had snatched up her whip and hat from the dressing table. She and Charley found Clemons waiting with the horses, and were soon on their way, the groom following placidly behind.

Three-quarters of an hour later, they arrived at the farm cottage, a haphazardly built, two-story building of whitewashed cob with a thatched roof. As they approached the front door, Annie, as buxom and rosy-cheeked as her sister, opened it with a beaming smile, and bobbed a curtsy. “Saw you from the kitchen winder my lady. Good day to you, Miss Charley. You’ll be stepping into the hale, you will, and I’ll be fetching me granny, for she’ll not want to miss bidding you a good day.”

“It is Granny Popple we have come to see,” Daintry said, following Annie into the tiny hale, or parlor. The room was used only on very special occasions, and it smelled of soap and beeswax. The furniture consisted of three painted wooden chairs against the whitewashed cob walls, a large table kept beautifully clean by constant scouring, and a corner-cupboard with a glass door, containing numerous knickknacks. A pair of china spaniels and two brass candlesticks decked the mantelpiece.

They were not left long to wait before Granny Popple, a wizened little woman with eyes that looked like tiny polished lumps of coal, came in hobbling on her stick and pulling her shawl more tightly around her scrawny shoulders.

“Greetings to ye, my lady,” she said. “Chilly in here. Ought to light the fire, Annie.”

Daintry, knowing that turf for the fires had to be cut out on the moor and hauled to the house, said quickly, “That is not necessary, Mrs. Popple. We are not chilly, I assure you.”

“Bless ye, lass, ’twarn’t you I were thinking of. These old bones o’ mine need a fire to keep ’em warm.”

Annie smiled and said, “We can light the fire, Granny.”

Charley said, “May we go into the kitchen instead, Annie? I like your kitchen.” Looking at Daintry, she said, “Remember the last time we came here, when Annie gave us saffron cakes?”

Annie laughed and said, “Come you in, lassie. The kitchen is where we entertain our closest friends, after all.”

The kitchen, much larger and more comfortable than the parlor, was clearly the real living room of the house. Its ceiling was low with dark oak beams, and strips of wood had been nailed to them to make a sort of rack overhead where Annie’s herbs were stored along with all sorts of other odds’ and ends.

While Annie laid out a comfortable snack of saffron cakes and tea, Daintry explained the reason for their visit.

“Don’t know nothing about that old feud,” Granny said flatly. “His lordship’s pa weren’t a man to encourage idle chatter about his personal life, no more than his lordship be.”

“But surely you heard things.”

“We did, but nothing a body could sink her teeth into. We heard he and Lord Thomas had a falling-out over a lady in London, but didn’t nobody know the rights of it, not then nor after.”

Daintry persisted but discovered nothing more, and soon took her leave, though not before the men came in for their dinner at noon. Greeting Warleggan, she found herself looking his younger brother over carefully, trying unsuccessfully to imagine the slim, broody middle-aged man married to her Nance.

As they were riding away, Charley showed that her thoughts had followed the same track. “He is not my notion of a good man for Nance. He is too sullen. Nance laughs all the time.”

“Then Nance would be just the person to cheer him up.”

“Perhaps.” But Charley did not sound convinced. They rode in silence for a time before she spoke again. “Aunt Daintry, we have come at least eight miles today, have we not?”

“We have, but don’t get to thinking that means you can go alone to visit Melissa. Your Uncle Geoffrey would be most displeased, I think, if I were to let you do any such thing.”

The child was silent for a moment, then said rather abruptly, “I don’t like Uncle Geoffrey.”

“Good gracious, darling, why don’t you like him? He has been kind to you, and even brought you a present from London.”