Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 03] (44 page)

Gideon had not been able to leave London at once, because there were matters of business to discuss with Jervaulx before he could do so; however, he did not dawdle on the way, for he was anxious to take up his new duties. Kibworth and Shalton rode with the baggage, but so anxious were they to prevent his being forced to look after himself for so much as an hour at a posting inn, that their coach rattled along at nearly the same pace as the phaeton that Gideon drove, accompanied by his groom.

Kibworth and Shalton seemed to have reached an understanding after his injury, through sharing the self-imposed hours of care, and although each was still jealous of the other, their attitudes were so extremely polite that after traveling for days with them, he was only too glad to see Deverill Court again.

None of the house servants at the Court had traveled to London, so everything was in readiness for him, for the simple reason that it was always kept so for Jervaulx. The marquess rarely bothered to send word when he might be expected, and consequently, Gideon was able to sit down to a delicious supper upon his arrival, and to get straight to work the following day.

First he sent for Barton to explain that he was assuming control of the estate at Jervaulx’s request.

“And about time, sir, if I may take the liberty to say so,” the steward declared. “I’ve the books right here. There seems to be a bit of a ruckus betwixt the Sanderson lot over to Mulberry Mines and that group of tenants on the eastern bit of the moor. I’ve got the details all written up, for I meant to send word to his lordship, but perhaps you’ll just look over what I’ve written. What I’d recommend is this.” He proceeded to explain a number of things, and Gideon’s respect for his father’s ability to manage at once a myriad of affairs grew by leaps and bounds. It was a good time later before he was able to bring up the subject of documents and other records in the muniments room.

“When I was here before, Barton, I sorted everything pertaining to the years between my great-grandfather’s death and my grandfather’s marriage, but since I did not know what I was looking for, I found nothing of value, and there is still much to be examined. One thing I did discover is that only my father seems to have organized his papers into any proper order. My grandfather and everyone who preceded him just threw things into boxes and onto shelves, all higgledy-piggledy.”

“That’s a fact, sir,” Barton agreed, “but there was actually some order to their methods, though you mightn’t think it.”

“Well, I daresay any order there might have been was disarranged by our previous efforts,” Gideon said with a sigh, “but since you are bound to know more about all of it than I do, I wish you will come and help us look through it.”

So it was that he had the assistance of his steward, his batman, his valet, and a young footman when he began his second foray into the muniments room. This time, they began at the beginning and proceeded quickly, thanks mostly to their efforts in sorting everything generally the first time. They divided up the work, and since Gideon was still convinced that anything that could be of use to him would be found in the years prior to his grandfather’s marriage, that was where he began, leaving the material before that time to Kibworth and Shalton, and the material for the following years to Barton and the footman.

By the second afternoon, they had developed a routine, and the room was silent except for occasional murmured questions and answers. Gideon read steadily at the writing table, determined to read every word of every document until he found something that would help. So deep was his concentration that when Barton, standing beside him, cleared his throat suddenly and said, “Excuse me, my lord,” he nearly jumped off his chair.

Collecting himself and taking the opportunity to stretch the stiffness from his arms and back, he said, “What is it, Barton?”

“Thought you might like to look at this, sir.” He was holding a thick sheaf of papers, and Gideon felt a wave of hope that someone had found something important at last.

Taking the bundle and setting it down before him, he saw what it was even before he untied the string. “Grandmother’s novel.” He smiled. “I hadn’t realized this was in here.”

Barton said, “Nor it wouldn’t be if the old lord hadn’t had that habit you was just complaining about, sir. It were just dumped with an odd assortment of his personal papers in this here box that you all seem to have sorted through before.”

“Shalton did that lot, I think,” Gideon said, glancing at the box. “I told him just to organize things by whatever means he thought right, but I don’t think this ought to be kept with the documents and records in this room, you know. Set it aside somewhere, if you will—or no, wait.” Another thought struck him. During his trip from London, he had tried to think of a way to make peace with Daintry, and it occurred to him now that she might be amused to read a novel written by a noblewoman of the previous century. He did not think the tale would impress her very much, but he hoped she would appreciate both the source and the author. “Wrap it up, Barton. I know someone who might like to have a look at it. Ned,” he added, observing that Shalton was watching them, “leave that for now. I’ve an errand for you.”

Daintry received the brown-paper wrapped parcel from Clemons that afternoon when she went down to the stables with Charley to visit Victor and Cloud.

“What on earth is this, Clemons?” she asked in astonishment.

Glancing quickly around, the groom said, “The same fellow as brung that letter before brung this today, Miss Daintry.”

She looked for Charley and, seeing the child happily engaged in discussing Victor’s points with Teddy and his cousin Todd, she quickly moved a short distance away, set the bundle down on a bench, and untied the string. Opening the brown paper just enough to read the top page of foolscap, she saw inscribed there,
“The Handsome Duke
by Harriet Slocum, Lady Thomas Deverill.” The last three words had been written in a slightly altered version of the same copperplate as the rest. Observing that a folded piece of paper had been laid on top, she removed and opened it.

Deverill had written,
I did not have the slightest notion what else to do with the enclosed, and though I doubt it compares with the work of the admirable Miss Haywood, I send it in hopes that it will amuse you. Perhaps if it makes you laugh a little, you will find it in your heart to forgive one who has only your best interest at heart,
and had signed with the single letter
D.

Daintry replaced the covering carefully, retied the string, and called to Charley that it was time to return to the house. The child came at once, and for a wonder showed not the least curiosity about the parcel her aunt carried. Indeed, she seemed preoccupied, but when Daintry asked if anything was amiss, she looked up with her usual sunny smile and said, “Oh, no, not in the least. It must be nearly suppertime, don’t you think?”

Daintry had no time to look at the manuscript until that evening, for immediately after supper Lady St. Merryn insisted that she help draw up a list of persons to be invited to her wedding, and before this task was well in hand, had thought of a number of others that must be accomplished before the date could be set. “And to think your father wants me to arrange it for next month,” she said. “It cannot be done, not without it would be the shabbiest thing, for it is much too much for my nerves.”

“Just as if,” Lady Ophelia said when Lady St. Merryn had gone up to bed at her usual early hour, “your mama thinks she will have to manage every detail by herself.” Setting aside her knitting, she took her journal out of her reticule and moved to the writing table.

Seeing that she was thus occupied, Daintry excused herself and went to her bedchamber, unwrapping the manuscript and setting it on the little table near her window while she fetched a branch of working candles to light the pages. She intended to read only a chapter or so, remembering her great-aunt’s comments about the skill of the writer and finding that it was just as Lady Ophelia had observed. The writing was not only inept but was peppered with meandering little observations that seemed to have nothing to do with the tale that slowly began to unfold. Had the author not been Deverill’s grandmother, she would have stopped after no more than half an hour’s reading; however, because it was Harriet Deverill’s work, the parenthetical remarks of the narrator began to seem at first rather amusing, giving one rare insight into the writer’s personality, and so she read on.

Harriet seemed to have had a high opinion of herself and of her ability to manipulate her world as she chose, and it soon became clear that Lady Fanny, the heroine of
The Handsome Duke,
represented the author’s view of herself, although surely Harriet had never been so beset by villains as poor Lady Fanny was.

Daintry lit more candles when the first ones guttered, and read on. When a casual reference to one of the characters as something of a Jacobite caught her eye, she began to read more carefully. Fifteen minutes later, her attention became riveted to the page as excitement vied with dismay for preeminence in her emotions. The sky was gray with the first light of dawn before she turned the final page and sat back, staring with unseeing eyes at the untidy pile of papers and chewing her bottom lip, wondering if anyone else would believe she had found the key to the Tarrant-Deverill feud in such an unlikely source.

D
AINTRY SLEPT LATE THE
following morning, but as soon as she had dressed and eaten, and without saying a word about Harriet Deverill’s novel to anyone else, she went in search of St. Merryn. Learning that he was closeted with his steward, she was forced to contain her soul in patience for yet another hour and a half, but having given orders that she was to be informed the moment he was alone, she was able at last to beard him in his book room, where she got to the point straightaway.

“Papa, I have discovered what began the feud, and it is all a parcel of nonsense.”

“What’s that?” St. Merryn looked up at her from the papers he had been reading, peering over his spectacles. “I am very busy, girl. A number of things transpired while I was in London that must be attended to now. What are you nattering on about?”

“The feud, sir, with the Deverills. I know what caused it. It was the fault of only one person, and she is long since dead.”

“She? What can you mean, Daintry? Upon my word, I wish you will talk sense. How can you know anything about it?”

“I’ll tell you presently,” she said, for she had decided that if she were to inform him at once that the answer lay in an unpublished novel written during the previous century, and by a woman at that, he would order her out of the room. Instead, she said, “It was Deverill’s grandmother who conceived the whole thing, sir. She was blindly jealous of Aunt Ophelia, whom she saw as her chief rival and as the only obstacle preventing Tom Deverill from proposing marriage to her. She did not believe Aunt Ophelia had no wish to marry, you see, for in point of fact, such a notion was foreign to most people then, just as it is now,” she added with a speaking look.

“I hope you won’t be telling me at this late date that you don’t wish to marry, for I don’t want to hear it,” he said testily, “and what did Harriet’s notion of Ophelia have to say to anything? Harriet got to marry Deverill, did she not?”

“Yes, but not for several years after she had arranged a quarrel between two good friends. I am not sure just how she put the matter to Tom Deverill, but you told me yourself that he was suspected of having connections to the Jacobites, and somehow she led him to believe that Grandpapa had threatened to expose him if he did not leave the field open for him to pursue Aunt Ophelia. You see, Grandpapa wanted her fortune, but Tom Deverill really loved her and was willing to give her up rather than drag her into the scandal Harriet had convinced him Grandpapa would brew if he did not yield. There was even a duel, sir, though it was given out that the two men fought over a card game or some such thing, because of course, gentlemen never admitted fighting duels over ladies. What with all the rules of good manners and proper conduct, Tom Deverill never did confront Grandpapa directly about the supposed threat to expose him—just as Harriet had known he would not—but he did let it be known that he was furious with his longtime good friend for betraying their friendship.”

“Utter nonsense,” St. Merryn snorted. “My father would never have done such a thing, and Deverill must have known it. Damme, they were best friends!”

“Yes, sir, but think how disillusioned Tom Deverill must have been even to think his friend would make such a threat. And if, the few times they did talk afterward, they talked at cross purposes—which might very easily have happened, you know—he would never have found out that Grandpapa knew nothing whatsoever about any threat. All Tom Deverill knew for a fact was that Grandpapa wanted more than anything to marry Aunt Ophelia for her fortune. He knew Grandpapa did not love her, and so he thought it entirely possible that greed could lead Grandpapa to threaten a scandal that would reflect as badly upon her as it would on Tom Deverill. So Tom Deverill, being noble about it all—and to my way of thinking, rather stupid—gave her up and turned his fury on the whole Tarrant family, refusing to speak to anyone in it and passing the anger on to his son, who is now trying to pass it on to his. You must end it, Papa, for it’s all wrong.”

“You must have windmills in your head, girl. Where did you get such a nonsensical notion?”

“Deverill’s grandmother wrote a novel, sir,” she said, knowing there was nothing more to be gained by equivocating. “It was never published because it is very badly written, but if one accepts that the heroine of the tale represents Harriet Deverill, one sees just how she convinced Tom Deverill to believe Grandpapa would betray him unless he gave up any claim to Aunt Ophelia’s hand and left the way clear for Grandpapa to win her. Harriet made Tom believe his best friend was really his worst enemy.”

“What? Upon my word, girl, a novel? How can one fool woman have created the Deverill feud? That must be nonsense.”