An Heir of Uncertainty (5 page)

Chapter Four

And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? And He said unto him, take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.

—
Genesis
15:8-9

Once the excitement of the Colonel’s visit wore off, Cassie turned her attention to more mundane matters. “You gave me quite a scare, swooning on the stairs.”

“I’m sure it was only that I skipped breakfast. I have no appetite at all, though I suppose I ought to make the effort, if only for the baby’s sake.”

“What can I get for you?”

“Some tea, perhaps? And it wouldn’t hurt to try a little of Sarah’s apple crumble.”

Cassandra nodded and bustled off to the kitchen. Despite years of her mother’s admonitions that a lady must always sit up straight, Lina sighed and lounged back on the sofa. It still nagged at her that her mother had been so careful of trifling proprieties yet so heedless of the critically important ones.

But it felt good to relax, good to lean back. The walk to and from Malton in the cold had been more taxing than she’d expected. And then she’d had to make a cake of herself, nearly falling down the stairs. How humiliating it would’ve been if she’d landed in a heap at Colonel Vaughan’s feet...

She was beginning to doze off—now that she was increasing, she could fall asleep at the drop of a hat—when Cassie swept in, carrying a tray bearing the tea things and two plates of apple crumble. She set the tray on the little table beside Lina. “Here we are.”

Lina sat up to pour for the two of them. Thank heavens the housebreaker hadn’t helped himself to their china. The delicate Sèvres service had been their beloved grandmother’s and was one of the few family heirlooms their mother hadn’t sold off between male protectors.

Across from her, Cassie dug into her apple crumble, her plate balanced on her knees. Whatever the cause of her lung ailment, it had never affected her appetite.

Lina looked away, not at all eager to face solid food. She studied the tea in her cup. “Has Sarah bought some new tea? This smells like spearmint.”

“Does it? How odd. Are you sure it’s not just your condition? Yesterday you couldn’t stand the aroma of bread baking, and that used to be one of your favorite smells.”

“I don’t think so. This definitely smells like spearmint.” She took a sip of her tea and grimaced. “It tastes minty too. Minty and tangy.”

“Let me see.” Cassie set aside her plate and reached for her own cup and saucer. She’d no sooner tasted the tea than she pulled a face. “Ugh. So it does. I can’t say I care for it.”

“Nor do I. I’ll have a word with Sarah about it when she gets back.”

But Joe Ibbetson soon arrived from the abbey to repair the front door, and the rest of the afternoon was a tumult of hammering and drafty air. By the time their cook returned from the village to begin preparing dinner, the tea had long since slipped Lina’s mind.

* * *

Sitting across from Freddie that evening, Win was having trouble focusing. He couldn’t blame the food, for the dinner fare—leek soup, potatoes roasted to a golden brown, venison ragout and beefsteak that practically melted in his mouth—put his meals at Hamble Grange to shame. He couldn’t even blame Freddie’s lengthy report on the state of dovecotes in the surrounding countryside, since Win had long since learned to divide his attention between his brother’s single-minded discourses and more pressing matters.

No, his wandering thoughts had more to do with the Countess of Radbourne, and the oddly tentative way she’d clung to him as he’d carried her to her drawing room. Mr. Channing had intimated that the countess had connived her way to a title and fortune—“bold as brass,” he’d called her. Instead, she’d turned out to be a mere slip of a girl with vivid green eyes, dressed in the sober black of mourning. A girl so pretty he couldn’t get her out of his head.

He hoped it was only because she’d had the element of surprise on her side—well, surprise, and that he’d gone rather long without a woman. In a community as insular as Bishop’s Waltham, even the most discreet sexual liaison was bound to generate gossip, and between looking after Julia and riding herd on Freddie, he’d had precious few opportunities in the past year to slip away to Southampton or London. Which left only...deprivation. Surely that was why Lady Radbourne’s emerald eyes and trim figure lingered in his thoughts.

Then again, someone
had
forced open the dower house door. That alone was reason enough to keep her on his mind. But why would anyone break in, only to leave the valuables untouched? It had been a cold day, but not cold enough to justify housebreaking when every farm bordering the estate offered safer opportunities for shelter.

The countess had drawn back with frightened eyes when he’d pointed out the damaged doorframe. Was it dangerous to leave her and her sister virtually alone? Or was he merely flattering himself, casting himself in the role of fearless defender of damsels in distress?

He shifted uncomfortably at the thought. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d charged to the rescue of a pretty young lady, only to learn he was more interloper than knight in shining armor. He’d first met Harriet at Gunter’s after she’d unwittingly left her reticule at home, and he’d stepped in to pay for the ice she’d ordered. Harriet had looked so flustered, he’d supposed she couldn’t afford the cost and had hastened to make light of his expenditure. What grossly misplaced gallantry. It was probably the only time in the five years he’d known Harriet that he could boast of having possessed more money than she did.

“...I’d prefer a southern exposure, though it may be that the eastern-facing window provides greater protection from the prevailing winds in this area.” Freddie waved his fork about as he spoke, lost in his favorite subject. “I can scarcely credit Dyson didn’t realize—”

Win broke in. “I went to the dower house today, and discovered that someone had forced open the front door there. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Freddie squinted slightly. “The dower house? No. Why, should I?”

“You didn’t see anyone or anything suspicious when you were out walking this morning?”

Freddie gazed blankly across the table at him. “I don’t know. What do you consider suspicious?”

What, indeed? Win doubted the intruder was skulking about with a kerchief over his face like a highwayman, or wandering the grounds with a battering ram on his shoulder. “Anything out of the ordinary, anything odd or unfamiliar.”

“I’ve never been in this part of England before. Everything is odd and unfamiliar.”

Win sighed. Freddie had a point—unless the culprit was a branded felon or Freddie had stumbled on him in the very act of breaking in, what was there to arouse suspicion? “Never mind. Just bear in mind that there may be a thief on the loose, and keep your wits about you when you’re out walking.”

Freddie speared a potato with his fork. “I always keep my wits about me.”

Win was tempted to remind him of the many complaints from his tutor at Cambridge that Freddie had spent more time lost in his own thoughts than paying attention to lectures, or of the recent occasion when he’d left the pasture gate open, allowing the Grange’s Shorthorn bull to escape. But Win had learned to pick his battles with his younger brother. Besides, it was possible the break-in had been some sort of prank, or Lady Radbourne was right and the intruder had merely been seeking refuge from the January cold. After all, nothing of value had been taken.

“So when you went to the dower house,” Freddie said, “did you meet Lady Radbourne?”

“Yes, and her sister. They’re both—”

Freddie interrupted him. “Because I wish this matter of the inheritance were settled.”

“I wish it were settled too, but there’s little I can do on that score.”

“If we’re going to stay, obviously I’ll want to clean out the silage and unblock the window and the gables. With thirty thousand a year, that shouldn’t pose a problem, should it?”

Win squinted in confusion. “Unblock the window and the gables? What are you talking about?”

Freddie mirrored his own look of confusion. “The dovecote on the home farm, of course.”

“I thought Dyson said the estate doesn’t have a dovecote.”

“Weren’t you listening to a word I said? I discovered a fine stone pigeonniere that must be as old as the abbey itself, or nearly so, only some fool ancestor converted it into a granary.” Freddie leaned forward, his eyes lighting up with an almost feverish enthusiasm. “It’s positively splendid—much bigger than the dovecote at the Grange, a full three stories high. I couldn’t get inside, and the window and open gables were bricked up long ago, but the ledges and the nesting boxes were likely built into the walls, so they ought to be intact.”

“I wouldn’t grow too excited about it if I were you. It sounds as if it needs a good deal of work. We won’t be staying long, and there’s no telling whether we’ll have reason to return.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Freddie’s jaw set. “I know exactly what the odds are.”

* * *

Cassandra had another attack in the wee hours of the morning. Lina sent Eli, their young manservant, for Dr. Strickland.

Waiting for the doctor to arrive, Lina tried not to think about his fee. Cassie’s lungs had been worse than ever since their move to the dower house and Lina already owed him for six calls, though her jointure income wasn’t due for almost two months.

Now she would owe the doctor still more, but she couldn’t think of the cost when her sister’s health was at stake. Cassie lay propped up against a small mountain of pillows, wheezing and gasping for air, wide-eyed with alarm.

Dressed in her wrapper and nightgown, Lina pulled a wooden chair up to Cassie’s bedside. “Take deep, slow breaths.” She spoke with a calm she didn’t feel. “You mustn’t panic.”

Cassie pressed a splayed hand to the neck of her flannel nightgown in a gesture Lina knew all too well, a speechless sign that she couldn’t draw the breath she needed into her lungs.

Lina dreaded these attacks nearly as much as Cassie must. They not only terrified her, but had been the one bone of contention between her and Edward. He’d never understood why she felt it necessary to sit with Cassie through every episode, while Lina had found it inconceivable that she could do otherwise. But then, Edward had never had to be strong and reliable for another person, not with trustees and a guardian to manage his minority.

At the thought of Edward’s guardian, a little of the old, slow-burning resentment stirred inside her. Lina latched on to it like a lifeline. Agonizing over Cassie’s every breath made her feel weak and helpless, but a sense of ill usage was the antidote to such cowardly emotions. It stiffened her spine and gave her a purpose.

And she had good reason to feel ill used by Edward’s guardian. For three years Edward had wished to marry her, while prim, judgmental Sir John Blessingame had stubbornly withheld his consent. She’d spent every day of those three years taking pains not to put a foot wrong, in constant dread that Edward would give up or fall out of love with her and take a bride of Sir John’s choosing. And all the while she’d endured the sneers and disdainful glances of their neighbors, people who speculated she was already Edward’s mistress, people who knew that Sir John Blessingame had looked her over and deemed her
not good enough.

It was so unfair, that after all that waiting and striving and praying to be secure and respectable, she was back to having nothing. No, less than nothing. She was back to owing the doctor for six calls, back to worrying about Cassie, back to being poor and alone again.

She
had
to have a boy. She wasn’t going to live all her life in this decaying dower house, with its smoking chimneys and smell of damp, and she wasn’t going to force Cassie to live this way either. Colonel Vaughan couldn’t just waltz in, as high-handed as he was handsome, and take over everything she’d looked forward to with Edward. Giving birth to a girl would mean raising her own child in relative poverty, knowing that only a stone’s throw away the colonel’s little girl was living a life of luxury at the abbey. Having a boy would mean she and the sister she loved would be back on top at last.

By the time Dr. Strickland arrived, it was nearly dawn. Cassie looked pale and frantic, her golden hair damp with sweat. Lina relinquished the chair by the bed to the doctor, though she stayed to act as chaperone throughout his examination. There was a time when she would have been mortified to have Dr. Strickland see her in her nightclothes, but years of late-night emergencies had chipped away at her modesty, leaving little but practicality in its place. She wondered if modesty even mattered when most of Malton thought her little better than she should be.

Dr. Strickland frowned as he listened to Cassie’s labored breathing. “Have you taken your paregoric, Miss Douglass?”

Cassie gasped out her best attempt at a
yes.

Lina spoke up from her corner of the room. “I insisted she take it as soon as the wheezing began. Two teaspoons, though she dislikes the taste.”

“Try not to think about the taste, and concentrate on the good it does,” the doctor said, speaking to Cassie as if she’d been the one to answer. “Licorice and camphor open the lungs, and tincture of opium relaxes the spasms.”

Cassie nodded her understanding. She seemed less frightened, now that she had the doctor’s calm voice and unflappable manner to reassure her. Dr. Strickland had not only apprenticed as a surgeon but also studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and both Lina and Cassie had great faith in him.

Now Lina watched him with her sister, the doctor’s auburn head next to Cassie’s blond one. He really was most attractive—tall and lanky, with eyes as blue as Edward’s. She’d long suspected he had a
tendre
for her sister, though for some reason Cassie had never shown an answering interest.

He stayed with Cassie until her breathing eased and the opium began to take effect. When at last she was resting comfortably, he rose and picked up his medical bag.