Beatrice (20 page)

“Thank
you,” Ben called and studied the hurried stride of the man who
seemed to be eager to get away from them. He turned to Beatrice and
lifted his brows. “Was it something I said?”

She
shook her head and began to feel more than a little doubtful that
they were doing the right thing. While Ben turned the carriage
around, she studied the houses a little closer, but couldn’t detect
anything amiss. Children played in some of the front gardens, and
out in the street. Lines of washing were strung between the houses.
People hurried this way and that as they went about their daily
business. Everything appeared perfectly normal.

“Why did
he stare at us like that?” Beatrice glanced at the road behind
them, but there was no sign of the man, who had vanished
completely. She turned to face forward with a frown and was
suddenly very glad that Ben was right beside her.

“There
is nothing as strange as folk,” Ben sighed and took the turn to the
right as instructed.

The
directions took them onto a cart track that was barely visible
through the grass. If it wasn’t for the stone walls that ran along
either side of them, Ben would have thought they had been given
wrong directions on purpose. They came to the end of the track
several minutes later and, sure enough, to the right lay a narrow
lane which disappeared into a small copse of trees. Beatrice
shivered and drew her shawl higher on her shoulders.

“I don’t
like this, Ben,” she whispered.

“Me
either, but I can’t turn the carriage around,” Ben sighed worriedly
as he studied the narrow lane. He had no choice but to keep the
carriage going, right into the thick copse of trees. The
temperature suddenly dipped, and the air around them grew still and
quiet. The silence that greeted them was so unnatural that even Ben
started to wonder if they were doing the right thing.

“Good
Lord,” Beatrice whispered when they suddenly emerged from beneath
the canopy of trees, and discovered a house that seemed to be the
reason for the creepy atmosphere. “I thought Richard Browning was
supposed to be wealthy?”

The huge
Edwardian mansion would have been beautiful – when it was built.
Unfortunately, it was now old, decrepit, and dark. Moss covered
every inch of the stonework, and was only broken by the dark voids
of empty windows. It was evident that nobody had maintained the
property for a very long time; if ever and could, quite
conceivably, be uninhabited.

While
the carriage was still in motion, Ben took the opportunity to swing
it around in a wide circle until it faced away from the house.
Although he would never say so to Beatrice, if they needed to make
a swift exit, he didn’t want anything to hinder their
escape.

Minutes
later, he tugged on the bell pull which was nestled in some ivy
beside the door, and stood back to wait. Tension hovered over them
as they studied the peeling paint on the door.

When
nobody answered his summons, Ben knocked loudly.

“Shall
we go?” Beatrice asked softly after several moments of
silence.

Ben
nodded and took her elbow, only for the sound of the bolt being
slid back inside to suddenly shatter the silence.

Beatrice
immediately sidled closer to Ben, who gave her a gentle smile of
reassurance. He tipped his head to see though the narrow, six inch
gap that suddenly appeared between the door and the frame but at
first, to his consternation, couldn’t see anybody
inside.

“What?”

His
looked down at the small, bird-like woman who was glaring out at
them with black, beady eyes full of suspicion.

“We are
here to see Mr Browning. Richard Browning.”

“Ain’t
‘ere. Go away.”

When the
woman went to slam the door, Ben wedged his foot in the narrow gap
and put his hand on the door. He knew that if he gave it one firm
push he could get in, but didn’t want to force his way into the
house unless he absolutely had to. Rather than argue with the
woman, who he assumed was the housekeeper, he scowled darkly in
warning.

“Do you
intend to tell him that someone called for him?” Ben growled. “If
so, what name do you intend to give him?”

“He
ain’t ‘ere,” the woman repeated.

“Are you
deaf?” Ben snapped. “Where are your manners, woman? I shall have a
word with Browning myself about your incompetence. I will leave him
my card so he is aware that I have called, and shall wait for him
to contact me.”

He could
understand why Browning didn’t have that many friends with this old
harridan protecting the battlements. A small part of him wondered
if the man was cowering behind a desk somewhere in fear of
her.

“What’cha want?” The woman demanded as she glared down at
Ben’s foot.

“I want
you to tell him that Mr Benedict Addison called. I spoke to Mr
Archibald Harrington at the university. He told me to speak to Mr
Browning about a rare orchid. Tell him I called.” Ben shifted his
weight to remove a card from his pocket and quickly handed it to
the woman through the narrow gap.

Unsurprisingly, she didn’t even look at it before she slammed
the door in his face.

With a
sigh, he turned around, shared a look with Beatrice, and led her
back to the carriage.

She had
never been left speechless by anything in her life before, but this
was one of those rare occasions when words just failed her. Ben
appeared to feel the same because silence settled over them as he
nudged the horse into a walk.

Before
the house disappeared from view, she turned around to take one last
look at the unwelcoming monstrosity.

“Look,”
she whispered, and gave him a rough nudge.

Ben
turned around in time to watch one of the lace curtains in an
upstairs room lower slowly back into place.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

“What do
you think he is hiding?” Beatrice whispered as they disappeared
into the canopy of the trees again. “God, I hate this,” she added
with a shiver as she studied the thick branches of the trees that
seemed to loom menacingly over the driveway.

“Either
he does not wish to be seen – identified - or that wasn’t Richard
Browning upstairs.”

“It’s
Browning’s house,” she argued.

“Yes,
but we don’t know who lives there, do we?” Ben argued. “I mean, how
do we know that was not Sigmund Hargraves looking out of the
window?”

“Whoever
it is in there, if they want the plant, why didn’t they just talk
to us? They could have taken the opportunity to argue that the
plant is theirs,” Beatrice muttered thoughtfully and shook her
head. “I don’t believe it was Hargraves.”

Ben
sighed and struggled to withhold the curse of frustration that
hovered on his lips. “I know. I think it was Browning too. We just
don’t know for definite.”

“If it
was Browning, why wouldn’t he speak to us? He didn’t even know who
we are.”

“Oh, I
think he knew alright. It may be that he has no interest in the
plant, and just wants to be left alone.” He didn’t believe it for
one second, but they couldn’t start to see shadows where there were
none; no matter how haunting Browning’s house was in broad
daylight.

“We
don’t know that Browning was involved in the cultivation for
definite. We only have Archie’s word, and cannot really be
completely confident about that.” He sighed and looked across at
her. “Browning may be afraid, darling. After all, two men on that
list are dead. He may be reluctant to meet with anyone while danger
lurks.”

Beatrice
sighed and conceded that he had a point. As they left the house
behind, she felt herself slowly begin to relax. “If I was on a list
like that, I think I would be scared too,” she admitted
carefully.

“All we
can do is wait and see if he gets in contact,” Ben added and nudged
the horse into a trot. Although it made their journey bumpier,
nothing mattered more than getting Beatrice away from that house.
He wished now that they hadn’t decided to drop by, and was relieved
to be able to put the entire episode, and the house, behind
them.

“I can
only hope that the man isn’t like that house, or you can expect the
grim reaper to turn up,” Beatrice retorted in disgust. She threw
him an apologetic glance when she realised what she had said.
“Sorry.”

“It’s
alright. To be honest with you darling, I have to raise serious
doubts about the reputation this man has of being wealthy. Nobody
with money in their bank leaves their house to fall into such
disrepair.”

“It
should have been knocked down years ago,” Beatrice muttered.
“Whatever he spends his money on, it certainly isn’t his
home.”

Silence
settled over them while Ben navigated the narrow lane, and they
both sighed with relief when they turned out into the main street
without incident.

“Are you
ready for your surprise now?” He grinned openly as her eyes lit
with somewhat youthful pleasure.

“Of
course I am. I cannot wait,” Beatrice sighed and drew in a deep
breath of crisp, clean air as happiness swept through her. “Lead
on,” she ordered enthusiastically.

Within
minutes, Ben pulled the carriage to a stop beside a small river
that ran around the outskirts of the village.

“Come
on,” he murmured, and lifted her down. Once her feet touched the
floor, he walked to the back of the carriage and removed a wicker
picnic basket and blanket before he turned to her with a
mischievous smile. “Let’s go and get something to eat,” he
suggested softly.

“This is
beautiful, Ben,” she enthused as she studied the trickling water,
and the flower laden banks that ran alongside.

“Take a
seat,” Ben said as he waved toward the picnic basket. “My
housekeeper suggested this spot when she found out that we were
coming here,” Ben replied.

Now that
he came to think about it, his housekeeper had been remarkably
helpful. Not only in providing a picnic basket without notice, but
in knowing exactly where best to take Beatrice.

He sat
down beside her and opened the basket. Two glasses and a bottle of
wine lay on top of an assortment of fruit, cheese, meats, a pie,
and bread. The veritable feast was everything a discerning
picnicker could want when trying to impress a lady. He mentally
thanked the housekeeper for her unwavering support of his extremely
worthwhile cause, and threw Beatrice a rueful smile.

“It
seems that my housekeeper has outdone herself. I hope you are
hungry because there is enough food here to feed a small army.”
With that, he started to pull the contents out, and handed them,
one by one, to Beatrice.

They sat
in companionable silence for a long time while they ate, each lost
in their own thoughts.

“Thank
you,” she murmured when Ben topped her wine up. She smiled at him.
“Do you know something? I cannot remember a day that I have enjoyed
more.”

Ben
looked as relaxed as she felt, and didn’t do anything other than
turn his head to look at her.

“Lie
back and look at the clouds with me?” he suggested
softly.

Beatrice
smiled and did just that. They spent several minutes discussing
various shapes of the clouds before the empty blue sky left them
silent. “Thank you for this. It has been wonderful.”

“We
needed to begin courting properly,” he replied simply. He rolled
onto his side, and propped his head in his hands while he studied
her.

Her
heart flipped at his suggestion that they were now ‘courting’, and
this officially counted as their first outing together. She
couldn’t think of anything more perfect.

“Whatever is going on with the plant, we shouldn’t put our
lives on hold until we establish who owns it. For both of our
sakes, it is important that we start to get our relationship on a
firmer footing.” His voice grew quiet and thoughtful as he spoke.
“I want you to know, Beatrice, that once the mystery is solved I
have absolutely no intention of following the usual courting
process.”

Beatrice
froze in the process of taking a sip of wine and stared at him. “Is
there such a thing as a normal courting process?” She was only
half-joking and, for a moment, wondered if there was something she
may have missed.

“I mean
that the usual courting process can take years. I have no intention
of waiting that long before we make matters more
permanent.”

Beatrice
studied him; a little nonplussed at his statement. He sounded as
though he was reading an article in a newspaper. The stern,
authoritative lines on his face made him look almost officious, and
considerably less like a man with romance on his mind. His blunt
words, untampered with flowery words and amorous declarations,
dampened the thrill of the moment a little if she was honest, and
she wasn’t quite sure what to say.

She
studied the blanket beneath them a little too carefully while she
tried to quell her disappointment, and find something suitable to
say.

Ben
watched her, and wondered if he was pushing too hard. While he
didn’t want to rush her into anything she wasn’t ready for, it was
important that she understood his intentions were honourable. It
was not a case of ‘if’ they were going to be married; it was a case
of ‘when’.