“Bah!”
“Oh, but Gillian is right, dearest!” interposed Aunt Louisa. “And just think of all the other unpleasant things that could happen, all because of this . . . well, I don’t know what to call it but an obsession.”
At this, Sir Henry reddened alarmingly. He rose and pounded his fist on the desk, causing the assorted papers and notes to leap like startled chickens. “Obsession?” he roared. “This from my own sister? Louisa, I thought you understood what I am trying to accomplish here!” The flush faded, but the injured tone remained. “I tell you now, Louisa—
and
Gillian—despite your efforts to undermine my project, I shall continue on my unalterable course in the pursuit of knowledge. Now, if you will excuse me, I must be on my way.”
Both ladies paled, and Mrs. Ferris spoke falteringly, “G-going? Where on earth are you going, Henry?”
“Why, to the college, of course.” He fixed his niece with a significant gaze. “I have work to do there.” With which pronouncement he ushered his ladies from the room, ignoring their faint protests.
Outside the study Gillian and her aunt stared at each other. At last, Mrs. Ferris asked despairingly, “Do you suppose—?”
“Yes, I do,” Gillian replied in an equally bleak tone. She sighed heavily. “I only hope this will not mean another midnight excursion for me.” After a moment, she said firmly. “We shall have to take steps. Aunt. This cannot continue.” She turned to stride down the corridor.
Her aunt echoed the sigh and, shrugging despondently, plodded after her.
“And,” Gillian tossed over her shoulder, “we must hope that the Earl of Cordray will not adhere to his promise to visit us on a regular basis.”
Chapter Four
Meanwhile, in London, stirring events were brewing over the hapless head of the Earl of Cordray. In Binsted House, a council of war was in session. Present were Lord and Lady Binsted, the Honorable Wilfred Culver, and, seated stiffly on a brocade settee, the Honorable Miss Corisande Brant. Miss Brant’s parents, the Viscount and Viscountess Rantray had chosen to absent themselves from the assemblage, which was probably just as well, since it was felt that the presence of the infuriated viscount would contribute nothing to the discussion at hand.
Wilfred, lounging in a padded window seat, declared at large, “Well, I popped over to Curzon Street this morning, and he never came home last night at all. ‘Course, he might still be out somewhere, dossed down at a friend’s house, or . . .” He coughed delicately, sending a glance toward Corisande, who stiffened into an even more rigid position. “At any rate, it looks as though he was serious about leaving Town.”
“Good Lord, Wilfred,” snapped the marchioness, “It’s almost five o’clock in the afternoon. Surely, he would have returned to his abode by now if he were in Town. It’s just coming up on the Promenade. You know he scarcely ever misses an opportunity to strut about on that bay of his.”
Lord Binsted rubbed his nose. “I agree with you m’dear.” He, too, glanced at Corisande, who so far had contributed nothing to the discussion. It was agreed in all of Polite Society that Corisande Brant, though not an accredited Beauty, was nevertheless an attractive young woman. She was slender. Her skin was very white, her features regular and she carried herself with an elegance that was the envy of her peers. If her blue eyes were more the color of an ice floe than an azure sky, or her expression cool and composed even on occasions when others might have broken into a laugh or a sob, such observations were not taken into account by her admirers.
She spoke for the first time. “You need not take my feelings into consideration.” Though her tone was slightly peevish, it could now be perceived that Corisande’s voice was as highly bred as the rest of her.
“Lord Binsted, I am old enough to know the habits of a gentleman, and I do not complain.” She hesitated before continuing. “There is nothing formal between us, after all,” she concluded, her tone still faintly aggrieved
“Nonsense.” Lady Binsted paced the floor restlessly. “It is time for some plain speaking. There has been an understanding between our families for years. Please do not think, my dear, that Cordray is not fully prepared to do his duty—at last. If I thought that, I should never have requested your presence at this little, er, conference. It is my fear that”—she paused for dramatic effect—”something has happened to him!”
Her glance rested directly on Corisande, but if she had expected an outburst of maidenly concern, she was doomed to disappointment. Corisande merely raised her eyes in an expectant, if skeptical, gaze and made no reply.
“What are you saying, Bess, that Cord was abducted by Mohawks?” Lord Binsted completed his question with a guffaw, causing his wife to bend a stare on him that might have felled a water buffalo.
“Of course not,” she sniffed. “But there are any number of circumstances that might have occurred. I cannot believe that he was so lost to duty to have actually left London for any duration. However, he might have taken a ride and met with an accident.”
“Surely he carries his cardcase with him,” responded Corisande colorlessly. “You would have been notified if anything untoward had taken place.”
“Not necessarily,” interposed Wilfred. The marchioness cast him a grateful glance. “He might have fallen in a ditch and nobody’s found him yet.”
The grateful glance was extinguished, to be replaced by one of exasperation. “That hardly seems likely. He would not have set out on his own, certainly.”
“Mmm.” Lord Binsted again entered the conversation. “Told you he was in a strange mood. Seems to me he might well have hared off by himself.”
Wilfred glanced at Corisande and cleared his throat. “I don’t see that he would have done that,” he said tentatively. “He was scheduled to ask for Corrie’s hand. How could he have got up to something that would jeopardize that?”
Corisande cast him a grateful glance, and Wilfred’s thin cheeks reddened momentarily.
Lady Binsted drew a sharp breath. “In any event,” she said bracingly, “the thing to do is find him. We’ll assume for the moment that he actually did leave Town suddenly, and something prevented him from returning in time for the dinner party.”
She gazed around at the group as though waiting for argument. When none was forthcoming, she continued. “I think we might assume that he went to the Park.”
“Cordray Park!” expostulated her husband. “What the devil would he go up there for?”
“It is the family seat, after all. He did say he had business to attend to. He might have received word that he was needed for ... for ... something.”
Lord Binsted eyed his lady dubiously. “Mmp.”
The marchioness, apparently accepting this less than enthusiastic response as acquiescence, moved to the bell-pull. “Good. We shall send to Cordray Park to see if he is there, or at any rate to see if a message was sent to him—and I think we might try Rushmead and Cotsburn, as well. They are lesser estates, but they are closer to London than the Park, and Cord might very well have simply dashed down to one of them for reasons of his own.”
Lord Binsted pulled on his upper lip. “It shall be as you say, m’dear, although I must say, I don’t think we’ll be any the wiser. If you want my opinion—”
“Yes, dear,” interposed his wife hastily. “I may be very wrong, but I want to get something in motion. We cannot remain just sitting on our hands when Cord may be in dire straits.”
At this, Miss Brant rose with a sibilant hiss of skirts. “Now that that is settled. Lady Binsted, I really must be going. I have an appointment for which I am already late.” She pulled on her gloves, which she had removed and replaced and then removed several times during the course of the discussion. Smoothing them over her hands, she moved to Lady Binsted. Wilfred stood as well.
“I’ll take care of sending out the bloodhounds, if you wish,” he said. Ignoring Lady Binsted’s frown at this remark, he strolled across the room and took Corisande’s arm. “May I escort you home, Corrie?”
“That would be very nice, Wilfred,” she replied coolly. She kissed Lady Binsted on the cheek and bowed slightly to the marquess. Then she looked up into Wilfred’s face and proceeded with him from the room, gliding over the carpet like a swan moving over a tranquil lagoon.
“Whew!” The marquess pulled a voluminous kerchief from his coat pocket and mopped his face. “What a piece of work she is! No more emotion than if she’d just been asked directions to the Tower. You’d think she’d show a little concern.”
“Nonsense,” replied his wife sharply. “Corisande is always all that is proper. It would be most unbecoming of her to wail and wring her hands, after all.”
Again, Lord Binsted’s guffaw sounded about the room. “0’ course. No sense in broadcasting her humiliation to the world.”
Lady Binsted’s brows rose. “Humiliation?”
“Good God, Bess, if the gel didn’t tell everyone of her acquaintance that she was expecting a proposal on bended knee last night, I’ll eat that arrangement of what-ever-they-are.” He waved a hand toward a vase of hothouse cyclamen.
“Nonsense. I’m sure Corisande is much too well bred to have done any such thing. At any rate, her actions are not the issue here. Our concern is Cord’s whereabouts.
Where
could the wretched boy have gone?”
At that moment, the wretched boy was en route from Wildehaven to Cambridge. Upon crossing the River Cam on the outskirts of town, he set a course along King’s Parade Toward Magdalene College. He crossed the river once more just before reaching the gates of the college, and entered the Porter’s Lodge as the clock in the ancient bell tower tolled five of the afternoon.
His inquiry to the porter elicited the information that Mr. Edward Maltby was indeed in his lodgings. He was given directions, and a few minutes later, after a climb of three stories in the first quadrangle, approached a heavily paneled door. His knock produced a cheery, “Enter at your peril, you foul, empty-headed little leech!”
Cord opened the door onto a sitting room of generous proportions, whose every available space—tables, chairs, desk, cabinets and even a footstool—overflowed with books and papers. The chamber exuded an oddly pleasant odor of must, mice and pipe smoke, the last of which emanated from the person seated at the desk.
He and Cord shared the same number of years, but Professor Maltby had already settled into the aspect of middle age. Slightly balding, his light brown hair was touched with gray and fell untidily over a pair of spectacles perched over an impressive nose. His wide mouth seemed created for smiles, but was now folded in an expression of irritation that lightened immediately on catching sight of his guest.
“Cord! By all that’s holy, what the devil are you doing in the profane precincts of Academe?” He leaped up from his desk, scattering papers in his wake, to envelop Cord in a rib-crushing embrace.
Laughing, Cord returned the salutation. “Ned!” he exclaimed a little breathlessly. “It’s good to see you, as well.” He glanced about the room. “So this is where England’s primary expert on practically everything maintains his ivory tower?”
“Well, yes and no. I do my work here, and my tutoring—actually, I thought you were one of my students who is presently late for his appointment with me—the little toad is not going to put in an appearance, of course—but, I live in a little place just off the Trumpington Road.”
“Ah, the perquisites of dedicated scholarship.”
At Ned’s invitation, Cord shifted a pile of papers from a wing chair to the already laden table beside it. Seating himself, he accepted the glass of wine held out to him by his friend. He smiled affectionately at Ned. Although different in mien and personality as chalk from cheese, the two had been inseparable friends during Cord’s undergraduate days at Cambridge. As residents of Magdalene College, they had soon become the scourge of that institution. After graduation, their paths had diverged widely, Cord’s to take him into the army and then into the exalted heights of the
haut ton,
while Ned had pursued a comfortable academic career, engaging in scientific research. The two seldom saw each other, but corresponded frequently, and the last Cord had heard, Ned was engaged in some sort of meteorological study, mapping clouds and wind currents throughout the country.
“So, what brings you to the wilds of Cambridgeshire?” asked Ned, settling his lanky frame into a badly sprung armchair.
Briefly, Cord explained his recent acquisition of Wildehaven.
“Really?” asked Ned in surprise. “Sir Frederick Deddington was your uncle? I did not know that. Then you must have made Sir Henry Folsome’s acquaintance by now.”
Cord crossed his legs. “Indeed I have, and his sister and niece as well. Do you know them?”
“Mm, yes,” replied Ned noncommittally. “Not nearly as well as I’d like to know the niece, however.” He upended his pipe to tap the dottle into a nearby bowl.
Cord’s eyes lit in amusement. “Ah, Miss Tate. Are you smitten, then, Ned, with the lovely spinster?”
Ned shifted in his chair. “Oh, no. Not smitten, precisely. At any rate, you know me. I’m more the sort to worship from afar. Besides, I wouldn’t care to further my association with her uncle.”
“Sir Henry? He seems an affable chap.”
“Oh, yes, a completely decent sort—he’s simply mad as a March hare.”
“What?”
Ned shrugged again. “Well, perhaps that’s coming it too strong, but the old fellow definitely has a rat or two in his attic.”
“I must admit he gave me that impression.”
Ned, after fishing in the pocket of his dilapidated coat for some moments, came up with a tobacco pouch, from which he began filling his pipe. “Wasn’t always that way, of course. He’s been a fellow here at Magdalene since before God created rain, I think, and for almost as long was one of the college’s shining ornaments. Held the Chair of Restoration Literature, or some such.” He waved negligently. “Don’t keep up on that sort of thing much. At any rate, it wasn’t until a few years ago that he began turning at bit balmy. That was when he got a bug up his arse about Samuel Pepys.”
“Pepys?” asked Cord, his interest truly caught. “And who might he be?”