While he shuffled off, cautiously feeling his way, Constantia for the first time listened to what Oxshott was saying. Among the many expressions she failed to comprehend, she gathered that he blamed his son for his accident. Why poor Dolph was as usual picked as the culprit she had no notion, unless it was because he had not wakened his father at bedtime.
A light sprang up by the fireplace. Frank lit several of the candles on the mantel, revealing the duke sitting huddled on the floor. With one hand he tenderly felt the back of his head; the other, clenched into a fist, beat the air in impotent rage.
He glared at Constantia and Frank. “Help me up, jackanapes!” he snarled. “Where’s that damned good-for-nothing son of mine? I’ll have his blood for this, curse the day he was born. I’m black and blue all over, and so will he be when I lay my hands on him. Well, are you going to give me a hand, you gunner’s whelp?”
“I believe you ought not to move further,” said Frank coolly, setting down a lighted candle on the table by the stairs, “until we discover what damage you have done yourself. I’ve rung the bell. Hoskins should be here shortly and he knows a good deal about injuries.”
“Why the devil isn’t my man here? You two heard me fall, so he must have. If that son of a whore’s bastard isn’t waiting up for me in my room...”
“I shall see if I can find him,” said Constantia. Seizing the candle from the table, she fled up the stairs.
She fled with care, grasping the the handrail. In passing she noticed that the third step up appeared to have something spilled on it. That would explain why both she and the duke had come to grief.
Safely attaining the gallery, she hurried to the duke’s chamber and tapped on the door. She waited a moment, but there was no response so she knocked harder. After a minute or two, the door opened. Oxshott’s valet stood there, fully dressed, peering at her through bleary eyes.
“My lady?” he mumbled.
“His grace has had a fall and requires your attendance.”
“A fall?” the man screeched. No doubt years of living with a noisy master had forced him to develop his piercing voice. “What ‘orrible news! I trust ‘is grace is not badly hurt?”
“Not badly, I think.”
“No? What a mighty relief!” The valet dropped his tone to normal. “Where is the old...er...’is grace, my lady?”
“Out of earshot,” said Constantia dryly. “In the hall. He fell down the stairs. Be careful of...”
“What is this disgraceful din?” Lady Elvira appeared in the doorway of the next-door chamber, majestic in voluminous puce velvet, a vast nightcap on her head. “Never in my life have I had the misfortune to visit so ill-run a house.”
“Oxshott has fallen on the stairs,” Constantia informed her coldly. “He is not seriously injured.”
“Nonetheless, it is my duty to go to him at once.” She turned her head. “Do be quiet, Millicent. Oxshott has had a fall, but you will be of no use to him whatsoever so you may nurse your spasm in peace.”
As she swept by, Constantia remembered to warn her and the valet, “Take care on the third step from the bottom. It is slippery.”
And, feeling she had more than done her duty, she went back to bed.
Constantia was not destined to make up for lost sleep. At an early hour Joan roused her, shaking her gently but with determination.
“I’m that sorry to wake you, my lady. It’s Miss Fanny, she said to tell you soon as you was up but I know you wouldn’t want me to wait.”
“If Miss Fanny is in trouble, you are quite right.” She sat up. “What is wrong, Joan?”
The abigail pursed her lips. “I’d best let Miss Fanny explain, my lady, not wanting to speak ill of my betters.”
One or more of the Kerridges, of course. Constantia groaned. Quickly she washed and dressed. On the way down to the housekeeper’s room, where Joan said Fanny was to be found, she noted that the spill on the stairs had been thoroughly cleaned up, leaving no trace.
Ill-run household, indeed!
Fanny was near tears. She came to meet Constantia at the door of Mrs Tanner’s room and clutched her hands as if she were drowning.
“Connie, that dreadful, dreadful woman!”
“Lady Elvira?” she asked though there was no doubt in her mind. Lady Yates and Lady Vincent were irritating but not quite dreadful. “What has she done now?”
“She woke Mrs Tanner in the middle of the night--two o’clock in the morning!--to rail at her about some tallow spilled on the stairs.”
“It weren’t my doing, my lady,” said Mrs Tanner grimly, “nor none of my girls, nor the men, neither. We don’t any of us use the front stairs, as your ladyship knows, let alone with tallow candles, for it’s not on our way to bed.”
“Mrs Tanner has given her notice,” Fanny burst out despairingly.
“It’s not just being dragged from my bed like a criminal, my lady. That was just the last straw. I didn’t want to keep complaining, but her ladyship never stops interfering, poking her nose where it’s got no business, do this, do that. And in the kitchen, too. If it weren’t for Mr Hoskins refusing to leave the master, Henriette’d be gone long since, and she’s the easygoingest creature for all she’s a foreigner. And there’s three of my girls’ve only stayed acos I’ve begged and pleaded and upped their wages out of my own. That Lord Vincent oughtn’t to be let loose outside of a place I wouldn’t soil my tongue by putting a name to.”
“We shan’t have any servants left,” wailed Fanny, “and Felix will think I’m utterly unfit to run the simplest household, far less an earl’s.”
“Do not be a goose, my dear Fanny.” Constantia hugged her. “Felix is perfectly capable of putting the blame for this imbroglio where it belongs. Mrs Tanner, I quite understand your difficulties. Matters cannot continue thus. It is for Captain Ingram to act and I shall speak to him immediately.”
“Yes, my lady.” The housekeeper curtsied.
“But what can Frank do?” Fanny cried.
Constantia smiled at her. “Perhaps I have more faith in your brother than you do,” she said. “He will contrive.”
Frank was dressing when a message arrived that Lady Constantia wanted to see him. He was in the duke’s chamber--his own henceforth, he resolved--since it had proved impossible to haul his bruised, bellicose, and still somewhat befuddled uncle up the stairs last night.
Tying his neckcloth with especial care, Frank wondered what she wanted to say to him. He had to admit to a certain consternation. Had she felt the all too brief kiss he had dropped on her silken-soft forehead? How tempted he had been to press on while he held her in his arms, to capture her sweet mouth and damn the consequences! He had fought his passion and won. It would be too ironic if he had nonetheless raised expectations in her that he was incapable of fulfilling.
She awaited him in the book-room, deserted at this still early hour. The small room, with its single wall of books, served also as an estate office. Beside the desk was a shelf of ledgers, and maps of Upfield Grange and its three farms hung on the wall opposite the ceiling-high bookcases. Disregarding all these signs of culture and cultivation, Constantia was pacing restlessly when Frank entered.
No chaperon, he noted, uncertain whether to be relieved or dismayed. Then he saw the rare militant glint in her blue eyes. Since he found it utterly impossible to imagine her trying to force him to the altar, her militancy must be directed elsewhere.
“Captain Ingram, you must act!”
“By all means,” he said obligingly. “What shall I do?”
“Well, I am not quite sure, but matters cannot continue as they are. Half your staff are threatening to give notice and Fanny is at her wits’ end. Though it is shockingly uncivil in me to criticize your relatives, I cannot stand by and see Fanny driven to distraction.”
As always, her loyal, warmhearted spirit captivated him, but he kept his tone even and affable. “I hadn’t realized things had come to such a pass. Since I doubt I can change my relatives’ troublesome natures, drastic measures are called for. We’ll just have to get rid of them.”
“Oh!” Rosy lips and azure eyes rounded in dismay. “Drastic? Get rid of them?”
“It shouldn’t prove difficult,” he said, straight-faced. “There are now several soldiers in my employ who will obey any order I give them.”
“Any...I believe you are quizzing me, Captain!”
He grinned. “Let’s hope I shan’t have to put them up before a firing squad to dispose of them. However, something stronger than a hint that their departure would be welcome is called for, I suspect. None of them would recognize a hint if it bit them. We must plot a subtle plot.”
Once the foundations of their plot were laid, they recruited Fanny, Felix, and Hoskins into the conspiracy.
“The effrontery of it beats the Dutch!” Felix said admiringly. “Do you really believe they’ll fall for it?”
“If anyone can carry it off, Captain Ingram can,” Constantia said. “He has only to put on his officer’s manner and they will run like Bonaparte’s troops before his guns.”
Corporal Hoskins enthusiastically seconded the vote of confidence.
The duke was exempted from eviction, on Constantia’s advice, to avoid a total break with the Ingrams’ newly discovered family, however disagreeable, and also on account of his fall.
Bruised and shaken, Oxshott kept to his bed all day and sent word he would dine there. His absence not only made the plot easier to put into effect, it facilitated the exchange of bedchambers. The duke’s belongings were carried down, Frank’s carried up, and he was at last in possession of his rightful place.
Upfield Grange was his. His officious aunt Elvira and the rest were uninvited guests who had long outstayed their welcome. He went down to dinner in a jaunty mood, determined in one way or another to prevail.
He took Aunt Millicent in to dinner. She was devilish tedious with her parade of symptoms and complaints of ill-health, but she was not actively malicious. In fact, he decided as he glanced around the table, apart from the duke only Lady Elvira and Godfrey Yates were utterly unbearable. The rest might be tolerated at a pinch, singly, in small doses. He had even developed a certain affection for poor Dolph, who looked quite cheerful tonight, with his father missing.
So much for the company. As for the setting, let Lady Elvira criticize! To Frank, the table was perfect, draped with new white damask, set with new china, glass, and silver, laden with Henriette’s delicious creations. He looked forward to entertaining his neighbours, once he had rid himself of uncles, aunts, and cousins.
Fanny caught his eye. It was time for her to lead the ladies’ exodus to the drawing-room—and tonight, time for him to act, as Constantia had imperiously demanded. He smiled at her and rose to his feet.
“Lords, ladies, and gentlemen; aunts, uncles, and cousins,” he began. A splendid rhetorical opening provided by Felix, from vague schoolroom memories of the speeches of the noble Romans. When he suggested it, Constantia had giggled and proposed Frank’s continuing: “I come to bury Oxshott, not to praise him.”
Shakespeare misquoted, apparently. Frank vowed to find time to do some reading.
“Fanny and I are glad to have had the opportunity to become acquainted with our mother’s family,” he went on. “Now that your visit is drawing to a close, we wish to thank you for sparing us so much of your precious time. Your carriages will be at the door at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Naturally, if any of you prefers to get an earlier start, that can be arranged. You need not fear that you cannot be ready in time; your servants have already been instructed to proceed with your packing.”
Hoskins’ notion, that. As soon as their masters and mistresses were well out of the way in the dining-room, he had informed valets and abigails, as well as coachmen, of their departure on the morrow.
Frank beamed round at flabbergasted faces. “It remains only for me to say that I trust you have all enjoyed your stay at my house.” He had been going to say Upfield Grange but Constantia had insisted on the change. “And we wish you a swift and safe journey home.”
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then, before any of the open mouths could utter more than a squeak of protest, Fanny and Constantia stood up. Such was the power of habit and etiquette that the Ladies Vincent, Yates, and even Elvira followed them from the room as meekly as lambs.
Frank hoped their previously worked out story would save Fanny and Constantia from the worst of the ladies’ displeasure. In the meantime, he had the gentlemen to contend with.
Hoskins and Twistlethwaite came in to clear the covers and set out the port, the inferior wine from the Pig and Piper since the duke was incapacitated. Hoskins winked at Frank.
Lord Vincent’s face had turned purple, making him look very like his elder brother. He burst into a duke-like roar, but of laughter, not rage. “Damme, that did the trick neatly, my boy,” he choked out. “Left us not a leg to stand on. No wonder we beat Boney with sharp fellas like you in the army. Too devilish knowing for the Frogs by half.”
Felix grinned. “Rolled them up, horse, foot, and artillery,” he congratulated Frank.
“You don’t mind, Uncle Vincent?” Frank asked. “You see, the thing is, with guests to be entertained Fanny’s not getting any of her wedding preparations completed and she’s in high fidgets.”
“Bless the child,” said Lord Vincent indulgently, signalling to Hoskins to fill his glass. “I know women and weddings.”
“If you ask me,” said Frank in a confidential tone, “she’s afraid Roworth will cry off if he’s left to his own devices too long.”
“Here, I say, Ingram,” Felix protested with feigned indignation. “That’s deuced insulting.”
“Insulting behaviour appears to be common currency in the army,” said Godfrey Yates contemptuously. “I’ve never in my life seen such an exhibition of vulgar ill-breeding as in this room tonight. If this is an example of the manners of an officer, I shudder to imagine what uncouth conduct prevails among the rank and file.”
Hoskins improvised. Standing behind Yates, about to offer the port, he simply emptied the decanter down the back of his neck.
Yates jumped up with an incoherent exclamation.