Sharon Sobel (29 page)

“Do you mean you have told her you wish to marry?” Claire asked.

“I have told her very little, but she sees things with a clarity to envy your own vision. She witnessed Armadale’s destructive habits before they were married, and understands how and why he has changed since that time. He was an agent for the Crown in Portugal, at the time she assisted her ailing father in the translation of papers of a highly sensitive nature. They met when Armadale returned to England, wondering why some of the codes were misinterpreted, and the adventures during their courtship nearly killed them both. Since then, I have done some of his work, but no longer have the heart for it. Cassandra, Lady Armadale, knows this, without my saying so.”

Claire rather thought her own vision might have been somewhat obscured. Even guessing at his missions, she still thought him a quiet and reclusive soul, damaged by his past and reluctant to mingle in any class of society. She frowned, thinking Maxwell Brooks proved so much more complicated than she suspected.

“Lady Armadale already knows the truth of it, and I believe you do as well, but I must make it plain,” Max said, resting his chin on the top of her head. “Never before have I had so much to live for. Now I have you. I love you.”

Claire closed her eyes, savoring the moment. He did indeed have her, and he must know that for all she gently danced around his protestations of love and his assumption they would marry, she was forever his. She loved—nay, adored—him. She loved his deep intellect and his concern for others and his scarred and bruised body. She loved his interest in all things, and his understanding that a wedding trip throughout the Continent would be her idea of heaven, so long as he was with her. They must marry, for though she once vowed she would not do so again, she never dreamed she would meet a man such as this.

“It seems very poor compensation for a life of adventure,” Claire said softly. “But I love you, too.”

“Then it is settled, and just as I hoped. The adventure, you see, is just beginning.”

“I am an old widow of twenty-eight.”

“I shall remember that when I am pulling you up the steps towards the Parthenon in Athens. If necessary, I shall carry you.” He lifted her onto the desk. “If I can still manage it. I am three years older, after all.”

“And what of your sister?”

“Camille?” Max frowned and looked as if he hadn’t thought of her in ages. Claire knew that was impossible, but it was likely he no longer spared every second thought for a lady who was quite able to manage for herself. “She has half a dozen beaux in town, and yet I am certain she will choose James Cosgrove.”

“Did I not tell you so weeks ago?”

“So you did, but I suppose I was not yet ready to hear it. I could have saved myself a great deal of trouble and expense if I accepted your words then. They are well suited to each other, in all ways.” Max twisted around and shifted some papers on the large desk. Claire guessed what wickedness he had in mind. “Perhaps they would like to live in Brookside Cottage, where she is already quite comfortable and knows her way about.”

“Jamie has an excellent house in Middlebury where, I daresay, she is also quite comfortable and knows her way about,” said Claire. “But where will you live, if not in Brookside Cottage?”

“We,” he said, correcting her with emphasis, “shall rebuild Brook Hall. And furnish it as once it was, even if it means I must bargain with every art dealer in England.”

“And find this fellow Doyle, with whom you may get a good deal more than for which you bargained.”

Max grinned, not with humor but with a look of wicked satisfaction. For the first time, Claire understood something of what his unnamed adversaries must face when he confronted them.

“Yes, indeed. Let us examine these papers to see what we can uncover.” Max slipped off the desk, leaving Claire poised with her feet dangling off the floor. Whatever delicious mischief she had anticipated was to be deferred in the name of detection.

***

The ghosts of Brook Hall followed Max to London, but did not punish him with the bitter accusations to which he was long accustomed. Perhaps they, too, needed a respite from the damaged ruins of their old home. Or perhaps they merely were weary of tormenting him, and would allow him to finally be free of them. But they were still with him, to be sure, demanding he remember them.

His parents were never far from him nor would he truly wish for them to be so. But there were the others, the innocent victims of a dreadful accident, who perished for no greater reason but that they happened to be employed by the family. The young maids and the amorous manservant visited him in his thoughts, and he could taste the shortbread that was the pride of the cook in her well-appointed kitchen. He saw her that last night; he arrived long after dinner had been served to his parents’ guests, thinking he might remain awake to do his task if he had hot chocolate to drink.

John Mandeville was there with her, enjoying something stronger than hot chocolate. They both were unusually cheerful and red-faced, and the poor woman could barely rise from her chair to serve him.

Mandeville asked Max if he wished to share their drink, looking over the rim of his glass with a speculative gaze and tapping on a tray wrapped in linen and bound by rope.

Weeks later, Max was told about his parents and the others newly buried in the Middlebury churchyard. And he learned of those whose bodies were not found, but who were believed to have perished in the heat of the blaze. John Mandeville and the cook were among them.

Those who were unaccounted for might well have returned to their homes, or sought employment elsewhere. Perhaps they also had some sense of guilt about their own survival, or believed they might be accused of the deed, and preferred to lose themselves with new identities. But Mandeville was a relation, and had a position of great responsibility on the estate. And yet he was gone, unable or unwilling to guide a very young cousin who was the new Marquis Wentworth. If alive, he had much to gain by remaining in his home at Brookside Cottage, guiding the decisions of a child.

But, as Max considered as he walked down the hallway of Middlebrook House, he might have gained more by leaving it all behind him.

Not all.
Someone named Gilbert Doyle obtained Benjamin West’s painting of “Brook Hall, from the South” and sold it to Mr. Horace Dailey in 1803, four years after the burning of Brook Hall. At the same time, Doyle also offered four other paintings for sale, which Dailey bought, and several small statues, which he did not.

Several years later, Mr. Doyle sold five more paintings to Dailey, one of which was purchased by Mr. Longreaves, and the others undoubtedly graced the rooms of elegant houses throughout London.

Who was Gilbert Doyle, other than a man who sold paintings when he seemed to be in need of funds? Where did he acquire the paintings, if not from the ruins of Brook Hall or someone else who absconded with them? There were possibilities at the heart of this mystery, but they ranged from the improbable to the impossible. And yet, things he thought impossible only a few months ago had already come to pass—and wonderfully so.

Not for the first time, Max lamented his own foolishness. By refusing to revisit his home or think too deeply about the events of twenty years before, he allowed even greater damage to be done. While running off to do Armadale’s bidding, he ignored every other voice that called out to him.

And so the ghosts remained with him, pushing him forward, demanding redemption. And now he had someone else to push him forward, demanding he open his eyes to every truth. He needed to speak to Claire.

Max walked past the open door of the ballroom, stopped, and turned back.

Claire and Camille stood on the white marble floor, now perilously polished to a sheen. They were clearly excited about something, and Claire was using her hands to guide Camille’s. One of the servants appeared in the frame and shared something that made them all laugh. Claire placed Camille’s hands into those of the maid and hummed while the two started a very shaky waltz. He heard his aunt’s voice call from some distance and the three young women looked up to the gallery in answer.

This was not a place for a man—at least, not until the musicians arrived and gentlemen were needed to dance with the ladies—but Max could scarcely resist.

He walked into the room, barely recognizable as their afternoon parlour. It would have been a fine thing to surprise the ladies, but his boots tapped a loud tattoo as he approached them.

“How very unexpected that my brother should appear now, when all the work has been done,” Camille said, in that new London manner of hers. She smiled at him. Max loved his sister, but realized he already looked forward to the day when James Cosgrove or any other good man took this clever woman off his hands. He would have his hands full with his own clever woman.

“You must not blame him, Lady Camille,” Claire said, also smiling but in quite a different way. “He has been quite busy investigating the provenance of his new painting.”

“Oh yes, that is all I hear about,” Camille complained.

Max could hardly blame her for her complaint because he knew that of all things, a painting was least likely to interest a blind person.

“I shall have to purchase a sculpture, which might prove of greater interest,” he said.

“Yes, of course, Maxwell. But I much prefer people to statues and music to the words of the old Romans.”

He looked at Claire, who seemed quite satisfied with the new sensibilities of her student. He supposed the peaceful days of sitting down to studying the works of the old Roman philosophers were now over.

“It is admirable when our interests are diverse,” Claire said, standing between brother and sister. “Perhaps we can discuss how we balance them at some time in the future, for we have much to do before the ball.”

Aunt Adelaide called down from the gallery and Max saw she was wearing a cloth over her hair, like one of the housemaids. Whatever his intent, he did not expect his uncle’s wife to polish the musicians’ chairs, or whatever it was she was doing up there.

“Aunt Adelaide!” he said, astonished and dismayed.

Claire placed a steadying hand on his forearm. “She is sorting through the music in a cabinet there, some of which has not been touched since your parents’ day. It is not for a servant to handle.”

“Aunt Adelaide is looking for music that might have been played on the night our parents met, in this very room,” Camille said wistfully. “Do you not think it would be a lovely remembrance?”

It would. He had no idea where his parents met, or how, but somehow it did not surprise him that two young ladies with a rather marked romantic inclination could cozen that information out of his aunt. Camille looked radiant, hopeful, joyous. If the ghosts ever bothered her at all, it was clear she already shrugged them off.

“Lord Wentworth,” said Claire, fully aware they had an audience. “We think it would be most appropriate for you to lead your sister out for the first dance.”

“Are there not many young men who will be falling over themselves for such an honor? To dance with Lady Camille, that is, not with me,” Max said.

Camille laughed out loud and the poor maid could scarcely contain herself. But Claire looked a bit severe.

“It is your place to do so, Lord Wentworth. You are presenting your sister to London society. But even more, you are presenting yourself, and this lovely house that has been scarcely used in so many years.”

“And what if I wish to dance with another?” Max asked, thinking how easy it was to tease her.

On the other hand, she always had a well-turned retort.

“There will be time enough for that,” she said softly. “If there are as many men as you say vying for a chance to dance with Lady Camille, the two of you might never have an opportunity to partner each other again.”

***

Claire was not certain if it was the endless preparations for the ball or concern over the matters pertaining to the mysterious Gilbert Doyle that made Max so distracted in the week just past, but she was certain a ride through the park in her well-appointed carriage would do them both a world of good.

In a manner as unconventional as anything else they did together, she called upon him at Middlebrook House, and let society say what it will.

The gossips were in fine form this season, even while there were troubles enough abroad and in Parliament. Rumors and speculation and innuendo about everyone from the Regent to the lowest baronet quite dominated every discussion in the lobby of the theatres, in the best drawing rooms, and along Park Row. But while there was the usual thrumming about the upcoming ball at Middlebrook House, and about the mysteriously handsome marquis and his rather more congenial sister who was remarkably competent despite her blindness, Claire never once heard anyone talk about the long-ago fire or worry that a murderer walked among them. As she long realized, the only way to defy rumor was to behave as if one knew nothing about it.

She did overhear two ladies at a dinner speculate about what Lord Wentworth looked like without his fashionably cut jackets—or any other garments, for that matter. But she did not think they referred to his burns and scars.

“There are far too many people here in Hyde Park for us to do what you are thinking of doing, my lovely Claire,” Max said. “Do not trouble yourself to deny it, for I have come to recognize a certain look in your bright eyes.”

She looked away and smiled at Lady Forland, whose carriage came towards them.

“I do not believe you have any idea what I am thinking,” Claire said.

“Oh, but I do. It is not so very hard because I am thinking it as well.”

“Well, my lord, you must tamp down those thoughts when we are on parade, as they say. We have worked very hard to improve your ghastly reputation in this town, and I will not have all my efforts undermined by a demonstration of your baser instincts,” Claire said, trying to sound very severe. That was difficult, because she decided she liked those baser instincts, which were no worse than her own.

“I understand. I shall remain on my side of the seat, and you shall remain on yours, and no one will dare say a word about either of us,” he said.