“Little enough, my lady,” the abigail replied, her tone disapproving. “It’s my opinion you’re stirring up a hornet’s nest.”
“I do not recall asking your opinion,” responded the Baroness. “
You
might recall that the recreations of servants are dependent on the favor of their employers. Do I not allow you to occasionally go dancing? Do not I provide you with pin money when you attend recreational events?” Culpepper grudgingly admitted that these things were true. “Nothing could be more provoking,” Dulcie concluded sternly, “than ingratitude. I trust I make myself clear? Excellent. Continue.”
Despite her dejection, Livvy bit back a smile. The Baroness’s retainers more than earned their generous wage. Her amusement faded as she recalled her own reluctant efforts on Dulcie’s behalf. There were benefits to marriage, even marriage with a faithless rogue.
Culpepper grasped a comb and pulled it through her mistress’s damp hair. “Sir Wesley had the first of several heart attacks right after Cade was banished. The most severe attack of all took place recently, result of a quarrel with Connor about the new Lady Halliday. The doctors feared Sir Wesley wouldn’t survive, and it’s due to his lady’s nursing that he did. Everyone in the neighborhood holds her in the highest regard.”
“And Connor in the lowest,” mused Dulcie. “One might almost think he deliberately sets out to rouse ill will.”
Culpepper sniffed. “There’s been talk of evictions, and cottages being tumbled, as soon as Connor Halliday is officially master of the Hall.”
The Baroness reached for her snuffbox. “Sir Wesley was ever one to heed a hard-luck tale. His son, I fear, is not. Do go on, Culpepper. You don’t seem to think Connor Halliday is harsh but fair.”
“A fair man would not set traps, my lady. There are other stories, about local girls who went into service at the Hall. Concerning not Sir Wesley, but his son.”
“
Droit de seigneur?
” Dulcie raised her brows.
“I wouldn’t have considered Connor a man to tryst with provincial maidens, being as he’s so conscious of his station in life.”
So. Even the perspicacious Lady Bligh was occasionally wrong. Livvy recalled the Baroness’s opinion of her own spouse’s recent behavior. Perhaps these mounting errors were an indication of advancing, enfeebling age. She pretended not to see Dulcie’s reproachful glance.
“It’s true enough, from all accounts,” continued Culpepper. “The locals believe that Connor Halliday also keeps a mistress in London, because he often visits Town. That last quarrel between Connor and his brother was over a female who was no better than she should have been. It’s said Connor wanted her for himself, but she fancied Cade.”
Dulcie flicked her snuffbox open. “Said by whom?”
“The Halliday cook.” Culpepper’s comb encountered a snarl and she paused to work it free. “Under oath of secrecy. Her brother is Connor Halliday’s valet, and she heard the tale from him. Connor was furious when he learned Sir Wesley had caught Cade with the girl. She was no more than fifteen.”
Here, had Livvy needed it, was further proof of the untrustworthy nature of the opposite sex. “What became of the poor child?”
Culpepper set aside her comb. “The cook couldn’t say. Maybe she ran off with Cade. The cook
did
say she wouldn’t put it past Connor to have put paid to the pair of them. She thinks he’d deal likewise with Lady Halliday if he dared.”
“But he
doesn’t
dare,” commented the Baroness. “His dislike of her is too widely know.”
Livvy found herself quixotically compelled to defend a man
she
distrusted. “Really, Dulcie! Think how distressing it must be for someone as proud as Connor Halliday to hear his name bandied about in this horrid way.”
“But he’s not here
to
hear it,” Lady Bligh pointed out. “You’re overset, Lavender. I think you should go back to bed.”
“I’ll do nothing of the sort.” Livvy jutted out her chin. “You mean to pitchfork that poor man into one of your muddles. It’s plain as the nose on your face.”
The Baroness wrinkled that aristocratic appendage. Before she could speak, a tap sounded at the door.
Gibbon entered the room. At his mistress’s request, the butler reported what he’d learned at the inn. No detail was omitted, not even Abel Bagshot’s yearning for a Patent Warm-Air Stove. “I think Bagshot knows no more than he’s already told.”
The Baroness inhaled a pinch of snuff, and sneezed. “I think otherwise. Mr. Bagshot hints it was in hope of snaring his brother that Connor set the traps. That pokes a hole in Culpepper’s theory. One does not set traps for a ghost.”
“It’s not
my
theory,” Culpepper protested, “but the cook’s. This is a bad business. I can’t think what the Baron would say.”
“I can,” retorted the Baroness. “Since he isn’t present, we shan’t regard it. Maximilian is much better occupied where he is.”
Doing what? wondered Livvy. How did Dulcie remain indifferent toward the ladies on whom her husband’s approving glances fell?
“You exhaust my patience!” said Dulcie, frowning. “Maximilian casts no approving glances on females other than myself, at least when I am present, and if I am not present, whyever should I fuss? Which reminds me, I meant to ask your opinion of the dinner menu: pickled sturgeon and sweetbread ragout and gooseberry hops.” Livvy blanched, and swallowed hard, and fled.
The door closed behind her. Said Lady Bligh, “Continue, Gibbon. You were about to tell me there was mischief done in Lady Margaret’s Garden last night.”
Damned if he knew how she knew these things. Gibbon’s left eyelid quivered. “The fountain has been cleaned out and is now working. ‘MURDER’ was written in the sand around the flower-beds.”
“One may conclude that the place is not shunned by everyone,” the Baroness remarked. “Who made these discoveries?”
“Lady Halliday.”
“Ah. What better place to seek out solitude than in Lady Margaret’s Garden, where one is not likely to be interrupted, save by a stray wraith? What has Lady Halliday to say about her discovery?”
“I gather she was in such a state that there was no making sense of her.” Gibbon pulled a silk scarf from his pocket. “This was found near the flower bed.”
“You filched it? How enterprising.” Lady Bligh held out her hand. Gibbon passed her the scarf. Holding it, the Baroness returned to her bedstead and sat down. This movement disturbed Casanova, who yawned and rolled over on his back. Bluebeard opened his eyes, stretched his wings, and ventured a comment about dead men’s chests.
Dulcie did not share Livvy’s inhibitions about conversing with a bird. “Yes,” she said “but
is
Cade dead?”
The sky was overcast. Occasionally an eerie yellow light illuminated the dark clouds. Wind whistled through the ivy that twined around ancient towers and crept along old stone walls, rattled through the Castle’s crumbling disused wing.
It was not the best of days to be out riding on a skittish horse, but Ned paid no more heed to his nervous mare than he did the ominous sky. This was hardly the first time he had braved inhospitable weather on a mettlesome steed. He had survived countless Peninsular thunderstorms, when terrified horses broke loose from their pickets and galloped madly into enemy lines while men lay sleepless and sodden on the muddy ground. Had been at Albuera, where Colonel John Colborne’s magnificent Light Brigade had been blinded by a sudden hailstorm and mowed down. Would never forget the terrible dead of the Peninsular battlefields, who had been stripped of clothing by those comrades who survived, and of their flesh by the vultures that swooped down from the skies and the wolves that crept down from the hills.
Odd, to find himself now camped at Greenwood Castle. He had left Jael curled up with Austen on the settee, the pair of them reading an improving tome entitled
The Memoirs of Dick the Pony
and making irreverent remarks, while Livvy sought a tactful means of persuading Jael to put on shoes.
He found Lady Halliday waiting on horseback, as she had promised in her note, under the beech trees. “You came!” she cried, above the wind. “I am so glad. It is extremely bad of me to have asked you to ride out in such weather — though I couldn’t have known that the weather would turn so bad, could I? — and it is extremely good of you to have obliged. We must seek shelter, for it’s going to rain.”
Ned followed her through the park. Amanda led him not to the Hall, as he had expected, but to a neglected garden enclosed by high walls and barren trees. There were some signs of recent restoration. The water in the fountain flowed swift and clear.
The wind grew stronger. Ned tethered the horses in what had once been a storage shed.
The first raindrops began to fall. Amanda tugged at his sleeve. He scooped her up and, at her direction, dashed down a gravel pathway and into the temple at its far end.
He set her on her feet. She lit a lantern. Ned wandered around the room. Small high-set windows. Broken furniture. Cracked mirrors. “What a sad place this is.”
“Isn’t it?” Amanda brushed raindrops from her riding habit. “I had never been here before Sir Wesley’s death. This was his first wife’s garden, and then her memorial. Something happened — no one will tell me
what
— and he forbade everyone the Garden and kept the temple locked. Except it wasn’t locked when I found him, and no one has seen the key.”
Ned turned to her. “
You
found his body? I hadn’t heard that.”
“Nor will you,” said Amanda. “Connor feared people would talk. And he was correct, because people
are
talking, but about him instead of me.” She limped toward a chipped marble bench. “Sir Wesley was in the habit of waking me each morning, with a pretty flower or some fruit. When he didn’t return that day, I went searching for him. I expected to find him in his hothouse, because he sometimes became so absorbed in his plants that he lost all sense of time. Instead I saw the open gate and— You already know the rest. I suppose I should find the temple gruesome, but I don’t. Sometimes it seems that Sir Wesley’s spirit lingers. You may think me foolish, but I find it peaceful here.”
Ned made no comment. He found nothing peaceful about the place.
Amanda sank down on the bench, stretched out her sore ankle. “The truth is that I come here primarily because Connor and Rosamond do not. At least I think they do not, though it must have been one of them who wrote ‘MURDER’ in the sand around the flower bed. You look surprised; hadn’t you heard? If someone meant to frighten me, he succeeded, but when I stopped to think about it, I realized
I
haven’t murdered anyone and therefore shouldn’t be afraid. This place is beyond dreary, and it may even be haunted, but I assure you it is a great deal
less
dreary than the Hall. Not the Hall itself, of course, but—” She winced. “Shall I never learn to control my tongue?”
“You need not on my account.” Ned sat down beside Amanda and took her hands in his. “Is that what has so disturbed you?” She looked blank. “Did you not send me a note saying that you are quite undone?”
Her cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink. “It is Connor, as usual, and I’m sure things couldn’t be in a worse case. But I hope that you won’t think me rag-mannered and a
coming
sort, for truly I am not, no matter how it must seem.”
“I don’t care a fig for manners,” Ned said truthfully. “What has Mr. Halliday done to distress you?”
“What has he not? A pity Connor cannot be dispatched, like the Corsican Monster, to some remote isle. Oh, I don’t truly mean that! But I am tired of him denouncing me, and while I should be used to it by now, I’m not. I am a lady of obscure origin, says Master Connor, of lively demeanor and doubtful morals. Fine words from a man whose reputation is as black as his. Moreover, my origins are not the least obscure, and as for my morals— Well!”
There was one detail of his pre-war life that Ned perfectly remembered. He suggested that Connor Halliday’s presumptions might be best-served by a duel.
“No, no!” cried Amanda. “I could not bear it if you
were harmed. I should not have said
that
either! But it is prodigious cruel of Connor to offer me £6,000 a year if I go away. Did I not so dislike him, I
would
go! But I
do
dislike him, and I refuse to leave him a clear field.”
“A clear field for what?” Ned asked, rather huskily. Amanda had cast herself on his chest.
“I wish I knew,” she moaned. “Connor must have some reason for acting as he does. When I refused the money, he
threatened
me. I think he must have bats in his cockloft.”
Ned was less astonished by this vulgarity on the lips of a lady than he was disturbed by the depth of her distress. “You must leave Connor for others to deal with,” he said.
“No, I must not.” Amanda straightened, extricated a handkerchief from her sleeve, and applied it to her nose. “Connor is my
problem, and I shouldn’t be nattering on about him to you. It’s just that his conduct alarms me, and it is all the worse because I can speak of it to no one else. Rosamond might believe me, because she doesn’t like him either; but since she likes me even less, she’d say it’s all my fault. Oh, pray forgive me for raising such a dust. But when I think that Connor will be rich as Croesus, and could give me £6,000 without blinking an eye, I could drum my heels on the floor!”
Lest she truly do so, and Amanda looked much as if she might, Ned searched for a distraction. “Tell me about Sir Wesley. How did you meet?”
Amanda obliged him. It was a simple enough tale. Ned could easily understand how an elderly gentleman, encountering this lovely young woman while taking the healthful waters at Bath, should have decided to acquire a wife. “I
did
make him most comfortable,” Amanda concluded. “And my conduct was altogether exemplary, no matter what Connor may say. I don’t see why it should be held against me that my people had come down in the world, because we hadn’t come down all
that
far.”