The Westerby Inheritance (29 page)

The highwayman facing Lord Charles stood strangely silent, his pistols leveled at his lordship’s head.

“Well, get on with it!” snapped Lord Charles. “I suppose you want our jewels.”

“Your life, my lord,” said the highwayman, his surprisingly cultured voice warning Lord Charles that here was no ordinary robber but something much more menacing.

Jane could not remember afterward how she did it. The pistols she held under her train suddenly seemed to have become fused to her hands, a very part of her body.

Her brain was ice-cold and clear. She shook free her train and, as the highwayman’s finger tightened on the trigger, she raised her pistols with one fluid motion and shot the highwayman through the head, and in the very next split second had swung her other hand and neatly put a ball through the heart of the second highwayman, who fell like a stone.

Lord Charles bent over the man who had just been about to kill him and ripped off his mask. Jane had shot away the top of his head, but what was left of the man’s face was recognizable, and Lord Charles gave a low whistle. “It’s young Jimmy Carruthers,” he said.

“Who is he?” asked Jane in a cold, crisp voice. She felt nothing for the men she had killed. That, she knew, would come later.

“He’s one of James Bentley’s victims. Bentley won his land and estates from him in the same way as he ruined your father. He was always a weak lad, but I can never remember him being vicious, and I would have said he would have done anything rather than take to the road. Let’s see t’other.”

The other dead man was quickly unmasked, but he proved to have the face of a common felon.

Lord Charles swung round to where Jane stood behind him, white-faced and calm. “Get in the coach,” he ordered. “I shall join you in a moment.”

Jane climbed into the coach and sat down gingerly on the seat. She felt that if she made a sudden movement she would break like glass. She sat staring straight ahead, sitting bolt upright, her face as white as her powdered hair, dimly aware of her husband’s angry voice as he berated his servants for not having their arms ready and primed.

“Although,” he said after the carriage had moved off again, “it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, for I should have been ready myself. Well, I have a flask of brandy on this side. Drink some. You’re as white as a sheet.”

He tilted the silver flask to her lips, and she drank a great gulp, choked, shivered, and suddenly collapsed back against the upholstery.

“What…?” he began, but she put her hand in his and said in a low voice, “Don’t speak. Not now.” And so he fell silent, turning over the problem of young Carruthers in his mind.

They stopped for the night at a comfortable hostlery. It was not very grand, but the sheets smelled of lavender and their bedroom was clean.

Jane had hardly said a word, except to beg him to be silent when he tried to discuss the attack by the highwaymen. That night she would not let him touch her and cried out in fear when he tried to take her in his arms, and, tired and shaken himself, he merely shrugged and turned over on his side and fell asleep.

The next day she was no better, and he wearied of begging and coaxing her to tell him what was the matter.

“Bunter’s Cross,” he said finally. “We are nearly home.”

Jane glanced out of the window and stiffened. A high wind was blowing, and three corpses hanging on a gibbet at the cross swung and dangled in the wind, creaking on their ropes.

“Death!” whispered Jane through white lips. “Death everywhere.”

He found himself becoming impatient with her. Dead bodies hanging on gibbets were a common sight in Merry England, all part of the landscape, so to speak. He forgot about her incredible bravery of the day before and began to wonder if perhaps she might be missish.

The almost boyish look of elation left his face, and by the time the weary horses pulled up the long drive toward the entrance to Upperpark, his face had resumed its old haughty mask.

He felt that she could not possibly love him, or she would not reject him so. He was her husband, and she should confide her troubles in him.

But it was good to be home. He felt proud of his home as the mellow Tudor brick rose above the trees of the park and the setting sun sparkled on the mullioned windows. And oh! the smells of home were already in his nostrils. Woodsmoke rising from the tall, fantastic chimneys, and inside a mixture of applewood, rose leaves, beeswax, hot bread, and damp dog.

The servants were lined up in the hall to greet their new mistress, and Lord Charles was relieved that his wife performed the ceremony with grace. Then, after it was over, he noticed Jane bending over a wicker basket.

“What have you there, my love?” he demanded, striding over.

“Wong,” said Jane. “I could not leave him behind.”

“
Wong!
” he said wrathfully. “Do you mean to tell me you brought that excuse for a dog on your
honeymoon?
”

Jane was helping Wong out of his basket and did not trouble to reply. Wong’s flat obsidian eyes stared round his new quarters. He promptly squatted, and a large puddle began to spread over the sanded floor.

“Tcha!” said his lordship and turned on his heel. “I will see you at supper, madam,” he said over his shoulder, “and perhaps you might deign to tell me what ails you.”

Jane crept miserably after the housekeeper, to be shown to her own apartment. The woman had barely curtsied herself out before Jane threw herself on the bed and burst into an agony of weeping. She wanted to go home. But she no longer knew where home was. After some time, when she had cried herself out, she realized she would have to explain herself to her lord. And so she learned one of the most difficult lessons of marriage very quickly—that unfortunately the loved one is not blessed with telepathic powers, and therefore it is always necessary to explain one’s feelings clearly and distinctly.

But as she washed and changed, with the help of a strange maid, she could not help feeling rebelliously that he might have
guessed
the extent of her shock and horror.

As she was ushered into a pleasant paneled drawing room with a fine crystal chandelier blazing under the low ceiling, he rose to meet her, and she saw at once the hurt on his face and ran to him, crying his name for the first time. “Charles! Oh, Charles. Forgive me! I was so frightened, so very frightened, and you did not seem to understand.”

He swept her into his arms and held her close against his heart.

“How could I?” he said softly. “I am supposed to be your defender and protector, my dear, and yet it is my tiny bride who kills two men as coolly as you please with the best piece of shooting I have ever seen. I was angry with myself, I think, because I had exposed you to such danger by my lack of foresight. And how was I to know you were so frightened and shocked? I began to feel you thought me less than a man for having put you in such a position.”

“Ah, no, Charles,” she said, laughing through her tears. “I am a very weak woman, I assure you.”

“Who taught you to shoot?”

“Hetty.”

“What a terrifying mama-in-law I have. Add Bella to that, and I shall be frightened to raise my voice to you.”

“Charles,” said Jane timidly, “I am not hungry, and we are wasting time.”

He promptly swept her up in his arms and began to carry her toward the staircase. This time he did not wonder what was in her mind.…

In the next month, Lord Charles gradually forgot about Jimmy Carruthers. He had reported the matter to the magistrates and had heard nothing further. He had been going to start investigations of his own, because he was curious to find out what had forced Jimmy Carruthers to such a trade and why that young man should be so interested in blowing his, Lord Charles’s, brains out rather than simply taking his money and jewels. But as the lovely, lazy days drifted past in a golden chain, he found himself reluctant to break the spell by doing anything to remind Jane of the incident.

Sir Anthony had written begging to visit them, but to even Sir Anthony Lord Charles sent a firm refusal. He wanted his bride to himself for a little longer. Bella had arrived a few days after the wedding. Whether Jane had told her maid the story of the highwaymen, Lord Charles did not know, and certainly Bella never referred to it.

Then the first news to disturb their calm arrived one morning by the early post.

It was a long and rambling letter from Hetty, in which she stated that she had allowed Mrs. Bentley to take up residence as a sort of chatelaine at the Chase, since Mrs. Bentley was just a regular body like anyone else and had overcome her bitterness for the Westerbys—which, when you looked at it clearly, Hetty had written, was only natural, seeing as how her husband had killed himself over the loss of the Westerby estates. She added almost pleadingly that Jane would surely be glad to have someone in residence at the Chase to oversee the building, and after all she, Hetty, was mortal sick of the country and preferred the life in town.

Lord Charles covertly studied his wife’s face as she finished reading aloud Hetty’s letter. Jane looked very grim indeed.

“I cannot bear the thought of that woman in my home!” Jane burst out.

“But this is your home,” said Lord Charles gently.

“Of course,” said Jane, crumpling the letter. “I shall think no more about the Bentleys, I assure you.” And with that she gave him a very bright smile and left the room.

All seemed, however, to return to its idyllic state until some three days later, when he found her in the study, poring over a sheaf of blueprints of the Chase.

“What is this?” he admonished. “I believe you love that horrible place more than me.”

He leaned over her shoulder and stared down at the top sheet. “Is that the old part of the house?” he asked suddenly.

“Of course,” said Jane in some surprise. “These are the original plans.”

He took out his eyeglass and polished it and looked very closely at the plans. His long finger moved over them and then stopped.

“Is that your father’s room?” he asked. “The one he died in?”

“Yes,” said Jane. “But why—”

“Nothing,” he said quickly. “Are you still hankering for your old home?”

“Not
very
much,” she said wistfully. “But I
would
so love to see how the rebuilding is going on. Oh, Charles do you think we…?”

He gave her a quick hug. “Yes, my dear, I shall take you to see my rival for your affections.”

“Oh, Charles!” cried Jane, throwing her arms around him. “I shall run and tell Bella. She will be excited too.”

“Why should she be?” asked Lord Charles, looking amused. “She hardly knows the place.” But Jane had already danced from the room.

Lord Charles walked over and shut the door behind her. Then he returned and sat down in front of the old plans of the Chase and took out his glass again. He hoped he had been mistaken. He located the late Marquess’s bedroom and brought his eyeglass into play again.

After a few minutes he straightened up and almost mechanically put his eyeglass away again and rapped his long fingers on the table.

It was as he had feared. Very faintly marked in faded ink was a small etching indicating the presence of a secret closet or priest’s hole in the corner of the old Marquess’s bedroom.

Lord Charles remembered the ghost of James Bentley. Someone could have hidden in the secret room and emerged like a ghost from the shadows. Someone wearing James Bentley’s clothes. And where would that someone get James Bentley’s clothes but from Mrs. Bentley herself?

Had the late Jimmy Carruthers’ attempt at murder been by chance—or by plot? The answer lay at the Chase, at the center of which sat Mrs. Bentley, holding the reins and playing chatelaine.

He would not frighten Jane with his suspicions. But he would make sure she was never left alone, day or night.

There came a scrabbling at the door. He went and opened it. Wong shuffled in with his rolling gait and collapsed on the rug, dribbling and gasping.

“And you,” said Lord Charles, looking at Wong with dislike, “will make a very good food taster indeed!”

Sir Anthony had, in fact, proposed to Miss Philadelphia Syms and had been accepted.

Philadelphia was back at Westerby, Mrs. Bentley having tired of her since she had failed so miserably to attract the attention of Lord Charles, and Mrs. Bentley having her fanatical obsession with Eppington Chase to keep her warm.

Mrs. Bentley had put in a miraculous deal of hard work on Lady Hetty. Hetty was so pleased with the world and, like her stepdaughter, was prepared to think the best of everyone, even the Bentleys. For herself, Hetty detested the Chase and thought that the house and the Bentleys went very well together. Fanny was glad to escape from London. She had attended a party at which Mr. Jennings, her late suitor, had been present. He had blushed painfully the minute he saw her and had dropped his glass.

His amused friends had crowded round him, and Fanny heard voices asking the confused Mr. Jennings whether he were still smitten with Miss Bentley to get himself into such a state. To her horror, he had shaken his head and had started to murmur something in a low voice.

His friends had listened intently, heads bent in a powdered circle round the blushing, stammering Mr. Jennings. At the end of his speech, raucous laughter had rent the air, and Fanny had walked quickly away, two spots of color burning on her cheeks, but not before she had caught several amused and mocking glances thrown in her direction.

Mama was right, Fanny had thought fiercely. The Westerbys were responsible for all the Bentley humiliations.

A further blow to her pride had been Philadelphia’s engagement.

Perhaps Fanny would have been consoled had she been able to look into Sir Anthony’s heart and see the confusion and misery there.

Sir Anthony was sitting in the drawing room of Westerby vicarage on the day after Lord and Lady Charles set out on their journey from Kent to the Chase in Surrey.

He was alone with his beloved, Mrs. Syms having considered it proper enough to leave the couple alone, since they were engaged. But he no longer seemed able to recapture that feeling of happiness and exultation when he looked at her beauty.