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‘Yes. It will be a shock to Claud, if he can comprehend it, which I fear may not be the case. He is not at all well, in fact we had been in constant expectation of hearing that he had passed away for the past month or two.’
‘I will endeavour to be as tactful as possible and send a trusted clerk with the message. You will communicate with your step-daughters?’
Guin fought back the sense of unreality that thinking of Augustus’s daughters in that way always produced. They were all older than she was. ‘Faith, see if we have any mourning stationery in the house and find the black sealing wax. The sight of that used for the letters might help break the news a little.’
But not much, given that when they had last heard their father was in the best of health and spirits. In fact, until they broke that black wax they would probably assume it was news of their uncle’s death, not their father’s. She had always realised that Augustus would predecease her, barring accidents, but she had studied to improve his health and fitness and had hoped to repay him for rescuing her by helping him to enjoy many years of relative good health. Whatever onlookers might choose to believe, she had loved him like a grandfather or a dear great-uncle.
‘If there is nothing else, I will write those letters now and speak to the staff, they will be anxious. Mr Foster, will you accompany me to the inquest?’
‘Of course, ma’am. Send for me at any time.’
Do these polite professional men think I murdered him? she wondered bleakly as she tried to collect her thoughts to form some kind of orderly list of things to be done. Does Jared?
Chapter Ten
Jared got back to Great Ryder Street to find the decorators slapping paint on the walls, a plumber working his mysteries in what would be the changing room and the carpenter and his apprentice obstructing most of the floor space with planks of wood destined to be panelling in the salle d’armes.
Upstairs Dover, his hair tousled, a smudge on the end of his nose and his shirtsleeves rolled up, was contemplating the kitchen with what looked like smug satisfaction. He turned as Jared walked in. ‘How are things, sir?’
‘Not good. This looks promising though.’
‘I got the carpenter to put up shelves for a larder and hung a curtain in front and I’ve sorted out all that ironmongery you bought at the auction. We have all the kitchen wares we need, save for some more knives and spoons. The mattresses and pillows and sheets are on order and will be delivered this afternoon.’ He followed Jared back into the sitting room, ticking things off on his fingers. ‘I have opened various accounts and I had a look at the auction rooms – there’s some useful stuff in tomorrow. May I tell the plumber to run a pipe up here and a drain down? There’s room for a small sink in the corner of the kitchen and the water pressure’s good – we can have a tap, not a pump.’
‘Whatever you think would improve the place,’ Jared said vaguely. ‘You’re doing a good job, carry on. Ignore me, I need to think.’
He sat at the table, took paper and pen and began to doodle shapes, words, patterns. None of it meant anything, not yet, but eventually he would draw lines, connect words and thoughts and something coherent might emerge.
Dover put bread and cheese and pickles down in front of him along with a mug of ale and went off quietly to the other end of the table to eat his own luncheon. Jared grunted his thanks and ate and drew until finally he sat back and studied the results of an hour’s work.
The centre of the page was occupied with an elongated, twisted triangle which was, he realised, a stylised Britain. Amongst the words jotted down were a handful underlined. Husband One? Cause of death? Family?? North. Why?
Jared got up and fetched the fat red volume that was the latest edition of the Peerage, an essential reference for anyone seeking the patronage of the upper classes to have about them. He flipped through to find the Viscount Northam and studied the list of land holdings. Allerton Grange, the place Northam had told him he had bought from an impoverished relative lay, he realised, between Pickering and Whitby in the North Riding of Yorkshire. No wonder the name had rung faint bells with him.
‘Hell and damnation,’ he said aloud. Of all the places it had to be there, less than twenty five miles across the moors to Ravenscar. He had sworn never to go back to North Yorkshire.
‘Is anything wrong, sir?’ Dover looked across, a pickled onion impaled on the tines of his fork.
‘Ghosts, that is all. Just ghosts.’ And he was starting at shadows. Even the most malevolent spectres could not haunt the entire North Riding just waiting for him to turn up. And if they did – so what? He gave a mental shrug. He was a grown man now, a hard, experienced man with a different name and a new identity, not a seventeen year old still wet behind the ears and capable of being wounded to the heart by betrayal, mistrust and unfairness.
He thought back to Guinevere’s reluctant telling of her first marriage, flicked through his notebook and wrote Francis Willoughby, 2 years ago, fall from window, on the sheet of queries. That was a death that would have prompted a post mortem. If she would not be more open with him about it, then he was going to have to make enquiries. Just as old ghosts haunted him, he suspected that they haunted Guinevere also – and this was the most obvious one to be rattling chains. I suppose he really is dead… Surely she would not risk bigamy… Jared gave himself a brisk mental shake. Of course the man was dead.
But that first husband was the only trailing thread in all of Guinevere’s story that he could catch hold of. Lady Northam was going to have to be very frank with him, he decided, or he would have to be even more frank and warn her that he could not help her unless she told him everything.
‘Someone is coming,’ Dover said and got up from the table where he had been reading the Morning Post. Jared glanced across, reading upside down, and saw he was circling advertisements for auctions.
Heavy boots tramped up the stairs and Dover swung the door open.
‘Lady downstairs asking for Mr Hunt.’ Jared recognised one of the builders.
‘I expect that is Faith, Lady Northam’s maid, with a message about the Coroner and the inquest. Go down and show her up please, Dover,’ he called. Either that or it was Sophie – who should know better than to go visiting building sites and bachelor’s lodgings.
He folded away his notes, closed the Peerage and stood up, listening. There was the tramp of hobnail boots going back down, Dover’s lighter tread, then a murmur of low voices, one of them female and unidentifiable, then the sound of two people climbing the stairs.
A black-clad, heavily-veiled figure came through the door with Dover close on her heels. ‘I am sorry, sir, but the lady insisted.’
Oh Hades, Guinevere. ‘Dover, go downstairs, make certain no-one disturbs us.’ He managed to hang on to his temper until the door closed behind the expressionless manservant. ‘What the devil are you doing here, Guinevere? Have you understood nothing of what I have been warning you about?’
Guinevere flung back her veil to reveal a white pinched face, reddened eyes. She should have lost all her beauty and the fact that, in his eyes, she had not, was enough to fan the flames of his anger with her. Jared strode to the window and looked out. ‘Do not tell me you came in your own carriage.’
