"I ought to make myself available to Sarah," Richard said quietly. "She's cut up--low from nursing
my mother through the last illness. Robert and I go on comfortably, you know."
Tom expelled a sigh of relief. So Richard was on speaking terms with at least one of his kin. "I
hope your children are well."
"They were when I left."
"And Emily?"
Richard's mouth relaxed. "Emily is herself, thank God, though she dislikes living in town."
"She's still homesick?"
"She doesn't complain, but I fancy she's bored."
The previous summer they had raked over Richard's reasons for removing from his stepson's
estate, and Tom had been unable to fault his friend's logic. Richard could not afford to let another estate,
nor even another country house. Though neither Emily nor Richard regarded the move with enthusiasm, it
seemed the only answer. As Matt was enrolled for Winchester College, Winchester was the obvious place
in which to take a house.
"Are you back in young Matthew's graces yet?" Tom asked.
Richard grimaced. "Intermittently. He's a stiff-rumped young devil but he doesn't want for sense.
Amy likes her school."
"I wish I might see young Amy. Pretty as she can stare, I daresay."
A shadow crossed Richard's face. "I'm told she favours the duchess."
Tom cleared his throat. "And my godson?"
"Tommy is reading well."
"But his hearing is gone."
Richard nodded.
"I'm sorry," Tom said again.
"I daresay your boys have reached the waddling stage," Richard said tactfully.
Relieved, Tom gave him an account of Lord Brecon and the Honourable Richard Conway.
Presently his mind turned to Johnny Dyott. "I thought he still had work to do for you, Richard. He hasn't
copied the whole manuscript yet, has he?"
"He can't copy what isn't finished. Let be, Tom. Emily thinks he's taken with one of your
sisters-in-law."
"Lord, so he scents a rival." Tom started to laugh aloud, then broke off guiltily. "I beg you
pardon. They're minxes, you know, and clever as paint. I thought Johnny had taken their measure at
Christmas but he is at the susceptible age, after all. Did Emily say which twin he fancies?"
A gleam of humour lit Richard's eyes. "Perhaps he's in love with both."
Tom chuckled. "I ought to commission you to write it all up."
At that point the butler entered with coffee. He was followed almost at once by Sir Robert
Wilson, who seemed flustered to find an earl in his bookroom at the breakfast hour.
When Tom took his leave, he thought Richard looked less drawn. He extracted his friend's
promise to dine later in the week. He was troubled for Richard and concerned about the Duke of
Newsham's response when that nobleman discovered his half brother in Sir Robert's house. Newsham hated
Richard.
The following Wednesday, as Tom was rigging himself out for yet another interminable political
dinner, Richard appeared in his dressing room. That is, the butler scratched at the door, Sims went to
confer, there was much muttering, which Tom tried to ignore, and Sims admitted Richard to the presence.
Sometimes Tom yearned for the bad old days when life was simpler and a friend might poke his head
through the tent flap without ceremony.
When Richard entered, Tom rose, abandoning the silver knife with which he had been paring his
nails. "Good God, is something amiss?"
Richard looked dazed. He gave his head a shake. "I need your advice."
Tom caught Sims's eye.
Brandy,
he mouthed, and for once Sims slid from the room
without comment.
"What is it? Sit down, man. You look as if you've been overrun by a troop of
cuirassiers
."
Richard gave a short laugh. "I feel it." He groped for the nearest chair and sat. "It seems the
dowager left me a fortune."
Richard's tone of voice was so much at odds with the tenor of his message that Tom did not
immediately grasp what he had said. When he did, he stared. "I'm glad she showed so much good sense. My
felicitations, Richard, and why the devil are you sunk in gloom?"
Richard said through his teeth, "When your predecessor died and you came into the earldom did
you rejoice?"
When Tom succeeded to the earldom of Clanross he was under a death sentence. A chunk of
metal was pressing against his spine. There had been no cause for rejoicing. That had come later, much
later. Apart from his right arm, Richard was in the pink of good health. Tom didn't see a parallel and said
so.
Richard ran his trembling hand over his face. "I don't know whether to accept the legacy and risk
a suit in chancery, or refuse it. I don't even know if I can refuse it."
"Probably not. And you shouldn't. You have Tommy's future to think of. A deaf child does not
have easy prospects," Tom said bluntly. "You know that. It's driven you to write what you despise and to
move your family to uncomfortably tight quarters. I daresay you'd have contrived something for Tommy
eventually, Richard, but at what cost to Emily and your other children? You've every right to your mother's
bequest, and, if the duchess's lawyers advised her properly, Newsham will have no grounds for a suit. Use
her gift to secure Tommy's future."
"Gift? I'm not talking of a few thousand pounds," Richard said with something like despair. "It
seems her grace collected terraces."
"I don't follow you."
"A genteel sum was settled on her when she married Newsham and she also had a small
inheritance from her mother. She invested it all."
"I see," Tom said slowly.
"I don't think you do. I've had it explained to me by her man of business. Four hours it took him
and that was after he read the will." Richard took a gulp of air.
"After the duke's death, the dowager lived retired. Her expenses were modest. She inherited a
manor in Yorkshire from her mother, and she sat there, when she wasn't travelling to Harrowgate or Bath
or Scarborough or Cheltenham, and
accumulated
properties. Her man of affairs said she made a
game of it."
"Good God."
"My mother," said Richard with dangerous calm, "was a genius at what I believe Yorkshiremen
call 'addling her brass.' She owned villas in St. John's Wood, and crescents and terraces in nearly every spa
she visited--and in several she didn't, notably Worthing. None of it is slum property, none of it is rural,
none of it touches on a manor belonging to the Ffouke estate. Where she couldn't purchase a free-hold
outright she took a ninety-year lease. She transformed her dower into an empire."
That was too much for Tom. He buried his head in his hands and laughed. When he composed
himself, he found Richard scowling at him. "My dear idiot, it's perfectly clear she was playing a vast joke on
Newsham. I'll lay odds she left your half brother the original sum his father settled on her."
"To the farthing."
"And some respectable token to each of her other children."
"She left her jewellery to Sarah. The dowager's admirers seem to have expressed their devotion in
diamonds. And she left fifty pounds apiece to the others. 'For mourning rings.'" Richard's mouth twitched
at the corners.
"She must have enjoyed herself," Tom murmured, eyeing him.
To his relief, Richard grinned. It was a reluctant grin but quite genuine. "All right, so it's
comical."
"Do you grudge her her joke?"
"I mightn't if I didn't feel I was the butt of it."
Tom said cautiously, "I'd lay odds the duchess had an eye on young Amy."
Richard frowned. Amy was his daughter by his first marriage. What was she now, ten? It hardly
seemed possible.
"The fact is," Tom went on, "you were the only one of her grace's children the patriarchy didn't
provide for. So she left you property with no traditional ties. Free property. Property that wasn't bound to
parental descent. She was a genius. What's more she was a wit. I wish I'd known her."
Richard shut his eyes. "So do I."
Tom said in the silence his clumsiness had created, "I daresay no one knew her, Richard, but I
begin to understand your feelings." He fingered the silver knife. "She couldn't give you what you needed,
so she gave you what she could give. Wealth. It's a poor substitute for affection."
"It's a dangerous substitute," Richard said without opening his eyes.
Before Tom could ask him to explain himself, Sims barged in with the brandy decanter. Sims
regarded Richard as a type of bandito and was apt to indulge in barely veiled criticisms, so Torn was
relieved when his man left the room.
He poured two substantial dollops of brandy, handed one glass to Richard, and raised his own.
"To the Dowager Duchess of Newsham."
"No," said Richard. "To Barbara Tyrell. Whoever she was."
* * * *
"Elizabeth! Johnny is come home!" Maggie burst into the nursery as Lord Brecon emerged from
his bath.
"Waw woo," said her nephew, who was growing more eloquent by the day. "Mama."
Elizabeth took his linen-swaddled lordship, still wet and wriggling like a trout, from Nurse, and
sat on the nursery rocker. "Is he really, Maggie? His leg must be very much improved." She began patting
Brecon dry.
Maggie danced across the room. "Yes, he's using a stick already and says he'll be able to ride again
within the month. And only fancy!" She perched on a hassock by the screen Nurse had erected to cut
draughts and beamed at Elizabeth.
"Only fancy what?" Elizabeth smiled at her. Brecon squirmed. Dickon splashed in the copper bath
by the fire whilst Nurse hovered.
"He's wearing trousers!"
"Ah... Splendid," said Elizabeth cautiously. Brecon had twined his pink fingers into the lace that
edged her sleeve. "No, Ba. Don't eat. Trousers. Er, has Johnny taken to open collars and spotted
neckerchiefs as well?"
Maggie grinned. "No, he looks very dashing, though. He brought you a letter from
Clanross."
"Good." Elizabeth would have preferred Clanross himself to any number of letters but she
supposed he would come within the week. She gave her son a small jounce. He gurgled happily. "Has Mrs.
Smollet seen to Johnny's room?"
"I gave her her orders." Maggie blushed. She was an unassuming girl. "I hope you don't think me
encroaching."
"Nonsense, darling, it's good practice for you. You will be running your own house one of these
days, after all. Bring me the baby's napkin and gown, will you?"
Maggie complied, her thoughts clearly still on Johnny. She folded and fastened the soft diapered
cloth in place whilst Elizabeth held Brecon for her. He submitted to the tiny vest and petticoats with fair
grace.
Dickon, still in the bath, crowed and splashed harder. Nurse clucked over him: Maggie took
Brecon from her sister.
Elizabeth rose. "I daresay Jean and Owen are still in the bookroom."
"Oh, yes, but they'll come out for tea. Johnny brought me...us a book, Colonel Falk's novel.
Have you read it?"
"Heavens, no." Elizabeth drifted to Nurse's side and touched Dickon's damp brown curls. He
gave her a wide grin that revealed his pearly, but still sparse milk teeth.
"Barf."
"Yes, darling. Very wet, too."
Dickon splashed hugely.
"Adone do," nurse scolded. "Lookee now, Master Dickon, if you've not splashed her ladyship's
gown."
"Hush, it will dry." Elizabeth plucked her dripping son from the water and thrust him into the
soft towel Nurse held out to her. Dickon let out a startled wail. His attitude toward baths was Roman. He
would have preferred to stay in his
calidarium
forever.
"Johnny says it's a very amusing satire, but perhaps not quite delicate."
Elizabeth took Dickon and towel in her arms and resumed her station at the rocker. "There,
there, darling, all good things must come to an end. Well, Maggie, you've grown up now. You be the
judge. If the book makes you blush you needn't finish it. Will Johnny come to the withdrawing room or
take his tea in his own room?"
"He'll join us. He really ought to rest his leg, though." Maggie hid her pink face in Brecon's
hair.
She does have a
tendre
for Johnny,
Elizabeth thought, resigned.
Ah,
well.
She towelled Dickon thoroughly, tickling him when he showed a disposition to grizzle.
Presently Nurse and her aide-de-camp, a wide-eyed young girl from the village, removed the
babies with a promise to display them in the withdrawing room when they had been fed, and Elizabeth and
Maggie left the warm nursery for the draughty second floor corridor.
"Did Johnny keep Tom's letter by him?"
"He gave it to Fisher. Elizabeth..."
"What is it, my dear?" Elizabeth lifted her skirt and grasped the bannister.
Maggie slipped down the stair ahead of her. "I'm glad Johnny's back. Now we shall go on very
comfortably." And she danced off, leaving Elizabeth to descend to the first floor hall in a thoughtful
mood.
Had Maggie been feeling uncomfortable for some reason? For the obvious reason? Owen Davies.
I ought to put a stop to those long sessions in the book room,
Elizabeth reflected, uneasy.
But how? I
cannot change my tune for no reason. So far Owen has not shown any obvious partiality for one twin over the other nor is
his manner--at least in my presence--unduly warm. Still .
She resolved to have a private talk with Johnny
Dyott.
* * * *
By the time he had drunk tea with the Brecon house party, it was clear to Johnny that Jean was in
love with Owen Davies. There could be no doubt, though neither Jean nor Owen said or did anything a less
acute observer would notice. Johnny, however, was unhappily aware of every breath Lady Jean respired.
Her sighs--and her glowing glances--were directed at the poet. At least Maggie seemed unaffected.
As usual, Lady Clanross was gracious to Johnny, singling him out, and questioning him with every
appearance of interest about his health and his stay with the Falks. He thought he made a fair show of
answering the kindly questions. He had no desire to make his jealousy a subject for talk, so he spoke with
more animation than he felt and even, under Maggie's bright gaze, enlivened his account with anecdotes of
the Falk children, whom he was beginning to miss. He also missed Emily. He had been able to confide in
Emily.