Patricia Wynn (12 page)

“Ho!” came Vigor’s quavery tones from outside the stable. “Tom! Give a hand here!”

Tom took Susan by the arm and pulled her out of sight of the door. “I will have to help him bring in the horses. Will I speak to you again this evening or must you go?”

Susan was suddenly shy. “I’m afraid I must go,” she said, averting her eyes slightly from his intense gaze. Her fine black hair fell gently forward about her temples. “Dinner will be soon, and if this is to be my last evening here, I must be mindful of my duties to Lady Mewhinny. I shall be rather sad to leave her,” she finished wistfully, “knowing I cannot ever come back to see her as myself. She must never know of my problems.”

Lord Harleston frowned. He wanted to tell Susan of his plans to secure her pardon but was fearful of raising her hopes too soon. Surely the Prince would grant it. He could not allow her to be punished for an act of compassion! The thought sent a shot of fear through him, greater than any he had experienced in battle. Susan was refusing to meet his eye, but he could imagine the sadness in her expression. She had an open, impulsive nature, not intended for a life of concealment.

All at once, his lordship wondered how much it was for himself that he desired her pardon. But now there was no time for discussion. He let go of her arm at the sound of another cry from Vigor.

“I must go, too. But please do not worry. We shall see about everything.”

He gave her an encouraging smile and hurried off to help the old groom. Susan, sighing, lifted her skirts and picked her way back to the house, being careful to stay out of sight of the new arrivals.

Inside, she found the servants in a perturbed state. It appeared that Lady Mewhinny’s nephew, Mr. Augustus Petworthy, had come to stay unexpectedly, bringing with him a strange guest. From the rare, disgruntled expression on Bates’s face, Susan guessed that Mr. Petworthy was not popular with the servants.

“Does he often arrive unannounced like this?” Susan enquired of the butler.

“Seldom unannounced, madam,” Bates said, deigning for once to discuss matters. “Though never with more than a few days’ notification. And he is not in the habit of bringing uninvited guests as if this were his own residence. Or likely to be,” he added significantly.

“I see,” Susan said, although she was not perfectly enlightened. She went upstairs to change into her black silk mourning gown for dinner. She had only two dresses to wear, not judging it correct for her to be out of mourning. Lady Mewhinny’s dresser, another elderly servant named Simmons, had been keeping them fresh for her, but she was relieved there had been no other guests present during the few days of her stay. They might have thought it quite odd for a widow in such comfortable circumstances as to have her own carriage, to have no more than two mourning gowns to her name.

She went down to dinner just before six and was presented to Mr. Petworthy and his guest.

“Enchanté, madame,”
Mr. Petworthy
said with a broad, tight-lipped smile which did not light his eyes. “I have heard the remarkable story of your assistance to my Aunt Catherine, and may I say how truly grateful I am. I am quite devoted to her. Indeed, my friend here, Mr. Sodporth, will tell you how often I have spoken of her and in what affection I hold her.” He turned and presented the gentleman at his side.

Susan could not truthfully say that she was favourably impressed with either gentleman. While there was nothing specifically in their manners to offend, there was something about them she could not quite like. Mr. Petworthy was a large man with a red face and a round nose. His hair was cut “à la Brutus,” but the back of his head was perfectly flat and he kept it always at a slight tilt which she found distracting. There was an alertness about him which suggested a need to be constantly seeking points of weakness in others, and she later found his questions to be both probing and annoying.

Mr. Sodporth, who was introduced to her as a medical man, seemed to have very little to say for himself, but he clearly had a love of comfort. He was small and slightly nervous, so that whenever a remark was addressed to him, he bobbed his head up and down repeatedly with more than the necessary agreement. The rest of the time, he looked anxiously about him and awaited each delicacy placed before him with such anticipation that he seemed hardly aware of the conversation going on around the table. Lady Mewhinny’s sherry, brandy and pastries were gobbled up in a state of total absorption.

Lady Mewhinny seemed to accept her visitors without the slightest worry. She carried on quite as if her nephew were free to come and go as he chose. Susan had watched her during Mr. Petworthy’s profession of devotion, but aside from looking up once from her needlework, Lady Mewhinny had shown no sign of being moved.

The dinner table conversation revolved largely around Mr. Sodporth’s distinguished qualifications, although that gentleman showed more interest in his slice of mutton than in Mr. Petworthy’s eloquent praise. According to him, Mr. Sodporth was an authority on the subject of melancholia and despondency. Lady Mewhinny listened brightly but without much comment, so Susan was obliged to appear more interested than she truly was. Mr. Petworthy seemed quite eager to impress them with his friend’s accomplishments.

“But I daresay you have little knowledge of medical matters, Mrs. Faringdon,” he said, turning to her finally. “It has just occurred to me to ask whether you are a part of the Hertfordshire branch of the Faring-don family. I am quite well acquainted with Sir Donald, but I do not recall his having mentioned the recent loss of a family member.”

Susan cringed inwardly, but lifted her head with dignity and replied in as crushing a tone as she could muster,
“Non, monsieur.
We do not form part of zat branch of ze family.”

“What a pity,” Mr. Petworthy said in heartfelt tones. Nevertheless, Susan got the distinct impression that he was relieved. “Then we cannot be acquainted. Still, I shall mention our having met to Sir Donald next time I visit him. It will be sure to interest him. Now, tell me,” he continued, swiveling his big head around to face her and smiling in a way she found offensive, “how much longer may we look forward to the pleasure of your company?”

“I shall be leaving in ze morning,
monsieur,”
she answered, without betraying her relief. With his arrival she had felt obliged to reapply herself to her French accent, although having had an English husband excused her from total ignorance of the English tongue.

He tuttutted with a cheery smile and turned back to solicit the attention of Lady Mewhinny.

“Auntie!” he said rather loudly, as if he thought she were deaf. “I must thank you for providing my friend and me with such a charming companion for the evening.” He glanced back at Susan, giving her a look of complicity, and went on in a condescending aside, “for you must know we are not usually so gay here.”

Then, fortunately, with this rather heavy-handed compliment he seemed to have finished with Mrs. Faringdon, for he ignored her for the rest of the evening.

“Auntie,” he began again. “I shall hope for a few minutes of your time after dinner to discuss a matter of business with you. I have come into the way of an extraordinary opportunity about which I could not conscionably omit telling you.”

“That is very thoughtful of you, Augustus,” Lady Mewhinny said complacently. “But as you know, my fortune is all in the funds.”

“Of course, of course, Auntie,” said Mr. Petworthy impatiently. “But you must let me tell you about my extreme good fortune in hearing of this investment. No matter how ably your man of business is handling your affairs, you could not possibly wish to refuse hearing of something which could treble your income. Just think of what it could mean to your monkeys,” he added with a tight little smile.

“Why, Augustus!” her ladyship cried with a laugh. “Have you at last developed an affection for my monkeys? I warned you it would happen if you continued to visit me. They are quite irresistible!”

Mr. Petworthy did not answer immediately, but gave the impression of swallowing a retort.

“You must know, my dear Susan,” continued Lady Mewhinny, “that Augustus feels himself very ill-used by my monkeys and me, not to mention Sir William. I am afraid it was a grave shock to him when Sir William left his entire fortune to me. It was not entailed, you see. And I, of course, need the better part of it for my poor monkeys.”

Susan felt the gentleman tense in his seat beside her, but he managed to address himself to his aunt with rigid composure. “Nonsense, Auntie,” he said, smiling for Susan’s benefit. “You are only joking. Why, my uncle made me such a generous allowance that I have nothing to wish for.”

Mr. Sodporth looked up from his food at this statement, as if it came to him as a surprise, but he nodded and smiled dumbly when Mr. Petworthy gave him a shriveling look.

“But I have to admit,” Mr. Petworthy said to Susan with the appearance of one mildly aggrieved, “that it comes as rather a shock to a man of such strong family devotion as myself, to find that his only uncle—an uncle moreover with no other living descendants—that said uncle arranged his affairs in such an extraordinary fashion. Is the claim of charity,” he continued, “charity to mere animals, mind you, greater than the attachment of blood between generations? It leaves one with great questions and doubts—doubts that perhaps all was not quite well with his mind when he made his dispositions. Perhaps Mr. Sodporth would feel able to advance a theory to enlighten us on this matter.”

Mr. Sodporth, thus called upon in the middle of a mouthful of boiled potatoes, gasped in surprise and immediately choked upon his food. Lady Mewhinny made a casual sign to an elderly footman, who approached the visitor and clapped him soundly on the back. The others went on with their conversation politely, as though the disturbance had not occurred.

“I sincerely doubt, Augustus,” Lady Mewhinny said calmly, “that your concern for my monkeys has undergone an improvement. I should be happy to learn that you had experienced a change of heart, for I would be glad to have your assistance. As I have told you before, it astonishes me how anyone with a name such as yours can have so little regard for our more unfortunate species.” She gave a little chuckle at her own joke and looked to Susan for her reaction.

The curious inappropriateness of Mr. Petworthy’s name had already occurred to Susan, so she was able to smile at her hostess without offending the gentleman next to her with a laugh. Mr. Petworthy had clearly been subjected to this joke before, for he made no attempt at polite laughter. Instead, he applied himself to his food for the first time that evening, and the remainder of the meal passed in relative silence.

After dinner, however, he was sufficiently recovered to corner her ladyship as she was rising from the table, so Susan had to move into the parlour without her companion. Lady Mewhinny promised to join her shortly, but the time stretched out slowly, so Susan decided to go up to her room to add some finishing touches to her packing. When she came back down and started to enter the parlour, she became aware of gentlemen’s voices on the other side of the door. Not wishing to enter the room unless she was certain of Lady Mewhinny’s protective presence, she waited and listened with the object of detecting her voice.

But in a moment it became quite clear that her ladyship could not possibly be present. While Susan listened in increasing distress, Mr. Petworthy expressed his loathing for his aunt in the most shockingly disrespectful terms.

“The old witch!” came his voice from the parlour. “Petworthy, indeed! I shall see to it that those miserable apes are tossed out as soon as she is gone. You were no help to me tonight, Alfred. You and your appetite. You might strive to look as though you occasionally experienced a decent meal, instead of slobbering over every dish that comes round. I am certain that
I
, at least, have fed you often enough.”

“I was only being polite, Augustus. You never said I was not to enjoy my food. I am quite prepared to be of service when the time comes,” Mr. Sodporth responded in an injured tone.

“Well, never mind that. It’s a good thing that Frenchwoman plans to leave in the morning. It would be harder for us to do what we must if she were around. And I cannot hold off my creditors any longer. Once she is gone we can get to work in earnest.”

“The old lady did not fall for your investment scheme?” his accomplice asked.

“No,” Mr. Petworthy answered shortly. “She’s got a solicitor who handles all her affairs. Not a day under eighty, I imagine, but she always prefers his judgement to mine. There’s absolutely no accounting for it,” he added with a peculiar ingenuousness.

Susan wanted to listen more to see if she could discover what their intentions were, but the two men made noises as if they might leave the parlour, so she fled quickly up the stairs and went straight to her room.

Chapter Eight

As soon as she was safely inside her bedchamber, Susan collapsed against the closed door in horror. Mr. Petworthy’s intentions with respect to his aunt were evil ones, she was certain. No lighter interpretation could possibly be made of his comments. He was desperate for funds, and he and the doctor had come down into Sussex with an idea for disposing somehow of poor Kitty! She must do something fast, but yet she had no information on which to act.

What was it he had said? Oh, yes, she recalled: he was happy that she should be leaving in the morning for that would make his task easier. Then I must not leave, Susan thought anxiously. How could she leave, when Lady Mewhinny needed her so desperately? She, of course, would be unaware of her nephew’s evil intent, and perhaps would not even believe it if Susan were to tell her.

Then Tom and I must handle it,
Susan decided. Yet how were they to make an excuse to stay on, when she had clearly said they would leave on the morrow? She must get a message to Tom so that he could make up an excuse—a broken carriage wheel or some such thing. He would know what to do.

It was then that it occurred to her she must not assume Lord Harleston would be game to stay on at her bidding. “Oh, I’ve already involved you in enough of my nonsense,” she said miserably, as though he were there in the room with her. “I must not drag you into this.” There was nothing for it but to explain the situation to Lord Harleston and ask him to leave. She would have to stay on with Lady Mewhinny alone. Knowing him as she now did, she was certain he would put up a fuss, but she must convince him somehow. The clandestine nature of their friendship posed its own dangers, chiefly to her heart. Had she not just started planning his involvement again? It seemed so easy to forget who he really was and why they were there. He was much too reliable, too comforting and too strong. If he continued to help her, she would not be able to stop her feelings for him from developing. So he must—he absolutely must go this time.