The Honorable Heir (13 page)

When Georgette had departed, Catherine realized yet one more difficulty. If Georgette did convince Tristram to wed him, she was likely to learn about the jewelry and his lingering suspicions that Catherine lay behind the theft. And what would happen between their families then?

For the next two days, Catherine kept herself so busy with preparations for the charity tea that she had no time to think about the possibility of Tristram and Georgette marrying, and was too weary at night not to sleep.

The morning of the tea dawned bright and clear. Catherine took the automobile to the clubhouse to look into the decorations, ensuring that the flowers had arrived on the morning train. She supervised their placement and, at last satisfied with the arrangements, she went home to dress.

For the second time since returning home, she donned one of her gowns from Paris. It was white lace with a wide neckline, filled in from the shoulders to a high neck with sheer lace. She wore pearl eardrops, and pearl combs in her hair beneath a wide-brimmed hat of white straw trimmed with white roses. White wouldn’t raise as many eyebrows as had the mauve, and it still wasn’t first mourning. She wished she could tell the critics that mourning a man who barely acknowledged her existence was hypocritical of her. They would likely tell her that she had made the choice to marry him and her husband deserved her respect.

She cringed at the thought. She hadn’t respected Edwin. Once she knew he intended to behave as though he had no wife, she used the power of her money over him.

And now here she was, using the power that his title gave her over much of the Tuxedo Club’s female population. After all, why else would the older Selkirk ladies buy tickets to this particular tea for the first time in five years? Their arrival brought a hush over the room—a hush followed by excited chatter. Catherine served the Selkirk ladies herself, aided by Georgette and Mrs. Daisy Baker, another friend from Mrs. Graham’s academy. They dispensed tea and hot chocolate and directed the guests to the tiered plates of cakes and sweets.

Catherine poured, sent for fresh tea and poured some more. Her arm grew weary, but her heart sang at how smoothly everything was going. She poured one more cup, then glanced up to hand it to the next person in line and looked straight into Tristram’s jade-green eyes.

He managed to take the cup and bow without releasing her gaze. “May I call tomorrow, my lady? I’d like to retrieve those earrings.”

Catherine flashed a glance at Georgette, busy serving Ambrose and Florian.

“Tomorrow,” he said, and left before she could protest.

The majority of the ticket holders having arrived, Catherine abandoned the tea-serving table and began to circulate through the room. On the stage, Estelle, Ambrose and Florian began to play Christmas carols.

Most of the ladies and handful of gentlemen present greeted Catherine with cordiality, with only a few backhanded compliments slipped in.

“Lovely dress. You look more like a bride than a widow.”

“Hanging out for another title?”

Catherine ignored the remarks and continued the hostess duties Mama had performed for the past ten years. Her mother presided over a table chatting and laughing with her friends, pretty and content.

Catherine paused beside her and kissed her cheek. “Are you happy with everything?”

“How can I not be when I have two such admirable daughters?”

Tristram sat at the next table with one other gentleman and three young ladies. Three more empty chairs suggested Estelle, Ambrose and Florian had taken their refreshments there before going onto the stage.

Tristram and the other man rose at Catherine’s approach. She didn’t recognize him or the young ladies.

“Lady Bisterne,” Tristram said, “allow me to introduce the Beaumonts. They bought the property next to the Selkirks last year.”

They all made proper “how do you do” responses, then the Beaumonts returned to their chairs. Tristram remained standing.

She motioned for one of the waiters to come clear away their plates. “I hope you are enjoying yourself.” She glanced at Tristram’s cup. “Hot chocolate? I thought I poured you tea.”

“You did. It was not to my taste and I was feeling rather chilled.”

“But I ensured the tea was perfect. I don’t know why—” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you all right? You’ve gone quite pale.”

He was not only pale, a sheen of perspiration had broken out on his face, and he gripped the back of his chair. “I think I should get some fresh air.”

His companions at the table had ceased their conversation and were staring.

Catherine stepped forward to offer him her arm, but when he released the chair, he swayed, took a staggering step forward and collapsed onto the ballroom floor.

Chapter 13

Should a guest be taken ill, she must assure him that he is not giving the slightest trouble; at the same time nothing that can be done for his comfort must be overlooked.

Emily Price Post

C
atherine rushed to catch Tristram, but Mr. Beaumont reached him first, lowering him to the floor. Around her, ladies gasped in horror.

“Should I send someone to fetch the doctor, my lady?”

“Find a place to carry him first.” Catherine kept her voice calm. To those who had seen the incident, she offered them an assuring smile and a waved hand. “He’s a wounded war hero.”

She said the words as though that explained why he would collapse in the middle of a charity tea, while the music continued in joyous celebration upon the stage.

Catherine returned her attention to Tristram, so pale, and she wasn’t entirely sure he still breathed. She wasn’t entirely sure
she
still breathed. Her breath felt trapped in her lungs, about to burst with a wail.

Please, Lord. Please let him be all right.

Tristram didn’t drink spirits. He couldn’t be inebriated. Had his concussion of a few weeks ago caused some sort of relapse? Or was he ill for other reasons, something contagious, perhaps?

No matter, she would catch the plague and she wouldn’t care. She must see to his welfare.

“I live across the way in the bachelor’s quarters,” Mr. Beaumont was saying. “I’m happy to carry him to my room.”

“Thank you.”

She knew that she couldn’t see him there, but she could not concern herself with that now. Tristram needed warmth, comfort and care.

“Yes, carry him there. Thank you.” As though nothing were truly wrong, she continued her circuit of the room, ending up back at the serving table, where Georgette seized her arm.

“What happened?”

“Tristram has collapsed. Dr. Rushmore is on his way. Right now he’s being taken to the bachelor house.”

Georgette’s golden brows drew together. “I do hope this doesn’t mean there’s weak blood in his family. One does hear things of English aristocrats, and I don’t want to pass that sort of thing to my children.”

“Your...children?” Catherine stared at her old friend. “Has he made you an offer?”

“No, but I am determined to marry him. We get on well, and he’ll take me away from this confining life.”

No declarations like “I love him and intend to win him.” She was simply
determined
to wed him.

If Tristram were all right—and Catherine prayed that he was—he deserved better than to be snared by someone chasing after his title. That was no different than a poor man going after a lady’s dowry.

She had been there, pursuing Edwin for his title so she could have the highest rank of any of her friends, yet she reviled Edwin for exploiting her money for his own gain. She claimed she wished Edwin had cared for her, yet what had she done to care for him? She showed him as little respect in death as she had in life, shunning her mourning far too soon, flaunting her disdain for him with her mauve dress just over a year after his death.

Turning away from Georgette with the excuse of inspecting the contents of the tea and chocolate pots, she voiced a silent prayer.
Lord, I cannot ask Edwin for forgiveness, but I can ask You. Please forgive my selfishness, my greed, my lack of remembering that You are what is important.

She said a prayer that Tristram would be all right. She wanted to pray that the Lord would show Georgette that she was making a terrible mistake if she didn’t love Tristram, but she would not even think to put that much of a wedge between her friend and what she wanted. She couldn’t, even if it was for Georgette’s and Tristram’s well-being. A reunion of families was already taking place before her eyes, as Mama sat down to tea and talked with the older Selkirk ladies. That peace, that ending of the gossip and nasty remarks, was too precious to risk.

Head whirling, she felt like Tristram had looked in those last moments before he fell—pale and shaken. She touched her handkerchief to her brow.

“Are you taken ill, as well?” Georgette whispered in her ear. “I surely hope nothing was wrong with any of the food.”

“I haven’t partaken of any of the food.”

But Tristram had. He said the tea was not to his taste, yet Ambrose’s and Florian’s cups had sat empty upon the table and they had drunk the same tea. Nothing had happened to them. They were just now finishing up a melody and taking their bows to much applause.

His mostly full cup of tea had been pushed toward the arrangement of poinsettias and greenery in the center of the table, and replaced by hot chocolate acquired just after she left the beverage table.

Not to his taste, he’d said about the tea, as though it tasted odd. Too sweet? Too bitter? He took just a bit of milk in his tea.

Her stomach seized up at the notion in her mind. Yet it wasn’t out of the question. Someone, after all, had sent him to Lake House, had smashed him on the head and left him in the snow. Hitting was more likely a thing a man would do.

Poison, however, was considered a lady’s trick.

The blow had taken place outside her house, the illness at her charity tea. Two incidents that could easily be blamed on her.

“Excuse me.” Spinning on her heel, she forced herself to move at a sedate pace, though what she truly wanted to do was run—run to Tristram, ensure his well-being, talk to him about what she feared.

Not until she reached the doorway did she realize she should have attempted to retrieve Tristram’s teacup. But no, she had motioned for a waiter to clear the table, an action that could be taken as her trying to destroy evidence.

Her heart commenced racing like a polo pony. She pressed a hand to her chest and breathed deeply. It worked for a few moments until Dr. Rushmore strode through the doorway.

“Doctor?” She nearly pounced upon the poor man.

He touched her cheek. “You’re pale, my lady. Are you ill, as well?”

“Only anxious.”

“He will be fine in a day or two of rest. Something he ate disagreed with him.”

“Do you think something could be wrong with the food?” she asked. “Will others be ill?”

Dr. Rushmore smiled. “I don’t think so. Sometimes people can’t tolerate certain foods. We don’t know why yet, but we’re working on finding out.” He patted her arm as though he were old enough to be her father, which was decades from the truth. “I expect your beau will call as soon as he’s well.”

“He’s not my—”

Several ladies emerged from the ballroom to surround the doctor, inviting him to come in for a hot drink and sandwiches. No one expected the doctor, making a pittance in comparison with the income of the Tuxedo Park residents, to pay for a ticket.

Like an automaton, Catherine returned to her duties. Guests were beginning to leave, drifting out in twos and threes. She thanked as many as she could for coming. She supervised the waiters in cleaning up the tables and made arrangements for the flowers to go to the church and the leftover food to the needy.

All had gone well except for Tristram’s mysterious and sudden illness.

At last, she was able to go home, where she could sit without distraction and run through the details surrounding Tristram. He hadn’t liked the tea. Some people couldn’t tolerate certain foods, but Tristram could tolerate tea in great quantities. Nothing was wrong with the tea. No one else had gotten ill. Perhaps something in the sandwiches or cakes had caused his collapse, but instinct told her no. That tea not being to his taste haunted her.

“Because some people can’t tolerate poison.” There, she had said it aloud—given voice to her fears.

But who and why? To make her look bad? That would make her look guilty—an attempt on Tristram’s life. The real jewel thief would perhaps rid himself of his pursuer and turn everyone’s attention to Catherine.

But who? No one at the serving tables. They lacked opportunity to steal the jewels. Indeed, Florian was the only person who had been inside Bisterne since Edwin’s death—other than Catherine. Ambrose was Edwin’s friend, but he hadn’t paid a call at Bisterne for months before her husband died. Someone else passing by? Strangers about whom Catherine knew nothing?

Her mind spinning around and around the same notions, Catherine buried herself in details for the next charity event to distract her thoughts, and tried not to think about Tristram. She could do nothing more than send a note around to Mr. Beaumont and request information as to Tristram’s welfare. She received no response from Mr. Beaumont, nor did she hear from Florian and Ambrose.

But Tristram himself called on her the following morning.

* * *

Conscious of how easily he could have died at the tea, Tristram was anxious to speak to Catherine, to learn what she thought of the incident. She was easily the one to suspect. Too easily. Yet who else would want to get rid of him?

Catherine received him in the conservatory, where sunlight shimmered off a row of icicles as though she resided in some kind of ice palace. The white snow and colorless ice emphasized the deep blue of her gown and the sunlight brought out the red highlights in her hair. The sight of her robbed him of breath, of even a whisper that she could try to harm anyone, especially him.

“Are you going to come in or stand there and stare?” The corners of her lips twitched up.

He strode into the room to meet her in front of the windows where he had kissed her in a moment of madness he would like to repeat. “I was appreciating the scenery—and you.” He shoved his hands into his pockets to keep himself from touching her. “Are you well?”

“I’m quite well. It’s you who concerns me.” She touched his arm as she gazed up at him. “Are you doing all right? Does the doctor know you’re up and about? May I send for tea?”

“I think I’m off tea for a while, but I would like some of that hot cider, if you have any.”

“We always do, at least through Christmas.” She sent for the hot drink, then seated herself on a sofa to give him leave to be seated.

He took a chair adjacent to her so he could better look at her.

She met his gaze without flinching. “Lord Tristram, I believe you were poisoned?”

“We don’t beat around any bushes, do we?” That was as much levity as he could manage. “Why do you ask something so...serious?”

“Rarely does an illness come on so quickly, and you said the tea wasn’t to your taste, but I made certain that tea was perfect. I put nothing in it but a little milk, so it should have been to your taste.”

“Yet somehow, someone managed to insert a rather hefty dose of potassium bromide.”

She jerked upright. “How do you know? The waiters cleared the table.”

“Not fast enough. I regained consciousness soon enough to tell Beaumont to gather my cup from the table and give it to the physician.”

“So you suspected, too?” She leaned back against the cushions and closed her eyes. “Did you suspect me again?”

“You had the best opportunity.”

She opened her eyes wide enough to glare at him.

He leaned forward and covered her hand where it rested on the arm of the sofa. “Too good an opportunity. Like that last pair of earrings, it’s too coincidental, too much like someone wanting me to think it’s you trying to hurt me or get rid of stolen jewels.”

“Hurt you?” She turned over her hand and laced her fingers with his. “Tristram, can potassium bromide not kill?”

“In large enough doses. Fortunately, that large a dose tastes so bitter, no one in his right mind would drink it.”

“So whoever put it in your tea is an amateur—” She squeezed his fingers hard enough to hurt. “Let us stop dancing around this topic. Someone might have wanted to kill you. First the blow to your head, and now this.”

“I have a feeling if you hadn’t come along, someone else would have rescued me from the snow before it was too late. And yesterday, I drank enough to lose consciousness for a few minutes, but not enough to kill me.”

“So what’s the purpose?”

“To scare me off from here? From pursuing the jewel thief?” He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. “To cast more aspersions on you?”

“Or all of those choices.”

“Or all of those choices.”

“Who is behind all this?”

The arrival of the hot cider, rich with the scent of cinnamon sticks and nutmeg, saved him from having to hedge. He could tell her what he should have known all along, but he wouldn’t again question anyone’s honesty as he had Catherine’s, until he gathered enough evidence.

“Tell me, Catherine, what happened in those last days of Bisterne’s life?”

She shook her head. “Nothing unusual. He came home for more money, as he did every quarter. He did some riding and shooting with neighbors, then he went to the safe, took out the jewels and rumbled about how it was such a waste he couldn’t sell them so he wouldn’t have to live off the largesse of an American female.”

“But why couldn’t he sell the jewels? They go with the estate, but they’re not entailed like property.”

“I don’t know. I thought some English law prevented him from doing so. Other than the combs and wedding and engagement rings he gave me, I never wore the jewels. And the combs—” She stopped, and her eyes widened. “He knew they were false. That’s why he couldn’t sell them.”

Tristram inclined his head. “I think you’re right. He knew all along someone had traded most of the real stones for false ones, but he might not have been sure which were which, so he dared not risk anyone learning they were artificial if he chose the wrong ones.”

“Someone else from the family. It had to be someone else from the family who knew the combination to the safe. His father, perhaps?”

“Or his uncle?”

“Florian’s brother?”

She did not suggest Florian himself, but she must be wondering as much as Tristram was if Florian could be behind the attacks and the theft. It would explain his confidence that Estelle and her father would find him acceptable; he knew he possessed money hidden away somewhere.

“Was Ambrose ever at Bisterne?” he asked.

She shook her head. “He despises the country. We met in town once or twice when I managed to get up there for some shopping. Why do you ask? He’s not part of the family, is he?”