A Bride by Moonlight (16 page)

“Why, I found tea nearly painless,” said Napier dryly, “entertained as I was by your remarkable theatrics.”

Lisette felt oddly pleased. “What do you think Lord Duncaster wants?” she continued. “Merely to meet me? Or do you expect questions?”

“I couldn’t say,” Napier answered as they entered the east pavilion. “I scarcely know the man. The butler brought the summons—a thick, white note card on a salver instructing us to wait upon him in the gun room.”

“The gun room, is it?” said Lisette. “Does he mean to shoot us?”

Napier smiled grimly and directed her down the wide, spiraling stairs instead of up. They descended together into the lower level of the pavilion, cool air rising up to meet them. Here the steps were uncarpeted, the walls far older and adorned, not with watered silk or gilt wainscoting, but with faded Flemish tapestries and crackled portraits of dark-eyed, hatchet-nosed ancestors hung against plain white plaster.

Lisette eyed one of them warily as she descended; a particularly imperious-looking fellow in a powdered wig who looked so much like Napier it was haunting.

After leading her down a long passageway, Napier gestured toward a thick plank of a door flanked by medieval suits of armor—décor that might, Lisette mused, be original to this part of the house.

He pushed the door wide on deeply groaning hinges and they stepped into a vaulted, almost castle-like chamber the walls of which were lined with a diverse assortment of guns, swords, battle axes, and even a couple of wicked pikes crossed almost decoratively above an immense stone fireplace.

Two oak worktables nearly black with age ran the length of the room, and at the far end, two men stood conferring upon a pair of firearms laid out upon a heavy blanket. The younger of the two, a slender, fresh-faced man in a rough surtout, nodded and picked up the leftmost weapon, a double-barreled fowling gun.

“Aye, m’lord, that’ll do nicely,” the young man said, balancing it in his hand.

Napier cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said from the doorway. “You wished to see us?”

The elder man turned, and fixed them with a pair of keen eyes. “Ah, Saint-Bryce,” he said, motioning them in. “I think you’ve not met Hoxton, my new gamekeeper. There’s a hawk nesting in the folly, and getting at my quail. Hoxton, my grandson.”

Hoxton gave a respectful tug at his forelock, then broke the breech and draped the gun across the crook of his arm. Lisette managed to make a passable curtsy to the viscount.

Her jest about Duncaster dying hadn’t been entirely facetious for Lisette had expected a frail, doddering gentleman in a Bath chair. But the man who stood before her looked if not affirmatively vigorous, then certainly well amongst the living. And like Napier, he was dressed for riding.

Though still a man of some height, Lord Duncaster was slightly stooped with age, but his jowls scarcely sagged and his hard, dark eyes were sharp as a crow’s, putting Lisette in mind of his much younger half sister, Lady Hepplewood. Here, she estimated, was a man one crossed at one’s peril.

Duncaster finished his business with Hoxton and dismissed him. After re-racking the second gun, the gamekeeper gave a departing nod, then strolled out through a set of French windows that opened onto a sunken terrace.

“And don’t go onto that devilish parapet,” bellowed Duncaster after him. “Shoot from the wood, boy, do you hear?”

“Yes, m’lord.” Looking faintly embarrassed, the young man went up a flight of mossy stone steps, and vanished into the greenery of the rear gardens.

Duncaster turned his attention to Lisette, one eye narrowed appraisingly. “Well, so this is the pretty little clew knotting up Cordelia’s grand scheme.”

“This is my fiancée, Elizabeth,” Napier coolly interjected. “As to your sister’s schemes, I’m sure neither Elizabeth nor I can speak to them.”

“Very wise! Very wise!” said Duncaster, lifting a pair of bushy gray eyebrows almost mockingly. “I avoid them myself when possible. In any case, Miss Colburne, I regret having been unable to greet you upon your arrival.”

“Not in the least, my lord,” she said. “We’d no wish to disturb your rest.”

It was not, perhaps, the wisest thing to have said. “Rest?” said the viscount incredulously. “I was at Birmingham with Craddock buying a new threshing machine.”

Lisette and Napier exchanged glances as Duncaster moved with a faint limp toward the fireplace, which looked large enough to roast half an ox. “Well, come along. Sit, the both of you.”

Gingerly, he lowered himself into an ancient black chair carved with dragons for arms. When they were all situated, Duncaster opened his hands expansively, his elbows propped upon the chair’s odd arms.

“Well, my boy, here we are,” he said, fixing Napier with his glare. “All this is going to be yours now, isn’t it?”

Napier’s face was perfectly expressionless. “I take no joy in it, sir,” he said, “if that’s any consolation.”

“Well, it isn’t,” snapped his grandfather. “Burlingame is one of the finest estates in England. It should go to someone who appreciates it and has been trained to take up the mantle of its stewardship.”

“I don’t know what to say, sir.” Napier lifted one hand almost casually. “Saint-Bryce’s passing has left no one happy, I do assure you.”

Duncaster’s mouth lifted in a sort of sneer. “I wouldn’t be too certain of that.”

Napier leaned a little forward in his chair. “Was there only Saint-Bryce, sir, or have you an estate agent whom you trust, and who could competently run Burlingame should you die unexpectedly?”

“Unexpectedly?” Here the old man chuckled until he wheezed. “It’s been expected I should die this last decade or better. Do I look near death to you?”

Lisette intervened. “Indeed not, my lord,” she said smoothly. “Royden is much reassured, I know, to find you so vigorous. But travel is exhausting for anyone.”

“Well, I’d not ordinarily trouble myself over a threshing machine. But what choice have I with my son dead?” Here, Duncaster’s voice hitched as if with grief, but after a moment he regained himself and pressed on. “But yes, Craddock is still steward and a quite competent fellow.”

“Perhaps you could hire additional staff?” Lisette suggested. “I believe my late grandfather retained a land agent and a pair of stewards for his various estates.”

Duncaster turned the full force of his squinty glare upon her. “
Hmph
,” he said. “Cordelia said you were old Rowend’s chit.”

“His granddaughter, yes.”

“
Hmph
,” he said again. “Always was free with his blunt, Rowend. But Burlingame was not built, my dear, on spendthrift ways.” Here, he paused to nod his head in Napier’s direction. “As to managing things, that’s what
he’s
for, wouldn’t you say?”

“I beg your pardon?” Napier stiffened in his chair.

Duncaster turned in his seat to better look at him. “It’s time to step up, my boy, to your duties,” he said firmly. “And we’ve a vast deal of work ahead of us, so—”

“Thank you, sir,” Napier cut him off, “but this is a conversation better had in private.”

“Nonsense!” boomed the old man, stabbing a finger at Lisette. “Best the chit here knows what’s what. And best you get on with the business of seeing to what’s been given you.”

“No one has given me anything, sir, that I didn’t earn.” Napier’s voice had gone dangerously cold. “I haven’t been sitting idle and coddled in some great mansion waiting for my kin to die off. I have been in service to our government—and working hard at it.”

“Oh, come now, my boy!” Duncaster gentled his tone, but not by much. “We’re speaking of what must be done
now
. This is no longer about what pleases me, or even about your father’s misplaced pride. And this lovely bride of yours, why, she will have no interest, I can assure you, in living in a pokey little house in Town, tatting cushions for some glorified government clerk.”

“Well, how charming this is!” interjected Lisette, rather too cheerfully. “I can see, my lord, that you and your heir share at least one distinguishing characteristic.”

The old man’s head swiveled around, the narrow eye closing to a slit. “Eh? And just what might that be?”

“The maddening habit of assuming what I do or don’t want,” she briskly replied. “Mr. Napier here believes—”

“Napier
,
my eye!” The old man’s face pulled in mulishly. “His name is
Tarleton
. He must change it back at once.”

Napier brooked no opposition. “I understand that’s what you want, sir, but I’ve been a Napier all my life and don’t mean to change.”

“But your children, Royden!” Duncaster bellowed, his face purpling. “They should have—no, they
deserve
—to carry the Tarleton name.”

“It remains to be seen if there will be children,” said Napier. “But should I have any, on their majority, they may choose the name they wish to bear. If they prefer Tarleton, so be it.”

“Well, they will,” declared the old man, “if they’ve a shred of sense.”

“You’re likely right.” Napier was, as always, utterly calm—and almost ruthlessly cool.

Lisette forced the conversation back to her point. “The thing is, my lord, when Mr. Napier made me his proposal, I believed him the assistant police commissioner, and happily so. I can assure you I will be entirely content to tat cushions and manage his house in Eaton Square. And by the way, sir, have you troubled yourself to see it?
Pokey
is hardly the word.”

“Seen
it?” said the old man. “I bought the dashed thing.”

“How kind of you,” said Lisette speciously. “Nevertheless, it—”

“Stop.” Napier’s voice echoed in the gun room. “Stop right there. What do you mean,
you
bought it?”

Duncaster’s hands were braced on the dragon’s heads, his thumb worrying at one of them almost anxiously. “I
bought
it,” he said peevishly. “I bought it and deeded it freehold to Agnes Napier as a—a sort of belated wedding gift. When you were aged eight or nine.”

“You bought a house,” Napier echoed flatly, “and
gave it to
my mother
—? Was that your way of apologizing to her?”

Duncaster twisted in his chair almost guiltily. “I gave it to her because I knew your father wouldn’t take it,” he snapped. “Knew, you see, Agnes would want what was best for her child—always a woman’s weakness, you know, the children.”

Napier merely arched one eyebrow. “Why would you even bother?”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, boy! Do you think I couldn’t see it might come to Nicholas?” Duncaster grumbled. “What with James out carousing and fighting duels right and left. And Harold with two chits and a wife too frail to share his bed.”

“Sir, please. There is a lady present.”

“Oh, I
please
,” the old man grumbled. “I
please
to tell you what your father would not. My God, Royden, do you think a government flunky can afford to live in Belgravia? Nicholas and his overweening pride had the three of you crammed inside a squalid little masionette over some linen draper’s shop! And your mother doing her own washing! How is that fit for my grandson?
How
—?”

“Heavens,” murmured Lisette, burning with curiosity. “Did your son know you’d done this?”

“He had to have done.” Duncaster cast her an incredulous look, then fixed a kindling eye upon his grandson. “So, yes, I bought the house and I made sure Agnes had the money put back to get you properly educated. And then she died, and that was that.” Here, he paused to give a disdainful sniff. “I don’t know how Nicholas got on after that. But he was always plump in the pocket, or so everyone claimed.”

At that Napier’s countenance darkened, and Lisette thought again of Sir Wilfred’s ugly allegation. “Well, whatever you did for my mother, I thank you, for she was a fine woman and I adored her,” he said. “But we seem to have deviated rather far from our original conversation.”

“Then let’s return in all haste,” said Duncaster almost bitterly. “Your parents are far from my favorite topic.”

“And the two of you will kindly leave my wishes out of this discussion,” said Lisette, “for neither of you know what they are. This is for the two of you to settle.”

“Agreed,” snapped Napier.

At that, Duncaster seemed to wither in his chair. “All I am saying, my boy, is that you need to learn how to go on here,” he said almost whiningly. “Any hope of Harold and Diana supplanting you with an heir is gone, and we must all of us deal with it.”

“Sir, with all respect, I’m not sure I must,” said Napier.

“Then why the devil have you come?” Duncaster demanded, tossing a disdainful hand at Napier. “Why, here you are, coming down in your riding boots! I thought we were to get on with it. Ride about the estate and spend the next few days with Craddock.”

Irritation was writ plain upon the viscount’s wrinkled face. The possibility that anything besides money and a title might have brought his grandson to Burlingame had never crossed his mind. Moreover, Duncaster was a man who enjoyed—and expected—the upper hand.

Lisette was beginning to grasp just what had driven Napier’s father from the fold.

The room had fallen silent. Duncaster was still worrying at the chair arm—a habit of long standing, Lisette concluded, for he’d worn the finish to the wood, and the dragon’s left ear was but a nub.

When at last Napier spoke, his tone was less confrontational. “I’ve come, sir, for the same reason I first visited Burlingame. Because Sir George asked me to, and because I’m uneasy. And I’m in my boots because I mean to ride over to Marlborough and call on Dr. Underwood.”

“Call on
Underwood
?” said Duncaster incredulously. “What in God’s name has he to do with any of this?”

“He’s the family physician, isn’t he?” Napier shot a quick glance at Lisette. “I know Hepplewood wasn’t young, but I cannot see how a man of Saint-Bryce’s years could die so suddenly—and mere months after Hepplewood’s troubling letter to Sir George.”

Duncaster drew back. “What, that rambling nonsense about Hep thinking himself poisoned?”

“Poisoned?” Napier echoed. “He said that to you?”