Burning Bright (Brambridge Novel 2) (11 page)

“I cannot remember,” he said.

“I never believed that you killed Fairleigh.”

James stayed silent. Taking his eye from the telescope, he glanced at Harriet. She sat looking out to sea, her eyes flickering from the beach to the cliffs.

“You had no cause to,” she said cryptically. Turning her head, she met his gaze. “Besides, he fell shortly after you disappeared into the mine.”

“I beg your pardon,” James said softly.

Harriet blinked. “Did nobody tell you?”

“No, but then, I could not admit I was in the mine.”

Harriet nodded. “A tricky situation.”

Trust her to call it that. “How did you find out?”

“I heard him fall.”

“What?”

Harriet turned back to the sea. “I was quite surprised because there was no yell. All I heard was the thump as his body hit the rocks just round from the beach. I thought it was a rock fall. I heard later they had discovered a body.”

“A body that must have been discovered almost instantaneously on a deserted outcropping of rocks.”

Harriet nodded. “I thought that was strange too.” She got to her feet. “I must go. The hour is getting late. Shrugging off his coat, Harriet walked towards him. Carefully she laid the coat over his legs, her touch as light as a feather. Reaching out, he captured her hand in his.

“Harriet,” he said, the warmth of her hand charging his with currents of desire. “Thank you.” Closing his eyes, he let her hand go. For a few moments she stood in front of him, and then she was gone.

His bed in the Fountain Inn would be curiously cold that night.

**

A landau stood outside Brambridge Manor as James rode up the drive the next morning. He hadn’t been back since the will reading. Stepping smartly up to the entrance, he faltered, as the door opened. He retreated back down the steps as Mrs. Sumner and her daughter, Cecilia, and his mother filled the top step with their full skirts and silken bonnets.

“Hello, James.” Cecilia’s voice was dull.

Mrs. Sumner looked down at James and winked coquettishly. “Your mother has been so kind. Once we said that we had met you in town, and when your mother and I realized that we had been to the same seminary together, why she has invited us to stay for the whole summer. Isn’t that kind of her?”

“That is certainly kind,” he said. He didn’t have to wonder at why his mother had done it. Mrs. Sumner was tonnish in every aspect and his mother would be hoping for all the news from town and to gain every aspect of well-heeled association with Mrs. Sumner. He also knew that she thought it would increase her standing in the district to have her there.

“I’ve put her in your old room.”

James blinked, but he could not object. He had made no move to come back to the Manor, preferring instead to stay at the Fountain Inn.

Perhaps it was time, however, to move back to the house. Staying at the Fountain Inn was bound to cause talk, and the state of the manor concerned James. Something was awfully wrong with it. It was also a good base for covering his mission from the Hawk. He needed to keep up the appearance of being the lord of the manor. Especially given that Granger had already taken away the care of the estate from him.

“Fine, mother. I’ll take the Indian room.” His sister looked horrified, but his mother agreed complacently.

“We must be off.  We are going to see Mrs. Madely for tea. She has promised us some new gossip.”

Embarrassed, James looked at Mrs. Sumner and Melissa. Mrs. Sumner appeared coolly watchful and Melissa’s sea-blue eyes gave nothing away as they swept by him. Perhaps they did not want to say anything that might criticize Dowager Lady Stanton’s behavior. He was thankful to them for that.

“Well, enjoy yourself and don’t eat too many of her cakes.”

Tittering, the ladies drew hold of their skirts and primly mounted into the landau. Whilst Mrs. Sumner and his mother sat harmoniously together, his sister and Melissa leaned away from each other, far apart. The landau clattered down the drive, his sister casting him one long mournful look before turning away to face forward.

It took James an hour to return to the Fountain Inn, gather his belongings and return. With heavy steps, he mounted the stairs to the east wing. Mold grew on the walls, and the Indian hangings had almost rotted away. In the room, the bed itself was still intact, although the sheets had not been made up for his arrival. They smelled musty and old, with indescribable stains across the pillows and coverlet.

“There you are, old boy.” Edgar appeared at the door, dabbing a kerchief to his nose in an affected way. “Lovely room you’ve chosen.”

James looked at him with incredulity. There had not been a hint of sarcasm in Edgar’s voice. He supposed that if he too had been living in a place for two years then he himself
might
not have noticed the changes around him. In the war when his friends’ hair went white with stress and shock, and the mud boiled around the tents and cannon, it was unnoticeable, because it was interminable. It just happened.

James took a deep breath and coughed. “Edgar. What is going on?” He coughed again. Gods, but the dust got up the nose.

Edgar looked at him with surprise. “What, old man?”

His cousin’s affected speech and stance annoyed James.

“I am the heir presumptive to the estate and yet when I went to the lawyer he told me I could not sign to look after it for the next six months.
You
had already done so. Apparently you have been running the estate effectively for the last two years.”

“Quite right, too.”

“All I see around me Edgar, is decay and ruin. The estate is going rotten. Where are the grooms, the staff? Why is the roof caving in?”

“Are you trying to suggest that I have been doing a bad job?” Edgar stepped further into the room, revealing his cane which he twirled in his left hand.

James eyed Edgar with alarm. He had never regarded Edgar as a physical threat, but the way he spun the cane expertly suggested hours of practice. He moved towards the window behind the bed where Edgar’s stick would have less room to swing.

“No, I am merely trying to find out why they nominated you to the estate, and why the mine is doing so badly too.”

And work out what else was going on.

“Unfortunately we had a run of bad luck.” Edgar sat down heavily on the edge of the moldy bed, his stick finally resting still on the floor. He stood up again quickly, wiping the seat of his pristine breeches with disgust. “The market for stone from Brambridge has fallen through. We lost the contract to redo the apse on Exeter cathedral. An excellent friend of mine, the mayor of Exeter, told me that it had been noted that the blocks of stone we had sent them had split and weathered in the cloisters whilst they were waiting to hoist them into position.”

James shook his head. The Brambridge stone was renowned. It had been mined since the Roman times. There was no way that it could suddenly start to weather badly. But once a rumor started, even an unfounded one, James knew they were hard to stop. Every business ran on reputation. If it could not maintain its contracts, then one by one they would disappear as buyers moved to other companies.

“What about the crops?” he demanded. “The failure of the mine surely had nothing to do with that?”

“It was the eruption of volcano, Mount Tamborra, wasn’t it?” Edgar’s lips turned down at the edges. “It’s changed the weather system completely. It was just too cold last summer for anything to grow.”

James knew this to be true, certainly in the main body of Europe where the ground had frozen hard. Germany had been particularly badly hit. But Lord Anglethorpe’s estates next door still seemed as fertile as ever.

Edgar chewed at the knob on the top of his cane. “I’ve heard lots of sensible people are leaving London and going abroad to where it is warmer. Even Lord Byron has left.” He gave James a sideways look.

Who cared about Byron? The ladies loved him yes and he spouted poetry all the time but the man had no sense of honor. “Why didn’t you let me take over?”

“I’m sorry, James.” Edgar took his walking stick out of his mouth and wiped it on his coat. “I thought you would want all your time free to deal with looking for the Mompesson girl. The estate work is time consuming and I thought that I could take it on and leave you to look for her.”

Despite himself James had to acknowledge that the words were reasonable.

“Why did you do it, Edgar?” he said starkly.

“Do what?”

Edgar’s face was reflected in the window. His eyes had grown wider and he spun his cane again. “Why did you tell Father about the
Rocket
?”

Edgar’s face relaxed and he rested the cane on the floor once more. “I’m sorry, James, I truly am. Your father paid me to watch out for you. He was worried that you were going to come to some harm, so asked me to keep him apprised of your activities.”

It had the ring of truth to it. But it seemed like too much concern on his father’s behalf for James. If the man had looked out for him, why hadn’t he written? Why had he been so keen to hand him over to Lord Anglethorpe?

“Surely you would have protected me as you knew they were coming for me?”

“I didn’t know, James. I had just finished telling your father when the mob turned up at the door. He put two and two together before I could change the story or help you get away.” Edgar advanced into the room. James fought his desire to move round to the other side of the bed. He turned before Edgar could touch him.

Edgar bobbed his head up and down. “I’m sorry about any inconvenience caused.”

That’s what he called it? Two years of fighting on the Peninsular, inconvenience? James could feel his hands itching to lift and throttle the life from Edgar.

“Alright, Edgar,” he forced out, to Edgar’s relief. “Let’s put it behind us. I would like a drink and you look like you need one too.” James put his pent up aggression into clapping Edgar on the shoulder.

Jerkily setting his cane on the floor, Edgar smiled tentatively and led the way out of the room.

But James still wasn’t satisfied.

Lord Anglethorpe’s estate prospered, hardly touched by the weather changes precipitated by the eruption of Mount Tamborra. Something was very
fishy
indeed.

CHAPTER 11

Harriet’s ears rang. Even the chirping of the birds was too loud. Five hours of rehearsing Romeo and Juliet in the echoing school house with small children and adolescents who were more interested in showing off than acting had tested her patience to the limit.

She shivered, despite the inner heat from the few nights before that still hadn’t left her, her hand tingling occasionally where James had caught her.

She hadn’t shouted yet that day. But she had raised her voice. The only time the cast had listened to her was when she had picked up one of the sword props. She hadn’t let it out of her hand since then.

Moving to stand on the doorstep of the school room, Harriet smiled weakly as the last young actor left. She sank with a sigh against the door jamb.

“That’s an interesting thing for a schoolmistress to hold.”

Harriet straightened and fought the urge to pat her hair. What was it about this girl that made her wish she was something more than she was?

“We were rehearsing
Romeo and Juliet
.” Harriet drew herself up and clutched tighter at the wooden sword, but still Melissa Sumner was half a head taller than she was.

“What’s in a name, that which we call a rose.”

“You’re interested in Shakespeare?” Perhaps Melissa had some good points after all.

“No, not really. I only remember it because of the comment about the rose. I’m more interested in plants.” Melissa turned her deep blue eyes to Harriet’s. “I’ve never been that interested in plays. I haven’t had time.”

Harriet stamped down on an urge to growl. There was no need to be so dismissive about her passion. She had already had to endure an hour of Melissa and her mother’s company at the vicarage when the Dowager Lady Stanton had visited with the vicar’s wife. Agatha had drafted her in to help serve the tea. They had discussed the success of the school play at the Midsummer festivities as if Harriet wasn’t there. Mrs. Madely hadn’t bothered to hide the snide looks she gave Harriet. Awful woman.

“Tell me, do you know Lord Stanton at all?” Melissa’s gaze dropped away from hers. She fiddled with her pelisse as if wanting to get something out.

Harriet pursed her lips. This wasn’t an accidental visit. Melissa had come to the school seeking her out on purpose.

“I used to.”

“What kind of a man is he?”

“In what way?”

Melissa looked back up at her. Imperceptibly her brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed slightly. The blue of her eyes brightened. How did she do that? Harriet felt even shorter than she already was. She reached up with her free hand and patted at her errant curls—she couldn’t stop herself.

“I’m sorry.” Melissa lifted her chin. “It was silly of me to ask.”

“He is very honorable.” And
confusing
.

Melissa nodded seriously. “That is important,” she said. But to Harriet it seemed that she said it more to herself than to her. “Does he have any interests?”

Harriet blinked. “I’m not sure. He’s only just come back. He used to like stargazing as a boy.”      

Melissa waved disinterestedly. “No, I don’t mean about that. Does he have any real
interests
?” Melissa was looking at her again with her eyes narrowed. Harriet swallowed.

“Girls, you mean?”

“Or women.”

Of course Melissa would think of it that way. Harriet was a mere girl. Everyone thought of her as a girl. Her aunt, Bill, James. No one thought of her as a woman. She eyed Melissa’s straight back and sumptuous clothes. Melissa was
all
woman.

Damn her.

“Gracious. I’m not sure I would know.”

Melissa frowned, and narrowed her eyes even further at Harriet.

Her shoulders slumped. “Not that I’ve seen in the past few weeks.”

“Good.”