Emily Hendrickson (25 page)

“She has other, more fascinating talents,” David added with a curve of his mouth.

“I shan’t be so rude as to inquire what they might be,” Egbert began, a devilish look on his face.

Elizabeth inserted, “I believe he means my etchings, Mr. Percy.” With that little comment, she added, rising as she spoke, “I believe I shall retire for the night.”

Alone in her room in the unoccupied north wing of the house, she reflected that David had deliberately led Egbert to think ill of her. What a wretched thing of him to do ... unless he was trying to make her angry with him.

The house was oddly still come morning. Even Rose tiptoed about, although there seemed no need for her to do so.

Elizabeth dressed rather than eat in her room, and quietly went down to the dining room. There was an array of food on the sideboard. Wonder of wonders, the toast was not burnt, nor the eggs cooked to a crusted lump. The ham looked succulent and tender. Had the cook changed her religion?

Egbert entered the room, glanced at the food, then helped himself to a small portion. He sat down without greeting her or saying a word, just sipped a cup of coffee, deep in thought.

Accustomed to a home where everyone chattered with one another, Elizabeth politely said, “Good morning.”

“Not so good, I fear. The earl took a turn for the worse in the night.”

Her plate clattered on the table. “Oh, I am so sorry.”

“David is up there now. He’s been with the old man most nights, and last night he slept in his own room. Wouldn’t you know it was the night when my uncle elected to get worse?”

“He must feel utterly wretched. Poor David.”

“Yes,” Egbert murmured, with none of his usual nastiness.

At that moment David entered the room, dressed in somber black. His face looked gravely strained.

Fearing the worst, Elizabeth rose from where she had so abruptly sat down. “Your father . . . ?”

“I am sorry to say he has gone aloft.”

Chapter Fourteen

“Dead!” Elizabeth exclaimed in horror. She leaned back against the table, thankful for its support. “But he cannot be.”

Egbert rose from his chair. “Sorry, old chap. Your father was a fine man.” His normally caustic tongue refrained from any nasty barb. Rather, he walked around the table and placed a hand on David’s shoulder in sympathy before leaving the room.

Had it not been for the suspicions Elizabeth harbored regarding Egbert, she’d have thought his sorrow genuine. She stared after his retreating figure, then went to David’s side. “Is it really true? I would have sworn he was getting better.”

“True.” His reply was excessively strained, and he turned his head away from her to stare out of the window.

“So you are now the earl.”

“And with all the more reason to marry and produce an heir,” he said without intonation. “Father wished that Egbert not be permitted to inherit the title.” He gave her a curious look, one that confused her. “So it would seem that our accidental Valentine’s Day betrothal is most fortunate.”

Elizabeth kept a firm clamp on her reactions. “So it would seem,” she replied, hoping her voice was as colorless as his.

“I shall need a wife, and as I said once before, I could do far worse than marry you. You’ll not hand me the mitten, will you, Elizabeth?” At her startled denial, he went on, “You have been denied a courtship. I shall try to make that up to you.” The earnest look on his face surprised her for some reason. It was as though he truly wished that things could be otherwise, and that their betrothal might be as any normal one.

Surprised by his concern over something like a courtship in the midst of what must be a painful time for him, Elizabeth placed her slim hand on his arm, turning his face toward her with her other. “Do not trouble yourself over such a trivial matter now.” She lightly touched his arm, then dropped her hand to her side.

“Oh, Elizabeth,” he murmured, enfolding her in his arms, as though to draw strength from her slender form. He leaned his head on hers and stood quietly, just holding her.

After a few minutes he withdrew, then began to slowly pace back and forth. “There are a great many details to work out. I have sent for our solicitor. Dr. Dibble was here during the night, thank goodness. He has supervised the laying out. Poor Mrs. Sidthorp was not up to the task, for she had served my father since girlhood.”

“The house was so silent this morning. It seems the very wood and brick knew your loss.” She waited a moment, then offered, “Is there anything I may do for you?”

This restless ambling about the room was unlike David, she thought. Somehow she had expected him to be more resolute. But people handled grief in so many ways. She recalled how devastated she had been when news of her parents’ death had reached her and her sisters. Each of them had shown their heartache in a different way.

David paused by the fireplace. “Pour me some coffee, would you?”

Taken aback, she obeyed his request, handing him a steaming cup while watching his expression carefully.

He continued to deliberate a few moments, then gestured to the table. “Sit with me. Perhaps together we could plan the next few days. Please,” he added politely as he moved toward the table.

The absurd thought crossed her mind that she was glad she had donned her coffee-colored mull this morning. Although it had a soft cream lace collar, it was near enough to the acceptable mourning color so as to not be objectionable. Odd, how a little thing like that could bother a person.

“When do you wish to have the funeral?” It was a sensitive subject that must be dealt with. Notice must be sent out immediately to those in the surrounding area. London was too far away, even though it was sufficiently cold enough to preserve the body for longer than several days. It would take time to send the announcement to London—too long for people to be able to journey to Penhurst Place for the funeral service.

He turned his head to look out of the window at the falling rain. “The heavens mourn the passing of a good man,” he said in a soft voice.

“David,” she reminded gently. “We must notify the vicar, send notices to the papers in London, and what about the family?”

“I have a list in the study. There is paper in there, everything you could need. If you will take the trouble, I would rather you write them out than Jeremy.”

She quailed at the black look that settled on David’s face. “Surely you do not cling to
his
having something to do with your father’s death?”

“I cannot reveal all yet, even to you.” The sadness in David’s eyes tore at her heart. How bleak, how utterly grim his countenance had become.

“Of course, I shall do whatever I can.”

He rose, then paused, standing over her. While he stared at her with that unreadable expression on his face, he said, “You will not leave me here alone, will you? You
will
stay, will you not, Elizabeth?”

Confused by his words, and the stress he had placed on her remaining in the house when he had his uncle and cousin to keep him company, she reluctantly nodded. Her reputation was likely in tiny shreds by this point. What did it matter? She wanted nothing more than to help her dear rake at his time of sadness. How she missed that teasing look in his eyes, which now were dark with grief and a sort of anger.

“I shall stay. When is the funeral to be?” she repeated, reminding him of the necessary details to be worked out.

“The day after tomorrow.” He glanced at the window again, then added, “With this never ending rain, his interment may be postponed. There is a family mausoleum on our principal estate, Crompton Vale, but that is some miles away to the north. I shall have to consider what will be best.”

Confused, but not wishing to pester him for explanations at the moment, Elizabeth rose from her chair, then walked to the door, where she encountered Lord Augustus.

Corset creaking more than usual, the older man paused in the doorway, then studied his nephew with a shake of the head. “I’d not expected Crompton to go before me. Thought he’d live to a ripe old age. Who’d have believed it? I’m sorry, my boy.” Tears brimmed in his light brown eyes. He walked over to join his nephew with ponderous steps.

To Elizabeth it seemed as though Lord Augustus had aged ten years overnight. She murmured words of sympathy, then slipped from the room, leaving the two to discuss the matter of the former earl’s passing in privacy.

Once in the study, she discovered a neat stack of stiff cream paper, bordered in black. The thought crossed her mind that it was odd David should be prepared to the extent of having the proper paper at hand. Perhaps he’d had a premonition it would be needed. But he had fought the idea so strongly, she was surprised that he’d willingly admit the approaching death to that extent.

Her first task was to write a note to Aunt Bel. It would be a shock for her; Elizabeth suspected that her aunt had nursed a fondness for the earl. Elizabeth also requested that her aunt send over a suitable black gown. Even though Elizabeth was not an actual member of the family, she had been fond of the old earl.

If David was to be believed, she would in six months time—providing they observed proper mourning—be his wife. That she found difficult to accept. In fact, there was something about this entire arrangement of his wishing to marry her that seemed distinctly unreal.

She chalked it up to her shattered sensibilities, and wrote out a note to be taken to the vicar, requesting his presence.

She rang for a footman to deliver the first two notes, the ones she considered most urgent. He assured her that he would ride immediately to deliver them, pointing out that the rain had dwindled to a mere mist. He then took himself off in a rush to be gone, looking gratified to be the bearer of such important missives.

All of the servants wore black armbands, and the maids wore their most somber dresses beneath their aprons. Already a lozenge-shaped hatchment had been hung on the front of the house near the door. The late earl’s armorial bearings were beautifully carved in bold relief.

Elizabeth returned to the list on the desk, a surprisingly short one in view of the earl’s age and station in life. Perhaps David felt that the information would be obtainable in the newspapers.

But still, it seemed decidedly peculiar. When she completed her task, she stacked the letters in a neat pile to be franked by David.

Around noon she drifted to the dining room. She hadn’t expected to see any formal, set meal, and there was none. Rather, the sideboard had an arrangement of dishes. There were beef and vegetable soup in the
bane-marie,
cold meats, rolls, pickles alongside it, and a dish of fruit in the center of the table.

Elizabeth picked a few things, selecting fruit and a roll, for although far from hungry, she knew she needed to keep her strength if only for David’s sake.

“Good afternoon. Miss Elizabeth,” Jeremy Vane said as he entered the dining room. Gone was his habitual rabbity demeanor. Rather, he stood taller, looked more assured. Could it be that he felt the responsibility of his office more keenly with Lord Crompton gone and a new earl stepping into his shoes, as it were?

She made note of the alteration of character in the back of her mind, then turned to her slight meal.

Lord Augustus joined them, his jowls drooping more than usual in his unhappy state.

“Shall miss him, y’know. Quarreled often, but never really meant it. Suppose everyone thinks he would like to do things differently if given the chance. I do.” Lord Augustus dipped out a bowl of soup, then took a crusty roll. With a sigh he joined them at the table.

“Too late, I fear,” Mr. Vane inserted, his voice polite.

He appeared somewhat hostile to Elizabeth’s eyes. She had watched him rather than Lord Augustus, recalling David’s unreasonable antagonism toward the steward.

“M’brother was always good to you, you scamp,” Lord Augustus grumbled, throwing Jeremy a look of dislike.

“I fancy you will be moving along now, sir. With your brother gone and a new earl taking his place, you shall wish to be elsewhere, I daresay,” Jeremy replied with a thinly veiled note of contempt in his voice.

Elizabeth barely stifled a gasp of dismay. How bold the steward had become suddenly. It was scarcely his place to suggest anything of the son to the late earl’s brother.

“Eh? Getting above yourself, are you not?” Lord Augustus bristled with anger at the presumptions of the lowly steward, even if he was a relative.

Mr. Vane shrugged, then said, “It is true nonetheless.”

A silence fell over the room which none of them cared to break, it seemed. When Egbert entered to seek a bit of nourishment, he was disinclined to disturb the quiet. He ate his food without saying a word, other than softly worded comments that didn’t reach beyond his father.

As soon as she could escape the dreadful atmosphere of the dining room, Elizabeth hurried across the central hall to the corridor leading to the study. Halfway there she heard a rap on the door.

Sidthorp bustled to open it, while Elizabeth paused, wondering if it was the vicar, or if the solicitor would appear. Nothing would surprise her now, not even the arrival of a man who would not receive word of the earl’s death until tomorrow.

“Oh, Sidthorp, where is my dear niece? I must see her at once.”

Aunt Bel caught sight of Elizabeth across the entry hall and walked to her, arms outstretched. “My dear girl, what a tragedy to occur. But then, I knew something was to come, for the cock crowed three times last night, and you know that means a death to follow.”

Tears rushed to Elizabeth’s eyes as she greeted her aunt. In spite of her eccentricities and superstitions, she was the closest person to being a mother to Elizabeth, and the truth of one’s mortality had been brought home to her in the past hours.

“Now, explain to me what has happened, and what has been done. I have come to help you, for you were too young when your mother and father were killed to remember the details and what the proper order of things must be.”

Elizabeth led her along to the study, all the while explaining what David had requested.