Escaping Notice (31 page)

His gaze went to Edward.

If the boy lived, Hugh would not fail him.

Finally, the doctor straightened and began collecting his
wicked-looking implements.

“What is the extent of it?” Hugh asked, as he drew the heavy
bedclothes up to Edward's bruised chin.

At least the lad's breathing was steady.

“A few broken ribs, a broken ankle and, judging by the swelling,
he may have a sprained wrist. You saw the contusions and bruises.
No need to list them all.” He closed his leather case and glanced
at the small form in the bed with a frown. “The worst is going to
be fever. Exposure.” He said the word as if he blamed Hugh. “Watch
him for a few days. Keep him in bed if you can, although with that
ankle it should not be too hard.” He smiled grimly. “What about
you?”

“I am well.”

“Just a spot of near-drowning, eh?”

Hugh stiffened and then realized the doctor was not referring to
the loss of the Twilight, but tonight’s storm. “Only rain. I'll
live.”

“Well, if he is to be my only patient, I have finished here.” He
strode to the door. “Shame about the earl and his brother. I
understand you are the new steward here — good thing. Miss Leigh
will need help. Ormsby is a large estate to manage alone. Let us
hope the new heir does not die within a month of the previous
earl.”

Hugh nodded. The doctor had always had a gallows humor, but Hugh
was in no mood for it. Then, he remembered Helen and the blood
staining the bodice of her dress.

“My aunt's maid assisted me. She sustained some injuries ….”

The doctor laughed. “A maid? Those women are resilient. A few
bruises, or even a scratch or two, will mean naught come morning.
If you are worried about her catching a chill, give her a nip or
two of brandy if she has not already found the bottle.”

Hugh stiffened, but kept his thoughts to himself. There was no
point in arguing about why a physician would think the rich
required more attention than the poor.

After escorting the doctor out, Hugh hesitated in the foyer. The
urge to return upstairs to see Helen was almost more than he could
resist. Most likely, she was already in bed in the cubbyhole in his
aunt's room. And although he’d have liked to speak to Aunt Eloise
one more time, he could not face it tonight.

He pressed his thumb and forefinger against his eyelids, trying
to relieve the grainy, itching feeling. It felt like he had gone
without sleep for weeks and unfortunately, Gaunt would return
tomorrow. By then, Hugh would have to reveal his theory and decide
what course to take.

He just hoped a few hours of rest would give him some notion of
what to do.

“
Quarrels are much more easily avoided than made up ….”
—
The Complete Servant

Early the next morning, Hugh went to his Aunt Eloise's tiny
office. The door was open and the sounds of a hushed argument
trickled out into the hallway.

“Miss Leigh, please!” Helen pleaded. “I don’t want a larger
room.”

“It is unsuitable for a young lady to be living in what amounts
to a closet. You cannot expect me to believe you wish to remain in
a space so small that you can touch both walls while standing in
the middle of it. It is improper,” Aunt Eloise asserted. “I will
not allow it. You will move to one of the guest rooms this very
morning.”

“No — please. How could we explain? You cannot suddenly install
your maid in one of the upstairs bedrooms. How would it look?”

“My dear girl, that is precisely the issue. It seems to me you
put more weight on what others may think than is appropriate. The
fact is, most people do not think at all, and those who do will
accept that Miss Leigh has lost her mind due to her recent grief
and leave it at that.”

Helen giggled. The sound lifted Hugh's heavy heart and induced a
smile. She was so warm and easy to please that even his dragon of
an aunt had fallen in love with her.

“Miss Leigh, I would
never
allow anyone to say, or even
think, such a thing about you —”

“You are several years too late, young lady,” Aunt Eloise
replied drily. “I suppose I should consider myself lucky that the
earl only considered moving me to a cottage, instead of sending me
to one of those places for the mildly deranged.” She sighed
heavily.

Hugh gripped the doorknob, his heart twisting. How he wished he
had paid more attention to her over the years, let her know how
much he appreciated her care of Lionel. Their life, while dreary
enough, would have been infinitely worse without her.

“Miss Leigh, may I have a word with you?” he asked, standing in
the doorway.

Both women glanced up at him. To his surprise, their eyes
reflected similar expressions of apprehension.

“I apologize, but I have a few questions. If you don't mind,” he
added.

Helen rose from the slender chair wedged against Aunt Eloise's
desk. “Perhaps I should go.” Her glance went from Hugh to Aunt
Eloise. A silent question passed between them as Helen waited for
his aunt to decide if she needed Helen's presence.

His aunt shook her head. “You may collect your belongings, since
you will be moving to the bedroom next to mine. This morning.”

“But —”

“Thank you,” Aunt Eloise said, the note of finality in her voice
effectively ending the discussion.

Hugh had to smile as an expression of frustration crossed
Helen's face. She truly appeared to prefer to stay where she was,
sleeping on a narrow little cot in a cubbyhole.

After she disappeared down the hallway, Hugh stepped into the
room. He eyed the spindly chair Helen had vacated. While he hated
to loom over his aunt, it seemed preferable to crushing the chair
and landing at her feet.

“Well? What is it now?” she asked.

He studied her, noting how her hands played with the objects on
her desk. She picked up a stubby pencil, put it down, and then
picked up a quill before discarding that, as well.

His perceptions had changed. In the past, he would have assumed
from her tone of voice and the handling of her writing utensils
that she was annoyed and impatient with him. Now, he saw those
things as revealing her anxiety. She had a lonely and precarious
life at Ormsby. She never knew if he might decide he had had enough
of her and demand she leave the only home she knew.

“It will not take long.” He scratched the tender spot where his
jaw met his neck. “I think I understand what happened. However, you
could do me the favor of confirming it. If you would.”

Her nervous hands stilled, but she did not raise her head. Her
eyes remained fixed on her desk.

When she said nothing, he continued. “That jacket and cap ….
They were not yours, were they? You never wore them.”

She stiffened and her shoulders straightened. The hostile
expression on her face slowly ebbed like the tide, uncovering a
vulnerable hesitancy that aged her terribly. She passed a shaking
hand over her lined forehead.

Then her chin rose. “No. I never wore them.”

“But you know who did, do you not?”

“I — I'm not sure what you mean.”

“You saw Lionel when he returned home, did you not? The night
before we went out on the Twilight. And when you found out what had
happened, you took the jacket and cap. You hid them.”

“I have nothing more to say to you.”

“Just tell me if I am wrong. About any of it,” he said, as
gently as he could.

Again she ran her hands over her forehead. The silence lasted so
long that he almost gave up hope of an answer.

“You are not wrong. Now get out. I have nothing more to say to
you.”

For once, he was glad to obey. When he closed the door, he heard
the sounds of her muffled sobs: raw, terrible cries torn out of
her.

He walked away quickly, feeling hollow and numb with grief. His
aunt had been the intelligent and kind one in this drama. She had
known what had happened ever since she learned the fate of the
Twilight. And she had chosen the best — the only — reasonable
course.

The butler hailed him as he entered the foyer. Hugh was so
wrapped in his miserable thoughts that he nearly stepped on Mr.
Symes’ highly polished toes.

“Mr. Caswell,” the butler repeated, stepping adroitly out of
Hugh's path. “There is someone waiting for you. In your
office.”

“Thank you.” Hugh turned on his heel and strode back the way he
had come. The sooner he got this over with, the better.

His office door was open. Inside, Gaunt stood staring out of the
window with his hands clasped behind his back. His sharp ears must
have heard Hugh's tread, for he turned as Hugh stepped over the
threshold.

“My lord.” Gaunt inclined his head and moved away from Hugh's
desk. His dark eyes flicked over Hugh's face. He frowned. “Has
something happened?”

“A sudden return of rational thought, perhaps.” Hugh hesitated.
Thanks to his decision to hire an agent, matters were now …
delicate.

“I see.” Gaunt appeared as awkward as Hugh felt, shifting from
one foot to the other. “I enquired about your brother's loss of the
Twilight. I'm afraid there is no possibility that the individual
involved with the debt was anywhere near the shipyard at any time
preceding the accident.”

“I suspected as much.”

Gaunt nodded.

“You suspected it as well, did you not?” Hugh asked.

“A … different set of circumstances had occurred to me. I was
hesitant to raise the possibility ….”

“The possibility that it was my brother who sabotaged the
Twilight, rather than lose it?” Hugh stared at his desk. “He was in
such a strange mood that morning. Subdued and yet jumpy. Nervous. I
put it down to his visit to the vicar and his pending entry to
university. He did not want me to go out on the boat. I insisted.”
He paused before he continued in a raw voice, “I would have gladly
paid his debt. Nothing was worth this.”

“Pride,” Mr. Gaunt said. “He did not want you to know about his
weakness. The vicar said he loathed his frailty and tried to stop,
but he just could not stay away from the betting book at
White's.”

Hugh hands shook. He shoved them into his pockets and faced
Gaunt. “My God, he's already buried. On hallowed ground in the
churchyard.”

Suicides were buried at crossroads with a stake through the
heart.

“I had wondered,” Gaunt said. “You realize this is sheer
speculation.”

“He wore the jacket and cap — my aunt saw him. She guessed the
truth days ago and hid the garments, though she should have
destroyed them.”

“He may have been checking on the Twilight, knowing he had to
give it up in payment for his wager. And he wanted one last
sail.”

Hugh stared at him, understanding at last what he was offering.
A gracious way out for all of them. And Lionel could remain in the
churchyard next to all the past generations of Castles.

“Are you suggesting an accident, then?” Hugh asked.

“Yes. An act of God.” Gaunt nodded once with finality. “That is
what will be in the report. You will receive it by the end of the
week. The Twilight went down in a storm, taking the life of Mr.
Lionel Castle in a tragic accident. We can only be grateful the
earl’s life was spared.”

“So he can pay you?” Hugh asked with a chuckle.

“Of course. I'm always grateful for business.”

“Then the matter is settled.” Hugh shook hands with Gaunt and
walked with him to the front door, bemused and relieved. No one
need ever know. Lionel could rest in peace.

By the end of the day, Hugh would be the earl again. Everything
would fall back into dreary routine.

Except now he had no escape. The Twilight was gone, and Lionel
was dead. And Helen would disappear as soon as he gave her the
necklace weighing down his jacket pocket.

It almost made him want to throw the cursed thing into the
ocean.

“
The virtue of silence is highly commendable ….” —
The
Complete Servant

Hugh turned and faced the stairway. It was time to become the
earl once more. With heavy limbs that weighed more with each step,
he climbed the stairs and went down the hall to his bedroom.

The huge chamber had not changed since he had left. The book he
had been reading still rested on his bedside table with a piece of
notepaper sticking out, marking his place. His brush lay neatly on
the small table next to his washstand. A chessboard with the game
he and Lionel had started still stood at the ready between two wing
chairs. Despite the small indications of his occupancy, the room
seemed cold and foreign now. The air smelled as stale as a
mausoleum.

He shrugged aside his fancies and went to his chest, pulling out
his scissors, shaving cup, soap and razor. Staring at his
reflection in the mirror, he hesitated. For one wild moment, he
wished he were an inquiry agent, free to live his life as he chose
without the duties of an earldom — and the expectations of everyone
who depended upon him.

He had enjoyed a few weeks of freedom. Slipping back into the
traces and fastening the harness again was more difficult than he
imagined.

Nonetheless, it was time.

With slow, measured snips, he removed the worst of his beard
before starting to work with the razor. When he was done, a
stranger stared back at him. His face had changed. He was neither
the earl nor the inquiry agent. An aged stranger with a battered
nose and sad eyes hovered in the mirror.

He threw the shaving implements down on the table and turned
away. With methodical gestures, he pulled off his sober garments
and exchanged them for a fine woolen jacket and long black pants,
suitable for an earl to wear on a leisurely afternoon at his
country estate.

Then, when he could delay no longer, he pulled the door
open.

And came face to face with his aunt.