Fallen Angel (20 page)

Sherington Close. His home.

He reined in his team and sat there for a long time, looking at the edifice, which had been built on the site of a long ago monastery. It was, when all was said and done, only a pile of stones, artfully arranged, and as he had told Miss Jolliffe in Northumberland, he had little interest in or any affinity for such things.

A well-caulked hull or a properly sanded deck was, of course, an entirely different matter.

Having received word of his coming, the butler had the servants lined up in the great hall to welcome their new master to his ancestral home. The upper servants said all that was fitting, and the lower servants tugged at their forelocks with proper deference, but Gabriel could feel the same waves of hostility emanating from this group that he had encountered when he had taken possession of his London residence.

In time, they would come to accept him ... or they would find themselves replaced. It mattered not to Gabriel which they chose, so long as Miss Jolliffe, when he brought her here as his wife, was not in any way distressed.

The following day Gabriel was inspecting the bailiff
’
s account books and finding them much more complicated than the ones in Northumberland had been. Hardly surprising, considering the difference in the sizes of the two estates.

He did not lack a head for business, however, and he knew he would, in the end, have a clear grasp of what each entry signified. Unfortunately, it looked as if it would take him much longer than he had anticipated, which meant he would not be able to return to London as soon as he had hoped.

There was a tap at the door, and the butler entered to tell him the vicar had come to tea.

“I have taken the liberty of putting the Reverend Mr. Stephen Todd in the library, m’lord, if that meets with your approval,” he said, “and I have instructed the cook to prepare a tea tray.”

The servant’s manner was properly deferential, but Gabriel was not deceived into thinking he had yet won the loyalty of this household, despite how calm things might seem on the surface.

The vicar was a younger man than Gabriel had expected, and in fact, did not appear to have yet reached the age of thirty. He was blond, well built, and were it not for the clerical collar he wore, Gabriel would have taken him for one of the Corinthian set. His was also the first face Gabriel had seen in Suffolk that bore a genuine smile.

“I should doubtless have waited until Sunday to see if you put in an appearance in church,” the Reverend Mr. Todd said without preamble, “but my errand with you today has nothing to do with ecclesiastical business.”

“Indeed?” Gabriel said. “Then may I offer you a chair and a glass of brandy, or do you prefer to wait for a cup of tea?”

“As the sacrificial goat, I think I would prefer spirits to cat-lap,” the vicar replied, seating himself in a comfortable chair beside the fire.

“You intrigue me,” Gabriel said, handing his visitor a drink and pouring one for himself. “Sacrificial goat?”

“As the person in this parish with the least to lose—I am unencumbered with wife and children, and my uncle is a bishop, so if you throw me out bag and baggage, he can doubtless procure another living for me—I have been chosen to sound you out on a number of topics,” the vicar explained.

“I fear my reputation has preceded me,” Gabriel said, taking the opposite seat.

“Actually, it has not, and therein lies the problem.”

“How so?”

Swirling the brandy in his glass, the vicar gathered his thoughts, then raised his head and said with no trace of humor, “The good people of this parish, both the ones who reside on the estate and the ones who are independent of your direct control, have sent me to ascertain if you are cut from the same cloth as your father and older brother.”

“I regret that I cannot tell you that,” Gabriel said.

“Then I am wasting my time and your brandy,” the vicar said, rising to his feet.

“You are too quick to concede defeat,” Gabriel said. “Pray be seated and let us discuss this further.” His visitor made no move to sit down, and Gabriel added, “I was not being facetious. Perhaps it might interest you to know that I cannot recall ever having met the late earl.”

“And now,” the vicar said, returning to his chair,
“
you
begin to intrigue
me.
How is it possible for a son not to remember his own father? The earl died less than a year ago.”

Familiar with the speed with which gossip could spread, Gabriel was not ready to answer that particular question. “Tell me first what kind of men the late earl and his elder son were.”

“I would not wish to speak ill of the dead, especially in the presence of their nearest relatives,” the vicar demurred, “although merely by saying that much I am sure you are clever enough to deduce what my general opinion of your father and brother must be.”

“Do you play chess?” Gabriel asked.

Puzzled, the vicar nodded his head. “I am accounted a better than average player.”

“Then you understand what the term stalemate refers to?”

Again a nod. “In this case I suspect it means you are not ready to tell me what I wish to know until after I tell you what
you
wish to know, and for my part I do not feel free to speak my piece until I have learned what kind of a man I am talking with.”

“Precisely. I could not have said that better myself.”

“And do you perchance play poker, my lord?” the vicar asked with another smile. “Do you know about bluffing?”

“The question at this time, my dear sir, is which one of us is bluffing and which of us holds the higher cards,” Gabriel said.

“I see I shall soon be writing a begging letter to my uncle,” the Reverend Mr. Todd said with a wry smile. “Where do you wish me to begin, my lord? Shall I first name for you one by one the assorted bastards your father and brother have begotten? Shall I list the young girls they have seduced and abandoned? Or would you rather I told you about servants who have been beaten half to death because they have aroused a drunkard’s temper? Or shall I show you the cottages those two noble gentlemen ordered burned down out of spite because they took offense where none was intended?”

Gabriel could see in the vicar’s face that he was speaking nothing but the truth. “I prefer that we start with financial matters,” he said mildly. “I made this journey to Suffolk because my accountant informed me that the estate here was not producing as much revenue as it should.”

“Revenue?” the vicar said, his voice rising. “Revenue? Your father has wrung every groat possible out of this land. He has beggared his tenants by raising the rents to impossible levels, and he never invested a single farthing in the estate, little caring that he was destroying the productivity of his own fields. And you ask about the revenue this land should be producing?”

In the silence that followed this outburst, the butler entered carrying a massive silver tea tray, which he set down on a table between Gabriel and his guest.

“Please inform the cook that Mr. Todd will be staying for dinner,” Gabriel said.

“My God,” the vicar said as soon as the butler had
left, “but you are the most cold-blooded bastard I have ever met.”

Gabriel smiled. “Since you already have suspicions about the legitimacy of my birth—”

“I did not mean it literally,” the vicar said somewhat shamefaced. “I am afraid I have a regrettable tendency to lose my temper, which my uncle has frequently informed me will keep me from ever being appointed to a bishopric.”

“You asked why I was not well acquainted with the late earl, and the answer is quite simple. In the eyes of the law, he was my father, but in truth we did not share a drop of common blood. And his elder son was only my
half-brother
. Do I need to explain any further?”

“I fear that if I attempt to comment, I shall once again be taking the name of our Lord in vain.”

“Have some more brandy,” Gabriel said. “And tell me what you know about my mother.”

“I never met her personally,” the vicar said. “She died before I came here. According to village gossip, she was quite standoffish and shunned local society. But my former housekeeper’s sister worked for a short time as a maid in this house, and she—my housekeeper—used to hint that there was more to the story—that Lady Sherington had not been a voluntary recluse, but in actuality a prisoner. What you have told me makes me think that perhaps there is more than a little truth in the servant’s story.”

“Would you object if I questioned your housekeeper?” Gabriel asked.

“I am sorry, but that will not be possible. She married and went back to Ireland, and I am afraid I cannot even tell you in which county she
n
ow resides.”

“It is no matter,” Gabriel said. “I am sure some of the other servants have been in service here long enough to remember my mother.”

“It will perhaps cause less gossip if you question your grandmother instead,” the vicar said.

Feeling rather confused, Gabriel said, “My grandparents both died before I was born. Their stones are in the west wall of the church.”

“No, no, I meant your mother’s mother.”

Something of Gabriel’s shock must have showed on his face, because the vicar said, “But, my lord, you are looking quite pale. Have you been taken ill? Have I said something to upset you?”

Gabriel gave a shaky laugh. “Perhaps you would be so good as to pour me another brandy? It is not an everyday occurrence for me to discover I have a grandmother whose very existence I knew nothing about.”

“And I must confess,” the Reverend Mr. Stephen Todd said, handing Gabriel a glass filled to the brim with amber liquid, “that the interview with you this afternoon, which I thought I had prepared for so well, has not gone at all the way I expected it to.”

“I should have known the moment I saw your jaw that you were not a proper Rainsford,” the vicar said, stopping in front of a large painting of a man dressed in the clothing of the last century. “Behold, your predecessor, the sixth Earl of Sherington.”

The gallery on the second floor of Sherington Close was lined with dozens of portraits, and although they all bore the same surname that Gabriel did, not a one of the people preserved on canvas was in fact related to him by blood.

Examining the picture the vicar was indicating, Gabriel said, “So this was my mother’s husband. One wonders if the artist deliberately chose to portray his subject with reckless honesty or if he was simply not adept enough with the brush to disguise the earl’s cruel nature.”

“He was indeed a vicious man,” the vicar said, “and much hated in the neighborhood.”

“And the sins of the father, as it were, are to be visited upon the son who is not, in fact, actually a son.”

“I sincerely doubt that, my lord.”

“You mean you are willing to vouch for my good character?”

The vicar laughed. “A good word from me will not be needed once your tenants learn that you will be putting money into the estate rather than taking it out.”

“And shall I be doing that?” Gabriel asked, finding this man of the cloth to be quite an extraordinary fellow. Even though they had known each other only a few hours, it seemed somehow inevitable that they would become friends.

“As a matter of fact, some of us—I was instructed not to mention any specific names, lest the terrible wrath of my Lord Sherington descend upon certain unprotected heads—have prepared a completely detailed proposal for turning a rundown estate into the showcase of the county, which plan, coincidentally, I happen to have with me,” the vicar said, pulling a sheaf of papers out of his jacket pocket.

Gabriel laughed and clapped his companion on the back. “Tell me, my dear sir, may I call you Stephen?”

“I would be honored if you would, my lord.”

“Then you must call me Gabriel, and no I am not in my cups. But I find that so much weighty discussion has whetted my appetite. Shall we see if dinner is waiting for us?”

“And while we are dining, perhaps we could discuss the financial provisions you might be willing to make for the assorted baseborn children in this parish who so far have only been endowed with the Rainsford jaw.”

“And perhaps, Stephen, if we spend the evening together, the subject of a new roof for the church might even come up, hmmm?”

“No, no, you have it all wrong. It is the vicarage that desperately needs a new roof. All the church requires is a new pipe organ.”

The driver of the hackney coach was apparently accustomed to the eccentricities of the
ton
,
because his face remained impassive when Verity told him where she wished to go. Perhaps he thought she had an early morning assignation with a lover?

What would he say if he knew that she was going to meet only a memory?

The drive down Pall Mall to the Thames should have been familiar, but she had never really noticed the drays loaded down with kegs and barrels, the peddlers pushing their hand carts, the shops with their shutters still closed.

She had crossed Westminster Bridge several times when she was driving out with Lord Sherington, but she had never really looked at its stones, or at the barges and boats and skiffs going under its arches.

The road along the water’s edge went through a rather ramshackle district, but Verity had never before noticed.

But then, on her earlier visits here, she had been sitting beside Lord Sherington, and all her attention had been focused on him.

Reaching the place where the roadway left the river’s edge, the driver turned his hack around and started back in the direction of the bridge.

Turning away from the window, Verity covered her face with her hands. She had hoped that returning to one of the places where they had been together might make her feel closer to Lord Sherington, but she had found nothing here but a vast emptiness.