Fallen Angels (16 page)

Toby dropped his blood-soaked cloak of sackcloth over the body. A cat licked at the blood which was pecked by falling sleet. Dusk made the courtyard dark. Toby could hear a violin playing in the tavern from which Brissot had swaggered to his death.

Lord Werlatton went back to the Rue des Mauvais Garcons, to the small, filthy lodging house where the name Pierre Cheval was written in the book.

He did not go into the building.

He watched instead from a street corner and saw what he expected to see. Only the Gypsy had known that Pierre Cheval was the Lord Werlatton, and only the Gypsy knew that Lord Werlatton planned to stay in that lodging house on that street.

And that was why the soldiers were searching the house, driving the people out with musket butts, smashing open cupboards and ripping up floorboards.

Toby, the knife hidden again, turned back into the alleys of Paris where he would hide till the roadblocks at the city gates were lifted. Lazen, though it did not yet know its enemy, was fighting back.

—«»—«»—«»—

'It's war,' the Earl said. 'Damned war! The fool's caught up in a war!'

Campion looked at
The Times,
published four days before in London. France, in the wake of murdering their King, had declared war on Britain. War. The word seemed so unreal to her, so stupid. There was war between her mother's and her father's countries. Britain was at war.

The Earl grimaced as pain caught him. 'Scrimgeour brought the newspaper.' He gestured at the fat man who smiled at Campion as he stood up from behind the table where he had established himself. The Earl growled, 'You do remember Scrimgeour, my dear?'

'Of course.' She acknowledged the fat man's bow. 'You're well, Mr Scrimgeour?'

'Of course he's well,' the Earl snapped. 'He's a damned lawyer. Evicted any widows or children lately, Scrimgeour?'

'One loses count, my Lord.' Scrimgeour, who was Lazen's London lawyer, was oblivious to the Earl's attacks. He smiled constantly. Campion always thought that he would have made an excellent Renaissance Cardinal with his fat, smooth face, his unctuous smile, his ingratiating manners, and sly wit.

The Earl pulled
The Times
towards him with his good hand. 'Your brother, my dear, is in a war. He's a fool.' He smiled at her. 'I hear you had a good run yesterday?'

'Picked up a scent in Candle Woods and then all the way to Sorrell's Ford.'

'And lost him there?'

'Went to ground.'

The Earl laughed. 'You lost the same old dog last year! He'll live longer than all of us! How did Pimpernel go?'

She shrugged. 'He was whistling by Abbotshill.'

'I knew it! I knew we shouldn't have bought that horse! That damned French Gypsy of your brother's said it was no good, but you can't tell Correy. He won't listen! Boring you, am I, Scrimgeour?'

'Indeed not, my Lord.'

'I try, I try. D'you hunt, Scrimgeour?'

'Only malefactors, my Lord.' The lawyer's shoulders heaved with silent laughter.

'Christ!' the Earl groaned. He looked back at his daughter. Much of his swearing and grumpiness was for her benefit; she pretended to be shocked, but he knew she liked it. After her mother's death it was inevitable that Campion would grow up in a male dominated household, inevitable that she would be teased. She was also loved by this ill, clever, frustrated man who now smiled at her. 'You're out on Friday?'

She nodded. 'We're drawing Sconce Hill.'

'What are you riding?'

'Hellbite.'

He laughed. 'He'll have you on your arse. You'll end up like me, good for nothing, lawyer's bait. Sorry, Scrimgeour, forgot you were here.'

The lawyer laughed. 'Your lordship is ever thoughtful.' He looked at Campion. 'Such wit!'

She dared not look at her father. She would have burst into laughter if she had caught his eye.

'Now!' her father barked. 'We are gathered here for a solemn occasion. What happens when I die.' She looked at him with sudden shock and he scowled at her. 'Don't you cry, Missy. I can't stand weeping women! Your mother never wept, God bless her. Nothing worse than a weeping woman, ain't that right, Scrimgeour?'

'They are a bane, my Lord.' Scrimgeour was delicately hooking the wire earpieces of half-moon spectacles beneath his scrolled wig.

'So.' Her father gave her a swift smile. 'You sit and say nothing, my dear, and listen to us men talk. Tell her what's in the will, Scrimgeour.'

Campion looked from the lawyer to her father, and back to the lawyer again. She had known, of course, that Cartmel Scrimgeour had come to Lazen, but she presumed that it was no more than one of his normal visits. She had been summoned to her father's room and had expected only to talk about the domestic accounts. Now this? Her father's will? She wanted to protest, but the fat lawyer, his thumbs and fingers splayed above the papers as if he was casting a spell, spoke first.

'You understand, my Lady, that despite this egregiously woeful topic, we all, of course, wish your father a long and most happy life.'

'Christ!' The Earl groaned. 'Get on with it.'

Scrimgeour lifted a curling sheet of paper. 'In the unhappy event, dear lady, of your dear father's death…'

'Father!'

The Earl looked innocently at her. 'Seen a spider?'

'What are we talking about?'

He smiled at the shock in her voice. 'I am doing, dear child, what the priests tell us to do. I am preparing for my death.'

'But…'

'Be quiet, Campion. Carry on, Scrimgeour, she's usually more sensible than this.'

The lawyer smiled ingratiatingly. 'In the unhappy event, dear lady, of your dear father's death, the estate, and the title, of course, descends to your brother, Lord Werlatton.'

'She knows who her brother is, Scrimgeour!'

'Your Lordship is quite right to tell me!' He gave the Earl a happy, grateful smile. 'Shall I add the details of Lady Campion's own settlement?'

'No. Let her wait till I'm cold.' The Earl smiled at her. 'Periton House and a decent income. You won't be cold. Will you please stop looking as if you've seen a spider?'

She reached for his hand and held it in both her own. She supposed she should say something to him, but this cold-blooded and sudden immersion into the details of his will had left her too shocked to open her mouth.

Her father seemed to understand for he raised her right hand to his mouth and kissed it. Then he nodded to his lawyer. 'Go on, Scrimgeour, don't mind this touching display of fatherly affection.'

'It warms my heart, your Lordship.' Mr Scrimgeour, as if to prove his point, dabbed at one protuberant eye with a plump finger. He smiled at Campion. 'Unfortunately, dear Lady Campion, your father has felt it necessary to make precautions against a more unhappy outcome.'

'What he means,' her father said, 'is that if my damn fool son catches his death of a French bullet, then your cousin inherits the Earldom. Making Julius an earl is like making an ape into an Archbishop, or a lawyer into a gentleman. Carry on, Scrimgeour, don't mind my interruptions.'

'They are always most illuminating, my Lord.'

Campion had scarcely thought of the eventuality, yet suddenly it seemed horribly real. There was war. Toby was, at his own insistence, in France, and only Toby barred the Earldom from Sir Julius. She remembered her cousin pawing at her in the straw, she remembered his foul language, and she shuddered to think of him as master of Lazen.

Cartmel Scrimgeour ran a finger beneath his stock. 'In that event, Lady Campion, your father has decided that the property will be entailed upon Sir Julius's issue or, if he has none, upon your own children.'

'Let's hope he has none,' the Earl growled. 'Let's hope it's rotted off by the pox.' He squeezed her hand and she squeezed back.

Scrimgeour went on as though the Earl had not spoken. 'That would mean that Sir Julius, as Earl, would have no power over the estate. He may live at Lazen, he will receive an income sufficient to his needs, and a very generous one too, but you, Lady Campion, will have the administration of the estate until the death of Sir Julius, or, should he predecease his issue, until the majority of his heir or, should he have none, your own.' He smiled.

She was astonished. In effect the whole estate would be given to her if her brother died to hold in trust for the following generation.

She stared at the lawyer. Her father laughed at her. 'Don't pretend you're surprised.'

'Father!'

'Christ! You think I'd let Julius have this? God! He'd gamble the whole damned thing away in a year! Wrote to me a month ago wanting more money. I told him enough was enough and now he's praying for my death and Toby's death. I just wish I could see the little bastard's face when he finds out we've entailed the damned place. Do go on, Scrimgeour.'

The lawyer waggled his eyebrows, a sure sign that he was approaching a difficult topic. 'There is always the sad possibility, Lady Campion, that you will predecease your cousin in the sad event of your brother not succeeding to the Earldom.'

'He means,' the Earl said, 'that all my children will be dead. A united family once more. Go on.'

'In which case, Lady Campion, the new will provides that your husband will continue your responsibilities, in which discharge he will be aided by Achilles d'Auxigny and by your humble servant.'

'He means himself.'

Scrimgeour bowed to her in his chair. 'Your dear uncle and myself are named, in any case, to be your fellow trustees.'

She smiled, trying to cover her astonishment. 'I'm glad, Mr Scrimgeour.'

'Oh God! Don't be nice to him. He's a lawyer. He'll have the skin off your back if you're nice to him.'

'Such wit,' murmured Mr Scrimgeour.

Her father drew his hand back and pushed himself up on the pillows. 'Your uncle may be French, but he's got more sense than anyone else in the family. As for Scrimgeour, well, he tells me he's honest. He's a lawyer, but he says he's honest. Such wit.'

Cartmel Scrimgeour let the jibes roll off his ample, sleek flesh. He smiled at Campion. 'Let us fervently hope, Lady Campion, that our advice will not be required, and that your brother will live to a hale, hearty age to be much pleased with his own children.'

'Amen,' Campion said fervently.

'But if not,' her father said, 'then you look after Lazen. And I mean you! You'll make the decisions. You'll get advice from Achilles and Scrimgeour, but the power is yours! I know you're a girl, but you've got good sense. You should have been born a boy.'

'You'd have liked that, father?'

'Girls aren't much use. All headaches and hair pins.'

She put her tongue out at him. He laughed and reached for her hand. He held it and looked at her blue eyes. He smiled. 'You may be a mere girl, Campion, but you're the best of my litter.' He ignored her protest. 'Your elder brother was a bore. And Toby?' He shrugged. 'Toby doesn't want the aggravation of it all. He wants to be a hero. I think he fancies a grave in Westminster Abbey.'

'Nonsense, father.'

'It's not nonsense. And what it means, mere girl, is that Lazen hangs on a very thin thread. I'm using you to strengthen the thread.'

She smiled. 'A mere girl?'

'Which makes it important,' her father said, 'that you choose your husband wisely. However, there is no connection whatsoever between that statement and the next matter I wish to raise. Read it, Scrimgeour.'

The lawyer dropped one piece of paper and selected another. He licked his lips, peered archly over his spectacles at her, then read from the sheet of paper. 'Lewis James McConnell Culloden, fourteenth…'

'Forget his titles,' her father growled. He looked at Campion. 'I asked Scrimgeour to find out who he was.'

She knew she was blushing. She said nothing.

Scrimgeour smiled at her. 'Went to EtonCollege, of course, but didn't we all?' He laughed lightly. Then Kings, naturally, but did not stay up for his baccalaureate. The family lost their Irish lands, I fear his father was a gambler. Enough was saved from the wreckage for his Lordship, on succeeding his father, to buy himself a commission in the Blues. A most excellent regiment, of course. House in London, very fair, and property in Lancashire, Cheshire and the remnants of a small estate in CountyOffaly. All the latter mortgaged. No scandals, my Lord. He's a communicant member of the Church of England, of course, and he has only spoken twice in the House of Lords; once on the subject of turnips, and the other time he advocated the adoption of the Austrian pattern of cavalry sword. His reputation, my Lord, is as a steady, quiet, solid man, plenty of bottom, whose family has fallen on hard times. He has never married.' Scrimgeour smiled and put the paper down.

'What he means,' the Earl said, 'is that Lewis ain't got the pox.' Campion blushed, and the Earl smiled. 'Upon which good news, Scrimgeour, I'd be obliged if you left us.'

Cartmel Scrimgeour stood. He bowed. 'My Lord. Lady Campion.' He walked with immense dignity from the room.

'Well?' her father said.

She stood. She walked to the window, rubbed a patch of glass clear of condensation, and stared at the light scattering of snow that had fallen in the night. The hedgerows seemed very black against the unusual whiteness. She hoped it would be warmer for Friday's meet.

'Well?'

'Well what, father?' She turned.

He stared at her. Her beauty was a constant solace to him, more beautiful even than his wife whose portrait, on an easel, had stood these fifteen years at the foot of his bed. 'You're not going to weep on me, are you?'

'Why should I?'

'Because my bowels, child, that I cannot control anyway, have started to pass blood. Fenner, who knows nothing, says it means nothing. He's lying. Doctors always lie. They're worse than bloody lawyers. I have pain like the very devil and I'm dying.'

She wanted to cry. She wanted to throw herself onto his bed, into his arms, and cry.

She stood still. She looked at him and felt the tears prick at her eyes.

'Don't weep on me, girl. Weep after I'm dead, but give me a smile while I live.'

'Father.'

He laughed at her, held out his good arm, and she went to him, let him hold her, and she cried anyway. His hand stroked her neck. 'Get me a brandy, girl.'