Shady Lady (22 page)

Their cover story was that Waldo had engaged Harper, a well-known landscape gardener, to design a garden for him along the lines of the gardens at Brinsley Hall.

“That is,” said Waldo, “if Lord Brinsley will allow us to view the gardens. I’d heard that he wasn’t very obliging. Still, we thought it was worth a try. You’ll have another?” He passed the opened bottle of fine cognac across the table to the landlord.

“I don’t mind if I do,” replied Mr. Pike, obviously gratified by the gesture, “but only a small one.”

Harper didn’t mind having another one either. He didn’t know the first thing about gardening and was hoping that he would fade into the background so that he wouldn’t be put on the spot.

Considerably mellowed, Mr. Pike told them what they wanted to know, that there would be no objection to them viewing the gardens, or the house if they wished, because the Brinsleys had gone up to town.

“There are always plenty of visitors to the Hall,” Mr. Pike said, “but when the family is in residence, they don’t show the house.”

“The Brinsleys are well known in Henley, then?” asked Waldo.

That got the old boy going and, as he sipped his drink, he gave Waldo a thumbnail sketch of the most prominent family for miles around, beginning with the old earl, who had died the year before his grandson was born.

“Now
he
was a colorful character,” the landlord said, a shade of admiration in his voice. “Larger than life, if you know what I mean. Aye, and he had an eye for the ladies, or so my father told me.” He chuckled. “Everyone liked him in spite of it, but the poor sod practically bankrupted the estate with his wild living. The present earl, well, you might say he learned from his father’s mistakes.”

“Not as colorful?” Waldo observed.

“And not as well liked either, though, to be fair, he’s a much better father than his own father ever was. His son is the apple of his eye.”

“And,” Harper cut in, “his mother’s too, I suppose.”

“I suppose.” There was an element of doubt in the landlord’s expression. “You know, she was never right in the head after he was born. It was tragic, that’s what it was. The birthing was too much for her. My wife says it happens sometimes.”

Harper said, “If the old earl practically bankrupted the estate, how can they live so well? They’re as rich as nabobs.”

The landlord laughed. “His lordship married a bottomless well of money. Her ladyship was an heiress.”

At this point, Waldo made an oblique reference to the house party, but Mr. Pike was no help there. Brinsley Hall was only two miles along the road, and guests were unlikely to stop at an inn when they were so close to their destination.

When they got up to leave, he said, “Mention my name to Wallace. He’s the head gardener. Tell him Pike sent you and you’ll get a warm welcome.”

The following morning, they hired horses at the local hostelry and were soon on their way to the Hall. They might have rented a buggy, but Waldo thought that would restrict their movements. A horse could take them where a buggy could not.

The house was reached through a long avenue of mature oaks.

“It looks like an abbey,” said Harper, somewhat awed.

“It is. It used to be known as Holywell Abbey. There was a spring that was thought to be holy because it had miraculous powers. The Romans got here first, then the monks came and built their abbey.”

“Sounds as though you’ve been here before.”

“When I was at university,” Waldo agreed. “I had a friend who was interested in Roman antiquities. Unfortunately, there’s little left of what the Romans built.”

Harper squinted against the rays of the sun. “The abbey looks old to me.”

“Well, it is. It was built in the fourteenth century.”

“Bloody hell! I’ll bet there’s a lot of nooks and crannies in that house that would make a good place to hide a body.”

“It wouldn’t stay hidden for long, Harper. Think of the stench.”

They found the head gardener directing his under-gardeners in the delicate task of transplanting seedlings from the hothouse to the garden beds. Wallace was a pleasant-faced man in his forties with the ruddy complexion of someone who was out of doors in all kinds of weather. He seemed to know what they wanted before they had said more than a few words. He could not spare the time to take them to the ruins, he said, but he had a map of the grounds that showed where everything was. They thanked him, accepted the map, and jogged off to the shade of a sycamore, where they reined in.

After studying the map, Wallace’s words began to make sense. Visitors didn’t come in droves to see the gardens but to see the ruins of a bygone era.

“Seems,” said Harper, “like there’s no end of places to hide a body, inside
and
outside the house. Look here—the old chapter house, the refectory, the almshouse, the old well house, and so on and so on. They can’t be still standing, can they?”

“I doubt it, but their foundations will be hidden underground.”

“And look here! There was a Roman villa on the grounds at one time, and other things I’ve never heard of. What does it mean?”

“It means,” said Waldo, “that Brinsley Hall is steeped in history going back before the Romans. There must have been settlements here from time immemorial.”

“So what do we do?”

“We explore, Harper, we explore, then we ask to see the house.”

After seeing over the house, they returned to the Swan, where they ordered an early dinner and hired a chaise for the return journey to Palliser. They ate their dinner without being aware of what they were eating. Waldo was making notes with a pencil in the margins of the map Wallace had given them. They talked back and forth, trying to narrow down possible sites, but they couldn’t get around the fact that that still left them with, as Harper said, a lot of territory to cover.

On the drive home, they fell silent, each lost in his own thoughts, and the closer they got to Palliser, the more Waldo’s thoughts turned to Jo. He was beginning to think that she was a lost cause. After three years, she still hadn’t got over her husband’s death. He wondered if it would take her another three years to get over his betrayal.

He could almost appreciate this reversal of roles. Women had never played an important part in his life. He liked them. He admired them. He enjoyed their company. But he’d never wanted more than a casual affair. And that’s all Jo was offering when, for the first time in his life, he wanted more.

On that dark and dreary thought, he closed his eyes and drifted into a light sleep.

He stirred when their chaise turned into the gates of Palliser. It was dark, but he could see lights flickering through the trees. He wakened Harper. “Something is wrong,” he said.

Harper looked out the window. “Those look like men with lanterns.”

Waldo’s gaze had moved to the house. Lights were blazing from all the windows. Alarm coursing through him, he shouted to the driver to spring the horses. In the next instant, the whip cracked and they went thundering along the drive to the house.

C
hapter
22

A
s he climbed the front steps, his mother and sisters came out of the house to meet him. Mrs. Daventry was hovering behind them.

“Where is Jo?” he asked sharply.

Lady Fredericka took his hands in hers. “It’s not Jo. It’s Eric. She went into his chamber before going to her own bed and found that he was missing. We’ve searched the house and now they’re searching the grounds. Jo is with your father and Thomas. She insisted on going with them. They’ll find him, Waldo. They must.”

Maude said, “It’s only a small boy’s prank. He’s run away from home because of some silly quarrel. It happened with my own son once. You remember, Mama? Derek came home late at night and we didn’t even know he was missing.”

Cecy began to cry quietly.

Waldo, who had been thinking along the lines of an abduction, let out a pent-up breath. “When was he last seen?”

“After supper. Jo read him a story when he went to bed. It was only later that she found him missing.”

“Who did he quarrel with?”

Everyone looked at Mrs. Daventry. She had got hold of a ribbon and she stood there, the picture of misery, absently winding it through her fingers. “He overheard you quarreling with Jo,” she said, “and got the idea that . . . that if he went away, you and Jo would be friends again.”

“He heard us quarreling?”

“You were having breakfast. The children were playing hide-and-seek, and Eric hid behind the holly bush outside the window. Jenny told me.”

Waldo stifled the profanity that sprang to his lips. He could well imagine what a sensitive child like Eric would make of the quarrel he’d overheard.

He saw that the others were looking to him for guidance, so he kept his voice calm and steady. “He can’t have got far. I’ll find him. Mother, why don’t you see that there are sandwiches and something to drink for the men when they come in from the search? And make sure there’s plenty of coffee for me and chocolate for Eric.”

When they were out of earshot of the others, Harper said, “Where are we going?”

Waldo stopped to let Harper catch up with him. “We’re going to the stables to get horses.”

They were almost at the stable block when Jo came out of the shadows, accompanied by Waldo’s father. Mr. Bowman had a lantern, and when he held it up, Waldo could see the lines of exhaustion in his father’s face.

Jo didn’t speak. She simply walked into Waldo’s arms.

Mr. Bowman and Harper exchanged a look, then edged away to give the couple a little privacy. Neither Waldo nor Jo spared them a glance. Their moment was intensely private.

Jo said, “We’ve looked everywhere and can’t find him. He’s so small, and the park is so big. I thought if he heard me calling his name, he would come out of hiding. But what if something has happened to him? What if he can’t call out because—” She couldn’t complete the thought, so she shook her head.

“You’re sure he ran away?” He could see how close she was to collapse, so he didn’t voice the word
abduction,
though the thought that Morden might be behind Eric’s disappearance was still running through his mind.

She grasped his meaning at once. “No. He hasn’t been abducted. Things are missing from the kitchen—a pork pie, a loaf of bread, cheese. And Jenny told us that Eric was crying because he heard us quarreling.”

“That makes things simpler. Nothing has happened to Eric. I am almost sure that I know where to find him. I’ll bring him back to you safe and sound.”

“How can you know where he is when I don’t?”

“Because Eric and I have had many man-to-man conversations. And this isn’t the first time he’s run away. He ran away from school and got himself to Stratford, didn’t he?”

She nodded. “So where is he?”

“I think I’ll find him at the parish church.”

He prevented her from asking more questions by the simple expedient of issuing orders. “Father, don’t call off the search yet, not until I return with Eric, but get Jo up to the house and get her warm. She’s shivering. In fact, you both look done in, and you’re both wet.”

“We were at the lake,” his father explained, “and got too close to the edge.”

“I see. We’ll talk about this later. I haven’t time to talk now.”

When he turned to leave, Jo cried out, “But I want to go with you!”

“You can’t ride in your state, and I can’t wait for you to change. Father, see that she does what she’s told.”

She was ready to give him the sharp edge of her tongue, but to the surprise of everyone present, he kissed her swiftly, full on the lips, and moved off in the direction of the stables before the others had come to themselves. Even Harper was left staring.

When he caught up to Waldo, he said crossly, “I thought you was supposed to be lame?”

“What? Oh.” Waldo slowed his steps. “I can move when I want to. It’s a case of focusing on the problem at hand.”

“Is that what you was doing with Mrs. Chesney? I thought you was hard on her.”

“Harper,” said Waldo patiently, “you were a soldier, you had men under your command. What did you say to them when they were on the verge of collapse?”

After a moment’s thought, Harper said, “Did you mean what you told her about finding the boy?”

“I meant it. But that was Waldo Bowman, master spy, speaking. Now let’s see if I’ve lost my touch.”

“Master spy,” said Harper, and made a small sound of derision.

Mr. Bowman left Jo in Mrs. Daventry’s capable hands with strict instructions that she was to change out of her wet clothes, then he went to his dressing room to do the same. Lady Fredericka arrived a short while later to find him changed and sipping a neat whiskey. She had a thousand questions she wanted to ask about Eric. All she’d been told was that Waldo was sure he would find him at the nearest church. When she saw her husband, however, looking pale and drawn, she said quickly, “You’re not keeping something from me, are you?”

“How do you mean?”

“About Eric.”

“Oh, no. Waldo seemed quite confident that he would find him at the church.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” When there was no response, she went on, “Are you all right, Julian? You’re very pale.”

“Put it down to fatigue.”

She sighed. “Yes, it’s been an awful night, for Jo as well.”

“She was a regular trooper. Not a complaint out of her. Then Waldo came on the scene, and it seemed for a moment or two she would go to pieces.”

“But she didn’t?”

“No. I thought Waldo was a bit hard on her, but it did the trick. Well, you saw her. She’s a plucky little thing.”

A moment of silence went by. Finally, Lady Fredericka said, “But that’s not all. What is it, Julian? What’s bothering you?”

He heaved a sigh. “I think they’re lovers, Freddie.”

Her ladyship cocked her head to one side. “What makes you say that?”

“If you’d seen the way they looked at each other and the way he held her and the way he kissed her. A blind man could tell they were lovers.”

“You’re surely not shocked?”

“I’m not shocked. I’m disappointed. I want to see Waldo with a wife, not another mistress.”

“I don’t think Waldo would like to hear you call Jo by that ugly word. I think he loves her.”

“Then he should do the honorable thing!”

“Am I hearing right? Don’t you remember what it was like to be young and in love? You did a lot more than look at me and kiss me, and I was much younger than Jo.”

He spoke with a touch of asperity. “We were engaged to be married. The banns had been read.”

Her ladyship snorted. “What a poor memory you have! It was only because I wanted more of your kisses that I agreed to marry you at all. You seemed so sedate and proper and not the kind of man I could be happy with. Until you kissed me.”

On the point of taking umbrage, he saw the twinkle in her eyes, and chuckled instead. “And you were precocious. You led me astray.”

“We led each other astray as I remember. Ready? We should go down.”

He bolted his drink and set the glass on a dresser. “I can tell by that look in your eye that you want to give me some wifely advice. Out with it, then.”

Though there was no necessity for it, she adjusted his neckcloth, then looked up at him. “Be gentle with Waldo. I think he would offer for Jo in a minute if he thought she would have him. So I don’t want to hear any high-blown debates at the dinner table about the old values or modern morality, or whatever. You told me that we’d raised fine children. So trust them, Julian. That’s my wifely advice.”

His eyes searched hers. “I know I spoiled the girls. Tell me the truth, Freddie. Was I too hard on Waldo?”

She thought for a moment, then said seriously, “I love my son just the way he is. I’m not saying he is perfect. Well, nobody is. But in the things that really matter, he is as solid as a rock. Does that answer your question?”

The gravity in his expression gradually dissolved. He offered her his arm. “Is it permitted to talk about the weather at the dinner table?” he asked.

“Just as long as you don’t turn it into a debate.”

Smiling, they went to join the others.

Jo was standing at one of the long windows in the front of the house, a shawl draped around her shoulders, staring at the long drive, waiting impatiently for the moment when Waldo should appear. Occasionally someone spoke to her, but she answered in monosyllables. She’d been to church once since arriving at Palliser, both she and Eric. It was just off Kensington High Street. In her mind’s eye, she was covering the distance as though she were riding alongside Waldo.

St. Mary Abbots wasn’t that far away. They should have been home by now. Something must have—

Before she had completed the thought, she saw movement on the drive, then the sound of men cheering.

She whirled around, her eyes searching for Mr. Bowman. He was smiling. “The men wouldn’t cheer,” he said, “unless the boy was safe and sound.”

With a little cry, she picked up her skirts and ran from the room. She met Waldo as he was coming up the steps with Eric nestled in his arms. “The vicar found him,” he said, “sleeping under the cloisters. He recognized him, of course, and was just about to bring him home when we arrived. He has something to say to you. Well, Eric, what do you have to say to Aunt Jo?”

Tears stood on Eric’s lashes. He blinked them away, and stretched out his arms. “I want my aunt Jo,” he said.

The apology came later, when he was tucked up for the night, but it wasn’t so much an apology as a commentary on what the vicar had told him, that by making
them
sad, he had made his mother sad too, and all the angels in heaven. He wished, he said, that they could all live together, then everyone would be happy.

Waldo probed gently, and it soon became evident that what really troubled Eric was the thought that they were going to send him away to school again.

“That settles it, then,” said Waldo with his disarming smile. “You’ll go to school as a day boy and come home every night, or we’ll find a tutor for you and you’ll study at home.”

The tears that were never far from Eric’s eyes dried. “And will you and Aunt Jo be there?”

Waldo glanced at Jo, then said without hesitation, “Who else would be there if not your Aunt Jo or I?”

Eric smiled. “And you’re going to teach me to ride?”

“I said I would, didn’t I?”

“May I say good night to everyone?”

Jo answered. “It’s very late. Everyone has gone to bed except Uncle Waldo and I.”

“Then may I have another cup of chocolate?”

“Well, I suppose—”

“No,” interjected Waldo, “you may not.” Then to Jo, “This is getting too close to bribery for comfort.” He pulled the quilt up to Eric’s chin. “Off to sleep with you now, and tomorrow we’ll have a long man-to-man talk.”

In the corridor, Jo said in hushed tones, “We need to talk about Eric, before you have that man-to-man talk.”

“I know. But if you think about it, Jo, the answer to our dilemma is staring us in the face. In fact, I think it would be the perfect solution.”

His lashes veiled his expression and there was a stillness about him that she found confusing. The word
marriage
hovered in her mind, but she discarded it. Neither of them was ready for that. In her own case, she didn’t think she’d ever be ready.

She said carefully, “You mean that I’m to have Eric and he’ll go to you in the holidays?”

His eyes went hard and flat. “The last time we had this discussion,” he said, “it was overheard and we both know what happened next. Let’s keep it for a more appropriate time and place. Good night, Jo.” He turned to descend the stairs.

“Wait!”

“What is it?”

“At least tell me how you knew that Eric would make for the church. How did you know where to find him?”

“It was what he did the first time he ran away from Harding’s school. He said that, before his mother died, she told him that if ever he got in trouble or lost his way, he was to go to the nearest church and tell the vicar.”

“I see. That makes sense. If you can’t trust a vicar, who can you trust?”

“What is it, Jo?”

She gave a tiny shrug. “The more I hear about Eric’s mother, the more I find to admire in her. How could John have—”

He turned away abruptly. “We’ll talk in the morning,” he said.

Baffled and hurt, she stared at his back as he descended the stairs. “What did I say?”

When there was no answer, she marched to her own chamber and closed the door behind her with a snap.

If he heard the name John Chesney one more time, he would shoot himself.

This was Waldo’s thought as he flicked the ash from his cheroot and blew out a plume of smoke. He was in his office, just off his bedchamber, going over the notes he’d made at Brinsley Hall. The trouble was, he couldn’t concentrate. He was still thinking of Jo as he’d last seen her, not half an hour ago, on the stairs. It did not sit well with him that one provoking slip of a girl had the power to break into his thoughts no matter what he was doing.