The Arrangement (35 page)

Mr. Cole wiped the whole bottom part of his face with his napkin. “Well, if someone hired you, sonny, then I’d sure like to know who it was and why.”

Raoul leaned back a little in his chair. “I hired Mr. Slater, Cole,” he said. “As I’m sure you all know, I have been extremely concerned about these so-called accidents that have been occurring here at Savile recently, so I asked Mr. Slater to investigate the matter for me.”

Roger asked in a silky voice, “And what did Mr. Slater discover?”

Raoul looked around the table. “If everyone is finished with luncheon I think it would be a good idea if we adjourned to the library, where we may be private.”

We all got up from the table with alacrity and followed him. I saw as we came into the library that five chairs had been set in a semicircle around the front of the big table. On the opposite side of the table sat a thin, pale, nervous-looking man whose hands were clasped tensely in his lap.

Raoul gestured us to the five chairs. “Please be seated.”

We all took our seats. I sat between Ginny and Roger, with Harriet on Ginny’s other side and Mr. Cole on the end.

Raoul and Mr. Slater went behind the library table and took the two other chairs that had been set there, Raoul sitting in the middle, next to the nervous-looking man. He lightly clasped his long-fingered hands on the table in front of him, regarded them with a faint frown between his straight brows, and began to speak.

“Over the past weeks it has become increasingly clear to me that the dangerous things that have been occurring at Savile Castle recently have been directed against Nicholas Saunders.”

I felt Ginny turn to look at me, but I kept my eyes focused on Raoul.

He went on, “I saw no immediate significance in the matter with the bridge, which could simply have been the result of neglect. But then Nicky’s pony was poisoned.”

Roger spoke up. “There is no proof that that pony was poisoned. It could simply have colicked.”

Raoul’s brows rose in disbelief. “Possibly. But the suddenness and violence of the attack spoke more of poison than it did of colic.” Once more he looked down at his loosely clasped hands, then he looked up and said quietly, “Then there was the death of Johnny Wester.”

Mr. Cole shifted noisily on his chair. “Well, it don’t make sense to me how you can think that the death of the Wester nipper had anything to do with young Nicholas.”

Raoul’s face was set hard. “I believe that Johnny Wester was killed on the mistaken assumption that he was Nicky,” he answered. “Remember, no one but the boys knew that they had added Johnny to their game. And Johnny is very similar in height and coloring to Nicky. I believe that whoever shot that arrow thought that he was shooting at Nicky.”

My hands were clasped tightly in my lap. For a brief moment, Ginny’s hand closed over them and squeezed comfortingly.

From behind the library table, Raoul went on, “Naturally I began to ask myself what possible threat Nicky might pose to anyone that it should become so essential to get him out of the way.”

The room was deathly quiet.

Raoul said, “At first my thoughts turned to Roger.”

Roger yelped in protest but Raoul ignored him. His somber golden eyes moved slowly from Mr. Cole, to Harriet, to Ginny, to me, and then, at last, to Roger. He said, “I knew you needed money, Roger, and if Nicky were dead, the money set aside for him in George’s will would be available to you. But the more I thought about this possibility, the less I liked it.”

“Thank you, Savile,” Roger said ironically.

Raoul continued to hold his cousin’s restless blue gaze captive. “For one thing, there was no guarantee that you were going to inherit the Devane estate at all, and if you did you would probably be able to stave off your creditors, at least initially, without the extra twenty thousand set aside for Nicky.”

I frowned and shifted in my seat so that I could look at Roger. I was not as sure of him as Raoul appeared to be.

Raoul’s eyes left Roger’s face at last and went back to the contemplation of his clasped hands. “No matter how I tried, I could not put aside my belief that the danger to Nicky originated with that legacy. However, it was not until I traveled to Sussex a few days ago that I began to understand what it was that must be at the root of these attacks.”

I froze in my chair. He couldn’t do that, I thought in horror. He had promised me that he would never tell!

Raoul did not look at me as he continued, “I don’t think any of us ever had any doubt that Nicky was George’s son. A man like George does not leave twenty thousand pounds to a boy whom he has met in passing on the street.”

Ginny did not look at me either. Roger and Harriet and Mr. Cole did. I felt their eyes burning my skin.

Raoul said, “We all assumed that George was Nicky’s father and that Gail was Nicky’s mother, and that is where we were wrong.”

I
will never forgive him for this,
I thought.
I
will never forgive him.

It was then that Raoul dropped his bombshell. He lifted his gaze and for the first time since we had come into the library he met my eyes. He said, “Nicky’s mother was Gail’s sister, Deborah, and she and George were married.”

I stared back at Raoul incredulously. “What?”

He nodded gravely. “The paper you heard that fellow Wickham trying to sell to Cole? It was the record of the marriage. This gentleman here,” he nodded to the man sitting next to him, “is the parish priest of Hawton, a village where George had a small property. George and your sister Deborah were married there by license in February of 1809.”

“That ain’t so!” said Mr. Cole.

“That can’t be true!” Harriet cried in a strangled voice. “George and I were married in July of 1809!”

There was absolute silence in the room as we all registered what this might mean.

Deborah’s marriage was legal and Harriet’s was not.

“My God,” I finally said in a shaky voice. “Does this mean that Nicky is George’s legitimate son, Raoul?”

“His legitimate son, Gail, and his heir.”

“My God,” I said again. I could not take it in.

Roger said sharply, “And just where is Gail’s sister, Savile?”

“She is dead,” Raoul said gently. “Gail has reared Nicky from the time he was born.”

“Fine words indeed, my lord, but where’s your proof?” Mr. Cole said scornfully. “If there is no official marriage record, then there is no marriage.”

“That is true, Raoul,” Ginny said. “If the marriage between George and Deborah did indeed take place, there should be a record of it in the parish register at Hawton.”

“Slater?” Raoul said. “Will you tell us what you found at Hawton?”

“Yes, my lord,” the young man said. His level eyes regarded the five of us seated before him. “The whole page from the book that listed the marriages for the months of January, February, and March of 1809 was ripped out. When I asked Mr. Wickham here,” Slater nodded to the man sitting on the other side of Raoul, “what had come of the page, he said it had fallen out of the binding and been lost.” Slater curled his lip. “There was nothing wrong with the binding of that book, my lord. That page had been ripped out, pure and simple.”

Wickham. The name rang familiarly in my mind and I looked at the clergyman and frowned. This was not the Mr. Wickham I had met.

“Papa!” Harriet said shrilly. “What are they saying?”

“Now, there ain’t nothing here to concern you, Harriet,” Mr. Cole replied. “There ain’t a scrap of proof to back up any of this. It’s all Savile’s speculation.”

“Cole is right,” Roger said, agreeing with the merchant for probably the first time in his life. “A missing page in a parish register is no proof of anything.”

For the first time, the thin pale man sitting next to Raoul spoke. “His lordship is telling the truth. Nine years ago, Mr. George Melville came to me and asked me to marry him to a young lady in a manner that would avoid the attention of his father. As both parties were over the age of twenty-one, and Mr. Melville’s family held property in the parish and he could be considered a resident parishioner, I did not see how I could fail to withhold my consent.”

“I’ll bet he sweetened your pocket to do it for him, too,” Roger said sarcastically.

A dark flush came across the pale, meager features of the clergyman.

Raoul said, “The witnesses to the union between George and Deborah were Mr. Wickham’s wife and his brother, Vincent, who was on a visit before he left for India.”

I thought of the dark, sunburned face of the man who had been trying to sell a paper to Mr. Cole, and saw how the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to come together.

“I can only surmise what must have happened after the marriage,” Raoul said. “George and Deborah obviously went home and told no one what they had done, but one can only assume that Deborah thought it was only going to be a matter of time before George would reveal the truth to his family.

Then George’s father brought the Coles to Devane Hall and began to pressure George to marry Harriet.”

A sound came from Harriet and once again I felt that uncomfortable stab of pity.

Raoul went on, “The financial situation at Devane was desperate. If Uncle Jack could not pay off some of his debts, he would lose Devane Hall completely. This was the kind of pressure that was brought to bear on George.” Raoul shrugged. “One must assume that George shared this information with Deborah.”

“Of course he must have, the spineless worm,” I said scornfully.

Ginny said, “Why didn’t the girl simply insist that George tell his father the truth? Or if he was afraid to do it, why didn’t she go to Uncle Jack herself?”

I answered that question. “Deborah would have had too much pride. And when she found herself with child, instead of telling George she came to me.” I put my hand up to shade my eyes. “She didn’t tell me about the marriage for the same reason, I imagine.”

“That is what must have happened,” Raoul agreed. “She ran away to you, and a month later George married Harriet.”

Harriet moaned and stood up so abruptly that her chair fell over. I had not thought her heavy body capable of moving so quickly. “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she said.

“I am sorry, Harriet,” Raoul said gently. “This must be dreadful for you. Would you like to go and lie down?”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Her voice grew higher with every
yes,
and I became afraid that perhaps we were going to have to deal with hysterics.

Ginny went to her and put an arm around her shoulders. “Let me summon your maid for you, Harriet, and you can go to your room. Come along now…”

Ginny’s soft murmuring could be heard as the two of them left the library.

I sat in the sudden silence that their exit had produced and thought about what Raoul had just revealed. I remembered how Deborah had been during the last months of her pregnancy. Something terrible and destroying had happened to her when George had caved in and married Harriet.

Roger said, in his light, brittle voice, “Mr. Wickham, one can’t help but wonder why the minister who performed this secret marriage was so reticent on the subject. Surely you knew that my cousin’s subsequent marriage to Harriet Cole was bigamous.”

“I did, of course,” Mr. Wickham said wretchedly. “But Lord Devane came to see me shortly before the second marriage took place, you see, and he told me that he would be forced to remove me from my living if the first marriage should become known. I…I do not have many connections, Mr. Melville, and at the time I had a young family to support. I did not think I could afford to reveal what I knew.”

“It surprises me to learn that George had the backbone to make such a threat,” I said contemptuously.

“Oh, it wasn’t Mr. George Melville who came to me, Mrs. Saunders,” the minister said in surprise. “It was Lord Devane. His father.”

A brief silence fell, during which time Ginny came back into the room.

“George did tell Uncle Jack, then,” Raoul said.

“Oh yes,” said the minister. “Lord Devane was quite furious. He wanted me to give him the page from the register upon which the marriage was recorded. I would not do that, however. There were other marriages recorded on that page, you see. So I told him that I would tear the page from the book and hide it and that no one would see it unless I should have to produce it to verify one of the other marriages, which was unlikely as everyone was still living in the parish.”

For some reason it made me feel slightly better that George had told his father about his marriage to Deborah.

“Yes, well, this is all fine talking, my lord, but you ain’t got the proof,” Mr. Cole said. “And I’ll tell you this, there ain’t no way I’m going to allow you to brand my girl a whore and my grandchildren bastards! I’ll take you to court and we’ll tie that bloody estate up for so long that it will molder into the ground before I let that happen!”

“There is proof, of course,” Raoul said softly. “Even if you have the register page in your possession, there is still the sworn testimony of Mr. Wickham here, and of his wife and his brother. There is Mr. Vincent Wickham’s testimony that he offered to sell you the page from the marriage register and that you agreed to buy it.”

“I never did that,” Mr. Cole said immediately.

I said, “Oh yes you did, Mr. Cole. I heard you. You were talking to Mr. Wickham here in the library. I was sitting in the chair in front of the fire and you didn’t see me. You agreed to buy the paper for ten thousand pounds. Mr. Wickham wanted twenty thousand but you wouldn’t give him that much.”

Mr. Cole surged to his feet. “You’re lying, you Jezebel!”

I leaped to my own feet. “Murderer! You tried to kill my son! I’m going to see to it that you hang, Cole! I’m going to stand there and watch as you choke to death! I’m going to…”

Cole had turned purple, as if he were indeed choking, and was advancing upon me. Suddenly, Raoul’s arm was around me and he was holding me against him. Restraining me, actually.

“That’s enough,” he said to Cole in a voice that stopped the older man dead in his tracks. “You must accept the fact that while I may not have the register paper in my possession—I assume you have destroyed that—I have enough evidence to establish that Nicholas Saunders is in fact Lord Devane’s legitimate son.”