The Ghosts of Greenwood (20 page)

“Lady Dorset,” came a voice from behind them. “The butler told me you were here. We have not been formally introduced. I am Barbary Halliday.”

Not a pretty woman, decided Livvy, as she rose; but Barbary Halliday was not unattractive either, with her honey-blonde hair and amber eyes. She murmured a polite response, wondering how much of their conversation had been overheard. Amanda might have been wondering the same thing. She was regarding her daughter-in-law with profound distrust.

There was nothing in Barbary’s manner to indicate an awareness of interrupted confidences. “I’m sorry to have startled you,” she said, as she lowered herself into a shield-back chair. “I wished to inquire if Bow Street has made any further progress.”

“I can tell you little,” Livvy replied, with perfect truth. “The missing horse has been found in Abel Bagshot’s stable, but no one seems willing to admit who left it there.”

“I’d wager on Gypsy Joe,” ventured Amanda. “But in that case, where is
he?
”

The door abruptly opened. Jenks, in a state of most unbutler-like agitation, stepped into the room. “Forgive me, my lady!” he gasped. Hard on his heels followed a gentleman in travel-stained riding clothes. His auburn hair was unkempt, his chin stubbled with days-old beard.

Amanda’s jaw dropped open. Barbary stirred, as if rousing from a trance. “Not dead!” she whispered, then flew across the room.

Said the gentleman into whose arms she flung herself, “Barbary?”

She clung to him as if she were drowning and he her life raft. “I had to come. You must see that.”

He set her away from him. “Your presence does add a nice touch to the prodigal’s return.”

“The prodigal?” echoed Livvy. “Whatever does this mean?”

Amanda was staring at the newcomer. “I daresay it
doesn’t
mean that we should start believing in ghosts. This must be Cade, of course. Unless there was yet another brother? I had not perfectly understood how much they look alike.”

Barbary grasped the man’s arm again. “All these months, you allowed me to believe you drowned!”

He scowled at her. “We will discuss this later. When we are alone.”

Amanda stepped forward, bravely placing herself between the newcomer and the doorway. “I think you must explain now, sir. What manner of person would allow his family to think him dead?”

His glance flicked over her, dismissively. “A blow to the head, a loss of memory— I have but recently returned to my senses. And now, that conversation, wife?”

Amanda refused to step aside. “Perhaps you are not aware of recent events.”

Again that cool glance rebuffed her. “I am aware that Connor is dead and the estate is meant to pass to Janthina. I wish her joy of it.”

Before the man could lay hands on Amanda and physically remove her from his path, Livvy intervened. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lady Dorset. Would you tell us, please, do
you
know if Janthina is alive?”

His indifferent gaze rested now on Livvy. “My sister has more lives than a cat. There will be some reason she hasn’t yet come forward to claim her due.”

The butler, who should properly have withdrawn but most improperly had not, even more improperly interrupted. “Master Cade, do you know where Miss Janthina is?”

Cade glanced at him. “Would it surprise you, Jenks, if I said I did?”

Amanda cried, “That’s fine for you, but how are
we
to know?”

“Know Janthina? First you will recognize her champions. Giuseppe is already here. Look next for the wench that my brother branded with his horse whip. And now, if you will excuse us—” Cade Halliday grasped his wife’s arm and drew her from the room.

“Mercy!” said Amanda. “At first I feared he was a ghost, and now I wish he had been. If ever I had considered Connor rude—”

Livvy had no interest, then, in Amanda’s sentiments; Livvy was piecing together various conversations she had recently overheard.

Her conclusions were appalling. “I must go. You will want to be alone.” Brushing aside Amanda’s protests that she most certainly did
not
want to be alone, Livvy took her leave.

During her journey back to the Castle, she sought to compose herself. If Amanda had been shocked by her first glimpse of the missing Halliday brother, Barbary had seemed little less stunned. Livvy, too, even though she didn’t believe in such stuff, had briefly thought Connor Halliday risen from the dead.

When she reached the Castle, Livvy dismounted and hurried across the courtyard. She found the other members of the house party gathered where she’d left them. Ned had progressed from French corpses to the Prince Regent, who had filled army orders with pages of instructions about epaulettes, gold lace and feathers, and sent the 23
rd
Dragoons to Spain so overdressed that they were confused with their French enemies. Sir John was now seated across from Dickon, attempting to enjoy a game of chess in spite of Hubert’s meddlesome advice. Jael and Austen were engaged in a spirited game of checkers. Livvy stared at the long pale scar that marred one side of Jael’s face.

Dulcie was busy with her knitting, which promised to be a scarlet muffler of considerable length. “What ho, Lavender? Dickon is about to tell you that a female in your condition shouldn’t overtax herself.”

Dickon glanced up from the chessboard, frowned when he saw that Livvy was dressed for the out-of-doors. “I thought you were resting,” he said.

“Is that a euphemism?” inquired Hubert. “
I
thought she’d withdrawn to cast up her accounts.”

“Cade Halliday has just arrived at the Hall,” Livvy informed them. “He is very much alive. Hubert, I wish a word.” Without waiting to see the effect of her announcement she grasped Humbug’s sleeve and dragged him with her down the hallway and into a small room containing a large number of maps and charts. Livvy closed the door.

Hubert eyed her speculatively. “Sweet Livvy, I am flattered by this singular mark of favor, but I feel it incumbent upon me to point out that Dickon will not be pleased. Certainly it is none of my concern, but if you wish my advice—”

“I don’t!” Livvy pulled off her bonnet and tossed it aside. “You will only tell me that I am taking all kinds of fancies because I am expecting. Surely
I
must be the one to know whether or not I’ve suffered ill-use.”

Hubert looked fascinated. “
Have
you suffered? Then I see clearly that it’s not you but Dickon who’s all about in the head. Else why would he praise you fulsomely to every willing ear — and even, I admit, to some who are not willing — and then misuse you in private? Unless poor Dickon’s senses are as disordered as his cousin’s,
I
can make no sense of it.”

“It’s not my relationship with Dickon that should concern you,” Livvy snapped, ignoring these artful disclosures, “but Connor Halliday’s.”

“Ah!” Hubert flicked open a pretty snuffbox. “Now I comprehend why you and Dickon are at daggers drawn. Alas, I fear my cousin has sadly corrupted your once-admirable morals. But do you deem it prudent to publish it to the world? In any event, isn’t the wench — that is, the rascal — dead?”

“Silence, you wretch! We are not discussing my relationship, but Jael’s.”

“Dickon and
Jael?
I had not considered that.” Livvy hissed at him, and Hubert raised his hands. “Pax! I’ll tease you no more. What is it that you wish to tell me? That you and Connor Halliday were
not
on intimate terms?”

“Cretin!” Livvy stamped her foot in vexation. “Not me, but Jael.”

Hubert eyed her quizzically. “We have already established that. In point of fact, it has for several years been Jael. Were it not so unlike you, I would think you have overindulged in the grape.”

Though Livvy was not cast away, there was a strong possibility that she might expire from pure exasperation. “Pray stop trying to distract me. I
know
!”

“That is a step forward,” responded Hubert. “If you share your knowledge with me, we may yet carry on a sensible conversation. Well?”

“Jael had good reason to hate Connor Halliday.”

“An interesting conclusion,” murmured Hubert, to his snuffbox. “Had we more time — I expect Dickon to burst in upon us in fine husbandly outrage at any moment — I would be curious to learn how you arrived at it. You think that Jael disliked Connor Halliday, and therefore must have been acquainted with him. I must tell you that Jael doesn’t require a prior acquaintance to take someone in violent dislike. Forgive me for being obtuse, but I seem to have missed the point.”

“Or are attempting to avoid it! I tell you, I
—
”

“Yes, I know,
you know.
” There was nothing of the fop about Hubert now. “And I strongly suggest, sweet Livvy, that you keep that knowledge to yourself.”

Twilight found Jael in Sir Wesley’s hothouse, calmly munching grapes. She was clad in the pink of fashion, in the Honourable Hubert’s attire. Since that veritable Tulip was slighter of figure than his
petite amie
, the effect was breath-taking. Not for a moment would the voluptuous Jael have been mistaken for a man.

She had not intended to be; she had sought only a convenient costume in which to shinny down a tree. No easy thing, to escape her well-meaning watchdogs. Even more difficult, now that Livvy had put Hubert on the alert. To rid herself of his ironic presence, Jael had enacted a fine display of high dudgeon, and then locked herself in her room. With luck Hubert would not recall the presence of that so-convenient tree limb.

She glanced around the hothouse, at the pendent pines and ivy, the pomegranate and Christmas rose. All appeared in good order, now that the gardener’s lad had figured out Sir Wesley’s ingenuous system of steam heat. Then she inspected her companion, who was considerably less neat.

With strong white teeth, Giuseppe tore off another hunk of bread from the loaf she’d brought. “What will your Baroness say when she learns her larder has been robbed?”’

“If the missing food is noticed, I’ll tell her I was hungry.” Jael paced the floor. “I don’t have unlimited time,
baro
. Nor do you.”

Giuseppe wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “You were right on all counts, as proven by Sir Wesley’s will. Would that Connor had lived to see this day.”

“Be done with your gloating!” Jael kicked at the woven basket in which she’d brought his food. “Have you stopped to think what all this must mean?”

“I’ve thought of little else. Cade wouldn’t have wanted the Halliday fortune to be split three ways. That one ever had the knack of sniffing out secrets.”

“And ,” Jael muttered, “the knack for keeping his own.”

Giuseppe tore off another hunk of bread. “He deliberately seduced Janthina. Sir Wesley was lured to Lady Margaret’s Garden so that he might discover them there.”

“Incest,” said Jael. “Sir Wesley’s daughter and his favorite son.”

Giuseppe delved into the basket and extracted a wedge of cheese. “Sir Wesley banished both of them. But in time he began to worry that Janthina had been made a scapegoat.”

Jael snorted. “He worried too late.”

“For Janthina, at least.” Giuseppe drew a knife and neatly sliced the cheese. “Maybe he wished to make amends.”

Jael studied him, hands on her hips. “Who told you about the will?”

“I am not without friends.”

“Take care your ‘friends’ don’t have their own axes to grind. Did they also tell you that Cade has returned?”

Giuseppe paused, a slice of cheese halfway to his mouth.

Jael related Livvy’s news, watched his face grow grim. “No honor among thieves, eh,
chavo
? Bow Street will be even more interested to learn Cade was nowhere near Brighton at the time he’s supposed to have drowned. And that he never wed.”

Giuseppe’s dark eyes fixed on her. “You would aid the
muskros
?”

“God’s teeth, man, where are your wits? Bow Street has taken Abel Bagshot into custody. It’s but a matter of time before he tells what he knows.” Irritably, Jael plucked a plum.

“The greedy Bagshot isn’t likely to stick his own head in the hangman’s noose.” Giuseppe finished off the cheese. “Who else knows that Cade returned to do his mischief, and blackmailed Connor to keep it from Sir Wesley? Save the Bagshot and myself and that old witch at the Hall?”

At this description of Rosamond, Jael almost smiled. “Dulcie, I imagine. You could put an end to this. I wish you would.”

“Ah,” he replied softly. “You grow tired of playing the concave suit?”

“I grow tired of being your cat’s-paw! That damned horse was found in Abel’s stable, by the way.”

Giuseppe looked startled, then triumphant. “Cade’s horse. Think how that must look.”

“Cade is but newly returned to Greenwood, but his horse preceded him by a week.” Jael bit into her plum. “
You
think, Giuseppe: who’ll believe the horse is his? Cade will hardly sit back and allow you to lay information against him.”

Giuseppe eyed her closely. “Connor was shot with Cade’s own pistol. Cade’s horse was in Greenwood
before
Connor’s death and therefore so was Cade himself. It would seem Cade played at being his own ghost and moved Connor’s man-traps — who else, since I did not? Now Cade ‘reappears’ hard on the heels of the family solicitor. What a shock it must have been to learn that he’d lost a fortune and at the same time gained a wife. Who
is
this Barbary?”

Jael shrugged. “Someone who didn’t wish to whistle a fortune down the wind. Obviously she knew Cade, and believed him dead. Equally obvious is that she
didn’t
know how things had been left. Rosamond must surely realize her story is false, but hasn’t exposed her. Why not, I wonder? This is a pretty coil. Sir Wesley must have had good reason to cut Rosamond out of his will.”

“The woman did her best to make his life a misery. What other reason would he need? You can’t mean to see the Halliday fortune go begging now.”

Jael tossed aside her plum pit. “The Halliday fortune is naught to me. Are you missing a silk scarf?”