The Waylaid Heart (2 page)

"What has been going on? How did you keep Branstoke so attentively at your side?" Jessamine hissed.

Cecilia wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "I don't know. Especially since I walked away from him in the music room without so much as a by-your-leave."

"Cecilia!"

"I know, I know that was careless." She pushed back wisps of white-blond hair that had managed to slide out of their confining pins to create a halo effect about her face. "But wait until I tell you what I heard. Then you'll understand how the gentleman's presence could completely vanish from my mind."

She glanced up and down the hall. "I suggest you pretend to administer a
Sal volatile
to me while we talk. That should suffice to keep others away. You may need it yourself when I tell you I have heard the words Mr. Waddley recorded in his journal!" Cecilia said, trying to keep her voice hushed and her excitement from creeping out as she pulled a small bottle of restorative from her reticule and handed it to her aunt. She grabbed Jessamine's hand as she placed the bottle in it and squeezed it. "I almost despaired, you know, of ever hearing anything of its like."

"Well, tell me. Don't keep me on tenterhooks!"

"I was, as I said, exchanging pleasantries with Sir James Branstoke, when I heard the words:
Talkers are no good doers.
"

"Is that all?"

"Well, then there was a laugh, and a pause, before the voice went on to wonder whether that extended to singers as well," Cecilia admitted. "But that is not relevant."

Her aunt looked at her askance. "You must have a tin ear, my dear."

"Jessamine! Be serious.
Talkers are no good doers
is the exact phrase Mr. Waddley wrote down, and that is not a phrase to come easily off of anyone's tongue."

Jessamine sighed and shook her head. "All right," she relented, "who did you hear, do you know?"

Cecilia nodded sadly. "Only too well, though the speaker was behind a column, it was Randolph."

"Your brother?"

Cecilia pursed her lips and nodded again. "I'll own I was shocked. I swear I stood as still as one of Elgin's marbles for several seconds after the voice moved on. When the full measure of what I'd heard filtered to me, I turned without a thought to Sir Branstoke and headed in the direction of the voice." She paused, frowning. "Lady Amblethorp delayed me at the doorway. I believe she wanted to assure herself I was not running out because of the music. I told her I was not, but by then, too much time had passed and Randolph was comfortably ensconced amid a large group of gentleman in the card room."

"But Randolph? You must be mistaken, Cecilia. He could not possibly—"

Cecilia lifted her shoulders in the barest suggestion of a shrug.

"For what reason? I'll own he might have once had cause, thinking to make you a wealthy widow and thereby sponging funds from you."

"Which I never would have given him!"

Jessamine smiled. "Be that as it may, my dear, being a man, I'm sure he thought he could appeal to your womanly nature. Anyway," she went on, ignoring the look of disgust Cecilia cast in her direction, "once Carlton's sons died, he became heir to the properties of the Marquis of Nye and the Duke of Houghton."

"And under those circumstances tradesmen extend him credit based upon his expectations and promises of payment," Cecilia finished for her. "Yes, I know. It was a practice Mr. Waddley considered extremely foolish. Besides, grandfather and Uncle Carlton now grant him an allowance far greater than I think he could spend, though he does manage to do so."

"The point is he has money of his own without recourse to Mr. Waddley's," Jessamine said.

"True. But I don't believe Mr. Waddley was killed for money. I told you there appeared to have been some irregular dealings at the warehouse and on the wharf that Mr. Waddley found out about and was killed for knowing."

"Precisely, Cecilia. And what, I ask you, would Randolph be doing that could concern the dockyards? I can't imagine him setting foot in such a location, let alone dealing with individuals who might. If he did, he might smudge his shoes or soil his snowy white cravat."

Cecilia giggled, then sobered lest anyone notice. "Upon first consideration I suppose it does seem ridiculous. But Jessamine, somehow I know it isn't. I must investigate further. This is the only clue I've received to date beyond the journal. Gracious, the journal! Of course! In the journal there are several references to H. It must be H for Haukstrom. Wait a moment, while I think—" She ran her tongue across her top lip, her eyes narrowed in thought.

Her shoulders sagged. "No, I'm grasping straws of hay. In the journal, Mr. Waddley wrote he was disgusted at H's need for signs and symbols. That can't have had anything to do with Randolph."

Jessamine nodded, smiling sadly. "Come, we've sat here long enough," she said, rising to her feet. She extended a hand toward Cecilia who rose gracefully to stand beside her.

"Let's bid Lady Amblethorp good-bye and return home," Cecilia suggested as they neared the music room. From inside mediocre applause followed another aria sung by Signora Casteneletti.

"Why ever did Lady Amblethorp hire her?" Jessamine asked as they watched the singer take her last bow.

"I believe she came highly recommended by her ladyship's brother," Cecilia said drily, a crooked smile curling up one corner of her lips. "Somehow I don't think she knew precisely what her brother recommended the woman for."

"Cecilia!" Jessamine exclaimed.

"Don't attempt to feign shock, you haven't the constitution for an effective deception of that nature. Stick with lying," Cecilia advised breezily while looking about the room for their hostess.

Jessamine sighed. "Sometimes you make me wonder how I let you talk me into helping you."

"Simple, with Meriton out of the country on a diplomatic mission and Franklin away at school, you were bored."

Jessamine frowned at her summation causing Cecilia to laugh spontaneously. Quickly she covered her mouth with a handkerchief and began to cough.

"By the way," she whispered, "if anyone asks, my illnesses this evening are pounding in the chest and dizziness with a touch of disorientation. That last is in case Sir Branstoke should chance to question anyone. I would like him to believe that my behavior this evening stemmed from one of my illnesses."

Lady Jessamine Meriton laughed and patted her niece's hand. "With your reputation, how could he believe otherwise?"

Cecilia frowned and shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "He is an odd gentleman. His manners are languid, but something about his eyes—there is a shrewd glint in their depths that makes me nervous. The man sends shivers through my body when he looks my way."

"Sir Branstoke? Well, I just hope those shivers are not a sign of a growing tendre for the man, for I tell you straight out that it is common knowledge he only courts the current catch of the season, who in turn would like to catch him."

Cecilia raised the lace-edged handkerchief to her lips to smother another laugh. "I am well aware of that. Do not be alarmed. I have no intention of setting my cap for him. In fact, I believe it would be wise to avoid his company."

"Now you are being fanciful!"

"I'm not so sure," Cecilia murmured, looking back over her shoulder.

There, at the entrance to the card room stood Sir James Branstoke. At her regard, he cocked his head and bowed slightly. A blush rose to suffuse Cecilia's pale cheeks. For the first time in her life she felt light-headed and dizzy, without recourse to artifice. She turned toward Lady Amblethorp, effusively complimenting her hostess for the musicale while apologizing for leaving early, the high color tinting Cecilia's complexion giving credence to her claim of sudden, feverish ill-health. Quickly Lady Meriton retrieved her lap desk from a chair near the door, and the two ladies departed.

Sir James Ruger Branstoke watched Mrs. Waddley and Lady Meriton take their leave of Lady Amblethorp. Idly, he wondered if anyone else noticed how beautiful Mrs. Waddley looked with a blush upon her pale cheeks, or how in confusion her deep blue eyes darkened to purple.

He smiled, his thin lips curling in sardonic amusement. Society was decidedly obtuse. There was no trace of illness that he could detect in her radiant countenance. So did she feign a sickly constitution?

Branstoke didn't know, but he intended to find out.

Cecilia pushed one panel of the rose-colored damask draperies to the edge of the window. Cold air trapped next to the glass panes by the heavy drapery material grazed her pale cheeks. She shivered slightly. Each warm breath she exhaled swirled visibly in the air, frosting the window. Soon she'd have to move or the growing circle of condensation on the glass would obscure her view. She'd need to move to see the clear blue sky dotted with scudding, billowy clouds; to see the red clay chimney tops in contrast to the sky and the soot-streaked roofs; or to look down the street at the pale green foliage on trees and bushes. The beauty and freshness of spring, all sights Mr. Waddley loved. They brought out the hidden poet in that dedicated merchant's heart.

The marriage of Mr. George Waddley, merchant, to Miss Cecilia Haukstrom, arranged by her father and brother solely for the hefty financial settlement they would gain, had not been a love match. Nonetheless, eight years of marriage had brought George Waddley and his young wife close. She even came to think that the respect she held for him was a form of love. George Waddley treated her like she was someone special, a queen in his realm. More important, he told her he considered her his greatest friend. To Cecilia that was the highest accolade he could bestow.

Her head tilted to rest against the frosted glass. She remembered how they would talk for hours. Oh, how they would talk! He introduced her to the wonders of trade and the mysteries of finance. He gave her an understanding of politics and an appreciation for newspapers. Her bright mind and ready wit pleased him, he said. He told her he hadn't understood what he was doing until she came into his life.

Now he was dead. A victim, society decreed, of the teeming London underworld that owed its life to thievery. He simply walked in the wrong place at the wrong time. How trite. And oh, Cecilia knew, how wrong.

Cecilia clenched her fist round a handful of damask material. Mr. Waddley was murdered. Murdered, she was certain, because he discovered illegal activities occurring at his warehouses and wharf. Before that last night, Cecilia's husband confided he had uncovered something, something that distressed him. He wouldn't say precisely what, though she had inferred some form of illegal activity. He told her he wasn't certain of his facts, and until he was there was no profit in conjecture. His face rigid with anger and indignation, he said he hoped he was wrong about his suspicions.

Mr. Waddley had been restless the entire day. More than once Cecilia caught him staring at her with an intense frown pulling his shaggy brown eyebrows together. What had been behind that frown? Why couldn't Mr. Waddley be more forthcoming with her? They talked of everything else. Why his strange reticence in this matter? Did he have an inkling of her brother's involvement in the occurrences at Waddley Spice and Tea? Was he trying to save her pain at the knowledge of some nefarious dealings on her brother's part? If that were so, she wished he hadn't. The thought of Randolph's possible involvement in illegal activities was repugnant, but not unexpected. He was a wastrel and often vulgar, bloodlines notwithstanding. In truth, any love she bore her brother came solely from duty.

Still, as of late Randolph had been displaying a rare attentiveness. He'd offered to act as her escort on numerous occasions. That very evening he was to take her to an Italian Opera. When he'd began extending his services as escort, Cecilia believed his motives stemmed from a belated guilt at the marriage he'd arranged for her, a guilt he decided he had the luxury to indulge in since he'd became his uncle's and grandfather's heir.

Now she wondered if he harbored a different form of guilt. Try as she would to banish that thought, it insidiously wound its way through her mind, tying her beleaguered brain in knots until all she was aware of was the echo of his voice within her mind. Like a chant in time to the endless beat of a metronome, her memory replayed those hated words: Talkers are no good doers.

The strange thing about the phrase was that heard spoken it had a familiar sound to it, like it was something she'd heard before. Her pale brow furrowed as she tried to recall where she might have heard the phrase. Unfortunately, she could not place the elusive memory. She sighed.

"Cecilia? Are you all right?"

Cecilia turned toward the concerned voice of her aunt, her hand falling from the drapery to her side. "Yes, I'm all right." She smiled and a light laugh escaped her lips. "Much better, actually, than society would have me."

Expressions of doubt and concern captured her aunt's face, and that of their guest, Mr. Thornbridge, a young clerk from Waddley Spice and Tea Company who sat near her aunt. Lady Meriton pursed her lips, refraining from further comment on the subject. She elected instead to wave her niece to a seat by her side. "Come. Have a pastry with us. Cook has outdone herself."

"No, thank you. I'm not hungry," Cecilia returned instantly in habitual response. She did, however, cross the room to join her aunt on the sofa.

Lady Meriton studied her niece critically. "Yours is presently a sylph-like figure. I fear it will soon be skeletal if you persist with your current eating habits. Should that happen, those illnesses you feign may well become more real than imagined." She poured a cup of tea for Cecilia.

Cecilia laughed, accepted the cup, then patted her aunt's hand. "Should that occur we shall have to depend on my erstwhile physician here," she said, inclining her head in Mr. David Thornbridge's direction, "to see that I recover."

Mr. Thornbridge started at his benefactress's sally, his cup rattling in its saucer. He placed the cup and saucer carefully on the inlaid table at his side. "Mrs. Waddley, I must protest," the young gentleman declared, his face suffused with embarrassed color.

"Oh, Cecilia, be serious," Lady Meriton abjured, thrusting a small plate bearing a sugared tart into her niece's hands. "Pay no attention to her, Mr. Thornbridge. My niece is as healthy as a horse and more than likely shall remain that way, skeletal or not. I should know better than to request she eat," her aunt said briskly while watching with complacency as Cecilia took a bite of the confection. "It is best to just put the food before her and allow her own nervous habits to guide it to her mouth."

Cecilia paused in the act of raising the pastry to her lips. She stared at the tart, ruefully smiling. "
Touché, ma tante,"
she murmured before taking another bite. She absently brushed sugar from her cheek. "Mr. Thornbridge, I apologize for my melancholy demeanor today."

"Please, Mrs. Waddley, there is no need."

Cecilia waved his hurried assurances aside. "Yes, there is. You see, last evening I heard someone repeat the phrase my husband recorded in his journal. The phrase that he felt confident is the password for whatever group is illegally using the Waddley Spice and Tea properties. It is the first real break we've had!" She popped the last morsel of tart into her mouth and set her plate on the tea tray. Her slender fingers, free of encumbrances, fluttered, echoing her words.

"So Lady Meriton has explained."

"I should be merry as a grig to have some new direction for our investigation," Cecilia continued earnestly, "unfortunately, to my mind, it has been like a dam breaking. I find myself remembering too much."

"I'm certain, given the situation, that is perfectly natural."

"That is true, dear," Lady Meriton said, her pale blue eyes expressing concern for her niece.

"Where did you hear this phrase? I'll own I've been wracking my inept brain to understand it or its genesis!" the young Waddley's manager exclaimed.

"Now that is the crux of the matter," Cecilia said, a wry smile twisting her lips. "I heard it last evening during an exceedingly boring musicale given by Lady Amblethorp."

"Almost all Society was there," added Lady Meriton, "though why, I don't know. Lady Amblethorp is an indifferent hostess. For some curious reason, last night there was a paucity of society entertainments on the calendar to choose from."

"Everyone who is anyone was at the Amblethorp musicale," Cecilia said drily.

"Yes, and the spate of entertainments Julia Amblethorp has offered this season stem solely from desperation. She's afraid the season will end with Janine unbetrothed. This is the poor child's second season."

Cecilia smiled and shook her head. "Be careful you do not write off Janine so easily. I see rebellion brewing in that quiet little mouse." Her eyes sparkled at a private vision of the future. "But we digress. Mr. Thornbridge's question should not be where did I heard the phrase, but on the lips of whom."

"You identified the speaker?"

Cecilia sighed, nodded, and looked away for a moment. "It was Randolph Haukstrom," she said when she turned back to face their guest.

"Your brother?" Incredulity cracked his voice.

"Now you understand why my mind has been tied in knots. At first it did not seem probable, or even conceivable. Further reflection allows me to think it is possible." She looked down at her clenched hands. She took a deep breath and slowly uncurled her fingers one at a time until they lay flat in her lap.

"My father, Baron Lionel Haukstrom, is a gamester." Each word was drawn out then bitten off sharply like it was some foul tasting food. "By the time I was twelve, he'd run through his own inheritance. He would have run through mother's portion as well if grandfather hadn't had the wherewithal to place a clause in my parent's marriage contract that withheld direct control of the principal from my father."

"My brother, Randolph, was always bitter about the family's financial straits. It prevented him from cutting a swath through Society, you see. For several years he planned and schemed at ways to reverse the family fortunes. Then he heard of an unmarried wealthy merchant who was looking for a wife. Randolph contrived to meet this merchant and put the idea in his head that he needed more than a wife, he needed an aristocratic wife. Me."

Cecilia rose and paced the room. "I was sixteen at the time and still a resident at a Bath seminary for young ladies. My grandfather paid for my education and invited me to Oastley Hall for the holidays as a way to ensure I not become soiled by my father's and brother's machinations. Unfortunately, he was not successful."

Her voice rose in shrillness at the memories. "To make a long story short, Mr. Waddley bought me—" She broke off and turned away to compose herself

"Egad," murmured Mr. Thornbridge.

Cecilia took a deep breath and began again, her voice low, but steady. "There really can be no other term for it. Father fetched me from school, informed me of my good fortune, and took me to a small church where my brother and Mr. Waddley awaited."

"I would not have thought Mr. Waddley to behave in such a ramshackle manner."

Cecilia smiled ruefully. "I should add that father had the forethought to provide me with a veil. Mr. Waddley's first look at me did not occur until after our vows were exchanged. Randolph led him to believe I was older and a teacher at the school, reduced to those circumstances by our poverty and, though the granddaughter of a duke, unlikely to enjoy a respectable marriage. Moved by my supposed plight, Mr. Waddley offered marriage."

Mr. Thornbridge nodded in understanding. "That I readily believe."

She laughed, her dark blue eyes sparkling. "Knowing my husband, Mr. Thornbridge, can you imagine his reaction when he discovered he'd been gulled?"

"He would have been furious."

"He was." Cecilia sat down on the sofa again, some of the tenseness leaving her body. "But his fury was not directed at how he'd been fooled. He was furious at the use my father and brother made of me. Being a man who's word was his bond, he honored the contract he made with my father. Afterward, he made certain they understood that our marriage did not give them license to run tame with his fortune. He would see to it that London tradesmen did not issue them credit backed by his wealth."

Mr. Thornbridge's eyes gleamed. "I can well imagine! Did your family actually think your marriage would be a
carte blanche
to his pocketbook?"

"Oh, yes! Particularly Randolph. It is my belief he felt we should continue to thank him remuneratively for arranging our marriage. In his mind he was not responsible for decimating the Haukstrom fortune; therefore, he should not be penalized. The irony is that he would have run through the money in half the time it took father."

"Only because Prinny and his set are so spendthrift. They set a standard that others rush to follow," interjected Lady Meriton, her voice thick with disgust.

"Like lemmings rushing to the sea, they seek their own destruction," quipped Cecilia.

"Precisely. I only hope I have adequately educated Franklin to avoid the excesses of his peers."

Cecilia laughed and reached over to pat her aunt's hand. "I should not worry unduly. Franklin is a shrewd lad. If he wasn't, I'm certain Meriton would pack him off to one of England's colonies, or even to the United States."

Lady Meriton smiled. "Yes. He would call it seasoning. Much more educational than a Grand Tour. That reminds me, my dear, and do not let me forget, Franklin has written that he's again in need of new clothes. I swear I used to worry he would never grow. Now I worry he shall never stop! Oh, forgive me, Mr. Thornbridge, prattling on like this on personal matters. So ill-conceived."

Mr. Thornbridge nodded understanding, then frowned in thought. "Excuse me, Mrs. Waddley. I fear I am confused. Didn't Mr. Haukstrom come into a sizable allowance before Mr. Waddley's death?"

"Yes. From my grandfather, the Duke of Houghton and my uncle, the Marquis of Nye. My uncle had twin sons, Trenton and Sheridan. Sheridan was killed in Spain during the peninsular wars. Trenton died in 1814."

"After engaging in that silly duel with Lord Welville," Lady Meriton added, her lips pursed in sour disapproval. "Everyone knows Lady Welville is no better than she should be. Trenton was not the only gentleman with whom she played fast and loose."

"But he was the only one Lord Welville challenged to a duel, to their mutual misfortune."