Aurora (29 page)

“It’s a great pity you men was all such greenhorns as to kick up your heels and leave the minute she told you to,” Malone said. “You, Ken, when your papa saw her trying to make love to you. Why the dickens didn’t you stand up like a man and say it was all her doing?”

“At sixteen, I felt it more important to be a
gentleman.
One of our duties is to protect ladies always. I wasn’t yet wise enough to make the distinction between lady and— what Clare is. I felt sorry for Father, too. How would he have felt, his wife behaving so? He was still infatuated with her, would have believed her over me. She had lately given him a son, which endeared her to him. A very motherly sight she was, with her bundle tucked up in her arm for five minutes a day, to show Papa. I certainly couldn’t go on living at home under such circumstances, and with her there to turn him against me, I had slim chances of ever inheriting anything. From that night on it was clear I had to make my own way in the world, and I wasn’t all that sorry to get on with it. I had always wanted to travel. I didn’t much care for India, but I didn’t mind.”

“What you should have done was write to Bernard,” Marnie pointed out.

“I wrote once to Papa, and when he didn’t answer, I felt Bernie had been told the version of the story that was passing at home. It seemed best not to upset the apple cart. I had no notion Clare had not shown my letter. There was nothing in it at all to incriminate her, only an apology to my father, but she feared perhaps that he would relent and ask me back home. He was always so good to us.”

“I’m sure he would have, Ken,” Marnie told him. “It seems the outside of enough to me that she should have tried to diddle you out of your rights after you did come back. How had she the nerve to tackle that?”

“She has the gall for anything. She had already made an ass of me once, and thought she could do it again. I had changed considerably in appearance, and her testimony would have as much weight as anyone’s. Then too there was the body so similar to mine buried in my outfit and rings. A coincidence, but a convincing one. And she didn’t take much actual risk. All her testimony is only what father and assorted dead men told her. If she lost, she didn’t lose much, only what she was bound to lose in any case when I took my place.”

“I suppose it was worth the risk,” Malone decided.

“If it weren’t for
you,
Marnie, and my other friends and relatives who recognized me, she might have made it stick. I’m afraid I behaved rather badly, bending over backward to get everyone to accept me, flirting with all the girls, questioning the servants, using every trick to ingratiate myself with Dougall and the other local worthies, but when I saw her to be determined to oust me, I had to do it. It was all I could do to keep my hands off her neck. And she’s turning Charlie against me. I wish I could get him away from her. She might let him go now he can’t get her into Raiker Hall. A son no longer young will do her little credit at whatever spa she retires to make her next match.”

“Surely the brazen creature will end up in prison where she belongs!” Malone exclaimed.

“On what charge?” Ken asked.
“She
hasn’t killed anyone. As to her suppressing evidence and lying herself blue in the face—well, it was half a dozen dead men who told her false stories, and she will stick like glue to her story that she really thought me an impostor.”

“Horace can tell how she put him up to killing the gypsy,” Malone reminded him.

Ken glanced to Rutley, who was shrinking back at this suggestion. “But in that case, you see, it is Horace who will stand trial, not she, and I don’t think the blame is his.”

“I killed him,” the man said simply.

“You pulled the trigger; she killed him,” Ken contradicted. “But no one knows it except us, and no one will know it. The body in the grave must remain one of life’s little mysteries.”

“So she’s to murder and steal and lie and adulterate herself and get an emerald necklace in reward! That’s your justice for you,” Malone said, big with indignation.

“She won’t get the necklace,” Ken said firmly. “That is the next piece of business. She’ll get off with the rest of it, and for the small mercy that she won’t drag our name through the mud we can at least be thankful, but I mean to get the emeralds.”

“How?” Malone asked.

“I've been giving that matter a lot of thought. I had Wilkins tell her there were prowlers in the house while she was away, and she’ll have a pretty good notion the prowler was me, looking for the emeralds. I hoped that would cause her to get the emeralds out of the house, and to avoid the possibility that she conceal them on her own body, I had Cleary give Coons the hint that she might find herself faced with a writ for search at any moment. My hope is that she will have moved them outside the house, to some place where they might be thought to have been hidden by the gypsies, for instance. There are certain advantages in it for her. In that way, they can’t be definitely traced to her. And if she is ejected suddenly, more suddenly than she thinks, she could get the necklace more easily. Hints of all this are being fed to her, if my people are doing their job as I instructed them.”

“The estate is
huge,
though—five thousand acres. How will you ever find where she hid them?” Marnie asked.

“We can eliminate the four thousand that are being farmed. They aren’t hidden under the haystack of any of the tenant farmers. They’re right around the house, I fancy, some spot she can see from the windows, and not a heavily-trafficked spot either. But the area is still too large for us to find them. She must lead us to them. I mean to call on Mama tomorrow and pay Horace’s respects to her. I’ll tell her I think she was right to hide them outdoors, and watch to see if she doesn’t make straight for them.”

“She ain’t that gullible,” Malone warned.

“It won’t do a bit of harm to try. In any case, I mean to be rid of her. I don’t want her at the Dower House, and when she has to leave the area, she’ll certainly take them with her. All I have to do is watch her twenty-four hours a day. I have Wilkins and the stable boy, and may have to take to winking at the house girls for some feminine help. Her dresser would be an inestimable aid, but unfortunately she is fifty, and not susceptible to a flirtation. Have you any ideas, Horace?”

Horace was well into a mutton chop, but lifted his head to think it over.
“I
used to meet her in the forest,” he answered quite shamelessly. “But the gypsies are there, and she wouldn’t risk that. The conservatory, maybe.”

“She likes the garden, spends a lot of time there, but that is a bit obvious. I imagine they’re a little farther away than that. The gazebo, maybe. Did you ever meet her there?”

“No, it’s in a bad spot where we couldn’t see who was coming at all. Your own mother, Clare once told me, wanted it sheltered from the wind, and she had it built in a little valley. Nobody uses it much.”

“Charlie plays there,” Marnie said. “He and Mimi used often to go there.”

“I don’t imagine it’s there then. Still, Mimi and Charlie don’t play together these days, and it might be safe. We could talk all night and be no closer to the truth. I think we would all be better off in our beds. Come to the inn with me, Horace.”

“Will I be safe? I did kill the gypsy.”

“It would be better if you would stop saying that. You killed him in self-defence. You aren’t a murderer. Come with me. There will have to be an inquest over that other business with Elmer Carson, but we’ll come through all right. Just give your evidence; tell the truth. I’ll do what I can to help. Dougall is not a hard magistrate,” he promised, and the ladies exchanged a knowing glance, to hear who would be trying the case.

“Maybe you’d better pay a few more calls on Lady Alice,” Rorie suggested, with a smile.

“Mind reader! You won’t take into your head to be angry about it, will you?”

“Oh no, I am becoming quite accustomed to your carrying on.”

“You’re still in a state of shock.” He arose, and Rutley too got up to go with him. When Kenelm lingered beside Rorie’s chair as the others moved to the door, Malone took pity on him and ushered Marnie off on the way to bed and Rutley into the hallway, where she kept an eye glued on him to see he didn’t escape. While she questioned him about America, Kenelm turned to Aurora. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine now, but I was frightened half to death. I’m not cut out for this reckless life you lead.”

“Why did you do it?” he asked. “You’re supposed to be the sane member of the family. You shortened my life by ten years, to see you with that knife lodged against your throat. Don’t
ever
do anything like that to me again, understand?”

“I was trying to help.”

“I know. That’s what made it so hard.
I
led you into it. I shouldn’t even have proposed to you yet. I should have straightened out my life first, and not involved you in this mess. But Sally kept hinting that Hanley and you were interested in each other, and I was afraid if I waited he’d beat me to you. I’m a bit impatient anyway—you may have noticed,” he said, with a smile, glancing to the hallway where Malone could be overheard quizzing Rutley.

He put out his hands and drew her to her feet, then put his arms around her. “You’re still trembling. Malaprop only allows us sixty seconds. We’ve wasted about fifty-nine. Don’t do anything else foolish. My conscience is burdened enough. I don’t want you on it too.”

“You’re just saving me for your funeral pyre.”

“That’s right. We’ll go up in one glorious blaze together when I die, but first I want to live—with you. I want it very much. Now, don’t waste our valuable second—kiss me.”

Unaccustomed to taking any initiative in her romance, Rorie looked startled, but as he stood waiting, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

“Oh, really!” he said in exasperation, and turning his head to find her lips, he did the thing properly. “And now don’t you think it high time you tell me you love me?” he asked. “You have let me kiss you, and let me tell you I love you. There is usually some form of reciprocity existing between friendly nations.”

“I wouldn’t be agreeing to marry you if I didn’t.”

“Do they call that sort of hedged comment making love in England nowadays?” he asked, dissatisfied. “While you are teaching me manners, I see I shall have a few things to teach you too. But not with Malone listening in the hallway.” They walked together to the door.

“Don’t forget to take Clare’s horse back to the stable,” Malone reminded him.

“We’ll do it on the way to the inn,” Ken replied. “You young ladies had better get to bed. You’re looking peaky, Malone. I want to see the roses back in your cheeks tomorrow, hear?”

Both the command and the “young ladies” sat well with her. She emitted a sound that was not far from a giggle. “Go on with you then. What does an old thorn like me want with roses in her cheeks?”

“Selfish creature! What about
my
pleasure? I like to see all my women looking hearty.”

“Shameless philanthropist!” she charged happily.

“You’re a treasure, you know,” he told her. “I give you fair warning, Malone,
you
are going to end up in my harem.”

“Hindustani! There’ll be no harems for me. I’m a monopolist.”

“So am I. I mean to monopolize all lovely women. Come along, Horace.”

They left, and Malone, her cheeks pink as peonies, ushered Aurora off to bed, condemning her fiancé as a terrible flirt every step of the way.

Chapter Twenty-One

At Raiker Hall, Clare went to the stables early in the morning, with food purloined from her own larder for Rutley. She was full of misgivings about his reappearance, but felt he would follow her orders. Kenelm was proving intractable, but he would never expose his own father’s wife to criminal proceedings. She had come to feel she must indeed own up to having been “mistaken” as to his identity—a pity—but nothing was lost after all. She was by no means despondent. She was worried to see no mount at the shepherd’s hut, and when she entered to find no signs of the place’s having been recently occupied, with the dust all undisturbed, she fell into serious alarm. Where had that stupid Rutley gone? She looked about sharply on the way home for signs of his straying, but in her heart she felt he had fallen into Kenelm’s hands. This could be her undoing.

She was hardly surprised at all when her butler announced at ten o’clock that Lord Raiker wished to see her. Her first thought was to deny him entry, but curiosity was rampant and she had him admitted.

“Good morning, Mama,” he said with a wicked grin. Any last sprout of hope withered and died within her, but even as she looked at him with hatred, she was aware of what a fine, strapping fellow he was, what a satisfactory lover he would have made.

“Good morning, Raiker. You come with news of your brother, I collect?”

“That’s right, Mama. I have brother safe and sound. And you are finished. He’s told all. Your little
à suivi
flirtation with him, and with Ferdinand, your order to kill Ferdinand, your giving Horace the uniform and rings. In short, Clare, you’re against the wall. It will be uphill work to convince anyone you’re innocent after this if he ever takes the stand.”

“He
is the one who pulled the trigger—your brother. He’s no kin to me. I doubt you will want to see him deported, or hung.”

“Very true. I have no quarrel with Rutley. My revenge is all for you, Mama. I am come to wreak my revenge.” He advanced toward her, staring at her with a baleful eye.

“Kenelm!” she sat up, frightened. “What do you mean—what is it?” She clutched at her skirts.

“I want my necklace, Mama,” he said in a menacing voice.

“I don’t have it!”

“I want it,
now.”

“It’s not here, I tell you.”

“Get it, Clare. I know it is not here in the house. I know you decided to conceal it outside of the house. Get it.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she glanced at him with a question. “Oh yes, I have a fair idea where it is,” he went on. “I have worked out the approximate location, but it might take me three or four hours to find it. It will go better for you if you return it voluntarily. Otherwise—well, really, it would be too degrading to have one’s own stepmama hauled before the courts for thieving.”