Bar Sinister (13 page)

"You speak as if the likelihood were remote. Are you averse to marriage?"

Emily forced a smile. "My taste is overnice. The solicitors had damp hands and the master
is inclined to roar." She added, for he looked troubled, "Do not be anxious in my behalf, Major
Conway. I should not give my affections to a man who disliked children. It is one of my criteria for
suitability."

To her relief, he did not pursue the matter further. "Shall the two of you take dinner
with me tomorrow in the hotel? I'll engage Bevis to come."

"Of course. Aunt?"

Aunt Fan nodded decisively.

"And the theatre afterwards?" The offer was cautious.

"I'd like it of all things!" Emily beamed. "How very kind in you, sir. It has been ages since
I have seen the inside of a theatre. Pray, Aunt, approve."

"Very well, Emma. Do you good," Aunt Fan said gruffly. "Do us both good. Now,
Major, off with you. Recruit your strength."

"Against the rigours of dinner and the theatre?" Major Conway grinned. Emily decided
she was in love with his eyes. "Very well. Thank you, ladies. It has been a most agreeable
afternoon."

"And enlightening," Emily said in her driest tones. That provoked a chuckle. "Shall I help
you up, sir?" But Major Conway declined her offer and rose under his own power with only a
grimace or two.

When he had gone Aunt Fan said gruffly, "Good man. Waste."

Emily understood her. After a moment she said, "I wonder how we shall occupy
ourselves until dinnertime tomorrow."

"Buy the books."

Emily stared.

"Major Falk's novels," Aunt Fan snapped. "You've no head, Emma. All sentiment."

Emily choked on a laugh. "How if they are improper?"

"Bound to be." Aunt's eyes gleamed.

With some searching of secondhand bookstalls they found three of the novels. The most
recent was not yet in print.

Dinner and the theatre were splendid and Lord Bevis the pattern card of viscounts. He
was so charming as to defy belief.
Dazzling the country cousins,
Emily thought as they rode
home from the theatre in a wonderfully appointed town carriage with the arms of a belted earl
emblazoned on the doors.

She stifled the thought. After all, Lord Bevis was an amiable man, and it was no
punishment to look at him. Not only was he classically handsome by nature, but art, in the person
of a superb and obviously English tailor, had enhanced his healthy masculine beauty. He wore
conventional evening clothes. It was a pity to have missed seeing him in dress regimentals.
Ah
well,
Emily mused,
one cannot have everything.
When it came to dealing with
guardians, though, she hoped Major Conway would confound his physicians and live forever, and
she wished Major Falk would write.

It was March before Emily finally received letters from Major Falk--five at once. For
some reason her relief expressed itself in an orgy of housecleaning. The impulse was almost
exhausted, and she was dusting the top of an
armoire
in one of the vacant guest chambers
and considering bundling the children into the gig for a visit to her papa, when Phillida interrupted
her.

"Lady Who?" Emily asked, arrested in a mid swipe of the feather duster.

Phillida fairly writhed with impatience and curiosity. "Please, ma'am, she says she's Miss
Amy's aunt."

The chair Emily stood on wobbled dangerously. She dropped the duster. "Er, show her
ladyship into the withdrawing room," she contrived to say through her astonishment. "Inform her
that I'll be down directly I've made myself presentable." Lady Sarah Fumble Mumble. Phillida
occasionally had difficulty conveying the simplest messages. Whom could she mean? Emily had no
intention of dealing with any ladyship when she herself wore a gown covered with cobwebs. She
dashed to her own room, splashed the grime from her hands and face, and scrambled into her best
tea gown. Ladyship? Aunt? Surely not.

A woman--lady, at least in the vulgar sense--rose as Emily entered the drawing room.
The caller was in her thirties, pretty in an equine way, with dark brown hair and direct hazel
eyes.

"Mrs. Foster?"

Emily kept a wary distance. "I am Emily Foster. I don't believe I've had the
pleasure."

"I'm Sarah Ffouke-Wilson. I was Sarah Ffouke."

"Indeed." Emily had no need to counterfeit blankness.
Foke? Folk? Ffouke.

"The late duke of Newsham's daughter," Lady Sarah supplied as Emily finally made the
connexion.

Emily said slowly, "If that is so, ma'am, I do not at all understand your condescension in
calling upon me. There can be no...There must be some mistake. My servant told me you claim
kinship with the children in my care."

"They are my brother Richard's children. Half brother."

Emily was dumbfounded. When she could command her voice she ventured, "Major Falk
a natural son of the Duke of Newsham? You will pardon me, Lady, er, Sarah, if I find that hard to
believe."

Lady Sarah looked surprised in her turn. "You knew Richard was baseborn?"

"He made no secret of the fact. He also led me to believe he had no family living. Now I
come to think of it," she added, wrath kindling, "he never said so directly."

"I daresay he felt it." A faint flush touched Lady Sarah's cheekbones. She ran her tongue
across her lips. "There was a--a break. I have not seen Richard in twenty years. None of us
has."

"Why?"

"It is all very complicated." Lady Sarah twisted the tan gloves in her hand. "My brother is
not the duke's son, Mrs. Foster, but the duchess's. By Lord Powys."

"Good God." Emily gestured Lady Sarah to a chair and sat down herself.

Lady Sarah made a business of arranging her skirts with nice precision on the stiffest chair
in the chamber. She smoothed her green velvet travelling dress. "I see that you have heard the
story. Quite a famous scandal in its day."

Emily said faintly, "Yes. Lord Powys was killed, was he not?"

Lady Sarah nodded. "In a duel. Very Gothick. My father challenged him. My father was
rather Gothick, if it comes to that." She did not look at Emily.

Emily made a push to collect her wits. "There was a break, you say, twenty years
ago?"

Lady Sarah inclined her head.

"Major Falk cannot have been more than twenty at that time, and you, I should judge,
somewhat younger--twelve or thirteen."

At that Lady Sarah looked up. A spark of wry amusement in her eyes abruptly convinced
Emily that the woman was indeed kin to Major Falk. "You flatter me, ma'am, and malign Richard.
He was twelve. I am two years his senior."

Emily assimilated that.

Lady Sarah's brief amusement faded. "Until that time Richard lived at Abbeymont in the
duke's household. It was...My mother had made it a condition of her return, that Richard should be
raised with her other children, and my father had apparently agreed. When Richard was twelve,
however, there was an incident which made it clear to my mother that Richard would be safer
elsewhere."

"Safer?"

"Safer," Lady Sarah repeated.
"Maman
had Richard removed from Abbeymont.
She told no one where she had sent him. As far as I knew he had just disappeared. We were not
encouraged to ask where. When he turned fifteen
Maman
used her influence with the
Duke of York to procure a commission for Richard in a regiment that were to be sent abroad. It
was all very difficult to contrive, for she had to plan her strategems with the utmost secrecy."

"Why?" Emily was more bewildered than ever.

"She feared for Richard's life. My father, you see, was intermittently mad. Violently
mad."

Emily digested that. After a long moment she rose and yanked the bellpull.

Lady Sarah looked puzzled.

"I am going to send for a nice, dull pot of tea," Emily explained.

Sarah flushed. "Believe me, Mrs. Foster,
I
am not mad. I am trying to tell you
why--"

"Yes, yes," Emily soothed, faintly hysterical. "I can see that. I should explain that my
family are ordinary country people who live ordinary dull lives. Ever since Richard Falk swam into
my ken I have been subject to unexpected jolts of melodrama. I find that tea is the only composer.
Ah, Phillida, tea, if you please. Are the children having theirs?"

"Yes, ma'am. Mrs. Harry thought you would wish it."

"Thank you."

Phillida remained, gawking.

"Thank you, Phillida. Tea." The maid left, casting curious glances over her shoulder as
she fled out the door.

"No wonder he concocts phantastical plots," Emily murmured to herself. "They must
come naturally."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Your brother," Emily said kindly. "He is a novelist. Did you not know of his
sub-rosa
career as Peter Picaro?"

Lady Sarah shook her head, hazel eyes wide.

Emily rose and went to the secretary. She picked up the rather battered cloth-bound
book that was lying on the blotter and handed it to her visitor without comment.

The tea arrived directly. Phillida contrived not to spill great quantities. When she had
been induced to leave, Emily poured. Neither of the women spoke. Emily's mind was racing to no
very clear purpose. She had rarely been so confused in her life.

Lady Sarah turned the pages of the book with apparent fascination. "Richard writ
it?"

"Yes. That is volume one of the first Don Alfonso novel. Major Falk writ several other
novels, I believe, when he was very young, and he has done three since that one. The last is not yet
in print. They are not at all suitable reading for ladies."

That startled a smile from Lady Sarah. "Oh dear, forgive me. It is so...so
unexpected."

Emily said with a certain grim fervour, "Everything about your brother is
unexpected."

"Do you dislike Richard?" Lady Sarah's voice was hesitant.

With an heroick effort Emily kept her own voice colourless. "He is my employer."

Lady Sarah sighed. "I don't know Richard at all."

"If it has been twenty years since you saw him that is not to be wondered at." Emily took
a calming breath. "Forgive me, but I still do not understand your purpose in coming to me. Major
Falk is in America. His children are too young to be of interest to anyone not deeply concerned for
their well-being. I know nothing of their father's private affairs." She uttered the last with irony,
mild, she thought, in the circumstances.

"You know more than I," Lady Sarah shot back. "I wish to see my niece and nephew,
Mrs. Foster. I was attached to Richard when we were children. I meant to assure myself that his
children were well cared for." She gave Emily a swift glance. "I've done that, but I'd like to see
them all the same."

Emily thought the request over, taking her time. "I am not at all sure Major Falk would
wish it."

Lady Sarah bristled. "Upon my word, Mrs. Foster, you can't believe I would corrupt
them."

"No. I shan't give you the opportunity."

Lady Sarah stared. She gave an uncertain laugh.

"I have met Major Falk twice only." Strange but true. "We've corresponded, but it
would be impertinent in me to claim to know his feelings. I do know that he is protective of Amy
and Tommy."

Lady Sarah stiffened.

"Do you not think," Emily continued, grave, "that he would have told me of the
connexion if he wished to acknowledge it?"

"If
he
wished..." Lady Sarah's voice trailed off in purest astonishment.

Her surprise clarified Emily's feelings. "Yes, if he wished to acknowledge it. If I follow
you correctly, he has lived his adult life without reference to your family. It is probable that, as far
as he is concerned, there
is
no family. He has provided for his children. They are healthy
and happy with a good home and the assurance of their father's concern. They do not need to be
patronised by a duke's daughter. They are Major Falk's children, and that is no bad thing."

Lady Sarah turned pale. "You speak plain, Mrs. Foster."

"I could speak plainer," Emily rejoined. "You say you were attached to your brother, but
twenty years of silence argue at least indifference."

"I did not know the children existed until a fortnight ago. Bevis told me--"

"I thought Lord Bevis an agreeable man," Emily interrupted. "I did not think him a
common gossip."

The fire went out of Lady Sarah. "We are old friends," she muttered. "I had not met
Bevis since he went out to the Peninsula. I asked him if he had seen anything of Richard, and he told
me he had the guardianship of Richard's children."

"That is not true, strictly speaking."

"Oh, he explained the complications." Lady Sarah set her teacup on the table. "He said
that Richard had gone off to America and that nothing had been heard of him in a sixmonth."

"I received letters last week."

"He's alive then?" Lady Sarah sat up very straight.

Emily nodded.

Lady Sarah looked so relieved Emily could not but be moved. "Major Falk fell ill shortly
after he arrived in America," she volunteered. "Hence the lack of letters from King's Town. He
says he has resumed his duties. With the war over I daresay he will be returning in the next month
or so."

"Was he...did he take part in that terrible affair in New Orleans?"

"I do not know, Lady Sarah."

Lady Sarah bit her lip. "Then you can't say that he is well."

"No. He was not listed among the casualties, however." Emily set her own cup down. "I
read the casualty lists very carefully. Indeed it sometimes seems to me that I have done little but
read casualty lists in these past months."

"You have had an anxious time, Mrs. Foster."

"One becomes hardened to uncertainty. I did not realise quite how anxious I had been
until the letters came last day week."

"Will it console you to know that I have been reading those same lists for five years?"
Lady Sarah's voice was so low as to be almost inaudible.