Sea of Secrets: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense (24 page)

“That was before he tried to take my father’s place.” Herron was not yet done fighting; the freezing tone had little effect against the heat of his indignation. “You talk of my audacity, and yet has he not proven himself to be the most brazen, most arrogant impostor imaginable? To believe that he could actually replace my father, that he could efface the memory of the best man who ever bore our name, when he was never worthy to wipe my father’s boots—that, Mother, is audacity. It is complete, colossal insolence.”

He was almost spitting the words at her, and for a moment amazement mastered her anger.

“I have never heard you be so hard,” she said in wonder. “What has changed you, Herron?” And the icy surface cracked as she reached her hand out to him helplessly.

For the space of three heartbeats he said nothing. His mother’s entreaty seemed to move him where her authority had not, and he hesitated, unsure of himself for the first time.

“A great deal has changed,” he said, avoiding her eyes. “Not only I, but he has changed. Have you not seen it?”

Now it was her turn to drop her eyes. “I have seen nothing,” she said, but her voice lacked certainty, and like a hound on the scent Herron seized upon that glimmer of doubt.

“Oh, but you suspect something, even if you cannot place your finger on the change. If you did trust him completely, he would be here now, so that the two of you could face me together. But you aren’t entirely sure of him, are you? Not so sure that you could bear to watch the two of us have it out, for fear you would learn too much. Yes, that was wise. You might learn what he is truly made of, this charlatan you married.”

The instant of her vulnerability had passed, and now she was in possession of herself again. “That is enough, Herron,” she said in a low voice.

“It is nothing like enough. I won’t stop speaking out against him, Mother. Not until you recognize just what it is that you have yoked yourself to.”

“I say that is enough. Do not try me too high.”

Her composure nettled him; he was the one losing command of himself now, his voice coming thin and shrill as the situation slipped out of his grasp, and as his own words inflamed his ire. “Does your conscience not torment you? How can you bear to think on what you have done? To have gone from the paragon of men to this bloated, smirking buffoon”—his hatred was choking him, getting in the way of his words—“a drunken, aging, tobacco-stained Lothario—”

I thought for a moment she had struck him. The echoes of the sharp crisp sound were still vibrating in the room when I realized they had another cause. The duchess had snapped her fan in half.

She was so angry that her earrings were trembling, and even Herron seemed to realize he had said too much. Half abashed, half defiant, he lifted his chin and met her glare.

“You have made your feelings quite clear,” she said at last. Anger made her voice shake. “Now it is my turn to speak. What I have to say is only this. You are my son, Herron, and it is for that reason only that I have tolerated so much from you. I understand why you are behaving in this extraordinary way: you disapprove of my marriage, and you resent your uncle for seeming to take your father’s place. I don’t deny your right to be unhappy. What I cannot fathom is why you express your unhappiness in so ill-bred, intractable, and childish a manner. You seem determined to hurt me with these malicious displays; well, you have succeeded.”

“I never meant to—”

“But if you intend to persist in these outbursts, you will not do so under this roof. I am not”—she held up her hand as Herron again tried to break in—“I am not, I think, unduly harsh when I say this. Herron, I love you, and I hope I always will. But my marriage is none of your affair. You are my son, true; but you are grown now, and my first duty is no longer to you. It is to myself, and my husband. So if you cannot bring yourself to look kindly on Claude, and to behave in a more filial fashion toward him, I must ask you to leave this house.”

Outrage quivered in Herron’s voice. “But I am the duke. How dare you treat me as—”

“I treat you like a child because you have behaved as one. You have no right, Herron, no right at all to pass judgment on me. Nor have you the right to persecute your stepfather and to embarrass our friends. Yes, Herron, you have the title; but have you the bearing of a duke? You think Claude so unworthy a successor to your late father, but how have you compared in that capacity? Your recent behavior has not been such as he would approve.”

His silence seemed to acknowledge that her words had struck home. Defeat showed in his bowed head and slumped shoulders, and seeing this she softened slightly. She touched his face, and he flinched but did not move away from the contact. “I do not want to turn you out, Herron. Do not force me to do so.”

“Ellsmere is mine,” he protested, indignation conquering for the moment all other feeling. “You cannot turn me out of my own house.”

A faint, sad smile touched her lips, and she dropped her hand. “You will not be twenty-one for another two months, Herron, so by the terms of the trust the estate is not yet yours. I hope you will not force me to make use of that technicality.”

He stood breathing heavily for a moment, his eyes darting unseeing over the carpet as he assimilated all that she had said. The duchess moved over to the mantel and stood facing him, waiting. At last he raised his head.

“I see that I have little choice,” he said in a growl. “You have the whip hand of me, Mother. But it may be of interest to you in your complacency to know that had you not made use of these noble tactics, I would have left Ellsmere of my own accord.”

Her composure crumbled. “Herron, dearest, I don’t wish you to go—” He raised a hand, as she had done before, and she faltered to a stop.

“Oh, you needn’t try to retract it; it’s clear that my presence offends. But I see now that I was wrong to think of going. Only a coward turns tail after battle has been joined. Very well, Mother: you’ll not hear another word from me about your husband—whatever the cost.”

She inclined her head at the concession. Questions hovered at her lips, but he gave her no time to voice them.

“One more word, and I’ll leave you. You have expressed bewilderment at what you are pleased to call my malice. It might behoove you, mother, to ask yourself if there might be a method behind it.”

“What method?” It was a whisper.

A mocking smile flitted across his face, and he turned to go. “Ah, but you have forbidden me to speak ill of my uncle,” he said, with his hand on the doorknob. “You must seek elsewhere for an answer to the riddle. Perhaps it lies in your own heart.”

After the door shut behind him there was a long heartbroken silence. The duchess lowered herself to the divan, moving slowly and carefully like an old woman. For the first time her age showed, and I could see the marks left by the passing years in her face. I sat down beside her, wondering if I should fetch Lord Claude. I had never seen her so dispirited; her defeated bearing was the more surprising since she had borne herself with such resolution and force in the confrontation that had just passed.

She held her head in her hands as if its weight was too much for her to sustain. “What did he mean?” she whispered. “Do you know, child?”

I had no time in which to consider my course. But it took no thought to know that not for the world would I have robbed her of her husband now that she seemed to have lost her son. “I have no idea what he could have meant, ma’am,” I said.

She made no move. Anxious, I put my arm around her shoulders. “He is not lost to you forever, I am sure: in time he will come back to us, out of this prison he has made for himself.”

She raised her head at that, and I was shocked anew at the weary hopelessness of her eyes, the tired lines that leapt into sudden relief. “It may be so,” she said tonelessly. “But it may be that this prison is stronger than time—or love.”

Her face dropped into her hands again. After a moment I crept silently from the room, and left her with her grief.

I, too, was more troubled than I could let her know. Herron’s increasing isolation from those who loved him, the virulence of his suspicions, his growing refusal to trust—all filled me with a terrible sense that he was moving irrevocably into a purgatory of his own making, and from which none of us could reclaim him. Dully I wondered if it might not be better for him to leave Ellsmere. Of course, there was his continuing vigil to consider; he would not wish to give up the hope of seeing his father’s spirit again. In spite of his defiant words about refusing to run from battle, I knew that part of his reason for staying here had to be the belief in a visitation from his father. Herron would scarcely brook his mother’s conditions otherwise.

I thought then of the game with the blocks and wine glass, and wondered if it might be a way to expel his obsession. Herron might not share my skepticism: if his mother and I could persuade him to attempt to contact his father by those means, we could arrange for some benign message to come to him, to dispel his fears and suspicions…

And if after all there was a murderer at Ellsmere?

What harm would it do to let him be?

All ideas of justice went against such a thing. And yet—the duchess was happy now, or would be, if her son would let her. Lord Claude was the perfect husband for her, everyone agreed, and was proving to be an excellent landlord as well, beloved by his tenants and improving the quality of their lives. Why could he not be left in peace? If he had actually killed his brother (an idea I still could not believe) he had certainly committed a horrible crime; but it was a crime not without a beneficial effect for the survivors.

And Lord Claude was a good man. I was convinced of that: murder was not instinctive to his nature. He was a loving husband and father, a kind friend to me, and caring toward those on the estate; what kind of justice would it be to destroy his life and forestall all the good he might yet do? All that would be accomplished was the ruin of his family and the loss of another worthy man’s life.

But there was no hope of convincing Herron of that.

I sighed, and looked around me. I had wandered onto the main landing of the stairs, overlooking the great hall, where footmen were hauling in trunks. Another guest must have arrived, although the hour was very late; delayed, perhaps, by a late train. The thought of returning to my room depressed me—I would only spend hours in the futile pursuit of sleep—and I decided to postpone retiring as long as I could. I could go to the library instead. The company of great quantities of books usually had a restorative effect on my morale, and the prospect quickened my steps as I made my way there.

As I had hoped, the air of tranquility in the library was soothing. After turning up the gas and stirring the banked fire into life, I climbed one of the ladders to the gallery. Above the fireplace the gallery was walled to frame a small tunnel or alcove, which was always pleasantly warmed by the chimney, which formed the inside wall. Partly for that reason, it was one of my favorite places to retreat with a book, and in a very few minutes I was comfortably ensconced there, idly sifting through a shelf of books I had not yet explored.

The books in the gallery seemed to have been selected more for their contents than for their bindings, which was not always the case in the lower part of the room. Many of the volumes I browsed through seemed to be castoffs from different members of the family. I found several volumes of Scott that bore Charles’s name; here were a great many three-volume novels, possibly the duchess’s; and the French grammars had to belong to Felicity.

A much-written-in copy of
Sartor Resartus
made me pause. The owner had plainly been much affected by Thomas Carlyle’s account of his struggle with doubt and faith. As I glanced over the pages my eyes alighted on a passage that had been underscored with vigorous strokes:

“Is there no God, then; but at best an absentee God, sitting idle, ever since the first Sabbath, at the outside of his Universe, and seeing it go?”

In sudden dread I turned to the flyleaf to look for the name of the owner. It was as I had feared: the book was Herron’s.

I put my head down on the page in despair.

The sound of approaching footsteps made me stiffen. I did not want to face company at that moment. Hunched over the open book, I sat perfectly still, willing whoever it was to go away and leave me unmolested. But the click of the latch, closely followed by voices, told me that I would not have my wish.

“The gas is lit,” observed the first voice. “I thought you said we could speak privately here.”

“One of the servants must have left it on.” I recognized this voice as that of Lord Claude. “There’s no one about but ourselves; you can see that for yourself.”

I realized that where I sat, in the small alcove, I must be invisible to them. Embarrassed at intruding on their conversation, however unintentionally, I started to get to my feet to make my presence known. But then the first voice came again, and this time I recognized the speaker. My heart seemed to make one great leap, and I froze. After that I did not stir except to breathe; not for anything would I have alerted them to my presence.

“You should have sent for me sooner,” the voice said. “You haven’t done much with your time, from what I can see. I expected to find the matter concluded by now.”

“You don’t understand how difficult my position is,” pleaded Lord Claude, with a diffidence that appalled me. “What you ask is very delicate, very—ah—involved.”

There was the sound of a match being struck, and a pause while the first man evidently lit a cigar; the rank smoke came drifting up to me in my hiding place. “I cannot see the difficulty.” The voice was dry. “With all your native ingenuity and strength of character, what could be easier?”

“You don’t realize just what it is you are asking.”

“Of course I do.” There was the creak of someone sitting back in his chair. “What you seem to be forgetting is that this is not some caprice of my own; circumstances are forcing our hand. You know what the consequences will be should you persist in dithering about and shuffling your feet. We haven’t much more time.” I heard a clinking sound, probably that of a decanter against a glass, for the voice added wryly, “Does it always take liquor to summon up your courage, man?”