The Arrangement (36 page)

“Well, we’ll just see about that, my lord,” Mr. Cole replied. He was breathing heavily. “Harriet and I will be packing our bags and leaving Savile, and the next you’ll be hearing from me will be from my solicitors!”

“It will be a futile enterprise, Cole, but if you desire to pursue the matter, then by all means do so,” Raoul said coldly.

As the merchant stomped from the room, I looked up at Raoul incredulously. “Are you just letting him go like that? He tried to murder Nicky!”

“We don’t have any proof of that, Gail,” Raoul returned.

“We don’t need proof! It’s perfectly obvious that he’s guilty.”

“We need proof if I am to ask Sir Robert Warren, our local magistrate, to arrest him,” Raoul said.

I glared up at him in furious frustration. “Well then, are you going to try to find some proof?”

“I can promise you, Gail, that I will do my damnedest.”

“He deserves to be hanged,” I said again. “He may not have succeeded in killing Nicky, but he killed poor little Johnny Wester!”

“Yes,” Raoul said quietly. “I know that, Gail.”

I felt like screaming, I was so angry.

Ginny said, “Speaking of proof, is there anything beyond your word to verify that Nicky is Deborah’s son, Gail?”

I gave her my reluctant attention. “I’m quite certain there will still be people living in Highgate who will remember that Deborah was the one who was with child, not I.”

“What about the midwife?” Ginny asked.

“I suppose she could be traced if she has moved,” I said. “She was not that old a woman.”

Roger said acidly, “Congratulations, Gail. It seems that you have just found a new home for your horse business— Devane Hall.”

I shut my eyes as the full ramifications of what had just happened began to sink in.

“Oh God,” I said. “I am going to have to tell Nicky who he is.”

“Yes,” Raoul returned in a very gentle voice, “you are.”

“Take him for a ride,” Raoul suggested. “You can stop at one of the buildings along the lake to talk, but get him away from the house. You both need to be alone together when you tell him.”

It was half an hour after the meeting in the library. Everyone else had left the room, and for a few minutes at least Raoul and I were alone. He was standing next to the window, which had been closed against the cool and cloudy afternoon. I was standing facing him, with my hands on the back of a carved oak chair.

I said acidly, “True. It is excessively unpleasant to have tremendous personal surprises sprung on one in the midst of a large group of people.”

He said, “I’m sorry I did that, Gail, but I didn’t know about the marriage for certain until Slater arrived this morning with Wickham.” He leaned his shoulders against the pale green wall next to the tall window, regarded me with a mixture of bewilderment and anger, and said, “Why in God’s name didn’t your sister ever tell you that she was married? Didn’t she know that she was depriving her child of his birthright?”

I repeated what I had said earlier: “Deborah would have had too much pride to push herself in where she was not wanted.”

He shook his head in sharp disagreement. “This was not a personal matter, Gail. This was a matter of law.” His mouth hardened. “And a matter of justice as well. Nicky should have been acknowledged as the heir to Devane Hall.”

“Well, from what you have told me, my lord, Devane Hall would have to have been sold if Nicky inherited,” I flashed back, furious that he was criticizing Deborah. “I am quite certain that Deborah knew that Nicky would be much better off with me and Tommy than he would have been with a profligate for a grandfather and a spineless…creature…for a father!”

His mouth retained its hard line for a few more moments, then it softened very slightly. “Perhaps that is so,” he conceded. “She could not have foreseen that your husband would be killed and you would be left to support the boy on your own.”

I said evenly, “I believe I have told you before that I have never found Nicky to be a burden.”

His reply was just as even. “I know you have not, Gail. That is not what I meant.”

I wasn’t sure what he had meant, but I decided not to pursue the subject. It didn’t take a genius to see that the subject of Deborah was not one on which we were ever likely to agree.

I said instead, “Are you certain it is safe to take Nicky for a ride? You don’t think Mr. Cole will keep trying to harm him?”

“Cole is not a fool,” Raoul replied. “Even if something should happen to Nicky now, Harriet’s marriage is still invalid. Once the information about George’s prior marriage was made public, Nicky was perfectly safe from Albert Cole.”

I looked at him suspiciously. “You sound as if you don’t intend to pursue the matter of Mr. Cole any further.”

“I have assured you that I will not let the matter of Johnny Wester’s murder drop, Gail,” he replied a little irritably.

I let my thoughts turn to the man who had been my other suspect. “What about Roger? If something happens to Nicky, then Roger will inherit Devane. Do you think I can trust him not to harm Nicky?”

Raoul replied in a supernaturally patient voice, “I know you don’t like Roger, Gail, but I do not believe that he is a murderer.”

I felt myself flush. “I suppose you think that I am being hysterical.”

His smile was warm and reassuring. “Not at all. You have had good cause to be concerned about Nicky’s welfare. But I can honestly tell you that I think it is safe for you to take him for a ride around the lake.”

* * * *

So I fetched Nicky from the nursery party that was playing bowls on the lawn and induced him to come riding with me by promising that he could ride Narsalla. I rode one of Raoul’s extra hacks, and Nicky and I set off over the causeway under an overcast, mid-afternoon sky.

We did not speak much until we had reached the lakeside cottage. Nicky was doing fairly well with Narsalla but there was no doubt that she was a bit of a challenge for him. There was color in his cheeks and his eyes were sparkling, however. Clearly he was enjoying himself enormously. Like me, Nicky always preferred to ride a high-spirited horse, and he had been missing Squirt badly.

He was not pleased when I suggested that we stop at the cottage.

“Why, Mama? I am just beginning to get the feel of her. I don’t want to stop now.”

“I must talk to you, sweetheart. It’s important.”

“You can talk to me anytime, Mama,” said my bewildered son.

“I know, but this is a very important, very private kind of talk. Let’s just let the horses nibble the grass for a bit and we can have our discussion, shall we? It won’t take long, I promise.”

“All right.” He gave in with the sweet unselfishness that had always been his mother’s, and slid down from Narsalla’s back. After he had tied her he turned and asked suspiciously, “You’re not going to talk about sending me away to school, are you?”

“No, sweetheart, it’s nothing like that.”

He gave an exaggerated whistle of relief.

“Come and sit on the bench,” I said, but when I had him there beside me I didn’t know how to begin.

How do you tell a child that something you have led him to believe all his life is untrue?

I inhaled deeply and began slowly, feeling my way. “I want to tell you a story, Nicky. It is about my sister, but it is about you too, so will you please be patient and listen?”

Nicky gave me an alert look. Like all youngsters, he was interested in anything that pertained to himself. “All right, Mama,” he said.

I stripped off my riding gloves and ran them nervously through my fingers as I talked.

“When Deborah and I were quite young,” I began, “our parents were killed in a hotel fire and we were sent to the village of Hatfield to live with my father’s sister, my Aunt Margaret. Deborah was a few years older than I and the kindest, most gentle person whom I have ever known. We were very close—much closer than sisters usually are.”

“That was because you had no parents, I expect,” Nicky said wisely.

I smiled at him. “Quite probably.” I drew in a deep breath, consulted the heavy gray sky, and continued. “Now, Hatfield village lies close to Devane Hall, which was the home of an uncle of the Earl of Savile. At the time that Deborah and I were living in Hatfield, this Lord Devane had one son, whose name was George, and he was a very handsome and personable young man.”

I looked into Nicky’s clear blue eyes. “Are you following me so far?”

“I think so, Mama. Lord Devane was the earl’s uncle.”

“And Lord Devane had a son named George, who was just a year older than my sister, Deborah,” I clarified further.

There was a faint line of puzzlement between Nicky’s finely drawn brows, but he nodded that he understood.

I looked down at the gloves I was mangling between my fingers. “Well, what happened next, Nicky, was that Deborah and George fell in love. But Deborah and I had no money, and because of this George knew that his father would never allow him to marry Deborah.”

Nicky nodded again. Even at eight, he knew what it was like when one had no money.

I went on, “But George and Deborah loved each other very much, and so they decided that they would get married secretly.”

I could see that this romantic tale of people whom he had never known and did not care about was not holding Nicky’s attention. I said sharply, “Pay attention, Nicky. This is important.”

His eyes left the horses and came back to me. “Yes, Mama,” he said with an effort.

“This is what happened,” I said firmly. “George and Deborah got married in secret and didn’t tell anyone. Then George’s father tried to make him marry Harriet Cole because the Coles were rich and George’s father had gambled away all of the family’s money.”

Now I had truly caught Nicky’s attention. “Do you mean Maria, Frances, and Jane’s mama?”

“Yes, that is who I mean. And, as you can imagine, it upset Deborah very much to see George paying attention to Harriet, especially since George was already married to herself.”

I could see Nicky struggling to follow this.

“What happened was this, Nicky,” I said simply. “Deborah found out that she was going to have George’s baby, and because she was very upset at the way George was behaving, she ran away from Hatfield. I had been married to Tommy Saunders for a few months, and of course Deborah came to stay with me.”

Suddenly an apprehensive look came across Nicky’s childish face, a look that said he did not think he was going to like what was coming next. He didn’t say anything.

I put my arm around his shoulders and held him against me. “My beloved sister died right after she gave birth to her baby, and with her last breath she gave me her child for my own. And for eight years now you have been my own, Nicky, the child of my heart even if you are not the child of my body.”

Silence. His body was stiff, resisting my embrace.

“I’m not your son?” he said at last.

The note in his voice was anguishing.

I said softly, “You are the son of my sister, Deborah, and of George, Lord Devane, Nicky. In fact, in case you are interested, you yourself are the new Lord Devane. Not Roger. Not Harriet’s child if it is a boy.
You.”

I waited for him to ask me about this, but he said nothing.

Finally, “You lied to me,” he said. I looked down into his white face, into his huge and stricken eyes.

I felt as if a knife twisted in my heart. “I love you more than anything in the world,” I said. “That love is not a lie. It never has been.”

I felt a shudder go all through him and he jerked himself away from me and jumped to his feet. “How could you love me and lie to me like this? Why didn’t you tell me? I could have understood it. You should have told me!”

I held out a pleading hand. “Sweetheart, Deborah never told me that she and George had been married! I thought that you were baseborn, and neither your fa— neither Tommy nor I wanted you to suffer that stigma. Can’t you understand that?”

He didn’t understand what I was saying. He was, after all, only eight years of age, and his world had just been turned upside down. His mother was not his mother. That was all he could comprehend at the moment, all that he could understand.

He was devastated. I had known that he would be.

Suddenly he whirled away from me and ran toward the horses. In a flash he had untied Narsalla’s reins and was swinging up into the saddle. The little mare reared a bit as he swung her recklessly away from the cottage and toward the lake path. Then they were away at full gallop. I could hear the sound of hooves pounding even after they were out of my sight.

My chest was tight with fear, but I let him go. For the moment, I understood, Nicky needed to get away from me.

* * * *

The gray clouds were low and thick by the time I got back to the castle. The flags flying from the four towers were scarcely visible in the late afternoon gloom.

The first person I asked for when I came in the door was Roger. I wanted to make certain that he was in the house and not loose somewhere on the grounds, free to make mischief with Nicky.

Powell told me that Roger had gone to his room right after the meeting in the library and was still there.

Next I asked for Raoul.

“I believe his lordship is in his office,” Powell replied, and that is where I went.

One of the understewards was with Raoul when I looked in, but he said, “Come in, Gail. Barrett and I have just finished.”

I came in as the young steward went out, greeting me with grave courtesy as he went by. Raoul gestured me to the chair that faced his desk.

“How did it go?” he asked gently.

“It went the way I thought it would,” I replied. “He was extremely upset. In fact, he ran away from me, Raoul. I did not chase after him because I thought that would do more harm than good, but I am worried. He is riding Narsalla, and you know how high-spirited she is and Nicky is upset and…”

I could hear the rising panic in my voice and I forced myself to stop talking.

Raoul got up from behind his desk and went out into the hallway to tell the footman who was stationed there that he wanted a message sent to the stables that a search was to be instituted immediately for Master Nicky.