The Reluctant Earl (18 page)

Liam gave him a quick look, then the corner of Liam’s lip twitched as well.  The two looked away from each other before they started to laugh.

“This is disgraceful,” Jarvis was muttering.  “Disgraceful.”

Liam said, “Have you a dram in the house?”

The butler perked up.  “We do that.  Would you gentlemen like a taste of good Irish whiskey?”

Simon and Liam’s chorus of “Yes,” clashed with Jarvis’ protest.

Simon gave his uncle his most charming smile.  “When in Rome…” 

Jarvis grumbled.

Simon turned to the butler, “How long have you worked here, Donovan?”

“Some eight year, my lord.”

Simon felt a stab of disappointment.  He had been hoping one of the servants might have lived here at the time of his mother’s death.  He knew so little about it.  He didn’t even know where she was buried.

Liam was saying, “Is there anyone in the house who has lived here for longer than that?”

“Our housekeeper, Mrs. Fitzsimmons.  She’s been here for over twenty year.  She’ll be with you soon enough.  I had to wake her from her nap.”  He glanced at Timmy, who was busy with the fire, then said, “I’ll go and fetch that whiskey.”

“Taking a nap?” Jarvis said in horror as the door closed behind Donovan.

“If she’s been here for twenty years she’s probably pretty old,” Simon said, relieved to discover there was indeed someone here who had known his mother. 

Timmy turned around.  “She’s old all right, but she’s still sharp as a knife, my lord.  She’s a grand housekeeper.  There’s no need to replace her.”

“Thank you for telling me,” Simon said gravely.

The wet brown head nodded and the boy stood up.  “Fire’s ready.  I’ll go now and see if that coachman has done right by the horses.”

“I appreciate that,” Simon said, still speaking gravely.

The boy gave him a grin and went out the door.  They heard him whistling as he went down the hall.

Liam started to laugh and Jarvis growled, “This is a disgrace.”

Donovan came in with a tray upon which reposed a bottle of whiskey and three glasses.  He put it on the table that lay between the two sofas and the three men moved to take seats in front of the fire.  The door opened again and a thin, white-haired woman in a black dress and black shawl came slowly into the room.  She was leaning on a cane.

Simon jumped up from the sofa.  “Mrs. Fitzsimmons?” he asked.

“I’m that sorry I wasn’t here to greet you, my lord,” she said in a soft Irish voice.  “I hope that good-for-nothing Donovan made you welcome.”

The old woman was coming toward him and Simon stepped forward to meet her.  She smiled, looked up at him, and every ounce of color drained from her face.   “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” she said making the sign of the cross.  “Is it the truth you’re telling me?  Are you truly the new Earl of Welbourne?”

This kind of reaction had happened to him once before and Simon felt as if he had been punched in the gut.  He struggled to catch his breath and then Liam had his arm and was saying, “Sit down, son.  You’re white as a sheet.”

“…I’m all right,” he said, although he knew he wasn’t.  “Better get the old woman before she falls.”

“Jarvis has her.  Come, sit down and have a dram.  You’re in shock.”

Obediently Simon followed the older man’s instructions.  After the dram had gone down he felt stronger and looked at the woman who was now sitting on the sofa opposite him.  She was sipping from the dram Jarvis was holding to her lips.  As Simon watched, the color came slowly back to her face.

“I’m that sorry, my lord, for making such a fool of myself.  But it was such a shock seeing you…”

Simon leaned forward and stared commandingly into her eyes.  They were veined but not cloudy.  “Whom do I remind you of, Mrs. Fitzsimmons?” he asked, making a great effort to speak gently.

When she just stared at him in distress, he said, “You’re not the first person to say I look like someone else, and my face is not a common one.”  His voice hardened as he repeated,  “Whom do I remind you of?”

The old lady looked pleadingly at Liam.  He said something to her in Irish and she replied in the same language.  He spoke again and she looked down at her old hands clasped tightly in her black cloth lap and nodded.

“What did you say?” Simon asked Liam.

“I told her to answer your question, that you wouldn’t rest until you found out the truth.”

“It’s true,” Simon said, looking at the woman.  He asked once again, “Whom do I remind you of?”

Her old voice was unsteady as she answered, her eyes glued to her work worn hands, “There was a young English officer who used to visit here.  It was over twenty year ago now.   I wasn’t the housekeeper then, I was one of the maids.  But I never forgot his face – he was that beautiful.”

Simon’s heart was pounding so loudly he could hardly speak.  “Do you remember his name?” 

“I remember he was called Tom.  He was a Lieutenant.”

Simon turned to Liam.  “Mr. Cookson’s brother’s name was Thomas, and he was an officer in Ireland when he died.”

The housekeeper said softly, “It was thought he was shot by one of the United Irishmen.  They were active around here twenty year ago.”

Richard Jarvis said suddenly, “Was Lady Welbourne here when the lieutenant came to visit?  Did he come here to see her?”

The wrinkles on the old woman’s face seemed to deepen as she looked at Simon. “Yes, he came to see your mother, my lord.”  A tear trickled down her face and her voice shook.  “I’m that sorry for what my foolishness has done.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Simon said, and his voice was unrecognizable even to himself.  “Just tell me what happened.  I need to know.  I need to know about … my father.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Simon listened to the old woman’s story as if his life hung on every word she uttered.  The countess and the young lieutenant had become friendly, she said, and in the earl’s absence had taken to riding out together whenever he could get free.  “The poor boy was killed three days before the earl’s return, and her ladyship was grieving hard.”   Her eyes met Simon’s in an urgent look.  “Believe me, my lord, no one in this household ever mentioned your mam’s friendship with the English lieutenant.  We liked her ladyship that much.  She were a very sweet lady.” 

Somehow Simon managed to give her a reassuring smile. 

She took a deep breath and went on, “But the earl must have heard gossip from somewhere, because within two days of his return he hurried her ladyship away.  I still remember how white and frail she looked.  We all felt that sorry for her.  Nobody liked the earl.  He was a right bastard, he was.”

“Yes, he was.” Simon said evenly.  “So my fa … the earl … never actually saw Tom Clarkson?”

“He never did, my lord.”

Liam turned to Simon, “So he could never be quite sure.”

“He was sure, Liam.”  Listening to his mother’s pitiful story, Simon thought it was a good thing the earl was dead because Simon would have murdered him if he were still alive.  

Richard Jarvis, who had been stupefied by the housekeeper’s story, said, “So, what all this means, Simon, is that James Radley wasn’t your father?  Your real father was this Lieutenant Cookson?”

Simon returned his uncle’s stunned look and nodded slowly.  “It seems pretty clear, doesn’t it?”

The idea that he might not be the earl’s son had never occurred to Simon.  He thought of all those years spent wondering what it was he had done to make his father hate him so, and now he had the answer.

  My poor mother, he thought with a rush of sympathy.  How that bastard must have made her suffer. 

He couldn’t help but think of himself and Claire, how lucky they were to have what his mother had been denied.  He said abruptly, “Perhaps that’s why my mother came back here five years later.  She wanted to revisit the place where she had been happy.  Perhaps she even wanted to visit my father’s grave.”

The housekeeper had been silent for a while and now Jarvis asked her, “You must have been here at the castle when my sister returned, Mrs. Fitzsimmons.  “Can you tell us about that visit?  Can you tell us how she died?  All we were told was she had pneumonia.”

“I was here,” she said reluctantly, and looked down at the hands clasped in her lap.

Simon leaned toward her.  “That’s what my nanny told me.  She said that my father had received a letter saying my mother died of pneumonia and had been buried in Ireland.  That’s all I’ve ever known.”

Mrs. Fitzsimmons’ head lifted in surprise.  “But the earl was here with her,” she said.

Stunned silence filled the room.  Finally Jarvis spoke, “My family was told she had rashly decided to go to Ireland while the earl was visiting friends in Devon.  Supposedly he heard the news of her death when he returned to Welbourne.”

The old lady looked from Simon to Jarvis, then back again to Simon.  What she saw made her sit up straight, and her face set with resolution.  “The earl was here, my lord,” she said.  “They came together.”

Simon had a sick feeling deep in his stomach.  “Mrs. Fitzgerald, I need to know what happened here,” he said.  “I need to know what happened to my mother.”

#   #   #

Liam knocked softly on the door to Simon’s bedroom.  The boy had been white and silent during the surprisingly decent dinner the cook had prepared.  Liam and Richard Jarvis had done their best to keep some conversation going, but as soon as the pudding was served Simon had excused himself and gone to his room.

Silence was the only answer to Liam’s knock.

Claire had been right, Liam thought.  Something shocking had happened to Simon during this visit, and Liam was very glad he was here.  Jarvis cared about the boy, of course, but he didn’t know him the way Liam did.

He knocked again and called softly, “Simon, it’s Liam.  Open the door, son.  I’m worried about you.”

There was no sound from inside but suddenly the door opened.  “Come in,” Simon said. 

There was a chair pulled up to the room’s single window.  Simon gestured toward it and smiled crookedly.  “I was just looking out at the rain.”

Liam went to the chair and moved it to the fireplace, where a fire was actually burning.  “Sit,” he said, and sat himself on a settee facing the chair.

Slowly Simon came to join him.  His eyes on the wood-burning fire, he said in a constricted voice, “Mrs. Fitzsimmons thinks he killed her.  She wouldn’t say so precisely, but it was clear as day.  They went for a walk by the river and my mother fell in and drowned.  How likely does that sound to you?”

“Not likely at all,” Liam returned grimly.  “After you went upstairs I asked her if there had been an inquiry, but of course there hadn’t.  After all, who was there to make an official inquiry against the Earl of Welbourne?  The servants, who suspected what had happened?  The Irish court system?  There isn’t any Irish court system, only an English one.  How likely was it that the English would inquire even if they did suspect foul play?”

“They wouldn’t.”

“Of course they wouldn’t.  And here in England no one knew he had been in Ireland with her.  The Jarvises, who certainly would have called for an inquiry if they knew the truth, all thought the earl was in England when his wife died.”

Silence fell as the two of them stared into the flickering fire.  Then Liam said, “What I don’t understand is why, after
five years
, he would feel it necessary to kill her.  He was taking a chance, after all.  Someone could have seen him.”

Simon was white and dark shadows had appeared under his eyes.  He said, “I can answer that question.  He had gone through all my mother’s money and he needed to marry another heiress to get more.  Which is precisely what he did.  My stepmother had a very substantial dowry – which he also went through, I might add.”

Liam’s heart ached for him.  What could he say that would be a help?  He sighed and came out with the best he could do. “Well, boyo, take comfort from the thought that he is roasting in hell right this very minute, while your mother is an angel in heaven along with her Tom.”

Simon got up and went to sit next to his father-in-law on the settee.  Liam put an arm around the boy’s shoulders and hugged him.

After a moment of silence, Simon asked,  “What do you think my mother would have done if Tom had lived?”

Liam sighed.  “I don’t know, Simon.  They were together for so short a time – a month, the old lady said - while your… the earl…was hunting with friends up in Roscommon.  And their situation was impossible, really.  She was the wife of a powerful earl and he was a mere lieutenant.  I don’t see what they could have done.”

“Well, I’m glad that man is not my real father.  I’m glad I don’t carry a single particle of his rotten blood in my body!”

“He sounds as if he was a grand lad, Tom Cookson.”  Liam paused.  “Even if he was an English soldier.”

That brought a flicker of a smile to Simon’s face.

Liam said, “You must have been a great joy to her, Simon.  Every time she looked at you, she would know that a part of him lived on, that she had been able to give him that.”

Simon pressed his lips together and nodded.  When he was able to speak again, he said, “Charlie should be the Earl of Welbourne, not me.  Do you know what I need to do to turn it over to him?”

The question surprised Liam and it was a moment before he could answer.  “You can’t turn it over, son.  If it were possible to do such a thing, don’t you think the earl would have done it himself?  You know he hated the thought of you succeeding him, but he never tried to disinherit you.  You were his legitimate son, born in a legal marriage.  Naming you a bastard would have caused a scandal, for sure, but it wouldn’t have changed things.”

“But it’s not fair,” Simon protested.  “It’s Charlie’s by right of blood.”

“Simon.  I’m certain you’re not the first cuckoo to step into the shoes of his supposed father.  The aristocracy is not exactly famous for faithfulness to the marriage vow.”

“But I have to
try,
Liam.  I feel like a thief who’s stolen something from his own brother!”