The Spare (7 page)

Verney stared down the gallery. "When he came to Pennhyll, he was quite a different man from what he became later on. There was a deal of talk about his wild ways. Heavens, yes, that's quite so."

"You will not offend me with the truth." Jesus, he hated this weakness of his. He stopped, letting his throbbing muscles rest and his heartbeat slow.

"A good many women."

"That's familiar." Sebastian pulled himself straighter yet in the hopes of easing the pain in his side, but everything cramped or throbbed or just plain hurt. Ahead of him, James put an arm around Miss Willow's waist.

"He changed. Completely. Why, he even started coming to Sunday services, and the women— That stopped entirely. Not so much as a whisper. Your brother stayed at Pennhyll, and if he gave parties, it wasn't for his friends from London. He invited the local gentry."

"If that's so, then Andrew indeed changed."

"Yes."

"What of his countess, Mr. Verney?"

He drew a breath. "Lady Tiern-Cope was not suited to life in the country."

"Meaning?"

"After a time, your brother—" Verney grimaced. "How shall I say this? He became suspicious of his wife."

"With reason?" Sebastian sat on an upholstered bench nestled between a Fra Angelico and a pieta by an artist he did not recognize.

The clergyman pressed his lips together. "There was some unpleasantness." He lifted his hands. "Gossip, my Lord."

"When did the gossip begin?"

"I can't give a precise date, really."

Sebastian raised one eyebrow.

"I'd say a year and a half before the tragedy of their death. Yes, I'd say that's so."

He kept his face still and cast out a lure just to see what might come back on the hook. "I have reason to believe, Mr. Verney, that at the time of his death Andrew had a liaison." From the corner of his eye, he saw James with his arm still around Miss Willow's waist, leaning to whisper something to her.

"My heavens." Verney sank onto the bench next to Sebastian. "This is a surprise. I cannot imagine who, my Lord. Indeed, I cannot."

He studied Verney. "Two years ago Miss Willow returned to Far Caister."

Verney flashed the color of a beet. "Oh, that is quite impossible. Absolutely not." He threw an arm into the air to punctuate his words. "Your brother may once have earned a certain reputation, but I repeat, he reformed. To suggest that Miss Willow could be enticed to— It doesn't bear thinking. You mistake her, my Lord." His voice shook with passion. "Oh, gravely, indeed. That poor girl nearly died."

Verney collapsed forward, elbows on his knees, covering his face with his hands. His shoulders heaved once, and then stilled. When he lifted his head, his expression was utter misery. "Nearly two days without waking and then fever. We expected she would die any moment. Thank the heavens, she did not. Dr. Richards said even if she lived she might not regain her full faculties. And for a time, so it seemed. My God, but I never saw a woman so altered. Miss Willow was full of life and spirit and to see her like that—at death's door. My heart broke. Praise God she recovered."

The others were far enough ahead they hadn't heard the outburst. He didn't sound like a man with reason to jilt his intended bride. He sounded more like a man still in love. "If I am forced to ask unpleasant questions, sir, it is because the inquest was a whitewash. Whoever killed my brother and his wife walks free because the woman who could answer my questions recalls nothing. Nothing at all."

"For which one may say God is indeed merciful."

He leaned against the wall, stretching out one leg. "Mr. Verney, what do you know of that night?"

Verney opened his mouth, then closed it. "The earl and countess gave a party, as I am sure you know. Miss Willow came. Keep in mind, I was not a witness. I did not attend as I was feeling poorly. Would I had not stayed home."

"Had you already broken with Miss Willow?"

Verney turned white. "You are well informed, my Lord. However, I must answer that before that day, the thought never entered my mind. Indeed, I had decided to marry her. We'd worked closely on the school, and I had every reason to admire and respect her character and her spirit. My affection for her was firm and resolute. If I'd gone to the party, perhaps what happened might have been prevented." His voice went low. "We might now be married."

"What prevented you?"

Verney touched his head, scrubbing his hands through the wisps of his hair. "She insisted upon releasing me from my promise." He let out a breath. "A vicar's wife must be untouched by stain of scandal. So she told me."

"You married almost immediately."

"In my shock, I turned to Alice, my wife, for comfort and found my life's companion."

"How fortunate."

"God works in mysterious ways."

He studied the vicar and rose. "I'm told there is another Giotto farther down the gallery." He gestured. "Shall we?" His dissatisfaction never settled, never assumed any comfort among the other bits and pieces whirling about in his head. He did not feel he'd had the full truth from Verney. He wondered if, when the time came, he would have even half as much of the truth from Miss Willow.

Some time after the Verneys departed, Sebastian retreated to his room where he swallowed another sulfurous potion without complaint and endured McNaught's lecture on the dangers of overexertion. "I'm sending for Dr. Fansher," McNaught said while he rerolled the fabric for his bandages. "You need someone to put the fear of death into you."

Sebastian flexed his arm and paid for the movement in a blossom of pain along his ribs. "Very well." His wound felt hot. "Call Fansher."

"Rest, my Lord. You must not tax yourself."

He lay on his bed, legs sprawled while he stared at the canopy overhead. Though he appeared to be doing nothing, his first lieutenant would have known just how deceiving was that appearance. Sebastian focused his thoughts, separating what he knew from what he suspected and both of those things from what he hoped was true.

Andrew's wife, flighty and self-centered, unhappy in the country and, it seemed, in the marriage. Enough to seek comfort in another man's arms? Andrew would never tolerate such a situation. As for Andrew himself, did a womanizer ever reform? Quite likely, Andrew did have a lover. And he must at least consider the possibility that his mistress had been the desirable Miss Willow. She had James dancing on a short leash. Why not Andrew as well? God knows she had a mortifying ability to remind him how much he enjoyed sexual relations and, worse, put him in a way of wondering whether Andrew had enjoyed her in that same fashion. On the heels of that improper thought, he wondered for himself what she would be like as a lover. Eyes like molten honey, luscious copper hair and a smile that made a man happy just for seeing it. Jesus, what a pleasure that would be. That his brother might have been enthralled by Miss Willow wasn't at all farfetched.

He drew a long breath and let the world settle around him. Any tendency to overlook or excuse the truth must be ruthlessly suppressed or he might find himself dancing at the end of Miss Willow's leash, too. And, he might never know who killed his brother. Nothing had been stolen, not jewelry from the two women nor Andrew's sapphire ring, which Sebastian now wore on his own finger. Why would a robber find his way to a salon when he could have gone to the butler's pantry for the silver? To his mind, the killings had all the hallmarks of passionate motive. He thought it quite likely the murderer had been a lover of one of the three. The delicate Miss Olivia Willow, with her additional injuries, was surely the likeliest candidate.

If he proved the worst, he
would
see her brought to account. He would.

«
^
»

January 15

"My Lord." Price cleared his throat. "Mr. McNaught wishes to know if you require a change of raiment for your excursion to Far Caister."

Sebastian looked at Price from over the top of one of the letters from the morning's post. "Who is Mrs. Edward Leveret?" he asked.

"I believe, among other things, Mrs. Leveret heads the committee for the establishment of a school for Far Caister's less fortunate children, my Lord."

He scanned the page again. His brother's papers tilted in a precarious stack before him, threatening to fall at any moment. "What do you know about Miss Olivia Willow being a teacher?"

"Miss Willow's name has been put forward for the post of instructress, as it is a task she has previously performed with some success, my Lord."

"And?" He watched Price's face for signs of an opinion contrary to what he'd already heard but saw only his usual doleful expression.

"Most consider her a worthy candidate, my Lord."

"Do you agree I should approve of her in such a capacity?"

"I would not presume, my Lord."

"She wants money, of course, Mrs. Leveret, but as well she wants the right to tell families that Tiern-Cope has personally recommended their teacher."

"Most assuredly, my Lord."

His position gave him some responsibility to families like that and to women like Mrs. Leveret. James all but had Miss Willow in his bed. Like as not, she'd be his mistress before the week was out. If it weren't for James's priority of interest, more than likely he'd be considering much the same arrangement himself. She was a thoroughly bedable woman. His duty in the matter seemed clear enough. He reached for his pen and scrawled a reply at the bottom of Mrs. Leveret's note.

Madam:

I cannot recommend her to you.

Captain Sebastian Alexander

As an afterthought, he added, "Tiern-Cope" beneath his signature. He refolded the note and handed it to Price. "Deliver this."

Price took the letter. "Your excursion, my Lord?" He put away his pen. "I'll be there directly."

"My Lord."

Half an hour later, Sebastian stood with one foot on the bottom edge of the open carriage doorway, his forearm crossed over his thigh. Mrs. Leveret's letter and his reply to it were absent from his thoughts. One of the drays stamped, iron-shod hooves ringing on the cobbles of the inner courtyard. Both animals were the color of flax. In the whole of the stables there wasn't an inferior animal to be found. He tugged at his cravat and gave James a sideways glance. "I do not play the lover well."

"Best learn." James's head whipped toward the door, but it was a false alarm. A footman hurried toward them carrying an armload of blankets. Miss Royce wished to shop, and, as Sebastian had already seen, what Miss Royce wanted, Miss Royce got, generally with little more than a smile in payment, but with a frown across that pretty brow if necessary.

If one believed appearances, Miss Willow had, during her time at Pennhyll, become Diana's dearest friend. Sebastian, cynic that he was, could not help the unworthy thought that Diana's friendship with the spinster had more to do with the advantage she gained by comparison than on account of any similarity in their characters. Certainly, their looks could not have been more dissimilar and as for their characters, well, he could not imagine that Miss Willow had anything in common with a spoiled beauty like Diana Royce. Olivia Willow possessed a fine mind, however she pretended otherwise.

James stooped to pick up a handful of pebbles. "God knows Diana's vain enough for a dozen women, Sebastian, but she needs some encouragement." He tossed a pebble. It skipped over the cobblestone courtyard and hit the rampart wall.

"I intend to marry her, which she well knows if you've done your part. Isn't that enough?"

"For me, yes. But she finds you neglectful. Compliment her. Really, Sebastian. You must play the game."

"Has it gotten you anywhere with Miss Willow?" Considering what he'd seen already, perhaps it had. She liked to withdraw when people called at Pennhyll, but James never let her alone for long. Beside him, James frowned and threw another pebble. So. "No success yet."

"Since I do not intend to marry her, the dance is more intricate. Besides, the woman insists on her principles."

"Perhaps she believes in them." Then again, the harder a man worked for his prize, the higher the perceived value, and he did not doubt Miss Willow knew that quite well. Every girl who'd been to her first ball knew that much about men.

"Fear not, Sebastian. I aim to bury those principles."

"Mm."

"See if I don't. As for Diana, you have no principles to overcome. You're going to marry her, for Christ's sake." He tossed another pebble. "Tell her you adore her eyes and that her lips remind you of—" The door opened again. Diana appeared, wrapped in an ermine cloak and muff. Miss Willow descended the stairs just behind her. James's gaze was riveted. "My God, just look at her."

"Your sister is beautiful. And she's well aware of it."

"Not her. Miss Willow. I'm randy every time I see that hair. I want my hands full of those curls and her full of me." He made a low noise, and Sebastian added his silent agreement to the sentiment. "I do fancy her maidenhead, Sebastian, I truly do."

The idea that Miss Willow retained her virtue startled him. "What makes you think she has one?"

"Of course she has. A young lady can't lose her handkerchief without all of Far Caister hearing of it. Believe me, if she'd lost her virginity, everyone would know." Sebastian frowned, for there was a deal of sense in that. James waved at the door. "Diana, at last. And Miss Willow." To Sebastian, he said, "I've the luck of the devil today, old man. That cloak is hardly thick enough to keep an infant warm on a day such as this. I'll soon gallantly have my arm around her to keep her warm." Grinning like a boy in possession of a new top, he turned to Sebastian. "Out, damn principles."

Like Fitzalan, now the waiting was over, Sebastian stood at attention as the two women came down the last stairs. "No doubt her Cumbrian nativity
inures her to the cold."

"If I should manage to contrive, my dear Captain, to separate from you whilst we tour the village, pray do not wait for us. No matter how badly we are missed. Diana will survive an hour or two or three without Miss Willow's charming company. And you, Sebastian, might use the time to practice your charms on my sister. Why, you might even try proposing. She won't say no."