Chapter 13 #2
I lift the County Register to reveal a chart for when to irrigate the fields.
Below the trio of letters are more letters.
A list of flowers written in Mr. Holcroft’s own hand falls out of one of the journals, which was lying on top of a colorful seed catalogue from the Gilbert K.
Harrison and Company. I pick up the legal document and find an illustrated card—
“Aha!” cries a voice from the doorway.
Startled, I look up.
It is Mrs. Dowell.
She is standing in the doorway and looks triumphant.
As I hold stock-still, my heart thumping with dread, Mrs. Dowell tilts her head into the corridor and calls out, “I found her! She’s in here, searching through Father’s things. I told you she is a spy. You said she is just a dunderhead.”
Good God, she is loud!
Like the town crier extolling the time, but smug.
So smug.
“Eleanor thinks she is a dunderhead.”
That is Sarah.
I hear her before I see her.
She is still in the hallway when she adds, “I think she is a fortune hunter. Granted, I do not think she is the brightest fortune hunter in the kingdom, but I did assume she had more brains in her head than to attempt something this asinine and flagrant.”
And then she is here, in the room, her eyes widening as she spots me standing over her father’s desk, and I feel color flood my face.
I am hot.
The room is sweltering.
Sweat drips down my back as Eleanor enters and says that this was precisely the level of dunderhead she had meant.
“That said, I did not expect her to be quite so stupid as to be found clutching Father’s will.
I figured she would make a series of asinine comments like her mother and then fall into mortified silence. ”
Father’s will?
The legal document of indeterminate significance is their father’s will?
I refuse to believe it.
Cruel fate cannot be quite that cruel.
I do not look.
Why should I look?
What will knowing accomplish?
As it is, I have to leave here tonight and never return.
Mama will be so upset!
And Russell—he will never let me live it down. I will be two and fifty on my deathbed and he will still be crowing about the time I was caught in Bedfordshire with my beau’s father’s will in my hand.
It would be better if I died right here.
You may strike me down now, my Lord. Go on, you do not need to be shy.
Remarkably, I feel the worst of the panic begin to leave me at the thought of Russell’s inevitable gloating. I have spent the whole of my life trying to prove my superiority, and losing in such an extreme fashion lets me off the hook.
I never have to prove anything to anyone ever again.
It is over.
Still, the sweat continues to pool in the small of my back. The heat is so intolerable that I am tempted to wave Mr. Holcroft’s will in my face like a fan.
Instead, I place it on the desk.
The way I lay it down gently is a feat of unimaginable control because what I really want to do is fling it onto the floor as if it were on fire.
“Regardless, I think it is safe to say all three of us were right,” Sarah adds as she strides deeper into the room until she reaches her sisters, who are all regarding me with grim humor.
“She is a spy, a fortune hunter, and a dunderhead. And now we have the unpleasant task of revealing her true nature to Seb. Margaret must do it because she is the oldest. Eleanor and I will lend our support—silently.”
My heart squeezes at the prospect of the scene with Sebastian.
He will defend me!
Aware of my investigation, he will not believe for a moment that I am the spying fortune hunter bent on—
“Spy?” I say sharply, looking Mrs. Dowell in the eye, my humiliation forgotten as I repeat the utterly baffling accusation. “You think I am a spy?”
Mrs. Dowell jeers at my efforts to affect innocence. “It is what I expect from a practiced liar. But it is over now. Drop the facade and admit the truth.”
I smile.
The situation is grave, and despite the strange fiction the three sisters have concocted in their heads, I am still standing over their father’s desk in his study.
Clearly, I am guilty of something.
But spying?
What rot!
Honestly, what does that term even mean in this context?
Does she think I am working with a secret cabal of French patriots to gather information that will ultimately free Boney from St. Helena? If that is the case, then what strategic value does she imagine her father’s will has?
Is he a spy for the British government?
“She seems to possess a modicum of intelligence after all, or at the very least a strong sense of self-preservation,” Eleanor murmurs.
As if to refute her statement, I say, “I do not understand. For whom am I meant to be spying? Is this about the war? Does your father work for the Alien Office?”
Sarah dissolves into a gale of laughter and casts gleeful looks at her sister.
“Can you conceive of anything more detrimental to England’s war effort than our sire as an exploring agent?
We would have lost years ago,” she says before assuming a sobering expression to glare at me. “Lord Eldon—you answer to him.”
Her candor draws a glare from Mrs. Dowell.
“You may stop scowling at me, Margaret,” Sarah says impatiently. “I do not see the harm in telling her what we know. If she realizes there is no point in keeping up the charade, she will admit the truth more freely and be on her way.”
In theory, her approach is valid, as I am prepared to tell them everything to avoid extending the encounter.
The longer it goes on, the likelier Mama will find out about it, especially if Mr. Holcroft is drawn into the fray.
My only hope of resolving this quietly is to convince the sisters I am investigating, not spying.
But I cannot make a persuasive argument until I understand the charge.
And the charge is nonsensical.
Spying for Lord Eldon?
I, Flora Hyde-Clare, lately of Bexhill Downs, working at the behest of the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, have traveled to Bedfordshire to spy on a gentleman farmer?
What a fantastical story these three sisters have woven!
Curiously, I tilt my head to the side and ask Sarah why I would spy for Lord Eldon. “And I mean that in both senses—that is, what do I stand to gain by doing his bidding and also what does he stand to gain by having me do his bidding?”
Mrs. Dowell scoffs at what she describes as my tactic to make them appear foolish. “Just because it sounds ridiculous does not mean it is ridiculous.”
In fact, I would argue it means precisely that.
But quarreling with my accusers will only prolong the confrontation, which is the last thing I want.
Instead, I apologize for being dull-witted.
“I am doing my best to comprehend the allegations, but I am mystified. Please explain it in such simplified terms that even a dunderhead”—here, I dart a glance at Eleanor—“can understand.”
Sarah defers to Mrs. Dowell, whose expression hardens with annoyance before she unbends enough to say, “My father is Uncle Dudley’s greatest supporter. Everyone knows that, including Lord Eldon.”
Technically, I do not consider myself a dullard. Readily, I admit to peagoose-ish tendencies, especially in regard to my treatment of Bea and my history of equating beauty with superior moral character. In general, however, I think I am a woman of reasonable intelligence.
Nevertheless, I am lost.
This explanation reveals nothing of value.
Sharing my assessment, Sarah takes over.
“Eldon is seeking information about my father’s affairs because he knows he is rallying support to restore Uncle Dudley to his position as master of the rolls.
Eldon ruined Uncle Dudley’s reputation because he considers him a threat to his political dominance.
Eldon, afraid that my father will succeed in his project, sent you here to discover his plans so that he may thwart them and keep Uncle Dudley in disgrace. ”
“You are joking,” I say, looking from one woman to the other for some indication that their theory is indeed one elaborate prank.
But there is nothing.
Only frowns that deepen with my comment.
They are sincere.
No, I will not allow it!
“You cannot be serious,” I say firmly, giving them the benefit of the doubt. “I know you live a secluded life out here in the country, but you cannot be cut off from all reality.”
Mrs. Dowell chides me for employing a stratagem that has already failed. “You may mock us all you want, Miss Hyde-Clare, but your practiced ridicule will not save you from the truth. You are Eldon’s emissary, and we caught you in the act of spying. Nothing you can say will alter that fact.”
In an offhanded manner, I dismiss this claim, openly exposing my true objective: to find the missive Mr. Nutting sent to their father so that I can compare his handwriting sample against the letters found at the steward’s bedside.
“I am trying to find Mr. Keast’s murderer and have already eliminated the three of you based on your penmanship—and, yes, to do that, I searched your rooms for writing samples.
If you want to take a pet over that, then please feel free to do so.
In some respects, it is indefensible, though as an investigator, I am sometimes obliged to breach decorum to bring a killer to justice.
That is the code! But all of this is beside the point, you bedlamites!
What do you mean your father is rallying support for Grimston to return him to his position? ”
They stiffen.
All three women bristle at once, like the quills of a porcupine rising in tandem, and I have no idea what has given the most offense: my suspecting them of murder, my calling them bedlamites, or my screaming at them.
I do not care about the answer.
The answer does not matter.
“Is your father mad?” I ask in the same wild tone. If anything, the screech in my voice increases as the depravity of the notion strikes me anew.
Returning that debased murderer to his position of power!
Is the world on its head?
Have I descended into a mirror universe where left is right and up is down?
“Has he lost all his sense?” I sneer furiously.
“Does he not have a single shred of the sense left in his brain? Is his brain empty? Why in God’s name does he want to restore the reputation of the man who tried to kill your brother?
Does he not care that Grimston tried to kill your brother? Do none of you care?”
The force of my wrath hits them.
It weighs them down like a heavy blanket, and they struggle against it, their expression a mix of disgust, anger, and confusion.
Mrs. Dowell recovers first, exclaiming, “Of course you would say that. You are in Lord Eldon’s pay.”
“Oh, my God, you fool, I was there!” I say, my hands clenching with the very real, very intense desire to punch her.
“I was there at the Chancery with your brother when Grimston served us tea and talked fondly of your family to keep us occupied while his henchman set the scene for our demise. I was there with your brother in the carriage when Grimston’s henchman knocked the groom unconscious and took us at gunpoint into the seedy building.
I was there with your brother in that wretched little room, with its stained walls and rotted floorboards, when Grimston’s henchman explained that he would shoot us both and arrange the scene to make it appear as though your brother had defiled me before we were killed by a vagrant.
I was there with your brother when Grimston’s henchman explained the details of the Master of the Rolls’ nefarious scheme to coerce money from the petitioners in his court.
I was there when your brother came within an inch of having his blood spewed all over the walls and floor and I am the one who actually swung the wooden plank that knocked out his attacker and saved his life.
I was there with your brother for all of it and barely escaped with my own life. ”
“What?”
It is Mama.
That shriek belongs to my mother.
I know it without turning my head to look at her.
Readily, I can picture her standing there, fingers clutching the frame of the door as though she were about to swoon, her knuckles white from the effort to remain upright.
Ye gods!
I have the most abysmal luck in the whole world.