Chapter 9 #6
Hester glanced down at the omelet congealing before her. “I served myself too large a portion. If you’ll excuse me, I’m off in search of a book. His lordship’s library is truly impressive.”
“Books, bah. You’re hiding from Tye, and I am anxious to see how this little drama plays out. If you see Fiona, tell her to bring me some flowers, and we’ll paint a portrait of them. I refuse to sketch that carrot-pig masquerading as a rabbit one more time.”
“I will pass your message along.”
Hester rose without finishing her tea and made her way to the library, blind to the Quinworth wealth arrayed around her.
Tye had fetched Fiona here to rescue his sisters from the kind of match his parents had made into a living purgatory. This was the leverage his father had over him: three women could look forward to happy adulthoods, provided Fiona was sacrificed to a childhood away from those who loved her.
Hester pushed the library door open, lost in thought.
And Tye had said he honestly believed he’d be improving Fiona’s circumstances, plucking her from penury into a life of guaranteed privilege.
Merciful Saints. That a father would put his son up to such an undertaking was an abomination against the natural order, but again, Hester had to wonder what motivated the marquess.
She did not wander the bookshelves as she had on many occasions.
She instead sat at the huge old estate desk by the windows and tried to wrap her mind around the choices Tiberius had faced.
Outside the windows, a lovely day was unfolding, full of sunshine and fresh breezes.
Inside the library, Hester rummaged for writing implements, intent on sharing the morning’s revelations with Aunt Ariadne, and Ian and Augusta MacGregor as well.
Pen and ink were not difficult to find, but the nib needed trimming, so Hester opened more drawers in search of a penknife, sand, and wax.
She found… documents. A large cache of letters addressed to Deirdre, Lady Quinworth, in a slashing hand that looked very like what she’d seen of Tiberius’s writing.
Why would the lady have left her letters here if she dwelled in Scotland?
Tamping down the clamorings of conscience, Hester opened one letter:
My dearest wife,
The Holland bulbs you planted on the tenth anniversary of Dora’s birth are springing up in profusions and glories, carpeting the hedges in bright colors and sweet aromas.
Were you here, I would walk the paths with you.
You would tell me which beds need to be divided and which might be left undisturbed for another year.
Were you here, we might ride to the river and picnic there among the willows, while I read to you from the wicked French novels you used to hide under our pillows…
God in heaven. Hester folded the letter up with shaking hands. The love letter. She dared not read further, but glanced at the date and found to her shock it was but a few weeks ago.
And this was not a draft. The missive had been through the mails, apparently twice.
“The poor man.” And the drawer was nearly full of such letters. What wrong had he done his lady to merit this treatment? No chance to explain, no chance to make reparation, no hope of forgiveness? She closed that drawer so quickly she nearly pinched her fingers, then opened another.
Still no penknife, but a single, very official-looking document. Her planned correspondence forgotten, Hester started reading.
Thirty minutes later, she was still staring at the Last Will and Testament of Gordon Bierly Adolphus Flynn when the marquess came striding into the room, tapping his riding crop against his boot.
“Miss Daniels. Good day. Spathfoy tells me you might soon be returning to northern climes.” He advanced on the desk, his expression curious.
“I’d rather hoped you’d bring the boy up to scratch and do something about that moping child while you were about it.
I know not who is the more cast down of late, the man or the girl. ”
“I wonder you’d notice such a thing, my lord, while pining for your own lady.”
“I beg your pardon?” He gave his boots a sharp thwack with his infernal crop. That was nothing compared to what Hester would do to him.
She pushed out of the chair and came around the desk to stand directly before Quinworth. “I’ve read Gordie’s will, your lordship. I am certain Tiberius has not been given that privilege.”
“You pried into the private papers of a family who opened their home to you as a guest?” He did not yell; he kept his voice menacingly soft.
“I went looking for a penknife and found some answers, you dratted bully. How could you do this to Tiberius, to Fiona, and to her family? You lied, you manipulated, you misrepresented, you abused the trust of those around you, and the trust placed in you by a son dead and gone and unable to speak for his own wishes.”
“I’m seeing those wishes carried out, Miss Daniels, and I will not be made to answer to the likes of some poor Scottish relation who thinks the hand of the Quinworth heir beneath her. Leave any time you like. I’ll manage my granddaughter and my son without your further interference. Good day.”
He strode out of the room, boots thumping, crop thwacking, making Hester want to call him back so she could tear another strip off of him.
Many, many strips. What he’d done was an unimaginable transgression of the good faith family members owed one another, and Hester dreaded to think of the hurt Tiberius would suffer when he learned of it.
If he learned of it. Hester forced herself to spend long, long minutes pacing the library and thinking through the ramifications of what she’d read.
She should not be the one to tell Tiberius what his father had done.
She’d take Fiona home, and that would be the end of it.
Based on what she’d learned of the marquess—and of the pertinent legalities—this sojourn in the south was over: for her, and for Fiona.
There was no need to write to Aunt Ree or Ian. Hester would have Fiona home before the letters arrived, leaving Tiberius Flynn the rest of his days to be a good son to a miserable father, a protective brother to three adult sisters, and a dutiful son to a mother who would be otherwise homeless.
The library door banged open, and Joan appeared, hectic color in her pale cheeks. “Hester, you must come! Fiona’s down at the stables, and Papa is yelling at her, and there’s a fox—”
“I’m coming.” Fiona would not deal well with an upset, ill-humored marquess, and the marquess would not deal with an exhibition of Fiona’s stubbornness and homesickness now.
But when she got to the stables, what Hester found was worse—far worse—than simple upset or stubbornness.