Chapter 29
Miles stood in front of the drawing room fire with two of the other guests, Mr. Pargeter and Mr. Radford.
They were sportsmen in broadcloth and tweeds, talking loudly about the chances of favorable weather for hunting in the morning, and about which guns they’d brought, and how many birds they hoped to bag.
Miles responded to them in turn, all the while keeping a diligent eye on his wife.
Nell was seated on one of the matching damask sofas that flanked the fireplace, along with Lady Belwood and a fashionably clad older lady by the name of Mrs. Thompson. They were sipping tea and conversing. Lord Amstead perched in an armchair beside them, his gaze riveted to Nell’s face.
Miles’s fingers clenched on the stem of his sherry glass. He’d marked Lord Amstead’s reaction to Nell when they’d first arrived. The man had been thunderstruck by her.
The gentlemen guests in the drawing room had behaved in a similar fashion when Nell had entered on Miles’s arm.
They’d all ceased speaking, leaping to their feet so abruptly one might be forgiven for thinking that an old sergeant major of theirs had surreptitiously entered the room and commanded them all to attention.
There were seven gentlemen altogether, including Miles and Lord Amstead, but only four ladies.
Of those four, Nell was the youngest, and by far the most beautiful.
It was a recipe for disaster. And bloody inconvenient besides.
Miles was meant to be investigating Cowgill’s murder, not spending the whole of the next three days guarding his wife from a pack of amorous, aristocratic jackals.
Nell was partially to blame. She insisted on viewing her beauty as a weapon.
Even now, with so many gentlemen openly staring at her, she gave no sign that she appreciated the potential for danger.
On the contrary, rather than discouraging Lord Amstead’s attention, she was encouraging it with veiled looks and smiles, and all the confidence of an experienced flirt.
It was a dramatic difference from how she’d been behaving in their room not fifteen minutes earlier. One that Miles recognized as being entirely inspired by the change in location. The drawing room was not, after all, a bedroom possessed of only one bed.
For that had surely been the cause of her discomfiture. Miles hadn’t needed to be a mind reader to discern it. He’d observed the initial anxious glance she’d given the bed. Had seen the way she’d avoided looking at it thereafter.
The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on him.
Nell had plainly never considered that the two of them would be obliged to sleep together during their stay at Northwick Hall. While, for the past week…
Miles had been thinking of little else.
“It’s Monday evening’s dance that concerns me, Mrs. Quincey,” Lord Amstead was saying to Nell. “You see our lamentably uneven numbers. I blame Calverley, Pargeter, and Radford. They’re long overdue to marry.”
“Speak for yourself, Amstead,” Pargeter called out with a laugh.
“It’s you who must get yourself to the altar,” Mr. Calverley added from his place on the sofa across from Nell and the other ladies. He was a ruddy-faced country gentleman, slightly older than Pargeter and Radford.
“Too right, sir,” Amstead replied gamely. “I require a lady wife to act as my hostess. In the absence of one, perhaps I might steal yours, Quincey?”
Miles forced his fingers to relax on his sherry glass. It was either that or break the stem in two. “If my wife doesn’t object,” he said.
Amstead directed a coaxing smile at Nell. “Well, ma’am?”
Nell took his cajoling with good humor. It was only her eyes that betrayed a certain calculation.
That familiar, sleepy tigress look. Miles recognized it, even if no one else did.
She was studying the baron as intently as any great cat, searching for clues, weaknesses.
“You may borrow me, certainly,” she said.
“Though I warn you, my lord, I am not at my best.”
Lord Amstead patted her hand. “It’s the weather. Cold as the dickens this morning. Makes every ailment seem worse. My late lamented father would have been crying out for his hot water bottles and rugs, God rest his soul.”
“Sir Walter and I were saddened to hear of your loss,” Lady Belwood said.
“As were we all.” Lord Amstead heaved a dramatic sigh. “But life must go on. I consider this party a celebration of my dear father. One that has been too long delayed.”
“An excellent notion,” Mrs. Thompson said. “These inflexible rules of mourning are too restrictive on the present generation. Why adhere to them for another six months as a matter of form when your father’s life should be celebrated?”
“Well said, madam,” the heavily bewhiskered Mr. Thompson concurred. He sat across from his wife, a teacup balanced on his beefy knee.
“He had over seventy long years, did he not?” Lady Belwood inquired.
Amstead’s lips thinned as he drank his sherry. “Three-and-seventy, my lady. Very nearly four-and-seventy.”
“Do you shoot, Quincey?” Mr. Radford asked.
“I do,” Miles said.
“Do you prefer a ten bore or a twelve bore?”
“It depends on the game,” Miles said. “I trust Amstead will provide what’s necessary.”
“Oh, he’ll outfit you with guns and a loader, all right. Though I far prefer bringing my own. You should, too, next time you come. Bag more birds that way.”
“Do you often shoot here at Northwick?”
“Not as frequently as I’d have liked,” Radford replied. “Amstead’s father wasn’t keen on hosting guests. He kept himself to himself, and his children under lock and key.”
Overhearing them, Amstead broke off his conversation with the ladies. “Not quite under lock and key,” he retorted. “My father wasn’t a tyrant.”
Radford lowered his voice for Miles’s ears alone. “Pretty near to one, if you ask me.”
“His children, you said,” Miles remarked quietly in reply. “He had a daughter, I believe?”
Miles recalled seeing her name in the peerage.
She’d been the child of the late baron’s second wife, born more than ten years after his first wife had given birth to a son.
There had been no further mention of her, neither in Debrett’s, nor during the course of Miles’s and Nell’s research into the family.
“Fair Jane,” Radford said.
“Are you talking of m’sister?” Amstead demanded with a flash of irritation. “Not a pretty subject, mind you. Not suitable for company.”
Radford winced. “Apologies. Forgot myself.”
Nell briefly caught Miles’s gaze. A silent question passed between them. Just what had happened to make Jane Fawn-Purvis’s name unsuitable for company?
Miles resolved to find out.
“I’d rather discuss the lady in front of me,” Amstead said. He leaned toward Nell. “Tell me, Mrs. Quincey, how is it that you came to be so indispensable to Lady Belwood? She would have it that she couldn’t attend my party without you.”
Nell lowered her teacup back to its saucer, returning her attention to her host. “Before my marriage, I often acted as companion to her ladyship,” she said. “We’ve come to rely on each other’s company.”
“Is your marriage of a recent vintage?” Amstead asked with interest.
Nell smiled. “Very recent,” she said. “We are newlyweds.”
Amstead’s brows elevated. “Is that so?” He looked from Nell to Miles and back again. “Why, that’s charming. And illuminating as well. It explains why your presence must include that of your husband. Newlyweds are reluctant to be parted, I’m told.”
Nell affected an air of swift concern. “It wasn’t too great an inconvenience to include us, I hope?”
Amstead waved the suggestion away. “The only inconvenience arises from your twisted ankle, ma’am. In allowing you to come, I’d intended you to dance.”
“An unfortunate complication, to be sure,” Nell said. “For me as well.” She paused, adding earnestly, “I do so love dancing.”
Miles took a stiff sip of his sherry, watching with equal amounts of pride and vexation as Nell twined the baron around her finger.
She was almost too good at this. The deliberate half-truths and seemingly ingenuous flirtation.
Miles had first observed it in Whitechapel when she’d effortlessly charmed her way into Mrs. Pritchard’s brothel.
“We must endeavor to get you well, then, mustn’t we?” Amstead said. “You will have all the cushions, compresses, and cups of tea you require. I shall make it my mission to see you recovered in time to dance the opening set with me.”
“My husband might have something to say about that,” Nell replied. “I have promised most of my dances to him.”
Lord Amstead snorted. “Nonsense. We adhere to town rules here at Northwick. No dancing with one’s spouse more than three times at the same soiree. You don’t desire us to think you countrified, do you?”
A dour elderly woman who had been introduced as the baron’s near neighbor, Lady Upshott, telegraphed her disapproval from a nearby chair. “Your teasing is in poor taste, Amstead. You hardly know the woman.”
“Another mission of mine,” Amstead said to Nell. “To get to know you. For the next three days, I will be entirely at your disposal.”
“At the risk of neglecting your other guests? I wouldn’t dream of it.” Nell raised her teacup back to her lips. “Though, I do have one request to make of you, my lord.”
“Name it,” Amstead said.
“I would appreciate if your housekeeper could take me through the long gallery during my stay. I’d love to hear the history of all the portraits.”
Miles’s attention sharpened. This was something he and Nell had discussed during their preparations for the party. One of the many possibilities for gaining more information about the Fawn-Purvis family.
Amstead’s gaze became intent. “You’ve heard of my long gallery?”
“Your house is famous hereabouts,” Nell said. “It was designed by Sir Robert Taylor, was it not?”
“It was. The Fawn-Purvis family has a long and distinguished history in this part of Hertfordshire. But as to my housekeeper conducting a tour…” Amstead shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s impossible. She knows nothing of the history of the portraits. She only came in the summer.”
“I see,” Nell said. “Another servant, then? Someone of longer tenure? There must be one who knows the history of the house.”
“Sadly not,” Amstead replied. “There was a great turnover in the staff after my dear Papa died. Had to put many of the old retainers out to pasture. It was a mercy. My father was an excellent fellow, but he kept some of the servants too long at their posts. They were ready to be pensioned off.”
“A hard task, but a kind one,” Lady Upshott pronounced.
“Though I wouldn’t have been without Mrs. Virtue for the world if I were you.
Housekeepers like her are worth their weight in gold.
Her talents are wasted at Bricket Lodge.
And your father’s butler! Gone to some grand house in Derbyshire, I heard.
Well, they will be lucky to have him. As for you—you just see that the house doesn’t fall to rack and ruin in their absence. ”
Miles exchanged a glance with Nell. Cowgill had attended a house party at Bricket Lodge in the spring. It was the only one he’d attended all year. Was it there that he’d heard something? Seen something?
Lord Amstead downed the remainder of his sherry. “No one is indispensable.”
“A good servant can be,” Lady Belwood said. “My own housekeeper has been with me since I married Sir Walter. A full eighteen years. I should be lost if she left me.”
Nell’s gaze came to rest on her ladyship’s face. A trace of brittleness entered Nell’s expression. “Eighteen years is a good long while, ma’am,” she said.
“Household affairs,” Pargeter muttered. “Tedious.”
“Only four ladies present and it’s still the primary topic of conversation,” Radford commiserated under his breath.
Nell’s attention didn’t linger on her mother.
A deliberate choice, Miles suspected. When dealing with the woman, Nell had difficulty controlling her emotions.
And if they were to succeed in getting to the bottom of Cowgill’s murder during their stay, both Nell and Miles would have to keep their emotions under close control.
“About the gallery, my lord,” Nell said, turning back to Amstead. “If no one else can offer a tour, perhaps I might apply to Mr. Innes?”
“No use there, either,” Radford said. “Innes was only recently elevated to butler, wasn’t he, Amstead?” Radford addressed Miles with a chuckle. “Used to be his valet.”
Miles looked at Nell again. Was she thinking what he was thinking? Every other servant had been dismissed. All except for Innes, who had been promoted from valet to butler. An extraordinary elevation, and one that might well be due to some nefarious service he’d performed for Lord Amstead.
“Don’t be absurd, Mrs. Quincey,” Amstead said. “I shall take you through the gallery myself. Tomorrow afternoon, say, when the gentlemen and I return from shooting?”
Nell smiled. “That would be perfect, my lord.”
“And quite informative, I’m sure,” Miles said. “My wife and I have a mutual fascination with historical paintings. We shall look forward to your tour.”
Nell’s dimple made a brief appearance. Whether it was on account of Miles’s blatant possessiveness or Lord Amstead’s obvious irritation at the same was difficult to tell.
Miles wished he could find humor in the situation, but he assuredly could not.
A man had been murdered. And the crime very well may have originated with someone in this house. If not Baron Amstead or Innes, then one of the others.
Miles was taking no chances. Not where his wife was concerned. However ridiculous he must make himself, however much he must play the jealous, overbearing husband, he privately vowed that, for the remainder of the party, Nell wouldn’t spend a moment alone with any of the men in attendance.
Excepting himself.