Chapter 15
Rosalind had not seen Adrian since Harry’s last lesson, when she had asked him directly about Seraphina’s visit. In truth, the viscount had responded with more humility than she had guessed, but afterwards there had been no more contact with the gentleman.
Dr. Ashcombe mentioned seeing him at the inn in the village one day, and a maid saw him out riding alone, but he had not come back to Thornefield as was his recent wont, and she felt his absence keenly.
One morning, after she had finished her accounts for the day and been to settle a tenant dispute, she returned to find her butler anxiously twisting his hands in the foyer.
“The gentleman—Mr. Crewe—has returned, and with a friend.” The old man looked concerned and added in a low voice. “He called without a card, Miss, or I assure you I would have afforded some advance notice.”
“I do not doubt it,” Rosalind said kindly to the servant. “Is Mrs. Hollis nearby?”
“She is calling on a friend in the village who is feeling poorly,” the butler said, apologetically. “And your brother is outside in the stables.”
“Very well.” Rosalind did not fancy meeting her conniving stepbrother alone, but she had also grown used to fighting her own battles since her father’s death.
In fact, the only person who she could see truly standing toe-to-toe with Edmund Crewe was the viscount, and she was fairly certain she could not wish a visit from him into existence.
She checked herself in the mirror, straightening her golden hair back with a few loose pins, smoothing the free tendrils and smoothing her hands down her plain cotton gown. It will have to do.
She walked into the parlor to the tune of the butler’s introduction, and stopped just shy of the doorway with a small curtsy.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” she said coolly. “What a singular surprise. If I had known you were visiting, Mr. Crewe, I would have had tea drawn up and ready. As it is, you have caught me unawares.”
“How glowing you look today, my dear girl,” Edmund said, patronizing and cool.
“I know our visit is a bit… sudden, but I was sure you would understand once you met my companion. He is a gentleman of worthy standing who happened through the area just last week. I could not resist the chance to introduce you to someone from high society—you are so terribly hidden away here in the country.”
Rosalind turned her gaze to his companion. The man was tall and slim, wearing clothes that were as fashionable as any she had ever seen. His coat jacket was a deep plum, and the vest a navy trimmed with gold.
His boots were fine, as was his delicate pocket watch and felt trimmed hat.
It was his eyes that betrayed him—hooded and leering, they scanned Rosalind as though assessing a fine horse with which to win at Tattersall’s.
He had a handsome enough face, but those eyes made her want to shrink into the corner away from him.
“And what is your friend’s name?” she asked calmly.
“I am Sir Percival Drake,” he said, coming forward with movements smooth as silk to catch up her hand and kiss it lightly.
A baronet. I would not have guessed that. He rather seemed the sort of gentleman one might find at a circus, pedaling false wares from a striped tent.
“Good day, Sir Percival,” she answered, pulling her hand away from his and clasping it in her own again.
“I have very much looked forward to meeting the neighborhood’s most spoken-of lady,” Sir Percival said, his dark eyes dancing over her shoulders and the embroidery of her neckline. “May I say, Miss Thorne—you do not disappoint.”
“Please have a seat,” she said firmly, gesturing to a chair as far across the room as she could reasonably expect the gentleman to move.
“I have no need of such luxuries,” he said with a small smile. “If standing is the price I pay for your company, I will linger here at your side.”
Rosalind forced a smile. “The price you pay for my company, it seems, is risking looking unmannered by arriving at a lady’s home unannounced.
” It was, perhaps, a little harsh, but Rosalind found his honeyed London manners needed a splash of acid to cut the sickening weight of his presence in her home.
“A risk I am willing to take for one such as you,” he retorted smoothly, not missing a beat. “I must say, Miss Thorne—your wit is refreshing. How is one such as you unengaged as of yet? You have the look of a fairytale princess and the intellect of a queen.”
“I can understand how you made the first assumption after only laying eyes on me,” she said, her patience wearing thin, “but I am rather baffled at how you have managed to come to a conclusion about my intellectual capacities on such short notice.”
“Dear sister,” Edmund said, stepping in. “Need you be so hard on the fellow? He is merely speaking with the cultured niceties appropriate to high society. You need not call him out on every bit of flattery.”
“I beg your pardon,” she said, keeping her eyes on the baronet, even as Edmund spoke. “I suppose I am unused to the fine ways of the London ton. When I say something, I usually mean it. I suppose I foolishly assumed others would adopt the same courtesy in addressing me.”
“‘And all that’s best of dark and bright, meet in the aspect of her eyes,’” Sir Percival said, his smile curving slightly upwards.
“Ah,” Rosalind said, stepping away and ringing for the servants. “Now we are quoting Byron, I see.”
“You have something against the poet? He is, I am assured, the center of fashionable society at present,” the baronet said with a light laugh.
“No, I have nothing against him,” she said, looking into the hall in hopes a servant would appear. “He is a gentleman with a singular talent on the page, I am sure. I have heard less favorable things of his time in court and his personal life.”
“I got along with him well enough when we met.” Sir Percival crossed his arms, as though this was a master stroke that should convince Rosalind well and truly of his importance.
Rosalind could not help smiling. “Yes,” she said, remembering the stories she had heard about Lord Byron’s scandalous relationships. “You do seem as though you would get on well with the man.”
“Tell me,” Sir Percival said, softening his voice, “what must I do to know you better, dear woman? For I shall lie awake tonight thinking of your face.”
You should leave the poetry to Byron, she thought drily.
The man himself did not truly woo her—she could see that he was trying to manipulate her feelings in some way, and he stunk so completely of falsehood that she was not lured in.
What left her uneasy was Edmund’s presence, and his intention to bring the man here.
Was this somehow part of his scheme to wrest control of Thornefield from her hands? If so, she was no more encouraged to give in to this golden Adonis who clearly thought himself more of a Romeo than he was.
A servant appeared at last, a maid, who curtsied and blushed when she caught Sir Percival’s wink. “Miss?” she asked.
“Please fetch the butler,” Rosalind said. “These gentlemen were just leaving, and they will need their things.”
“So soon?” Sir Percival cried, as though genuinely crushed and surprised.
“I would not wish to hold you when I have no hospitality at present to offer,” she said with as gracious a smile as she could manage. “Perhaps next time, with more warning…” she leveled her gaze on Edmund in particular, whose lips snarled in response.
“Come then, Percy,” he said, a little gruffly. “We should not overstay our welcome.”
Sir Percival stepped over again, his clammy hands taking Rosalind’s once more. He kissed it deeply—far too deeply for her liking—and then released it with one last longing look into her eyes.
“It is like staring into sapphires,” he murmured, releasing her fingers with great reluctance. It was everything Rosalind could do to keep from rushing to a washroom and scrubbing her hand free of his touch in that very moment. Instead, she smiled placidly back at him.
“Good day, Sir Percival.”
She stood at the window until both men had receded from view. She had an eerie feeling that if she did not stay to see them go, the crawling sensation that had come over her in their presence would not depart.
***
That afternoon, Adrian reentered Rosalind’s life. He sent word that he wished to come for afternoon tea, if it would not be too much of an imposition, and appeared only a few hours later to stay true to his word.
“You missed some excitement earlier,” Rosalind said, pouring a delicate cup of dark liquid for her guest. Mrs. Hollis was set up the corner.
“Did I?” Adrian was sitting, straight-backed and preoccupied, by the fireplace. He took the cup from Rosalind, and sipped lightly. “Is that why your headache has returned?”
He said it in a low enough voice that Mrs. Hollis could not hear, and Rosalind flushed despite herself.
Her head was aching, but she was more than a little off balance knowing that the viscount could guess without being told.
She did not acknowledge this intimacy however, choosing to stay to the facts.
“Mr. Crewe showed up unannounced, and he brought a friend with him. A baronet, I believe, by the name of—”
Before she had even finished speaking, Adrian was on his feet. The cup sloshed as he set it aside, his eyes intent on hers.
“Sir Percival Drake,” he finished for her. “Was the gentleman’s name Sir Percival?”
Mrs. Hollis stopped sewing, as shocked as Rosalind herself was. “Good heavens, my lord,” she said. “Do you know the gentleman?”
Rosalind read Adrian’s body language perfectly. “You do, do you not?” she pressed. “And you do not care for him.”
Adrian walked to the mantlepiece. “Please tell me that you were not taken in by his charms, Miss Thorne. It is my guess that he posed as a suitor? That he came speaking flattery?”
“You are correct,” she said, standing as well, nervous to her core. “Tell me all that you know, my lord. Spare me nothing.”
“My solicitor wrote about the gentlemen after I made some inquiries,” he said quickly. “Sir Percival is but a self-proclaimed title—he is no real baronet, though he styles himself as one. In truth, he has many debts and even more broken hearts in his wake.
He has a pattern of courting women and then abandoning them when a settlement of money is signed over. I believe blackmail and, in some sad cases, a tarnishing of the woman’s virtue, is involved in the scam.”
Rosalind exchanged horrified glances with Mrs. Hollis, and then turned her attention back to Adrian.
“I cannot say I am surprised,” she said quietly.
“I was on edge when I first met him because Mr. Crewe was his companion, but the longer we talked the more I felt I was speaking with a… professional. Someone proficient in the art of language and love, but there was a sinister thread throughout it all.”
Adrian took a step forward, his gaze on her intense. “Did he harm you? I do not mean to injure you by exposing his suit as disingenuine…”
Rosalind laughed and waved her hand dismissively. “If you fear that I was taken in by him, I assure you I was not. I am, sadly, too long out of the London social scene to be wooed by a gentleman such as Sir Percival. It is hard to believe something that is so clearly a performance.”
Adrian smiled slightly. “I should have guessed as much.”
“How did you know all this about Sir Percival?” Rosalind found that, even knowing he was not a baronet, she continued to use the name with which he had first introduced himself.
“I did some inquiry of my own after hearing that he had taken up rooms at the inn and was meeting regularly with Mr. Crewe. I had a suspicion he was part of Mr. Crewe’s plot in some fashion.”
“But… how?” Rosalind sat back down, feeling suddenly weary. “Certainly, Edmund cannot have picked this man by chance—not with a history so storied—but how does Sir Percival have any bearing on the inheritance and Thornefield?”
“Maybe Mr. Crewe did not pick Sir Percival himself. Maybe he had help.” Adrian rubbed his hand over his forehead.
“Help? How do you mean?” Mrs. Hollis interjected.
Adrian let out a shaky sigh. “I am not certain—not yet. I would not wish to speak ill of someone without knowing the truth.”
“How do we determine the truth?” Rosalind asked.
“I will investigate further and let you know when I am certain,” Adrian said quietly. He looked at the clock nearby. “In fact, I may take my leave a little earlier than planned to tend to some business.”
“Of course—” Rosalind said, trying to ignore the stab of disappointment that accompanied this announcement. She found something immeasurably comforting about his presence. “Perhaps we can continue tea another day.”
“Indeed.” He stopped beside her on his way out of the room and looked down into her eyes. “I am not trespassing on your hospitality with my regularity, Miss Thorne?”
“Not yet,” she said, hiding a smile.
“Very well, then,” he said, bowing lightly before taking his leave.
***
Later that night, Rosalind awoke to the sound of pounding on her door.
She leapt out of bed, pulling a shawl around her nightgown as she stumbled through the darkness towards the door. When she opened it, she was startled to see Harry’s valet at the door, holding a lit candle and peering with concern into her room.
“You must come at once, Miss,” he said. “Master Henry is gravely ill.”