Chapter 20 #3
“You wouldn’t. I would—I own a house she has claimed as part of her widow’s jointure.
She has kept every penny of rent paid on that house, assuring me the funds were necessary to pay the mortgage.
You heard Mr. Ingersoll assure us that the mortgage was eliminated upon Papa Joseph’s death.
Surely this scheme of Orla’s is a crime? ”
“Likely several crimes. This explains why she did not sell the house outright,” Richard said.
“When real estate changes hands, the legalities and documents matter, and only you have the right to approve a sale of that house. A sale would have revealed Orla’s conniving to any half-competent solicitor.
Amabel, you are as shrewd as you are lovely. ”
Her insight—that Orla had not entirely outwitted the law—brought Richard a great measure of balance.
“We’re to have company,” Amabel said as voices sounded outside the garden wall. Wealtha and St. Didier came up the steps a few moments later, Wealtha in great good looks and even St. Didier appearing less forbidding than usual.
“We stopped at the sweet shop,” Wealtha said. “I had half a dozen cinnamon biscuits. Mr. St. Didier has sworn he won’t peach on me to Auntie.”
Richard stared at his putative sister with a sense of weary bewilderment. Wealtha was older than Mama had been when she’d decided to save her life at the cost of her reputation.
“We bring tidings from afar,” St. Didier said, brandishing a packet of letters. “I feel as if I ought to hike back to the village all over again because of that detour to the sweet shop. I had a biscuit or two myself.”
Richard rose and assisted Amabel to her feet. How did one make small talk when newly aware that one’s mother had feared for her life? That her fears had been repeatedly dismissed by those who should have most cared for her?
“You’ll want to read the one from Her Grace, I’m sure,” St. Didier said, holding out a half-dozen missives. “I did not mean to peek, but the duchess’s stationery is distinctive.”
Amabel sorted through the letters and passed Richard a folded and sealed sheet of cream paper. “She has a pretty hand, your duchess.”
“Richard corresponds with a duchess?” Wealtha asked.
“Several of them,” Richard muttered. “Amabel, I’m sure you’ll want to read this too. A question for you, Wealtha. Did your Papa Blackstock suffer from a sore temper?”
Wealtha’s gaiety dimmed. “Poor Papa had a terrible temper. I knew from an early age to lock the nursery door when one of Papa’s moods was upon him.
Papa himself told me to do that. He was never wroth with me, and he always had a reason for being so angry, but yes, he had a mighty temper.
He was always sorry, and I wasn’t to speak of his bad moods to anybody ever. ”
“Orla knew of his moods?”
“Oh, certainly. She advised me to ignore them. She said many men have a tendency to hysterics, but we aren’t to use that word to describe their outbursts.”
“This is about the past, isn’t it?” St. Didier asked quietly.
Richard nodded. “And the present and the future. Wealtha, you need to be put in possession of some facts. Orla will be leaving the household shortly, possibly taken into custody by the magistrate. You are free to protest on her behalf, but I dearly, dearly hope you don’t.
You are of age, I am not your guardian, and I will not forbid you from making your own decisions when it comes to your aunt’s situation. ”
“Has Orla been naughty?”
She’d been evil. “She has been greedy and mean, at least. We have reason to suspect that she cheated Amabel out of the rent paid for Joseph Fielding’s house, a house Amabel inherited.”
“Orla owns that house. Orla has told me that any number of times.”
“She told you that,” Amabel said patiently, “knowing you’d repeat it in the village and create the assumption locally that she owns that property. I own it.”
Wealtha studied the fountain, where the butterflies were now cavorting. “You needed that money, Mabe… I mean, Amabel. You are a poor relation, and you should have what your papa meant for you to have.”
Wealtha’s version of reality was a curious blend of childlike simplicity and guile. Richard consigned himself to never really understanding his sister.
“I have doubled your settlements, Wealtha, and I will add a tenant property in good repair. You will have an allowance until such time as you marry that will be yours to save or spend as you please. I suggest you do some of both, but that is a discussion for another time.”
“If I have an allowance,” Wealtha said slowly, “you cannot tell Orla. She will want to manage it for me. She can’t do that, can she?”
Richard felt as if he were dealing with a dotty aunt who was yet capable of flashes of wisdom.
“Wealtha, Orla will be leaving the Glen—for good and soon. Whether she’s bound over for the assizes or banished to the Continent, she cannot take you with her unless you want to go with her.
We have every reason to believe she blackmailed Abernathy over his temper, among other things, and we know she has behaved criminally with respect to Amabel’s inheritance. ”
“Don’t go with her,” Amabel said. “Be prepared for her to wheedle, threaten, lie, have a relapse of her mysterious ailment, and even indulge in tears or a tantrum, but please don’t yield to her manipulations.”
“Be wise,” St. Didier said. “Your father would want you to look after yourself, not tie yourself to such a one as Orla Fielding.”
Wealtha wrinkled her nose. “Orla isn’t very nice.
She is polite, and she says polite things, but she’s sly too.
She is never happy, even when she’s smiling.
She bought me a lot of bonnets just to keep in my good books, and I fussed and gushed just to keep in hers.
That’s foolishness. The Glen is my home, and I will stay here. ”
“Good choice,” St. Didier said, which was more graciousness than Richard was capable of at the moment. “My lord, Miss Amabel, will we see you at luncheon?”
He was asking if Richard had a battle plan. “I will read Her Grace’s missive before I make that decision. If you are summoned to the study, please come hotfoot.”
“Understood. Miss Wealtha, I believe there’s a letter or two for you in that stack. Perhaps you’d like some privacy with your mail?”
Amabel passed over two epistles. “A lady must not neglect her correspondence.”
“These are just tattle from my school chums. They are very tedious, but one can’t tell them that. They would whine to their mamas and their mamas would complain to Orla.” She took the letters and wrapped a hand around St. Didier’s arm. “You are sworn to secrecy, please recall.”
“I’ll say nary a word. They were very good biscuits, though.”
Amabel waited until St. Didier had escorted Wealtha into the house. “You regard the duchess’s letter like it’s a writ of attainder.”
“Lily knows everybody and what they get up to. I have a suspicion, Amabel, that as angry as I am now at Orla, you will be even angrier when we finish with Lily’s report. Just a hunch, though my hunches have been known to be prescient.”
“That sounds ominous, but then, Orla’s comeuppance is long overdue, and she has doubtless been watching us from her window for the past hour. She has to know her schemes are coming to an end.”
“Years too late.” Too late for Mama, not too late for Richard and Amabel.
They read Her Grace’s report in the study, and as Richard had predicted, the news left Amabel pacing and muttering and Richard thinking very, very carefully.