Chapter Twelve
Portman Square
Marylebone, London
Mary sat in the schoolroom with her children while they fashioned ghosts and pumpkins out of colored paper. These would be used to decorate the schoolroom and perhaps go in their individual bedrooms for the autumnal season.
“You do very well with scissors, Cassandra. It’s impressive.”
“Thank you, Mama.”
Across the round table, the governess nodded and bestowed a smile on the girl. “She is an intelligent little girl.” Then she turned her attention to Charlie, who was trying to fluff orange colored tissue paper so that it would look like a pumpkin.
To not much success, for Charlie had no patience.
Mary bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing lest he thought she made jest of him. “Charlie, love, be gentle. The decoration is supposed to be light and fluffy so we can hang it.”
“But Mama, I don’t think I can be light and fluffy. My fingers don’t know how.” The boy frowned at the handicraft. “Why can’t I paint a picture of a pumpkin?”
“Because this is a craft Miss Alexander thought you both would enjoy.”
Charlie huffed. “Next time, can we go outside and do something not fancy?”
Both she and the governess chuckled.
“Once we are finished here, you both can go out into the garden,” Miss Alexander promised him.
The soft sound of a footfall at the door caused Mary to glance that way. Bright stood in the frame and gestured for her to join him.
“If you’ll excuse me? It seems that duty calls.” By the time she made her way into the corridor, her husband was already halfway to the stairs. “What has occurred? I can see it in your eyes.”
“That is one reason neither of us are successful at keeping secrets from each other.” As he spoke, he offered her a disarming grin. “Nothing is immediately wrong or concerning. However, Adelaide has arrived for her stint except she’s quite beside herself and has asked to speak with us privately.”
“Oh, I hope everything is well with her.”
“Let us find out,” he said as they plunged down the stairs to the second level where Adelaide awaited them in the private family parlor. “We can go down to my office if you would rather,” Bright mentioned to Adelaide as he softly closed the door behind him.
“I’m certain,” the young woman said with the shake of her head. “Aunt Mary, you seem worried already. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Of course I’ll worry about you no matter what,” she told her niece as she sat on the low sofa beside the girl. In a day dress of navy serge with military lines and her blonde hair in a knot at the back of her head, she portrayed an image of a no-nonsense secretary who didn’t invite conversation.
That was the direct opposite of what the young lady represented, for usually she was vivacious, fun, and flirty. Yet right now, worry in her eyes compounded Mary’s concern.
“You may begin whenever you feel comfortable,” Bright said. He dropped into a chair near their location and rested his intense gaze on her face.
“It doesn’t matter what I feel over this situation, but it is a bit disturbing.” Adelaide clasped her hands together in her lap. “This is regarding Viscount Tifton.”
“Go on,” Bright encouraged with a shake of his head.
“Well, against my better judgment, I let the viscount take me over to his father’s townhouse. He said he needed to pop in quickly on an errand, to pick something up as a gift for me. We were on our way to the opera.”
Mary frowned, for that was highly scandalous and she could have risked her reputation on a cad like Tifton. “What happened?”
“I waited at the foot of the stairs in the entry hall while he went up to the drawing room. Apparently, he didn’t know that his father was in residence, for he was hailed in the second-floor corridor.”
Bright nodded. “You overheard a conversation.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, and it soon blew up into an argument.” Adelaide moistened her lips then frowned at Bright. “It was shocking in the subject matter, but they didn’t lower their voices, and I couldn’t help but overhear. The butler was waiting with me, so he heard it too.”
Mary laid a hand on top of Adelaide’s. “Is the information vital to our case?”
“I believe so.” For the space of a few heartbeats, the younger woman stared at her lap as if thinking about what she should say. Then, “The duke was wildly unhappy with Tifton. So much so that he began to rail at him with a barrage of hate.”
She squeezed her niece’s fingers. “About what?”
Some of the color drained from Adelaide’s face. “A groom that works for the duke. Boddingford accused Tifton of having a relationship with the man. He said…” She cleared her throat. “The duke asked his son if he was having… relations with the groom.”
Oh, dear heavens. Mary gasped. “What did Tifton say?”
“He didn’t deny it. That’s when the duke apparently lost his mind. He yelled at his son in earnest saying that he couldn’t believe that one of his sons was buggering a man and having the same done to him in return.”
“Good God, he said that aloud?” Shock echoed through Bright’s voice.
“Yes.” Adelaide nodded. “When the viscount didn’t answer, the duke kept on.
He said that such things were not what the men in his family did.
” The delicate tendons of her throat worked with a hard swallow as she glanced at Mary.
“Tifton responded at that point, accused his father of doing all sort of unsavory things to everyone else. He asked how what he had been doing was any different, for weren’t secrets just secrets as long as no one found out? ”
“I don’t imagine the duke was amused,” Mary murmured as she digested this latest bit.
“No, he wasn’t, and it sounded as if the men came to blows.
Of course, I couldn’t see from my vantage point, and the butler forbade me from going up there.
” She rested her gaze on Bright. “Tifton went on, told his father that they were either a family of sterling reputation or they weren’t, that his father couldn’t have it both ways.
When the duke blew up yet again, the viscount went on.
He said the cracks of the family were showing in the facade of respectability, that the duke needed to square with his crimes like the rest of them. ”
The inspector’s eyes widened. “Damn, what a coil. What did the duke say after that?”
Adelaide blew out a breath. “The duke threatened to disown the viscount, told him that he would cut off all funding for his ridiculous life and that he would need to puzzle out how to fend for himself.”
Mary glanced at her husband before looking again at Adelaide. “Did the viscount respond?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Tifton told his father that he should rethink the threat. He said that the duke hated Edgington for marrying a half-Indian woman, so if the duke also disowned his firstborn son, Tifton would then be the heir. Then he said, if he went through with that, the only other option would be Johnathon, and they both knew it wasn’t legally possible for him to assume the ducal title. ”
Bright frowned “Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. They stopped talking, and it sounded as if they’d come to blows.
After that, the duke went into the drawing room and slammed the door while the viscount stormed upstairs.
I don’t know why and he didn’t come back down.
When it appeared he’d forgotten about me, I told the butler I would use the carriage to go home. ”
“My dear girl, I’m so sorry you had to witness that,” Mary murmured as she patted one of her niece’s hands.
“Thank you, Aunt Mary.” Adelaide worried her bottom lip before releasing it.
“I can’t believe the viscount would betray me like this or keep such information from me.
Of course, if that is what he preferred, I would have understood, but I would have asked that he not come calling again. For obvious reasons.”
Silence reigned in the space after Adelaide’s revelation.
Before anyone could speak again, a soft knock sounded on the door then Henry came in.
“I was wondering where you had gone.” He frowned. “Am I interrupting?”
“No, of course not.” Bright gestured him further into the room. “Adelaide just told us something rather shocking about Viscount Tifton.”
“Ah. Was it that he prefers the company of men, but that he’s being pressured to marry a woman with large connections?”
Everyone in the room stared at him with varying expressions of surprise.
Finally, Mary spoke first. “How did you know?”
“Everyone knows, even if he thinks it’s a secret.”
Bright shook his head. “Why didn’t you warn Adelaide when you knew he was courting her?”
Henry chuckled, and in that moment, he strongly resembled his father. “It wasn’t my place, and I didn’t think the relationship was serious or would even progress.”
“She could have married him!” The outrage in Bright’s voice was more than evident, and Mary was glad, for she felt the same way.
“No, Adelaide is far too intelligent for all that.” Henry winked at her.
“Besides, Tifton would have slipped and revealed the truth anyway. Everyone knew his father wanted him to marry high in the beau monde. Adelaide is too good for him, and when he realized she wouldn’t fall into bed with him, like so many others—males and females—he would have broken it off regardless. ”
With a wobbly smile, Adelaide stood. She crossed the room and then gave Henry a hug.
“Thank you for the compliment. I appreciate it, and no, I didn’t want to marry Tifton anyway.
I was only having a bit of fun.” When she glanced at Mary, her expression was much brighter than before.
“Do you need me to answer any more questions?”
“I can’t imagine that we do,” Mary said with the shake of her head.
“Very well. I’ll go downstairs and manage the stack of paperwork I left yesterday.” But she paused. “In a way, I’m glad this happened, and I’m realizing the world is a big place filled with men who are adept at lying.”
“Not all men,” Bright added in a soft voice. “However, I suspect they are more difficult to find.”