Eight
Arnaud
Not having slept well on the tutor’s too-small cot, Arnaud was in no humor for the butler’s announcement of the imperious American’s return.
Having taken the quarantined stairs to his room, he’d shaved and changed, then checked that no one had robbed his gallery overnight. On his way to find Thea, Quincy had stopped him. “Measles, Quincy. Remind him this is a house of quarantine.”
“He says it is a matter of life and death, so he will risk a childish disease,” the stout ex-pugilist replied stiffly.
“No disease that spreads and kills is childish!” Muttering a French imprecation, Arnaud stalked to the entrance.
Quincy had shut the foyer’s inner doors on the corpulent toad, but when Arnaud opened one, he discovered Humphries had established a firm beachhead in the entrance.
He’d cast his overcoat over the Chinese lion, left his walking stick in the empty umbrella stand, and propped his beaver top hat on the suit of armor—obviously prepared to stay and have servants clean up after him.
Arnaud closed the inner doors behind him, took the interloper’s arm, and steered him to face the exterior doors. “Out you go, monsieur. You are uninvited.”
“Captain Huntley? You are not American! I wish to see the captain. And I am invited, by Lady Lavinia. I refuse to be treated like a beggar!”
“The lady has uninvited you. The ladies decide who is allowed in, and they have decided against you. The captain will find you when he returns.” Arnaud opened the outer door and gave the toad a strong shove. Humphries might be tall, but his protruding belly unbalanced him.
Screaming protests, Humphries stumbled and nearly fell down the crumbling steps. Arnaud flung his hat and coat after him. He kept the cane. It might be useful someday.
Closing and locking the massive panels, he returned to the main corridor, where Thea eyed him speculatively. “Humphries is supremely wealthy,” she warned. “He could buy our entire gallery.”
The bank owned his gallery. They only paid rent.
“Then we will open another. I care not how he wastes his coin. You do not disapprove of him simply because he is fat and ugly.” He offered his arm. “Are you returning to the sickroom?”
“If you are to continue sleeping in that wing, you will need a bigger bed. I have found one without testers that might be. . .”
“I have slept on stones for a year. I need only a good matelas. To me, that is heaven.” It would truly be heaven if she would join him on that mattress, but they could not flaunt their indiscretion in front of children.
“Then come along. Minerva and the baron claim they’ve had measles and await us in the library.
No one knows the latest news better than they.
” She steered him toward the late earl’s library fit for kings.
. . walls of towering, gleaming, dark oak shelves, filled with leather-bound volumes, as far as the eye could see.
Minerva, the curate’s wife and the manor’s librarian, was up on a ladder, pulling books off shelves and handing them down to Lord Greybourne. The art scholar perused the titles with disinterest, then stacked them on the library table.
At their entrance, he glanced up. “Excellent removal of vermin, monsieur. Pity Rafe cannot be allowed the same arrogance.” The baron inclined his tawny mane in approval.
“Do we have any notion what said vermin wants?” Arnaud glanced at the books piling up on the table. Geometric design. Aristotle. Pythagoras.
One assumed the tutor had asked for them. Arnaud had already verified with Minerva that Birdwhistle was a nickname, and the tutor was truly Lord Terence Fortescue Dacre, but she refused to explain why he was hiding here under false pretenses.
“Humphries intends to buy all Gravesyde,” the baron replied in amusement. “I have a notion he thinks to acquire the manor as well.”
Arnaud almost laughed aloud. The baron’s twin assistants were most admirable gossip mongers. “He does realize this is a family estate, owned almost entirely by dozens of ladies, most of them too wealthy to need his funds?”
Minerva climbed down and threw another lot of books on the table. “I can’t imagine why the late earl might have been interested in Mesoamerican design. I don’t know how he even knew about it. Persian and Islamic, perhaps. Why on earth are the boys studying it?”
Thea began sorting through the titles.
Dismissing the books and what he assumed was a rhetorical question, Arnaud stayed on the more pertinent topic. “And is the bank interested in selling the village?”
“Humphries claims so. I’m not entirely certain the banker has been forthright with him, however. There has been no mention of the lawsuit over ownership. Or even any suggestion that he knows the bank has no title on some properties.”
Arnaud couldn’t see how this might be connected with the injured Weston, but it was peculiar indeed.
No one had expressed interest in Gravesyde in over half a century.
Most of the rocky hillsides weren’t suitable for farming or anything beyond raising sheep and goats.
“Perhaps Sutter has mentioned the Hall and his shoe shop? He meant to sell them once upon a time.”
The baron shrugged. Broad-shouldered and sturdy, he stood about a head shorter than Arnaud.
“The Leonard twins have heard nothing mentioned of a shoe factory. Andrew says the clothing of the inn’s guests is all of the finest quality, so they’re fashionable, unlikely for industrialists. More likely investors and gentry.”
“Who wish to see the captain, puzzling. Perhaps they think Hunt will settle the lawsuit if they pay him enough.” Which should have nothing to do with Weston. “But what they wish to do with derelict cottages. . .”
“They’ll evict the tenants and tear them down,” Greybourne said succinctly. “Unless they desire to build a quaint Elizabethan town, they want land. He would put people out of their homes.”
Villagers had lived in those cottages all their lives, scraping coins together to keep the roof over their heads.
The new Priory occupants were trying to help after years of neglect from an absentee landlord.
Heaving folk out of their homes. . . Arnaud knew how that felt.
He was only just learning to adjust to his new home after being homeless for years.
Humphries could not be allowed to destroy centuries of history for greed.
After choosing from the books Minerva had set out, Thea gathered an armload.
“I trust these bullies realize the manor owns the inn, and the bank does not own the bakery or Meera’s cottage or half a dozen other places that will be awkward to build around.
Gravesyde needs employers, not destruction.
May we hope one of them has a grasp of the situation? ”
“Not if they are throttling servants. Other than bigotry, Rafe has found no motive for that poor man’s murder, and none of them are talking. My theory is that the victim knew too much about someone and threatened to tell.” The baron picked up his hat and cane.
“Whose servant was he?” Arnaud asked.
“Humphries’. I cannot imagine that tub of lard capable of garroting even an old man, but he has other servants willing to obey orders. For all we know, one of them is a hired assassin.” The baron applied hat to head and strode out.
Leaving Arnaud clenching his fingers into fists.