Elizabeth Thornton - [Special Branch 02] (3 page)

That endearing smile was a lethal weapon that ought to have been outlawed in Gwyn’s opinion.

She accepted the glass of sherry Jason handed her and waited until Maddie had cleared away the tea things. When they were alone, she said, “How did you hear about this mysterious legacy?”

“This is excellent sherry,” he said.

“Thank you.” She didn’t tell him that it was a Christmas present from the father of one of her students. “The legacy, Jason,” she prompted.

“I received a letter from an attorney in Pall Mall, a Mr. Benjamin Armstrong.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“So I understand. At any rate, he didn’t know how to find you, and thought I might know. Of course, I didn’t. You didn’t even bother to inform Trish that you’d moved to London. I had a devil of a time tracking you down.”

“I would have written to Trish eventually.” She stopped, made a choking sound, set down her glass of sherry, and jumped to her feet. “So that’s it! You’re
the one who has been watching me, following me! I thought I was imagining things, and all the time, it was you!”

Jason frowned up at her. “Someone has been watching you?”

“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know! Not you personally, of course, but someone in your employ. What did you hope to gain by it? I have nothing to hide.”

“Sit down, Gwyn!” he said in an awful voice.

She swished her skirts, but after a moment, she sat.

“I am not having you watched. Do you understand?” He waited until she nodded, then he went on, “Brandon told me where to find you. You have a mutual acquaintance, Miss Judith Dudley. When she mentioned her friend, Mrs. Gwyneth Barrie of Sutton Row, Brandon knew it must be you.”

Her only response was to reach for her glass and put it to her lips.

Jason said, “Brandon gave me your direction yesterday and I came here today. I have not employed anyone to watch you or follow you.” He sat back in his chair. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

She looked up at him, then quickly looked away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It was a stupid thing to say. I know you would never do anything underhanded. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

He said softly, “No offense taken. Now tell me what’s going on.”

There was silence as she tried to think of a way of evading the question. When none occurred to her, she said reluctantly, “Maddie thinks I’m imagining things, and she may well be right.”

“What things?”

“It’s more of a feeling than anything else, you know, when you feel your neck burning and you turn around quickly to find someone staring at you. Only, no one is ever staring at me. Or I’ll be walking home
and hear footsteps, but when I turn around, there’s no one there.”

“That’s all?” He looked baffled.

Now that she had explained herself, she felt ridiculous. There had been other things: a man’s footprint in the flower beds at the back of the house, and a stranger talking to Mark, asking directions. And on one occasion, she thought someone had been through the house, looking for something, but nothing had been taken. Now, observing Jason’s skepticism, she realized how silly she would sound if she mentioned them.

She said flippantly, “You have to understand, Jason, that living alone can make a woman highly suspicious.”

“All the more reason for you to come home.” Her eyes cooled. “You were telling me about this legacy. How do I claim it?”

His eyes heated.

“Well?”

He looked ready to argue, but eventually he nodded. “Armstrong is in Bristol right now,” he said. “When he returns, I’ll arrange an appointment with him.”

“I can do that.”

“It’s not that simple. You see, Gwyn, this legacy comes with certain conditions attached. I’m one of them.”

“You? How do you come into it?”

He drank the last of his sherry and stood up. “I’ve been named as your trustee, so you see, whether we like it or not, we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other from now on.”

C
ousin Jason said that I should drive with him again, and when we go down to Haddo Hall, he’ll teach me to ride.” They were in Mark’s bedchamber, and Gwyn was at the window with a hand on each curtain. It was dark outside, with only porch lanterns and the box lamps on passing vehicles to illuminate the street. A few pedestrians were hurrying home, and one of the maids from the corner house was saying goodnight to her young man.

Nothing was out of place. Nothing gave cause for alarm. And now Gwyn was mentally kicking herself for having mentioned her strange fancies to Jason. He’d think that living alone had touched her brain. And for all she knew, he could be right.

She closed the curtains and looked toward the bed. Mark was propped against the pillows, slowly sipping from a mug of steaming chocolate. The chocolate was a luxury they saved for bedtime. Maddie had already left to go to Mrs. Jamieson’s.

“Did Jason say that? How very like him.”

“Yes, he is kind, isn’t he, Mama?”

The innocent reply gave her an odd pang. She
crossed to the bed. “Yes, Jason can be very kind,” she said simply.

She meant it. What she didn’t add was that kindness, however well meant, could have a cruel edge. To have her son taken up by the Radleys of Haddo Hall would be a kindness to no one.

She touched her fingers to his fair hair and brushed back the lock that fell across his forehead. “It’s time I cut your hair,” she said.

“I don’t want it cut. Cousin Jason doesn’t have short hair.”

“Then I’ll offer to cut his hair, too.”

His dimples flashed and he gurgled with laughter. The sound of that laughter, the pure delight in it, filled her with pleasure. There had been little enough laughter in their lives. Her solemn little boy was beginning to come into his own, and she thanked God for it.

She cleared her throat. “What would you say,” she said, “if I told you we might go to the seaside for a little holiday? Oh, not right now, but in the summer, when it’s warmer.”

The holiday at the seaside was on the strength of the legacy from the anonymous benefactor. She could still feel traces of the ice-cold terror that had gripped her when Jason mentioned the legacy. Her first thought was that he was behind it. But he seemed so casual about the whole thing, and as she’d shown him out, he’d questioned her more—none too tactfully—about acquaintances who may have fallen under her spell. His eyes were narrowed, too, so she was sure there was a trace of temper there, or maybe she was imagining it.

The thing was, she knew any number of people who were well-off. Many of the ladies who came to the library were independently wealthy. She’d
wracked her brain trying to figure out who her benefactress might be, and she’d narrowed it down to Lady Octavia and her friend, Judith Dudley. But they both knew where she lived, and Jason said he had to track her down. They would have told the attorney her address, wouldn’t they? Unless they wanted to throw her off the scent. And why Jason as trustee?

She shook her head. She couldn’t see Lady Octavia singling her out in this way. There were too many other women who came to the library who were much worse off than she. And she couldn’t see Judith as her benefactress either, though everyone knew she was one of the richest women in England. Two illustrious lords had claimed they were her father, though Judith’s mother, the daughter of an earl, was married to neither. And when they’d died, they’d left Judith all their money.

But Judith didn’t care about money. She didn’t care about fine clothes or fine furniture or fine carriages. Like many people who had the money to buy whatever they wanted, she didn’t want to buy anything at all. In fact, she was a bit of a dowd and so was her mother. It wouldn’t occur to her that anyone had money problems.

Oh to be so rich, thought Gwyn, and sighed.

She’d just have to contain her impatience until she met with the attorney. Then she’d also learn how Jason came into the picture. A trustee, to her knowledge, was there to prevent his ward from frittering away her capital on extravagant living. In her case, Jason would have nothing to worry about. She would continue to earn her own way, and the legacy would be kept intact until Mark came of age.

She looked down at Mark. “What did you say?”

“I said, can we go to Haddo Hall, too?”

“We can only have one holiday.”

“It’s near Brighton, isn’t it, and that’s the seaside?”

“Brighton will be crowded with visitors. It’s too fashionable, and too expensive.”

“Don’t you want to go home, Mama?”

“Haddo Hall was never really my home.” That sounded ungracious, so she modified her words. “I mean, it was more like a second home to me. My mother used to take me there every summer to visit my cousins, and when my mother … when I became an orphan, I went to live there for good.”

It was a magical place when she first knew it, then, for a little while, not so magical when her mother was no longer there. Jason’s parents must have had hearts as deep as the ocean. She’d never felt that she was a burden to them. In fact, she never thought about it at all. Her father, a sailor, had died at sea when she was two years old. She was a Radley. They had to take her in.

After the influenza epidemic had carried off Jason’s parents, Grandmother Radley took over the running of the house. Her ideas on how young girls should behave were vastly different from Mrs. Radley’s. She was rigid and authoritarian, and all the joy went out of Haddo Hall.

There was one thing she had to give Grandmother Radley credit for—her love of music. And oh how she had resisted those hours of practicing at the piano.
You’ll thank me one day
, Grandmother Radley said.

Never in a million years
, she’d thought. Well, it turned out that she was wrong.

“Cousin Jason says he taught you to ride.”

“Well, he did, I suppose.”

“Was he your favorite cousin?”

“Hardly. Trish, that’s Jason’s sister, was only a year older than I. We were practically inseparable. Anyway, Jason and George were away at school most of the time. I saw them only in the holidays.”

“Who is George?”

She kept her voice neutral. “He was Jason’s older brother. He died in a boating accident. Jason became master of Haddo after that.”

Mark took another swallow of chocolate and licked his lips. “Who is Princess Charming?” he asked.

“Who?”

“Princess Charming?”

The question gave her quite a jolt. Princess Charming was what Jason used to call her, meaning the opposite, of course.

“Where did that come from?”

“I asked Cousin Jason why he wasn’t married and—”

“Mark, you didn’t! That’s a personal question. You know the rules.”

“Well, he was asking
me
a lot of questions.”

“Oh he was, was he?” Her tone of voice brought a frown to Mark’s face. Recovering herself quickly, she went on with a smile, “That was to be expected, I suppose. I mean, we are cousins, and we haven’t seen each other in a very long time.”

She smoothed the covers on Mark’s bed. She folded his clothes. She tidied the towels at the washstand. Finally, losing patience, she said, “Well, what did Jason say when you asked why he wasn’t married?”

“Oh. He said he was waiting for Princess Charming to come along.”

Gwyn gave a short laugh. “Then he’ll wait till doomsday.”

“But who is she, Mama?”

“She’s the perfect woman, and as any sane woman knows, she doesn’t exist.” When Mark looked puzzled, she elaborated, “That was Cousin Jason’s way of saying that he hasn’t met the woman yet whom he wants to marry.”

“Oh.”

Mark drained his mug, handed it to her, and snuggled under the covers. “If we only have one holiday,” he said emphatically, “I want to go to Haddo Hall.”

She didn’t make an issue of it. Hugging him close, she kissed him on the cheek. She remembered her own mother doing much the same with her, and the old familiar shadow crossed her heart. If anything happened to her, what would become of Mark? She didn’t doubt for a moment that the Radleys of Haddo would take him in, but she didn’t want her son to become anyone’s poor relation.

She felt a pang of guilt, especially about Trish. They’d been close once, and she was largely to blame for keeping her at arm’s length. When she and Nigel had returned to England, Trish had asked if she could come for a visit, but she’d put her off. She hadn’t wanted anyone to see what her life had become. And if she had left Nigel to visit anyone, he wouldn’t have allowed her to take Mark with her, and nothing would have induced her to leave her son behind.

And she and Trish had drifted apart.

She looked at Mark. They’d never been happier, and now the legacy would make things a little easier.

“I’ll be going out tonight,” she said, “but Mrs. Perkins will be here to look after you in case you waken.” Gwyn was referring to her nearest neighbor, an elderly widow who had raised seven children in her time, and was always more than happy to take care of Mark on the odd evening Gwyn had to be out of the house.

“I remember,” said Mark. “You’re playing at someone’s party. Will you make a lot of money, Mama?”

“Enough to buy you an ice at Gunther’s on Saturday.”

“Mmm.” His eyes closed. “That’s almost as good as driving in Cousin Jason’s curricle.”

Jason again. With a small sound of exasperation, she blew out the candles, then went downstairs. After tidying the kitchen and adding coal to the fire, she filled a jug with warm water and went to her own room to get ready for the party. She managed to stop thinking about Jason until she was dressed and sitting at her dressing table arranging her hair.

It wasn’t long before her teeth were on edge. She knew exactly how she wanted her hair to sit, but short of nailing it to her head, there was absolutely nothing she could do with it. She nailed it to her head with pin after pin, inwardly vowing that one of these days, she was going to tame her crowning glory by shaving it off.

Jason had always made fun of her hair. Carrot Top, he’d called her when they were children. She hadn’t minded because sometimes, just sometimes, if Jason had no one else to play with, he’d allowed her to trail after him. He’d always been the most adventurous of her cousins. George’s head was never out of a book; Trish preferred the domestic scene; Sophie wasn’t born yet, and Jason liked to go exploring.