Death at Dawn - Caro Peacock [85]
‘No, I’ve made my choice and I choose Philip, and that’s all there is to it.’
‘This Philip, do you know him well?’
I cared enough for her to hope she wasn’t throwing herself away on some worthless man just to escape.
‘Of course I do. A year ago, we were practically engaged to be married.’
‘But your stepfather disapproved?’
‘No, that’s the cruel part of it.’
‘What happened?’
She paused for breath.
‘Philip and I met at Weymouth last summer. Sir Herbert was prescribed sea bathing for pain in his joints, so of course we all had to pack up and go. Philip’s father was there for the bathing too. I think my stepfather approved, as far as he cared at all. It would get me off his hands without having to pay a settlement because Philip’s family are very comfortably situated. They have an estate in Buckinghamshire and Philip will inherit a baronetcy if his uncle dies before he has any children, and the uncle’s sixty-three and a bachelor, so …’
‘So altogether a most suitable match,’ I said.
She looked sharply at me.
‘I wonder why you have such a low opinion of me. The fact is, I love Philip, he adores me and I’d marry him even if he were a pauper.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Only I’m glad he isn’t, of course.’
I believed her, both about that and loving him, which was a relief in its way.
‘When did your stepfather change his mind?’
‘Only in the last month or so.’
‘When Mr Brighton came on the scene?’
She nodded.
‘It would be treason, wouldn’t it?’
She asked the question very softly, looking down at the sketchpad. The paper was damp from her tears.
‘I think so, yes.’
‘And my stepfather’s trying to drag me into it, for his own ambition. So I’ve no choice, you see, no choice at all.’
‘Yes, I see.’
She dried her eyes with her handkerchief and took a deep breath.
‘So now there are just two days and seven hours to live through and I’ll be away with Philip and it will be all over. Only there’s that terrible dinner to get through first. I know they’ll make me sit next to him. I’m glad you’ll be there, at least. I shall be able to look down the table at you and know somebody understands what I’m suffering.’
‘I? At the dinner?’
‘Didn’t Mrs Quivering tell you? You’re to fill a gap in the table. Lady Arlen is enceinte again so has cried off the dinner, and that put out the whole table plan because they were a woman short. So my grandmother said you were perfectly ladylike and they could move somebody else up and put you down at the far end. Why are you looking so scared?’
‘He’ll recognise me. He can’t fail to if we’re sitting at the same dinner table.’
My panic was about Lord Kilkeel, but she naturally thought it applied to Mr Brighton.
‘How can he? There are forty people, remember, and you’ll be at the very far end of the table, and by candlelight. The people at the other end won’t even see you.’
I hoped she was right. Mrs Beedle had been clever, seizing the chance to provide her spy with a seat at the dinner. I might have tried again to persuade Celia to confide in her, but two of the house guests, a gentleman and a lady with a little dog, were approaching from the far side of the terrace.
‘Botheration,’ Celia said. ‘I suppose they’re coming to talk to me.’
She crumpled her damp apology for a sketch and rose from the bench to face them while I slipped away, down the side steps of the terrace and into the back entrance.
Mrs Quivering’s assistant was in the housekeeper’s room, drinking sage tea for her sore throat.
‘There’s a letter come for you, Miss Lock.’
She handed over a coarse grey envelope.
‘When did it arrive?’
‘I don’t know. Somebody delivered it to the stables and a boy brought it over.’
The writing was Amos Legge’s. I went into the corridor and opened the envelope.
Miss Lane,
Ther is a thing I heard about the two gentlemen in the travling coach. I will come when I can and ask for you at the back door.
Yours ruspectfully,
A. Legge
If I could, I’d have gone straight to the livery stables to find him, but I