Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [402]
Mary obeyed, inhaling ’til the laces of her bodice strained across the budding chest. Her fingers wound themselves in the silk brocade of her skirt, seeking support.
“It w-was a mouse, Papa. Mrs. Fr…er, this lady was frightened by a mouse.”
Dismissing this attempt as barely satisfactory, the baronet stepped forward, examining me with interest.
“Oh? And who might you be, Madam?”
Captain Mainwaring, arriving belatedly after the search for the mythical mouse, popped up at my elbow and introduced me, handing over the note of introduction from Colonel MacLeish.
“Hum. So, it seems His Grace is to be your host, Madam, at least temporarily.” He handed the note to the waiting butler, and took the hat the latter had taken from the nearby rack.
“I regret that our acquaintance should be so short, Mrs. Beauchamp. I was just leaving myself.” He glanced over his shoulder, to a short stairway that branched off the hall. The butler, dignity restored, was already mounting it, grubby note reposing on a salver held before him. “I see Walmisley has gone to tell His Grace of your arrival. I must go, or I shall miss the post-coach. Adieu, Mrs. Beauchamp.”
He turned to Mary, hanging back against the paneled wainscoting. “Goodbye, daughter. Do try to…well.” The corners of his mouth turned up in what was meant to be a fatherly smile. “Goodbye, Mary.”
“Goodbye, Papa,” she murmured, eyes on the ground. I glanced from one to the other. What on earth was Mary Hawkins, of all people, doing here? Plainly she was staying at the house; I supposed the owner must be some connection of her family’s.
“Mrs. Beauchamp?” A small, tubby footman was bowing at my elbow. “His Grace will see you now, Madam.”
Mary’s hands clutched at my sleeve as I turned to follow the footman. “B-b-b-but…” she began. In my keyed-up state, I didn’t think I could manage sufficient patience to hear her out. I smiled vaguely and patted her hand.
“Yes, yes,” I said. “Don’t worry, it will be all right.”
“B-but it’s my…”
The footman bowed and pushed open a door at the end of the corridor. Light within fell on the richness of brocade and polished wood. The chair I could see to one side had a family crest embroidered on its back; a clearer version of the worn stone shield I had seen outside.
A leopard couchant, holding in its paw a bunch of lilies—or were they crocuses? Alarm bells rang in my mind as the chair’s occupant rose, his shadow falling across the polished doorsill as he turned. Mary’s final anguished word made it out, neck and neck with the footman’s announcement.
“My g-g-godfather!” she said.
“His Grace, the Duke of Sandringham,” said the footman.
“Mrs.…Beauchamp?” said the Duke, his mouth dropping open in astonishment.
“Well,” I said weakly. “Something like that.”
* * *
The door of the drawing room closed behind me, leaving me alone with His Grace. My last sight of Mary had been of her standing out in the hall, eyes like saucers, mouth opening and shutting silently like a goldfish.
There were huge Chinese jars flanking the windows, and inlaid tables under them. A bronze Venus posed coquettishly on the mantelpiece, companioned by a pair of gold-rimmed porcelain bowls and silver-gilt candelabra, blazing with beeswax candles. A close-napped carpet that I recognized as a very good Kermanshah covered most of the floor and a spinet crouched in one corner; what little space was left bare was occupied by marquetried furniture and the odd bit of statuary.
“Nice place you have here,” I remarked graciously to the Duke, who had been standing before the fire, hands folded beneath his coattail as he watched me, an expression of wary amusement on the broad, florid face.
“Thank you,” he said, in the piping tenor that came so oddly from that barrel-chested frame. “Your presence adorns it, my dear.” Amusement won out over wariness, and he smiled, a bluff, disarming grin.
“Why Beauchamp?” he asked. “That isn’t by chance your real name, is it?”
“My maiden name,” I answered, rattled into the truth. His thick blond eyebrows shot up.
“Are you