Nicola Cornick, page 18
I can find no one of the name of either Phileas or Phineas Osborne in the Truro region between the dates you have given, nor can I find any record of Mr. Osborne’s parentage or marriage. My first guess would be that either the information we have relating to Mr. Osborne is inaccurate and I am searching for him in the wrong place, or alternatively, that he did not exist at all. There is no record of a Mrs. Marina Osborne in either Cornwall or elsewhere before 1800, when she purchased the property in Peacock Oak, Yorkshire. She seems to have appeared from nowhere. In cases similar to this that I have investigated, the subject has usually adopted a false name and persona under which they are now living and it is impossible to trace their history prior to that point unless you know their previous identity. The reason for the adoption of a new identity is usually either a criminal one or, in some cases, occurs where a woman has had a child out of wedlock, or wishes to conceal her identity as a man’s former mistress….
Nick had sat back in the chair, the letter clasped loosely in his hand. He was not shocked. He was not even very surprised. He had realized that he had already known what Anstruther had told him, or at the least suspected it, but now he wished that it were not true. Marina Osborne was a liar, a charlatan and very probably a criminal.
He had turned back to the letter to blot out his feelings. There was little more of import, apart from a brief paragraph at the end.
Lord Hawkesbury asks me to tell you that he has released into your possession all the papers belonging to your late cousin Rashleigh. He has read through them all for the purposes of the current investigation but can find no information that is germane to our inquiries and so has arranged for them to be sent to the house in Eaton Square.
Nick had winced to think of his great-uncle’s displeasure when his London house became cluttered with Robert Rashleigh’s collection of French pornography. He supposed that at some point he should sort through his inheritance from Rashleigh and set matters in order. The prospect was not an enticing one but it had to be done.
Now, several hours later, Nick was lying awake and thinking of Mari Osborne. Tomorrow, he resolved, he would confront her with her false identity. He would tell her that he had proof she was an impostor. He would break her and make her tell him the truth about Rashleigh’s murder and the Glory Girls.
On impulse he went across to the desk and took from the drawer the little portrait of Anna in the silver locket that he carried with him everywhere. The shape of it was so familiar in his hand and the silver engraving worn by his touch. He snapped it open and looked down on her face, as he had done so many times before. Usually it comforted him. Tonight it did not. Never had Anna felt so distant from him, so lost.
He reminded himself that this was what he had wanted from the first. He had resolved to get close to Mari, to seduce her into trusting him or at the very least telling him what he wished to know. Tonight he had almost succeeded in that aim. Tomorrow would be the culmination of his plans. He had been every bit as calculated and ruthless as he had intended, and if a part of him was ashamed at that behavior he had only to remind himself that he was doing this in the interests of justice. Now at last, with the truth revealed between them, his troubling desire for Mari Osborne might be laid to rest when she was revealed as a criminal and very possibly a murderer.
He should feel glad, because this was exactly what he had wanted.
Even so, it was a long time before he slept.
LAURA WAS NOT SURE what had woken her that night. For a moment she lay still, her mind drowsy and confused by sleep. Then the sound came again, a soft scraping noise from her dressing room next door and, surely, a muffled curse. Laura slid from the bed and tiptoed across to the door, opening it a crack and peering out.
The moonlight filtered through a gap in the curtains but warmer and stronger was the light from the candle on the side table. It illuminated the walls with their ancestral portraits and it also illuminated her husband, who appeared to be rifling through the contents of the chest that contained her petticoats and drawers. For a moment Laura thought she had discovered the cause of Charles’s indifference to her—his hands were full of feminine underwear, after all—but then she realized that the focus of his search was not her clothing but her jewel box, which was at the bottom of the chest. Not realizing that she was there, he had pounced on the box with an exclamation of satisfaction and was now busy rummaging through the contents. The candlelight glinted on the fine diamond necklace that had been one of her father’s wedding presents to her.
Laura found her voice. “What on earth are you doing, Charles?”
Charles jumped as though he had been bitten and in that moment Laura realized it was the first time in their marriage that she had ever questioned him about anything. He looked confused, taken aback and then rather alarmed at her tone.
“Hello, old girl. I was simply looking…” His voice trailed away as he looked down at the jewelry in his hands.
Charles, Laura thought, with some pity, was not a man who could think of good excuses quickly.
“Perhaps,” she suggested, “you wanted to check if I kept my jewelry safely locked away?”
“Yes!” Charles grasped at this excuse desperately. “Should be in the bank, of course. That would be much better.”
“Of course,” Laura said politely. “But then you could not take the pieces that you needed, Charles. I had wondered where my silver locket had gone, and my pearl earrings. I would have accused my maid, but I know her to be entirely trustworthy.”
Charles drooped. “Oh, Lord. I thought you wouldn’t notice, old girl. Thought you wouldn’t mind.”
“You thought I would not mind that you were pilfering my grandmother’s heirlooms?” Laura said, raising her brows. The anger was licking along her veins now and it felt surprisingly good. “Why on earth would you think that, Charles? Because I never made a fuss before?”
Charles shifted from one foot to another. He looked utterly discomfited, and Laura felt a sudden rush of sympathy for him. He had married an aristocrat he had thought was his equal in cold blue blood and after ten years she was turning into an unpredictable woman whose feelings and emotions were dangerously close to the surface. He was watching her out of the corner of his eye, as he would a horse of uncertain temperament.
“Steady on, Laura,” he said, replacing the necklace in the box and closing the chest rather gingerly. “No harm done.”
“How much do you owe, Charles?” Laura asked. Certain matters were clicking into place in her mind now; her husband’s frequent absences in Town, his refusal to allow her to join him, the faded patch on the wall where a rather fine portrait by Hogarth had hung…He could scarce gamble away his inheritance in Skipton without someone noticing, but in London there were so many more opportunities.
“How much,” she repeated, and he looked away shiftily.
“Forty,” he muttered.
“Forty thousand?” Mentally Laura doubled it. That meant that he had gambled away his inheritance and her dowry into the bargain. The flicker of anger within her grew, expanded, started to blaze. Not that he needed anything to leave to his heirs since he had not begotten any, but how long would it be before word got around about his financial troubles? Perhaps, Laura thought, word was already out in London and that was another reason why he did not want her there.
“You had better take my grandmother’s rubies,” she said. “Those are worth about forty thousand. They should stave your creditors off for a little while.”
Charles blinked at her. “Take the rubies? I can’t do that, old girl!”
Laura knew that he would have taken them anyway in the end, even if he deluded himself that he would not. The pictures would have gone from the walls, the jewels from her case; even the furniture might have started to disappear. And, she thought, the extraordinary thing was that neither of them would have said anything. For ten years she had been unhappy in her marriage and had said not a word, and she would have carried on forever in silence because that was what she had been taught Duchesses did. Her husband would have denied her the pleasure of going up to Town, the pleasures of company and she would not have challenged him because she had promised to obey him when she took her wedding vows. He could have ransacked their home, taken everything of value, and she would not have broached the subject because she never complained, never asked for difficult explanations. In the privacy of her chamber she might have stared into her mirror and felt despair, but she would never have told Charles how she felt and he would never have thought to talk to her about it.
She thought of the time that she had caught Hester sneaking out to lead the Glory Girls and how Hester had looked terrified because she had thought Laura would inevitably be so outraged and appalled that she would give the game away. Hester had never realized how much Laura envied her for her unconventionality and her outspokenness. Laura had always felt like the caged canary to Hester’s free-flying hawk.
But not any longer.
Laura looked at her husband, with his weak chin and his trapped, darting gaze, and something shifted deep within her. Something finally broke that could never be repaired.
“When we next go up to London, I will come with you to the solicitor’s offices and we shall discuss the full extent of your debt and work out a plan to retrench,” Laura said. She saw his face twitch at her use of the word we, but carried on regardless. “It will be delightful to be up in Town again. I cannot think why I have not made the journey before.” She swished across the room toward him and he actually retreated a few steps. “Perhaps Papa might advance us a loan to help clear some of the more urgent bills,” she said thoughtfully. “I will ask him.”
“D-don’t!” Charles stuttered. “Don’t tell your papa about this!”
Laura ignored him. “After all, Papa would be most concerned to hear that you were obliged to hawk my jewelry about the place in order to pay your gambling debts.”
“Laura.” There was a note of desperation in Charles’s voice now. “I pray you not to involve Lord Burlington. There is no need!”
“Well, perhaps not.” Laura smiled. “I shall think about it. Now, I suggest that you go back to bed, Charles. All this worry cannot be good for you and we have a house full of guests to entertain on the morrow.”
“Yes,” Charles said, with relief. “Yes, of course. Good night, old girl.”
Laura watched him scurry away to the door and listened to the sound of his footfalls fading along the corridor.
Remembering the hopeless passion she had felt for him so recently, she could scarce believe it. Now, she thought, she almost hated him. Her loathing and her anger were so hot inside her that she thought for a moment that she might burst; she might explode like a firework. There was only one way to get rid of such restless fury. Taking her candle, Laura made for her closet and reached for her riding clothes.
A LITTLE LATER, as the first streaks of dawn were beginning to lighten the eastern sky above the fells, the landlady of Half Moon House was roused from her bed by a persistent knocking at the inn door. Grumbling, she made her way down the stairs and drew the bolts, holding her candle high in one hand and her pistol in the other as she confronted the cloaked and masked stranger on the doorstep.
“Mercy,” she said after a moment, lowering the pistol. “It’s you, madam! I thought the Glories did not ride out again this night?”
Laura laughed. “I am going out alone, Josie, to do what we originally promised and burn Sampson’s ricks to the ground. I have come for a horse.” She looked thoughtfully at the candle flame. “And a flaming torch, as well, I think. Yes, that will be a nice touch. The tale of Glory’s torchlight dawn gallop through the villages will soon be the talk of every inn and club in the country.”
“Take care, madam,” Josie said. Her face was troubled. “Sometimes I think that the devil is in you even more than in Lady Hester.”
Laura laughed. “Very probably, Josie.” She adjusted her gloves. “Could you lend me the white gelding tonight, please? He will look the best in the torchlight. I intend to make sure that everyone remembers Glory’s last ride.”
“MERCY ON US, MA’AM,” Jane said the next morning as she brought Mari’s cup of tea, “Glory was out alone last night and burned Mr. Sampson’s ricks and set fire to his fences! There is such a to-do in the village this morning, ma’am! They had to bring buckets of water from the river, and by the time they had put the fire out there was none of his hay left!”
“Glory?” Mari said. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “I thought—” She stopped.
Jane bustled around the bed to draw back the drapes. “Frank said that Glory rode through Starbotton like an avenging angel with a torch in her hand.” There was a misty look in her eyes. “He said the horse was pure white and there were sparks flying from its hooves and a circle of fire about Glory’s head. Fair puts the fear of God in you, doesn’t it, ma’am?”
“It does indeed,” Mari said. “Please could you lay the green cambric gown out for me this morning, Jane? I shall be attending to my hothouse and so do not require anything smart to wear.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the maid said, recognizing this change of topic for what it was. “No tea for Lady Hester this morning, ma’am,” she added, her mouth pursing with disapproval. “She is not here again!”
“I expect she has gone out for an early morning ride with Lord Teague,” Mari said easily.
“Aye, ma’am.” Jane’s tone suggested that if Mari believed that, she would believe anything. “Is that all, ma’am?”
“Thank you, Jane,” Mari said.
When the maid had gone out, she took her teacup, slipped from the bed and walked over to the window, in much the same way as she had on the morning Nick Falconer had first come to Peacock Oak. Across the valley she could see wisps of smoke rising in the still air. Shaking her head slightly she curled up on the window seat with her cup.
“This has to stop,” she said, under her breath. A rueful smile twisted her lips. “Even so, I would have liked to have seen it. Circle of fire, indeed! And I’ll wager she took that showy white gelding on purpose.”
IN THE BREAKFAST PARLOR of Cole Court, the Duke was buttering his eggs with bad-tempered vigor. Neither Lord Henry, nor Lady Faye, nor their daughter had yet risen to face the demands of the day and so Charles and Laura were obliged to eat alone together, a fact which Laura observed seemed to make her spouse uncomfortable after the events of the previous night.
“Blackett tells me that the Glory woman has been out again,” Charles said, “burning Sampson’s barns.” He rustled his newspaper irritably. “It’s a damned disgrace! I’m a justice of the peace and I’ll see her hang! Do you hear me, Laura? This just won’t do!”
For a moment Laura wondered how much he knew, but when she met his eyes, he looked away and made a business of picking up the paper again. At any rate, she thought, he will never tell me what to do again. Not after last night.
She reached for the honeypot and spread the golden substance lavishly over her toast. She smiled sunnily at her husband. “Just so, my love,” she murmured. “I am sure you will.”
CHAPTER TEN
Fig—I keep my secrets
“I AM SO HAPPY!” Hester burst into the hall just as Mari was coming down the stairs for breakfast. “I have been with John all night—don’t scold, Mari, we are to be wed—and I am so happy I could burst!” She grabbed Mari by the hand and dragged her into the parlor where the maid was setting out the fresh bread and butter and honey. “Will you be my matron of honor, Mari? The banns are to be read next Sunday for the first time of asking. Charles is being very stuffy because he heard I was with John and he insists we wed as quickly as possible.” She gave Mari an impulsive hug. “Who would have thought it?”
“I would, for one,” Mari said, smiling. “The only wonder is what took you so long.”
“Yes.” Hester blushed. “I was very foolish and I have treated John very badly. I see that now. But I was lonely and sad—” Her face fell and she squeezed Mari’s hand all the tighter. “I am sorry, Mari,” she said quietly.
A lump rose in Mari’s throat. “Do not be,” she said. “I am glad for you, even if I am to be an old widow woman living on my own!” She felt the loneliness grip her heart. She understood what Hester was trying to say. Her friend knew that her newfound happiness would only increase Mari’s isolation.
“We will still be friends,” Hester said, looking anxious, “and Starbotton is no great distance.”
“Of course not,” Mari said. “And perhaps this is the opportunity for me to appoint some staid matron as my companion to make up for my own scandalous character!”
“Well, I wouldn’t do that,” Hester said, sliding into her seat and reaching for the coffeepot. “That would not suit you at all.” She stopped and put the pot down with a thud. “Oh, Mari, I do so want you to be happy. I want you to be as happy as I am!”
Mari looked at her; Hester, her friend, flushed with love, her eyes dreamy, and in that moment she felt so pleased for her and so wrenched with sadness.
“I cannot wait to live at Starbotton again,” Hester was saying. “Really I do not know why I did not accept John sooner so that I could go home!”
“Perhaps,” Mari said calmly, “because you did not realize quite how good in bed John would turn out to be. A pity, because if you had realized sooner, we would have been spared all your roistering at Half Moon House.”
“Mari!” Hester turned a gratifying scarlet.
Mari shrugged. “Is it not so?”
“I suppose so,” Hester said. She bit her lip. “I have behaved very badly—”
“Never mind. You can turn into a pattern card of respectability now,” Mari said. “You will be Lady Hester Teague of Starbotton Hall, and Laura will be untouchable as the Duchess of Cole and Glory can slide into legend where she belongs.”
