Madam Mystery: A Tangled Hearts Romance

  MADAM MYSTERY

  A TANGLED HEARTS

  Romance

  Rebecca Ward

  Copyright 1992 by Maureen Wartski.

  For Ellen K. Gould

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter One

  Sussex looked best in harvest gold. Lord Sinclair was conscious of the landscape’s cheerful warmth, so at variance with his own mood, as he drove his curricle through his uncle’s estate and up to Pardom Hall.

  “My uncle in, Murton?” he inquired of the distinguished butler who answered the door.

  “You will find the earl in the study, m’lord—” But Murton’s words were interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream. With an oath, Sinclair strode through the ground-floor anteroom, took the stairs two at a time, and ran across the second-floor landing to fling open the study door.

  “What the devil!” he exclaimed.

  Molyneux Beekley, fifth Earl of Pardom, was lying on the floor. A dagger with a ruby hilt protruded from his chest.

  The earl’s valet had one leg thrown over the sill of the study window. No doubt the blackguard was attempting to escape. Sinclair flung himself across the room and, catching the man by the lapels of his jacket, hauled him back into the room.

  “Now, you scoundrel,” he gritted.

  “Curst young idiot!” The earl had sat up and was glaring balefully at his nephew. “Who asked you to interfere? Ruined everything.”

  He removed the dagger from his shirtfront and flung it petulantly aside. “Yibberly and I were enacting the murder scene from Lord Tedell’s Revenge.”

  For a moment Lord Sinclair stared. Then he gave a crack of laughter and released the valet, who bowed deeply and with such offended dignity that his lordship laughed even harder.

  “Oh, go away, Yibberly,” Pardom said grumpily. “And you help me up,” he added to his nephew. “Curse you, anyway. You know how Yibberly is. He’ll be glumping and sulking for the next week, thanks to you.”

  Sinclair complied, settled into a cane-backed chair, stretched out his long legs, and demanded, “So you’ve taken to enacting rubbishy novels, have you, Uncle?”

  The earl’s large, stout form quivered as if he had received a mortal blow. His square face turned a shade more florid, his red-rimmed eyes narrowed. “I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head,” he growled. “Desmond Winter don’t write rubbish. His books are regular goers. Got action in ’em, and suspense.”

  “And murder and mayhem and a brilliant fellow who catches the evildoers in the end,” Sinclair remarked dryly. “Yes, I know. You’ve told me all about them.”

  “Lord Tedell is curst clever. You should read one of Winter’s novels, Nicholas, before you start scoffing. What’re you here for, anyway?”

  Sinclair regarded his relative impatiently. “You sent for me. You said you wanted to talk to me.”

  “So I did.” The earl rocked back on his heels. “Want your opinion on something. Got to think for a moment first.”

  Sinclair leaned back into his chair and looked idly about the study. It was a thoroughly masculine room, unfashionably furnished with the earl’s faded hunt scenes, ancient but comfortable furniture, and dog-eared books. On the cluttered table beside Sinclair’s chair lay a book by Desmond Winter, jars of snuff, and the latest edition of the Gentleman’s Magazine. Beside the magazine stood a bowl of autumn flowers.

  “Liza’s new governess brought ’em in,” complained the earl. “Makes me sneeze. Told her to pitch ’em out and the wretched woman started wailing and sobbing till you’d have thought I’d murdered her. That’s females for you, Nicholas.”

  He reached for the nearest jar of snuff, shook back a pinch, sneezed violently, and resumed, “My late countess was a good woman. A curst good woman, in fact. But she disappointed me, Nicholas. Pardom needed a son—and she had to present me with Liza. Shows a serious lack of family feeling.”

  Sinclair suggested that perhaps the lady could not help it.

  “Well, she should have done,” continued his aggrieved relative. “Deuced queer stirrups I find myself in now, I can tell you. Here I am, one of the warmest men in the county without a proper heir. Oh, I know that the title goes to you, but I’d like to leave my blunt to someone besides a chuckle-headed, provoking creature like my daughter.”

  Even more impatiently, Sinclair asked, “Did you bring me all the way from Hampshire just to tell me that?”

  “No, that ain’t it. I’ve written to Desmond Winter.”

  “To this fool of a writer, you mean?”

  The earl’s eyes narrowed still further. He was fond of his late brother’s only son, who, he was wont to tell himself when he was on the mop and in a sentimental mood, was like the son he had never had. Pardom had seen Nicholas grow from a puling creature in leading strings to a handsome fellow of six feet and more, as strong an athlete as ever donned gloves at Gentleman Jim’s, and a brave officer who had—mercifully—survived years of war which had taken the lives of many of his friends.

  Yes, he was fond of this nephew of his, but these days he did not understand what went on in Nicholas’s brain box. He had always been full of frisk, a bruising rider to hounds and the sort of man to whom all others turned because he exuded warmth and humor and understanding. Men found him the best of friends; the ladies fluttered when he bent over their hands; noted hostesses had prized him as a vastly eligible gentleman who could be relied upon to be as attentive to the dowdiest squab as to the most peerless heiress.

  Pardom sighed. All this was in the past. Since his return from Waterloo, Nicholas had changed.

  He had not, upon selling his colors, gone to the dogs as so many others had, nor did he racket around London or fritter his blunt away. Pardom felt that he could have understood these things. Instead, Nicholas had ignored his fashionable London town house and avoided society. He had rusticated on his Hampshire estate until he was in danger of becoming a recluse. His humor had become cynical, his laughter sardonic, his tongue sharp, until he could be curst uncomfortable company.

  And now Nicholas was ridiculing Desmond Winter. “I wouldn’t make fun of him,” the earl growled. “He’s a curst fine writer and a clever one. I’ve sent a letter to his publishers in London and asked them to forward a letter to him. Asked him to come to Pardom.”

  Absently Lord Sinclair rubbed the healed scar on his forearm. “Was it necessary to invite that fribble here?” he wondered.

  “He ain’t fribble,” the earl shouted. Then, controlling himself with an effort, he added, “The long and short of it is that I’ve made him an offer. If he comes here and writes a book about Pardom Hall, I told Winter I’d pay him four plums.”

  His nephew’s lip curled. “I suppose that you mean to be the hero of this little piece?”

  “Well, why shouldn’t I be? I’ll be paying for it. Of course,” the earl continued judiciously, “I’m not such a flat as to let Winter use my name—or my property’s neither, so you needn’t worry that I’ll be a seven-day wonder. Think of it, my boy. A Desmond Winter yarn about Pardom. And me! It boggles the imagination.”

  Reflecting that fools and their money were soon parted, Sinclair shrugged. “Can you vouch for Winter’s honesty?” he drawled. “Or do we have him turn out his pockets before he leaves?”

  Pardom scowled and said that of course the man was no thief.

  “No doubt he’s as honest as that blackguard who had you invest in nonexistent diamond mines. Or the fellow who convinced you that there was gold buried in the east pasture and then made off with the family silver. Think about it, Uncle. And while you’re at it, consider Liza—”

  The earl interrupted to announce that his daughter was the last thing he desired to consider. “Well, you should,” Sinclair exclaimed with some energy. “This Winter might be a Captain Sharp or a gazetted fortune hunter.”

  “Slum,” the earl snorted. “The chit’s seventeen—barely out of the schoolroom. Besides, he won’t notice her. Be busy writing.”

  Sinclair retreated into ennui. “Why consult me if your mind’s made up?”

  “Because you’re a downy one” was the prompt reply. “Curse it, I trust your judgment. I may have been on the short side of a take-in from time to time, and—Look here, Nicholas, I want you to meet Winter. Let me know what you think of the man.”

  Lord Sinclair reflected briefly on a paragraph his uncle had insisted on reading to him, a paragraph that had described Winter’s hero, Horatio, Lord Tedell. Apparently Lord Tedell outwitted evildoers and caused flutters in the hearts of beautiful women. He was handsome and always dressed in the crack of fashion. He was never wrong, he never lost his nerve or his temper, and he always said exactly the right thing at the right time.

  In short, Tedell was insufferable. No doubt Desmond Winter was just as repulsive.

  “Mind, I want your honest opinion based on facts,” the earl was saying. “Don’t want to be made a fool of, after all.”

  Which meant that he would have to spend some time visiting Sussex and waste boring evenings with this author of mediocre novels. If he did not have a genuine affection for his uncle, Sinclair re
flected dismally, he would wash his hands of the whole foolish business. But he could not allow his flesh and blood to be victimized by an opportunist.

  No matter how tiresome it proved to be, he would have to keep an eye on his sheep-brained relative and make sure that he was not dipped too deeply by Mr. Desmond Winter.

  “You must forgive my surprise, Miss Cardell. I had no idea that Mr. Winter was so charming a lady.”

  Damaris smiled ruefully as the tall blond gentleman in the fashionable plum-colored coat and natty dove-colored breeches bowed over her hand. “Alas, Mr. Garland, not even my publishers are aware of that fact.”

  “Your secret is safe with me.” Ambrose Garland bestowed a respectful squeeze on Damaris’s small, ink-stained hand before letting it go. “But I confess to being puzzled, ma’am. You write so well about diversions usually unfamiliar to ladies.”

  The high-nosed, gray-haired lady by the window looked up from her sewing to click her tongue repressively. “Like cockfighting and curricle racing, you mean? I have often told you, Damaris, that a description of such subjects is unsuited to a daughter of the late Sir Everard Cardell.”

  “But not to Desmond Winter,” Damaris pointed out equably. “And since Lord Tedell has many adventures, I must research his world.”

  The dowager Lady Cardell sniffed. “That means, Mr. Garland, that my granddaughter sends her younger brother and the gardener to ask questions for her. Research, indeed. It’s well enough to amuse yourself, my gel, but you must remember that you are a lady.”

  Ladies needed to eat, too. As she watched her ladyship select thread for her embroidery, Damaris was torn between affection and exasperation. Unlike Grandpapa, who knew full well that the wolf was at the door, Grandmama still insisted on pretending that the Cardells were a plump-pursed family.

  She listened as Mr. Garland cast oil on troubled waters by asking the old lady about her school days. He was apparently the grandson of one of Lady Cardell’s girlhood friends, and since business had brought him to Kent, he had called to convey his grandmother’s greetings.

  Damaris glanced surreptitiously at the battered ormolu clock on the mantel and wondered how much longer Mr. Garland’s visit would last. She did not object to him, for he was quite handsome and had pleasant manners, but it was close to noon. Soon she would be obliged to invite him to lunch.

  Rising to her feet, Damaris said, “I collect that you have much to speak of, so I will leave you to have a good cose in peace.”

  Lady Cardell nodded. “Thank you, my dear. And should you see Peter, send him up to meet Mr. Garland and hear about his adventures on the peninsula. No doubt the boy is riding his horse and does not know we have a visitor.”

  The only horse left in the stables was Old Mope, who was too slow and ancient to be sold. As for Peter, he was chopping wood in the back. All of which Grandmama knew, of course.

  “And inform Hepzibah to set another place for luncheon,” my lady continued grandly. “No, no, my dear boy, I insist upon it. You must meet Cardell—he is a man of science, you know—and the other grandchildren.”

  As he made graceful assent, Garland registered the fact that Miss Cardell did not want him to stay for lunch. He watched her as she walked across the faded carpet, admired the straight line of her back, and found himself wondering how she would look in something other than her twice-turned morning dress of withered-leaf brown. She was hardly a beauty, with a too thin face and serious black eyes, but her hair was truly magnificent—so dark an auburn that inky lights seemed to shift in it when she moved. He judged her to be in her middle twenties, which meant she was fast leaving her youth behind.

  A pity, Garland reflected, for Damaris Cardell had nothing to tempt a suitor. The old lady’s pretensions notwithstanding, one look around the threadbare room with its patched curtains, cracked window frames, and ancient furniture had told him that Miss Cardell did not write to amuse herself. She wrote to pay the bills.

  The Cardells might come from good stock, but just now they seemed badly dipped. Wryly Garland wondered what would be served at luncheon.

  What could they give the man to eat? Damaris gnawed on the problem as she left the morning room and walked down the long staircase hall. Once this hall had been brave with silk hangings and statues by John Cheere, and there had been fine paintings on the wall. Now the statues had long since been sold, the silk hangings had been cannibalized to make dresses, undergarments, and sheets, and the artwork had been carted away and pawned. Only one painting remained—a portrait of a lady in a blue ball dress. Damaris paused at the top of the stairs to look up at it and smile.

  “Hello, Mama,” she whispered.

  The lady smiled sweetly back at her, and Damaris felt a lift of heart. It was a private ritual she had begun five years ago when Lady Linda had died shortly after giving birth to Belle.

  That year had marked the first time grief had come to Cardell House, and like an unwelcome guest, grief had stayed. Apparently a brooding melancholy had unhinged Sir Everard’s good sense and caused him to be rash in his speculations. In a matter of months there was nothing left of the Cardell’s fortune, and Sir Everard had shot himself.

  Then there had been the horrible business of disposing of all the estate that was not entailed, and the removal of all the servants except for old Bow-ens, the gardener, and Hepzibah, the cook-housekeeper. And finally, just when they thought they were turning the corner, Edward had been killed at Waterloo.

  “There you are, Miss Damaris,” a nasal voice exclaimed. A tall, sharp-boned woman in a starched apron and frilled white cap had come up the stairs. “Is the man staying to lunch, then?” she asked. “God save us in the day of disaster. There’s not enough soup, and the bread has got mold on it.”

  Damaris bore this recital without flinching. Hepzibah McPhree had been with the family for nearly thirty years, and her small eyes saw doom everywhere.

  “Isn’t there trouble enough already?” Hepzibah continued mournfully. “What with his lordship locking himself into the stables with that horrid machine of his, and that puir, wee lad chopping wood as though he was no better than a servant. He will be cutting off his foot, I am thinking.”

  Damaris glanced out the landing window and saw her brother Peter chopping wood so hard that his red head bobbed up and down. Peter was only twelve, but he was now the man of the family, and he took his duties seriously.

  Unfortunately, he was also at that ungainly age when he seemed always to be tripping over his own feet. God send he did not do himself an injury with the ax, Damaris thought, but she knew that she could do nothing about it. Bowens was too arthritic even to lift the ax, and the family needed wood for the cookstove.

  “Water the soup and wipe the bread clean of mold,” she advised. “Mr. Garland will not mind rough fare, Hepzibah. He has been a soldier and has served on the peninsula.”

  Hepzibah’s eyes filled with tears. “Och, ochon, like puir Master Edward. It is the way of this cruel world, entirely.”

  Requesting that the meal be served at once, Damaris went outside to call the children. Peter, red-faced from chopping, told her he would be in as soon as he finished a few more logs, and Harriet was with the younger children in the overgrown rose garden. While making a cornhusk doll for Belle, she was listening to the twins read their lesson—an adventure story that Damaris had written for them.

  They broke off as Damaris came up to them and Harriet asked, wistfully, “Must we have soup again, Dami?”

  Harriet was only sixteen, but her hazel eyes were old for her years. She was the prettiest of the Cardells, with her curly strawberry blond hair and a deep dimple in her chin. Looking at her, Damaris wished suddenly and fiercely that she could afford to buy a new dress for her sister and a come-out party that would make Hetty the toast of the ton.

  “I am afraid so,” she said. “But there is a surprise, Hetty. A gentleman has come to lunch with us, and he is vastly entertaining. Lancelot, he has been a soldier on the peninsula—and he told Grand-mama that he has traveled about the continent. Would you not like to hear his stories, Fiona? Then go with Hetty. You too, darling Belle.”

  “You would make an excellent general, Miss Cardell.”

  Damaris saw that Ambrose Garland had followed her into the garden. “Lady Cardell sent me out to find you,” he explained. “It seems as though luncheon is ready.”