He sneered. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Darling?”
“I would positively adore it, St George.”
The sneer deepened, and I huffed. “I’m not trying to get rid of you, you moron. I’m simply concerned about what will happen if you stay. You said it yourself two months ago: Your father would be delighted to hand you over to Lady Laetitia. And as you have somewhat grown on me over the past couple of months…”
Crispin’s eyes widened, but whatever he might have planned to say was interrupted by the clearing of a throat from in the vicinity of the door.
Crispin flinched, and so did I. I think we all probably expected it to be Laetitia Marsden.
It wasn’t. Nor was it her mother, the Countess. Instead, it was Uncle Harold standing there, looking from me to his son to Constance and back.
“A word, St George?”
Crispin grimaced but gave in to the inevitable. “Yes, Father.”
Uncle Harold stepped aside so Crispin could precede him into the boot room. The door shut behind them with a sort of finalbang, leaving Constance and me alone outside.
CHAPTERSEVEN
It took lessthan a second for me to decide what to do. And I suppose I’m not proud of it… no, actually, that’s not true. I’m perfectly fine with eavesdropping. As Crispin had told me once, you learn such interesting things.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Constance.
She opened her mouth, perhaps because she was thinking of saying something to stop me, although if she was, she thought better of it. Instead, she simply nodded, a resigned look on her face, and watched, silently, as I trod over to the door and depressed the latch, as softly as I could.
There was a chance, of course, that Uncle Harold and Crispin had stopped just inside the door, and if such was the case, it wouldn’t matter how quiet I tried to be. They’d see the door open and would know that I was there. But if Uncle Harold had taken Crispin somewhere else for better privacy, then I stood a chance of getting inside undetected, and of perhaps hearing something interesting.
So I opened the door as quietly as I could, and held my breath as I eased it open and peered around it.
The boot room was empty. So far, so good.
Beckwith Place is a rather small place as far as country houses go. The foyer at Sutherland Hall, for instance, could swallow several of the rooms at Beckwith Place whole. The boot room, obviously, is one of them. It’s fairly minuscule, and full of Wellington boots and rain slickers and umbrellas and Uncle Herbert’s golf clubs and things like that.
I eased the door shut and made my way across the room as quietly as I could. And stopped in the doorway and contemplated my surroundings.
On my right was the hallway to the terrasse, along with the kitchen and scullery, and the library. On my left was the door to the front of the house, and the stairway down to the cellars. Directly in front of me was the door to Uncle Herbert’s study.
Where would Uncle Harold have taken Crispin for a private chat?
Not to the kitchen, obviously. Cook and Hughes were still there. I could hear the faint sound of voices, and of running water and dishes clacking together.
Nor to the library, I thought. They’d have to pass the kitchen door, and Cook and Hughes, to get there, and it was also closest to the terrasse, where the others were. I assumed Uncle Harold would want to avoid an audience for this confrontation, or he would have had it out with his son in front of me and Constance, most likely.
The study, perhaps? It’s a small room, tucked away between the scullery and the cellar staircase. Quite private, if you’re looking for that type of thing, and I assumed Uncle Harold was.
I crept across the hallway. The study door was open a crack, and there was no noise and no voices from inside. I inched the door open until I could get my head around the jamb, and peered around. The study was dark and empty.
They must have gone into the front of the house, then.
Unless Uncle Harold had yanked Crispin straight down the hallway and back onto the terrasse, of course. That was possible. But if he had wanted to have an actual conversation with his son, they must have gone in the opposite direction.
So I did the same: went to the door that separated the front of the house from the back, and pushed the latch down on the door. I could be a little less careful here, as there was another door between me and the foyer. The little area beyond the first door was essentially the landing for the cellar steps, and the cool draught that filtered up from below was enough to explain the reason for the doors. What was a cool draught now, in the middle of July, was a chill breeze in winter, and Aunt Roz had insulated both doors with felt to keep the cold air from escaping into the rest of the house.
I couldn’t hear anything from beyond it.
So I swallowed my anxiety and depressed yet another latch. And eased the door between the cellar stairs and the front of the house open a finger’s breadth, holding my breath in case it creaked.
“—idiot boy!” Uncle Harold’s voice snarled, so close that he might as well have been standing on the opposite side of the door, and if I pushed it open any farther, I’d hit him in the back. “When are you going to get it through your head that?—”
