“He’d been away on the Continent, accompanying one of his friends on a Grand Tour after finishing up at Cambridge,” Timmy advised.
“Well, the new viscount, Lucian, took one look at his grandfather,” Hamish said. “And he didnae like what he saw. Not one bit.”
“He had the most terrific row with his cousin,” Annie explained. “You didn’t even have to press your ear against the door to hear the shouting! You could hear everything clear as a bell from out in the corridor. Not that I was listening,” she added hastily.
Rosalie smiled. “Of course not.”
“Lysander won,” Sally advised. “Unfortunately. There was little the new viscount could do. Lysander was the heir at the time, after all.”
“But Lucian found out that every Tuesday, Lysander went over to Boodle’s for a meeting of this club he helped organize,” Timmy explained. “Something about foxhunting. And that was when Lucian would sneak his grandfather out.”
“We all helped,” Annie said defiantly. “And why shouldn’t we? Lord Valentine was our employer. Not Lysander. If he said he wanted to take a drive with his other grandson, why shouldn’t he?”
“Every time the new viscount pulled up in his friend’s highflyer,” Hamish said, “his grandfather would remark on what a handsome equipage it was and ask where he got it. Ye couldtell he didnae remember that they took it out every week. The current viscount never batted an eye. He’d answer all his grandfather’s questions as cheerfully as if he hadnae done it fifty times before.”
“The old lord always seemed so happy after those outings with the new viscount,” Sally confided. “It was the one thing that brought him joy in those final years.”
“Thank you, Sally,” Rosalie said once the interview concluded. “Would you be so kind as to send in Mr. Collins?”
Sally rose and curtseyed. “Yes, my lady.”
Rosalie pulled out a fresh sheet of paper, her mind awhirl. This was certainly not the tale she had expected to hear, neither of her former fiancé or her current one. She was now counting her lucky stars that her betrothal to Lysander had fallen through. His foul temper and mistreatment of the servants was more than sufficient to disqualify him.
But Rosalie remained unsure about Lucian. The servants’ opinions of him were generally positive, although to be sure, their interactions with him had been somewhat limited. It was possible that their opinions would change with time.
And it was also possible that Lucian’s actions, which appeared to be a kindness on the surface, contradicted the orders of his grandfather’s physician. Rosalie was not about to rush to judgment before gathering all of the relevant information.
Especially when she knew what cruelty Lucian was capable of…
Collins entered the room. Rosalie gestured for him to take a seat. “Thank you for speaking with me today.”
Collins inclined his head. “Of course, my lady.”
His story echoed that of the other servants—at first, everyone had been glad that Lysander was moving in to keep watch over his grandfather, but opinions toward Lysander quickly soured.It had started with Lysander restricting his grandfather’s movements and quickly escalated to putting him on a highly restrictive diet.
“Do you know the reasoning behind the diet?” Rosalie asked.
She had expected Collins to either mention instructions from Dr. Hutchinson or demur that he did not know, as the other servants had done. But he surprised her by answering, “It was about control.”
“Control?” Rosalie asked, startled.
The butler nodded. “I believe so, yes. When you get to be my age, you learn something of human nature. Some men prize domination over others above all else. Mr. Lysander Deverell was one of them. There was no validity to any of his complaints. They were merely an excuse to remind us that he was in charge and that we were powerless. In a similar vein, he delighted in demonstrating that he could bully his grandfather, in spite of the fact that his grandfather was the viscount, and he merely the heir.” Collins laughed. “Although it turned out that he wasn’t even that.”
Rosalie sat frozen at the writing desk, her pen and paper forgotten. That was why Lysander had refused to sign the marriage contract—because of the clause her father had insisted upon giving her the right to return to Swanscombe Park at any time should the marriage become untenable.Thathad been the condition Lysander had been unwilling to accept, because he had wanted to assert control over her. She would have been the one barred from leaving the house and restricted to a diet of bread and water.
Lucian’s words suddenly rang in her ears.I would never let him have you. At the time, she had thought them evidence that he saw her as a piece of property, a shiny bauble that he wanted to lord over his cousin.
But now, those words felt different. Was it possible that Lucian had been trying to… protect her?
“My lady? My lady, is everything all right?”
Collins’s words slowly penetrated her distracted daze. “Yes,” she replied crisply. “Thank you.” She glanced down at her sheet of paper. “That was all of my questions. Is there anything else you would like to tell me that might be pertinent to my investigation?”
“Just one thing,” Collins said. His pale blue eyes were steady on hers. “The present viscount is nothing like his cousin.”
“Duly noted,” Rosalie said, her voice hoarse. “Thank you for your time.”
Mr. Collins rose and quit the room. Rosalie went through the motions of gathering up her notes. To be sure, she had learned much by conducting these interviews.
