While she could not but be amused by Angelica’s managing way, she was equally irked. A half-formed intention of an early departure began to dissipate. If she asked for a loan, Angelica would guess what she meant to do. Besides which, she really ought to wait for Mrs Jeavons to answer her letter. Yet the urge to be gone was an unrelenting itch. Had it been thus with Papa? Was that why he shifted ground so often?
The niggle set up in her brain by Angelica’s questions returned. She had never before had reason to wonder about Papa’s antecedents. It occurred to her for the first time that if his allowance had stopped, someone must have known of his death.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The letter, franked with an illegible scrawl, was awaiting Raoul at the breakfast table. Since Jerram always sifted through his correspondence, its presence, at the top of a neat pile of invitations, signalled a question. His secretary clearly judged it as needing Raoul’s personal attention. Jerram had breakfasted and gone by the time his employer came down and was likely already off about his investigations.
“Has Jerram left the house?”
The butler was proffering a silver dish. “An hour since, my lord.”
Raoul grunted, regarding the letter with disfavour as Oakley served him with his usual preference of ham and eggs. Anything untoward at this point was suspect. Was the direction written in Maskery’s hand? After what he’d learned last night, Raoul had no desire to have any communication with the man.
He ate in frowning silence, mulling over the consequences of Angelica’s ill-fated auction. Instinct bade him wash his hands of the whole affair. It was not as if Miss Temple wished for his intervention. He had never met a more independently-minded female.
The simplest thing would be to send her back to this infernal academy. Not by the stagecoach, of course. He could at least have her conveyed in his travelling carriage. An image of the girl arriving in Bath in his private coach with a crest on the panel leapt into his head. No, that would not do. He would have to hire a chaise. The vision of the lone redhead therein proved equally unpalatable.
Hell and the devil, that would not do either! The girl could not jaunter about the country unaccompanied. As well put her on the stage after all. He would have to send a maid with her. Angelica could provide one.
At which point his entire scheme came apart. His cousin would never consent.
“Ale, my lord? Or coffee?”
He came out of his reverie. “Coffee.” He had slept off last night’s potations but he needed to think.
What maggot had got into Angelica’s head? He had asked her to provide the girl with a roof for the night. But, no. His cousin insisted on an elaborate plan to drag Miss Temple off to Cherry Lodge. If his first suspicion had any foundation, any such scheme was unlikely to hold when Angelica heard that Maskery had provided Miss Temple with a so-called duenna in the person of his mistress. The ramifications were too scandalous to be contemplated. Even Angie must see the ineligibility of thrusting the girl onto theTonafter such an introduction.
He downed his coffee and found the letter still staring him in the face. He set it aside and checked through the invitations. His presence was requested at a number of the balls, soirées and musical evenings that proliferated at this time of year. Ha! With all this palaver going on, he’d be lucky to have time to attend any of them. Not that he wanted to. After the fiasco of the auction, he would much prefer to abandon the metropolis in favour of his home. Lucille at least would be delighted.
He tossed the invitations aside. The obnoxious letter remained. There was nothing for it. He would have to broach the thing.
Rising, he took it up. “I will be in the library, Oakley.”
Ensconced in his favourite leather-bound chair by the fire, Raoul at last broke the seal and spread open the closely-written sheet. At least the lines were not crossed. He glanced at the signature.
Damn it to hell, it was Maskery! Had he not known it? With deep misgiving, he lifted his glass to the page and began to read.
A tense hour of speculation while the twins argued, poring over Mr Latimer’s copy of the Peerage, did Felicity no good at all. She began to wish she had not been drawn into revealing the circumstances of her father’s death.
“The trouble is,” said Silvestre, raising her head from the tome, “we do not know if Temple is a family name for one of the peers, or merely a remote connection.”
The two girls were seated side by side at a card table in the upstairs parlour, whither Henrietta had dragged Felicity while Silvestre went off to the library to dig out the required book.
“No one will disturb us here,” said the gentler creature. “Although I don’t doubt Aunt Angelica and Mama will be engaged for some time with Mr Gawcott.”
Silvestre soon joined them in the cosy apartment reserved only for family use with its faded sofa, untidy work table dotted with sewing silks, parchments and a tambour frame, a small bureau near the wall and a variety of ill-matched chairs. She plonked the heavy book down on the table and settled into a chair, pushing aside an open box of dominoes.
“Papa has gone off to his club, thank goodness, so I did not have to account for why I wanted his Peerage. Now then, let us see what we can find.”
A prolonged search, with Hetty arguing for a systematic method while Silve flipped the pages back and forth, yielded nothing but a plethora of family names utterly remote from Temple.
“Can you not remember anything that may help us, Felicity?”
“I wish I could. I was only a child and Papa was all the family I knew.”
Silvestre flipped pages again. “What about friends? Your papa, I mean. Did you meet any of them?”
“Not that I recall. I suppose he had them. He used to go out sometimes, leaving me with a maid or the landlady sometimes. We had no settled home, you see.”
