“Has it bad, doesn’t he?” Hart said. “You can’t let her go, Brendan.”
“Miss Peyton and Edward Ryland came out onto the balcony when I was there with Ianthe,” Tate said. “But I witnessed no flirtation. It was a humid night, and we all sought the cool, fresh air. Why don’t you ask the lady and allow her to decide? As you think so much of her, she must be of excellent character.”
“Hear, hear,” Hart said.
Brendan acknowledged them with a distracted nod. Hadn’t Laura’s brother mentioned Ryland in his letter? He’d said they had a romance of long standing, which had mislead Brendan into believing Laura had some experience in the ways of love.
Tate topped up their glasses, then held the empty bottle up to a passing waiter. “What about this mystery?”
Brendan explained what he’d learned about Gaylord. How the maid’s mother had confessed to somehow being responsible for his parents’ deaths, before she’d killed herself the day after his father and mother had died.
“That is strange,” Tate said. “There seems to be more to this. Certainly bears looking into. Should you ever wish me to come to Beechley Park for moral support, just send a message.”
“And I. Although I prefer to come to your wedding,” Hart said as the waiter entered the room.
“Your table is ready in the dining room, gentlemen.”
“You are excellent fellows.” Brendan rose with a grin. “Allow me to buy you dinner.”
In the early hours when Brendan retired to his bedchamber in his Curzon Street house, he went over the evening, recalling how both his friends had urged him to take a chance on life.
“Life is uncertain for all of us,” Tate had said as they’d prepared to part ways on St. James’s Street.
Hart, enough into his cups to become eloquent, had quoted appropriate words from Shakespeare. “‘Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt.’”
“Best you return to your lady wife,” Brendan had said with a chuckle, patting Hart on the back.
“And you must pursue the lady of your heart,” Tate had said before striding away, his cane resting on his shoulder.
Brendan washed and undressed in the candlelight. Was he right to embrace life as they’d urged him to? He did not fear for himself, but for those who could be hurt by his actions. As much as he wanted a son or daughter, the nightmare which had stayed with him since he’d been a lad would fill him with dread every time he looked at his child.
He sighed. Once he returned to Beechley Park tomorrow, he would attempt to discover what had happened around the time his parents had died. It was possible that the declaration of the maid Violet Walcott just before her death had been misguided, and might not refer to his parents. But as he blew out the candle, the urge to discover the truth gripped him.
The next day, when he’d returned to the country and walked into the hall, a footman handed him his post, which he’d instructed not to send onto him. Sifting through, Brendan found a letter from Laura. Eager to read it at his desk, he sat down and seized the silver letter opener to slit the paper. Unfolding it before him, he cursed under his breath. The missive had arrived the day he’d left for London. She wrote of Wagstaff’s anguish in failing to tell the constable of Gaylord’s return to the house the day of the shooting, with blood on his clothes. And how Gaylord had insisted he had shot a fox but had had no gun in his possession.
If Gaylord had nothing to fear, why had he gotten rid of Wagstaff, a competent butler who had been with the family for years? Frustrated, Brendan cursed and thumped the desk, making his inkpot jump. Was it possible that Gaylord was responsible? But how? And why? What about Violet Walcott’s confession? The more he thought about it, the more the pieces began to fit together, like one of those puzzles his mother had enjoyed. But there were pieces missing. How could he go about completing the picture? Let alone take a convincing story to the magistrate when it had happened so many years ago?
And what reason would Gaylord have had to kill his own sister and Brendan’s father?
Chapter Nineteen
Two days afterLaura had refused Edward, Robert proposed to Miss Aurelia Laverty and was accepted. The following afternoon, her brother’s betrothed and her mother came to tea.
Aurelia was a pretty eighteen-year-old girl with dark hair. Her mother, a short, stout woman, wearing a hat laden with feathers and flowers, looked around the drawing room with a sharp eye after being introduced.
Laura poured the tea as they discussed the wedding to be held in London.
Aurelia was short and slightly built, and Laura feared her brother would overwhelm her, but as they talked, she revised her opinion. She had a firm chin and exhibited a mind of her own. Perhaps that quality in her appealed to Robert. He would never admit it, but he appreciated strong women.
Her brother didn’t insinuate himself into their conversation. He chatted with Mrs. Laverty while watching them with an indulgent smile as Laura and Aurelia discussed a shared love of reading. “Mama and I would love to view the house, Miss Peyton, if you wouldn’t mind showing it to us,” Aurelia said, smiling sweetly.
“Please call me ‘Laura.’ And, of course, It will be my pleasure.”
After tea, Laura led them into the morning room.
“What a funny old house this is,” Aurelia said. “It has none of the clean lines of the more modern houses.”
“My family built it in the 1600s,” Laura said with a sense of pride.
