Though Squire Northman’s manor house was not even a mile away as the crow flew, the party at Beauchamp House piled into two carriages for the drive over. One carriage conveyed the Hastings sisters, Lady Daphne, and the Duke of Maitland, while the other carried Ivy, Quill, and Lady Serena.
It did not go unnoticed by Quill that his cousin kept an eagle eye on both her fellow passengers for the duration of the journey. She’d attempted to place the four unmarried ladies in one carriage together, but Quill had insisted that he and Ivy be allowed to ride together. Since the three other ladies in the carriage with Maitland served as their own chaperones, Serena had relented to Quill’s demand but then spoiled things by insisting on taking her place with them.
What she expected them to get up to in a closed carriage with her watching was beyond him. He was able, when Serena managed to glance out the window at the passing scenery from time to time, to steal several glimpses of Ivy in the deep red silk she’d chosen for the evening. It was a color that might have looked a horror with her auburn hair, but instead it showed to perfection against her peaches-and-cream skin. He would bet anything that the modest jet beads she wore were warm from her skin, and he spent a good portion of the drive pleasantly imagining what she’d look like in nothing but those beads.
“Ah, that didn’t take too long, did it?” Serena asked with a cheerfulness that belied the death stare she gave Quill as the carriage rocked to a stop. Clearly he’d not been as careful at concealing his thoughts as he’d hoped.
Ivy on the other hand, seemed oblivious to them both, staring with interest out the window at the torch-lit entrance to the Northman’s sandstone manor house.
Far from feeling easy about the evening to come, Quill jumped down from the carriage before the footman could open the door, and set down the step. Handing first Ivy then Serena down, he squared his shoulders and prepared to make polite conversation with his former lover in the company of his almost betrothed.
While Jem had played happily at the water’s edge that morning, Quill had discussed with Maitland the possible complications tonight’s supper might cause him when it came to winning Ivy over to his way of thinking when it came to marriage.
“If given a choice,” Maitland had said from his seat in the sand beside his cousin, both of them barefoot despite the chill in the air, “I’d make some excuse to keep from walking into that chamber of horrors. But you have no choice. It’s the damnedest thing. I don’t know how you get yourself into these coils.”
Quill had already explained the necessity for he and Ivy to speak with the maid, Elsie, who now worked for Mrs. Northman. The fact that his cousin had come as soon as Quill had sent for him was just one of the things he appreciated about Dalton. He might be the proverbial bull in a china shop at times, but he was a good man. And he’d loved Aunt Celeste as much as Quill had. Like Quill, Dalton and Serena hadn’t had the happiest of childhoods, so they too had sought refuge in the home of their favorite aunt whenever it was possible.
But just now, he was of little help at all.
“It’s not as if my younger self could guess that one day I’d have to face Cassandra across the table from Ivy,” Quill said, thrusting a hand through his already windblown hair. “If I’d had that sort of prescience, I’d have left Cassandra alone in the first place.”
“She is a sweet handful, though,” Maitland conceded with a shrug. “I wouldn’t have turned her down if she’d cast out lures to me, that’s for sure.”
Quill sighed. “If only I knew that she would behave herself,” he said. “It’s not knowing that troubles me. I know she won’t be so bold that Northman will figure it out. She has no wish to give herself trouble. But if she suspects anything between Ivy and me, she might drop a word in her ear just to make things difficult for me.”
“It would all be much better if you’d not ended things badly,” Maitland said.
“Thank you, Duke,” Quill said dryly. “That never would have occurred to me.”
“Don’t take out your anger on me, man,” his cousin protested. “I’m just here to offer my support.”
Now, some hours later at the Northman manor house, Quill couldn’t miss the wink his cousin directed at him as the guests were ushered into the main entry hall.
“I am so pleased you were all able to come,” said Cassandra Northman from beside her thin, taciturn husband, who nodded at the newcomers but said little. “And you too, your grace. When Lady Serena wrote to ask if you would be welcome too, I wrote her back at once. A duke at one’s table must never be turned away.”
To Quill’s relief, Cassandra said nothing untoward as he moved through the receiving line, and soon he and the other dinner guests were milling about in a drawing room that was gilded within an inch of its life, waiting for the dinner bell.
He made pleasant conversation with the local curate, who was keen to know what news there was from London, and the wife of the local magistrate, who wanted to know if he would be around in the summer for the annual fete.
Soon enough they were all shuffling into the dining room, Quill with Lady Daphne on his arm since she was the next in precedence following Lady Serena, who was on her brother’s arm.
Quill was not pleased to learn he was seated at Cassandra’s left with Maitland on her right. But at least Ivy was out of earshot in the middle of the table, with the curate on one side and the son of a local gentry family on the other.
“You must tell me every little thing about the latest on-dits in London, my lord,” said Cassandra as soon as they were seated, punctuating her words with a rap of her fan on his arm. “It’s been far too long since I was there for the season, and I’m simply dying for news.”
“You might do better to ask my cousin Maitland,” Quill said with a nod in that gentleman’s direction, earning him a reproachful look. “He is more lately from London than I am and I daresay his news is fresher.”
“But is he fresher?” Cassandra said with a mischievous grin. “That is the question.” Turning to the duke, she gave him a speculative look, as if weighing the possibilities. At this point, Quill didn’t have any regrets about throwing his cousin beneath the wheels of the metaphorical carriage. He could not afford for Ivy to find any reason to reject his suit. Even if that meant Maitland had to take a sabre cut for the whole regiment.
* * *
To his relief, his cousin seemed happy enough to flirt with their pretty hostess, and he watched with amusement as they batted the conversational ball back and forth over the various courses. By the time Mrs. Northman rose to indicate that the ladies would leave the gentlemen to their port, Quill was feeling quite happy with the evening so far.
That sanguinity lasted until the men filed into the drawing room and a quick scan of the room showed that both Ivy and Cassandra were conspicuously absent.
“Where the devil are they?” he asked Maitland in an undertone.
“Hmm?” was his unhelpful monosyllable as he fixed his gaze on the spot near the tea tray where Lady Daphne appeared to be explaining the finer points of the Pythagorean theorem to a befuddled-looking local matron. A jab in the ribs was enough to break into Maitland’s reverie however. “Hey! What was that for?”
“Use your brainbox for a moment and listen,” Quill hissed. “Where are Ivy and Cassandra?”
But Maitland shrugged. “I was in the dining room with you. How should I know? Why don’t you ask Serena? She appears to be attempting to get your attention.” And sure enough, Lady Serena was leveling a speaking glance in their direction.
Hurrying to her side, Quill tried to look casual as he asked, “What’s amiss, cuz?”
“I’m not quite sure,” Serena said beneath the hum of conversation. “Ivy and Mrs. Northman left the room not long after we left you all in the dining room. I hope our hostess hasn’t figured out there’s something between the two of you.”
“What do you mean?” Quill asked, despite the fact that he agreed with her. “What has Mrs. Northman to say to it?”
“Well,” Serena said tartly, “there is that fact that she was your lover some years ago.”
Despite himself, Quill gasped. “How did you know?” he asked in a low voice.
Serena rolled her eyes. “You were one and twenty and as full of your own importance as any young man I’ve ever known—with the notable exception of my brother. I would be very surprised if everyone in the next county didn’t hear of your conquest.”
Wincing, Quill recalled that her assessment of him at that time was painfully accurate. “So you think it has something to do with Cassandra wishing to scupper things between Ivy and me?”
“I cannot know,” Serena said with a slight lift of her shoulders. “They didn’t seem to be at daggers drawn if that helps.”
It did. A very little.
“I’m going to intervene,” he said firmly. “Ivy is stubborn enough without Cassandra giving her more reasons to reject my proposal.”
But it was Serena’s turn to gasp. “You cannot simply go blundering around the house looking for them. It’s possible there is an innocent explanation for their absence.”
“If that is the case,” he said grimly, “then they will have no reason to be surprised at my intrusion.”
Serena’s expression told him they would have every reason, but Quill couldn’t afford to let her scruples keep him from the truth.
As unobtrusively as possible, he slipped out of the drawing room and into the hallway. Spying a footman standing at the ready, he strode over to the man. “Do you know where I might find your mistress and Miss Wareham?” And to his shame the man didn’t look surprised at all. Instead, he laid a finger alongside his nose and winked.
Good god, he thought in spite of his anxiety. How many lovers had Cassandra had assignations with under her own husband’s nose?
Still he followed the directions the man gave him and hurried up the stairs to the hall leading to Cassandra’s bedchamber. When he reached the door, he heard the sound of conversation within and, taking a deep breath, he gave a brisk knock and strode inside, as if he had every reason in the world to enter his hostess’s bedchamber without invitation.
Instead of Ivy and Cassandra deep in conversation about him, however, he found Ivy with a woman he recognized as Elsie, his aunt’s former personal maid.
He closed his eyes at his folly.
Of course that was why she’d come up here. His own damnable guilty conscience had made him suspect the worst, when it was all part of the plan he and Ivy had put into place before they even left Beauchamp House earlier in the evening.
“My lord?” she asked, her eyes wide as he walked over to where she and the maid were standing beside Cassandra’s writing desk. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought you might be ill,” he said with a slight shrug. “I noticed you were gone from the drawing room.”
Her raised brow told him what she thought about this explanation. But she clearly thought they should discuss his perfidy once they were alone, because she only said, “Well, as you can see, I am quite well.… Go ahead and tell him what you told me, Elsie,” she said with a reassuring nod.
Looking from one to the other, Elsie seemed to relax a little. “Begging your pardon, my lord, but I was just telling Miss Wareham here that the recipe for the tisane that Lady Celeste liked for the headache, it wasn’t my own.” The maid looked sheepish, and even colored a little at the admission. “My mam was friendly-like with the Rom hereabouts. And she was the one who suggested I go to the old woman there. She gave Mam a tonic that was helpful with me gran’s rheumatism. So when her ladyship was struck down with the headache, I went over to where the camps was and I asked the old woman.”
“But Elsie didn’t mix the powder herself,” Ivy said with a speaking look. “She got the powder from the gypsies and added water to it.”
Which, Quill realized, meant that the poison was likely added before Elsie even had the powder in hand. This was a significant breakthrough, and he saw the truth of it in Ivy’s eyes.
“You’ve been most helpful, Elsie,” Ivy said to the maid, squeezing the girl’s hand. “I cannot thank you enough. And remember, please don’t speak to anyone about what I’ve asked you.”
The girl nodded. “I never thought it was right the way Lady Celeste died. But if I’d known it was the tisanes, I never would have given them to her.” Tears filled her eyes. “I was only trying to make her feel better. Not kill her.”
“You could have had no notion that the curative was poisoned, Elsie,” Quill assured her. “I saw your years of loyal service to my aunt, and am sure you meant her no harm.”
She nodded miserably, then in a soft voice as if reluctant to continue, she said, “I hate to mention it, but if there was any way you could keep from telling Mrs. Northman about my dealings with the encampment? It’s just that Mr. Northman doesn’t hold with the Rom. ’Specially not since they been known to steal ’is sheep from time to time.”
“He won’t hear about it from us,” Ivy said with a warm smile. “Will he, my lord?”
“Certainly not,” he agreed.
Then, the conversation over, there was nothing to do but to step back out into the hallway and brace himself for a scold.
Which was not long in coming.
Ivy’s eyes flashed with exasperation as, once they were out of earshot of Elsie and safely ensconced in an alcove near the second-floor landing, she turned on him. “What on earth were you thinking? You might have ruined everything!”