Family Plot Read online

  “Aye, I’ll just bet you will,” she grumbled.

  Pickett followed the footman up the aisle to the lobby and thence up three flights of stairs to the uppermost tier of boxes. It seemed to Pickett that the higher they climbed, the thicker grew the carpet beneath his feet and the more elaborate the gilt and plaster ornamentation adorning the walls and ceiling. With each step he became more painfully aware of the shabbiness of his black tailcoat and stockinette breeches—the best he owned, to be sure, but glaringly out of place in these rarified heights. At the top of the stairs, the footman led Pickett down a curving corridor lined at intervals with paneled doors. He paused at last before one of these, then flung it open.

  “Mr. Pickett, my lady,” he announced, and stepped back to allow Pickett entrance.

  There she sat, the candlelight gleaming off her pale hair in radiant contrast to the stark black satin of her gown. She looked up as he entered the box, then smiled and held out her hand. In that moment, Pickett forgot all about his plebeian attire; his attention was all for the beautiful woman before him.

  “My lady,” he said, bowing awkwardly as he took her proffered hand with the air of one receiving a precious gift.

  “It was good of you to come in answer to my summons,” said her ladyship, making no great effort to retrieve her hand. “I hope I was not interrupting.”

  “No, no, not at all,” he assured her hastily, dismissing poor Lucy out of hand. “It was kind of you to send for me.”

  “It is always a pleasure to see you, Mr. Pickett. I trust you are well?”

  “Quite—quite well, thank you. And yourself?” Privately he thought there was something of sadness about her eyes. He hoped her husband’s relations were not making her life a misery, as he knew they had done in the past.

  “Yes, I am very well, thank you.”

  Having exhausted their supply of platitudes, they both lapsed into silence. Pickett released her hand with some reluctance, unable to think of any excuse for retaining it.

  He gestured toward the stage below. “What—what do you think of Mrs. Church as Ophelia?” he asked, filling a silence rapidly approaching the point of awkwardness.

  “Her performance seems very affecting, although of course it must suffer in comparison to that of the great Mrs. Siddons. Did you ever see her perform?”

  He shook his head. “I never had the pleasure.”

  “It was one of her last appearances before leaving Drury Lane. She was rather too old for the rôle—already well into her forties, I believe. One might think she would have appeared ridiculous, and yet somehow she did not.”

  “Do you come often to the theatre, then?” Pickett asked, trying not to sound too eager. As his residence consisted of two hired rooms over a chandler’s shop further down Drury Lane, the theatre was a convenient and inexpensive form of amusement; now, with the possibility of seeing her ladyship here on a regular basis, its charms increased exponentially.

  “I did, either here or at Covent Garden, but this is my first visit since—” Her swift downward glance took in her black-gloved hands and her black skirts. “Since last spring. And you, Mr. Pickett? Do you come here often?”

  He nodded. “I live not far from here.”

  “Do you indeed?” She could not have sounded more interested if he had just confided that he owned the theatre in which she sat. “Where, pray tell?”

  He was immediately sorry to have introduced a subject on which he would hardly appear to advantage. “Just two rooms above a chandler’s shop further down the lane, not the sort of place you would care to visit.” He shrugged. “But the theatre makes a welcome change from Bow Street. One sees so much of the worst of human nature there.”

  “And yet you provide a valuable service, as I have cause to know.” She gestured toward the empty chair on her right. “But I must not keep you standing all evening! Will you not sit down and watch the last act with me?”

  Oh, how he wanted to accept! But besides Lucy glaring up at him from the pit, there were the Dowager Lady Fieldhurst and the current viscount, both fully awake and alive to his unwelcome presence among them, and both making their feelings known with disdainful expressions that spoke volumes without saying a word.

  “Thank you, my lady, but I—I really must go,” he stammered, backing his way toward the door. “I left a friend in the pit—she’ll be wondering what’s happened to me—”

  “The young woman in the ugly—in the purple bonnet,” said Lady Fieldhurst, her eyes widening in dawning comprehension. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t realize you had a—a female companion.”

  “No, Lucy is just a friend—still, I’d better—pleasure seeing you again—if you’ll excuse—”

  Still stammering incoherently, he ducked out of the luxurious box and retraced his steps back down to the pit where he belonged.

  “I vow, I was never so embarrassed in all my life.” Confronting her errant daughter-in-law over a rosewood tea table, the Dowager Lady Fieldhurst set her teacup onto its saucer with a firm clink as if to emphasize her point.

  The younger Lady Fieldhurst had known she would not escape last night’s indiscretion unscathed, and had not been at all surprised when her mother-in-law was announced at the unconscionably early hour of one o’clock in the afternoon. Now, thus called upon the carpet, she gripped the delicately curved handle of her Sèvres teacup until her knuckles turned white.

  “And after we’d had the footman decline admittance to the Duke of Westover not twenty minutes earlier!” the dowager continued, shaking her head in apparent bewilderment. “What excuse we might offer His Grace for slighting him in such a way, I can’t imagine.”

  Julia regarded the carpet with downcast eyes, presenting (at least outwardly) the picture of filial obedience. “If the Duke’s good opinion is so easily lost, I wonder at your desire to further his acquaintance.”

  “The family has been the subject of enough scandal over the past six months that we can scarcely afford to offend anyone, let alone a person of His Grace’s stature within Society. Really, Julia, what can you have been thinking? We had agreed not to entertain visitors in our box.”

  Although she remembered the dowager instructing the footman to deny them to any visitors, Julia could not recall having been consulted on this issue at all. Nor would it have presented a problem, even if she had; she’d had no intention of entertaining anyone in her box, much less inviting anyone to call there, until she had recognized John Pickett in the pit below.

  “I owe Mr. Pickett a great debt,” she said, keeping her voice steady with an effort. “Surely there can be no objection to my acknowledging him when I see him in public.”

  Except, of course, that she had done a great deal more than that. He had not noticed her presence at the theatre, and wouldn’t have, had she not summoned him from his seat in the pit. Much as it galled her to admit it, she very much feared that Mother Fieldhurst had the right of it. The poor man had clearly been embarrassed, and once the initial greetings had been exchanged, neither one of them could think of much to say to the other. The camaraderie they had enjoyed during those weeks in Yorkshire was now at an end; without a dead body to throw them together, it seemed a Bow Street Runner and a widowed viscountess could find very little common ground. She had already expressed her appreciation to him for his part in exonerating her of any wrongdoing in her husband’s death; it was past time to let the acquaintance drop. Surely nothing could be gained by continuing to harp upon the matter.

  “George and I fear that Bow Street fellow may presume upon your acquaintance and attempt to exploit the connection.” The dowager helped herself to a second seed cake. “We believe it might be wise for you to leave London for a time, at least long enough for the ton to forget last night’s indiscretion. By the time you return to the theatre at Drury Lane, Mr. Plunkett will have ceased to look for you there.”

  “His name is ‘Pickett,’ not ‘Plunkett,’ Mother Fieldhurst, and it was I who sought him out, not the other way ’r
ound.”

  “All the more reason for you to leave the Metropolis,” the dowager replied, unperturbed. “Now, George’s sons, as you may know, have had a difficult time of it since poor Frederick’s death. George thought it might be pleasant for them to enjoy a brief holiday in Scotland before the start of the Michaelmas term, with you as their chaperone. I confess, I think it a very good plan.”

  “George’s sons are having a difficult time because it turns out that their father was never legally married to their mother,” Julia pointed out with some asperity. “If anyone is to leave London, perhaps it should be George.”

  The dowager fixed her daughter-in-law with a gimlet eye. “Surely I need not point out to you that the rules are different for men. And George is not just any man, but the seventh Viscount Fieldhurst. A title, as you must know, covers a multitude of sins.”

  “How very fortunate for him, for he has certainly committed a multitude of them,” Julia muttered, sipping her tea. She had never liked Caroline Bertram, but that lady had not deserved such shabby treatment from the man she had believed to be her husband. As for the three boys born of the irregular union, Julia did not know them well, and could only hope they would prove to be more agreeable than the rest of the family.

  Yet however much she might resent her husband’s mother and heir for taking charge of her future, she was forced to the galling conclusion that they were right: she needed to escape London at least for a little while, in order to give her thoughts some more suitable direction than a lanky young man with curling brown hair tied back in a queue, and a female in a hideous purple bonnet for whom she had inexplicably conceived an acute dislike.

  CHAPTER 2

  IN WHICH LADY FIELDHURST IS EXILED

  TO SCOTLAND FOR HER SINS

  * * *

  Over the course of her six-year marriage, Lady Fieldhurst had had many occasions to regret her childless state. The trip to the Fieldhurst estate at Inverbrook was not one of them. George had sent his own carriage to fetch his three sons from their mother’s house in Bath, so by the time Lady Fieldhurst and her charges left London the boys had already been three days on the road and were heartily sick of each other’s company.

  It did not take long for Julia to enter wholeheartedly into their sentiments. Edward, a strapping lad of eight, was inclined to whine and pout at any suggestion that he might allow one of his brothers a turn at sitting next to the window. Julia could form no opinion of Robert, the bespectacled middle child, for he passed the entire journey with his nose stuck in a book, returning only monosyllabic answers to any question put to him. As for Harold, at eighteen the eldest of George’s children, he sported a swollen eye that had undoubtedly been black and blue a few days earlier, but was now faded to green and yellow. This contrasted jarringly with his choice of travelling costume, which suggested an incipient dandyism, but the expression in his undamaged eye was so filled with smoldering resentment that she dared not inquire as to the cause of his injury. As afternoon shadows cast the interior of the carriage into gloom, the most literary of George’s sons found his tongue at last.

  “Give over the window seat, Ned,” Robert said, giving his brother a shove for emphasis. “I haven’t enough light to read.”

  One might have thought, reflected Julia, that four travellers in a carriage might each have a window to himself, but then one would have reckoned without the number of trunks, valises, and bandboxes necessary for transporting the wardrobe Harold deemed necessary for a fortnight’s stay in Scotland. Those cases that could not be stored in the boot or tied to the top were of necessity stacked inside the carriage, where they tumbled down onto the passengers every time the driver took a turn too quickly.

  “Yes, Edward, surely you can allow your brother a turn by the window,” agreed Lady Fieldhurst. “You have been in sole possession of it for the better part of a se’ennight.”

  Edward’s gaze remained fixed upon the passing scenery beyond the glass. “I can’t.”

  “Of course you can, at least until we reach Grantham. It will be quite dark by then, and we will stop for the night.”

  “I’ll be sick if I do,” predicted Edward with grim certainty.

  Nevertheless, seeing her ladyship would not be dissuaded, he heaved a world-weary sigh and staggered to his feet in the swaying carriage, allowing his brother to slide down the seat to the window. Edward then plopped down onto the middle of the seat, where he derived some satisfaction a quarter-hour later by leaning forward and casting up his accounts onto the floor of the carriage.

  “I told you so,” he muttered between retches.

  “Oh, dear!” Lady Fieldhurst exclaimed, rapping sharply on the ceiling for the driver to stop. She fumbled in her reticule for a handkerchief and a vial of lavender water, then proceeded to bathe the sufferer’s brow while his brothers excoriated him for the collateral damage to their boots.

  “Dash it, Ned, why must you be such a baby?” demanded Harold, adding as an aside to Lady Fieldhurst, “He always does this.”

  “ ‘Always’?” her ladyship echoed indignantly. “You might have warned me!”

  “He’s spoken of nothing else since we left London,” Harold pointed out. “How were we to know you didn’t believe him?” He looked to Robert for support, but that lad had returned to his book and vouchsafed no reply.

  After a brief delay while the floor of the carriage was sponged down and Edward restored to his place by the window, they set out once more. The windows had been lowered to disperse any lingering odors, allowing Edward a rare opportunity to amuse himself by dangling his arm out the window.

  “Robert, I’m sorry, but you must put your book aside, at least until we reach the posting house at Grantham,” Lady Fieldhurst said at last, after watching that young man’s book inch nearer and nearer his face until his eyes were nearly crossed. “It is far too dark to read, and trying to do so in such poor light cannot be good for your eyes. Edward, please draw your head back into the carriage before you tumble out onto the road.”

  Edward obeyed but grudgingly, wailing loudly when he cracked his head on the edge of the window.

  “It serves you right,” Harold informed him without sympathy.

  Robert, rolling his eyes, shut his book with a snap and demanded of no one in particular to know how he was supposed to pass the time until they reached Grantham.

  “You might try conversing with your travelling companions,” suggested her ladyship with some asperity. “Reading is all very well and good, and I enjoy a novel myself from time to time, but a gentleman is expected to be capable of carrying on a conversation, as well as being well-read.”

  “Oh, but we’re not gentlemen,” Harold put in. “Not anymore. We’re bastards, didn’t you know?”

  The words were uttered with a mixture of defiance and pride, and suddenly Lady Fieldhurst knew a great deal that had never been spoken aloud. Bitter experience had taught her how quickly Society could turn on one of its own at the first sign of weakness. She knew, as certainly as if she had witnessed the turn of events herself, the origins of Harold’s discolored eye—the knowing looks from his fellow scholars, the taunts that increased in viciousness and volume until Harold had had no choice but to defend his honor with his fists. In spite of her earlier annoyance, her heart went out to these three boys whose place in the world had collapsed so precipitously through no fault of their own. She supposed Harold expected her to express shock at such plain speaking, perhaps even to reprimand him for using such language. She could not find it in her heart to do so. Instead, she smiled kindly at him.

  “You have had a difficult time of it, have you not? I think I can understand a little, for it is not at all pleasant to be called a murderess, either. Perhaps it will do us all good to escape London for awhile. By the time we return, perhaps our friends and acquaintances will have had time to grow accustomed to our changed circumstances, and will no longer be shocked by them.”

  Harold shook his head. “For you maybe, but not for us. N
ot for me. The stain of illegitimacy will haunt me the rest of my life.” He struck his fist against his knee. “God, I could kill Father for this!”

  He flushed at the significance of his own words. “I beg your pardon—I should not have spoken so, not after what happened to—under the circumstances,” he finished lamely.

  It was the eternal tendency of youth, she knew, to dramatize itself, but in this case she feared Harold had spoken no more than the truth. Life must be difficult for any child born outside the bonds of matrimony, but how much worse for one who had supposed himself to be second in line to a viscountcy! She glanced at the two younger boys. They had apparently succumbed to either weariness or boredom, and now sat dozing in their seats, their heads bobbing with each lurch and sway of the carriage. Her gaze traced the curve of Edward’s plump cheek, and it occurred to her that, had she conceived shortly after her marriage the heir her husband had wanted so desperately, she might have had a son of her own very nearly his age. They were not really bad children, she thought, merely lost and confused boys, suffering unfairly for sins in which they had played no part.

  “Harold,” she said softly, so as not to awaken his brothers, “it was very wrong, what your father did to you—to all of you, yourself and your brothers and your mother—and I don’t blame you for being resentful. But do your father the justice to admit that his intentions were not evil. His sin was one of weakness, of being unable to resist the pressures placed on him by the expectations of others.” I cannot believe I am defending George Bertram, Julia thought, knowing that she must do so in order to help this troubled young man find peace. She laid her hand over his clenched fist. “In a way, he has spared you those same pressures and expectations—at great cost to yourself, it is true,” she added hastily, seeing an indignant protest forming on his lips, “but he has spared you, nonetheless. For you must know that being a viscount is much more than being called ‘your lordship.’ There would be several estates to manage, as well as a seat in the House of Lords. Then, too, the viscounts Fieldhurst have a long history of being active in His Majesty’s government. Now that you are no longer your father’s heir, you are free to pursue any manner of livelihood that interests you. I believe you will find your father eager to make amends by doing whatever he can to help establish you.”