“Shall we go and help Cook, Jonathan? And then I have a whole box of ribbons that need to be sorted. Shall we leave these folk to their papers?”
The small boy thought seriously for a moment, then nodded and allowed himself to be led from the room. The door closed behind them.
“Well, Susan?”
Graves tried to smile at her. She looked up at him.
“Who is that man outside, Mr. Graves? You did not seem very pleased to see him.”
“His name is Molloy. I have some business with him, but it is nothing to do with Alexander, Susan, I promise you.”
She nodded and drew the box over to her with an effort, then lifted the lid.
It was mostly papers, but on top of them lay two small packages wrapped in soft leather scraps. Susan lifted the first of them out, and handed it without speaking to Graves. He took it from her and she watched him attentively as he unwrapped it. It was the miniature of Susan’s mother that he remembered Alexander showing him once. There was a larger version of the same portrait hanging in the parlor of Alexander’s house, there to watch over them, but there was a delicacy in this little portrait missing in the larger version. He handed it back to Susan, and she held it in her palm.
“I think Jonathan and I are rather alone in the world now, are we not?”
Graves felt his throat burn, but nodded slowly.
“You and Miss Chase will help us though, won’t you, Mr. Graves?”
“Always.”
She wiped her eyes with her fingertips and removed the other little bag, again handing it to Graves. He shook it gently and an elegant gold wedding band fell into his hand. It glittered with a tiny nest of sapphires. He could fancy it felt warm on his hand.
“Your mother’s, I think, Susan.”
She took it from him, touching the brilliants with her fingertips, then her shoulders began to shake, and Miss Chase put her hand on the child’s arm.
“What is it, Susan? Does it hurt you to see it?”
The girl looked a little wildly from side to side at the adults.
“I don’t know what to do with it! Am I to wear it? I think it is too big for my finger. What if it fell off in the street!”
She burrowed her head into the young woman’s shoulder and cried so hard, Graves was almost frightened for her. He caught Miss Chase’s eye, and opened his mouth hoping to find something of use to say. Miss Chase shook her head very slightly at him, and cradled and shushed the little girl till her sobs lessened a little. With one hand she then felt at her neck, and drew up a simple gold chain that hung under her bodice.
“Susan, my love, I have an idea. I think it would be a fine thing for you to wear your mother’s ring. Let’s hang it on this old chain of mine.”
Susan looked up, unsure, but hopeful.
“But it is yours,” she said.
Miss Chase looked quite severe.
“It is my gift to you. Look, the clasp is very secure.” Susan operated the little catch and bit her lip. “Now we may put your ring on it,” she did so, “and fasten it round your neck.”
Susan let the light chain be placed over her head, and held up the ring so it caught the light.
“There,” said Miss Chase, leaning back. “You can wear it under your bodice, as I did, so it is always close to your heart, and safe as if it were in the Bank of England.”
Susan smiled consciously and tucked the chain away. Graves watched, his feelings as the admirer of one woman, and protector of the other, tumbling over in his chest like flag-waving acrobats. Susan leaned into Miss Chase’s embrace again, and they looked at the box, the great pile of papers it contained making Susan shrink against Miss Chase’s arm. Keeping the little girl secure, Miss Chase reached out for the black lid, and closed it over the papers again. Graves stirred a little, as if about to protest. He met command in Miss Chase’s eye.
“That is enough for now. We can look at the papers later. They will keep, and I think Susan and I should take a turn round the square.”
He heard Susan sigh with relief, and kept silent.
2
Harriet took a drink from her coffee cup, tapping her foot impatiently on the carpet. Crowther wondered how she had managed to contain her energy on the relatively small stage of one of His Majesty’s ships. Even in the country it seemed that she never had enough room to move. While she gathered her thoughts to speak to her sister he considered. Perhaps it was not the physical space she occupied that bound her, but the delicate pressures of expectation and custom that wove the world around them into such tight ropes and checks. Invisible and made of stuff as slippery and delicate as silk, but strong, and tight, for all that. She sat forward in her chair and began to speak.
“Very well. Hugh, it seems, asked Joshua Cartwright to find someone to look for Alexander, the heir to Thornleigh and its title. This man, Carter Brook, was engaged, and obviously found something-we know that because of the ring of Alexander’s he was carrying-but when he went to meet Hugh in the woods he was attacked and murdered before he could tell Hugh anything.”
“So says Mr. Hugh Thornleigh,” murmured Crowther, keeping his eyes on Rachel. She must have prepared herself for this, he thought, since his implication that the man she had once loved might be a liar and murderer drew no reaction.
Instead, she said calmly to her sister, “Finding, or preventing Alexander from being found, must be at the bottom of this, surely?”
“Yes.” Harriet twisted her head a little to look out of the window as she spoke. “All the wealth of the estate, and the title depends on Alexander being found, as you know. Though of course if he cannot be traced, or is found to be dead, or is declared to be dead after proper searches have been made, then Hugh inherits everything. For now it is by common consent that he runs the estate.”
Crowther cleared his throat. “I have wondered why the family has not taken steps to have Viscount Hardew declared dead before now. His absence has been so extended, and nothing seems to have been heard from him.”
Harriet shrugged. “The current lord still lives, after a fashion. Perhaps that means the family do not think the case pressing. He has already survived five years in this half-state.”
“You do not think Hugh ambitious to take the title?”
“Hardly! Do you, Crowther?”
“No. From what I have seen of him I think he wishes only to divide his time between the hunt and the bottle. But I could be very wrong. Something grates at him, makes him bitter. It may be the fact he has the responsibility for the wealth of his family, but no power to enjoy it. That may make him wish for Alexander’s return, as he says-or wish the missing heir to hell.”
Crowther and Harriet’s attention had been drawn in the exchange to each other. When Rachel now spoke, calmly and firmly enough, they both turned to her, slightly surprised to find there were three in the conversation.
“Suppose that everything Hugh and Mr. Cartwright said in front of the coroner was true, and Hugh’s motives purely looking to the good of his family rather than his own situation within it… why did not Hugh instruct his steward, Wicksteed, to try and find out about his brother? He has left everything else of moment about the estate to his care since he arrived.”
“I can only conclude that Hugh wanted to gather, and act on, this information in secret, as he hinted at the hearing,” Crowther replied. “I was surprised, and not a little doubtful, when he ascribed that secrecy to a wish to protect the feelings of Lady Thornleigh. Unless he thought she might be harsher in her treatment and attitude to Alexander if he was in straitened or,” he paused, “disgraceful circumstances of one sort or another. And yet her talk about alarming duchesses does not suggest she would care much if his position were … irregular. And if he is alive, she is quite as dependent on his goodwill as Hugh. If not more so.”