The baroness stood in a hurry, absent mindedly curtsied to no one in particular, and turning, hurried from the hall. Avice promptly took the chair left vacant, and started crying again. “I think,” said Emeline, “I am going to be sick.”
Nicholas, remembering to appear comforting, put his arm back around her shoulders.
The earl was glaring impatiently at his son. “All this feminine nonsense,” he complained, “is of no matter whatsoever. You don’t seem to appreciate the gravity of the situation, Nick m’boy.”
“Oh, indeed I do,” smiled Nicholas, taking his wife’s hand. “Feeling sick can be a serious business indeed, and will probably interfere with what I had in mind for this evening.” He squeezed Emeline’s fingers in faintly amused apology. “As for you, Papa, I suggest you take yourself to bed as well. You need to sleep off whatever you’ve been chewing on for the past few days. I murdered no one, and can probably prove it if pressed since I imagine I was here in full view whenever it was done. Nor do I intend getting an annulment. I’m perfectly satisfied with my marriage as it happens, which is more than I can say for my parentage. Now, unless you want me to prove my violent tendencies and knock you down, you had better come upstairs with me. I’ll find you an empty bedchamber and tie you to the bed if necessary.”
“This matter isn’t finished,” spluttered the earl. “And if you think I give a damn about that silly little niece of mine – I just hope she’s left her fool aunt behind.”
Nicholas interrupted him. He released his wife’s hand and strode across to confront his father. “Sissy is probably here to show this family has some manners after all,” he said softly. “She knows her brother went off to find me, and won’t know I’ve since turned up here. Now she’ll have heard of the baron’s death, and will have come to offer help and condolences. Something I doubt had occurred to you, Papa?”
“Help? Help indeed,” scowled the earl. “I came to save your silly neck and extricate myself from this family pickle. If you think I’m going to sit peacefully in Westminster while the king wipes his hands of the Chatwyns, then you don’t know me.”
“Since I know you remarkably well,” said Nicholas with a small impatient sigh, “I know full well you’re interested only in preserving your position at court. If the king has cancelled your diplomatic mission to Spain, it’s probably because he realised you’d make a raker’s midden of it. You’d not be the first I’d recommend for organising a marital agreement on behalf of royalty. So he ordered you to ride to Gloucestershire instead, to give comfort to the Wrothams and your poor fatherless daughter-in-law.”
“Well, well, that’s as may be,” sighed the earl, unbending slightly, “it’s true his grace has his own quiet way of doing things. But if you’d heard the gossip flying north, south and west – and every wretched rumour monger whispering that it’s my son who first killed his brother – and then his poor little wife’s father –”
Nicholas had dragged his father upstairs when the baroness finally brought her new young visitor into the hall. The four women sat white faced as Sherman served hippocras and honey cakes. It was nearing suppertime, but the baroness had not yet asked for the table to be set, nor decided how many there might be to feed. She was hoping it would be fewer than she feared.
Emeline said, “It’s totally delightful to see you again Sissy, and most kind of you to come.” She was busy picking up the biscuit crumbs she had dropped in her lap. It was distraction she needed. “You have just missed your uncle.”
“What a relief,” said Sissy, accepting a cup of warmed hippocras.
Avice shook her head. “He’s still here – upstairs. I suppose we can’t hope he’ll stay up there forever. He’ll have to come down one day.”
“I may go to bed early,” Sissy decided. “It has been a tiring day, and travel is always so exhausting. Besides,” she looked around, expecting confirmation, “I suppose he’s drunk. Both of them, no doubt.”
Nicholas faced his father through the long shadows. The room was small, but the twilight entering through the one casement window did not reach the corners. “I’ve no idea,” he said, “whether this is the bedchamber you’re supposed to be given or not. Since it’s a miserable place with a dreary stench, it would be all you deserve, though presumably the baroness has ordered your bags to be dumped somewhere or other. But for the moment no one else is sleeping in this one, so we can at least talk in private.”
His father pulled up a wide armed and cushioned chair and sat within it, ignoring the groan of unaccustomed wood to bulk. “Gloomy house,” muttered the earl. “Light some candles, m’boy.”
“I doubt I’ll find any,” remarked Nicholas. “My dear father-in-law was the thriftiest soul I’ve ever met. But I didn’t kill him.”
“If –” said the earl.
His son interrupted him. “I’m not entirely clear when it was done,” he said wearily. “But at a guess, I’d say I was already here, probably in bed with my wife, and with enough witnesses to swear I was nowhere near Gloucester. Does that satisfy you? Or are you simply concerned with what others may think, and not actually bothered about my guilt or innocence?”
“The court thinks you did it.” The earl stared glumly at the dust and horse spittle on his riding boots. “The whole of Westminster thinks you did it. The Council thinks you did it. And the king thinks you did it.”
“The king won’t think anything of the sort,” said the Chatwyn heir without any visible signs of concern. “He’s not the sort of man to jump to foolish conclusions, and besides, he knows I’m not the sort of man to have murdered my wife’s father without strong motive.”
“And how would he know that?” demanded the earl. “You’re rarely at court, thank the Lord, so the king wouldn’t recognise you from a damned Flemish pig salter.”
Nicholas smiled faintly. “Never mind about that. It’s you, dear Papa, who should know me better after all. Yet you seem curiously eager to convict me.”
There was a pause. Then, “Peter,” muttered the earl.
Nicholas sighed. “Yes, indeed. I rather wondered if you suspected me all along. I know you were disappointed it hadn’t been the other way around. Peter did try to kill me once, of course. But I did not retaliate. Now I see we shall have to talk at some length.”
“So where’s the damned wine jug?” demanded his father.
Chapter Twenty-Three
There were awkward silences across the dinner table. The earl’s rank conferred the place of honour and Nicholas sat at the far end, which was how he liked it. The baroness discussed the recent mild weather, but only Sysabel took much notice of the conversation, informing everyone that it had rained for several consecutive days that week in Nottingham.
The courses were a little more plentiful and slightly more elaborate than had previously been served in the Wrotham household, for since his lordship’s unaccountable death the baroness, initially a little surprised at herself, had begun to make her own choices. Encouraged by both daughters, she now consistently requested more appetising meals, and now she had not just one but three important visitors, she had ordered the kitchens to produce the best of whatever they had available and could put together in such a short time. There were, of course, apple codlings.
Avice, suddenly inquiring why everyone at Westminster Palace evidently assumed Nicholas had committed vile and heinous murder when they had no possible knowledge of the facts nor even knowing who Baron Wrotham was, was quickly glared into silence by her mother. But then Sysabel answered, “It’s rumour, you know, that sprinkles the whetstones of every town. No one is too interested in truth when gossip is so much more intriguing. And Nicholas is hardly well respected – or trusted –” but she caught Emeline’s glare, and her voice faded out.