Page 5 of A Fearless Heart
Just over a week afterLady Arcadia Osbourne hadnotbeen bitten by a spider, she didnotsuffer any ill effects, and she continued to live on just as expected. At the moment, however, she would have considered death as an alternative to the absolutely dire experience of receiving visitors at Calderwood on a Wednesday afternoon. Cady did not like receiving guests, but she also did not likerefusingto receive guests, since it could provide yet more fodder for the gossips. Martha and the others wished her to behave as normally as possible, and Cady was incapable of refusing them when they banded together.
So she had to endure the chattering of the vicar’s wife, the weird, stilted conversation of her distant neighbor Mrs Mitchell, the boorish attentions of Mr Pollack, and the usual tedium of Mr Heath, who lived a few miles west.
Though she had been hesitant to leave the safety of her house and gardens in the aftermath of her father’s passing, the house didn’t feel safe at all at the moment, having been invaded by this cadre of local busybodies.
“More tea, Mr Pollack?” she asked, a smile on her face but her gaze on the grandfather clock behind him. Quarter to two? Hadn’t it been quarter to two the last time she looked?
“Why, yes, my lady.” Pollack then chuckled. “That reminds me. Perhaps you have heard from the Crown Office about the matter of the, er, shift in succession?”
This question has been posed by Mr Pollack every week since the funeral of her father. To wit: was she Lady Arcadia Osbourne, merely the daughter of a lord…or was she Lady Calder, the heiress? The matter depended on whether her late father’s attempt to amend the letters patent would be approved, an effort Cady thought highly unlikely. In any case, this was a distinction of much importance to any suitor, it being in general more attractive to marry a lady with a title and property.
What also hovered in the air was the unasked second issue of concern to Mr Pollack—and half the county: did Arcadia murder her father? An answer in the affirmative would muddy the whole matter of her inheritance, of course, and why marry a lady who might lose everything before it could be adequately disposed of by the lucky husband?
As far as Cady could tell, Mr Pollack did not worry that he himself might be murdered. She found that fact interesting, though not interesting enough to chat about it over tea. Despite her lack of encouragement, he continued to pay compliments and attention to Cady, without actually proposing. He would continue in this way until certain facts about Cady’s title and inheritance became settled.
“I remain as I have always been,” Cady informed him, noting the flicker of disappointment in his eyes. “To the best of my knowledge, my brother is Lord Calder, as I have always expected.”
“And when might we hope to see Lord Calder return to Calderwood?” Mrs Bowcott asked, her voice ringing through the drawing room.
“Yes, when?” echoed Mrs Mitchell, a woman with all the backbone of a wet dishcloth, who’d come along with the vicar’s wife and looked very much as if she regretted it.
“He is much committed to life in London,” Cady replied evenly. “We do write each other regularly, of course, and I keep him apprised of everything happening here.” Not that anything ever happened in such an isolated and rural place.
“A vivacious young lad, as I remember him. It has beensucha long time,” Mrs Bowcott said. “What a shame that he remains in London even now. Why, I’d expect a young gentleman newly come into his title to be at his seat within a fortnight. And yet it has been months. He didn’t even attend the funeral, did he?”
“He was on the Continent. Rome, if I recall,” Cady said quickly. “It would have been quite impossible to return in time. I told him as much when I wrote with the news of Papa’s passing.” She did not add that father and son hadn’t spoken for years beforehand, and that Trevor very likely commemorated his father’s death with a grand party instead of a black armband.
“I do hope he decides to revisit Calderwood soon,” Mr Heath said from the sofa where he’d perched the moment he arrived, like a little brown bird on a branch. “Surely, after spending so much time in London, the young Lord Calder will add color to our less glamorous society.”
Cady nodded at the words, and actually had to muffle a wild laugh. Trevor would addsomethingto this society, but she doubted anyone around here would appreciate it. There was a reason Trevor had chosen to remain far, far away from home.
She wasn’t laughing at Mr Heath, though. In fact, he represented a welcome change from Mr Pollack. He was a gardener, and a long-time comrade of her mother’s. He had a passion for Italian gardens, and in particular waterworks. His dream was to create the most elaborate fountains and artificial waterfalls and ponds in the whole of Britain. Cady admired his single-mindedness of purpose, though she wished he cared a little bit more about the actual plants he distributed about his endless water features. Still, he was a true gentleman, and he never put any stock in the rumors rising up after her father’s death. She privately guessed that he would offer to marry her if she showed the slightest inclination toward him.
The only good thing about knowing the result of her father’s efforts to change her into his legal heir was that it would let Cady know what sort of income she could expect in the coming years. Running Calderwood was a challenge when her father was alive. Now it was even more difficult…never mind the skeletal staff. She looked at the tea things spread out on the little tables in the drawing room. Only a pot of black on offer, and a few types of light biscuits. In days of old, there would have been black, green, and oolong, plus a tisane specially created from the herbs grown in the gardens, and a host of treats and endless laughter and conversation.
Cady was lucky things weren’t worse off.
At that thought, she immediately imagined several ways they could worsen. She might be declared Lady Calder, thus gaining more attention than she was ready for. She might be arrested on a charge of murder, if the magistrate ever decided to actually get around to investigating the rumors that were clattering around the county. She might—
“Have you tried the lemon biscuits, Mrs Mitchell?” Cady asked, mostly to distract herself from the growing feelings of discomfort. She put wide-eyed innocence in her face, though she’d suspected why her guest had not touched any of the treats laid out on the tray.
“Oh, not yet,” Mrs Mitchell replied, alarmed to have been caught out. “They look too pretty to eat, do they not?”
“Cook would be devastated to hear it,” Cady said. “They are one of her specialties. She uses fruits grown here in the orangerie.”
Mrs Mitchell took a tentative bite from one of the pale yellow biscuits, perhaps expecting to drop dead that instant. Pleasure warred with fear for a moment, and then pleasure won. She took another bite. “Delicious,” she murmured when it was polite to do so.
“Mrs Prowse is the most accomplished cook in the shire,” the vicar’s wife declared, probably loudly enough that Cook could hear her all the way in the kitchen. “I’d hire her myself, but I know that she is devoted to the Osbourne family.”
Devoted to Father’s memory, more likely, Cady thought.Andshe’s one of the few workers who haven’t run away, so stealing her would be rude at this point.
“My goodness, the hour is later than I thought,” the vicar’s wife went on. “Mrs Mitchell and I have more calls to make.”
“And I must be off as well,” Mr Heath said.
Mr Pollack could not very well stay when everyone else was leaving, so he too rose and announced that he looked forward to see Arcadia next week, a wish she did not share.
“Thank you for coming,” Cady told them all, leaning hard on the polite formulas her father insisted she use…lest she say something unexpected and therefore unwanted. “I do hope you call again.” She did not hope for that at all, but God forbid anyone say what they were truly thinking over tea.
