Page 15 of Blackmail at Beckwith Place
“And we’re delighted to have you,” Aunt Roz said, and distributed a pat to the back of Constance’s hand. “We were starting to despair of Francis ever settling down.”
She bent a fond look on her eldest son.
If you asked me, the problem had never been Francis settling down. Crispin settling down, yes, but Francis had never had a habit of flitting from flower to flower, at least not as far as I knew.
Abigail Dole’s face—and that of little Bess—rose unasked (and unwanted) in my mind, and I pushed them down and turned back to Constance.
“It’ll be lovely to have a sister. I’ve been surrounded by boys all my life.”
The Countess cleared her throat. “You’re German, Miss Darling. Is that correct?”
There was a general feeling of stiffening spines around the room. Mine certainly tightened, and both Christopher and his mother sat up straighter. Uncle Herbert’s brows lowered.
Lady Laetitia’s lips curved, although I’m not sure Crispin noticed, as he, too, was looking at the Countess and at me and then back again.
“I’m English,” I told her calmly. “I’ve spent the past twelve years in England. I’m an English citizen. My mother was English, and so am I.”
“But your father was a German.”
There was a moment of silence while I thought about what to say. Was I supposed to denounce my parentage? Lie and say no, my father hadn’t been German?
Obviously not, since we all knew the truth, and anyway, he’d been my father. I didn’t remember him well anymore, but that didn’t mean I was willing to pretend he hadn’t existed, or that my mother hadn’t fallen for him and chosen to settle in Germany to be with him.
I straightened my shoulders, but before I could get the words out, there were footsteps on the floor of the sitting room next door, and then Hughes’s form appeared in the doorway between the two rooms.
“Tea is served on the terrasse, my lady.”
“The old cow,”Christopher muttered as he tucked my hand through his arm to escort me from the sitting room.
The Countess had already been ushered out to the terrasse by Uncle Harold, and her husband had trailed behind them, content to make his own way there, unaided by Aunt Roz. She walked with Uncle Herbert, while Lord Geoffrey ambled after, hands in his pockets. He had slanted a glance in my direction, but must have thought better of approaching when Christopher and I both responded with looks of loathing.
Crispin, meanwhile, was taken in hand by Laetitia and swept through the door with no more than a glance over his shoulder at us. He looked concerned, but there was very little he could do about it without bucking Laetitia’s grasp on his arm, and he seemed unwilling or perhaps unable to do that.
So it was me and Christopher, and his opinion of the Countess of Marsden.
“Like mother, like daughter,” I said philosophically as I let him escort me out of the drawing room and through the sitting room to the hall. Laetitia was still close enough to us that she could probably hear me, but if she did, she didn’t react. “It’s no problem, Christopher. Yes, I’m half German. We all know it. I’m certainly not going to pretend I’m not, just because some old crone has decided to put me on the spot.”
“Trying to make her daughter look better by making you look bad,” Christopher grumbled.
I shook my head. “That’s ridiculous. Is this about your peculiar notion concerning me and St George again?”
“Is it peculiar if the Countess Marsden got the same impression and moved to make you look bad because of it?”
The look he slanted me was victorious. I rolled my eyes. “I can’t help it if people get the wrong impression, Christopher. There’s nothing going on with me and St George, and you know it. We simply like to bicker. He’s clever, and I enjoy matching wits with him. I can’t help it if other people read something into that. But Laetitia Marsden is welcome to him. Or Flossie Schlomsky. Or Abigail Dole, if she can snag him. Or Millicent Tremayne or Violet Cummings or… Thank you, St George.”
“Don’t mention it,” Crispin said with a smirk as he held the hall door open for me to pass through. “Do go on, Darling. Millicent Tremayne or Violet Cummings or…?”
“Cecily Fletcher. Or that woman with the artistic grandfather you dallied with last year sometime. Or the waitress you mentioned last month, the one who prevented you from getting back to Sutherland Hall in a timely manner the day after Freddie Montrose died. They’re all welcome to you, singly or together. And I, for one, hope that when the competition is over, they’ve torn you into tiny pieces and scattered them across the landscape so that none of us have to deal with you anymore.”
I swept past him with my head held high. He sniggered and fell into step with Christopher as we headed down the hallway through the back of the house towards the terrasse doors.
It wassome ten or fifteen minutes later, just as the sun was dropping below the tops of the aspens to the west, that Laetitia stopped with a cucumber sandwich halfway to her mouth and asked, “Who’sthat?”
We weren’t sitting at the same small wrought-iron table on the terrasse. Of course not. For a moment, when Crispin attached himself to Christopher and me at the door, I had been afraid that I was destined for tea with him and Laetitia. But the Countess Marsden swooped down and whisked them off to a table for four with herself and Uncle Harold on the north end of the terrasse. Her husband ended up with Aunt Roz, Uncle Herbert, and Geoffrey—I breathed a sigh of relief at that, at any rate—and Christopher and I sat with Francis and Constance, which made for a very comfortable and happy meal for us. The only thing worth notice was when Hughes, who was helping Cook with tea, approached Lady Marsden to inquire whether the Marsdens had heard anything from Lydia Morrison.
“Lydia Morrison?” I repeated, with a glance at Constance. “Who’s she?”
The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. And what would make Hughes think that Lady Marsden would know, anyway?
