Page 1 of Mischief at Marsden Manor (Pippa Darling Mysteries #6)

CHAPTER ONE

“No,” I said.

Christopher squinted at me across the tea table. “What do you mean, no?”

I scowled back. “I mean no, I am not going to spend a weekend at Marsden Manor watching Lady Laetitia flaunt the Sutherland diamonds. I’m also not keen to spend a weekend trying to dodge Geoffrey Marsden’s wandering hands. The man simply will not take no for an answer. Nor will you, it seems.”

Admittedly, that was unfair of me. Christopher has absolutely nothing in common with Lord Geoffrey Marsden. I was getting frustrated, however. It wasn’t the first time I had given him this answer to this question, and I was getting tired of repeating myself. The question being, did I plan to attend the engagement celebration at Marsden Manor in Dorset, for Christopher’s cousin Crispin, Viscount St George, and his intended, Lady Laetitia Marsden?

And the answer was, as it had been every time he’d asked, no. I intended to do no such thing.

“Do not compare me to Geoffrey Marsden,” Christopher said severely. “I would never squeeze a young lady into a corner of the sofa and try to kiss her against her will.”

Of course he wouldn’t. For one thing, he’s too much of a gentleman, and for another, he prefers young men to young ladies, although he wouldn’t force himself on one of them, either.

“That’s not what I meant,” I told him, “and you know it.”

“As for Laetitia and the Sutherland diamonds, that was your own fault.”

“Was not!”

“Was, too. If you hadn’t lost your temper with St George and told him to go ahead and propose because he and Laetitia deserve each other…”

I grimaced. “I didn’t imagine that he would actually do it. Although I maintain that they do deserve one another. She’s a cow, and he?—”

“—is going to be unhappy,” Christopher said. “I thought you cared about his happiness, Pippa. Or aren’t you the one who has been telling him for months not to succumb to Uncle Harold’s pressure?”

“I was angry,” I said. “And I’m not going to apologize for it. He said horrible things to me.”

“I know,” Christopher said sympathetically. “You had every right to be upset with him. He was unkind. He should have kept his mouth shut, or rather, should have kept himself from spilling his prejudices onto the stationary in front of him. He should certainly have refrained from sending it to you once he’d written it. Although in justice to him?—”

“Don’t you dare defend him, Christopher!”

“He was upset, too,” Christopher said, going right ahead with the defense in spite of my protestation. “We did just fight a war against Germany, remember? One in which his cousin died? It’s understandable that we might all have a problem with you getting close to the enemy.”

“I know that,” I said. “Robbie was my cousin, too. Nobody’s sorrier than I am, believe me.”

Not that any of it was my fault, but my father had been conscripted on the German side, and had been in the trenches, and might have killed Cousin Robert. Not that I thought he had done, but the possibility did occasionally torment me during sleepless nights.

“You seem to be forgetting,” I added, “that I’m the enemy, too.”

Christopher scoffed, and I added, “No, seriously, Christopher. It’s not all that long ago that the Countess Marsden told Aunt Roz what a pity it is that my mother ran away and married a German. And St George was there for that conversation. He ought to have remembered that when he disparaged Wolfgang’s heritage, he disparaged mine, as well.”

“So he ought to have done,” Christopher agreed. “It wouldn’t be the first time he’s gotten caught up in his own spite. You know he didn’t mean it.”

“I know no such thing,” I said, offended. “If he didn’t mean it, he should have sent an apology, and?—”

“You told him not to write again.”

“Well, I?—”

I stopped myself before I could say that I hadn’t meant it, because I had, in fact, meant every word. I hadn’t wanted to hear from St George again, at least not right away. I was upset and angry and yes, hurt. Christopher’s cousin Crispin and I had been getting along better lately, after more than a decade of being at one another’s throats, and I hadn’t expected him to throw the land of my birth in my face via letter. I had wanted time to process my feelings before I had to deal with him again, and yes, maybe I had wanted to hurt him back, too, at least a little bit.

It was no more than he deserved, after all.

So while I had, as Christopher had so kindly pointed out, told St George to go ahead and propose to Lady Laetitia Marsden because they deserved one another, I hadn’t actually thought he would do it. I had assumed that he would take a couple of days to get over his anger while I did the same, and then we would figure out a way to get back on an even keel again.

As even as the keel ever is between two people who heartily despise one another and never let a chance go by to let the other know how they feel.

“Well, you’re going to have to deal with them both next weekend,” Christopher said, lifting the heavy piece of stationary that had precipitated this conversation. “She invited Natterdorff.”

I blinked at him. “Laetitia Marsden? Invited Wolfgang to her engagement party? Why?”

If her fiancé despised the man enough to propose to her—a woman he didn’t love—because I lost my temper with him over his disparagement of someone who claimed to be my cousin—why on earth would Laetitia invite him to her and Crispin’s engagement bash?

“It’s obvious,” Christopher said, “isn’t it?”

Was it?

“She’s either trying to do you a good turn, after taking Crispin away from you?—”

I made a face, and he nodded. “Yes, I know. But she doesn’t. She wants him, so she thinks everyone else does, too.”

“Or?”

“Or she’s trying to make her new fiancé squirm.”

That seemed like a valid guess. Wolfgang’s presence would definitely make Crispin squirm, although why Laetitia would want that, I couldn’t tell you. I was in favor of the sentiment on a general level, though. I never pass up an opportunity to make Crispin squirm, but of course I’m not marrying him. “How does she even know that Wolfgang exists?”

“I imagine Crispin had himself a proper rant,” Christopher said. “I can’t imagine that he wouldn’t have told everyone he knows about Natterdorff’s existence.”

“Surely not. Why would he tell his intended about another man? Especially one he clearly dislikes?” And one who, furthermore, was not only better-looking, but also higher up the aristocratic scale?

That was in German aristocracy, mind you, which is worth less than the paper it’s written on in Germany these days, since the Weimar Republic did away with their nobility in 1919, but which still counts for something in England. It counted with Crispin, I was fairly certain.

“Because he’s upset,” Christopher said, “and when Crispin’s upset, he spews bile to anyone who’ll listen. Laetitia listens to him. That’s part of the problem.”

I grimaced. “Well, if Crispin told her, that’s no more than I asked him to do, I suppose.” Go cry on Laetitia’s shoulder, and propose while he was at it. “He probably regurgitated it all. Including how much he despises Wolfgang. Which doesn’t seem like a good reason for Laetitia to include him in their engagement celebration…”

“But which makes perfect sense if you consider the people involved in this farce,” Christopher said. “At any rate, I wouldn’t let Lord Geoffrey behave as he did at the Dower House. Nor would Natterdorff. Or, for that matter, Francis. And as for Crispin?—”

“Laetitia will have him on a short leash,” I said. “He’ll be lucky if she lets him say boo to any of us.”

Or to me, at least. She hadn’t liked me before this, and she surely liked me less now. I highly doubted Christopher’s assertion that she was trying to do me a good turn by including Wolfgang in the festivities.

Unless my having essentially thrown St George at her had disposed her more kindly towards me, of course. She had gotten what she had been working towards for months, after all. The Sutherland diamonds, and Crispin’s hand—and title, and fortune—in marriage.

And all because I lost my temper and told him to kindly go self-destruct, and he had chosen to listen.

“She’ll certainly keep him far away from you,” Christopher agreed. “And that’s where Natterdorff comes in, I expect. Him and Geoffrey. You’ll be beating them both off with sticks.”

“All the more reason to stay home.” I eyed the piece of stationary in his hand. “Who wrote?”

He glanced at it, as if he didn’t already know what it said. “Natterdorff. To let you know that he’d be coming. Evans handed it to me downstairs.”

“And you decided to open it?”

“I assumed you’d eventually share the contents with me anyway,” Christopher said with a shrug and handed the single piece of paper to me. I ran my eyes over it. The Savoy Hotel logo was in the corner, and then a few lines of German Kurrentschrift , of which I had seen enough in the past few weeks that it was easier to decipher than it used to be.

“Of course I would share it with you,” I told him, “but that’s no reason to read other people’s correspondence.”

“I wanted to know whether it was another invitation to supper.”

Wolfgang Ulrich Albrecht, Graf von und zu Natterdorff, was a young German nobleman whose acquaintance we had made a few weeks earlier at the Savoy Hotel. Or rather, I had made his acquaintance at five years old or so, it seemed, in Heidelberg. He and his parents had come to visit me and mine. I couldn’t remember the occasion, but Wolfgang said he did. We were some sort of cousins once or twice removed—I had never asked, nor been told about, the specifics—and he had recognized me, so he said, eighteen years later, across the Savoy tearoom.

Since then, we had gone out to supper a few times, and he had contributed to saving my life in that incident that had precipitated the correspondence with St George that had culminated in me telling him to propose to Lady Laetitia Marsden. And now Laetitia had invited Wolfgang to her and Crispin’s engagement do.

“You simply must attend,” Christopher said. “You can’t leave Natterdorff alone with all the women of the Bright Young Set. With Crispin off the marital mart, and Francis engaged as well, and me not exactly in the market for a liaison with a Bright Young Thing—unless it’s Cecil Beaton, I suppose…”

“Never mind that,” I told him. “Beaton’s all about Stephen Tennant these days, as you very well know. And you’re all about Tom Gardiner.”

Christopher muttered something, a blush staining his cheeks, and I added, “Although you do have a point. Wolfgang will be swarmed by eager young ladies, and so will you, since Laetitia won’t let anyone flutter around St George…”

“Precisely why we have to be there,” Christopher said. “If you don’t look out, someone else will turn Natterdorff’s head and end up with the Schloss in Bavaria.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t want a Schloss in Bavaria, Christopher. The situation in Germany is still much too fraught for me to feel comfortable with the idea of going back there. In my opinion, that madman Herr Hitler bears watching. I can’t believe that they let him out of prison only two years after an attempted political coup.”

Christopher nodded. “Yes, Pippa. We know.”

“It’s a valid concern,” I said irritably, “whether you agree with me or not. The Germans started one war. There’s no reason to think they won’t start another.”

“There’s every reason to think they won’t,” Christopher answered. “With all the sanctions, they’re only now getting back to normal, and it’s eight years later.”

“All the more reason for them to be upset.” I waved it aside, since it was, after all, not germane to what we were discussing. “Aside from all that, I feel very English. More so than I do German.”

I had spent my first eleven years in Germany. When the Great War broke out and my father was conscripted, my mother sent me to her sister in England for my safety. By now, they were both dead, and I was thoroughly acclimated to England.

“So if His Grace proposes…” Christopher said.

“Wolfgang? He’s here in England too, at the moment. I suppose I would simply do my best to convince him to stay here. If I decided to marry him at all, that is. I don’t know that I would.”

“Well,” Christopher said, “unless you go to Crispin’s engagement party and keep all the other women off him—off Natterdorff, I mean; not off Crispin, Laetitia will see to that—you may never get the chance.”

And that might be a bit of all right. The Graf von Natterdorff was handsome, titled, and presumably wealthy, but aside from being German—which was a bit hypocritical, I’ll admit, but it was still a consideration—he was also my cousin. And while it’s legal to marry one’s cousin, that didn’t mean I thought it would be a good idea to do so. One only has to look at Tutankhamen for a lesson in what might happen to people whose parents marry their close relatives.

“So it’s settled,” Christopher said. “We’ll go to Dorset next weekend.”

I made a face. “If you insist.”

“I do, Pippa. The least you can do is face the havoc you wreaked in person.”

“It’s not my fault that your cousin was stupid enough to propose to a woman he doesn’t love while he’s in love with someone else,” I said crossly. “Yes, perhaps I shouldn’t have said what I did; I’ll admit that?—”

“Finally!”

“—but I’m not responsible for St George’s actions. He has been threatening to propose to Laetitia for three months now. He brings it up every time I see him so that I can talk him out of it. If me talking him out of it repeatedly was the only reason he didn’t do it before now, then he must truly want to marry her. Or at least he doesn’t want to marry anyone else enough not to buckle under his father’s pressure.”

“You hit him harder than you realize, Pippa,” Christopher said, but I shook my head.

“I’ll go to the engagement party. If I don’t, I’m sure someone—St George or Laetitia, or perhaps someone else—will think it means something. But I’ll need a new evening frock. Laetitia hasn’t seen the beaded salmon, but both St George and Wolfgang have. I need at least one new evening frock for a weekend away.”

“Selfridges, then?”

“Selfridges will do,” I agreed.

Christopher rubbed his hands together. “Tomorrow?”

“We may as well. Who knows how long it will take to find something suitable?”

“Black, I suppose? For mourning?”

I snorted. “I’ll leave that to Lady Laetitia.”

Christopher tilted his head consideringly. “Surely, for her own engagement party, she’ll pull something else out of the wardrobe? After all, she has just achieved everything she’s ever wanted. Red or purple or something else indecently triumphant…”

“I have never seen her wear anything but black,” I said, “joyous occasion or not. But I’ll pay you five quid if her frock is a different color.”

“You’re on.” He stuck out his hand, and we shook on it.

And so it was that a week and a bit later, Christopher and I took the train from Waterloo Station to Salisbury in Wiltshire, where we were picked up by cousin Francis in the Astley family’s Bentley. From there, we motored to Beckwith Place, where we spent the evening with Francis and Constance, and with Uncle Herbert and Aunt Roz, who were no happier about their nephew’s engagement than Christopher and I were.

“Impetuous fool,” Uncle Herbert grumbled over pudding. “There’s no way out for him now unless the young lady decides to release him from his obligation, and having met her, I don’t think that’s at all likely.”

“It would take something truly unforgiveable,” I agreed, “and given the circumstances, I can’t imagine what that might be.”

If Laetitia had accepted him despite knowing that he was in love with someone else, I had no idea what he could do that would be worse in her eyes. Surely even bedding someone else wouldn’t do it. She may even expect infidelity, and might have gone into the engagement prepared to forgive and forget if it happened.

“It boggles the mind,” Aunt Roz said, twisting the stem of her glass between her fingers, eyes on the dessert wine inside while she spoke, “why a young woman like that would willingly put herself in a situation in which her future husband will most likely end up being unfaithful, not to mention end up resenting her. Has she no sense of self-preservation?”

“Or pride?” I muttered.

“Most of the time she has plenty of both,” Constance answered in her usual soft way. She’s Laetitia’s cousin, and thus must be expected to know the answers to questions like that. “I don’t know what it is about Lord St George that makes her behave like a fool.”

“Must be the money and title,” Francis said, “since it can’t be his lovely personality.”

He winked at me across the table. I smirked back. “No, surely not.”

“Unless she knows something about him that the rest of us don’t,” Francis added, referring, of course, to the fact that Laetitia had dragged Crispin into bed at one point earlier this year, and might, indeed, know something about him that the rest of us didn’t.

“Francis!” Aunt Roz said, shocked, and Constance blushed. Francis chuckled.

“Sorry, Mum. But there must be something, mustn’t there? For a girl like that to accept him, even under the circumstances?”

There was a moment’s pause, and then Christopher said, “There has to be something we can do to derail things. We all agree that we don’t want Laetitia Marsden in the family, don’t we?”

There was a general murmur of agreement from around the table. Even Constance nodded.

“What do you suggest?” I wanted to know.

He glanced at me. “Perhaps we could get him drunk and into bed with Beaton and Tennant? And then make it public. That might be shocking enough to get rid of her.”

“That’s dreadful,” Uncle Herbert said. “You would destroy your cousin’s reputation? And risk his health and future happiness? Just to get him away from Laetitia Marsden?”

“If I thought it would work,” I said, “I would do it. Unfortunately, Uncle Harold would probably thrash St George to within an inch of his life if he thought Crispin was queer.”

Better that he end up married to Lady Laetitia than dead. Marginally better, at any rate.

“Then I’m not certain what to suggest,” Christopher said. “If adultery won’t do it, of the male or female persuasion, I don’t know what else I could come up with, honestly.”

“I’m appalled that you came up with that ,” Aunt Roz told him. “Homosexuality is one thing, Christopher. Orgies are quite another.”

“That’s why it might work,” Christopher said unrepentantly. “If there were photographs…”

“The tabloids wouldn’t print them, surely?”

“Of course not!” Aunt Roz said, looking shocked.

“Then I don’t see how that would work,” Francis said. “Besides, is compromising Crispin likely to make her let go? If it were, surely he wouldn’t be in the position he’s in now, would he?”

None of us answered, and he added, “What we have to do, is find something we can use to blackmail her, not embarrass him. Surely she must have done something questionable herself at some point, that we can hold over her head. Connie?”

“Nothing she has confided in me,” Constance said serenely, “unless you consider the fact that she lost her virtue to Lord St George before becoming engaged to him. It’s not unheard of, of course?—”

No, not at all. And given that it had been her idea and not his, I was pretty sure her virtue had been non-existent at the time, anyway.

“—and at this point,” Constance continued, “it’s a non-issue, of course. He has agreed to make an honest woman of her.”

After a second she added, “Although I suppose, while we’re at Marsden this weekend, I could find the time to have a gossip with some of the maids. If anyone knows what’s going on with the family, it’s a maid.”

“It’s a shame that he has always refused to declare himself to this girl he claims to be in love with,” I said. Francis and Constance exchanged a glance, but didn’t say anything. So did Aunt Roz and Christopher, ditto.

I added, “We don’t know her, of course. She could be worse than Laetitia. But if he loves her, at least he’d be happier than he would be with Laetitia, and we’re going to be dealing with a shrew either way.”

No one said anything, and I concluded, “If we could find her, and convince her to talk to him, perhaps he would throw Laetitia over.”

“The Marsdens would bring a breach-of-promise suit,” Uncle Herbert said, “and Harold would force Crispin to go through with the marriage after all.”

“Besides,” Aunt Roz added, with a glance at Christopher and one at Francis, “if he hasn’t told her himself yet, it isn’t our place to interfere.”

“He’s a grown man,” Uncle Herbert added, “and I assume he knows his own mind?—”

I snorted, because how could he, if he’d rather marry a woman he didn’t love than risk being rejected by one he did?

“Perhaps if you talked to him, Pipsqueak,” Francis began, and I shook my head.

“I’m the last person he wants a lecture from right now. Besides, it’s not as if I haven’t spoken to him about this before now. Every time we’ve had this conversation, I’ve told him that living in squalor on the Continent might not be so bad. My mother seemed to enjoy it.”

It hadn’t been squalor, of course. Not the Parisian garret with no heat or running water that Crispin imagined. We had lived in a small flat in Heidelberg, and it had been neat and clean, and we had had everything we needed. It wasn’t a Schloss in Bavaria, of course, or for that matter a manor house in Wiltshire, but there was no reason why Crispin and his lady-love couldn’t do the same and be perfectly comfortable.

Aunt Roz’s expression softened. “I know, Pippa. Annabelle was happy with your father.”

“And there’s no reason why St George couldn’t do the same.” As long as someone found the girl and convinced her to cooperate. I narrowed my eyes. “Christopher…”

“No,” Christopher said.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean no,” Christopher said. “He told me in confidence, and I won’t go behind his back. If he wants to confess his feelings, he’ll do so. Or not, now.” He made a face. “But either way, no. He made it clear what would happen if I said anything to anyone. Especially you.”

Oh, especially me, was it?

“And what was it that would happen, Kit?” Francis wanted to know, eyes twinkling.

Christopher sighed. “Disembowelment featured largely. So did defenestration.”

“Before or after the disembowelment?”

“Who knows?” Christopher said. “Does it matter, really? Whether I have my intestines removed before or after I’m thrown out the window makes very little difference to me.”

He shook his head. “I promised him I wouldn’t talk about it. The rest of you can speculate all you want, and I don’t doubt that most of you could make an accurate guess, but we’re not going to do it out loud. And as for you, Pippa?—”

He pinned me with a stare, “—if he had wanted you to know, he would have told you himself.”

He had certainly had plenty of opportunity to do so. If he hadn’t done, then Christopher was most likely right and Crispin didn’t want me to know. Afraid I would mock him, no doubt. Or worse, interfere.

“Fine.” I folded my arms over my chest and stuck my bottom lip out.

“Thank you, Pippa.”

“But if you do know who she is, you might just whisper a suggestion in her ear that St George is carrying a torch, and perhaps?—”

“No,” Christopher said. “Disembowelment and defenestration, remember?”

“Lady Laetitia Marsden,” I shot back. “A life sentence.”

“One he signed himself up for.” He shook his head. “Sorry, Pippa. But he is a fully functioning adult who made up his own mind to do this. I know you feel like it was your fault?—”

I made a face.

“—but you’re not responsible for Crispin. He’s old enough to make his own decisions.”

“Kit’s right, Pipsqueak,” Francis added. “You’ve been trying to talk the brat out of proposing to the harpy for months now. If he did it anyway, it’s not your fault.”

“I was unkind to him. I oughtn’t have been.”

“He’s been unkind to you for twelve years,” Francis said bluntly. “If he’s getting some of that returned, it won’t hurt him. And if he can’t handle it, that’s his problem.”

I supposed so. Francis was right, after all. Crispin wasn’t my responsibility. It was hard to escape the guilt I felt over the situation, but my family deserved better than to have to listen to me moan about it repeatedly. So I forced a smile and nodded. “You’re right. I suppose we’ll just have to get used to the idea of facing Lady Laetitia Marsden across the Christmas goose from now on.”

“We won’t be invited back to Sutherland Hall if she’s lady of the manor,” Christopher said, and Francis nodded.

“Laetitia, Viscountess St George, won’t want the likes of us cluttering up her dining room. Which is fine by me.” He stretched. “If I never see that brother of hers again, it won’t be too soon.”

I felt the same way, although I recognized the fact that we were talking about Constance’s cousins, and I didn’t want to say anything too harsh. Bad enough that Francis wasn’t holding back.

“I’m sure Geoffrey will have his own family by the time Laetitia becomes Duchess of Sutherland,” I said instead. “He has his own succession to worry about, after all. Just like St George, I’m sure he’ll be required to marry and carry on the Marsden name sooner rather than later.”

“I pity the poor woman who has to marry Geoffrey,” Constance said, so perhaps I had been more considerate than was necessary earlier. “I’m sure Lord St George will at least be discreet with his dalliances. Geoffrey is either too stupid or too venal to care what anyone thinks.”

“And this is the gentleman—” Uncle Herbert’s face twisted, “I use the word in its titular form only—who squeezed our Pippa into a corner of the sofa at the Dower House in May?”

Everyone nodded.

“That won’t happen this time,” Christopher said, and Francis nodded.

“We’ll keep you safe, Pipsqueak.”

“Thank you, Francis,” I said, and that was the end of that conversation.