Page 2 of The Incident at Ingleton (Beau Monde Secrets #3)

W hen Walter Haworth arrived at Selwyn Castle, the butler led him directly to the green salon, which had been turned into a playroom for Lord and Lady Inglewhite’s firstborn child, Viscount Elston. Everything breakable or valuable had been removed from the room, and mismatched rugs overlay the hardwood flooring, to prevent falls.

The room might look less elegant than when Walter last visited his cousin Ivy, but it also looked more homey. Maybe the toddler tooth-marks on the arm of the sofa contributed to that effect; certainly, the seashell pattern carved into the wood would never be the same again! The presence of Robbie himself, happily dragging a wheeled toy horse behind him as he trotted around the room’s perimeter, might have been the biggest contributing factor to the sitting room’s changed ambience.

While a nursemaid kept a careful watch on young Viscount Elston, the Countess of Inglewhite sat in the window seat, knitting. The late afternoon light glinted off Ivy’s hair. Most of the Haworth cousins had some shade of blonde hair, from Rose Rufford’s bright gold to Walter’s own straw-colored locks. When the cousins played together as children, Ivy’s warm brown eyes and auburn hair stood out from the rest of the family.

Back then, Walter had wondered why his cousin looked so different from the other Haworth descendants. After a particularly eventful Christmas party two years ago, it had become common knowledge that Ivy had inherited both her brown eyes and dark red hair from her now-deceased father, the fourth Marquis of Reading, Alistair Bracknell. Little Robbie had inherited the Bracknell red hair, too, though his hair was a shade lighter than his mother’s.

Ivy put down her work and rose to her feet so she could greet Walter with a hug. Tall as he was, Walter had to stoop down to return the embrace.

“Your timing is perfect,” his cousin informed him. “I am dining at the vicarage tonight, and you shall dine with me. I need not take the carriage if I have you to escort me.”

“I shall?” Walter glanced down at his travel-worn clothing. He’d arrived by post chaise, so at least he had not spent all day crammed into a stagecoach, but he still felt grubby. “I could do with a bath and a shave first.”

Ivy glanced at the mantel clock. “I doubt you have time for a bath, but I’ll send a footman up to shave you. You’ll do fine. There will only be a handful of people, anyway. The vicarage doesn’t have a dining room big enough for large dinner parties.”

Walter admitted defeat. “Very well. You can send someone up to shave me in, say, a quarter of an hour?” That would give himself time to find his shaving kit and wash up. He had no valet of his own, but he knew from his previous visits to the castle that the senior footman played the role capably.

Fortunately, Ivy also arranged for a maid to bring up a tea tray, so Walter restored himself with a strong cup of black tea. After a long day of travel, that made tonight’s dinner seem a little less impossible. Walter had come to Ingleton to investigate a criminal suspect, not to socialize, but it would be churlish of him to avoid seeing Rose and Frank, given the opportunity. Rose was his cousin, too, though he saw her less often since her marriage took her to Lancashire.

The walk from the castle to the vicarage also refreshed him. A delicious breeze flirted with the spring-green leaves in the park. Unfortunately, gusts of wind also threatened to ruin Walter’s hair, which the overzealous footman had enthusiastically curled, brushed, and arranged a la Brutus.

Walter, never having desired to play the dandy, thought his stylishly-disarrayed hair looked ridiculous. This might be the style favored by young men under the influence of Lord Byron, but whoever heard of a blond Byron?

“I look like a fop,” he grumbled aloud.

“Nonsense! You look very dashing tonight,” Ivy assured him. “I shall be proud to show my cousin off to our neighbors.”

Walter snorted and shook his head, but he held his tongue. He’d rather not get into a quarrel with his cousin about whether or not he looked dashing. He hadn’t wanted any of this—not the evening clothes, the coiffure , or the dinner party itself. He did it only for Ivy’s sake. He felt grateful that she’d agreed to put him up for the duration of his investigation.

Last year, some person or persons unknown had falsified the account books at the Haworth Home for Orphans, embezzling money by inflating the reported costs of such necessities as coal, candles, food, and fabric, then pocketing the difference. The theft amounted to no more than a hundred pounds, but that still made the crime a hanging offense.

Walter, having been trained as a solicitor, handled all the legal matters associated with the orphanage his grandfather had founded. Much to his dismay, this meant that some members of the Advisory Board overseeing the orphanage had suspected him of stealing the money! The board had dragged him in for a meeting to discuss the matter one sunny afternoon in April. While birds sang and flowers bloomed, Walter had to defend himself.

“Why would I bother falsifying the expense accounts only to steal such a small sum of money?” he’d demanded. “A hundred pounds is a fraction of my annual income.” Because Walter would someday inherit his father’s landed estate, Grandfather Haworth hadn’t bequeathed him a large fortune like what the other grandchildren received, but Walter possessed a competence of his own. He had no need to steal!

Whoever had doctored the orphanage’s ledgers had done it very carefully, pocketing small amounts over the course of nearly a year and a half. It must have taken a great deal of meticulous planning. Walter couldn’t imagine wasting so much time for so small a reward.

“You could have gambling debts!” the most suspicious of the board members had suggested. He squinted at Walter through narrowed eyes, looking like a cat ready to pounce the moment its prey twitched.

Before Walter could defend himself, his uncle had intervened on his behalf. “If you can produce a single witness who has ever seen Walter gambling, I’ll pay you a hundred pounds, Mr. Yorke.” Lord Rufford slanted an amused look towards Walter. “I’ve heard stories of philanthropists with double lives, but so far, no one has produced the slightest evidence that Walter has anything to hide.”

“It’s not that we think you likely to steal. It’s only that you’re one of the few people with the opportunity,” a less ireful board member had pointed out.

Walter had left that meeting determined to clear his own name by finding the real criminal. He and his brother-in-law, the new chaplain at the orphanage, had worked out a plan for their investigation. So far as they could tell, only a handful of people ever recorded expenses in those ledgers. One suspect, the previous matron of the orphanage, had died back in November. Another suspect, the former chaplain of the orphanage, had left to take a position as curate in Ingleton. Walter had traveled to Lancashire to investigate the curate. Walter wanted to ask Neville Butler a few questions, and he preferred to ask them face to face, so he could watch Butler’s expression as he answered. It was far too easy to lie in writing. With any luck, though, he’d get a chance to talk to the curate tomorrow, and he might be on his way back to Bristol before the week ended. Walter even harbored a secret hope that the curate might be one of the guests at dinner that night.

Unfortunately, that was not the case. The vicarage at Ingleton was a handsome brick building that had weathered nearly a century, but it could not be described as spacious. Ivy had not exaggerated when she told Walter that the dinner party would be small.

Walter and Ivy were led through a small, wood-paneled foyer into the front parlor. This room, decorated in a pretty striped wallpaper, was suitable for entertaining a family, or a group of gossiping Lady’s Aide members, but it could not have contained the dozen or more guests commonly found at large social functions.

In addition to Walter and Ivy, the guests consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Anderson of Greyfriar’s Hall, and Lord Francis’s sister, Lady Hester Bracknell. The Andersons seemed to be polite, good-natured people. Mr. Anderson was tall and lanky; Mrs. Anderson was pretty and plump. Both of them smiled a good deal, and neither of them seemed any more memorable than other country gentry Walter had met.

Lady Hester was a different story. Knowing she was Lord Francis’s younger sister and Ivy’s cousin, Walter had unthinkingly assumed that Lady Hester, like them, would have red hair and perhaps a smattering of freckles.

But Lady Hester looked nothing like what Walter had imagined. She was tall for a woman, standing only a few inches shorter than Walter himself. Her eyes were a darker shade of brown than Ivy’s, her pale skin was unmarked by freckles, and her hair was a rich chestnut brown. She had high cheekbones, a sharp chin, and a widow’s peak. She looked nothing like her cousins, so far as he could tell.

Instead, Lady Hester looked beautiful, elegant, and as removed from her humble surroundings as the bright evening star. Walter caught himself gazing at her far longer than courtesy allowed. Gradually, he realized that the expression on her face, far from being friendly, welcoming, or even interested, was one of languid disinterest. She had neither Lord Francis’s lively good humor nor Ivy’s warmth. He politely turned his eyes away.

I am probably not genteel enough for her company , Walter concluded. Not that it mattered, of course. He was not particularly interested in hobnobbing with the aristocracy. He made an exception for Ivy, Rose, and their husbands, but in general, he had no desire to infiltrate tonnish social circles. Frankly, he had more important things to do.

When the butler announced dinner, Walter offered to escort Mrs. Anderson into the dining room, leaving Lady Hester behind. Let her sit next to her brother, who presumably was of sufficiently elevated status to meet her standards! Walter was perfectly willing to enjoy himself chatting with other guests. Why should he mind being snubbed by a spoiled aristocrat?

He tried to put Lady Hester out of his mind entirely as the company entered the dining room. This chamber looked to have been recently re-papered in a rose-colored floral pattern, and a handsome mahogany dining set dominated the room. But again, Ivy had not exaggerated when she called the room small. The heavy rectangular table was really only long enough to seat six diners. In order to accommodate Walter, an extra chair had been squeezed in at one corner.

Walter snagged that chair before his hosts could tell him where to sit. He suspected that Lord Francis would have taken that awkward corner seat if Walter hadn’t grabbed it first, and that wouldn’t be fair. As an uninvited guest, Walter ought not inconvenience anyone else. Rose glared at Walter before she sat down next to him at the foot of the table, but she wisely refrained from asking him to move.

But Rose got her way in one regard: she placed Lady Hester on Walter’s other side. According to formal dining etiquette, this meant Walter should divide his attention between the two neighbors, speaking to both ladies equally.

Chatting with Rose was easy enough, since they had family gossip to share. Rose told Walter about the life of a clergyman’s wife, and Walter told her about his work at the Haworth Home. He said nothing about the criminal case that brought him to Ingleton, but he talked about the new matron, Miss Miller, and about how his brother-in-law, Ernest Robinson, was adjusting to his new position as chaplain of the orphanage.

As for Lady Hester, he tried to talk with her. He really did. But she answered him with monosyllables and never suggested any topic of conversation on her own. When he asked about her journey, she said only that it was “tolerable.” When he asked how she liked Ingleton, she offered a smile and a shrug. “I’ve only seen a little of it,” she said, and went to taking slow sips of her water. Seeming supremely uninterested in anything to do with Walter, she asked no questions of him.

Lady Hester? More like Lady Frostbite ! Walter thought. Clearly, she did not wish to converse with him.

He finally left Lady Hester alone to eat in silence. Strangely, though, she only picked at her food. Probably she was used to haute cuisine rather than plain English cooking. With every passing moment, Walter’s opinion of her sank further. How could she be so supercilious when her older brother was warm and outgoing?

Walter amused himself for some time by thinking up implausible explanations for the differences between Lady Hester and Lord Francis. Perhaps they had been raised in separate households: he by a loving mother, she by a frigid, parsimonious aunt. Maybe she was not Frank’s sister by blood at all, but a foundling left on the doorstep of—where was it that the Bracknell family lived? He could not remember.

Walter turned to the silent, pale-faced girl beside him. “Where do you reside when you are not in London, my lady?”

She looked up from the tart on her dessert plate, startled. “Bracknell Hall, usually, along the Severn River. Or sometimes Trescott Abbey, near Eastbourne.”

“I’ve been to Eastbourne.” Had they finally found a viable conversation topic now that the meal was almost over? “When I was a boy, we had a picnic on Beachy Head. Rather a frightening place.”

“Frightening?” Lady Hester’s eyes widened. “But it’s lovely! You get such a splendid view of the channel from the cliffs.”

“And a splendid drop if you fall off the cliffs.” Walter shivered. He remembered that childhood picnic mostly because he’d been terrified of heights. He and Eugenia, his older sister, kept several yards between themselves and the edge of the cliff at all times, but only their strict governess had prevented his younger sister, Freddy, from standing with her toes at the very brink.

Lady Hester wrinkled her nose. She managed to look dainty and elegant even while showing disgust, which seemed profoundly unfair. Nasty thoughts ought to lead to a nasty appearance, oughtn’t they?

“That is hardly a reasonable fear,” Lady Hester argued. “As long as one has wisdom enough to stay away from the edge, one need not worry about it.” She put a tiny bite of dessert in her mouth, then followed it up with a dainty sip of water.

Walter struggled to control the frown tugging at his face. “Sometimes people worry about things even when they know there is no real danger. When I was a child, I was very afraid of the dark, even though I knew there was nothing in the nursery that could harm me.” He spoke as calmly and evenly as he could, not wanting to reveal how strongly he disagreed with her.

Childhood fears were no laughing matter to him. He still remembered the panic of waking up in the night, certain that a ghost or boggart hid inside the large chest of drawers at the foot of his bed. If he called for help, his nurse would come with a candle. She’d open up each drawer to show him that the chest contained nothing more ominous than breeches and stockings. Walter would agree with her and promise to go to sleep. But the moment the nurse left the room, he once again felt as if something in a dark corner of the room watched him with hungry eyes.

Lady Hester shrugged. “Oh, well, children may be afraid of anything. But surely most people leave those fears behind in childhood. I cannot imagine being afraid of the dark now .”

The dismissal in her voice stung Walter to the quick, and his hand tightened around his fork. He silently counted down from five before responding.

“I must beg to differ, ma’am. In my experience, a case of bad nerves can strike a person of any age.” Walter thought of his nervous Aunt Edith and the anxieties she felt any time her children traveled far from home. Then he thought of stock characters from novels and the trouble they caused their fictional families. “Especially wealthy people with too much time on their hands who fancy themselves ill in order to make their lives more interesting.”

He’d thought Lady Hester’s complexion was already as pale as pale could be, but her face turned a shade whiter. A tremor shook her hand, and she lowered her fork. Confound it! She’d taken his words personally, hadn’t she? He’d offended her while she was a guest in her own brother’s household. That was badly done.

Walter hastened to apologize. “I beg your pardon, Lady Hester! I intended no offense, I merely meant—you know, in novels...” He closed his lips tightly, realizing it probably wouldn’t help to claim he’d only been thinking of characters like Mr. Woodhouse from Emma . Real life was not the same as fiction.

“I was not offended, Mr. Haworth. I hope I never give anyone reason to think me a nervous, discontented woman.” Lady Hester’s voice once again sounded disinterested and reserved, and she refused to look Walter in the eyes.

Maybe that prompted Rose to rise from her seat, signaling that the ladies should withdraw. Ivy looked surprised, probably because she hadn’t finished the biscuits on her plate. But unless Walter mistook himself, Lady Hester looked relieved as she swept out of the room, bound for the parlor.

He would have to make a better apology. Hopefully, he could find a quiet moment to speak to her when the gentlemen rejoined the ladies for tea and coffee.

Walter never got the chance to apologize, though. When the gentlemen returned to the parlor, Lady Hester had vanished. Walter discreetly asked Rose about her absence and learned that she’d retired to her room with a “sick headache.”

Or, more likely, hurt feelings, Walter concluded. He felt ashamed of himself. She might have behaved superciliously to him, but he’d had no desire to insult her. Meeting her again was going to be awkward now. He could only hope that the business of interviewing Neville Butler would be wrapped up quickly, so he could escape Ingleton before he inadvertently offended Lady Hester again.