on the walls to the elegant Chinese porcelain vases and bowls that graced the numerous console tables to the magnificent crystal chandelier that hung over the central circular table complete with its urn of jessamine, lilies and sweet bay. In February! For all his wastrel tendencies, Sir Malcolm had clearly not exhausted his vast wealth. And, presumably, Benedict would inherit it all. Plus the title. No wonder he was here, with his cousin at death’s door. He deserved none of it, but she would not allow him to sour her. Never again.
They spoke not another word as they climbed the stairs side by side, and walked along the upper landing, Janet on their heels. Harriet told herself she was pleased. She had no wish to exchange forced pleasantries.
They reached a door, which Benedict opened.
‘Lady Brierley, to see Sir Malcolm,’ he said, before ushering Harriet and Janet through, and closing the door firmly behind them.
It was baking hot in the room, which was not the master bedchamber, as Harriet expected, but much smaller, and decorated—tastelessly, in her opinion—in deep purple and gold. The fire was banked high with coal, blazing out a suffocating heat, and Harriet felt her face begin to glow. With an effort, she refrained from wafting her hand in front of her face. It was so airless and the stench caught in the back of her throat. How could anyone get well in such an atmosphere?
The huge bed dominated the room, the level surface of its purple cover barely disturbed by the wasted form of the man lying there. It was hard to believe this was the same man she had always known as strong and vital. He looked ancient but—she did a quick mental calculation—he could not be much more than eight and forty. Sir Malcolm’s face was skeletal, the bloodless skin slack, and yet his eyes were still alert, dominating his shrunken features. Those eyes appraised Harriet with the same cold speculation she remembered from both her childhood and from the times her path had crossed with Sir Malcolm’s during her marriage to Brierley. Disgust rippled through her.
‘Heard I was dying, did you?’ The voice was a dry, cracked whisper. ‘Thought you’d have another shot at snaring Benedict’s inheritance?’
‘I have no interest in your cousin,’ Harriet said. ‘I am sorry to find you in such circumstances, but I have come on a quite different errand. I did not know you were ill, and I certainly did not know Mr Poole was here, or I would have thought twice about crossing your threshold.’
He croaked a laugh. ‘That’s as well for you. His opinion hasn’t changed since the first time you tried to trap him. Even as a youngster, that boy was no fool. A Poole through and through. He could see straight through you then and he’ll see straight through you now. He’ll look higher for a wife than Brierley’s leftovers, that I can promise.’
Harriet bit her tongue against rising to his provocation. It seemed even the imminent judgement of his maker could not cork Sir Malcolm’s vitriol. She cast around for the appropriate words to ask him about Felicity’s sister. When she’d decided to come to Tenterfield, she hadn’t anticipated trying to persuade Sir Malcolm to tell her the truth on his deathbed.
‘Well, girl? What d’you want? I haven’t time to waste pandering to the likes of you. Tell me what you want and be gone. You hear, Fletcher?’ He addressed the servant standing by the window. ‘This lady is not to spend a minute more than necessary beneath my roof.’
The man bowed. ‘Yes, sir.’
Harriet tamped down her anger. ‘I wish to ask you about something that happened in the past. Do you recall Lady Emma Weston? She attended Lord Watchett’s house party at the same time as you, in the summer of 1802.’
Sir Malcolm’s lids lowered to mask his eyes. ‘How do you expect me to remember one chit out of so many?’
‘She was Lady Baverstock’s daughter. It was the year following Lord Baverstock’s death.’
His thin lips parted and Harriet recoiled as his tongue came out to touch his lip. ‘Ah. Yes, indeed. The golden angel.’
Nausea churned Harriet’s insides. Time had softened the memory of quite how contemptible Sir Malcolm had always been, despite his wealth and his handsome face. He had, however, been irresistibly charming to the young innocents he had targeted, and Harriet quite understood how a naive young girl could fall for his silver-tongued lies. She had been fortunate to be immune from his attempts to seduce her when she was young enough to appeal to his tastes. She had resisted, thinking herself in love with Benedict. Time had proved she was just as naive as poor Lady Emma, whom she was now convinced Sir Malcolm had seduced and impregnated and abandoned. Emma had escaped by taking her own life. Harriet had not been so cowardly—or, mayhap, so brave—when her heart had been broken, although...there were times during the years following her marriage to Brierley when suicide had seemed an enticing option.
‘So it was you,’ she said to the man in the bed. ‘She wrote to you, after the summer you met. She was in love with you.’
His head twitched to one side. ‘I said I met her. I admitted to nothing else.’
But Harriet knew, without a shadow of doubt, that Sir Malcolm was the man who had despoiled Felicity’s sister. He had been a rake of the very worst kind; she did not need his confession. She leaned in close, breathing through her mouth to avoid the sour smell emanating from the bed.
‘She killed herself! You seduced her and abandoned her, and she killed herself because she was carrying your child.’
He looked at her, his slitted eyes glinting. ‘Best thing for her. One less fatherless brat to worry about. Isn’t that so, my lady? Although you could not even manage that, could you? Lost it, as I recall. Careless of you.’
Harriet reared back, pain ripping at her heart. She must get out. Now. She should never have come. She suddenly realised this trip hadn’t just been about Emma but about her, too—an attempt to make sense of the path her life had taken since she had fallen in love with Benedict. And she saw that she and Emma were the same: gullible victims of men who used and abused them and abandoned their responsibilities.
‘I hope...’ The words dried on her tongue. No, she would offer no comfort to this loathsome man, dying or not. She marched to the door.
Outside, the door firmly shut again, Harriet leaned against the wall, dragging in deep, shuddering breaths. Janet fumbled in her pocket and offered smelling salts. She had been with Harriet since the very early days of Harriet’s marriage to Brierley, and had proved herself a loyal and protective friend to the young, bewildered bride. Harriet had long blessed the day the older woman had been appointed as her maid.
She waved the salts away. ‘No. I will not faint, I promise you. I am trying to calm my anger,’ she said, forcing a smile to set Janet’s mind at rest.
She glanced back at the closed bedchamber door. How could such a man have lived with himself all these years? She pushed upright and shook out her skirts, smoothing them.
‘Come. Let us go. We must get back to the Rose as soon as we can in case the snow begins to drift.’
She had reserved accommodation at the Rose Inn at Sittingbourne, a bare four miles from Tenterfield Court, on their way through from London. The plan was to stay there the night and return to London the following day, when Harriet would tell Felicity what she had discovered. She must hope the news would not prove too upsetting for her friend, who was now with child herself. Harriet ruthlessly quashed her ripple of envy that Felicity would soon be a mother.
She was thankful there was no sign of Benedict as
