Oisín McGann - Ancient Appetites

'Do you have to do that now?' Roberto asked, playing with the watch chain that dangled from his waistcoat pocket.

'Would you rather I just sat here and brooded with you?'

'Well, yes I would, frankly.' He frowned at her for a moment. 'You're not even getting my best side.'

'Then move, darling.'

Silence again, while the charcoal traced Berto's contours.

'The old cove just doesn't listen,' he said at last when he realized she was not going to offer any comfort. 'I don't want to be the Heir! 1 don't even want to manage the estates. It's a soul-destroying job and I have no interest in it – it'll bore me senseless. And we do such horrible things to the peasants sometimes. Debt collecting! Evictions! I haven't the heart for it, Daisy'

Daisy knew it. That was one of qualities she loved in him. He was the gentlest man she'd ever known. An extraordinary thing, when one considered his upbringing. She wondered if this was the right time to bring up her suspicions about Nathaniel. Roberto's younger brother was not so gentle. And everybody knew who would wield the real power in the family now that Marcus was dead. Berto had always claimed that he and Nate were eager for Marcus to marry, so that their big brother would have a son and take them out of the running for Patriarch if anything happened to him. But Daisy suspected Nate had more ambition than that.

'I've no head for numbers either,' Berto grumbled. 'I'll never keep track of everything. Do you think Father would notice if I just sold all the land and bought myself a little island in the Indian Ocean? I quite fancy Madagascar.'

'I've said I'd help you with managing the books,' she told him as she shaded the creases on the arm of his jacket. 'And you'll have accountants to deal with all the little details. It won't be all that hard, you know.'

Daisy had mastered all the skills required to become a good wife. Drawing, painting, poetry, music, croquet, crochet, embroidery, interior decoration and domestic management; there was little that she couldn't do if she put her mind to it. She had a keen eye for fashion and could maintain a polite conversation with tedious house guests for hours, before forcefully ejecting them from her home in such a way that they would sing praises about her hospitality. And she was so incredibly bored by it all.

Before her marriage she had been one of the first women – and possibly the youngest – ever to attend London University and had graduated with honours. For nearly a year she had helped to run the accounts office for her father's cotton mills, and saw for herself how his gambling debts were costing him dear. He had come close to losing everything. Roberto Wildenstern had been courting her by this time and, with her father facing ruin, Daisy did some simple arithmetic and then did what any good daughter should. She married into money.

It wasn't that Daisy didn't love her husband. She could have done a lot worse. Berto was kind, considerate and sensitive; an amusing and entertaining companion. He would read her poetry and sing to her. He took her rowing on lakes on long summer afternoons.

But he lacked ambition. He had a wonderful way with people – he was warm and witty and had scores of friends – and that seemed to be all that mattered to him. He paid no attention to all the plotting and back-stabbing that went on in the Wildenstern family, preferring instead to laugh at their vanities and taking a perverse delight in infuriating his father at every opportunity. There were times when she suspected he had only courted her because the family considered her to be nouveau riche and therefore unsuitable for him.

She would never forget the month of torture when he decided to teach himself the trumpet – deliberately choosing a small room directly below his father's study to practise. Thankfully he stopped when the Patriarch finally responded by having the room's doorway bricked up… with Berto's trumpet still inside.

There was a less frivolous side to Berto too. She knew he had secrets; there were times when she detected shame in his voice when she innocently enquired where he'd been. She wondered if there were things about this unusual family that he still had not told her.

'Where's Tatty?' Berto asked abruptly, hoping for some more sympathetic company.

'She's out playing with the spaniels,' Daisy replied. 'I think she's looking for a way to sneak in and see the beast.'

'I think I'll go and join her.'

'Just let me finish your shoes first.'

He was a devil to draw. He fidgeted constantly and kept heaving great sighs. Looking over at her, he tilted his head to one side. She glanced up at him and then back at the paper. The drawing was almost finished. It wasn't one of her best.

'I know what you're thinking,' he said.

'I have no doubt.'

'You're thinking that Nate had something to do with Marcus's death,' Berto told her solemnly. 'He hadn't.'

Daisy laid the board on her lap and met her husband's gaze.

'I wasn't thinking that,' she said. 'But now that you've brought it up, perhaps we should talk about it. You have a rather… special family, Berto.'

'I like to think so.'

'You know what I mean,' she retorted impatiently. 'There aren't many families that encourage murder. They say Marcus's death was an accident, but who really knows? Isn't that what you do here? Somebody does away with somebody else and it's all covered up? Your so-called "Rules of Ascension"?'

'That's old hat.' Berto waved his hand dismissively. 'It hasn't happened in years… decades.'

'How do you know?' she persisted. 'How many of your relatives have kicked the bucket under mysterious circumstances? But that's not the point, Berto. The point is that this is Marcus we're talking about. He was the Heir. He dies, and the whole family changes. And who benefits most? Nathaniel, that's who. Everybody knew he'd be put in charge of things if anything happened to Marcus. How can you not be suspicious?'

'But I'm the Heir now!' Berto protested. 'And Nate just wouldn't… he just wouldn't do that, Daisy. I was next in line, so I had most to gain. You might as well be suspicious of me!'

'Oh, Berto, who's going to suspect you of murder?' She put the drawing board down, gathered the bulky folds of her tiered skirt and moved over to the chair next to him, taking his hand. 'You wouldn't hurt a fly.'

'I might,' he sniffed.

Daisy smiled despite herself, but she worried that Berto's loyalty to his brother might be blinding him. He always took Nate's side when she criticized him.

'Nate's not like you,' she said softly. 'He's cut from the same cloth as the rest of this family. They're all-'

'We're all dastardly sinners, bent on villainy!' Gerald declared, striding into the room.

He flopped into the chair beside Daisy, giving her a friendly peck on the cheek. Tatiana followed him in with two gormless-looking King Charles spaniels trotting at her heels.

'There's only so long you can look at a velocycle lounging in a stable,' Gerald sighed. 'I've tried to explain why I'm a scientific genius, but the audience only wanted to hear about the action. Without the star himself, they lost interest. Where's he got to?'

Roberto pointed at the ceiling. 'I'm to handle the Irish estates,' he said glumly 'It's a brush-off, thank God. I'm sure he's going to get lumbered with the business in America.'

'That'll go down well-'

Gerald was cut off by the snarl of an engine from outside. There came the sound of panicking horses and a door slammed against a wall. They all rushed to the French windows. Nathaniel was racing from the stables on the back of his velocycle, tearing along the cobbled road that led around to the front of the house. In seconds he had disappeared from sight, a light cloud of dust settling in his wake, and the roar of his mount fading into the distance.