Deanna Raybourn - Night of a Thousand Stars

“It’s to be watchful—to see all and understand what we see. I watched you with Mr. Madderley, and I could tell from the first moment I saw you together you were entirely unsuited.”

“You might have told me,” I said, kicking a pebble.

“You did not ask,” she returned mildly.

I grinned again. “All right, Masterman. I’ll give you that. And you can stay on if you like.”

She gave me a brisk nod to indicate her acceptance. We walked on in silence for a little while, taking a turn around the pond. A few apathetic ducks bobbed on the glassy surface and a limp lily floated along. There was no one else on the village green, and even the smoke coming from the chimneys drifted in lazy circles.

“Masterman, with your gift for watchfulness what do you make of our present circumstances?”

She looked around the village, taking in the quiet shops and tranquil, sleepy air of the place.

“I think, miss, we are in very great danger of being bored.”

* * *

She was not wrong. After that, our days settled into a pattern. Masterman and I went for long walks each morning, and after luncheon Father painted in his studio while I tried to make friends with George, although he remained stubbornly unmoved by my charms. I asked him to teach me to make his clever little soufflés or roast a duck or let me polish the silver, but each attempt was met with a firm rebuff. “That’s your side of the cottage,” he would state flatly, pushing me out of the kitchen and back into the hall. It was too bad really, because I was bored senseless and genuinely interested in acquiring a few new skills. It might come in handy to be able to roast a duck, I thought, but George was unwilling to oblige.

So I occupied myself with brooding. I wrote no letters and received only one—a curt message from Mother stating that she had returned the wedding gifts but that I had been remiss in returning my engagement ring to Gerald. It was an enormous pigeon’s blood ruby, a relic from the days of the first King George and worn by every Madderley bride. The viscountess had been particularly resentful at giving it up, and I was abashed I hadn’t thought to give it back to Gerald when he left the cottage. I made a note to take it with me when I went up to London next; I couldn’t possibly trust such a valuable jewel to the post. But London held no charms for me in my present mood. I had given up reading the Town newspapers after the second day. They were vitriolic on the subject of my almost-marriage, and going up would mean facing people who had decided I was only slightly less awful than Messalina.

So I buried myself in books, raiding Father’s library for anything that looked promising. There were a handful of Scarlet Pimpernel books and an assortment of detective stories, but beyond that nothing but weighty tomes on art history. I had almost resigned myself to reading one of them when I discovered a set of books high on a shelf, bound in scarlet morocco. They were privately printed, that much was obvious, and I gave a little gasp when I saw the author’s name: Lady Julia Brisbane. She was Father’s youngest sister, and the most notorious of our eccentric family. After a particularly awful first marriage, she had taken as her second husband a Scot who was half-Gypsy and rumoured to have the second sight. The fact that he was distantly related to the Duke of Aberdour hadn’t counted for much, I seemed to recall. There had been scandal and outrage that a peer’s daughter had married a man in trade. Nicholas Brisbane was a private inquiry agent, and Aunt Julia had joined him in his work. Ending up a duchess must have been particularly sweet for her, I decided. Father had talked about them my first morning at the cottage, and as near as I could guess, these books were her memoirs.

I turned the first over in my hands. Silent in the Grave was incised in gilt letters and a slender piece of striped silk served as a bookmark. I opened to the first page and read the first line. “To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband’s dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.” I slipped down to sit on the carpet, the books tumbled in my lap, and began to read.

I did not move until it was time for tea, and only then because Father joined me. He beckoned me to the table by the fire, giving a nod of his silvery-white head to the book in my hands.

“I see you’ve discovered Julia’s memoirs.”

I shook my head, clearing out the cobwebs. I had spent the whole day wandering the fog-bound streets of Victorian London with my aunt, striding over windy Yorkshire moors and climbing the foothills of the Himalayas. I took a plate from him and sipped at my tea.

“I can’t believe I never knew she did all those things.”

His smile was gentle. “It’s never been a secret.”

“Yes, I always knew she went sleuthing with Uncle Brisbane but I had no idea the dangers they faced. And you—”

I broke off, giving him a hard look.

He burst out laughing. “There’s no need to look so accusing, child. Yes, I did my fair share of detective work, as well.”

“I can’t believe Aunt Julia almost killed you once with her experiments with explosives.”

“Once?” His eyes were wide. “Keep reading.”

He urged sandwiches and cakes on me, and I ate heartily, suddenly ravenous after missing luncheon entirely.

“That’s what I want,” I told him.

He had been staring into the fire, wool-gathering, and my voice roused him. He blinked a few times and looked up from the fire. “What, child?”

“I want what Aunt Julia has. I want a purpose. I want work that makes me feel useful. I don’t just want to arrange flowers and bring up babies. Oh, that’s all right for other girls, but it isn’t right for me. I want something different.”

“Perhaps you always have,” he offered mildly.

“I think I have,” I replied slowly. “I’ve always been so different from the others and I never understood why. My half-sisters and -brothers, my schoolmates. Don’t mistake me—I’ve had jolly enough times, and I’ve had friends,” I told him, pulling a face. “I was even head girl one year. But as long as I can remember, I’ve had the oddest sense that it was just so much play-acting, that it wasn’t my real life at all. Does that sound mad?”

“Mad as a March hare,” he said, his lips twitching. He nodded to the mantelpiece, where a painting hung, a family crest. Our family crest. It was a grand-looking affair with plenty of scarlet and gold and a pair of rabbits to hold it up. “Family lore maintains the old saying about March hares is down to us, that it isn’t about rabbits at all. It refers to our eccentricity, the wildness in our blood. And the saying is a tribute to the fact that we do as we dare. As do you,” he finished mildly.

I started. “What do you mean by that?”

A wry smile played over his lips. “I know more of your exploits than you think, child.”

“Exploits! I haven’t done anything so very interesting,” I protested.

He gave me a sceptical look. “Poppy, give me some credit. I mayn’t have been a very devoted father, but neither have I been a disinterested one. Every school you’ve been to, every holiday you’ve taken, I’ve had reports.”

“What sort of reports?” I demanded.

“The sort any father would want. I had little opportunity to ascertain your character myself, so I made my own inquiries. I learnt you were healthy and being brought up quite properly, if dully. Araminta has proven herself a thoroughly unimaginative but unobjectionable mother. At first, I thought it best, given the sort of family we come from. I thought a chance at normality might be the best thing for you. But the more I came to discover of you, the more I came to believe you were one of us. They do say that blood will always tell, Poppy.”