Deborah Simmons - The Devil Earl

“Nonsense,” Prudence said briskly. “If Mrs. Bates wishes to see me, she will see me as I am, ink and all.” Patting the small cap that covered her hair, she headed toward the hall, barely registering Phoebe’s sigh behind her.

Mrs. Bates did seem extremely agitated, Prudence noticed at once. The matron was red-faced, and her bosom heaved as she gasped for breath. Although the day was not particularly warm, she fanned herself rapidly, making Prudence wonder how anyone could work herself up over something so trifling as a small social indiscretion.

“My dear girls! Oh, my dear girls!” Mrs. Bates said, in a high voice that revealed the degree of her disturbance. Prudence eyed the matron with new interest, for she could not believe that her simple walk to the abbey could have caused such a stir.

“I fear that I have bad news. Ill tidings. Oh, that this should occur here, right in our own small, comfortable corner of the world! It is too dreadful, my dears. My dear girls…”

Instantly, Prudence recognized that real distress was mixed in with the titillation evident in Mrs. Bates’s voice. Obviously, some misfortune had occurred, but the depth of the tragedy had not dampened the woman’s enthusiasm for gossip.

“What is it?” Phoebe asked, leaning forward anxiously in her seat.

“Oh, poor, dear Phoebe, that I must be the one to tell you…” Mrs. Bates lifted a handkerchief to the corner of her eye in a theatrical gesture.

Prudence’s patience had run its course. “Mrs. Bates, your manner is upsetting Phoebe. Perhaps you had better tell us your news right now.”

The older woman shot Prudence a quelling glance, which had no effect upon her. Apparently realizing that she could not drag out the dramatic moment any longer, Mrs. Bates heaved a great sigh. “Well,” she said. “It is young Penhurst.”

Phoebe gasped and clutched at her throat. “What?”

Gazing worriedly at her sister, Prudence prodded their guest to explain further. “Well?”

Mrs. Bates, in no hurry to give up her news, dabbed at her eyes again, prolonging the silence until Prudence felt a bizarre urge to strike the woman. Something of her thoughts must have shown upon her face, for Mrs. Bates suddenly scowled at her and spoke.

“He is gone,” she said.

“Gone?”

“Last night. I had it from my maid, who got it from the cook, who is a cousin to Mrs. Worth, the housekeeper up there,” Mrs. Bates said. She glanced out the window at Wolfinger and shuddered before leaning forward in conspiratorial pose.

“She saw the whole thing, mind you. The earl came sweeping in like a fiend upon the wings of the storm. He had but entered the ghastly old place when the two of them started fighting, battling like demons! Then Ravenscar chased his brother outside.” Mrs. Bates paused significantly, her mouth set tightly in disapproval, her eyes wide. “And only he came back.”

The words held a grim finality that made Phoebe gasp in horror. Hearing the distress in her voice, Prudence rose and went to Phoebe’s side, taking the younger girl’s hand. “What are you saying?” Prudence asked Mrs. Bates sternly. “That young Penhurst was lost in the storm? That he ran off?”

“I am saying,” Mrs. Bates replied, in a clear voice intended to put Prudence in her place, “that the Ravenscar blood runs true. Just as the old Devil Earl was murdered by his own wife, so the evil doings continue up at that monstrous place.”

The matron eyed Prudence smugly, as if determined to overset the older girl as she had young Phoebe. “I am saying,” she continued, “that the earl of Ravenscar killed his brother on the cliffs last night and tossed the body into the sea.”

Phoebe fell back against the chair in a faint, and Prudence frantically snatched their guest’s fan in an effort to bring her back to awareness.

“There now, ma’am, I hope you are well pleased with the results of your gossip,” Prudence said as she tried to rouse her sister.

“Well!” Mrs. Bates huffed and puffed as if she were a swelling toad. “I cannot help it if the gel is not strong enough to withstand ill news, and I cannot like your rude speech, either. One can easily tell that you have not had the benefit of a guiding hand, Miss Prudence Lancaster!”

Ignoring her, Prudence laid her palm against Phoebe’s cold cheek. “Phoebe! Wake up, darling!” She was rewarded by the flicker of her sister’s long yellow lashes.

“Oh! Prudence, say it isn’t so! Mr. Penhurst…”

“No doubt it is not so,” Prudence assured her sister. “I suspect that Mr. Penhurst has simply gone to cool off for a while, and shall soon return.”

“Humph!” Mrs. Bates made a noise that resembled nothing so much as a porcine snort. “And what do you know of it, Prudence, I might ask?”

Prudence was surprised to find herself more than mildly annoyed with the matron. Not given to fits of temper, she quelled her irritation and gazed at the woman calmly. “I am sure that the earl of Ravenscar is not quite so dull-witted as to murder his brother in front of the housekeeper and then hurry out into a raging storm to scramble along the slippery cliffs in an effort to toss him off.”

Mrs. Bates frowned and sniffed. “Wits have nothing to do with it, miss. It is the bad blood of the Ravenscars, running true.” She sent a swift, sour glance toward Phoebe. “For your information, young Penhurst had but recently been sent down from Oxford and was deeply in debt, which, no doubt, precipitated the argument.”

Phoebe moaned softly, but Prudence ignored it, turning instead to face their guest in a pensive pose. “But killing the boy would not solve anything. It makes no sense,” she argued. Pausing momentarily in consideration, she added firmly, “I simply do not believe it.”

“It is not supposed to make sense, gel! It is—” Mrs. Bates hesitated before rushing on. “Passion—plain and simple!”

Prudence blinked at the bold speech, Phoebe made a strangled sound, and even Mrs. Bates looked as if she thought she might have said too much. With a gravelly noise, she lifted her bulk from the chair.

“Well, I have lingered long enough. I must be about,” she said. Waving away Prudence’s gesture of help, she headed toward the door that Mary hastened to open for her. She stopped on the threshold, however, to catch her breath and to have the final say in the matter.

“Mark my words, Ravenscar will not get away with it,” she said, brandishing a lacy handkerchief. “The days of the Devil Earl are past. When the boy’s body washes up, as it must eventually, he’ll pay for his crimes. And it will be a payment long overdue.”

With that Gothic pronouncement, the matron took her leave in a swish of dark skirts, leaving Prudence to stare after her, still clutching the borrowed fan. “Well,” she said, half to herself, “Mrs. Bates must be in a hurry to spread the story throughout the parish. It is not every day that she has such a juicy bit of gossip.”

A soft sound from Phoebe made Prudence pat her sister’s hand in a comforting gesture. “There, there,” she whispered, although she was inclined to believe that her tenderhearted sister was reacting to the news with an excessive display of distress.

It seemed to Prudence as if the day were destined to be a disaster. First, she had been forced to listen to Mrs. Bates, and then she had spent precious hours caring for Phoebe, who was taking Mr. Penhurst’s disappearance more grievously than Prudence thought warranted. And now, when she was finally fully immersed in her work, Mary was harrying her again.

With a sigh, Prudence laid down her pen and turned away from her writing desk, where her new villain was wreaking havoc among her pages of foolscap. “Yes, what is it, Mary?” she asked.