The Disgraceful Mr Ravenhurst

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The countess stopped, turned to Lady James and positively beamed. ‘But it is our family pride and joy, madame, I would be delighted to show it to you.’ Her English, like her son’s, was fluent, although accented. Hers was a heavier accent; the count’s, Theo thought darkly, was precisely the sort that sent impressionable English ladies into a flutter. Elinor, of course, was made of sterner stuff. Or so he would have said half an hour ago.

‘Excellent. Kindly lead the way.’ Aunt Louisa thrust her parasol into the hands of the waiting footman, produced a notebook from her capacious reticule and stood waiting.

‘Before coffee?’ The question seemed rhetorical, the countess recognising single-minded obsession when she saw it. ‘This way, then.’

Theo followed them as they went through a small doorway and began to climb a spiral staircase. ‘If you don’t mind?’ he said over his shoulder to the count. ‘I would be most interested.’ And taking advantage of every legitimate opportunity to study the layout of the chateau was essential. He had no intention of creeping about in the small hours with a dark lantern any more than he had to.

He did not stop to see what the other man’s response might be, but ducked through the doorway in the wake of Mademoiselle Julie’s slight figure. There was silence behind him for a second, then the sharp snap of booted feet on the stone floor. Count Leon was coming to keep an eye on him, or was it Elinor?

The turret stair wound up, passing small doors as it went. At one point Aunt Louisa gave an exclamation and pointed to a change in the stonework. ‘Interesting!’ Then, when they had reached what Theo estimated must be the third floor above the ground, the countess opened a door and led them through into a dark, narrow passageway, through another door and into a tiny chamber blazing with coloured light.

Even Theo, who had some idea what to expect, was startled by the rose window filled with red and blue glass that occupied almost the entire end wall. On either side ranged columns with richly carved heads. ‘They are so like those at Vezelay!’ Elinor exclaimed, darting across to study one. ‘But in such good condition, and low down, so we can see them.’

Lady James, for once in her life, appeared speechless. ‘I must study this,’ she pronounced finally. ‘In detail.’

Theo strolled across to Elinor’s side and stooped to whisper, ‘Do what you can to engineer an invitation to stay. For all of us.’ She looked up, startled, then nodded. ‘I would appreciate it.’

The count was standing in the middle of the room, unmoved by Lady James’s ecstasies, his eyes on Theo. ‘Are you really interested in this, Ravenhurst?’ he enquired, his voice puzzled. Theo chose to treat the question as a joke, smiled warmly and continued to study the walls of the chapel. No cupboards, no niches, no apparent changes in the stonework to indicate a blocked-up hiding place. But then, he had not expected to find it here. It would take an atheist, or someone with a careless approach to their faith, to hide that thing in the family chapel.

There was another door on the far side from where they had entered. He strolled across, passing the count. ‘Shall we leave the ladies? There is something I would appreciate discussing with you. Through here, perhaps? I would prefer not to have to spin round another tower.’

Silently Leon led the way, opening the door on to a broad corridor. Theo followed as slowly as he dared, looking about until they reached a panelled door and passed through into what was obviously the study.

Theo suspected it had been the old count’s and hardly changed by his son in the month since he had succeeded. He took a chair on one side of a vast desk, noticing he was not offered refreshment.

‘To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit? Your letter was somewhat lacking in detail beyond your aunt’s interest in architecture,’ Leon remarked, dropping into the chair with its carved arms and high back. Darkly saturnine, he looked like the wicked prince in a fairytale as he frowned across the wide expanse of desk.

‘You will know I assisted your father in recovering some of the family artefacts lost during the Revolution?’ The other man nodded. ‘There was an item I wished to purchase from him, something that had remained in hiding throughout the family’s exile from France.’

Theo watched the count’s face for any betraying sign that he knew that Theo had in fact purchased that item and had lost it, in violent circumstances, a week after the transaction. He rubbed the back of his neck as he waited. The bruising and the torn muscles had healed, but the pain of having been taken completely off his guard still lingered. He had had not so much as a glimpse of the person who had struck him down. Was he facing him now?

’If you speak of the object I assume you are, it has vanished.’ Leon’s frown deepened, his well-modelled lips thinning. ‘My father was murdered the day after he arrived in Paris, having removed it from this chateau in circumstances of extreme secrecy. No sum of money equivalent to even a tenth of its worth was found on him, nor in the Paris house, nor with our bankers.’ He shook his head, his face grim. ‘I still find it hard to believe he could ever have sold it—it was an heirloom. And yet it is gone.’

‘Indeed? I can assure you he intended to.’ Either the man was a damn good actor or he did not know that Theo was the purchaser. ‘What use is an heirloom so shocking that you could never openly admit you had it? An heirloom that none of the ladies of the house must ever catch a glimpse of? Your father intended to sell it because he needed the money. I wish to buy it as the agent of an English collector who will pay handsomely.’

Who had, in fact, paid very handsomely indeed and was expecting the arrival of his purchase days ago. No one else knew about the sale except three rival treasure seekers, one of whom had been sharing his bed. He had not believed Ana, or the English couple, had realised why he was in Paris, his security had been so tight.

‘Perhaps he had already sold it,’ he ventured, probing. ‘Was there no receipt?’ Theo had certainly exchanged them with the count. His had been taken along with the item as he had lain unconscious on the inn floor.

‘There was no receipt in my father’s papers or on his person.’

‘How did your father die?’

‘A blow to the head. We hushed it up as the result of a fall. He was found across the hearth, the back of his skull against the iron fire basket. It may have been an accident,’ Leon conceded as though it caused him pain to do so. ‘But I want the Beaumartin Chalice back.’ He regarded Theo through narrowed eyes. ‘You think I killed him, don’t you?’

That was precisely what Theo thought. That the count had quarrelled with his father, had taken back the Chalice and was now pretending it had gone to cover his actions.

‘Indeed, that had seemed the most logical explanation to me. That you quarrelled with your father when you discovered that he had sold the Chalice, that there was a terrible accident.’ It seemed odd to be naming the thing out loud after months of secrecy, code words and whispers.

They sat looking at each other in silence, contemplating Theo’s cool suggestion. It was the count whose eyes dropped first. ‘I disagreed with him about this. Violently. But we exchanged words only, before he left Beaumartin. I did not kill him, even by accident.’

‘Of course,’ Theo said, injecting warmth into his voice. Now he spoke to the man he was inclined to trust him. Leon had been raised in England—did that mean he shared the same code of honour as Theo? Perhaps.

‘Why do you want it back—other than the fact you cannot trace the money that was paid for it if it was sold and not stolen?’

‘Do you imagine I want that thing out there, bearing our name? It has taken years for the rumours about the family to die down.’

‘It is a work of art and was no doubt destined for a very private collector.’

‘It is an obscenity,’ Leon snapped.

‘Indeed. And a valuable one. Too valuable to melt down and break up.’

‘When I get it back, it will go back into safe keeping, in the most secure bank vault I can find. My father, and his before him, kept it hidden here, in this chateau. After his death I checked—it had gone.’

It is not going into any bank, not if I can help it, Theo thought grimly. His client had paid Theo for the Chalice. It was now his, however much the count might deny it. His lordship would not even accept the return of his money. He wanted that Chalice, and what he wanted, he got.

It was an impasse. He thought the Court believed Theo did not have it, had not bought it in the first place and was here now attempting to locate it. Count Leon was convincing, too, when he said that it was missing and that he had not harmed his own father, but Theo had not been in this business so long without learning to trust no one. It could be an elaborate bluff to remove all suspicion from the family and keep the money.

And if the man did have it, he had no belief in Leon’s announcement that he would put it in a vault. Leon was a traditionalist—it would stay here, in hiding, as it had been for hundreds of years. He was still going to check. ‘Shall we rejoin the ladies?’

‘Of course. Your cousin is most striking. Are you all redheads in your family?’

Theo bit back a demand that the count refrain from discussing Elinor if he did not want to find his elegant nose rearranged, and shook his head. ‘Some are brown-headed, some dark. But in most branches of the family there are redheads.’

‘With tempers to match?’ The count led the way down a broad staircase into the front hall. The place was a rabbit warren.

‘We learn early to control them that much better, monsieur.’ But don’t chance testing mine…

The ladies were sitting in a room that was pure eighteenth century—white and gilt and mirrors in startling contrast to the medieval parts of the building. Wide glazed doors opened on to a terrace with lawns sloping away down towards the river. Elinor turned as they came in. ‘Cousin Theo, it is so delightful, the Countess has invited us to stay next week. There is to be a house party.’

‘Delightful indeed,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘I, for one, accept with much pleasure.’ The countess had her face under control in an instant. The younger woman had less experience; Theo, plainly, had not been included in the invitation. But no one could say so now. He smiled sunnily at the count. ‘Delightful.’

There was an awkward moment while Mademoiselle Julie plastered a smile on her face, the count looked like thunder and the countess recovered herself. ‘It will be quite an English party,’ she declared. ‘Sir Ian and Lady Tracey are joining us. You may know them? I met them in Paris, soon after my poor husband’s death. They were such a support until dear Leon could reach me.’

The Traceys?Here?So they do not have it either. Have they followed me or will I come as a nastysurprise to them? If he did not have it, and Leon did not have it and the Traceys did not, then that left only one person in the game. He would let the houseparty run its course, satisfy himself that the Chalice had not come home and that this was not some complex manoeuvre on the part of the English collectors, and then he would find Ana. And wring her very lovely neck.

‘I have met them,’ he conceded. The last time had been just before he had bribed their coachman to take the wrong road south to Paris from the coast and then, when they were well lost, to engineer a broken axle. He was sure Sir Ian was going to be just as pleased to encounter him again as he was to see them. ‘It will be most interesting to become reacquainted.’

Elinor was watching him, her head tipped a little to one side. She knew there was something going on beneath this polite surface chatter, something beyond the odd fact that he had asked her help in securing an invitation to stay in a chateau where he already had an entrée of sorts.

‘Is anyone else coming?’ she asked now, gazing directly at the count. If it did not seem too bizarre a phrase to use in connection with Elinor, she was positively batting her eyelashes at him.

‘Some relatives of ours,’ he answered, strolling over and taking the place next to her on the sofa. ‘This is a large house, we can accommodate a lot of people.’ He shot Theo an unreadable look as he said it, then turned to smile at Elinor. Behind their back Mademoiselle Julie bit her lip and began to make brittle conversation with Lady James. The paid companion? A poorrelation? Whichever it is, she does not like the countpaying attention to another woman. And neither do I.Not that one. Which was strange. He supposed it was because he was used to keeping an eye out for his sisters. But Elinor was not his sister.

Aunt Louisa was drawing on her gloves. ‘Until Monday afternoon, then. I shall look forward to it. Come, Elinor, there is much to do.’

‘Packing?’ Mademoiselle Julie ventured.

‘Packing? No, I have my work on the basilica to complete.’ The poor girl looked daunted, but she did not return the conspiratorial smile that Elinor directed at her.

‘Well, that is most satisfactory,’ Lady James pronounced, settled back in the carriage. ‘Four days should see a considerable advance in my researches. The chapel will provide a most valuable addition to chapter four.’ She took up her notebook and began to scribble, frowning as the carriage lurched over a rut.

‘You timed that announcement very neatly, Elinor.’ Theo was not smiling, however. He looked almost grim, she decided, puzzled. She had done what he had asked, hadn’t she? And the prospect of a house party at the chateau was something to be looked forward to, surely?

‘Thank you. I decided the only option to ensure they could not exclude you was to gush like that. Why did you assume they would not invite you? You knew the late count, after all.’

‘His son does not like me.’ It appeared to be mutual.

‘Really? I did notice a certain tension, but I assumed it was business matters.’ Tension was an understatement. The count had looked like the demon king and Theo positively dangerous. ‘He is very charming, and incredibly good looking.’

Her cousin regarded her through narrowed eyes for a long moment, but all he said was, ‘Who is Mademoiselle Julie?’

‘I am not entirely certain. A distant connection of the countess, I think. She seems to act as her companion.’

Theo lapsed into silence and Elinor recalled something she had noticed on their arrival at the chateau and had no opportunity to mention. ‘The driver of this coach is the man you hired to carry my things up the hill yesterday.’

‘Yes.’

‘He was waiting for you.’

‘Yes.’

‘And he is already in your employ?’ He nodded. Elinor opened her mouth to demand to know why Theo’s employee was hanging around the town pretending to be a stray loafer looking for casual work and then closed it again. Not in front of Mama. He nodded again in recognition of her tact, the glimmer of a smile touching his mouth. It was the first genuine sign of pleasure she had seen from him since they arrived at Beaumartin.

‘You could stop now and have a fitting for your new gowns,’ Theo suggested as the carriage rolled into St Père. It was far too early for even the most industrious sempstress working alone to have anything ready for a first fitting. He knew it and she knew it. Only Lady James, loftily above such trivia as gowns would not think it strange. Perhaps Theo was going to confide in her at last.

‘What a good idea.’ Elinor sounded suspiciously bright and breezy, even to her own ears. ‘Will you drive me back to Vezelay later in the gig?’

‘Yes, of course. Aunt Louisa, that will be all right, will it not?’

‘What? Oh, yes, whatever will waste least time on fripperies.’ Lady James went back to frowning over her notebook.

Theo stood watching the carriage vanish round the bend, leaving a cloud of dust and two yapping dogs in its wake, then fished a key out of his pocket and opened the door into the dressmaker’s shop.

‘Madame is not even here, is she? So, are you going to tell me what all the mystery is about?’

‘There is no mystery.’ Theo ignored her sceptical expression. ‘Just a confidential business matter. However, I need to talk to you about the count. It had not occurred to me that he may not be a suitable person for you to associate with. You should keep your distance from him throughout the stay. I could wish I had not involved you now.’