Diamonds and Deceit (At Somerton) Read online

  He interrupted her. “Please, don’t say it. The worst thing is, I’ve been called as a witness for the prosecution.”

  “That is most distressing, but I suppose if you can help bring to light what actually happened—”

  “I know what happened,” he snapped. Rose was startled by the passion in his voice. “I know Oliver isn’t capable of murder, and I won’t go to court to have lawyers try to make me say he is.”

  Rose looked at his furrowed brow, the weariness etched in every line of his face.

  “You are really touched by this, aren’t you?” she said softly.

  Sebastian nodded.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  He shook his head.

  “At least—perhaps, yes,” he added a moment later. “So much about Oliver doesn’t make sense, Rose. There is more to his story than he’ll admit, and I think—I hope—there might be clues there that would help us save him.”

  “He was certainly always very well-spoken for a servant,” said Rose, thinking back.

  “There is so much about him that is more refined than one would expect. His accent, when he’s unguarded, is a long way above his class. And when I asked him about his family he became furious. He said he had none.”

  “That’s dreadful,” Rose spoke from the heart, thinking of her own mother. There was not a night she did not go to bed thinking of her and wishing she were nearby.

  “If only I could find out the truth about him, there might be something that would get him out of this jam.” Sebastian’s brows darkened again. “But Rose, if you could ask among the servants at Somerton, find out if anyone knows anything—what his place was before he came here. His references are fakes. I looked them up and challenged him, but he wouldn’t tell me a thing.”

  Rose hesitated. It was not exactly insulting—but it made her color faintly to think that she was still considered a go-between to the downstairs world. It was not exactly tactful to remind her of her origins, and Sebastian seemed to realize that, because he turned on her a look of such pleading desperation that her hurt feelings melted away at once.

  “Please, Rose, I don’t mean to insult you. If only you knew the state I’m in.” He spoke quietly, but she could see from the way he clenched his cane, his knuckles white, that he was not calm.

  Rose moved toward him, lowering her voice as she feigned interest in the nearest painting. “Of course I will help. I know Oliver means a great deal to you. It is good of you to look out for him so well.”

  Sebastian glanced at her, then replied even more quietly. “It is not ‘good of me.’ I have no choice.” His voice was tortured. “Please, may I tell you something? I don’t know—that is, it may be foolish of me—I don’t want you to despise me.”

  “What do you mean?” Rose asked, startled. Sebastian’s manner was so strange that she almost wondered if she should call for the attendant, if he were perhaps mad, or even dangerous.

  “I can’t keep silent. If I don’t tell someone, it will kill me.”

  “Sebastian, what have you done?” Rose was frightened now.

  “Nothing that a million haven’t done before me. Oliver and I—we—” He paused, struggling for words. “Have you ever met someone and felt at once that you understood each other perfectly? That you had such a deep connection it felt as if you were one soul in two bodies?” There were tears glittering in his eyes now. “I love him, Rose. And I can’t let him hang for a crime he didn’t commit.”

  Rose stared at Sebastian. What did he mean? Were he and Oliver related somehow? What—and then she understood. She blushed and could not meet his eyes.

  “I—I had no idea.” And yet it all made sense now.

  “The truth is this. I was…entangled with Simon Croker. He was blackmailing me. Of course you know I would do anything to conceal it. Simon attacked me, and Oliver defended me. The fall was an awful accident. But Oliver wanted to protect me, and he confessed before I could stop him.” He spoke as if he felt the pain of it even now. “I hope you understand. I’m not a monster.”

  “Of course you’re not. I’ll try to understand.” Rose hardly knew how to speak to him. She was shocked by the story, moved by Oliver’s bravery…and yet she felt she ought to be persuading him to abandon his unnatural tendencies. But he was Sebastian. He was kind, and good, and he had done nothing that was wrong—except that it was all wrong, of course it was. Every Sunday school lesson, every sermon, everything she had ever heard in whispers and giggles and shocked looks in the servants’ passages, told her so. But Somerton seemed so far away and simple and innocent now. He was Sebastian—kind, good, gentle. How could he do wrong just by loving someone?

  “I’ve thought and thought about what to do. I’ve gone as far as going to the police station, but I never quite have the courage to tell them the truth. My mother…there are times when I hate her, but she loves me and I cannot bring that shame down on her head. She has done so much to try and keep my…nature a secret.”

  “She knows, then?” Rose exclaimed.

  “She guessed what kind of man I was, perhaps before I did,” he said bitterly. “And then there is Charlotte. It is her last season, perhaps. I can’t ruin her chances of marriage. And Michael’s career would be harmed. He doesn’t deserve that. Do you understand? Tell me I’m a cad if you want to. You’re probably right.”

  “No, no, I…” Rose shook her head. “It is a terrible situation.”

  “I won’t rest until I can get Oliver free, somehow. I won’t let him be sentenced. I’ll confess if it comes to that.” He looked at her intently. “I need hardly tell you what it would do to me, to your family, if the truth about me came out.”

  “No, no,” Rose exclaimed, feeling almost physical pain. “Of course I will tell no one.”

  “Thank you.” He glanced back at the door just as Rose’s stepmother, Ada, and Charlotte entered. The countess raised her hand and gestured imperiously to Sebastian.

  “My mother calls.” Sebastian made a face and walked toward them. Rose watched him join them as the countess pointed to some small bronzes with her parasol. Rose turned away, noticing a shabby-looking man loitering by the entrance to the next room for the first time. Rose wondered how he had got in, but simply stepped around him and slipped through the door. She was not really unchaperoned, she thought. Her family were nearby. She just needed a few moments to calm herself after Sebastian’s news.

  She had thought she was no longer in the mood for looking at art, but she saw at once that the paintings in this room were entirely in keeping with the shock of Sebastian’s secret. She stepped back to look up at the four vast canvases that filled the walls of the small gallery. Not only did they dwarf in scale everything she had seen so far. They were almost abstract—not quite, that would have been trying the patience of the Academy too far—and the artist’s method so bold she could almost feel the force with which the paint had been flung against the canvas. One could not call it anything as conventional as painting, she thought. It was movement, as powerful as the leaps of Nijinsky.

  And yet, she thought, as she continued to gaze at them, they were somehow…empty. They were storms of passion with no center, no purpose, no object. She frowned, puzzled and disappointed, as she looked from one canvas to the next.

  She lowered her gaze and found herself looking into the eyes of the Duke of Huntleigh. For a second she was too startled to speak. He was lounging against the door frame, watching her without smiling. Rose felt her heart flutter under his intense gaze. “Good morning,” she said.

  “Good morning.” He straightened up and came into the room.

  Rose tried to meet his gaze, but it was impossible to do so without blushing. “I was just admiring the paintings,” she said.

  “Do you like them?” He did not sound enthusiastic.

  “Don’t you?”

  “They’re all right. A little tame.”

  “Tame?” she exclaimed. “They’re the wildest things in the exhibition.”

/>   “That isn’t saying much.”

  She had to laugh. “No, I suppose it isn’t. But the vigor, the confidence, the passion…”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “And yet they’re rather sad and empty, don’t you think?”

  He didn’t immediately answer. Rose turned back to the paintings. Perhaps she had been wrong. But everything she saw there confirmed her feeling.

  “Yes,” she said, nodding. “Yet even for all their power and passion, I feel the artist hasn’t found his subject yet. He doesn’t know what he wants to paint about.”

  The duke was still silent. Rose wondered if she had said too much. After all, she was hardly an expert on art.

  “They are the best things here, though,” she said. “They make me feel as if I could write music again.”

  “You write music?” he asked quickly.

  She sighed. “I used to. But there is no silence in this city, especially during the season, and I need silence to hear my music.”

  He made an impatient movement. “You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to.”

  “But I do. I cannot let my father down, not after all he has done for me. And he wants me to take my place in society.”

  “Oh, families. How I wish they had never been invented.” He added, “Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is being performed here in London soon. You should go, if you are interested in music.”

  “I wish I could, but I am sure the countess will never be persuaded to go to a performance that has been so controversial. She does only what society does, and as a result, so must we. Sometimes I feel that society is the only living thing in London, and we are just its fodder.” She stopped, surprised by how far she had gone. She met his eyes.

  “You have a strange knack of encouraging me to say things I didn’t know I felt until I have said them,” she said with a small laugh.

  He gave a slight bow. “You’re wrong,” he said. Rose raised an eyebrow. “Society is just a machine, like a locomotive that needs feeding. You’re alive. You’re truly alive because you are a creator.”

  Rose’s breath felt thin and quick, as if she were standing on top of a mountain. This was a very different conversation from any she had had with Huntleigh before—indeed, a very different conversation than any she had ever had with anyone before. It was so strange, she thought, that the person to whom she felt closest, the one who seemed to understand perfectly how she felt at every moment, was the one most removed from her in birth and breeding. She couldn’t help but think of what Sebastian had just described to her—an understanding between two people deeper than anything that could be put into words. She managed to reply. “So only those who have the leisure to create are alive? I can’t think that’s fair.”

  “I don’t mean just symphonies or landscapes. Anyone who works creatively.” He moved closer, his moss-green eyes taking her in. “There’s a dignity in every kind of labor—except service. No servant could ever be creative. When one is not free, one cannot create.”

  Rose was a little surprised by the blunt way he spoke about servants, but she was pleased that he didn’t feel the need to conceal his feelings before her. She opened her mouth to contradict him, to say that she had begun composing as a housemaid herself, but at that moment something else caught her attention. Over the duke’s shoulder she could see that Ada and Charlotte had entered the room. Both were watching her. Ada looked troubled. Charlotte looked angry. Rose felt self-conscious, but some defiant spark in her made her stay where she was.

  “Rose.” The countess stepped into the doorway behind Charlotte and Ada, smiling frostily. “I’m so glad to have found you. We were worried you’d wandered off and become lost,” she said. “Ah—Your Grace!” she exclaimed, pretending to notice Alexander for the first time. “How perfect. Charlotte and I were just saying we would be so grateful for your opinion on some of these charming bronzes. I know you’re quite a collector yourself.”

  “I’d be delighted,” he replied smoothly. With a nod to Rose, he walked away toward the countess.

  Rose turned back to the paintings, feeling a little embarrassed at Ada’s searching gaze. The name of the artist was discreetly placed on the gilt frames. She drew closer to one and looked at it: Alexander Ross, Fifth Duke of Huntleigh.

  Rose stood as still as if she had just glimpsed the head of a Gorgon. The thoughtless words with which she had criticized the paintings—told him that they were sad, empty, that he didn’t know what he was painting about—flashed back into her mind. She put her hands to her cheeks, which were flaming with mortification. Oh, why didn’t I look at the frame before I spoke to him! Why! she thought.

  It was raining as they came back from the exhibition, a spring shower that only seemed to make the sun that followed sparkle more brightly. None of it was any comfort to Rose. She had sat in total silence the whole way back, now and then burning with embarrassment as she remembered her awful faux pas. They had been getting on so well—and she had ruined it. Again and again she remembered the unsmiling expression on his face. No wonder! He had been too tactful to reply—he was as well-bred as Ada in that sense—but he must have been furious with her. As if I knew anything about art anyway! she scolded herself. She sank into her seat, miserable to her core. He must think me so pretentious, a housemaid talking about things she doesn’t understand.

  “It really is time that you put it on an official footing,” the countess said to Ada as the cab turned into the square, their horse trotting smartly through the puddles. The feathers on the countess’s hat nodded sharply.

  “There’s no rush,” Ada replied.

  “There is every rush. There are a thousand things to organize. The trousseau must be ordered, the banns published, the invitations printed and sent—my goodness, these days a society wedding is like a military campaign!” The cab drew to a halt before Milborough House, and the countess waited with impatience for the coachman to get down and open the door of the cab. Stepping down onto the pavement, she added, “People are beginning to ask questions, and that is never a good sign. You need to secure Lord Fintan, before he changes his mind.”

  “If he’s so prone to change his mind, perhaps I shouldn’t be marrying him,” Ada said dryly.

  “That joke was in extremely poor taste,” the countess snapped. She paused to speak to the footman. “About this evening’s engagements…”

  Rose, Ada, and Charlotte walked on to the house.

  “Well?” Charlotte quietly said to Rose, as they reached the porch. “What did the famous duke have to say?”

  Rose was aware of the blush in her cheeks and of Ada’s troubled gaze. She shook the rain from her umbrella, scattering diamond drops onto the street.

  “We talked about art,” she said lightly.

  “And did he engage you for the next ball?” Charlotte’s voice was flint.

  Rose was saved from replying as the countess reached them. No, he didn’t, she thought, and he probably never will again.

  “It is possible to speak to a man just in a friendly way, you know,” she said quietly, “without any thought of dancing with him or—or marrying him.”

  She walked in, but she couldn’t escape Charlotte’s hissed reply. “Not during the season, my dear.”

  The butler—Sanders, she remembered, was his name—inclined his head toward her as she removed her hat in front of the mirror.

  “There is a person to see you, my lady.” His voice carried just a touch of disapproval.

  “A person?” Rose paused in the act of removing her hat pin and met his gaze, startled.

  “I requested that she wait in the kitchen. Her name is Annie Bailey.”

  “Annie!” Rose was stunned. She glanced around swiftly, but her sisters and the countess had gone upstairs. What was Annie doing here, so far from Somerton? Had something terrible happened—perhaps to her mother.…

  “I’ll go down at once,” she managed. She crossed the hall with hasty steps, only pausing when she realized she did not
know which of the doors led to the servants’ passages. Thankfully Sanders was just behind her, and smoothly guided her to the correct one.

  Rose had never been into the servants’ quarters at Milborough House before. The smell was the same as at Somerton—stale cooking and carbolic soap. She inhaled deeply as she went down the bare stairs. This was all so familiar, almost frighteningly so. She hurried on to the kitchen. There, at the big oak table, before a backdrop of the ovens and the gleaming copper pans, sat Annie in her best hat and only coat. She looked nervous, but the instant their eyes met, Rose could not stop the smile that broke over her face. Annie looked relieved, and then beamed herself, jumping to her feet.

  “Rose!”

  They ran into each other’s arms. Rose hugged her friend, then stood back, smiling at her. Annie’s expression as she looked her up and down made her feel a little uncomfortable. It was so admiring that Rose had to accept that she had changed.

  “Annie! What a delight to see you, and what a surprise! But why—has anything happened?”

  “No, no. Don’t worry. I left everyone well and as usual.” Annie tossed her head as if she were shaking Somerton off. “Look at you! What a fine lady you’ve become. Do me a twirl, go on.”

  Rose, embarrassed but pleased, did a twirl. Annie clapped her hands. “Oh, don’t you look fine! This is going to be so much fun, Rose. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier.”

  “Think of what?” Rose was aware of Sanders still watching them from the passage, and she found herself feeling a little uncomfortable. “Why are you here, Annie?”

  “To be your lady’s maid, of course!” Annie beamed. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier.” Rose gazed wordlessly at Annie’s smiling, happy, confident face. “You and me, Rose, we’ve always been friends.” Annie ran on. “We’ll have even more fun now you’re a lady! You’ll be able to help me make my way in society. I’m sure I can manage your frocks as well as any Frenchy. And you did say you missed me.…” She trailed off, a little uncertain.