The Winterley Scandal. Elizabeth Beacon
‘I love my finery and attending the opera and theatres and real concerts that are not put on by supposedly musical ladies to show off their airs as much as their talents. I should not see my family and friends anywhere near as often as I do if we could not meet up in town either. My Uncle James has grown so fond of country life I sometimes wonder how Aunt Rowena manages to drag him here as often as she does though, but I can put up with the Lady Derneleys and Mr Carters of this world in order to keep in contact with the friends and relatives who truly matter to me.’
Thanks to his Brighton landlady even Colm knew of James Winterley’s transformation from idle London rake to country squire and father of a ready-made family. Then there was the Winterleys’ close connection to the Marquis of Mantaigne and his mixed bag of a family by marriage—oh, and Sir Gideon Laughraine and his lady. Here was the truth of things: Miss Winterley was at the heart of a group of impressive and powerful aristocrats and he was only even a secretary thanks to his Uncle Horace’s bad conscience.
‘Then I hope you enjoy your latest visit, Miss Winterley,’ he said with a stiff bow and half raised his humble and unfashionable hat.
‘Thank you, Mr Carter,’ she replied with an ironic lift of her fine dark brows and a regal nod. ‘How very kind of you to wish me well.’
‘Good day, Miss Winterley,’ he said repressively and got ready to limp back to his books and papers and packing crates.
‘And a very good day to you too, sir,’ he heard her reply lightly by way of dismissal from a lady to the upper servant he really was nowadays.
The thought of how much clear water lay between him and Miss Winterley mocked him all the way back to Derneley House and made him limp more heavily than usual for some strange reason. ‘Even a lunatic wouldn’t be fool enough to yearn for that particular moon, Colm Hancourt,’ he murmured under his breath as he went.
He was fairly sure he was still sane, but that was about all he had to offer any woman deluded enough to want him. He was scarred and limping and about as penniless as a man could be without actually living in the gutter. Before he met Miss Winterley he had still been able to convince himself he only wanted his lost fortune back for Nell’s sake. Now he had a sneaking suspicion he’d lied. Was there any hope Miss Winterley might ever look on him as a possible lover if he wasn’t who he was? Of course not. The idea was ridiculous and he must put it from his mind right now.
So that left him with his sister Nell still to save from a life of genteel poverty or a rich man’s bed and no wedding ring. The very thought of either fate for his bright, brave sister horrified him enough to make him put aside air dreams and concentrate on her future instead. There was one elusive possibility he’d been turning over in his mind since he read the last entry in Pamela’s diary last night. He shrugged off the idea it had been wrong to read them before he passed them over to their rightful owner as ordered. He had as much right to know the wretched female’s thoughts during the time she was with his father as anyone still alive. The woman was annoyingly evasive about the Lambury Jewels after that crow about the rubies, at least until the end of her diary when she must have left for that last wild adventure with her lover. Before she went she railed at her lover’s refusal to hand over the last of his wife’s jewellery: the magnificent diamond set Joseph Lambury had made up for his daughter after Colm was born. So when his father left England with his inamorata they should have been in the bank vault his uncle had sworn was bare as a pauper’s pocket when Colm plucked up the courage to ask before he left for the army.
A slender thread of hope dangled in front of Colm’s eyes as he speculated how much the diamond set might be worth. He vaguely recalled seeing his mother wear them when she was dressed up for a ball grand enough to warrant such splendour. There had been a tiara and a magnificent tumble of diamonds round her neck that sparkled fascinatingly in the candlelight when she came to bid him goodnight. Heavy bracelets weighed down her slender wrists and they laughed together as he playfully moved her hands so they would make rainbows from her rings even with the nursery night lights. A coachman shouted at a carter and their loud exchange of insults jolted Colm out of the past and into a very different world. For a moment he had been back there with her, sharing a careless moment of loving intimacy with his mother and remembering so much about her he thought he’d forgotten.
He felt almost sorry he had that memory to cherish when Nell was too young to remember much more about their mother than a vague impression of pale hair and warm arms. They had talked about their parents one night this summer in Brussels, when the pain of his wounds kept him awake and she insisted on waking with him. It taught him a lot, that time when even he wasn’t quite sure if he was going to live or die. The most important thing he had found out was he and his sister still shared a strong bond, despite all the efforts two of their uncles and aunts made to keep them apart. All those years of pretending the Hancourt-Winterley scandal died with their brother and not even the last Duke and their Uncle Maurice could make Colm and Nell strangers to one another.
Which brought him back to the diamonds; the last Duke of Linaire must have had them broken up and sold, he supposed. Colm thought about the hard-eyed man who informed him his father was dead as if he ought to be glad. That man was capable of it, but could he have got away with it? That was less certain and whispers of what he’d done would have haunted the cold-hearted devil to his grave. Nothing Colm had heard since he came back to England said any of those whispers existed. The diamonds might still be hiding somewhere, waiting to be found and claimed by him. A beat of wild hope thundered in his heart as he thought what that would mean for Nell’s future happiness. A real dowry, a secure home and perhaps living under the same roof as her brother for a while before she wed a man who deserved her, if such a paragon existed. Colm almost smiled, then changed his mind as he realised how unlikely his latest daydream sounded. If he could find diamonds nobody had seen for fifteen years; if he could prove they were his; if he could sell them for the fortune needed to buy a modest home and a farm to support it; if Nell would leave her noble orphans and join him there...
So many ifs made a fantasy, but if there was some trace of his mother’s diamonds, Uncle Horace might help him find them. Colm knew his uncle and aunt felt they had let his little brother’s children down by staying away when their father died. Now they were back in England the duchy wasn’t the rich inheritance it was before the last Duke and Colm’s grandfather spent money like water. The current Duke couldn’t afford to dower his niece and establish his nephew as the gentleman his birth argued, because Uncle Maurice would be watching his future inheritance like a hawk. The new Duchess was unlikely to produce a child after a quarter of a century of marriage, so Lord Maurice would insist on an allowance as his brother’s heir before Lord Chris’s children got a penny of Hancourt money beyond the twenty pounds a year already settled on them by the last Duke. Those diamonds might be a false hope, Colm mused as he made his way down the back steps of Derneley house, but sometimes it was better to have one of those than none at all.
The work of getting the Derneley Collection listed and packed up ready for its new home, so he could get out of this house, felt more urgent today. As Colm went about it he couldn’t stop thinking of his latest meeting with Miss Winterley. He didn’t number many fine ladies among his acquaintance, but something told him she was an unusual one. This morning she seemed as relaxed as if he was a fashionable gentleman in Hyde Park at the fashionable hour, instead of an almost servant in Green Park at some unlikely hour of the morning for a lady who had been at a party late into the night. He let his hands slow for a moment as he thought of her in the clear light of a fine autumn morning. Her skin was flawless, he recalled, and she was still young enough for a late night and early morning not to be written under her eyes. Her bonnet was modest by the standards of the current fashion for vast pokes that hid the wearer from view if there was any danger of shadows. So now he knew that her eyes truly were a rare shade of blue-green and could haunt a man to his grave if he wasn’t careful. Add a slender but womanly figure and the smile that made her unique and he had best think about diamonds again and forget Miss Winterley as best he could.
Anything more than a stiff acquaintance between that lady and Mr Carter was clearly impossible, so he thought about that passage he had copied out last night in his room and with the door safely shut behind him. He took out the paper he kept in his jacket