‘There was no-one in particular other than Sir Clement,’ Miss Ashcroft, a blonde with a stunning pearl necklace said. ‘It is quite early in the Season really. I noticed it the year I came out. All the young men want to get to know everyone, if they are serious about finding a bride, that is. There is usually a number of instant attachments, like Arabella and Sir Clement, then a period when things are a bit calmer while people look around them. Arabella was much admired, of course, but she did not flirt and she was nice to everyone. I am sure there are no wounded hearts or men resenting snubs.’
‘Except for Gerald Pomfret,’ Miss Frogmore suggested with a laugh.
Several of her friends wrinkled their noses at the name. ‘Who is he?’ I asked. ‘And what is wrong with him?’
‘He is Viscount Wraxall, the Earl of Luckford’s heir,’ Miss Frogmore said. ‘He is very intelligent. Very. They say that if he were not the heir then he would have a spectacular academic career at Oxford or Cambridge. But he is so clever that he regards everyone else as idiots.’
‘And if we do not fawn on him and tell him how wonderful he is – let alone dare to disagree with him – then he is spiteful and objectionable,’ Miss Ashcroft explained. ‘I overheard him laughing about me with his nasty little coterie of friends. I had told him that I did not think knowing all about long-dead civilisations made someone of more worth than having a kind heart and a generous spirit. That was when he was mocking poor Mr Fellowes who is an absolute sweetheart, even if he is a bit of a blockhead. Lord Wraxall was saying to the others that it was a good thing I had an excellent dowry because no-one would want to marry a brainless little dab of a creature like me otherwise.’ Miss Ashcroft was all of five foot tall and obviously in full possession of a perfectly good brain.
‘So did Arabella have anything to do with him?’
‘She snubbed him,’ Miss Frogmore said. ‘Very publicly. He had been hanging around her, talking all that so-called intellectual nonsense he spouts, and being a dead bore, and then apparently he proposed and tried to kiss her in an alcove at Lady Blessington’s party. And she flung open the curtain and said, really loudly, that she could not imagine why any woman would want to marry a man who kissed like a dead flounder and who had the common sense of a vole.’
‘It was wonderful,’ one of the others agreed. ‘And he stormed off and has cut her dead ever since, which must have been a great relief to her.’
I was not so sure. This was a highly intelligent young man of title, wealth, privilege but with no common sense and an inflated sense of his own self-worth. Would he take his dismissal in good part and stay away or would he concoct some elaborate revenge? If he was intellectually bright then he could have thought through a very elaborate plan.
‘It has certainly stopped him being such a nuisance. But to return to men who might have an interest in Arabella, there is Lord de Forrest,’ Lady Grace Twite observed. ‘I think he is rather odd, do you not agree?’ she appealed to her friends. ‘He hangs around and does not seem to want to fix his interest with anyone, even though I have heard lots of rumours about him needing to marry for money. And yet he always seems rather… possessive of Arabella.’
‘He used to visit her house a lot, but surely that is because he is a friend of her step-brother’s,’ Miss Frogmore observed. ‘She said he made her uneasy, but he does seem to touch rather a lot, do you not think? Perhaps that was all it was. I try to avoid him, he is one of those men who always seem to brush against you accidentally-on-purpose.’
‘I noticed that,’ I agreed. And then what she had said stuck home. ‘Step-brother?’
‘Why yes, Arabella’s mother married Lord Cottingham’s father, did you not know?’
‘No. No, I didn’t.’ Or, rather, I did. That must have been what I missed at Lady Maxton’s musicale, someone referring to Lord Cottingham as her step-brother. Did it make any difference? I couldn’t see that it did – they had grown up together and he would have developed protective brotherly feelings for her, reinforced by the fact that he was her guardian and trustee. Judging from that charming portrait of their parents I had seen in the hall it must have been a loving household.
‘I think she was frightened of him.’
Chapter Twenty
‘Frightened?’ I looked to see who had s
poken and saw it was the one young woman who had said nothing so far, a Miss Bishop. ‘Arabella was frightened of her own brother?’
She coloured up at the attention her observation was drawing. ‘He was so adamant about Sir Clement and so strict with her if he thought she spent too much time talking to any one gentleman. And she told me he was livid when she danced twice with Lord Pelling. I cannot see why, because my Mama is very strict, but she never minds two dances. Three, of course, would be fast.’
‘She was not frightened because he struck her when he was angry?’ I was back to my fear that we were dealing with manslaughter.
‘Oh no,’ several chorused at once.
Miss Frogmore leaned forward earnestly. ‘I am certain she would have said, because Miss – well, I will not mention names, but the others all know who I mean – confided in us that her father used a strap on her when he discovered she had been corresponding with a man. And Arabella was fierce about it and said it was a disgrace and she could not believe that Miss… that our other friend could be so forgiving about it. If Lord Cottingham had struck her she would have told us, I am certain.’
That was a relief. Things were bad enough as it was, without the idea that Arabella had fled to escape abuse.
We talked some more and ate far too many little cakes, but they told me nothing more that seemed at all helpful. I did wonder about Gerald Pomfret, though.
Lucian and James were waiting for me when I returned and Sir Clement followed close on my heels. Garrick set up the boards again and we sat around the table for me to report back.
‘Nothing really,’ I confessed. ‘They all agreed there was no-one for her other than Sir Clement.’ I looked away as he pinched the bridge of his nose, obviously fighting tears. ‘She had said nothing to any of them about a man who was persistent, although they did mention Viscount Wraxall. They said she had snubbed him, very publicly.’
‘Objectionable little toad,’ James said. ‘He is spiteful and supercilious.’
‘And intelligent enough to think up some complex revenge?’ I asked. ‘What if he took her to hold her for long enough that when he let her go she would be ruined? He might have no intention to physically harm her, only to punish her for making him look like an idiot. What if his friends “discovered” her in a horribly compromising situation after several weeks?’
Sir Clement had gone very pale. ‘I took him up on some error he made during a discussion at the Royal Society a few months back,’ he said. ‘He had made a sweeping statement in that supercilious way he has, utterly confident in his own judgment. Only he was wrong and I pointed it out and Sir Joseph Banks said something quite cutting about the arrogance of youth.’
‘So he has every reason for wanting revenge on you too,’ Lucian said thoughtfully. ‘We must investigate his movements.’