The Viscount's Deadly Game: The Discreet Investigations of Lord and Lady Calaway, #2

By Issy Brooke

Who killed Viscount Beaconberg?

 

Lady Beaconberg's a prime suspect: the money-grabbing snob of a wife would do anything to get further up the social ladder, and ditching a lowly viscount would free her for marriage to a much more esteemed nobleman.

 

Or perhaps the killer was the viscount's business partner, Sir Arthur, who's been arguing in public and in private, desperate to wrest control of the racing stables fully into his own hands.

 

As Theodore Caxton, the Earl of Calaway and his wife Adelia look further into the viscount's suspicious death, more secrets emerge from the family's past. Everyone had someone to gain from the murder. How far will the killer go to hide the truth?

 

Theodore's a man of learning and science; Adelia's got a gift for reading people and asking the right questions. Together they get dangerously close to the murderer. When events separate them – one on a wild chase across the northern moors of England, the other into the heart of horse racing at York – can they each survive on their own?

 

They cannot afford to be losers in this deadly game of murder, love and money.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Issy Brooke
• Release date: Dec 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9798201393427

Book preview

1

Lady Beaconberg might have only been married to a mere Viscount but she carried herself like a Duchess, and it was of such high-born Dukes and Duchesses that she was loudly talking.

I shall send them an invitation, of course, she declared, her piercing voice carrying along the length of the opulent and well-stocked dinner table that August evening. Her words seemed to ricochet off the shining silverware like bullets pinging around. "It would be the most dreadful snub if I failed to acknowledge them, though of course I don’t expect that they shall be able to attend, what with their awfully busy lives. I shall not be offended by their refusal for I do quite understand how it must be for them."

It was doubtful that Lady Beaconberg had even the remotest understanding of the daily lives of the peers of the realm. But it was a way for her to get past the fact that the Duke and Duchess of York would, under no circumstances whatsoever, deign to attend the wedding of a member of the very minor aristocracy — while still enabling Lady Beaconberg to give the impression to everyone who would listen that Lady Beaconberg had the potential to rub shoulders with the noblest family in the area. Adelia suppressed her smile and wondered if anyone at the evening’s meal was fooled. Anyone aside from Lady Beaconberg herself, of course.

Adelia’s husband Theodore, the Earl of Calaway, caught her eye. He wasn’t smiling. In fact, he looked utterly confused, as well he might; the wedding that their hostess was so publically planning was actually pure fantasy, at least at the moment. Lady Beaconberg’s daughter, the spoiled and beautiful Honourable Miss Elizabeth Parr, was young and unattached. A few suitors had made overtures to Miss Parr’s father, the Viscount, for her hand in marriage but while he seemed happy to let his daughter marry for love, Lady Beaconberg had firmly discounted every quivering swain that had so far crept across their threshold. None of them had been rich enough or titled enough – yet.

And that was one reason why Adelia and Theodore were sitting and dining in this overheated room that evening, pinned down at the mercy of Lady Beaconberg’s snobbish tirades and flights of fancy; Adelia’s skills as a matchmaker had been requested. Her ladyship’s self-important braying was at least diluted by the presence of many other people around the table. These included the coquettish daughter Elizabeth, giggling away every time her mother mentioned a wedding. Outranking Lady Beaconberg by several steps but far too polite to mention openly it was Theodore’s own mother, the Dowager Countess of Calaway. She was perfectly happy to mention her status in barbed comments, subtle allusion and sideways looks, however. She was known as Grace, in private, to her close friends and family. She was in fine form, and enjoying every minute of the proceedings, seeing it as a chance to exercise her wit at the expense of everyone else’s comfort.

The meal was being held at the house of the Parr family, Lord and Lady Beaconberg, in the pleasant estate of Dovewood Park just outside the ancient city of York in the north of England. The Dowager Countess had said it was far too close to Scotland for her liking, with all its threats of border reivers and haggis. Of course, there hadn’t been any reivers for over two hundred and fifty years, and no one was likely to force haggis upon anyone else uninvited, but the Dowager merely sniffed and said that one could not be too careful. She had agreed to come north on this trip with her son Theodore and her daughter-in-law Adelia, because the primary object of their visit was not actually to find a match for Lady Beaconberg’s daughter – that was only a secondary aim.

Of course, no one would dare to suggest to Lady Beaconberg that she was a happy afterthought. She carried on as if Adelia had made the journey of a few hundred miles on her behalf alone.

But Adelia and Theodore were actually up in Yorkshire to visit family. They were staying about half a mile away from Lady Beaconberg, at the house of their eldest daughter, Mary. Mary was also at the dinner party, along with her doting older husband Cecil Parker-Grey and his lemon-faced widowed sister, Sibyl Ramsgreave.

That made nine persons, which was a rather awkward number and it made the seating plan look untidy. And that untidiness was odd, for there was one more person who could have easily been present that night. It was a noticeable absence.

It was of that person – Sir Arthur Glanville – that Theodore was now speaking. Adelia watched her husband as he returned to his conversation with Lord Beaconberg, talking about horse racing, horse breeding, horse training, and all manner of things that strayed a little too close to the realms of the impolite. No one needed to hear about an outbreak of strangles while they were nibbling on a little light salmon.

Adelia could not help but eavesdrop and in spite of the occasional foray into veterinary matters, it was a more interesting conversation than Lady Beaconberg’s incessant carping about the lack of respect the local reverend seemed to have for her. Quite how one could insult another by choosing a particular shade of purple to wear was beyond Adelia.

I should imagine you have a stream of offers now, fellows begging you for the chance to put their mares to your prizewinning horse! Theodore said heartily, and Adelia curled her toes in embarrassment.

Lord Beaconberg, or Talbot Parr to his very closest friends, laughed and did not care one bit for propriety. He was a loud man, just like his wife, but he was more concerned with winning races than winning social approval.

Oh yes, there’s an absolute queue of them! Banging the door down, they are, now!

Sir Arthur must be pleased.

Lord Beaconberg laughed but he looked away. He was in his early fifties and as fit as a man half his age. He was a hands-on racehorse owner and Sir Arthur Glanville was his business partner. Sir Arthur’s knighthood had come lately to him, as a reward for his decades of service to the Sport of Kings. While Theodore and Lord Beaconberg continued to talk about – what was it now, numnahs and mustard poultices? – Adelia speculated about Sir Arthur’s absence. She leaned to one side and whispered to Sibyl, Do you know Sir Arthur at all?

"He is hardly the type of man with whom the likes of me would ever socialise," Sibyl replied.

Oh, I do beg your pardon. Do you mean he is not quite – suitable for polite society? Adelia asked, surprised and curious.

Oh, no, Sibyl said, and now Adelia could detect a note of bitterness in her voice. That honour falls on me.

"I do not follow you. You cannot be saying that you, dear lady, are not suitable?" Adelia smiled kindly. Sibyl was in her thirties, a careworn widowed mother of three boys, and she lived in her brother Cecil’s house under his protection – or his sufferance. Mary, who was Adelia’s daughter and Cecil’s wife, never complained about the presence of this other woman in her household.

But she never spoke well of her either.

She simply didn’t speak of her at all, and that told Adelia rather a lot. Mary would never speak ill of another person so if she was silent about someone, there had to be a reason for it.

Sibyl confirmed Adelia’s suspicions as she said, stiffly, I have always endeavoured to remain in seclusion, especially when you and your good husband have visited my brother and his wife, because I am very aware that my status is one of shame and misery and I have no wish to infect anyone else with my poor fortune. I am only here tonight because I was warned that to stay away would invite comment and therefore cause even greater shame.

Adelia could not stop her eyebrows shooting up. Mrs Ramsgreave, I must protest! She began to assure the younger lady of her place in the world and how she was held in respect and esteem. Yet nothing that Adelia said made any difference to the dried-up martyr. Adelia wanted to shake such nonsense out of her, but reminded herself that Sibyl’s position was actually one of misery and confinement. With three young boys and no husband, what else could she do but live with her brother and his wife? Would Adelia have felt any differently in her position? Possibly not.

Talk ebbed and flowed as the various courses were brought out and Adelia felt tired. They had travelled up from the south over four days, and arrived only yesterday. She was still bone-weary from the carriage’s soporific rocking punctuated by squeaky jolts, always striking just as one was about to nod off properly. Theodore had insisted he preferred to travel by coach and she regretted agreeing to his old-fashioned foolishness. She vowed to make the return journey by railway, alone if she had to.

The recent big win by the horse jointly owned by Lord Beaconberg and Sir Arthur was mentioned again, to the whole company, and there followed a toast to the victory of Golden Meadow. Adelia and Theodore’s son-in-law, Cecil Parker-Grey, untitled but of such an old, rich and respected family that most people deferred to him as if he were a lord, mentioned that they had to step up security around their own house lately and that Lord Beaconberg ought to be on the look-out for unusual occurrences.

We’ve had reports of figures seen in the grounds, he said. And hoof-prints in the grass. The servants are talking of a ghost, as if ghosts leave a trail!

Everyone laughed. Lady Beaconberg said, What silly things they are. I am sure my dear Talbot has taken note – have you not?

Lord Beaconberg nodded. There’s been an encampment of Romani down by the river and Arthur immediately put Mackie and the other stable lads on a rota to keep guard at night.

Oh, you are so prejudiced, Mary said. Adelia smiled to herself. There it was – her sweet daughter – seeing the best in everyone, without question. Sibyl Ramsgreave excepted, that was. I’ve read the most delightful stories about the travelling folk. George Borrow is quite famous for writing about them, you know. He has a gift for taking one into the greenwood with those people who live such an honest, pure sort of life. Such a store of tales.

And that’s all they are, Lady Beaconberg said, almost with a snap. Stories, tales, nothing more. Honest and pure? Far from it! They are not our sort of people at all. Not at all!

Few people were her sort of people. Adelia preferred to count herself with the travelling folk than as one of Lady Beaconberg’s ilk. If she had a little more boldness – or disregard for convention – she would have said as much. But this was Lady Beaconberg’s house and they were under her hospitality and instead the conversation was skilfully turned by the Dowager Countess, who was demanded to know just where did the good lady get her fish slices. And almost everyone understood immediately that Lady Beaconberg would take that question as a slight against her, because anyone who was anyone had inherited their cutlery and silverware; and no one ever used to have fish slices a generation or so ago. Fish slices and cake forks and sorbet spoons marked one out as new money.

Lady Beaconberg gritted her teeth at the insinuation that she had purchased her tableware rather than had it passed down to her through the generations, made a light comment about London, and Harrods, and where the best people shopped, and Adelia was sure that the Dowager Countess was laughing herself sick on the inside.

Adelia, Theodore, Mary, Cecil, the Dowager Countess and Sibyl Ramsgreave shared the same coach back to the Grey House, the imposing family seat of the Parker-Greys. The name of the house was both a reference to their surname and to the slate-grey stone that was the building material of so many of the moorland houses around the villages that ringed the old city of York. The six of them squeezed into a space designed for four, but the journey was only a scant half mile along a good road and they were home by midnight. Sibyl muttered a petulant goodnight and disappeared immediately. Cecil looked ready to invite Adelia and Theodore into the drawing room for a nightcap but Mary seemed to be pale and said she needed to go to bed. With nods and a flurry of good wishes, they all slipped off to their respective rooms.

The Grey House was large and rambling, having been originally built in the sixteenth century and continually added to ever since. Mary and Cecil inhabited the comfortable newer rooms but Adelia and Theodore had been given the privilege of an entire wing to themselves, which consisted of large, draughty rooms and squeaking floorboards. Smith, Adelia’s maidservant, floated out of her side room to attend to her mistress and within half an hour, everyone was safely tucked up in bed. It was August and there was balmy weather during the day, but Adelia was grateful for the hot copper pan which had warmed her sheets.

She wanted to sleep for a week.

She was just easing into a pleasant slumber when she heard running footsteps and she couldn’t tell if they came from just outside the bedroom, or from much further away. She didn’t move. She whispered, Did you hear something?

Theodore was already sitting up. Voices – panicked ones. Stay here.

I shall do no such thing!

He didn’t protest; he knew her better than that. They both flung housecoats around their shoulders, and she followed him to the door that opened onto the corridor.

The dark passageway was empty but they could now hear voices echoing from the main part of the house. Theodore crept forward and Adelia followed closely behind.

The central hallway was lit by one servant holding a lantern aloft, and the corners were deep in shifting shadows. Cecil was by the servant with the lantern, wearing a smoking jacket, running his hands through his hair. He smiled in relief as he saw Adelia and Theodore step out of their gloomy corridor but his expression quickly became serious as he said curtly, It’s Mary.

Theodore was a trained doctor, although banned from medical practice by his wife and the general force of local public opinion. He started forward but Cecil put up his hand. She’s not ill. Well, she might be. I don’t know. She’s missing.

What? Adelia cried out, her stomach lurching. We’ve only been back an hour. She can’t be missing. She’ll be – in a room somewhere…

Doing what? Theodore demanded.

Seeking privacy and quiet time alone to think or read was not unusual in a busy household. Doing so when it was the middle of the night and you’d just returned from an exhausting dinner party was decidedly odd.

Cecil spun around, flapping his arms uselessly against his sides as if he was going to take flight. It’s happened before, you know. This. Sleepwalking.

Oh! said Adelia.

Theodore nodded. I thought she’d grown out of that, he said.

Oh, she had, she had, Cecil said. When we were first married there was a burst of it, which we both put down to general anxiety. But the past few years have been calm and normal. Until the last few months.

What has changed?

Nothing, Cecil said. In fact I take the utmost care to keep everything exactly the same at all times. The same routine, the same peace, the same calm.

The whys and wherefores don’t matter, Adelia said, keen to intercede before her husband plunged into a pit of rational questioning about sleepwalking and its causes. Not at this moment. Let us first find her; the reasons can come afterwards. Preferably in the morning after a very late breakfast and many cups of coffee.

Soft footsteps approached and another servant emerged into the pool of yellow light. Sir, all the doors are locked except the scullery door. Jim’s just gone out to see.

Ah. We did find her in the kitchen garden once before, Cecil said, and they all trooped off to the back of the house. The large kitchen was still warm from the day’s activities and the delicious aroma of the next day’s bread proving in its tins by the range was a familiar comfort. As they made their way through the room, a young lad came in from outside, and he had Mary alongside him. Adelia felt hot sweat rush down her back. She looked to be fine; she was unharmed, and she was awake.

Or was she?

Theodore put out an arm and stopped Cecil from approaching his wife. Mary moved mechanically, and stared past them. It would be dangerous to wake her, he said in a low voice. Let us try to encourage her to find her own bed.

So they parted and let Mary stumble past them like a clockwork toy from a sideshow. Everyone fell silent. Adelia tried not to hold her breath but she had heard of terrible things befalling sleepwalkers who had been woken unexpectedly.

Mary was dressed in a padded jacket thrown over her long nightdress. Her footsteps were heavy on the tiled floor. Adelia, glancing down, was surprised to see that she was wearing boots and not the soft indoor slippers that she had expected to see.

But no one spoke and they followed the almost ghostly figure of Mary as she moved jerkily up the stairs towards her bedroom.

Adelia thought, well, surely the servants can’t still think there’s a ghost in the grounds! It’s obviously Mary that they have seen.

And she also thought, but what else is going on here?

2

Theodore didn’t expect Mary to appear at breakfast but she did, looking as fresh and rested as he could have wished for. She certainly didn’t look like a woman who had been late at a dinner party and then sleepwalking in the small hours of the night. The meal was a noisy and lively one, reminding him of the times when his family had been young. Seven daughters had meant rapid conversation and laughter throughout the day.

Mary had not had children of her own – though she was young and there was still time, Theodore worried about her delicate health – but the Grey House was always full of merriment. Sibyl’s three boys, Jacob, Robert and Samuel, were tutored at home as they were not yet old enough to go away to school and instead of taking their meals in the schoolroom, were brought into the breakfast room, in a daringly Continental fashion. Cecil doted on his nephews, though Sibyl kept her mouth pressed shut and did not eat anything. She sipped at hot water flavoured with lemon, somehow without appearing to even part her lips. Adelia chattered with Mary, and Cecil seemed to focus on the boys.

As soon as he could, Theodore slipped away.

It was lovely to spend some time with his eldest daughter. And he was happy for Adelia, too. It was good for her to be engaged on a task, and finding a suitable man for Lady Beaconberg’s daughter was going to be a challenge she’d relish, he was sure.

But he was curious about Lord Beaconberg’s stables and he was keen to meet Sir Arthur for himself. He was particularly looking forward to seeing the now-famous Golden Meadow, the prize-winning horse. He had a rough idea of where the stables business was located, and it was a pleasant day to be wandering the rolling hills. This part of Yorkshire was less dramatic and more gentle than the steeper climbs to the west and north, but there was a hint of wildness in the air nevertheless. Something about the atmosphere said You are many days away from London, now. This is yet untamed country. Which was nonsense, quite frankly. York was a civilised place and other bustling, booming industrial towns were not so far away. The railways were everywhere; distances were no longer measured in the stages of a coach and horses. He had enjoyed the coach journey north but he knew that Adelia chafed at the time it had taken; she was infected with the modern urgency that seemed rife now. He still longed for the older, slower way of life.

He strode along a well-maintained turnpike road, and tried very hard to think about horses rather than worry about his daughter and her tendency to sleepwalk. The incident had been an aberration, perhaps brought on by the influx of company to her house and the exertion of the dinner party. He put aside the fact that Cecil had said she’d been sleepwalking for a few months. Maybe the recent problems that had clouded the life of Dido, his second eldest daughter, was causing anxiety for Mary.

Maybe.

And finally he was able to successfully put his concerns to one side as he entered a busy and thriving stable yard, and he grinned with delight as he inhaled the familiar and comforting smell of hay and horse feed, leather and saddle soap, and the rich earthy warmth of the horses themselves.

A stable lad spotted Theodore, took in the cut of his expensive coat and the confidence with which he walked, and immediately went to fetch an older man. This gentleman wore tweed upon tweed and a wide smile under his whiskers, and he greeted Theodore with a bluffness and unfeigned forthright joy. Theodore liked that in a man. When one could welcome another man in, without knowing who that person was, or what they could do for your own status and ends, that was a mark of a decent man.

And this decent man turned out to be Sir Arthur Glanville himself; part