Amanda Scott Read Free

to mention Nigel at all if you do not wish to see me suffer a severe spasm!”
    “But, ma’am, surely if Nigel shot Mr. Bygrave right here in Bath, either everyone knows all about it already or the situation must have been very different from what Jarvis described to us.”
    “Well, I cannot say about that, of course, but I do know that no one has ever mentioned the matter to me. Of course, if that dreadful duel took place in a gentlemen’s club, ’tis possible that no one would say anything to me.”
    “Well, but I am certain Jarvis had more to do with it than he admitted. Papa didn’t trust him, you know—said he was a make-mischief. For that matter,” she added with a quizzical look, “Papa told me that his uncle Robert was used to say the same of Jarvis’s papa, Reginald. Is that not true?”
    “Dear Robert,” Lady Flavia said fondly, her sharp features softening. “He was a fine husband to me, though that time of my life has begun to seem a trifle distant, you know. So difficult to look at oneself in the glass and imagine that same reflection wedded to a man in his twenties, which, of course, is the only way one can remember Robert. I have tried to imagine him older, but it does not answer. Jarvis was not even thought of when he passed on, of course, for Reginald was only a boy then, and I do not know what Robert thought of Reginald, but I never liked him. For some reason, he expected Robert to leave him this house, for it was not part of the entail, and he was most put out when he discovered it had been left to me. Whenever he visited us during that dreadful time of Robert’s illness, one could see the gleam of calculation in his eyes, so the contents of Robert’s will must have come as quite a shock to him.” She sighed. “One would think, since Reginald always seemed to have more money than any younger son ought to have, that he would have been glad to have seen me provided for, but he resented it quite as much as he resented your papa’s coming into the title and estate.”
    Nell frowned. “Did he resent Papa? I know Jarvis has long thought it wrong that Papa and now Nigel—both so extravagant—should hold the reins at Highgate, but I thought Reginald doted on Papa. They were always together, you know, for the few years separating their ages made them more like brothers than uncle and nephew. If there was resentment, surely it can have been only on Jarvis’s part. He makes no secret of the fact that he disliked Papa and believes Highgate ought to have been his.”
    “Like father, like son,” Lady Flavia said firmly. “Fate is capricious, is it not? To begin, there were three brothers, who by rights ought to have had long lives and dozens of children. Instead, dearest Robert, the eldest, died first, childless. Then the estate passed to your grandfather, who had only the one son—your father, Jasper. The third brother, Reginald, born a mere nine years before your father, produced only Jarvis.”
    “But where did Reginald get his money?” Nell demanded. “He was always very well to pass, you know.”
    “I am sure I cannot say,” Lady Flavia replied. “He married well, of course, for that is how he got Crosshill, so one must suppose that his wife’s fortune was larger than one was led to believe at the time, or else invested wisely. But money, you know, my dear, is not the same as land. And the Bradbourne barony is a very old and respected one. To be Lord Bradbourne of Highgate is no small thing for a man to covet.”
    Nell grimaced. “But why must Jarvis covet me as well? He does, you know, though he couched it in saintly terms, murmuring in a hushed tone that he had buried two wives already and never really believed he should brave the married state again.”
    “Don’t tease yourself over that. Died in childbed, the pair of them, and the babes with them. Indeed, I should not be at all amazed if Jarvis don’t fancy himself another Henry the Eighth.”
    Nell stared. “Henry the