An Heir of Uncertainty Read Free

his arms. “My daughter, Julia.”
    “Welcome, sir. I’m Dyson.” He looked over his shoulder to the footman standing just behind him. “Fetch Mrs. Phelps. Tell her Mr. Vaughan has arrived, and that he’ll require a room for his brother and young daughter as well.”
    Sir again, and Mr. Vaughan. Was that the usual protocol so soon after a peer’s death, or was the butler unaware of his reason for coming here? Win could almost believe the letter he’d received nearly three weeks before had been nothing but a practical joke, an elaborate prank one of his old army comrades was playing, except that Dyson had mentioned Mr. Niven by name and the servants were clearly expecting him.
    The house was better on the inside—much warmer, and not so dark or closed in as Win had feared. Though the floor of the front hall was slate, the rooms on either side boasted thick Persian carpets—expensive ones, if he was any judge. Their rich colors brightened the interior, dispelling any sense of gloom. Win detected no hint of damp or strong drafts, either, and that was saying a lot for such an old pile.
    “Is there a dovecote on the estate?” Freddie asked the butler.
    Dyson’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “A dovecote, sir?”
    “Yes. You know, a columbarium. A structure for housing pigeons or doves. There are dovecotes in France that have upwards of two thousand boulins. ”
    “Pigeon holes,” Win translated for the butler’s benefit. “My brother has a great interest in pigeons.” Though he’d long since resigned himself to the hopelessness of persuading Freddie to converse on any other topic, at the moment Win wished his brother were a bit more circumspect about sharing his eccentric single-mindedness with everyone he met.
    “Centuries before Christ, pigeons were delivering the results of the Olympic games to the city-states of ancient Greece,” Freddie told the butler. “That’s why I give all my pigeons classical names. Admetus and Alcestis, Odysseus and Penelope, Baucis and Philemon—”
    Win cut him off. “No need to overwhelm Dyson with the entire list, Freddie.”
    The butler’s face remained admirably impassive. “I’m afraid there’s no dovecote on the abbey grounds, sir.”
    “Really? Well, dash it. Where might the nearest one be?”
    Win had used every tactic at his disposal to persuade his brother to make the trip, including vague intimations that Yorkshire was a pigeon’s paradise. Naturally Freddie wouldn’t rest until he’d sent for his birds. “Let’s worry about that after we’ve seen the rest of—”
    He broke off as the housekeeper, younger and more attractive than he’d expected, arrived to show them to their rooms. Win had no intention of dallying with the servants, but discovering that the upper staff wasn’t made up entirely of antiquated old retainers was a welcome surprise.
    In the room meant for Julia, the chambermaid was still laying the fire. Win deposited his daughter gently on the turned-down bed and drew the crewelwork coverlet up to her chin, hopeful she’d sleep through the night. It was a large room, and pretty, not at all the cheerless cell he’d feared—though after seven days on the road, any room that didn’t look and smell like a coaching inn was bound to seem inviting.
    He emerged back into the corridor to discover that Mrs. Phelps had already shown Freddie to his room. As fond as he was of his brother, Win was grateful to have a moment to himself. Between Julia’s short attention span and Freddie’s obsessive chatter, he’d known scarcely a moment’s peace since leaving Bishop’s Waltham. At least now he knew all there was to know about gauging the health of a pigeon from the look of its droppings.
    His own room turned out to be every bit as inviting as his daughter’s, its paneled walls, mahogany bedstead and silk hangings leaving him still more sanguine about the condition of the house. He’d no sooner washed off the dirt of travel, however, than a