Chapter 10
Cleo and Mrs. McGrath dealt with the numerous packages that Aunt Caroline had purchased, storing some, attempting to make an acceptable tea for their incumbent noble guest with the rest. By the time that Cleo’s aunt had returned, they were almost finished. “You cannot receive the Earl of Dustshore wearing that,” her aunt protested as she flew through the door carrying another package. “Here, go and put this on. I had the seamstress make some adjustments to one of my better dresses. We cannot have you greeting the Earl in rags, now can we?”
Cleo’s brows arched in surprise. “You need not have gone to such efforts on my behalf, Auntie. What I have to wear would have been suitable enough for a tea.”
“Be that as it may, I will feel better if you would simply appease me in this matter.”
“Yes, Auntie,” Cleo sighed and climbed the stairs to her bedchamber to bathe and change her dress.
By the time that she returned downstairs, the tea had been laid, and the Earl was knocking at their door. Aunt Caroline instructed Cleo to join her in the drawing room, while Mrs. McGrath answered the door. “We do not wish him to think that we are not proper ladies.”
“With you in charge, Auntie, I do not think such a thing can be feared.”
Caroline smiled at her niece’s attempt at flattery to calm her nerves. “Thank you, my dear. Now do remember to be your very best self.”
“Yes, Auntie.” Cleo fought the urge to roll her eyes. In her opinion, her best self should be out tracking down her father’s murderer, not doting over a nobleman at tea.
“Welcome, Yer Lordship,” Mrs. McGrath’s voice filtered through the drawing room door from the entrance hall.
“Thank you, Mrs. McGrath,” the Earl’s voice answered kindly.
“Allow me tae take yer hat and gloves?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“If ye would care tae follow me.”
“But of course.”
The necessary decorum out of the way, Mrs. McGrath showed the Earl of Dustshore into the drawing room. Aunt Caroline and Cleo arose to greet him, each dropping a curtsy. “My Lord,” they murmured in unison.
“Mrs. Brown, Miss Wallace, it is a pleasure to see you both again. How have you been faring after the loss of the dear professor?” The Earl came forward and took each woman’s hand in a respectful genteel greeting.
“As well as can be expected under such circumstances, My Lord. We thank you for your inquiry on our behalf,” Aunt Caroline answered, flushing a girlish pink at the sight of the earl’s handsome face and kind words. Cleo was less affected, but she suspected, that had she not been preoccupied herself, she might had been more inclined to such frivolities for another more handsome earl.
Now is not the time to be thinking of the Earl of Irondale. See to the task before you. You must convince Aunt Caroline that you are taking this seriously if you wish to ever breathe freely again,she chastised herself silently.
Turning her attention back to the conversation between her aunt and the Earl of Dustshore, Cleo found that, much to her surprise, they were making plans for an outing to the British Museum in London. “I have a townhouse there that we open for the season or when I do not wish to stay at my club when I am there for business. I could send word for my servants to open the house for us, and my dear mother, of course. We could visit the museum, take a stroll through Regent’s Park, and take tea with friends.”
“That would be most delightful,” Aunt Caroline answered profusely.
“We cannot go to London at such a time as this, just having lost Father,” Cleo protested, her heart racing in a panic that she would be forced to accept the Earl’s invitation.
“Nonsense, it is precisely what is needed during this difficult time.” Caroline raised her hand to cease Cleo from commenting further on the matter. “We are going and that is that.”
Nay!Cleo’s heart cried out in protest.I cannot leave!She attempted again to argue for her cause, but her protestations fell on deaf ears. Her Aunt Caroline refused to hear a single word against the plan and before Cleo knew what was happening, they were bidding the Earl of Dustshore farewell with the promise that he would return with his carriage for them upon the morrow. Unable to contain the storm that raged within, Cleo retired to her room with the excuse of packing.
My plan has done naught but go amiss. What if the Earl of Irondale comes in response to my missive about the Arthurian riddle and I am not here? What if our absence encourages whoever has murdered my father to take further liberties and invade the sanctity of our home? What if the murderer reveals himself and there is no one here to catch him? Or her?Cleo added as an afterthought. In her limited experience of that found within the newspapers, most killers were men, but that did not mean that a woman was not fully capable of having carried out the deed.
“I cannot go,” she informed her valise where it lay open and empty upon the bed. “I cannot go.”
“You will go, and I will hear nothing more spoken on the matter,” Aunt Caroline’s words answered as she passed Cleo’s bedroom door. She cast a disapproving stare at Cleo’s face, then moved on to her own room. “Even if I must sedate you and carry you to the carriage myself.”
As extreme as such a promise seemed, Cleo knew that her aunt meant it. Sighing, Cleo packed her valise with the things that she would need for a brief trip to London. Thankfully, it was no more than a day’s journey from Oxford to London and she would be able to return in short order to resume her investigations.
Perhaps while I am in London, I can search for further materials concerning such matters. I do not know what can be found that my father did not already possess, but I will make the most of what is required of me.
She was not certain how she would get away to make her inquiries among the learned scholars of the city, but perhaps she could invite some of her father’s friends to tea in his memory. Her father had visited the British Museum many times over the years and had made more than a few acquaintances among London’s academics doing various translations on their behalf.
