‘Before I leave, it is timely to comment on some gossip whilst we are discussing family affairs. It seems your sister is under the impression that I am conducting an illicit relationship with your wife. She has heard a rumour, she said.’
George turned pale, but made no other indication that the subject affected him.
‘I’m sorry to have to speak so bluntly, but this matter needs to be addressed,’ Jason continued levelly. ‘Let me make absolutely clear that I have no romantic interest in your wife. You and Mrs Kingston must deplore the nonsense that is being bandied about to the contrary.’ Jason waited, but a rapid tic at the corner of George’s compressed lips was all the response he received.
‘There has been enough bad blood between us, George. I will not be falsely accused of a dalliance with your wife.’
George turned his back on his visitor. So! Helen had not minced her words with him. He now sensed that sly smile tug at his lips as he wondered whether she had gone so far as to demand he settle with Iris’s confounded modistes. ‘I’m surprised you think a mention needs to be made of it,’ he slung over a disdainfully elevated shoulder. ‘I never comment on pathetic concoctions doing the rounds. What I will say is that my eldest sister at times forgets her breeding. She can be far too outspoken and act outside her role. I shall not apologise for her impertinence, if that is what you hoped.’
‘You have no need to do so, Mrs Marlowe apologised on her own account.’
‘When was that? When she called on you or when you paid a visit to her?’
George’s tone held an insinuation that made Jason’s eyes narrow to stony slits.
‘I was otherwise engaged when your sister paid me a call. I was thus not able to speak to her until I surveyed the house.’
‘I’m sure you took a thorough look at it all.’
‘I always do when someone is too keen to sell me something.’
The threat George saw in Jason’s countenance made him reconsider riling him further. He simply asked innocently, ‘Are we to renegotiate the price because of the dilapidations you saw or the insults you heard?’
‘I’ll honour the sum first agreed on one condition: you find decent accommodation for your sisters.’
George examined his fingernails. ‘What’s it to you where they live?’
Indeed, Jason wryly thought, what was it to him? But the memory of Helen Marlowe’s fragility cocooned by a threadbare dress was again in his mind. Despite her ugly clothing and unbound hair, despite her furious embarrassment when telling him she was to be sent to live on Rowan Walk, she had exuded a quiet pride … a stubborn grace. He recalled the feverish flush he had more than once brought to liven her marble-white complexion. There was meagre satisfaction in knowing that by discomfiting her he had momentarily kept her warm.
Helen Marlowe was neglected because her brother was weak and selfish and unable to control the grasping harlot he had married.
Jason wondered how Iris Kingston would like living in a freezing house, clothed in faded cotton. He wondered how she would withstand feeling hungry, for Helen had looked as though little nourishment passed her lips. He felt tempted to sneeringly voice his thoughts to her inept guardian. Instead he bit out glacially, ‘I’ll not have people think I’m in any way involved in putting two gentlewomen on Rowan Walk.’
‘In case it’s imagined you have a … shall we say, special interest in one of them? Both of them?’
Jason allowed that sneer to curl his lip. ‘I’ve never yet housed a paramour so poorly. The fact that you would consider settling your sisters in such surroundings disgusts me.’
‘I’m sure you know that your opinion of me counts for nought.’
Jason smiled his contempt on turning away. ‘I’ll let you get to your dinner … and your lady wife.’ In the corridor he halted to say, ‘Mrs Marlowe was alone when I visited. I didn’t see your younger sister Charlotte. How old is she now?’
George looked startled at that question. ‘Charlotte’s nineteen. She’s quite a beauty …’
‘I’m sure,’ Jason said drily. He enjoyed a leisurely moment before allaying George’s anxiety. ‘No need to fret, George, you chose the right one to send to me.’
George stared at the door for some moments after it had closed. He did not immediately go to the dining room to partake of his dinner. He returned to the decanter and poured another brandy. With a frowning countenance and a hand plunged deep into a pocket, he ambled to the fireplace to contemplate the smouldering embers. He tipped up his head to stare into a mirror soaring above the mantelpiece. A corner of his mouth lifted before a huge grin displayed his triumph. He raised his glass, saluted his reflection then downed the cognac in one swallow.
‘He won’t go, Mrs Marlowe,’ Betty announced, with an air of resignation, from the parlour threshold.
Helen looked up from Mr Drover’s account, hand delivered that very morning and accompanied by a terse, if ill-spelled, demand for payment for provisions delivered to date. Her eyes were fleetingly drawn back to the postscript in bold print: he would be back for payment before close of business today. Helen doubted it was an empty threat.
‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ Helen exclaimed in irritation. Pushing the papers away across the table, she jumped to her feet. She glanced over at Charlotte, who had raised her head from her embroidery on hearing her sister’s vexed imprecation.
Bored with her stitching, Charlotte tossed the sampler aside and followed her sister into the hallway. Diversion, even of the variety that might conclude in unpleasantness, was a relief from monotony and hunger pangs.
Helen marched towards a grimy face cocked about her front door—it was the sum of the fellow she could see on her step. With a yank the door was fully opened and she looked fully at the mucky, pungent person. ‘Look, my good man, my maid has already told you that we have not ordered a delivery. I’m afraid you are at the wrong house.’
‘No, I ain’t.’
‘You are, I tell you!’ Helen contested with strengthening volume and impatience. ‘I do not even hold an account with your company.
‘Bin paid for.’
‘Well, in that case those …’ a wagging finger indicated the coal sacks ‘ … are most certainly not mine. Go to your depot and check your records.’
A blackened hand dived into a pocket and the coalman thrust a paper at Helen. A tantalising redolence of dusty warmth wafted to Helen’s nostrils from his coarse fingers.
‘Wot’s that say?’ he demanded.
Helen tilted back her head to focus on a scrawled address. ‘There must be another Westlea House …’
‘Not in this square, there ain’t.’ He tapped black dust on to the scrap of paper. ‘That’s what it says … see.’
A glimmer of an idea … extraordinary as it was … entered Helen’s mind. She took the note and scanned it for clues. ‘Did Mr Kingston arrange for this delivery and pay for it through his account?’
‘Might ’ave bin ’im, but not on account. The yard clerk took cash.’ A white slash appeared in his dusky complexion as he grinned. ‘That’s more’n good enough. No questions needed to be arst. Where d’ya want this put? I got other places to go, y’know.’
‘Here is George now,’ Charlotte whispered. ‘He must have been feeling most generous. I expect he’s come to make sure the coal has arrived.’
Helen looked from the merchant’s surly countenance to the smart rig that had stopped behind a cart laden with oily-looking bags. ‘So it is,’ Helen muttered with an amazed little huff of a laugh. Never before had their brother taken