An Indecent Gambit

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Ends of the Earth

Grace watched her mother carefully. The thin line was between her brows and her eyes were still bright. Alice or Emma might have hugged her and taken that brightness away, but Grace had never quite been on those terms with her mother somehow.

"Perhaps." Grace pushed herself away from the desk. "I'm going for a walk."

She slipped out the back gate and crossed the fields as a misty rain struck up in the breeze. She knew where she was going but took a circuitous route to get there, reversing her course several times down long, lonely roads. When her legs were tired, when the sky was dark and her body cold, she drew up shivering at her destination and knocked on the door.

"Can I speak with Mr Redwood?" she asked the footman who opened it.

"Mr James is not at home," he answered.

That made it easier. "It's, um, that's not the Mr Redwood I wish to speak to. It's his father."

The footman looked briefly surprised but crossed directly to the door just off the front hall, knocked, and opened it.

"Who is it?" came Mr Redwood's voice.

"Miss Follet, sir. To see you."

There was a brief silence. "Well, let her in then."

The footman beckoned Grace forward and she rather shyly entered the room. Mr Redwood's study was very different to her father's. The curtains were open to let the last of the dying light inside. A cheerful fire burned in the grate. Rather than severe ancestors, paintings of landscapes and prints of political cartoons lined the walls. Mr Redwood was at his desk, smoking a pipe and playing solitaire.

"This is a pleasant surprise," he said. "Please, sit."

Grace sat down in the nearest armchair, which was very lumpy and shabby, and full of cushions. It was impossible to sit upright in it. The divots and lumps caved in beneath her, sending her sliding back against the cushions. She pulled herself forward and perched uneasily on the very edge of the seat.

Mr Redwood prised himself to his feet and hobbled to the fire, where he knocked out his pipe into the grate. "Does the smoke bother you? Should I open a window?"

"No, no. Not at all."

"Would you like some tea?"

"No, thank you."

"I think I'm going to have coffee. Are you sure you won't join me?"

"Oh. Um. Alright, then. Thank you."

Mr Redwood went to the door and gave a brief order to the footman. Grace found herself slipping back in the armchair and pushed herself up to the edge again. It was a sleeping armchair, she thought; someone had slept in it so much that they had left a hollow where their body had lain, and now it was no longer right for sitting. But it might look strange if she were to move to a different chair, and she did not want Mr Redwood to think she was strange.

Mr Redwood came back and lowered himself into the other armchair opposite her. He sank back into it a little, but he was taller than she and managed not to look ridiculous. "Now that we are both comfortable," he said. "What brought you here, Grace? Is it about James?"

"No, it's not him." Grace swallowed. "It is Uncle Bernard, sir. He inherits the house so we must leave. And he says that he has found my mother and sisters a nice cottage in Kent and I do not trust him. I do not think it right that my mother accepts his opinion on the matter without... without any kind of check and... And I just wish... I wish she would stand up to him."

She found herself slipping back in the chair and leaned on the armrests to stay upright. Mr Redwood was frowning at her as though displeased. She wondered if she had been wrong to come here.