A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell #4)(74)

I forced myself to smile. “How resourceful,” I said.

“He was,” Caspian assured me. “And he brought me up always to believe that I must follow my own north star, that I must never surrender to base ambition but listen to the dictates of my heart.”

“And what does your heart tell you to do, Caspian?”

“I mean to go on the stage,” he said with such gravity that I only smothered a laugh with the greatest of effort. I covered it with a cough, and he put a solicitous hand to my shoulder.

“Are you quite well, Miss Speedwell? Shall I pour you a glass of water?”

“Thank you, no. I was simply overwhelmed by the force of your passion, Caspian. You are clearly well suited to your chosen profession.”

He preened but did not remove his hand. “Do you really think so? I feel it, here,” he said, thumping his chest hard with his closed fist. “This is the seat of an actor’s life, here in his breast,” he added, taking my hand and placing it flat upon his waistcoat. I could feel the thump of his heartbeat beneath his clothes, steady and quick.

“I am overcome with emotion sometimes,” he added. “My passions run quite near to the surface, you understand. It must be so, if one is to access them and share them with an audience.”

“Quite right,” I murmured as I discreetly withdrew my hand. Stoker had not made so much as a sound, but I could sense his feelings as clearly as if he had climbed atop the green baize table and shouted them.

Caspian was shaking his head mournfully. “It is difficult to entertain one’s dreams without the support of one’s family.”

“Does your mother not approve?”

A gentle smile touched his lips. “Well, Mama would approve anything I wanted, I believe. But she is nervous of the insecurity of the life of a player. There is so little that may be relied upon from one year to the next. This matters not at all to me,” he hastened to assure me, “but Mama wants a guarantee that I will not starve. That is why she insisted we come here,” he told me, pitching his voice quite low. “She wanted to secure Uncle Malcolm’s interest.”

“His interest?”

“In my well-being. As it stands, Uncle Malcolm is a traditionalist, just like my grandfather. Mertensia may be his sister, but I believe he will leave St. Maddern’s and all its encumbrances to me as the only male in the direct line. We both, Mama and I, thought it high time that he make a separate allowance to me as his heir beyond what he gives to Mama.”

I thought of the raised voices, the passionate plea and the cool dismissal, and of Caspian’s certainty he would inherit. “And Malcolm refused?”

Resentment darkened his eyes. “It is not unusual, you know. Most great estates make a formal allowance to the heir to permit him to establish his own household. A few hundred pounds a year would mean so little to Uncle Malcolm, but it would enable me to pursue my career upon the stage without worrying about taking bit parts and small, unworthy roles. Besides that,” he added smoothly, “there is the matter of a few insignificant debts of honor to be paid. But Uncle Malcolm wouldn’t hear of it. He said that playacting is beneath the dignity of the Romilly name and he would have no part in my making a career on the stage.”

I blinked at the breathtaking arrogance of demanding money from a man he hardly knew simply because he existed, but Caspian Romilly was hardly to blame. His mother had cosseted and coddled him from birth, indulging his every fancy. Little wonder he had emerged from her tender care as feckless a creature as his father.

“Very natural that you should have resented his refusal,” I said.

He brightened. “Thank you! I thought so as well. So unreasonable of him,” he added with a petulant twist of his mouth. It was a pity about that mouth. It was an enchanting feature, fashioned for kissing, but his expressions frequently ruined it.

I patted his hand. “Well, I can hardly think that the quarrel would have lasted. Doubtless Malcolm will come to his senses sooner or later. He is much distracted with this Rosamund business at present.”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “I suppose that is true.” He brightened. “I should go and look in on Mama now. Thank you for a most interesting and entertaining hour,” he said, bowing neatly before taking his leave.

“God, the young are so exhaustingly buoyant,” Stoker said as he emerged from the shadows of the corner where he had discreetly kept himself for the duration of the discussion.

I looked at him curiously. “I presume you heard everything.”

“My hearing is acute, you know that.” He took his cue and bent to line up the shot. He paused for the space of a heartbeat, then rammed the stick home, sinking the ball with a gentle click. He straightened. “You don’t really think the boy capable of murder?”

“He isn’t a boy,” I reminded him. “He is eighteen, a man under the law. He only seems young because his mother has treated him like a new-lain egg.”

“Of course, it is interesting to ponder,” Stoker said, stroking the blue-black shadow at his jaw.

“What?”

“Well, if Rosamund was murdered, that young man has a very strong motive.”

“What leap of logic has led you into that morass of a conclusion?”

“Simply this: he stands to inherit a significant fortune. You heard him. The Romillys have always held with the old customs. Under the principles of primogeniture, that fellow is next in line. Unless his uncle Malcolm fathers a child.”