A Compromised Lady (19 page)

She beamed at Thea, and changed the subject. ‘I think, dear, that a pretty travelling dress would be in order. So important to make a good first impression. And you ought to take a nap this afternoon. We must have you looking your best, must we not? Yes—a little nap will freshen the colour in your cheeks. You have been looking positively wan the past few days. I am sure Richard has noticed, my dear!’

Clenching her teeth at the grating archness, Thea accepted what she had done—namely, encouraged Lady Arnsworth’s…damn! Almeria’s…expectations that she and Richard would make a match of it. She shuddered to imagine precisely what circumstances Almeria would explain to Lord Blakehurst.

She sighed. Apparently she was going to attend a house party. Complete with a christening. Which meant that she too had better purchase a christening gift. A thought occurred to her—she would have to tell Richard what she had done to assure Almeria’s attendance. She could only hope he would deem the game worthy of the candle. The bitter irony of the fact that she might indeed have been attending the christening as Richard’s betrothed seared her like a brand.

A christening. A celebration for the birth of a longed-for child. Lucky child. Pain welled up within her. Somehow, before she left town, she had to find out the truth about her own baby. There had to be a way.

L ady Chasewater’s ambiguous capitulation exercised Richard’s mind all the way down to Blakeney the following day. What other fish did Lady Chasewater have to fry? Had she stirred up the trouble with Bow Street? He pushed the horses hard, changing at each stage, using the horses Max kept stabled between London and Blakeney, and arrived in the early evening.

He walked up from the stables through the gardens to the terrace outside the library. Mellow lamplight poured out of the French doors to spill gold on the stone flags. The doors were closed against the cool evening and he looked in to see Max at his desk, writing. He grinned and rapped on the glass. Max’s head jerked up and there was a flurry of barking from the pair of spaniels who had been dozing at his feet.

Max leapt up and strode to the door in the spaniels’ wake. He opened it and the dogs shot out, leaping up at Richard, barking in delight.

‘Get off, you idiots,’ he said, bending to pat them. ‘Calm down.’

‘Speaking of idiots,’ said his twin, ‘what in Hades are you doing here?’ The huge grin on his face belied the words.

Richard laughed. ‘Don’t gammon me, Max. You knew damned well I’d be down. Congratulations.

When am I allowed to see my godson?’

Max gripped his hand. ‘As soon as you like. We were expecting you. In fact you’ve lost me a wager with Verity. She would have it that you’d be down by tonight—I credited you with more sense and bet on tomorrow.’

Ten minutes later Richard was staring down into a carved wooden cradle at a ridiculously small swathed bundle with a shock of black hair. A watchful nurse sat knitting by the fire surrounded by racks of drying cloths.

‘He’s tiny,’ he said, awed.

‘Eight and a half pounds is not tiny,’ Max informed him drily.

Richard shook his head in wonderment at the sleeping baby. ‘And Verity? She is well, your letter said.’

‘Yes. Exhausted, but well. She’s sleeping now. That’s why I was down in the library.’ The relief in Max’s voice hinted at the knife edge of recent fear. Max reached into the cradle and lifted his son out very carefully. ‘Would you care to hold him? He was fed not long ago, so he’s unlikely to wake.’

Richard took the child with shattering care. So little, so light. Ridiculously long, dark lashes lay on red cheeks. A tiny hand, with nails like pale pink shells, peeped out of the top of the wrappings.

Inside him some strange new emotion swelled and burst in benediction. His nephew, hopefully only the first of a string of nephews and nieces who would add to Max and Verity’s joy. For the first time in his life, he felt envy for what his twin had. No. Not envy—a bitter, poisonous draught, that.

There had never been envy between them. No, this was a longing, a yearning to experience the same deep joy and peace he could see in Max’s face.

He looked up to find Max watching him, wry amusement glinting in the amber eyes. ‘It’s a bit like that, isn’t it?’ said Max. ‘I may become accustomed to it some time in the next ten years or so.’

Richard looked from his brother to his nephew and back. ‘Or not?’ he suggested.

Max laughed. ‘Or not,’ he agreed.

Thea tossed restlessly in her bed, haunted by the memory of Richard’s joy at the birth of his nephew. Folly! she berated herself, to lose sleep over a dream, a might-have-been. She had a far more pressing problem—how to discover the truth about her baby and not alert Aberfield to her suspicions. This was reality and only she could face it and resolve it. Imperceptibly pallid grey light banished the darkness, bringing cold counsel with the dawn. The only person who would know the whole truth now was her father. And Aberfield would never tell her. He would lie without hesitation if it suited him. Somehow she needed to find out for herself.

Lord Aberfield’s butler opened the door to her and stared in surprise.

‘Miss Thea!’ Carnely said. ‘Are you come to visit his lordship? I am afraid he has just left.’

Since Thea, watching from the drawing-room window of Arnsworth House across the square, had seen her father not ten minutes ago leaving in his curricle, this did not come as a surprise.

‘Oh, dear,’ she said mendaciously. ‘Will he be long?’

Carnely looked genuinely sorry. ‘He’s gone out to Richmond for two nights, Miss Thea. I can send one of the grooms if it’s urgent.’

Thea shook her head. ‘No need for that, Carnely. I shall leave him a note to find when he returns.

I’m sure there must be pen and ink in the library.’

‘Of course,’ said Carnely. ‘I shall send some tea and cakes to the library.’

Curse the fellow! Why did he have to be so beastly well trained? How on earth did anyone ever manage to burgle a fashionable residence with servants dripping from the chandeliers, offering cake and cups of tea at every turn?

‘No, thank you, Carnely. I’ll just write the note. That will be all.’

‘Very good, Miss Thea.’

Once inside the library she closed the door, turned the key and stared around the well-remembered room. How she hated it! She could almost feel Aberfield’s presence in the ordered rows of books, the painfully tidy desk, not a paper out of place. Controlled. Disapproving. As though it knew what she was doing. She steadied her nerves. It was only a room. It could neither know, nor betray her purpose.

Her conscience informed her in no uncertain terms that what she intended went well beyond shabby this time and into the realm of the utterly dishonourable. She gave her conscience short shrift, consigning it to oblivion. Not terribly successfully, but an occasional twinge wasn’t going to stop her now.

Where should she look first? What was she looking for?

She looked at the bureau plat with loathing. Everything perfectly ordered, the standish set just so.

Aberfield was the sort of man who never spilt the inkpot and whose pen never sputtered.

Methodical, organised…Her eye fell on a ledger placed neatly in the centre of his desk. She opened it…it was his accounts book, detailing expenditure…Her mind raced. If Aberfield were supporting an illegitimate child there would be expenses at regular intervals…the quarter days. She checked the date on the book. Yes. This was the book for this year, 1823. So…swallowing hard, she turned the pages, forcing herself to read the entries and dates…here it was, March 25th, Lady Day. Her entire body felt cold, frozen to the marrow, despite the fact that a fire still crackled in the grate and the room was warm…Her finger ran down the list of quarterly expenses: bills, servants wages…her own allowance, David’s allowance, and—a payment to Miss Dale’s Seminary for the Daughters of Gentlemen. The cold inside her spread further, leaching out from the dark. A quarter’s fees for SG.

So; she knew something already—the child was a daughter, with initials SG.

There were other explanations. The child need not be hers. It could be David’s. Or even Aberfield’s. She clutched at the frail hope. Yes, that would be the answer. David’s child. No. David would look after his own child. More likely Aberfield himself. She needed more information. This ledger only had the current year’s expenses.

She found the ledgers for previous years easily enough in a neat row in a bookcase near the desk.

Pulling out the last one, she discovered that sure enough, it was for the previous year. A quick glance at the quarter days revealed payments to Miss Dale’s Seminary for SG at Christmas and Michaelmas.

At the midsummer quarter day there was a change in the pattern. A final payment, together with an extra amount noted as a bonus was paid to a Mistress Kate Parsons for…‘the succour and housing of SG’. And something else ‘…monies paid for the removal of SG from…’ her eyes widened

‘…Kelfield to Bath.’

Ice condensed in her stomach, a hard painful lump. Kelfield was only a few miles from Wistow, where she had lived with Aunt Maria. No. It was not possible. They had told her…

Shaking, mired in disbelief, Thea took down more ledgers. She had to trace those payments to their beginning. If they went back too far…or not far enough…either way she would have her answer. Year by year she traced the payments back through the ledgers until she could find no more. Fear, nausea, shuddered through her as she confirmed the dates in the last ledger. It couldn’t be. Perhaps he had missed a couple of quarters…Frantically she checked the ledger for 1815. Nothing. The payments began at the end of March 1816…seven years ago.

Seven years ago. Within days, days of…She choked off the memory. NO! She wouldn’t believe it!

She couldn’t, mustn’t think about it. Fear rose up, choking her. And with it, the memory of pain.

Terrible, racking, rhythmic agony, laced with shame…and Aunt Maria’s cold voice reminding her of the wages of sin…And later, when she recovered consciousness, the rector, reading her that passage from Exodus about the iniquities of the fathers being visited upon the children…and the child of David and Bathsheba—struck down for his parents’ sin…

Shaking, she checked another date in the 1816 ledger…back and forth in the adjacent pages, until she found something…monies paid to Aunt Maria for engaging the services of a midwife…she shivered, remembering…a doctor…and the rector? Why would the rector of the parish need to be paid if the baby had died without baptism? She looked again at the detailed amounts: twenty pounds to the midwife, fifty pounds to the doctor and another fifty pounds to the rector. The amounts were staggering for the services rendered. Unless they were bribes…Aberfield would have paid well to hide the family’s shame.

With clumsy, shaking hands she replaced the ledgers, making sure they went back in the correct order. Where to look next? Her numbed brain moved slowly. Where did he keep letters, correspondence?

A row of deed boxes on top of the bookshelves caught her gaze. Squinting up, she moved along the bottom of the bookshelves. They were all clearly labelled. Swiftly she scanned them…SG.

Shifting the ladder was the work of a moment and she had the box in her hands.

She sat down at the desk and stared at the box.

A quiet, eminently reasonable voice whispered to her: Do you really want to know? You could put it back. No one need know.

But if she put it back…she might never have another chance to slip in here. And she already knew the truth…there was no possible explanation beyond the one pounding in her brain.

Why does it matter anyway? What can you possibly do?

She recognised the calm, reasonable little voice: cowardice, pure and simple.

The box was locked.

For a wild moment Thea contemplated breaking the lock. Madness. Someone might hear it. And even if she got away with it now, the box wasn’t dusty. Plainly the maids dusted up there regularly; even if they didn’t, Aberfield would discover it the moment he needed that box.

Footsteps in the hall panicked her. Her heart slammed against her ribs. If she were caught with the ledgers and Aberfield found out…if he realised that she knew…Shaking, she scrambled back up the ladder, replacing the box exactly as it had been. She had still to write some sort of note to explain her having been in here.

She frowned, pulling paper and the standish towards her. Dipping the pen in the ink, she pondered…something plausible…some concern about the unpleasant rumour that Nigel Lallerton’s death had not after all been an accident. She scratched away busily for a moment. Did he know anything of the matter? What else? Ah, yes…the information that she was to be invited to a house party—that would round it out nicely. Swiftly she sprinkled sand on the note and glanced around.

Was everything in place? Nothing to suggest she had done anything but write a note to him?

Nervously she adjusted the position of the current ledger to the exact centre of the desk. Folly! If he did note anything a trifle out of place he’d think it had been bumped when the maid dusted.

She sealed the note and left it propped against the standish, addressed simply: Aberfield.

Richard spent two full days at Blakeney, leaving after an early breakfast on the third morning.

‘Why not stay down longer, Ricky?’ urged Max over a final cup of coffee. ‘You know you are welcome here, and your house is nearly ready, I understand. No need to go back.’

Richard shook his head. ‘I’ve a few things left undone.’ An understatement if ever there was one—

something about his brief encounter with Lady Chasewater had left him very suspicious of what her next move might be. Quite apart from that, he wouldn’t care to wager that Almeria would accept her christening invitation if he wasn’t there to bring her up to scratch—which begged the question of where Thea was to go.

He took a deep breath. ‘When I return with Almeria for the christening, would you mind very much if her other houseguest came too?’

The suspicion of a smile played about Max’s mouth. ‘Miss Winslow—Almeria’s latest candidate for the position of Mrs Richard Blakehurst? Not at all, since the suggestion comes from you. At least she’s found a candidate who can give you a good game of chess this time.’