Wentworth Hall (20 page)

“You really have a sense for theatrics, don’t you?”

Nora adjusted the pen in her hand, ready to write. “All the world’s a stage, as they say. Now spill it.”

Chapter Nineteen

W
ESLEY FOUND HIMSELF RUNNING
down the long drive leading into Wentworth Hall. He hadn’t meant to break into a run, but it was as though his legs had a will of their own. The object of his chase was Therese, who was only a few yards ahead of him. He’d spied her leaving the estate and gone out after her, filled with an overwhelming desire to accompany the young woman whom he found exquisite in every way, from her delicate beauty to the melodious, French-accented voice that flowed from her bowed lips. He had to be near her.

She had seemed so curious about him when they had first set eyes on each other. But he couldn’t mistake her coldness when he visited her in the nursery. She must have
assumed he was toying with her, that he was a typical highborn Lord looking to tumble a member of his staff. He would have to convince her otherwise. His time in America had led him to have a much more progressive view of the social classes. What did a title really mean, anyway?

“
Bonjour
, Monsieur Wesley,” Therese greeted him as he strode breathlessly to her side.

“Good day to you, Therese,” Wesley answered brightly. “Where are you off to on this dreary day?” he asked, pointing up to the thunderclouds rolling ominously overhead.

“I have the morning off, and so I am walking into town to post some letters to friends in Paris.”

“There is no love letter there to some fortunate young man, I hope,” Wesley said as he walked alongside. Though he kept his tone buoyant and teasing his question was not really a joke. If Therese had a love back in France he wanted to know. If so, he intended to make her forget all about it.

“No, monsieur. There is no such fellow,” Therese answered.

“Would you like there to be?” Wesley probed.

Therese glanced at him questioningly from the corners of her eyes.

“I ask only because I need to know if I have a chance with you,” Wesley admitted boldly. “Would you mind if I accompany you into town?”

“There is no need for that,” Therese replied. “It is not far.”

“Wouldn’t you like company, just the same?”

Therese let out a quick sigh. “It is not necessary.”

Her reluctance puzzled Wesley. He didn’t consider himself a snob, but what servant would not welcome the attentions of the lord of the manor? Through the years he’d flirted with some of the maids and never before been rebuffed. And even among his own class, girls usually found his company pleasant. He wasn’t interested in any of those young women, though. Therese was the one he found himself thinking about day and night.

“Don’t you like me, Therese?” Wesley asked. “I hope you do, because I like you. I like you very much.”

“It is not fitting for us to be friends,” Therese responded tersely, keeping her sights glued to the path ahead of them.

“This is the modern world, Therese,” Wesley countered. “
I’ve just spent the summer in America with Ian and perhaps I’ve picked up some more contemporary idea from our friends in the New World. In America no one has titles and it simply doesn’t matter. It’s what you make of yourself that counts over there, not some archaic title one was born with.”

“Well, we are in Europe, and here it matters,” Therese pointed out, still unable to meet his eyes.

“I see!” Wesley exclaimed. She really did believe he was toying with her, trying to secretly seduce a pretty young member of the staff for his own lecherous purposes. “I’m not like that, Therese,” he said persuasively. “My intentions are sincere. And I don’t care who knows it.”

Therese let out a light snort of disbelief.

“You don’t believe me?” he asked warmly.

She shrugged.

“Then allow me to prove it.” They were nearly to the front gate and no one from the estate would be able to see them. Wesley stopped her short and stared into her eyes. She shifted uncomfortably. When his face slowly began descending toward hers she stepped back abruptly.

“Stop!” Therese cried, banging on his chest with a quick, hard blow that sent him reeling back several steps. “Stop this moment!”

“Do you find me that repulsive, Therese?” Wesley asked, more hurt than angry.

“There can never be anything between us,” Therese insisted in a heated tone. “Never! Never!”

“You’re the snob, not me,” Wesley shot back. “I am not thinking about your station in life. I see only you, a beautiful young woman who haunts my every waking hour. But you don’t see me. You see only my title, and you hold against me something I have no control over.”

“It is not your title that makes it impossible,” Therese told him passionately. “It is not what is different about us that must divide us. It is what we share.”

“What might that be?” Wesley demanded.

“A father!” Therese replied, her voice rising to a near shout.

“What?”

Therese simply glared at him, as if waiting for him to catch up.

Wesley had heard her words but his mind had trouble making sense of them. “My father?”

Dumbstruck and slack-jawed with amazement, Wesley listened as Therese unfurled a story he would never have
believed if he wasn’t hearing it from her own lips. Nineteen years earlier her mother had worked in Wesley’s aunt’s household. “There she met your father who seduced her. When she confronted him about her fears she was pregnant, he wanted nothing to do with her. You see, he had a wife and newborn son of his own. She went to Lady Daphne and admitted she was in trouble, but never said who the father was. She let her believe it was a commoner. Lady Daphne took pity on her and let her stay in her household, even taking her to France when she moved.”

Wesley’s mind reeled. He could hardly believe his father would do such a thing: the old hypocrite, always so proper and stiff. He never would have believed his father capable of such callous behavior.

He studied Therese closely and suddenly saw a family resemblance he had never noticed until this moment. The shape of her face was exactly the same as Maggie’s. Her arched brows were like Lila’s. And, with a shudder he realized that the blue of her eyes mirrored his own. How could he have missed these things before? Now in the grip of this new vision, there could be no question that her story was true.

Therese continued her tale. “No one but you knows that I am Lord Darlington’s daughter, except Lord Darlington himself.”

“My father knows you’re his child and yet he has kept you as a servant?” he questioned incredulously.

“I confronted Lord Darlington a few weeks after I arrived, telling him who I am. He didn’t deny it. But he refused to acknowledge me, even after knowing that my mother had died and I had no one left.”

“He wouldn’t give you the Darlington name, even after learning who you are?”

“No, he simply told me that if I mentioned to anyone who I am, he would send me home to Paris at once.”

A roll of thunder made both Therese and Wesley check the dark clouds overhead. “You’d better turn back,” Wesley suggested. “It’s about to storm.” As if on cue, wind whipped up around them, ruffling Therese’s skirts and Wesley’s jacket.

As light rain moistened her face, Therese and Wesley looked at each other, each studying the other. There were indeed storms coming, Wesley thought.

* * *

“Lady Lila,” Nora started. “Has there been any new information about the satires?”

“What?” Lila answered, distracted. She was seated on her settee lazily brushing her hair, while Nora set out her clothes for supper. Her head had been in the clouds lately, probably the fault of a certain young American. “Oh, those things. I haven’t heard a thing about them lately. Why do you ask?”

“Well, it’s just that I’ve been searching my mind about them. I need you to know I have been racking my brain to find out who could have betrayed your family in this way. And I can’t help but think it has to be Miss Jessica,” she suggested.

“Why?” Lila asked, wide-eyed with surprised disbelief.

“She’s always scribbling in that notebook and she’s so secretive about what’s inside. It seems to me that she’s taking notes for her satires. Doesn’t that make sense?”

“Not entirely,” Lila disagreed. “What would she stand to gain by mocking us like that?”

“She’s simply mean-spirited,” Nora countered. “Her type doesn’t need a reason to be cruel. It’s in her nature.”

“I think that’s harsh, Nora,” Lila insisted.

“Maybe it is. Just the same, she gets my vote as the most likely culprit.”

“It does feel odd not knowing who was behind them. Especially since it’s clear they were written by someone under our roof! It’s chilling to think someone we know and trust could do such a thing.” Folding her arms pensively, Lila pouted. “If only we could get a peek into that notebook.”

Maggie appeared in the open doorway. “What notebook?”

“Nora thinks Jessica is taking notes about our family in that notebook she always carries,” Lila explained.

“You think she’s our evil satirist?” Maggie inquired, stepping into the room and perching on the end of Lila’s bed.

“That’s my opinion,” Nora confirmed.

“How can we catch her at it?” Maggie wondered.

Lila looked at Maggie, her brows arched in thought, her chin propped on her hands. It reminded her of the old days when they were united in trying to figure a way out of some dilemma: how to sneak out to play in the stable with Michael and Nora, or the best way to sneak extra pie from
the kitchen. These memories warmed her, and she felt a sudden outpouring of love for her older sister as well as a deep desire to be united in some new scheme with her. “How can we get our hands on that notebook?” she questioned.

“I just left Jessica reading in the library, reading a novel,” Maggie replied. “Why don’t you go down there and engage her in conversation. Make sure she doesn’t leave the room. That will give me time to snoop around her bedroom for the notebook. She didn’t have it with her in the library.”

Lila grinned, intrigued by the idea. It was so good to be embroiled in one of Maggie’s schemes once more.

“All right. I’ll get going to Jessica’s room,” Maggie suggested to Lila. “You head off to the library.”

“What should I do?” Nora asked.

“Come with me and be the lookout in case Teddy comes by or Jessica escapes Lila.”

“Will do,” Nora agreed.

“We’re off,” Maggie said as she headed for the door. “Good luck.”

“I’ll be fine,” Lila assured her.

As soon as Maggie and Nora departed, Lila noticed a
novel sitting on the dresser:
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens. Nora must have meant to bring it back up to the library but forgotten it. As long as she was heading for the library herself she might as well bring it up. Tucking the volume under her arm, she set out for her encounter with Jessica.

Maggie stood in Jessica’s room, wondering where to start looking. Crossing to the vanity, she pulled open all the drawers but discovered nothing. Pushing up the sides of the pink silk covers, she ran her hands between the mattress and the box spring along the entire bed, but with no success. Then, struck with a sudden inspiration, she tossed the pillows from the head to the center of the bed. “Voilà!” she murmured, seizing upon the red journal.

Stepping out into the hall, she held up the red journal to show Nora—who had busied herself dusting the tall, gilt picture frames—that she’d uncovered her prize. Nora smiled and nodded.

Back inside the room, Maggie fanned through the pages until, halfway through, the neat, tight handwriting stopped. She started by reading the last entry first:

Just weeks now until Teddy and I turn eighteen. Thank
God! The first thing I intend to do when my inheritance comes through is to return to Johannesburg. I am so homesick and have had it with living here with the Darlingtons. Lila and Maggie remind me of all those titled brats. They are just the same sorts of snobs who plagued me while I was in London during my debutante season. They were just as concerned about their “names” and family lineage, mocking Teddy and me just because we aren’t descended from some musty old family covered in cobwebs. I’m proud that our father made his fortune on his own rather than inheriting it.