Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
“We had some success tonight,” Hermione said.
She and Blythe stood apart from other attendees, waiting while Graeme went to order their carriage.
He, at least, had not been spurned by the good folk of Risley.
Nor had she been entirely rejected. After the closely watched exchange with Frederick Falfield, a few people new to the area, and some of the local tradespeople, had greeted her.
Hermione’s presence, good humor and obvious good character, had helped to smooth the way.
The next test, she supposed, would come when she took Coralie and Nicholas to church.
“My lady,” a small voice whispered.
Blythe gasped and smiled. “Mirabelle. How grown up you are. I did not notice you in attendance tonight.”
The girl smiled. “Mama allowed me to come but not to dance.” She glanced behind her and leaned closer. “How is Coralie? You must give her my greetings. I miss her so much.”
Only two years older than Coralie, Mirabelle had been her great friend. She and her older siblings and other children had played along the stream and in the meadow at Bluebelle Lodge, and on the land that was now Diddenton’s.
“She is well,” Blythe said, “and she misses you too.”
Coralie had mentioned seeing Mirabelle at the village shops and waving, but her friend had been quickly hauled away by her mother or governess.
The girl chewed her lower lip. “Oh, I wish I could—”
“Mirabelle!” Mirabelle’s mother appeared out of the shadows. Her eyes widened and then narrowed on Blythe. “Come away from that woman,” she said.
The girl ducked her head. “S-sorry,” she whispered and allowed herself to be led away.
Stunned, Blythe froze and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she saw Graeme’s frown.
He’d seen.
Bluebelle Lodge. She must get to Bluebelle Lodge, and when she did, she would hide there until this misery dissipated.
But even as she thought that, she knew it wasn’t possible for her to run and hide. She had to see this through. She might have a battle to fight, and she couldn’t do it from Bluebelle Lodge.
Graeme had left them for only a moment to order their carriage, returning to hear the girl asking about someone named Coralie, and her mother’s words: Come away from that woman.
That woman was a lady, a countess. That woman deserved better.
The shrew of a mother had been one of the women he’d met, one of those who’d tried to push their daughters forward. Anger coursed through him—anger and a desire to wreak vengeance on all the so-called better families of Risley. Surely an earl could find a way.
Blythe saw him and knew that he’d witnessed the slur. Her eyes flashed open and then she drew herself up, nodded at something Lady Hermione said and gazed calmly away at nothing.
She held that pose through the drive home.
Lady Hermione was less chatty than usual.
She broached a few comments about the flowers decorating the assembly room, speculated about the quality of the inn’s ale, wishing she’d had some of it instead of the watery ratafia, and complemented Graeme on his well-sprung coach and the smoothness of the lane leading to Risley Manor, neither of which he’d had anything to do with of course.
By the time they reached Risley Manor, his anger had hardened into determination. By God, Blythe would tell him exactly what had gone on.
When they arrived, her maid, Radley, met them at the door and took her wrap.
“Come and have a cup of tea, ladies,” he said. “Or something stronger.”
Blythe pleaded fatigue and a headache and let the maid lead her away.
“I shall go up as well,” Lady Hermione said, watching them.
“She did very well, my lord. I should advise you to bar Mrs. Jarrow from your home. Invite Mr. Jarrow and Miss Jarrow, and perhaps the one friend of Mrs. Jarrow, Miss Smith. She will come out of curiosity, and Mrs. Jarrow will be cast down.”
“Lady Hermione, I shall tell the Foreign Office to find you a place.”
She chuckled, reached for his hands and squeezed them, and thanked him for an entertaining evening.
Too late, he wondered what Mrs. Jarrow had told Lady Hermione. They’d had a much longer conversation than he’d had with the old besom before her son’s interruption.
He would ask her tomorrow. Or…
Who the devil was Coralie? And what the devil had Blythe done to render herself a pariah?
Only Blythe could give him the full story, and he was tired of waiting for answers.
He knocked and Radley opened the bedchamber door. Blythe’s eyes flashed terror, the emotion quickly shuttered.
The maid stood firm, barring his entry.
That look in her eyes had cooled the worst of his anger. “Blythe,” he said. “I need to speak with you. May I come in?”
This was, in fact, her bedchamber, not the sitting room of a suite of rooms as a countess might expect as her due, even a widowed countess. The bed was narrower as well. But there was a settee at the end of it and two chairs near the fireplace.
He took all that in from the edge of his vision.
He took a step, and the maid moved closer, a martial glint in her gaze.
Be damned if he would explain himself to a lady’s maid.
He glanced at Blythe. She’d frozen in place, with a look of… what? He couldn’t put a name to it but he knew fear was in there somewhere in the mix and he tempered his approach.
“I am no seducer. I will not hurt her,” he told Radley before turning to Blythe. “You have my word. Blythe, I want… I need to talk to you.”
She swallowed and nodded, and with a long assessing look, the maid stepped aside.
“I’ll be nearby, my lady,” she said.
Blythe shook her head. “It’s all right, Radley. This Lord Chilcombe is a different sort of scoundrel than the last one.”
The words sent his back up. He was no scoundrel where ladies were concerned—had never been.
Except… he’d sounded the alarm on her tryst with Archie. Was that what she meant?
“Very well, my lady. I’ll fetch you some chocolate when you’re ready.”
Radley’s words rippled over him, his attention filled with the seemingly composed woman before him still garbed in her ball gown.
When the door closed on the maid, Graeme stepped closer. “Blythe,” he said, “I have never seen a lady treated so rudely as you were tonight. Why? What happened here at Risley Manor?”
Her mouth firmed even as her eyes grew shiny. Incipient tears?
He hoped not. He had no skills with weeping women. Handing over a handkerchief never seemed to be enough.
“Who is Coralie?” he asked, keeping his tone as gentle as possible.
She dropped her head and then lifted it on a deep inhale, looking to the left and to the right before answering his gaze with her own firm one.
He wouldn’t get the truth tonight, at least not the whole truth.
“Coralie,” she said, “is my daughter.”
Graeme forced his face into a neutral look, while he mentally sorted through facts, and saw her assessing him. She’d hoped to shock him.
And she had. To his knowledge, there’d been only one child born of Archie and Blythe’s marriage. If Blythe had a daughter that was not Archie’s, it was no wonder that the neighbors… So, who had fathered this daughter of hers?
“Your daughter,” he said matter-of-factly.
He stepped closer, and she straightened her spine and stood taller.
“Yes. My stepdaughter.” She let out a long breath. “Archie’s natural daughter.”
Bloody Archie. Of course he would have cheated on her, but how early in the marriage had he begun seeking other women?
And with Blythe as his wife, how could he have done so?
“Which makes Coralie your cousin, Lord Chilcombe.”
A cousin. How many other by-blow cousins had Archie produced? And where was this one now?
The answer was obvious. “You have her at Bluebelle Lodge.”
Blythe nodded. “She is my goddaughter and ward.”
“How old is this child?”
“Fourteen soon. Almost a young lady. And I have raised her as such.”
“Fourteen?” Blythe and Archie had married fifteen years earlier. Their son had been born almost nine months to the day after the nuptials, a fact that had grated on Graeme’s jealous young self like a sharp-edged rock until he’d shaken off the calf love.
Their son had died, and this girl had lived, but Blythe had raised her as her own to be a lady, albeit at Bluebelle Lodge, not Risley Manor. Why there…?
Ah. The girl’s mother must be there. “Mrs. Stockwell—”
“Is not Coralie’s mother. Her mother was a maid here.”
“Does this maid reside also at Bluebelle Lodge?”
“No. When Coralie was about two years of age, her mother left her with me. I kept her here, in the nursery, with my son until…”
Blythe’s cool demeanor faltered.
“Until Archie sent her away.”
She raised a gaze so troubled that he reached out and took her hand, and when the trembling started, pulled her into his arms.
The warm hand enfolding hers sent a cascade of shock waves. She hadn’t meant to be weak, had planned to be cool—cool, calm, composed. But the warmth, the promise of comfort…
It would surely be a false promise, a facade of caring. There was no enduring comfort to be had in Lord Chilcombe’s arms—any Lord Chilcombe. Not Archie’s, not Graeme’s. Certainly not in any of either man’s friends. Perhaps not in the arms of any gentleman.
Now, her cheek pressed to the cool wool of his coat, her body betraying her, she held her breath, trying to still her heart and quiet the nerves rattling through her.
He wanted to know why the good people of the village had spurned her. She could tell him that part, the least of the sins.
Anger stirred in her. Yes, of course, Lord Chilcombe. She could reveal this, her deepest humiliation, her profoundest grief, so that Graeme would be so appalled he would stay the bloody hell away from her.
Fat lot of good it was doing her to sink into the comfort he offered. She untangled herself and pushed away.
“Archie didn’t send her away. I took her away.”
Frowning, he lifted her chin and searched her face. “For her safety?”
She pressed her lips together. It was a question, but one that he thought he knew the answer to.
“And your son?” he asked.