Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
In the early hours, Graeme finally snatched a few hours of sleep, after staring at the canopy above his bed, a pale damask of abundant but faded blue flowers.
His conversation with Blythe had kept him awake. Not that he’d learned anything new after the chocolate arrived. That hadn’t been his purpose, not truly.
He’d wanted to calm her. He wanted her to trust him, if that could ever be possible.
He’d wanted to know what bloody Archie had bloody done to her in the presence of bloody Lord Vernon to make her lose her child. She’d left out that detail.
Though his own nerves had been stretched thin with anger, he’d watched as the rich, dark sweetness of the chocolate helped sooth hers, using every bit of restraint he’d learned over the years. He’d managed to keep his hands off her.
When all he wanted was to take her into his arms and comfort her.
She hadn’t allowed that, of course. He’d never believe she was the jade Mrs. Jarrow was making her out to be.
He rose, washed, and allowed Clive, who’d accompanied him from London, to help him dress.
As soon as Blythe was ready, they would take the gig over to Bluebelle Lodge.
Or… did Blythe ride? Perhaps he’d need to convince Lady Hermione to stay at Risley Manor.
If he and Blythe could cut through the fields, they could reach their destination more quickly and spot any trespassers on the way. And have more time alone.
The children… their existence had been a surprise.
He would provide for both of them, without question, whether Blythe wanted his help or not.
Coralie, they would find a way to bring out.
How one brought an earl’s by-blow into society, he had no idea.
That required female intervention, which was perhaps part of the reason Blythe was trying to establish herself in town.
The boy posed a more worrisome problem that Blythe perhaps hadn’t thought of.
If he was Lord Vernon’s child—and Diddenton’s grandchild—he might prove a valuable pawn to the marquess.
Best to keep his existence secret or pass him off as the son of someone else.
He wondered if Blythe had chosen that path.
He found her and Lady Hermione in the breakfast room. At his suggestion that he and Blythe ride to Bluebelle Lodge so she could show him the land, Lady Hermione smiled and claimed that she was too tired from the previous evening’s adventures to accompany them.
“Were these flowers here yesterday?” Graeme asked.
Seated primly on one of the mounts from the stable at Risley Manor, Blythe was leading them through a wooded area of newly budding trees, the ground rich with bluebells.
She glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “You didn’t notice?”
“I fear I didn’t take the time to stop and see the beauty around me.”
Too busy looking at the beauty in front of me.
He’d always noticed Blythe’s beauty, even when her dalliance with Archie had soiled her.
And what a priggish word that was—soiled.
What had she done but succumb to Archie’s seduction?
How many men had he met through the years—of all races and countries, and classes for that matter—who would make an attempt on an innocent girl’s virtue?
He hadn’t—and swore he would never—venture that himself.
But he’d been tempted. How did that make him any better than the others? Or Blythe any worse? She was not a woman of bad character herself but an innocent who had hitched herself to a man of bad character.
“Come and look,” she said as they broke through the trees.
He brought his mount up next to hers.
An expanse of blue-carpeted meadow stretched either side of a lane leading up to a small brick and flint manor house with two bay windows and attic dormers above the first floor. In the distance was another cottage and a stable block and farm buildings.
He’d forgotten what it looked like. In fact, when he’d visited Bluebelle Lodge as a young man, he’d thought only of the girl who lived there.
“It’s very pretty,” he said. “What does Diddenton plan to do with the house?”
“He already has Wickworth Hall, which is larger. He wants to tear down Bluebelle Lodge and turn all of this into an ugly lime pit.”
She shook her head and turned a gleaming eye on him, reminding him of the girl she’d once been before Archie. “Shall we race?”
Before he could even agree, she urged her horse into a gallop and flew up the lane.
They were seen before they reached the front door.
The same young groom who’d fetched him from Jarrow’s appeared around the corner of the house, and Mrs. Stockwell stood on the front step.
Behind her was a tall, fair-haired girl.
Pink-cheeked and in the first bloom of womanhood, she was destined to be a beauty.
Robust was the word Blythe had used to describe Coralie, but she was feminine as well.
Blythe made introductions, and Coralie sank into an elegant curtsy, her face a careful mask not quite hiding her curiosity.
Mrs. Stockwell directed him to the parlor.
He had a better look at her than he’d had the day before when he was preoccupied with the flooded field.
She was younger and more attractive than most housekeepers; he could see why Stockwell would not wish her to work at Risley Manor while Archie and his friends were about.
He followed Coralie, who nervously offered him the largest chair in the room, a wing chair upholstered in faded rust-colored damask.
“Why don’t we both take a seat on the sofa?” he asked, tipping his head toward it.
She glanced at the door, where Blythe and the housekeeper were conferring in hushed tones.
“Excuse me, my lord,” the girl said. “I must just tell—”
“Coralie,” Blythe called. “Will you entertain Lord Chilcombe while I go and find Nicholas?”
The girl chewed her lip and said “Of course, Godmama. Please have a seat, my lord,” she added.
“Good manners require me to wait until you are seated,” he said, softening the words with a smile.
“Oh, of course.” But instead of sitting, she moved closer, gnawed her lip a bit more, and then lifted a defiant chin.
“I cannot bear it,” she said with a quick glance at the door to check that both women had moved on.
“Tell me, truly, what do you mean to do? Do you mean to cast Godmama and all of us out of our home?”
Anger flickered in him, quickly quenched by the genuine anguish in her eyes. This was the uncertainty of women and children when the men in their lives, the men tasked with caring for them, failed them. Did Blythe feel the same?
She must, certainly. The thought that Blythe might have said something to Coralie that cast blame on him, irked him.
“No,” he said, “did your godmama tell you that I would?”
She rolled her eyes, and he had to stifle a smile. That habit would need to be broken, but perhaps for now, it was a good sign that she didn’t fear him.
“Godmama tells me nothing. She is forever trying to soothe my worries with… with, um, you might as well know it, platitudes. They are falsehoods. Lies of omission, or white lies, well-meant, of course, but I know she worries, and Nicholas…”
Her frown deepened and her blue eyes—the same striking shade of azure blue as Archie’s—fixed on him for a long moment before she finally let out a long breath and spoke. “Nicholas is hiding. That is why Godmama has gone off. She’s going to search for him.”
“Nicholas is… how old?”
“Six.”
“Six is a rambunctious age. Is he a bit of a scamp?”
She shook her head.
“Or is he merely shy?”
“He is not shy. He is afraid.”
That brought him up. “He has nothing to fear from me.”
“No?” She stared into his face, and he had the impression she was trying to look into his soul.
On the way to becoming a formidable lady was this new cousin.
“He can’t help it, my lord. He says that two different men, two different times, have tried to take him. He thought you were here for the same reason.”
A frisson of alarm had Graeme standing taller. The taking of boys was the sort of thing that might happen in some of the countries of the subcontinent for a special sort of harem, or in Africa for the slave trade, or in London where chimney sweeps and small thieves were valued. But in the country?
“Does Lady Chilcombe know this?”
She shook her head. “No one knew until this morning when he told me, just before he ran off, and I have not had a chance to tell anyone.”
She’d trusted him enough to tell him first. He was touched.
“Come,” he said, taking her hand and leading her to the sofa. “Let us sit down. I want to hear this.”
Together they cleared some needlework and newssheets out of the way and sat down.
“You won’t take us away?” she asked.
“From Lady Chilcombe? No. From Bluebelle Lodge?” There’d be no false promises. “We must see what the court decides about your father’s will. Has Lady Chilcombe explained the matter to you?”
She nodded. “I knew something was worrying her even before he died. She finally told me.”
By he, she surely meant Archie.
“Whatever happens, I will provide for Lady Chilcombe, and for you and Nicholas as well. Now, I wonder if Nicholas’s problems are related to your godmama’s. When did all these worries start for her? I want to hear everything.”
“I know the very day they started,” she said, hands twisting in her lap. Well, perhaps it truly was earlier, much earlier, when Louisa and Samuel took us away from Risley Manor and brought us here.”
“Louisa and Samuel?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Stockwell. I was very little then, but I remember being frightened. I thought Godmama would die. I… I wasn’t supposed to see, but I heard all the shouting, and so much was happening no one noticed me coming down from the nursery.”