Chapter 21
“Orla set me up to be ruined,” Amabel said, feeling as Richard must have felt when he’d gazed on his mother’s wrecked portraits.
“She would have known exactly what sort of escort Samuel Hastings would make and made sure Samuel’s dear auntie thought I was the next thing to a dolly-mop from the Dales. ”
The study was too small to admit of much pacing, though what Amabel truly sought was to run fast and hard from the information in the duchess’s letter.
Her Grace’s letter had not laid out facts end to end, but she’d conveyed enough information and recalled enough of the whispers that Amabel finally had an accurate picture of her notorious Season in Town.
“Shall I have Miss Gundridge’s Select Academy closed?” Richard asked. “I have no doubt this godmother or aunt or cousin of Hastings’s is one of Orla’s cronies.”
“She is—one of the London contingent—which only made me more trusting where Samuel was concerned. After the introductions were concluded and Samuel’s interest in me became noticeable, Orla’s old friend made no further overtures toward me.
Hastings kept seeking me out. I was flattered, until his game became obvious in hindsight.
Then I was relieved that Orla’s old friend hadn’t fostered a lasting acquaintance with me. ”
Her Grace had named only a few names, but they were enough: Miss Mabel Fielding had arrived in Town in the company of a somewhat frail great-aunt.
The young lady had initially been received tolerantly, with neither interest nor censure.
She was one of many hopefuls who came to London from the shires, as much to see the sights as to circulate in society.
Samuel Hastings had been the sort of bachelor one did not turn away from an at home, provided he was in company with a female relative of good repute.
One did not add him to guest lists or even include him to make up numbers.
He was accepted to only a minimal degree.
His uncle was a banker who’d married the daughter of a Yorkshire wool snob of the more-acres-than-coin variety.
Hastings’s pursuit of the nobody from Yorkshire had soon been remarked, according to the duchess, and not with any hope that the young lady would reform the rake.
He’d had a reputation for misbehaving with the unwary.
After Miss Fielding’s departure, whispers were heard to the effect that he’d both wagered on her ruin and taken coin to bring it about.
He hadn’t been seen much in London thereafter.
“Samuel was very persistent and very charming,” Amabel said. “I genuinely thought we were to be married.” What an innocent she’d been. As gullible as she’d been ignorant.
“Hastings needed you to think he was courting you in good faith,” Richard said.
Richard was so calm, half sitting on the desk, arms crossed. Too calm?
“I cannot believe Orla paid him to ruin me.”
“Amabel, how else did she know the details of your misfortune unless she’d authored them?
She had coin—your coin, as it turns out—and she could not have you marrying and involving solicitors in your situation.
They would have looked over Fielding’s provisions for you as a matter of due diligence and learned that he’d left you both a sum in trust and a house. ”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” So much Amabel hadn’t thought of. “I have been as featherbrained as Wealtha.” Did Wealtha feel this overwhelmed by the greater world? “I should be weeping and ranting, but I am too upset for even that.”
“Too betrayed,” Richard said, holding out his arms.
Amabel went into his embrace with a sense of having found her only safe haven in a world turned deceptive and dangerous.
“I was no match for my step-mother,” Amabel said. “Orla turned even my dreams and hopes against me. I want to bellow accusations at her and also to never see her again.”
“We don’t have to do anything yet,” Richard said, stroking Amabel’s back. “We can bide our time and gather information. I still want to meet with her bankers.”
Amabel wanted to throw a certain sampler into the fire, and the thought of sitting down to supper with Orla… Absolutely not.
“This is not commerce, my lord, where patience and persistence will often win the day. Orla is your aunt, she is my step-mother, and she has trespassed egregiously against every member of this household.”
Richard eased his hold and took both of Amabel’s hands in his. “We do as you say, dearest Amabel. If you want her off the property by sunset, she will be marched into the village at sword-point. If you want the magistrate to arrest her, I’ll summon him in person.”
“Magnus Johnson is the magistrate. He could be here in less than an hour.” Magnus would not hesitate to apply the law either.
“You have another option.” Richard led Amabel by the hand to a wing chair, and when he’d seated her, he perched on the hassock at her knee. “You can bring a civil suit, for conversion.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“The law is available to handle disagreements that don’t rise to the level of a crime. Two parties get into a spat, but greater society is not affected by their differences. It’s not a criminal situation, just a difference of opinion.”
“This is like when somebody’s sheep ruin a neighbor’s strawberry crop?”
“Exactly like that. Orla might have had an excuse to collect the rent from the Fielding house—she was an adult and your step-mother, while you were a minor without a guardian—but she kept that money for herself rather than turning it over to you or holding it for you. She converted it to her own use without your permission. You can bring suit over that in a civil court.”
How long had Richard pondered particulars before coming up with this strategy? “That would involve me in a scandalous proceeding.” Amabel did not much care that she would be involved in scandal—another scandal—but Richard did not need that bother so soon after assuming his title.
“Having Orla arrested would be scandalous.”
“Having Orla arrested would be a relief.” Also, Amabel hoped, a measure of justice. “Send a groom for Magnus Johnson, and if anybody asks, we’re inviting him for luncheon. If you gallop down the bridle path yourself, that will be remarked.”
“Do you know how badly I want to gallop for the law?” Richard said, smiling slightly.
“Yes.”
He scrawled a note at the desk and rang the bell-pull. “I hope Magnus Johnson has a fast horse.”
“He does. A splendid chestnut that he won in a card game, or so he tells it. Orla will not go quietly.”
“You can absent yourself from any confrontation with her, Amabel. In fact, I hope you do.”
Retreat appealed. Hide in a convenient parlor while the drama unfolded.
“I would say the same to you, Richard. That I will deal with her betrayal of her own sister for you and withstand her invective and lies and threats. You would not ask it of me, and I do not ask that you do as much for me. I ask that we manage this together.”
He looked to be considering some gallant, high-handed nonsense when a tap sounded on the door. The note summoning the magistrate was passed over to the footman, and Amabel was once again alone with her intended.
Richard was that. Somewhere between picnics, old scandals, and shocking revelations, she’d quietly accepted that he was her future, and she was his. The realization brought warmth and fortitude and a need to touch him.
“Together,” she said again, taking his hand. “Please.”
Richard kissed her knuckles. “Together, though I will probably misstep and bungle. You will have to be patient with me.”
“And you with me. Let’s find St. Didier and explain the duchess’s letter to him.” Amabel detested the thought of rehearsing the whole sordid tale again, but St. Didier was nothing if not a trusted friend.
“He’ll be in the library,” Richard said, “and that’s as good a place as any to see this business finished.” He kissed Amabel on the cheek. “I came to Yorkshire looking for answers, and I have found them. I also found you, and for that, I will always, always be grateful.”
They did not join St. Didier in the library until twenty minutes later, and when they did, Amabel was feeling battle-ready and determined. When Magnus Johnson was announced, Richard was looking his most severe and St. Didier his most forbidding.
Amabel did not offer their guest tea, wanting to keep the breakables in the room to a minimum. She did, though, ask to have a footman at the ready in the alcove across the corridor from the library door and a pair of grooms stationed out of sight on the terrace just beyond the French doors.
The sight of Orla sashaying into the library in all her tastefully understated fashion made Richard long to howl.
She paused when she caught sight of Magnus Johnson. “If it’s not young Mr. Johnson, gracing us with another visit and in the middle of haying.” She smiled with a blend of graciousness and patience guaranteed to convey anything but welcome. “Should Mabel ring for tea?”
Her name is Amabel. “We’ll not be having tea,” Richard said as the footman closed the library door. “I asked Mr. Johnson to attend us in his role as magistrate. Mr. St. Didier observes as a witness.” A witness maintaining a thunderous silence by the empty hearth.
Orla put a hand to her throat. “Oh dear. Has Clemmie taken to pinching the silver in her dotage?”
“Somebody has tried to pinch an entire house,” Amabel said. “You’d best take a seat, Orla.”
She chose the chair behind the desk. “I trust we do not refer to Richard’s usurpation of Wealtha’s birthright?”
“His lordship,” Magnus Johnson said, “is the rightful owner of Shepherd’s Glen, Mrs. Fielding. I had a word with Mr. St. Didier when he first started nosing around months ago. Our discussion inspired me to make a few discreet inquiries in my capacity as guardian of the king’s peace.”
In the midst of all the serious and distasteful business to be transacted, Richard had the odd thought that he’d like having Magnus Johnson for a neighbor.