Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
Jervis Jones swept off his hat. He was covered in dust, and his mud-spattered boots were planted squarely on the library’s finely patterned Oriental carpet. The earl’s expression held more resignation than hope. “I don’t suppose you’ve ridden hell-for-leather from Hartsdale bearing good news?”
Jervis shook his head. “You want me to give you the bad news, Captain? Or the worse news?”
Rafe winced. “I think I should prefer the bad news first.”
“Lady Elizabeth isn’t at Hartsdale.”
“I see.” Rafe steepled his hands on the polished mahogany desk. “Was she ever?”
Again, Jervis shook his head.
“And that would be the bad news, would it?” He closed his eyes. “And now you are going to tell me that my sister has run off with James Dinsmore.”
“No.”
Rafe’s eyes flew open, then narrowed suspiciously. “If that is not the worse news, might I prevail upon you to tell me what is?”
“You see, I know a fellow, who knows a fellow, whose brother’s sister’s cousin works in the kitchens at Hartsdale—”
“Jones, I am in no mood for long-winded explanations.”
“Long-winded?” Jervis clapped a hand to his chest, clearly offended. “I am the soul of brevity.”
“And I am the soul of patience,” Rafe said sharply.
Jervis cleared his throat. “To cut a long story short…”
Rafe nodded approvingly.
“According to a kitchen maid at Hartsdale, the Norcrofts have been entertaining a lady from hereabouts. But the lady in question was most definitely not your sister.”
“Who was the lady in question?”
“Lady Anne Dinsmore.”
Rafe closed his eyes again. “Damn.” After a moment he opened his eyes, piercing Jones with his gaze. “Do you know where she is?”
“Regretfully, I don’t…but perhaps it’s not as bad as all that.” Jervis’s blunt fingers twisted the corner of his tricorne. “After all, it’s only the people here who know she ought to be there. The people there, why, they think she’s here.”
“It is a sad reflection on the years we have spent together and the over-familiarity I have allowed to flourish between us that I comprehend completely what you are trying to say. Unfortunately, Jones, you are wrong. I can name several people who know that Elizabeth is neither here nor at Hartsdale.”
Jervis tugged the tip of his nose. “For sure, now that I think on it, Captain, there’s the coachman. The one who was supposed to deliver Lady Elizabeth to Hartsdale.”
“And who has been delivering letters from my sister,” Rafe prompted.
“Do you think somebody at Hartsdale has been writing them?”
“They are in Elizabeth’s hand, but a number of them have postscripts from Arabella Norcroft.”
“So, Arabella Norcroft’s in on it, too?” Jervis looked thoughtful. “Still, that’s not so bad. Ten to one Elizabeth paid off the coachman.”
“Or blackmailed him,” Rafe muttered, flattening his hands on the desk.
“Either way he won’t let the badger out of the bag. And neither will Arabella, I suspect. Lady Elizabeth is her friend.”
“But Lady Anne Dinsmore is not.”
“What’s she got to do with this? She hasn’t been sniffing around here since you sliced up her brother.”
“Not sniffing here.” Rafe’s fingers beat an ominous tattoo upon the desktop. “But in the village, where just this week my charming mother-in-law encountered her.”
“I don’t suppose”—Jervis pinched his nose—“Lady Elizabeth’s name came up in conversation?”
“Indeed, it did.”
“Oh,” he said grimly, “that’s not good at all.”
“No,” the earl agreed, “it is not.”
Later that evening, as the coach rolled away from the inn where they had stopped to change horses, things felt very wrong to Elizabeth.
They were again traveling to the coast with Joley, and she knew she should feel hopeful, but she could not keep her eyes from the empty seats across from her.
The seat Marcus had occupied for most of their journey.
He was gone, taking his travel desk and art box with their secret compartments, along with his papers, quills, and sketchbook.
Andre had ridden off as well to make mysterious arrangements.
For the first time in what seemed forever, she was alone with James; he was sitting beside her, lost in thought, the unscarred side of his beautiful face turned toward the window.
Most likely he was thinking of Marcus, too, of how he’d looked as he mounted his horse in the courtyard, lifting his hand in farewell before turning north and riding off.
She had no idea what plans he had made to save Joley’s daughter.
If he even had a plan.
James’s mind must be filled with the same concerns.
She desperately wanted to tell him that he’d done the right thing, that he’d made the right choice—indeed, he’d had no other choice but to let Marcus go.
She wanted to reassure him that Marcus would come through this adventure whole and that Marguerite would be rescued.
But she knew if she said these words, they would be empty.
She didn’t know these things any more than he did.
And if anything should happen to Marcus, James would forever hold himself culpable.
He would always feel as he did now, that he should have gone in Marcus’s place.
She reached for his hand, which lay draped loosely across his lap, then withdrew hers. James had made it clear there was no future for them together. We are not man and wife. It is madness to think we can ever be.
If she hadn’t made James take her with them, what then?
Would things have turned out differently?
Would he have gone back to rescue Marguerite?
Elizabeth worried her bottom lip with her teeth, unaware of how hard she was biting until she tasted blood.
No, she told herself. James’s first responsibility still would have been to lead Joley and the rest of the company out of France.
A wave of relief that he was beside her and not riding for Paris swept over her, followed by a wave of guilt at the selfishness of her love.
She closed her eyes and offered up a silent prayer for Marcus. Please let him be safe.
“He’ll be fine,” James said, as if reading her mind.
Please, God, let it be so. “Will we wait for him…for them?”
“I wish we could, but we cannot. I have no way of knowing how long it will take to find Marguerite, or even if Marcus will find her. Nor have I any way of knowing how long it will take them to reach the coast.”
Or if they will reach the coast.
“I cannot put Joley’s or anyone else’s life at risk by waiting. Lord Grenville already knows we are coming. He has a ship waiting for us, just offshore. We will signal for it when we reach the coast tonight.”
“So soon?” The words escaped her lips before she could stop them.
“So soon?” He repeated her question in a tone of disbelief. “Not soon enough for me. You might have been killed earlier today.”
“But I wasn’t. I’m fine. We’re fine.”
“You call what happened, what I put you through, fine?”
Was he disgusted by her? When they reached the coast, she knew he would send her away.
She deserved it, she supposed. She’d forced her way into his life, tried to force him to love her.
How ironic it all was—she’d thought, by accompanying him to France, she’d have a chance to start over with him, to show him how much she’d changed.
But what had she changed into? A killer, a terrible voice inside her whispered.
Except…she’d done it to save him. Elizabeth’s eyes drifted from his profile, the high forehead, the proud nose, to the savage scar her brother’s sword had left on his cheek.
She’d do anything to save James—to convince him he was worth saving.
Because, Lord knew, James Dinsmore seemed hell-bent on destroying himself.
The cream and yellow sitting room had always been Anne Dinsmore’s favorite room in the house.
She loved the way the light from the long windows illuminated the delicate gilt plasterwork that edged the ceiling.
It made her think of a jewelry box and, normally, when she did her needlework in the room, she felt like a jewel. A rare, yellow diamond, perhaps.
But not today. Today she felt more like a fly trapped in amber.
It was Elizabeth Harcrest, of course. Since she’d run into Madeleine de La Brou, or rather since the woman’s ridiculous little dog had run into her, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the comtesse’s claim that Elizabeth was visiting with the Norcrofts.
It was possible Elizabeth had arrived at Hartsdale after her departure.
And it was possible that the Norcrofts hadn’t mentioned the visit to her, knowing that relations between the Dinsmores and the Harcrests were strained.
But it was also possible Madeleine was seeking to play some sort of trick.
Anne picked up a needle and thrust it sharply through the linen stretched tautly across her embroidery frame.
As if Elizabeth would ever be welcome in polite society again—the girl was soiled goods!
No proper mama, especially one as particular as Mrs. Norcroft, would ever permit such an unsuitable influence near her marriageable daughter.
No respectable man would ever consider marrying her.
Indeed, the more she considered the matter, the more convinced she was that Madeleine de La Brou was lying; it was always unwise to trust the French.
How delicious it would be to pay a call upon Moreham Hall.
For if she found Elizabeth there, she would expose the lie.
And if she did not, she might still raise questions as to the girl’s whereabouts…
She drew her needle through the linen, thinking.
The only problem was how to inveigle an invitation to call at Moreham Hall?
Her eyes fell upon the form of her cousin, Agatha, crouched in a chair near the window, knitting.
Her chaperone. A poor substitute for her brother’s company, she thought sourly, and not for the first time.
The woman had done little since she’d arrived but read her Bible and knit stockings for the sick.
As she was doing now, knitting tiny baby stockings in the round.
Sensing Anne’s eyes upon her, Agatha looked up and smiled.
Anne smiled politely back, wondering what village urchin would be getting knit stockings this time. “Who is the lucky mother?” she inquired in a voice she hoped was loud enough for her cousin to hear.
“Of course I’m knitting another!” Agatha shook her head with amusement. “Babies have two feet, you know.”
“MOTHER,” Anne said more loudly. “I said MOTHER, Agatha, not ANOTHER.”
Agatha nodded. “Mother, yes, yes, the baby has a mother.”
“WHO IS THE MOTHER?”
“Why, Lady Moreham.” She resumed knitting, eyes focused on her stitches.
Anne drew her cream and yellow armchair up next to her cousin’s straight-backed Sheraton.
She had never gone into the details of why James was traveling wherever it was he was traveling, or the true nature of her falling out with the Harcrests.
She felt it wasn’t any of Agatha’s concern.
However, perhaps it was time to say something.
She leaned close to Agatha’s wrinkled ear.
“Agatha,” she said, “I don’t really think we should impose… ”
“Repose? Of course her ladyship is in repose, what else would a woman so far along be doing? Everyone knows it’s unhealthy for a woman to strain herself when she is in a delicate condition.”
“Impose, IMPOSE, Agatha. We have not been invited to call on the Harcrests and with the earl’s sister in disgrace…” She let the words trail off.
“His Grace,” Agatha was saying. “Do you think we ought to ask His Grace if we might call?”
Anne had a brief, mortifying vision of both her father and Agatha accompanying her on a visit to Moreham Hall.
The old man wandering, mistaking his hosts for Carthaginians, her cousin only able to hear every fourth word of the conversation.
If the Harcrests didn’t laugh behind her back, they’d most certainly speak pityingly of her, the old maid left on the shelf with the other relics.
Would it be worth it to bring them if she knew the last laugh, the last pitying glance would be hers?
“NO,” she shouted back. “I don’t think we should disturb my father. You know how strange environments unsettle him.”
“Strange,” Agatha agreed. “It is most strange that Moreham and his wife haven’t at least invited us for tea.
I have lived a sheltered life, and it is possible that my notions of manners are outdated.
Nevertheless, when I finish these stockings I shall send them along with a note asking after Lady Moreham’s health and sending my best wishes upon the safe delivery of the babe.
” She clucked and nodded her head. “Most likely we shall receive an invitation then.”
Anne considered it highly unlikely, but if her cousin wished to make the embarrassing gesture, who was she to stop her? “When you are finished with the stockings, I shall have one of the grooms deliver them—though I cannot allow you to include my name on the card.”
“Why ever not?”
“I would not dream of taking credit for your thoughtful gesture.”
Agatha waved her needles in protest. “You are too good, Lady Anne. Far too good.”
Anne smiled modestly and snipped a thread from the wings of a little hummingbird she had been embroidering.