Page 14 of The Husband Gamble
“In the light of tomorrow’s travel, Lord Hythe, Lady Barker thought it best to retire early,” Lady Osbourne told him.
“Of course,” Hythe answered. Perhaps Miss Fernhill had changed her mind. Perhaps she had no real interest in him after all, whatever Miss Fairleigh thought.
One of the other young ladies asked if he would turn the pages for her while she played the piano. Hythe apologised and went up to bed himself.
CHAPTERNINE
Somehow, all the doors of the church had been closed and jammed. The riders were long gone by the time someone had thought to put Fred Parslow, a skinny lad of ten, out the vestry window, so he could run around and remove the branch that had been shoved through the handles of the nearest doors.
[“The Abduction of Amaryllis Fernhill”, inCollected Tales from the Villages of England, by a Gentleman]
* * *
“Pritchard,” Hythe said, “I wish to get a note to a young lady, but I do not wish anyone else to find out.”
In the mirror, he could see his valet pause over the trousers he was folding. “In the morning, my lord?” Pritchard asked, his face carefully blank.
Hythe sighed. “I suppose you are right. I feel this sense of urgency, as if she is going to leave early tomorrow, and I will not see her again. There was something wrong this evening, but she arrived late to dinner, and we were not seated together. How can I fix whatever is wrong if I do not know what it is?”
He was rambling. This was not Pritchard’s problem. “I beg your pardon, Pritchard. I should not have asked.”
Pritchard was frowning. “Might we be speaking of Miss Fernhill, my lord?”
Hythe turned on the dressing stool so he could see Pritchard face to face. “Do you know something, Pritchard?”
“There has been considerable upset downstairs, sir. After our own trouble this morning, a certain young person whom I will not call a lady and her mother were invited to leave. When Miss Fernhill and Lady Barker went up to their room before dinner, they found their belongings disturbed, many things destroyed, and noxious substances introduced to their bedding, my lord.”
“Good Lord!” No wonder his poor love had looked so distressed. “You believe this was done by Miss Turnbull?”
Pritchard nodded. “The butler and housekeeper have been questioning the servants who were in that wing this afternoon. Miss Turnbull was seen by several different maids carrying chamber pots, and at least one maid saw her entering Miss Fernhill’s room.”
“That is conclusive,” Hythe said. “She had no place in that room, and I doubt she has ever done a domestic chore in her life.”
Pritchard returned to his folding. “I might add, my lord, that Lady Osbourne moved Miss Fernhill and Lady Barker to the rooms previously occupied by the Turnbull ladies. Their own room was uninhabitable. They are in the first two rooms on the left in the ladies’ wing, my lord. First, Lady Barker, and then Miss Fernhill. Should you wish to slide a note under the door, my lord.”
Enter the ladies’ wing, and slide a note under a door? It was the sort of thing Hythe’s new brother-in-law might once have done, or the Duke of Haverford back when he was a wild young man. Hythe had never indulged in such indiscretions. He found it impossible to forget that every lady was somebody’s daughter and usually somebody’s sister.
On the other hand, his intentions were honourable, and he could not bear to let Miss Fernhill go without at least having her agree to visit him.
Pritchard had finished packing away Hythe’s clothes, leaving out what he would wear to travel tomorrow. He picked up the bucket with the waste wash water and paused. “You may wish to know, my lord, that Miss Fernhill sent down for a posset after she and Lady Barker went up to bed. Apparently, Lady Barker has a sick headache.”
He turned towards the door, and then back again to face Hythe. “Miss Fernhill is highly regarded in the Servants Hall, my lord. She always behaves in a ladylike manner even when no one is there but the servants, she is always courteous, and—I might add, my lord—very tidy in her room and her person.” He bowed. “I will wish you a good night, sir.”
That was a very strong recommendation from Hythe’s exacting valet, particularly since Pritchard made it a point of pride to never state an opinion on anything Hythe chose to do or anyone with whom he spent time. The valet had a thousand silent ways to communicate disapproval. It seemed, however, that Miss Fernhill had Pritchard’s unqualified support.
“Good night, Pritchard. And thank you.”
Left to himself, Hythe stared at the banked fire and thought about creeping through the house after everyone else was asleep to deliver a note. It was a ridiculous idea. He was the Earl of Hythe. He didn’t do that sort of thing. He could not stop thinking about it.
* * *
Rilla sat on the window seat in her new room. Through the glass, she could see little but grey on grey—dark shapes against a dark sky. Still, the only other chair was hard and uncomfortable. This room was smaller than the one she had shared with Cousin Felicia. On the other hand, it was one of a suite of two rooms, linked by an adjoining door, so Rilla had her bed to herself.
She had put Cousin Felicia into her maid’s hands, to be changed for bed and fed a posset with a heavy dose of laudanum. Then she had come through the adjoining door to her own room, thinking to have an early night.
Instead, she had tossed and turned and eventually untangled herself from the bed clothes, wrapped herself in a blanket and retreated to the window.
Her thoughts were a muddle. Some of them were about the invasion of her room. She had never been the target of such personal malice. Even the baron, even her uncle, merely discounted her happiness and wellbeing as irrelevant to their own goals. They had not hated her.
