Page 44 of The Rise of a Forsaken Lady
Jealous.
Heath was frankly…jealous. How was it that Hillbrook only had to give Lady Penelope a trite bauble and he was furious? Jealousy was twisting his stomach into knots, but Hillbrook was only half of the coin. The other half came from Lady Penelope.
When that Hillbrook had bestowed Lady Penelope with the pendant, she looked…halfway in love already. Or so he thought. Perhaps the red haze of his anger had twisted an innocent smile into something more. He hated that the man was so deep in with criminals supporters that if they did marry and he fell, she would be destroyed with him.
At least that was the reason he told himself why he hated the Baron. The real reason, one he did not want to admit was that he wanted Penelope for himself. He despised the very thought of the lady being around Hillbrook, which had him flinging the horse’s brush halfway across the stable, clanging into a stall and scaring the carriage horse there half to death. He stood there glowering to thin air as the horse’s loud incensed whinnying died down.
Stomping out of the stables into the cool evening, Heath delayed from going back to the house as his foul mood would have soured everyone else. Instead, he skirted the house and crossed the gardens and the carriage houses and the outhouses where coal, fresh cut wood, and gardening tools were stored. Night began to fall, and the dark purples were changing to indigo blues while dark grey was heading up the sky from the horizons.
With gritted teeth, he schooled his face into one of indifference and entered the house, going directly to clean up and then attend to dinner. When he was presentable, he mustered up the courage to go see Lady Penelope but entered the dining room to see it—empty. His quizzical look must have shown on his face when Mr. Gastrell walked in while fiddling with his cuff.
“Oh, Mr. Moore,” he said easily. “Lord Allerton is out, and Lady Penelope took her dinner in her rooms.”
He felt like Lady Penelope had used a proxy to slap him in his face, but then, it was well deserved. He had been untenable not many moments before.
Nodding he said, “I understand. If the Lord needs me when he returns, he just needs to call.”
“Oh, that probably will not be until tomorrow,” the butler said, “He is out with Lord Hillbrook in London. Most likely he will stay at the Baron’s house tonight.”
Another jab went right to his heart. Wasn’t there enough of Lord Hillbrook that he had to stomach that day? Even a mere mention of the man made him want to grind his molars to grit.
Swallowing his anger, he went about the rest of his duties that did not take much time. Soon, he finished closing the shutters, doused the lamps and went to his room.
Laying the darkness, he felt there had to be more to this Hillbrook than Lord Allerton had let on. Despite the connection, he had found between the Baron and the Bonapartist, Heath felt an itch under his skin that he could not shake. What more was there to Hillbrook?
Sitting up, he breathed in deeply and then slithered out of bed. Tugging the shirt into the waistband of his pants, Heath was glad they were dark as the night itself. He quickly then went to his wardrobe, tugged out a drawer and flipped it over.
Slanted diagonally in the corner where the vertical wood section met a horizontal slab, were three select lock-picks, securely fastened by the two slabs of wood. He quickly plucked them out, slipped them into his pockets and left the room.
Down the corridor, he padded quietly until he reached the main sitting room. He did not have to look to the ormolu clock on the fireplace mantel to know it was past midnight. He could feel it. He took the stairs to the Earl’s study and with his back turned to it, he used one hand to silently push the door open. Thank god the hinges were well oiled.
His eyes had already acclimated to the darkness, and closing the door as quietly as he had opened it, went directly to the large desk. There had to be something other than being a good friend and business partner that was taking the Earl over to Hillbrook so frequently.
Could it be that Allerton is leaning to Hillbrook’s association with Swanville? Could he be leaving his royalist ideals behind?
Crouching beside the desk, Heath tried the drawers, seeking any that might be locked as nothing of suspect would be held in drawers that were left open. Five of the six drawers were open but the last one, at the bottom was locked—one Heath had prepared for.
He took the picks out and worked the tumblers in the desk and when the drawer gave way, he reached inside and felt cool leather—a book.
A personal diary perhaps?
Lifting the book out he flipped the first page over and traced the indented strokes in the paper. The Earl certainly had a heavy hand, one he was grateful for as it was too dark to read it traditionally, he did it the other way.
Knowing how to read like this, backward and by touch was a skill he had forced himself to learn over hundreds of hours while fighting fatigue and frustration. Reading the diary was going to take a lot of time, but he had to know if the Earl was putting his sister in danger.
Sitting, he read the leaves one by one. There were many references to Baron Hillbrook and his ideas on how the government was running. Heath got increasingly concerned with the mentions of Hillbrook throwing his hat into the Whig party’s—a liberal party that was known to embrace radical ideas—ring kept recurring.
Russell has invited me to a gentleman's debate on the political issues of the day, saying sensibly and to my regret, I must add, how the Crown has lost all insight on how our dear land is headed.
His fingers paused as he actively dreaded what he might read next until he forced his hand to go further,‘…and I must agree with him. There is no true governance at Westminster, both parties take more time in haggling and nitpicking over minor issues than the ones we should be more invested about. I can see why Napoleon saw fit to perform a coup d’état on the other two members of the consulate and crown himself Emperor. France’s economy, education, and governance have grown under his leadership and it is about time forward thinkers like him must come forward and take control of this bumbling excuse of a monarchy…”
Every drop of blood in Heath’s body went cold as ice. Was this Allerton’s way of saying he was losing his traditionalist views to bend to revolutionism?
Forcing himself to read further his body lost some of the tension as he read, ‘…it is wishful thinking mayhap, but until the Crown forgoes this foolishness in the capital, something must be done…’
It was cold comfort that the Earl was still not swayed to anarchism, but alarm bells were still ringing in his head. Putting the book back, he relocked the drawer and left the room. The hallways were as empty as he left them, and he went back to his room under a grim cloud of suspicion for the Earl.
He dreaded the approaching dawn for two reasons, seeing Lady Penelope while knowing she was disappointed with him and looking the Earl in the eye whilst the suspicion of him being a traitor was still lodged in his head.
