Page 12 of Her Impeccable Scoundrel
What was the truth about Archie and Blythe? He glanced at the clock. Morley was waiting for him at White’s.
In the hall he found the butler directing two footmen with a large trunk.
“What is this?” Graeme asked.
“The trunk is mine, my lord.” Dressed for outdoors, Blythe descended the stairs, an older, plainly attired woman following her with a valise. She hadn’t been part of the line of servants earlier so she must be the lady’s maid, and had been busy upstairs packing this trunk.
Blythe hadn’t said she was traveling.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
She pulled on a glove. “Adwick, thank you, that will be all. Radley, will you check whether I left behind the book I was reading?” All four servants dispersed, and she faced him, tying the bow on her massive bonnet. “The new earl has arrived. The old earl’s countess is departing. My duties here are done. I’ve found other accommodations.”
Outside the open door, a shabby carriage stopped. A servant in Chilcombe livery ran up to it.
The carriage was a hired hack. She wasn’t traveling as far as Risley Manor in that.
“Are you off to a coaching inn to hire a chaise? Doesn’t Chilcombe have a traveling chaise or carriage to take you to Risley?”
“How I travel is not your concern, my lord.”
“You’re… what? Off to stay with a friend?”
“Bearing in mind the impact of my presence on your reputation, I thought it best that we do not dwell under the same roof.”
A cold chill passed over him. The rumors must be true. “Who is he?”
Her mouth firmed. “The fact that you have the discourtesy to ask that question proves the need for me to leave.” The tension in her was palpable. “I have found temporary lodgings. I have taken the liberty of asking one of your servants to see that my maid and I are safely settled, after which, he will return to Chilcombe House.”
“Who is providing these temporary lodgings?”
She leveled the same quelling gaze he’d once seen Wellington direct at an unwelcome mushroom who’d needlessly sought his attention.
Perhaps the exuberant young girl had become a formidable woman.
He might be unwelcome but he wasn’t a mushroom. He was the earl. Surely, he had some say about the dowager countess’s conduct.
All the more reason to have her gone, yet the thought of her leaving, to go off to a lover?—
“I am providing the accommodation, sir,” she said finally. “I have arranged quite respectable lodgings elsewhere. This is your home now, not mine, Lord Chilcombe.”
“No,” he said, anger rising. “I see your gambit, Blythe. You want me to appear to society to be a scoundrel, casting you out of your home.” If he had any hopes for a plum assignment, he’d best protect his reputation as a gentleman.
He walked to the door, beckoned the servant outside, and told him to send the hack on its way.
* * *
Blythe grasped at composure and pushed down the urge to shout.
She’d had one year and one month without an Earl of Chilcombe meddling in her life. “It is not your decision to make.”
“I arrive in town and displace a countess from her home? What will that do to my reputation? What sort of gentleman do you think I am? If anyone is to leave it will be me.”
“If anyone is to leave?” she said, her voice rising as she lost her internal battle. “I’m not thinking of your reputation, I’m thinking of mine. Except for cheating at cards, you gentlemen may do whatever you please, never mind the cost to your wives and children.”
She squeezed her eyes, suppressing a burst of angry tears, gathered herself, and found him staring at her like she was the lowliest sort of insect.
The insolent prig.
