Page 48 of Her Impeccable Scoundrel
An expanse of blue-carpeted meadow stretched either side of a lane leading up to a small brick and flint manor house with two bay windows and attic dormers above the first floor. In the distance was another cottage and a stable block and farm buildings.
He’d forgotten what it looked like. In fact, when he’d visited Bluebelle Lodge as a young man, he’d thought only of the girl who lived there.
“It’s very pretty,” he said. “What does Diddenton plan to do with the house?”
“He already has Wickworth Hall, which is larger. He wants to tear down Bluebelle Lodge and turn all of this into an ugly lime pit.”
She shook her head and turned a gleaming eye on him, reminding him of the girl she’d once been before Archie. “Shall we race?”
Before he could even agree, she urged her horse into a gallop and flew up the lane.
They were seen before they reached the front door. The same young groom who’d fetched him from Jarrow’s appeared around the corner of the house, and Mrs. Stockwell stood on the front step. Behind her was a tall, fair-haired girl. Pink-cheeked and in the first bloom of womanhood, she was destined to be a beauty.
Robust was the word Blythe had used to describe Coralie, but she was feminine as well.
Blythe made introductions, and Coralie sank into an elegant curtsy, her face a careful mask not quite hiding her curiosity.
Mrs. Stockwell directed him to the parlor. He had a better look at her than he’d had the day before when he was preoccupied with the flooded field. She was younger and more attractive than most housekeepers; he could see why Stockwell would not wish her to work at Risley Manor while Archie and his friends were about.
He followed Coralie, who nervously offered him the largest chair in the room, a wing chair upholstered in faded rust-colored damask.
“Why don’t we both take a seat on the sofa?” he asked, tipping his head toward it.
She glanced at the door, where Blythe and the housekeeper were conferring in hushed tones.
“Excuse me, my lord,” the girl said. “I must just tell?—”
“Coralie,” Blythe called. “Will you entertain Lord Chilcombe while I go and find Nicholas?”
The girl chewed her lip and said “Of course, Godmama. Please have a seat, my lord,” she added.
“Good manners require me to wait until you are seated,” he said, softening the words with a smile.
“Oh, of course.” But instead of sitting, she moved closer, gnawed her lip a bit more, and then lifted a defiant chin. “I cannot bear it,” she said with a quick glance at the door to check that both women had moved on. “Tell me, truly, what do you mean to do? Do you mean to cast Godmama and all of us out of our home?”
Anger flickered in him, quickly quenched by the genuine anguish in her eyes. This was the uncertainty of women and children when the men in their lives, the men tasked with caring for them, failed them. Did Blythe feel the same?
She must, certainly. The thought that Blythe might have said something to Coralie that cast blame on him, irked him.
“No,” he said, “did your godmama tell you that I would?”
She rolled her eyes, and he had to stifle a smile. That habit would need to be broken, but perhaps for now, it was a good sign that she didn’t fear him.
“Godmama tells me nothing. She is forever trying to soothe my worries with… with, um, you might as well know it, platitudes. They are falsehoods. Lies of omission, or white lies, well-meant, of course, but I know she worries, and Nicholas…”
Her frown deepened and her blue eyes—the same striking shade of azure blue as Archie’s—fixed on him for a long moment before she finally let out a long breath and spoke. “Nicholas is hiding. That is why Godmama has gone off. She’s going to search for him.”
“Nicholas is… how old?”
“Six.”
“Six is a rambunctious age. Is he a bit of a scamp?”
She shook her head.
“Or is he merely shy?”
“He is not shy. He is afraid.”
