Page 8 of Her Impeccable Scoundrel
She recognized the careful penmanship of one of her two letters and cracked the seal on it, smiling. Coralie wanted to know if Blythe would be at Bluebelle Lodge in June for her fourteenth birthday, which Mr. and Mrs. Stockwell promised would be a grand celebration. The tenants’ children would come, if no one else would, and Mr. Stockwell would play his fiddle, and they’d have games and dancing. Nicholas was over his latest cold and reading all the books he could get his hands on.
Blythe sighed. Despite being shunned by the better society of Hampshire, Coralie made the best of life. An earl’s vivacious daughter ought to have at least the company of the local gentry’s children. Blythe would find a way to visit in June, even if she had to take the public coach and walk the seven miles from Whitchurch to Bluebelle Lodge.
Nicholas’s future was another concern. Small and prone to chest colds, she’d like to bring him to London to see a proper physician. If his health improved, then what? The grandson of a marquess, especially a child as hungry to learn as Nicholas, ought to have a proper education. Not that she’d want the marquess in question to have anything to do with the boy.
She would find a way. If she could keep Bluebelle Lodge.
The next part of the letter brought a frown. A gate had been torn from its hinges and several escaped sheep hadn’t been found.
Mr. Stockwell senior, the steward at Risley Manor, and his son Samuel Stockwell, who managed Bluebelle Lodge, had reported similar incidents over the last year. They’d speculated the problems were caused by travelers or vagabond ex-soldiers. No one wanted to accuse a marquess or his son.
The loopy handwriting of the second letter was unfamiliar. Blythe broke the seal and skimmed to the signature.
Her pulse pounded, excitement mixing with apprehension and growing to outrage... And more than a little fear.
* * *
My dear Contessa,
I hear you are looking for me and I know what you want. I’ll give it to you for five hundred pounds. I know someone who’ll pay more but I’m giving you a bargain seeing as how you took care of Maddy and her boy. Have it ready and I’ll send word next week where to bring the money. Coins only no bank draft. A generous time for you to pawn what you need to.
I’m not well, thanks to the earl and I need that money.
L. C.
* * *
Lunetta Casale
* * *
Her efforts to find the woman had borne fruit after all.
She had no doubt that Lunetta Casale—a ridiculous stage name—was ailing. This woman, whom Archie brought to Risley Manor as a nurse, might have been made ill by Archie somehow.
A shudder went through her. After their separation, Archie had dallied in very low circles those last few years; he’d taken the cure more than once.
After the local quack and Mr. Jarrow, the magistrate and coroner, ruled that his death had been from illness, Lunetta had disappeared.
And then Blythe had held her breath, wondering if the new will would surface. It hadn’t been in the muniment room when she’d searched before Archie died, nor in Archie’s desk after his death. The steward, Mr. Stockwell, hadn’t found it. The men sent by Jarrow had not uncovered it either. None of the servants confessed to having ever seen it.
Before he was felled by an apoplexy, Mr. Jarrow had never asked Blythe about the will either. She’d carried on as if the new will had never existed.
Jarrow’s likely suspect was Newton, Archie’s valet, who’d had no love for his fellow servants, nor for Blythe. Newton had taken the two hundred pounds Archie gave him the morning he witnessed the will and left Risley Manor the next day for parts unknown. He hadn’t been found.
The magistrate had not even bothered to look for Lunetta.
Blythe locked the threatening letter in a drawer of her writing desk.
She heard the great entry door below her chamber open and close, and a man’s deep baritone and footsteps on the stairs. She shuddered, waiting long moments for someone to knock on her door and tell her Lord Vernon was calling again.
She went to the window and looked out. Grosvenor Square bustled as usual but there were no carriages stopped in front and no horses being held by urchins. Whoever was visiting had walked here.
When the bedchamber door opened, it was her maid, Radley, who entered carrying in clean laundry.
“Is there a caller?” Blythe asked.
“Yes. A gentleman for Lord Chilcombe. Must be a close friend as he had Adwick escort him up to his bedchamber.”
