Page 85 of The Mad Baron's Bride
No need to go into the lurid details before children. She had suggested they all stay at the house, but her good advice had for once gone unheeded. She had been alone in this box of accusation the last time. Her family had insisted she not be alone again.
“Mr. Cripps.” The magistrate turned to the coroner. He had been in attendance at Leda’s last hearing; she remembered how he’d never met her eyes, as if madness were catching and he might take it home to his wife. “You examined the, er, body at the time of, um, Mr. Toplady’s demise. Is it possible that what Mrs.—what her ladyship claims is true?”
The coroner blinked at the reminder of Leda’s status. She had entered her name in the records as Leda Burnham, Lady Brancaster, formerly Caledonia Toplady, née Caledonia Hill. They were not dealing with a poor, mad widow this time. They were dealing with the wife of a peer of the realm, and the peer himself sat on a hard wooden bench in the back of the room, appearing relaxed in his superfine cloth coat and pantaloons, but alert to every word of the proceedings.
“Erm. It is very likely that Mr. Eustace Toplady is responsible for the, ah, state of the body. The wounds were, ah, at a depth and placement that suggests a man delivered them, and not a mere female.”
How different her fate might have been if someone had raised that point eight years ago, Leda thought.
The magistrate nodded and moved on. “And you yourself, Lady Brancaster, are not deceased, though your family was informed of your passing six years ago, by the proprietor of the madhouse—er, the asylum in Gloucester, we thought?”
“I believe the information about my death was given out to cover the fact that I escaped,” Leda said.
That was changing the facts a little; she had paid the proprietor of the private institution, trading the bits and bobs of jewelry and other possessions he had locked in the strongbox on her behalf for the promise not to pursue her if she disappeared. Very likely, if questioned, he would not admit to having made that dubious arrangement.
Six years. The connection sent a strange trill down her back. Six years ago, Anne-Marie Waddelow Burnham had died, and six years ago, Caledonia Toplady had died, too. But Caledonia got to rise again as Leda Wroth. Anne-Marie Burnham was reduced to a ghost, haunting the edges of her former life.
The life which Leda had taken over as Jack’s wife, as the mother of his daughter and the keeper of his wards, as the mistress of Holme Hall. The lady of precedence in Smithdon Hundred, though she had a ways to go to rival Mrs. Styleman as a hostess, given the vast richness of Hunstanton Hall.
“So you have not, in fact, committed any murders,” Hicks Beach concluded.
“No, sir.”
“And you are not mad?”
“I am in full possession of my faculties, your worship.Compos mentis.”
Except for certain moments in Jack’s bed, in Jack’s arms, but that was between her and Jack. Heat singed Leda’s ears at the most recent memory.
“And you wish it confirmed that Master Ives Toplady come into possession of the estate of Norcott Park, including thehouse and home farm, as well as all the duties and obligations of the estate, at his majority. Until which time, you and Lord Brancaster will hold the property in trust.”
“Yes, your worship.”
Hicks Beach glanced at Jack. “Know the Earl of Bathurst, do you? Since you’re both in Lords.”
Jack shifted. “I have not occupied my seat as much as I’d like. I’ll be there when the First Parliament of the United Kingdom forms, however.”
There would be much to prepare to move the household for the opening of Parliament and the Season. Finding an affordable house to let in a respectable part of London. Arranging for the girls to have a proper governess, since Leda would be busy as a hostess, consolidating connections for the Burnham family. And, she hoped, continuing her side interest of ensuring that independent women were able to remain so, and did not fall prey to fortune hunters and thieves of hearts.
All this awaited her as long as Mr. Hicks Beach did not see fit to lock her away. But she was a lady now, a baron’s wife, not a poor mad relict of an unliked man. What a difference a title made.
What a difference love made, Leda thought, watching Jack. No wonder she’d had to strive so very hard, with some of her young mentees, to steer them away from unsuitable men. Desire flattened common sense the way a herd of frightened sheep could trample a fence and stile.
“I have every confidence you will be a good benefactor for Master Toplady, milord, and will be looking out for the boy’s best interests.” Mr. Hicks Beach swept aside his papers and handed them to the clerk. “I believe we’re done here, are we not? I, for one, am for a pint, if mine host will bring it.”
“Stop.” Emilia rose with a rustle of white satin skirts. “She is lying to you.”
Leda swung her head, sitting up at the edge of her seat. “I am not mad.”
“And you have no child. Ives is not Leda’s son, your worship. His mother is that woman beside him.”
“Emilia,” Leda began warningly.
“What’s this?” Whatever the source of his outrage—being delayed in his pint, or learning his witness had committed perjury—the emotion was writ clear on the magistrate’s face.
“She wouldn’t know,” Leda said swiftly. “She never visited. She never saw me?—”
“You know I did. And I know you were not breeding. A mother knows.” Emilia glared in turn at the magistrate, seated at his table, the coroner, who shuffled in his seat, and the wide-eyed clerk. “I cannot permit the lie to stand.”
