Chapter Three
Lord Wykeham did not snub her as he had every right to do. ‘I will not lie to her,’ he said abruptly. ‘Do you take cream or lemon with your tea, Mrs Jordan?’
‘Lemon, thank you.’ Laura was hardly aware of the automatic exchange. ‘But you—’ She caught the rest of the sentence, her teeth painful on her tongue. But you let her think you are her father. ‘You do not think that is more difficult for her to accept?’ His expression became even more sardonic. ‘I beg your pardon, my lord, it is not my place to speak of it.’
‘Alice likes you,’ he said without answer or comment on her question. ‘Have you children of your own, Mrs Jordan?’
‘I lost one child. I have no others.’ It was quite safe to mention that she had given birth to a child, he would never associate her with Alice’s mother, of that she was confident. His natural supposition, should he trouble to think about it, would be that she had married perhaps three or four years ago, some time after her first come-out to allow for the normal processes of upper-class courtship and marriage. She was almost twenty-five now, and her mirror told her that she did not look older.
‘She is a naturally loving and friendly child, I imagine.’ He nodded and passed her a plate of small savouries. ‘Has she many playmates in the neighbourhood?’
‘No, none. Alice has lived virtually her entire life abroad. We have only been back from the Continent for just over a month. There has been a great deal to do, but you are right to make the point, Mrs Jordan, I should make the effort to socialise locally in order to find her some friends of her own age.’
‘My lord, I had no intention of criticising.’ Which was an untruth. How fast he caught her up. As a diplomat the man was used to watching faces, listening to voices and hearing the reality behind the facade. She would have to be wary. She glanced towards the house, then quickly away. He must not see the hunger she was certain was clear in her eyes.
‘Hinting, then,’ he said with the first real smile he had directed at her. Laura felt her mouth curve in response before she could stop it. When the man smiled he had an indecent amount of charm. And that was confusing because there should not be one good thing about him. Not one, the child-stealing reptile. She dropped her gaze before he could read the conflict.
‘Papa! Here is Blackie.’ Alice, who never seemed to walk anywhere, bounded to a halt in front of Laura. That energy is so like me as a child. The pang of recognition was bittersweet. ‘Mrs Jordan, this is Blackie.’
The nurse bobbed a neat curtsy. ‘Miss Blackstock, ma’am.’
‘Miss Blackstock. Miss Falconer is a credit to you.’ And you are a credit to Lord Wykeham’s care for Alice, she thought, reluctantly awarding him a point for the care of the child. Not such a reptile after all, if Alice could love him and if he could choose her attendants with such care. Being fair was unpalatable, she wanted to hate him simply and cleanly.
‘Thank you, ma’am.’ There was a stir as the nurse took a seat beside Alice, then a small tussle over the need to eat bread and butter before cake. All very normal for an informal family meal and not at all what she had expected and feared she would find. And that, Laura realised as she nibbled on a cress sandwich, was disconcerting.
She had been braced to rescue her child from some sort of domineering, manipulative, bullying tyrant and found instead a happy girl and, she was coming to suspect, a doting father behind the facade of firmness.
* * *
Tea was finished at last, a final sliver of cake wheedled out of the earl despite Miss Blackstock’s despairing shake of the head, and Alice wriggled off her chair. ‘May I get down, Papa?’
‘You are down,’ he said.
Alice dimpled a smile at him and came to gaze earnestly at Laura. ‘Will you come and visit again, Mrs Jordan? We are very cheerful and there is always nice cake and perhaps you won’t feel so sad then. You could play with my kittens.’
‘Miss Alice!’ Miss Blackstock got to her feet with an apologetic look at Laura.
‘It was indeed very nice cake and I feel very cheerful now after such good company,’ Laura said. Could she come again? Dare she? She must not promise the child something she might not be able to fulfil.
‘Jackson!’ A footman came striding across the grass in response to the earl’s summons. ‘Send to the stables and have Ferris harness up the gig to take Mrs Jordan back to the village.’
‘Please, I do not wish to be a trouble, I can walk,’ she said as the man hurried away across the grass to the side of the house. ‘My ankle feels quite strong now.’
‘I cannot countenance you attempting it without an escort and it is probably best if we do not emerge from the woods together.’ The smile was back, this time with a hint of something that was not exactly flirtation, more a masculine awareness of her as a woman.
‘As you say, Lord Wykeham.’ To drop her gaze, to hide behind her lashes, would be to acknowledge that look. She sent him a carefully calculated social smile that held not one iota of flirtation. ‘Thank you.’
* * *
‘I do not know what to do.’ Laura paced across the parlour and back, her black skirts flicking the bookcase at one side and the sofa on the other as she turned. ‘I thought she would be unhappy and lonely, but I think she loves him and he loves her.’
‘What were you planning to do if she’d not been happy?’ Mab demanded. ‘Kidnap the poor mite?’
‘Go to law, I suppose,’ Laura said. ‘And, yes, I know it would ruin my reputation, but it is the only remedy I can think of. This isn’t a Gothic novel where I could snatch Alice and hide in some turreted castle until my prince came along and rescued us both.’ Not that I have a prince. Or want one.
‘But she is happy and well cared for and loved, so why not leave things be?’ her henchwoman demanded, fists on hips. ‘I can’t be doing with all this handwringing, I’ve my dusting to get on with.’
‘Because he doesn’t deserve her! He lied, he deceived and he bought a child as if she was a slave. He has no right to her.’
‘She’s base-born,’ Mab stated, attacking the bookshelves with a rag. ‘No getting round that. He’s family and she’s better off with him, provided he’s kind to her. He can protect her better than you can.’
‘He is rich, he is privileged, he is—’
‘And so are you,’ Mab pointed out with infuriating logic. ‘But he is a man so he can protect her in ways that you cannot. His reputation isn’t going to be dented by having an acknowledged love child, but yours would be ruined and all the influence you can muster goes with it.’
‘I do not like him.’ Laura flung herself onto the sofa and slumped back against the cushions, exhausted by tension.
‘What’s that to do with the price of tea?’ Mab demanded. ‘You haven’t got to live with him. Alice has.’
‘I am her mother.’ The words were wrenched out of her. ‘All those years when I thought she was gone. And then to find that she hadn’t died, and to have hope and to have that wrenched away and then to discover she was alive after all. And now... Now I have got to do what is best for Alice. But it hurts so, Mab. It hurts.’
‘Oh, lovie—’ Mab tossed the rag aside ‘—don’t you be crying now. You’ve done too much of that these past months.’
‘I’m not crying.’ Her eyes were dry. It was inside that the tears flowed. Or perhaps she was bleeding where some organ she could not put a name to had been wrenched out. It could not be her heart, she could feel that beating, hard and fast.
Mab stomped across the room and sat down on the sofa. ‘She loves him and he’ll do the best he can for her by the sounds of it. He’ll be one of those gentlemen who’ll stick by family come hell or high water—it’s part of their pride. You’ve just got to be glad for her and get on with your own life. He’ll be off abroad again soon, those diplomatic gentlemen are all over the place. Think of all the sights she’ll see, the things she’ll do. And when she’s all grown up he’ll give her a big dowry and find her a nice man to marry and she’ll be happy, just you see.’
‘I know.’ I know. It is the right thing. I am happy that she is alive and so clever and bright and kind and lovely. But she will never know that Piers was her real father, she will never know that her mother loved her and wanted her. ‘I am going to stay for a week. Just a week. I will see her again, I will make certain she is truly safe and happy and then I will go back to London and take off my blacks and rejoin society.’
‘A good thing, too. But who’s going to chaperon you, then?’ Mab asked. ‘You turned down all those fubsy creatures that came in answer to the advertisement.’ She stood up and administered a brisk pat on the shoulder before going to hunt for her duster.
‘I have written to my mother’s cousin Florence. She is a widow and she isn’t in very comfortable circumstances. She says she’d be delighted to be my companion.’
‘What? Lady Carstairs? The one your mama always said had feathers for brains? She’ll be no use as a chaperon.’
‘I am too old to need one of those. I just need a lady companion to give me countenance.’
‘Huh.’ Mab snorted.
‘Yes, I know, I am shockingly fast and have no countenance to preserve, some would say, but I am not seeking a husband. So long as I am received, I really don’t mind.’
‘There’ll be many a man who’d overlook a slip-up in your past.’
‘For the sake of my bloodlines and dowry, you mean?’ Just as there would be gentlemen who would overlook Alice’s birth when the time came, all for the sake of her powerful father and the money he would dower her with. ‘I don’t believe there is and I don’t want a man who would overlook something for anything but love.’ And none of them would get close enough to her heart to arouse such emotion. She did not have the courage to risk it, one more wound would kill her.
Coward, a small voice jeered. Once she had been prepared to do anything for love. Not now. Now the only battle she was prepared to fight and be hurt in was the one for Alice’s welfare
Mab suddenly slapped her own forehand with the palm of her hand. ‘I’ll disremember my own name one of these days. You had some callers while you were out. It went right out of my mind when you came back just now in that smart carriage, white as a sheet. They left their cards. I’ll go and get them.’
‘Three.’ Laura picked up the cards and found all were from married ladies and all had the corners turned to indicate that they had called in person. ‘Your visit to the village shop has obviously caused some interest.’
‘A right gossipy body she is behind the counter, so she’ll have told everyone who came in. I was careful to say who you were so they’d know we were respectable and there’d be no problem with credit. Who you are pretending to be,’ Mab corrected herself with a sniff.
‘Mrs Gordon, The Honourable Mrs Philpott and Mrs Trimmett. She is the rector’s wife, I assume, as the address is the rectory. I will call on them tomorrow, they all have At Homes on Tuesdays according to their cards.’
‘What, and risk them finding something out?’
‘Why should they suspect I am not who I say? I am not pretending to be someone whose status might excite their curiosity and it will look strange if I do not.’ Laura fanned out the cards in her hand and realised she had reached a decision. ‘I will stay for a week and I will find out all I can about Lord Wykeham. These ladies and their friends will be agog about his arrival and full of information.’
‘You always say you despise gossip,’ Mab muttered.
‘And so I do, but I will use it if I have to. I’d wager a fair number of guineas that all these ladies know just about everything there is to know about what goes on at the Manor. All I have to do is give them the opportunity to tell me.’
* * *
One of the disadvantages of her disguise was not having a footman in attendance, or a carriage to arrive in, Laura reflected as she rapped the knocker on the rectory door the following afternoon.
‘Madam?’ The footman who opened the door to her was certainly not a top-lofty London butler, which was a relief. She could hardly assume the airs of an earl’s daughter if he snubbed her.
Laura handed him her card. ‘Is Mrs Trimmett at home?’
He scarcely glanced at the name. It was certainly more casual in the country. ‘Certainly, Mrs Jordan. Please enter, ma’am.’ He relieved her of her parasol and flung open a door. ‘Mrs Jordan, ma’am.’
There were two ladies seated either side of a tea tray. One, grey-haired and plump, surged to her feet. ‘Mrs Jordan! Good day, ma’am. How good of you to call, please, allow me to introduce Mrs Gordon.’ She had all the rather forceful assurance of a lady who knew her position in the community was established and who spent her life organising committees, social gatherings, charity events and the lives of anyone who allowed her to.
Laura and Mrs Gordon—a faded blonde of indeterminate years—exchanged bows and Laura sat down. Two birds with one stone, she thought with an inward smile. ‘I am so sorry I was out yesterday when you were both kind enough to leave your cards. As a stranger to the village it is most welcome to make new acquaintances.’
Over cups of tea Laura endured a polite inquisition and obligingly shared details of her fictitious bereavement, her depressed state of health and her need to have a change of air and scene before facing the world again. The two ladies tutted with sympathy, assured her earnestly that Westerwood Magna was a delightful, healthful spot where she would soon recover both health and spirits, and delicately probed her background and family.
Laura shared some of her invented history and nibbled a somewhat dry biscuit.
‘You will find everyone most amiable and welcoming here,’ Mrs Gordon said. She was, Mab had reported, the wife of a city lawyer who had retired to a small country estate and spent his time fishing and breeding gun dogs.
‘I do hope so,’ Laura murmured, seizing her opportunity. ‘I fear I may have inadvertently inconvenienced the lord of the manor yesterday.’
‘Lord Wykeham?’ Both ladies were instantly on the alert.
‘Yes, I became lost crossing his park and strayed off the footpath. The earl came across me and I was startled and turned my ankle. In the event he was kind enough to offer me refreshment and send me home in a carriage.’ It was impossible to keep that sort of thing secret in a small village and she saw from the avid look in their eyes that they had already heard that she had been seen in a vehicle from the Manor.
‘Well! How embarrassing for you,’ Mrs Trimmett remarked with ill-concealed relish as she leaned forward in an encouraging manner.
‘It was a trifle awkward, but he acquitted me of trespass. Oh, you mean the refreshments? Just a cup of tea on the lawn with one of the female staff in attendance. I would not have gone inside, naturally.’
‘Naturally,’ they chorused, obviously dying to do just that themselves.
‘Do tell us,’ Mrs Gordon urged, ‘what is the earl like? My husband has left his card, of course, and they have met, but he has not yet called.’
‘He was perfectly punctilious and civil, but I found him arrogant, you know. Perhaps it is just those devilish flyaway eyebrows—’
The two ladies opposite her went very still, their eager expressions frozen into identical stilted smiles. Too late Laura felt the draught from the opening door on the nape of her neck.
‘The Earl of Wykeham,’ the footman announced.