'You need only pretend you are unwell,' Emilia said. 'I shall give you my signal—'

  'I remember the scheme.'

  'I promise you, if I am not confident of success, I shan’t attempt anything.'

  It was not what Alice hoped to hear, Emilia knew, but at last her friend let the matter drop.

  Shortly after, the carriage turned from the main road and took a narrower one to the side, and Emilia gazed out, recognizing the area. They were approaching Ceastre, the estate where Maximilian Emery had spent most of his childhood.

  Ceastre lay not far from London, to the west of the city. When she was a girl she had visited it many times, but never for very long, simply because she was accompanying Papa when he paid a call on the earl, his friend and sometimes client.

  Then, when she was eighteen, Papa had his first bout of cardiac trouble, and the earl invited her to give lessons to his niece, now Lady Charlotte Emery. She did so for a year. For the first seven months, the lessons all took place at Ceastre. Then the London season began and Charlotte’s parents went to their townhouse to participate. Emilia was uncertain as to whether the lessons would continue, but the earl wrote her a very kind letter informing her that they would.

  Emilia remembered the mixture of relief and disappointment she had felt when she received it. The disappointment was not new—it had come when the family announced that it would go to Town for the season. Emilia knew that Charlotte wanted to have her debut, but it would not have been strange for them to wait another year, for she was only fifteen. And looking back now, Emilia could own that she had wanted for them to wait. Leaving Ceastre meant she would no longer see the earl’s son, Maximilian Emery.

  'We’ve arrived,' Alice said, breaking into Emilia’s thoughts as the landau slowed and came to a stop.

  Moments later, Abraham helped the ladies to alight.

  A liveried butler and a housekeeper in a well-made, dark blue dress greeted them as they entered the hall of the manor house. The housekeeper carried a booklet.

  'Welcome, welcome, my ladies,' she said to each of them. 'I am Mrs. Leigh. Please, right this way.'

  For a moment, Emilia was overcome with unsettling bewilderment. In three years, the furnishings and the walls had changed. Where there had once been subtle damask and mahogany, now there were bright brocades and rosewood. Some woodwork had been painted in the latest fashion. As the housekeeper led them first to the library, which was beside the hall, Emilia noticed that the new upholstery on the chairs matched the curtains.

  The furnishings themselves had almost all been replaced. In the first parlour they passed through, where there had been pieces dating from the previous century all the way back to the Tudors, now there stood fashionable yellow silk upholstered, scroll-end sofas in the Empire style.

  Emilia had not expected such a change, and she felt lost. It was like seeing an old friend after many years and finding them familiar and yet unrecognizable.

  ‘Twas enough to distract her until the housekeeper led them upstairs to the first floor.

  As she glanced around at more of the new furnishings in the game and music room, she remembered why she had come. On the second floor, above them, was the bedroom that had belonged to Maximilian. Its dressing room was her first target. If Alice would only feign a sudden spell of dizziness, she might hurry off to find some water, and make her way into his room ‘by accident.’

  Tis a thin plan, she thought now. Who would understand her abandoning her companion in such a way?

  At least the estate was unoccupied by the family, who were all in Town until next week when they would return for the ball. If there had been a risk of her encountering Lady Charlotte when she was creeping about she might never have found the courage to attempt it.

  Emilia’s nerves troubled her more intensely as the housekeeper took them past the staircase to the second floor. This was the closest Emilia could hope to get, for it was unheard of for a tour of an estate to show off the most private areas of a residence. ‘Twas time to set the scheme in motion.

  She caught Alice’s eye as the housekeeper led the way into the drawing room, and touched the decorative flowers on her bonnet.

  Alice’s expression was dour, but she inhaled deeply and turned to the housekeeper, then threw out a hand as if unbalanced and cried, 'Oh, merciful heavens, how my head spins.'

  'Miss Bromley, are you ill?' Emilia said. 'I shall find someone to fetch some water!'

  As she turned to hurry out of the room, the housekeeper exclaimed, 'Allow me, please, Miss!'

  But Emilia knew that Alice would by now have collapsed in her arms, just as they had planned.

  Nothing hindered Emilia as she fled across the parlour and up the stairs. In moments she had let herself into the southeast dressing room, just as she had intended.

  Except that the room did not have a desk of any kind.

  Emilia felt a heat building in the small of her back, sliding uncomfortably up her spine.

  The rest of the house had been redecorated. Why hadn’t she expected this room to have been, as well?

  She heard voices from below.

  Mortified, Emilia slipped back to the staircase and peered down.

  To her horror, as she gazed down over the railing, she spotted the edge of a blue skirt trimmed generously with lace swish by. Someone was home.

  Emilia stepped as lightly as a mouse as she hastened to return to the first floor. She glimpsed a lady wearing an ornate white cap going into the drawing room.

  The Countess of Ceastre.

  Emilia could not restrain herself; she threw herself into the drawing room as if blown by a great wind.

  'What is the meaning of this?' Lady Ceastre demanded as she turned to see who was so rude.

  'Oh, I do apologise, Lady Ceastre!' Emilia exclaimed, hopelessly flustered. 'I’m afraid I quite lost my senses in my panic for my companion.'

  The housekeeper had moved Alice to a chair, from which the latter had begun to rise upon seeing the countess approach.

  'In heaven’s name, why?' Lady Ceastre demanded.

  'Oh, my dear Miss Bromley, are you well again?' Emilia asked in desperation.

  '‘Twas but a moment’s faintness,' Alice murmured, her face reddening to an alarming degree. 'A weak spell—perhaps the stairs—I beg your forgiveness, Lady Ceastre—'

  Alice was still in the process of standing and the countess frowned and waved her hand at her.

  'Please, you mustn’t bring on another episode,' she said. 'Mrs. Leigh, perhaps a spot of tea for the lady.'

  'Oh, no, we would never want to impose!' Emilia cried.

  The countess turned and narrowed her eyes at her then. 'We have met, have we not?'

  Emilia’s spine straightened automatically and she lowered her gaze, her cheeks warming. 'Yes, my lady,' she said. 'I’m Emilia Whitmore. Jonathan Whitmore’s daughter. My father was a barrister and he served the late earl...'

  'The music tutor!' Lady Ceastre exclaimed. Her countenance lightened considerably, and Emilia felt some of the panic within her abate. 'Of course. Why, it’s been years, my dear. How you’ve grown. Are you still unmarried?'

  Smiling with genuine warmth, the countess indicated a sofa. Emilia could not politely refuse, so she took a seat as soon as the countess had done so herself.

  'You are correct, my lady,' she said in answer to the countess’s question.

  'And how is your father? Is your mother still with you?'

  'I’m afraid we lost her ten years ago,' Emilia said, 'and my father is unwell.'

  'Unwell? What ails him?' the lady asked.

  'Cardiac insufficiency, my lady.'

  And so it was that Emilia and Alice came to take tea with the Countess of Ceastre, who, as they soon learned, had returned early to the estate to prepare for the ball.

  'And in any case I cannot abide London when the weather becomes so detestably hot,' she told them.

  Emilia recalled that she had always liked Charlotte's mother. ‘twas an unexpected pleasure to converse with her now.

  'Have you seen the gardens, Miss Whitmore?' the countess asked. 'We shall have to take a turn, for there is a pleasant breeze today, and it has a most agreeable consequence of making the lavender and roses waft fragrance all about.'

  And so it came to be that for the second time that week Emilia found herself walking with a member of the nobility. Ever since Maximilian Emery had returned from the dead, life had become most surprising.

  ***

  That same afternoon Max decided to visit his solicitor in person rather than send the letter he had begun, the previous day, to compose. His impatience was not mitigated by the knowledge that Emilia Whitmore might find answers for him very soon.

  ‘I have a partial list of the staff at Ceastre,’ Ibbott, the solicitor, informed him.

  Max took the list and sure enough, the name ‘Nicholas Reid’ appeared near the top of the page.

  'But I took the liberty of doing research beyond what you had asked,' Ibbott said, 'and I discovered something else I think you may find interesting.'

  Max looked up from the paper. 'And what is that?'

  'The earl—that is, your uncle, who currently holds the title of Earl of Ceastre—probably should not be the earl even had you remained...out of the way,' Ibbott said.

  Max frowned. 'How do you mean?'

  'It would seem he made a brief show of looking for the next in line, and then announced that there were no male heirs, taking the title for his own.'

  Max blinked. 'He never searched for the rightful heir?'

  'I still have some assistants making inquiries, but that is how it would appear.'

  After that, Max found it hard to think of anything else, and he excused himself.

  The afternoon sun was high, but the narrow street remained shadowed as Max made his way down it, heading back to Portman Square. Another time, the night he was followed might have come to mind, but in daylight the alleys seemed not so dim, and he was lost in thought. His uncle Edward’s apparent fraud was of deep concern to Max. What did it mean?

  He had never considered that his uncle might have any ill intentions. Charlotte, yes, although she was only a girl of fifteen. The villain, he had always thought, was the footman, Nicholas. When the dark figure accosted him, striking him down and leaving him the letter, it seemed likely that it was Nicholas himself.

  That Charlotte was involved, he had had no doubt, of course. The letter threatened to expose acts he had allegedly done to her, and demanded that if he wished to silence her, he must marry her. But he had always assumed the scheme had come from not the fevered imagination of a young girl, but of a disgruntled servant.

  Max had caught Charlotte and Nicholas together in the garden at Ceastre. There could be no doubt as to the scandalous nature of their relationship. That Charlotte would want to marry quickly seemed a clever idea. That she wished to marry the man who could expose her loss of virtue showed a depth of strategy he would never have considered a young girl capable of attaining. So he reasoned that it was Nicholas who chose that course.

  But now, he had a doubt, and a new suspect.

  What if his Uncle Edward knew his daughter had been seen with the footman?

  What if he developed the scheme to blackmail Max into marrying his foolish, ruined daughter?

  Again Max heard the sound of footsteps behind him.

  Returning his awareness to the present, Max realized he had long since crossed Chapel Street, where he should have turned. He had wandered into a poorer neighbourhood, several streets from the fashionable districts where he knew his way.

  The footsteps behind him were accelerating.

  His heart began to hammer as he looked side to side, trying to grasp where he was.

  Someone behind him squawked and he turned to see why. A woman carrying a large covered basket stumbled against a wall as a man shoved past her. ‘Twas the shadowy fellow—the same one who had followed him several nights before. He was walking with determination toward Max. The brim of his hat cast shadows across his face, but it did not entirely obscure the coarse features, like a rough-carved block of wood.

  Let him come, thought Max, straightening and facing his pursuer.

  'Who are you?' Max demanded as soon as the tough was within a few feet.

  'Don’t matter,' came the brusque reply. 'I know who you are, Mr. Milton.'

  Max felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. 'What are you implying?'

  'Only this,' said the ruffian, who continued to advance with a menacing, slow gait toward Max. 'You shouldn’t’a come back. ‘Twas a great mistake, an’ my employer, he han’t any patience for it. You’ll have to leave, straight away.'

  'Who is your employer?' Max demanded as the man came within inches of his face.

  The man had deep wrinkles by the sides of his mouth. His eyes were dark and deep set. Max did not recognize him in any way.

  'Someone with enuff resources to make your life most unpleasant, eh,' the man said. 'Bad fings’ll happen, if’n you stay. Bad fings. You follow me?'

  The man’s face was close enough now for the foul odour of his breath to reach Max. He forced himself not to cringe.

  'You’d best leave by the end of this next seven-day. I’ll be watching.'

  With that, the man turned on his heel and marched away.

  Shocked, all Max could do was allow him to go.

  Chapter 10

  As the three ladies descended into the gardens at Ceastre the countess leaned upon Emilia’s arm.

  ‘You will forgive me, Miss Whitmore, for my constitution is not what it once was,’ she said. Emilia found the weight negligible, however. The lady was aging, and had taken on the paper-light quality of many older persons.

  ‘There is nothing to forgive,’ Emilia said with a smile. She and Alice fell into step with Lady Ceastre between them, walking through the garden, which was a delightful mix of the English and French styles, with trimmed box hedges that created allées in something almost like a maze, and an arched trellis covered in climbing roses of a lovely pale pink.

  ‘I see the lilacs are still thriving,’ Emilia said, pleased.

  ‘Oh yes, they are my favourites,’ Lady Ceastre said. ‘George, my eldest nephew, loved them so. Did you know him, Miss Whitmore?’

  Emilia shook her head. ‘No, my lady. I saw him once or twice when I accompanied Papa on a visit here,’ she said. ‘But we were never introduced.’

  ‘A pity. George was a fine young man, taken from us far too soon,’ Lady Ceastre said, her voice taking on a frail note. ‘And to lose Maximilian after...I thought my heart should never mend.’

  ‘How very tragic,’ Alice put in, when Emilia failed to answer.

  Lady Ceastre turned to Alice. ‘Indeed, my family has suffered too many losses. But such is the nature of life, I suppose.’

  Emilia forced her expression to remain neutral, but it pained her terribly to hear the lady speak so. Maximilian was not lost, and yet he had chosen to allow this kind woman to grieve him as though he was. And after his older brother’s death, at that. Surely, he must have known the pain his deception would cause.

  They continued along the path, curving around and heading back toward the house. Emilia pursed her lips. Soon, she would have to leave, and despite her misgivings about the earl’s dishonesty, she detested the idea of doing so empty-handed. There seemed to be no hope of managing otherwise, however.

 

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