The Second Lady Emily (16 page)

“Of course,” admitted Lady Clifford, heaving a disappointed sigh.

“Did you hear other news at the vicarage?” asked Cherlynn.

“Billy Turner will be calling the banns soon,” said Anne, naming the son of one of the tenants. “He has offered for the innkeeper’s daughter and will help run the inn. His father will miss his assistance, though.”

“Has he no brothers?”

“Three, but only one is old enough to do a full day’s work. Perhaps one of the Fallon boys can help.”

“I’m sure your father and his steward are more capable than either of you at solving estate problems,” said Lady Clifford blightingly.

Anne flushed.

“Anything else of interest?” asked Cherlynn, biting her tongue to keep from lashing out at Lady Clifford. If even women considered themselves inferior, it was no wonder they had been subjugated for so many centuries.

“Jaime Potts seems to have turned his gaming luck,” reported Anne. “Last week, he was half a step from debtor’s prison, yet this week he not only paid all creditors, but has money to spare. But most of the talk was about Lord Raeburn and speculation of what his attack will mean for Drew.”

Lady Clifford excused herself to speak with Charles, leaving Cherlynn to wonder how long it would be before she would have to leave Broadbanks. This might be the best time to question Anne about Fay. From the gleam in Anne’s eye when it sounded like the wedding might be delayed, Cherlynn suspected that the girl did not relish acquiring Fay as a sister-in-law.

“What will you do after your brother marries?” She hadn’t noticed Anne’s name in the historical records, though she had not studied the Villiers family before her accident.

Anne jumped. “I will be making my bows next spring.”

Not if her father died in September. “I don’t like to think about you sharing a house with Fay,” she said instead. “She doesn’t seem overly pleasant.”

“We will manage.”

“I doubt it. You grow tense just thinking about it. I owe you a debt for helping me overcome my missing memory, and can promise that your words will go no further.”

Anne hesitated, but the temptation proved too great. “The prospect does trouble me. So far Fay ignores me, but rumors abound about her vindictiveness.”

“She hurts others?”

“So people claim. The servants are nervous. Turnover at Raeburn House is high, and it’s not unusual for departing workers to leave the area without a word – even when their families are local. But that is not all. Whispers call her a witch, citing the man whose family died hideously when he refused some request; the widow who lost her home, her jointure, and her friends after crossing Fay; the shopkeeper whose business collapsed; the doctor whose patients turned against him . . .”

“But how many of the rumors are true?” Cherlynn interrupted to ask as the shadows deepened in Anne’s eyes.

“Who can tell? These are not stories bandied about in respectable drawing rooms. You hear them whispered in corners and servants’ halls.”

“How specific are they? Do any name the victims?”

Anne shook her head. “Which shows they have little basis,” she added firmly. “I am a ninny to listen to them.”

“Not necessarily. Such ubiquitous stories must arise from something other than irritation at an arrogant, overbearing manner.”

Anne giggled.

“Lord Thurston hasn’t been here in years, so why have you paid attention to Fay?”

“I always knew she would insinuate herself into our family,” said Anne with a sigh. “Father wished it even if Drew did not. I hoped she would settle for Randolph. They were two of a kind and good friends besides.”

“Friends?” She could not picture Fay as anyone’s friend.

“Well—” Her face reddened. “I did see them in the Roman folly one day, though they were otherwise occupied and did not notice me.”

“Lovers, then.” Cherlynn kept her voice so matter-of-fact that Anne’s blush receded. Could this information help? Ending a betrothal on the grounds of an affair between Fay and Randolph would hurt Lord Broadbanks nearly as much as suspecting Drew of killing his brother, especially since Anne’s tale was her only evidence. And what would the vindictive Fay do to Anne?

But this validated Randolph’s own words during the fight. He had fallen in love with a kindred spirit, yet she had refused to give up Broadbanks and a title for him. Thus Randolph must have tried to kill Drew.

Which did not explain why Fay hadn’t intervened to help him. Together they could have tossed Drew over the cliff and taken Broadbanks for themselves. Randolph would have married her willingly, giving her a husband who cared instead of one who despised her.

Stupid!
Randolph had fallen to his death. Once her lover was gone, Fay would have had no choice but to coerce Drew into marriage.

Assuming she loved Randolph, of course. She may have been using him in her feud with Drew. Fay was vindictive. Drew had repudiated her and now loved another. She couldn’t allow him to get away with it. Would she taunt him with her liaison once they were wed? Even worse, would she start rumors that he had killed Randolph? The wedding would release all restraints on her tongue.

Cherlynn listened with half an ear to Anne’s descriptions of how Fay had played on her insecurities to make her miserable. Not because Fay had any particular grudge against the girl, but to exercise her sadistic powers. And again, to hurt Drew.

The rest of Cherlynn’s mind tried to plot her next move. There was little point in sharing this with Drew just yet. It would hurt and enrage him, but he could do nothing about it without harming his family. That impotence would make life even harder for him. But if Fay had been coupling with Randolph, she probably took other lovers as well. Lady Travis had noted overt affairs soon after the wedding. They had probably started long before, if the one with Randolph was any guide. Finding proof of such a liaison would fulfill Cherlynn’s mission, for an unchaste, licentious bride was anathema to powerful lords.

* * * *

The moment Anne went upstairs to change, Cherlynn escaped the house. She needed a plan. How was she to find hard evidence of Fay’s affairs? It wasn’t something one advertised even in her own era. In the Regency, such goings-on would be cloaked in so much secrecy that she had virtually no chance. Fay’s reputation for vindictiveness would seal even the loosest lips.

Come on, brain, think!

Moving past the formal gardens, she turned along a path that followed the stream uphill into a forest, enjoying its pleasant gurgle and the way sunlight filtered through the trees to highlight random plants. Anne knew nothing beyond Fay’s fling with Randolph and a few vague rumors. This was not drawing room talk, so the area gossips would be of minimal help. Drew might know of possible paramours, but he was a last resort, and his four-year absence wouldn’t make things any easier. Fay had been barely sixteen when he had left. Perhaps Grace could question servants and villagers.

She was turning over the pros and cons of that idea when the path opened into a charming clearing around where the stream chattered over a short fall. Thick grass covered the hillside. Butterflies probed a handful of late summer flowers.

But the clearing was already occupied.

Frederick jumped, yelping as he nearly landed in the water. “Goodness, you startled me, Lady Emily!” he exclaimed.

Having done nothing to hide her unstealthy approach, Cherlynn refused to apologize. “What were you watching so intently that you didn’t hear me coming? I’ve been humming since I entered the wood.”

He flushed, then nodded toward the trailing bough of a willow that was perched on the stream bank. A butterfly finished easing out of its cocoon, its wings still damp and wrinkled.

“How beautiful,” she whispered, watching in awe as the creature stretched, pumping fluid into almost invisible veins. Its wings slowly straightened, their color growing more brilliant by the moment. “Anne would love to sketch it.”

“She is calling at the vicarage this afternoon,” he replied absently.

“And how do you know that?” she demanded, abandoning her vigil over the butterfly. Anne had originally intended to go shopping, changing her mind at breakfast when Lady Clifford expressed a wish to call on Mrs. Rumfrey.

Embarrassment stained his cheeks. “I sometimes run into her when I am out walking,” he admitted.

That he would bump into Anne while walking fully three miles from Raeburn House was odd enough, but using the plural within days of arriving meant that the meetings were planned. Anne was slipping off to assignations, a fact that would ruin her if it became public.

Yet this was precisely the opportunity Cherlynn needed. She drew herself upright. Once she discovered what he was hiding, she could decide what to do about this latest development. “You are in England now, sir,” she reminded him sharply. “You may not arrange assignations with well-born young ladies. Even accidental meetings will not do. Do you wish to destroy her reputation?”

“Of course not,” he countered.

“Have you requested permission to court her?”

“I am not courting her.”

“Then what do you call it?” she demanded, rounding on him. “Seduction?”

“God, no!” he exploded with such force that she believed him.

“Why not call upon her in the usual way? As Lord Raeburn’s heir, you would be welcome. Or do you fear to face Lord Thurston because you’ve lied about your background?”

“What?” He honestly looked perplexed. “I was born at Raeburn House. What’s to explain?”

“I was referring to the tales of America you spun so eloquently. Surely you know that the last Indian attack in the Shenandoah Valley occurred during the French and Indian War. I don’t recall the exact date, but it was at least fifty years ago. What happened to your family?”

He blanched. “I thought Englishmen considered America to be a wasteland populated only by hostile Indians,” he confessed.

“But I am not an English man.”

He looked her over. “Obviously. Female to the bone. And educated, as well.” He sighed. “Despite crossing the ocean, my luck is as wretched as ever.”

“The jig is up,” she said softly. “Are you really Frederick Raeburn?”

“Oh, that part is perfectly true,” he assured her. “In fact, everything I said was true – except for the details of my family’s end.”

“You really did lose your family?”

He paced the bank for several minutes. She sat on a nearby boulder, studying his face and the hands clenched behind his back. He did not fit the image of the Regency buck she had formed after reading so many novels. And not just because his clothes were looser and more casual than those worn by Drew and Charles. His movements were freer and more purposeful, even in this moment of aimless motion. His complexion was different as well, his face tanned and his hands callused from hard labor. She recognized an animal magnetism that boded ill for Anne if he turned out to be a fraud.

“We emigrated to the United States when I was two years old,” he began at last. “I remember little of the early years beyond cramped rooms and empty bellies. My mother was in a family way most of the time. Two brothers died in infancy, leaving me with three brothers and two sisters by the time I was ten.”

“I’m surprised she survived such excess.”

“So am I, and I wish she had not.” The last comment was an aside to himself, but his tone was so harsh she could not help but overhear. “Pa finally gave up trying to support a growing family in New York, so we moved west, settling in the hills overlooking the Shenandoah. It is pretty country, rich in game, but most of the land he bought was too steep to plant. We could barely coax enough from the ground to fill our own table, let alone sell. Pa was always a dreamer, accepting claims that the property was five hundred acres of good farmland. He bought without ever looking at it.”

“He wouldn’t be the first to fall victim to land fraud,” she concurred. Even in the twentieth century, misrepresentation was a common complaint in the courts.

“Nor the last. I helped in the early years, clearing fields and planting crops. Pa’s mother was Scots, so he brought in a cousin who helped build a whiskey distillery. Malcolm stayed for a year before moving on to find his own land. We later heard he’d been killed by Indians in the western wilderness.”

“Hence the idea for your own bereavement,” she murmured.

“Silly of me to prevaricate.” He sighed. “If only he’d died sooner. I grew to hate that distillery. Much of the output went into Pa’s stomach, making him more and more distant as time passed. Ma was complaining worse each year, flying into rages when he refused to move back to a city. By the time I was sixteen, it was too much. I left for Baltimore and got a job in a shipyard.”

“So you do know something about the shipping business,” she said, when he paused. “Does your knowledge extend beyond building the vessels?”

“Yes. Building was never my strength. Within the year I had transferred to the office of one of the top Baltimore importers. I know the business well and have plenty of contacts, though this is not the ideal time to start my own company. If this contretemps over impressment does not resolve soon, I don’t see how I can succeed.”

“That is a problem, of course.” She shook her head, knowing that the problem was already out of control. It would be two and a half years before he could do anything. “But why did you lie about your family?”

“I returned to the farm a couple times a year to check on the crops and make sure the kids weren’t starving. Pa had taken in a wanderer to help with the fields, but the fellow wasn’t all that bright. My last visit was in March – to make sure all was ready for the spring planting. And I figured to stretch their supplies by taking Raymond back to Baltimore with me. He hated the farm and hated what Pa and Ma were putting the kids through. With what I had saved, he could have set himself up to learn a trade.”

“He was the next brother?”

He nodded. “There was a gap behind me, so while he was the second son, he was barely seventeen.” He struggled with grief before continuing. “I met up with Josh Norton in Washington. He lived half a day west of us and was also headed home, so we rode together, arriving just before dusk. I invited him to spend the night.”