That’ll do all right.
In a day or two, if the posts were any indication, it would look like the fence had always been there, and no one would be the wiser. Especially now that Fairbrother was dead.
George Parley traipsed across the field, his back twinging with random shots of pain, to the old stable, a long, squat, redbrick building with barn doors at both ends. Glass, from the many broken windows, and loosened wooden roof shingles cluttered the ground. Decrepit and neglected, it was the perfect hiding place. George sidestepped a shingle with a protruding nail and pushed back one side of the barn door. Moonlight streamed in through a hole in the roof. The scent of molding hay mingled with that of the freshly milled shipping crates stacked along the aisle. George perched himself on one of the boxes and looked out over his newly expanded paddock. Not a cloud marred the inky black sky and stars twinkled like diamonds. Dawn was a few hours away yet. He slumped over and kneaded the ache in his back with his knuckle.
This was the easy bit. Always had been.
George, retrieving the long-necked glass bottle he’d left by the side of the crate, scared up a mouse that had bedded down in the old hay nearby. It squeaked and skittered away. George took a long, slow swig of the liquor, relishing the burn as it slid down his throat. With the bottle empty, he tossed it into the hay.
Of all the verderers, only Fairbrother ever suspected the crafty bugger. But what was to happen now, with the rest of it? It had already cost him dearly. With Harvey Milkham out of the way, George should reap the benefit of all his hard work. But would he? Who was to say his plans wouldn’t all go to pot? George knowingly patted the crate beneath him. It was a chance he would have to take.
CHAPTER 17
“This is a surprise,” Stella said, her tone flat and unrevealing. It wasn’t like her.
Lyndy hadn’t seen Stella since yesterday when she’d accompanied Papa and Professor Gridley to the barrow. After his confrontation with Mother, he’d taken Beau, his Irish hunter, for a ride. Lyndy had resisted visiting the barrow, riding instead down to the cliffs near Barton on Sea, hoping the crisp, salty breeze would cool his anger. But as he looked out over the Solent at the Needles, the jagged tip of the Isle of Wight, a yacht with its white sails billowing drifted into his view and reminded him of Fairbrother, and then of Philippa and Mother’s odious plans. He’d abandoned the cliffs and raced Beau toward the barrow, only to change his mind and head for home. When Papa and Professor Gridley returned, Lyndy watched for Stella from the library window, peering from behind the green damask drapes. She wasn’t with them.
She’d walked across the heath to Pilley Manor alone, Papa had said. Why? Papa didn’t know. Would Lyndy ever understand why that woman did anything? He hoped not.
With his anxiety mounting, Lyndy had abandoned his customary poise and had ridden over to Pilley Manor to see her, disregarding the dinner gong and Mother’s disapproving stare, only to be told by the housekeeper that Stella had already retired to her room. Was she ill? Had she worn herself down hiking? Or, as was most understandable, had the events of the day finally caught up with her? He’d had to wait until morning to find out.
“Is it?” He’d spent a restless night. By the look of her, she had too. Stella followed him outside and down the garden path.
“I wasn’t sure I warranted early morning visits anymore.” Stella stopped to pluck the pink head off a drooping rose. The sudden sadness in her voice took him unaware.
For as long as the Kendricks had occupied Pilley Manor, Lyndy had made it a daily habit of visiting after breakfast, if not sooner. Often, with Beau and Tully in tow so that they might ride. Sometimes Lyndy brought the carriage and treated her to an early morning picnic; he’d discovered early on Stella adored picnics. But often, as not, they were content to stroll in Pilley Manor’s little garden or sit comfortably snug on the short bench beneath the oaks that lined the garden wall. He’d come to anticipate this early morning tête-à-tête. No Mother, no Mr. Kendrick, no chaperone. Just him and her.
For the past two months, they’d spent a great deal of time in each other company. It was the Season, after all. They’d attended the races at Salisbury, twice. They’d accepted invitations to numerous dinner parties, garden parties, card parties, afternoon teas, and balls. As his future bride, Stella was much sought after, and she was a model guest: beautiful, witty, and gracious, even when her hosts were not. Lyndy was proud to show her off and willing to share her with the best of English society. But only because he knew the next morning, and soon for the rest of his life, she would be all his.
“Why would you say that?” Lyndy asked. “I’m only a bit later than usual.” Papa and Professor Gridley had made it impossible to escape early. Stifled by Mother from discussing their outing at dinner, they enthusiastically reviewed it over breakfast. Every time Lyndy attempted to leave, they’d pull him back into the wearying conversation. “I came as soon as I could.”
Stella said nothing as she settled on the bench, picking off the petals of the rose, one by one, and letting them flutter to the ground where they may. Lyndy began to pace before her, his footfalls crunching on the garden path. Her silence was torturous.
“How was your visit to Furzy Barrow? Papa and Professor Gridley returned quite pleased with how it was all going. I don’t know what they were on about, but they were both quite complimentary toward you. Not many women would show such genuine interest.”
“It was the distraction I needed,” was all she would say.
“You’ll be pleased to know that Tully recuperated completely.”
“Yes, thank you. Mr. Gates sent a message over yesterday.” Such formality in her tone. He didn’t know how much of it he could take.
“Will you ride today, then?”
“I may.” Again, such formality. He hated it. He preferred her incessant questions over this excruciating reticence. Lyndy yanked on the lapels of his tweed jacket.
“Ah, bloody hell, Stella,” Lyndy said, plopping down next to her, the bench being so short their shoulders brushed against one another’s. She shifted, so her shoulder no longer met his, but she didn’t spring up either. He took that as a good sign. “What is wrong? Why are you so distant?”
She’d said the barrow visit was a good distraction. Was she still troubled by Fairbrother’s death? Or was it Philippa and the conversation they’d yet to have? Neither cheered him to think about.
“How can you not know?” Stella, tears welling in her eyes, threw the remains of the rose to the ground.
“Know what?”
“I might as well be frank, right? I have nothing to lose now. Do I?” Tears filled her eyes faster than she could wipe them away with the sleeve of her white linen shirtwaist blouse. The light blue ribbon woven into the bodice matched her eyes.
“Please, speak your mind. You know I prefer it.”
And he meant it. Her unabashed outpouring of questions, observations, opinions, and emotions set Stella apart from every other woman he knew. He adored her for it.
“She had one of your handkerchiefs, Lyndy.” Ah, it was about Philippa then. Lyndy should’ve known. “I want to know why.”
“Because I gave it to her.”
Stella, who had been rubbing a loose rose petal between her thumb and finger, glared up at him. “Who is Lady Philippa to you?”
“She is nothing.” He meant it. “Nothing.” Lyndy stared at her tearstained cheeks, realizing he’d caused this. If only he’d told her everything yesterday. If only he’d been perfectly honest from the beginning. “She means absolutely nothing to me.”
Did she believe him? Why did it matter so much that she did?
Stella sniffled. He longed to offer his handkerchief and wipe away her tears, but it was such a gesture, years ago, that got him in this situation in the first place. Stella slipped a folded piece of stationery from under her skirts. Disappointment, anger, frustration, and misery warred inside him. She’d hidden it from him somehow, and he hated that she had, or felt she
needed to.
She held it out to him now. “Then, why is your mother insinuating otherwise?”
He reached for the stationery, like one would a loaded gun. He’d recognized Mother’s hand. He didn’t read it but shoved it into his pocket. He could imagine what it said.
“Your mother seems to think I am as fickle as the English sun,” Stella said, her heartache displaced by anger. “Or maybe it’s you she’s thinking of.” Lyndy inwardly sighed in relief. He could more easily suffer her ill temper than her tears. “Lady Atherly is convinced she can ‘extricate us’ from our engagement.” Stella swiveled to face him. “She says that now that Lord Fairbrother is dead, his widow is free to marry ‘the gentleman her heart desired all along.’ Lady Atherly’s exact words. I’ll ask you again, Lyndy. Who is Lady Philippa to you?”
“As I said before, nothing. But . . .” His voice trailed away to silence. He loathed the unpleasant topic.
“I trusted you, Lyndy. I thought you trusted me. But how can we make this work if you don’t tell me everything? I may as well give in to your mother and go back to Kentucky with Daddy.”
Staying silent, resisting telling Stella everything seemed the surest course. But like a novice boxer, Lyndy had kept his hands up to guard his face only to get punched in the stomach. What had he done?
“But she did mean something to me, once.”
“I’m listening,” Stella said, folding her arms across her chest and staring at him. He stood up and began to pace again.
It was a long story. Lyndy had hoped to spare himself the embarrassing details of this youthful romance, but Stella would never understand the extent of his distaste for Philippa if he did. So Lyndy told her the whole story. How he and Philippa had known each other since childhood, he a friend of her brother’s at Eton. How Mother had adored Philippa, making no secret of her hope to see the two of them one day wed. How Philippa’s beauty, her flirtation, her freely given kisses, her flattery had blinded him. How he’d thought he was in love with her, and how, the moment he’d declared his intentions, Philippa had sought the attention of others. How she’d flaunted others’ desire for her in front of him, enjoying his pain. How she’d laughed at him, his earnest declarations of love and jealousy. But always, when he’d sought to break free of her, she would lure him back with promises and kisses. Until he’d had enough, seeing her for what she was. And all the while Mother had pressed for an official announcement of their engagement, not knowing that Philippa had promised herself to Fairbrother, that Papa’s expenditures on his fossil expeditions meant seeking an heiress with more money than Philippa had to save Morrington Hall.
When Philippa married Fairbrother, Lyndy had thought he was free of her.
“And yet here she is, trying to get her fangs into me again.” Lyndy sat beside Stella again and took her hand. He felt her resistance, a slight pull away, but he wouldn’t release her. “Stella, I want only to marry you.”
He put his finger to the side of her chin, her alabaster skin so smooth, so soft, even when streaked with tears, and turned her head toward him. “Do you believe me?” Lyndy had never wanted anything more.
She said nothing. Lyndy waited, his foot tapping of its own accord. What was she waiting for? Why didn’t she say anything?
“Do you? Do you believe that I want only you?”
Still, she said nothing. Lyndy leaped to his feet. He couldn’t take any more of this. He’d already stooped to begging, what more could he do? But Stella held steady to his hand. Her tug, pulling him back down beside her, surprised him. Then she threw her free arm around his neck and drew him toward her, her lips pressing against his. He’d take that as a yes, then.
* * *
“Come on,” Stella said. She stood still, holding Lyndy’s hand and jerked him up beside her.
“Where are we going?”
“There’s something I want to show you.”
Stella had been so hurt, so confused when she finally got a chance to read Lady Atherly’s note without her father and the nosy reporter being around. How cruel could a woman be, sending such a missive on the day Stella had discovered a dead body? It’d been a horrible repetition of the day Stella arrived in England: a dead man, a betrayal, and a threat to her entire future. She thought she’d never have to live through such a day again. And yet there she was, wrestling with doubts and despair all over again. Learning Lyndy had called after she’d gone to bed early had made her more miserable. She’d barely closed her eyes last night.
Again and again she’d gone back to the same questions. Was it true what Lady Atherly said, that Lyndy was Lady Philippa’s “heart’s desire”? Lyndy didn’t even like Lady Philippa. So why would the lady want to marry him? And why would his mother support such an ill-fated scheme? Unless the newly widowed lady had now inherited a vast amount of money. But if that was the reason, why hadn’t Lyndy challenged his mother? Why hadn’t he convinced Lady Atherly of his commitment to Stella?
Again and again, Stella had pictured the handkerchief in Lady Philippa’s fist. Again and again, she’d come back to the same horrible possibility, that Lyndy had lied to her, that he and Philippa were secretly in love. If her worst fears were right, she faced either a meaningless marriage or having to move back to Kentucky with her father. Both amounted to the same thing, a life without love. Stella could barely face Lyndy, as she’d walked beside him in the garden, as they sat on their private bench, her imagining he might be deceiving her. Stella hated secrets and lies. No matter how much it might pain her, she had to know the truth.
Stella had listened to Lyndy’s explanation with dread. But studying his open expression, noting his concerned hesitation, his nervous pacing, the pain and pleading in his eyes, a wave of sheer relief had washed over her; he was telling her the truth and had been all along. She’d never wanted to kiss him so much. So, she did, surprising them both.
“What is it?” Lyndy asked, tightening his grip as she pulled him along.
“It’s something I found at the barrow.” Stella had thought of him the moment she’d found it, but before she could show it to him, she’d gotten Lady Atherly’s note that changed everything. Now she could share it with him like she’d wanted to.
How nice it was to get back to normal again. As normal as her new life was, anyway. Lady Atherly still sought to break the engagement and wed Lyndy to Lady Philippa. Lord Fairbrother was dead, and Harvey was suspected of killing him. At least Tully was better, and Stella knew where she stood with Lyndy.
She led Lyndy back through the garden and into the bright hall of Pilley Manor, sparsely decorated with a few landscape oil paintings and cream-colored floor-to-ceiling wainscoting. Several calling cards, left while she was out yesterday, still lay in the silver tray on the inlay side table. The top one, decorated with a spray of brightly colored flowers, read Miss Ada R. Snellgrove. Stella drew Lyndy down the hall to the servants’ domain. Reluctant to enter, he released her hand and stood outside the doorway.
Mrs. Downie, a middle-aged woman with reddish-brown hair, kind green eyes, and an enormous backside, was in the kitchen chopping onions. The scent of baking bread filled the room. It smelled amazing.
“Is Tims around, Mrs. Downie?” Stella asked as she approached the long wooden table.
Unlike Mrs. Cole at Morrington Hall, Mrs. Downie had no objections to Stella stepping into her kitchen on the odd occasion. They had all discussed it when Stella moved in, Stella and the servants, that is. Daddy couldn’t have cared less what she did. Stella had called a meeting with the members of staff to learn what they were comfortable with and what they were not. As she was technically the mistress of the house, it was her prerogative. With all the rumors floating about the odd Americans, the staff seemed quite relieved to find neither she nor her father nor her aunt was as unreasonable and barbaric as they’d been led to believe. A bit different, yes, but with the rules established from the beginning, and with Ethel, Stella’s lady’s maid’s reassurances, behavior everyone could live with
. The household had run quite smoothly and happily, for all, ever since. If only she could do the same when she returned to Morrington Hall.
“No, miss. Mr. Tims is attending to Mr. Kendrick.” Of course. Tims, as the only male member of staff, acted as Father’s valet, as well.
“Do you know how to open the silver safe?”
“No, but Mrs. Robertson does. She’s in her room if you need her.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Downie.”
The cook turned to drop the onions in a large black pot. They sizzled as steam rose toward the copper pots and pans lining the wall behind the immense cast iron stove. With her back turned, Mrs. Downie didn’t see Lyndy scuttle past when Stella motioned for him to follow her through the kitchen to the small study beyond. The housekeeper, a petite woman in a dark gray and black striped dress, sat at a small secretary desk, her tightly coiffed, graying blond head bent over a ledger. Sun, shining through the only window in the room, struck precisely on the watch the housekeeper wore on a silver chain around her neck. Stella knocked lightly on the door frame. Mrs. Robertson, startled by the interruption, started to complain.
“What on earth . . . ? She snapped her pen down on the ledger. “Oh, Miss Kendrick, dearie, you startled me. What can I do . . . ?” Having caught sight of Lyndy behind Stella, the housekeeper hastily slid back in her chair and stood up. “My lord.” She nodded her head slightly. “Forgive me. I didn’t see you there.”
“Please be at ease, Mrs. Robertson,” Lyndy said. The housekeeper nodded, but her rigid posture didn’t change, nor did she sit back down.
“Can you open the silver safe for me, please, Mrs. Robertson?”
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