Daring Deception

by Hiatt, Brenda

  As she reached the first floor, Frederica saw Coombes emerging from the dining-room with a bottle of wine on a tray. He spied her at the same moment and came towards her with a suggestive smile.

  “Is his lordship dining at home tonight?” she asked before the butler could ask whatever impudent question he was forming.

  “He’s just finished,” Coombes replied. “He asked me to take his port into the library. He often sits there after dinner when he don’t have other plans.” His eyes roved over her impudently as he spoke. “Were you wanting to talk to him? Mayhap it is something I can help you with.”

  “No, it is not. Would you ask Lord Seabrooke if I might speak with him in the library?”

  At the disapproval in her tone, Coombes pulled back with a sneer. “Here he comes. Ask him yourself,” he said insolently, turning his back on her to saunter into the library with his tray.

  Frederica stepped toward the double doors of the dining-room as the Earl emerged. “Might I have a word with you, my lord?” she asked quickly, before she could lose her courage. What was it about this man that caused her heart to race so alarmingly?

  “Cherry!” Lord Seabrooke favored her with a delighted grin. “The very person I wanted to see. Please, join me in the library.” He motioned her ahead of him as Coombes came back into the hallway. “Perhaps you would care for some sherry?”

  “No, thank you, my lord.” Frederica felt ridiculously pleased that he appeared glad to see her. “There is something I wished to ask you.”

  “Fire away,” he said cheerfully, settling himself in an armchair near the fireplace and gesturing to the one opposite. He helped himself to a glass of port while she seated herself, and Frederica found her gaze irresistibly drawn to his strong brown hands as he replaced the cork.

  “It...it concerns Christabel, my lord. More particularly, her parentage,” she began tentatively, unwilling to spoil his convivial mood.

  As she had feared, a slight frown creased his brow. “You’re not having second thoughts, are you, Cherry? You knew about it when you agreed to take the post, and it would pain her greatly if you were to leave, now that she has grown so fond of you.”

  Frederica swallowed. “No, no, it is not that.” Though, of course, she would have to leave before much longer. The thought of causing Christabel unhappiness troubled her deeply. “I was remembering something you told me the other day, about her mother.”

  The Earl’s expression relaxed. “Yes?”

  “You said that she had always claimed that she and Christabel’s father had married, but that you did not believe her.”

  He sighed. “Poor Amity. That fantasy doubtless helped to keep her from despair. I hadn’t the heart to destroy it.”

  “But suppose, my lord, just suppose that it wasn’t a fantasy? Is it at all possible that she and Captain Browning might have married without your knowledge?”

  The Earl was already shaking his head. “It makes no sense, Cherry. Why should they keep it a secret? Amity knew I would not oppose such a match, especially as I had been the one to bring them together. And why would she have said so only after Browning’s death?”

  Frederica could see the shadow of bitterness in his eyes again as he spoke and wished she could erase it. “But perhaps there was no opportunity for them to tell you sooner. And what about his family? Might he have wished to keep it hidden?”

  “Amity had no cause to blush, either for her lineage or her accomplishments. She would not have shamed the highest peer of the realm!” he protested stiffly.

  “Of course not, my lord,” agreed Frederica primly. “But Captain Browning’s family may not have had a chance to become acquainted with her sterling qualities. And what of my other question? Could they have managed it?”

  Still frowning, he answered thoughtfully, “Our father’s estate was in Northumberland, less than a day’s journey to the border. But I cannot believe they could have made the trip in such secrecy.”

  “You do not know, though?”

  “Browning and I were assigned to different regiments after I was promoted to major. I rather lost track of him after that, until I heard that he had been killed in Spain. I went home upon my father’s death two months later. That is when I discovered how it was with Amity.” Rage quavered in his voice for a moment and then he sighed. “And now she is dead, as well. Everyone I ever cared for is dead. Why dredge up the past?”

  “For Christabel’s sake,” said Frederica softly. “Think of what it could mean to her. We owe her that much, do we not?”

  Lord Seabrooke met her eyes with a searching, almost tender gaze. “You really do care, don’t you, Cherry?”

  Frederica forced herself not to look away. “Yes, of course I do.” She was only beginning to realize how much. Alarmed at the direction her thoughts were taking, she hastily cleared her throat. “Christabel has become very dear to me, my lord,” she continued in a different tone. “I should like to improve her lot in life if it is within my power to do so.”

  The Earl’s smile was kind, but sad. “I am grateful for what you are doing already, Cherry. She has needed someone to care for her, to teach her as her mother would have done had she been well—had she lived. But I see no way now to discover what you hope to, even if it were true, which I doubt.”

  “There may be,” said Frederica eagerly, lifting the letters from her lap, glad for an excuse to break away from that too-intimate gaze. “When I was going through your sister’s boxes to find Molly Dolly, I discovered these. Is it not possible that if she had secretly married Captain Browning, the fact might be revealed in a letter? I wanted your permission to go through them—for Christabel’s sake.” She met his eyes again, this time pleadingly.

  Gavin regarded the eager face before him and felt an odd stirring of emotion. There was something about this girl that touched a place deep inside him. True, she was no beauty, not with those freckles, that mousy brown hair, those spectacles—though her deep green eyes were strangely compelling. It was something far more fundamental than mere appearances that drew him; an inner beauty comprising strength of character and convictions, intelligence and kindness. He found he wanted to explore the feeling further.

  “We’ll go through them together,” he said. “For Christabel’s sake.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Of the forty or so letters in the stack that Frederica had found, it transpired that nearly a dozen were from Peter Browning. By reading through them in sequence, it was possible to trace the development of his romance with Amity Alexander. That there had been real affection, even love, between them was apparent—so apparent, in fact, that Frederica found herself embarrassed to be reading the effusions of this man, now nearly five years dead, to his beloved. Lord Seabrooke, it appeared, was similarly affected.

  “This is making me deucedly uncomfortable, Cherry,” he said as he picked up the fourth letter. “I don’t know whether to be angry at Browning for writing to my sister so, or to be sorry for them both. I only know that I cannot keep from feeling as if I am prying.”

  Frederica nodded. “I know what you mean. If it were not of such importance to Christabel, I could never feel that we were justified in doing this. Still, it is not as though either of them can be harmed by it now.” Suddenly, jarringly, she remembered that she had originally intended to read these letters when she believed Amity to be Lord Seabrooke’s mistress, to turn them to her own ends. Where had her high principles been then?

  “Would you prefer that I read through them, my lord, and bring anything of relevance to your attention? They will inspire no painful recollections in myself as they must for you.” She could spare him that, at least.

  The Earl hesitated. “Perhaps it would be best,” he finally said. “You may sit here, at this table, while I attend to some other business at my desk. That way you may apprise me at once of anything you find.”

  Frederica blinked at him in surprise. He wanted her to stay here in the library with him? But she only said, “As you wish, my lo
rd,” and settled back to reading the letter before her.

  Gavin was similarly startled by his decision. It would have made more sense, he supposed, to send her back up to the nursery with the letters, so that she could read them at her leisure. He knew that he could trust her to bring the slightest clue to him in the unlikely event that she discovered one. The only explanation he could find was that he enjoyed her company. It seemed most odd, for she was not at all the sort of female who normally appealed to him, but there it was. Perhaps she simply made him feel comfortable, as a mother, a sister, even a friend might, he thought. That had to be it.

  Shaking his head as though to clear it of such unwonted thoughts, he pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk and dug out the ledger containing the accounts of the Seabrooke holdings. When he had first obtained it from the estate in order to bring the entries up to date, he had glanced through the earlier pages but had not examined them in any detail. Now, after what his man of business had said that afternoon, he decided he had better do so.

  This volume summarized the receipts, debts and payments made for the Seabrooke estate over the past decade. Presumably his new steward had books containing individual entries for each month and year and for each aspect of the estate, but this was a starting point. He could always request the entire set of accounts if it became necessary. Poring over the columns of numbers, he wondered what the devil he was looking for.

  Gavin had never particularly concerned himself in the financial aspects of his father’s small estate, for most of it had been sold to pay off various debts before he inherited it. What little remained had been fairly easy to manage; it was largely a matter of trying to raise enough money from the surrounding farm to pay the few servants and maintain the manor house— a losing battle.

  These accounts, on the other hand, implied an estate stretching far beyond Brookeside Manor itself, with numerous farm holdings, dairies, breeding stables and a whole village to work in them. He had not realized before what the Seabrooke estate had been in his grandfather’s time—until only a few years ago, in fact. Where had all the money gone? There were not enough details in this summary ledger to tell him.

  “Hell and damnation,” he muttered under his breath.

  At once, Miss Cherrystone looked up. “Is something amiss, my lord?” she asked.

  “I beg your pardon, Cherry,” Gavin said quickly. He had nearly forgotten her presence in the library. “I am merely trying to puzzle out my uncle’s accounts and am not getting on at all. His old steward apparently used some sort of code in making his entries.”

  “Perhaps I can help,” she offered, dabbing hastily at the comer of her eye with a handkerchief as she rose. “I have some small experience with household accounts.”

  Gavin smiled, imagining the little cottage with its kitchen gardens that she had no doubt been used to. “You are certainly welcome to try, but I fear these records are rather complex. They pertain to the entire Seabrooke estate, or what it used to be, in any event. Still, your assistance will be appreciated, as I cannot make head nor tail of the figures.” He pushed the heavy book toward her.

  Frederica was surprised to feel none of the triumph that she might have expected at being given such free access to Lord Seabrooke’s financial records. She knew that she should consider this the very chance she had hoped for, to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the earl had betrothed himself to her under false pretenses to shore up a lack of fortune. To prove him a fortune-hunter of the basest kind. Instead, she found herself hoping that she really could help him, not only to ease his burdens, but also to win his approval. The realization was most disturbing.

  Scanning the columns of figures more carefully than she’d had a chance to do before, she again became aware of some discrepancies. The notations the steward had used, which the Earl had referred to as code, were very similar to those she herself used in the Maple Hill account books, and she had little trouble deciphering them. She turned a page, looking farther back in an attempt to discover when the discrepancies had begun.

  “Here, my lord,” she said after a moment. “Do you see? Three years ago, fairly large sums of money began to be diverted from one of the farms. Then here, six months later, he began to draw off the profits of the stables, and then the dairies, here. Was your uncle a gamester, perchance?”

  To her surprise, the Earl’s colour deepened as though he were embarrassed at her question, but he answered readily enough. “Actually, I never knew Uncle Edmund, so I can’t answer for his character. But from something I recall my mother once saying, it seems unlikely. You see, my father was quite an elbow shaker—lost a great deal to the dice, in fact—and that was apparently the principal reason for his estrangement from my uncle. I got the distinct impression that Uncle Edmund was extremely disapproving of my father’s penchant.”

  So that was it, thought Frederica with ready sympathy. Of course Lord Seabrooke would be embarrassed by a reminder of his father’s gambling. She had no notion that her words had struck even closer than that. “It does seem unlikely, then. This notation here—” she pointed to the ledger page before her “—usually means that some sort of investment was made. If that were the case, it seems unlikely that it was a profitable one, for no money seems to have been ploughed back into the estate.”

  Lord Seabrooke nodded, regarding her curiously out of the corner of his eye. Indeed, she did have some knowledge of account books! “Is there any way to tell what type of investment it might have been?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Not from this. You would need the quarterly books to determine that, and it is possible it might not have been entered even there if it were something he was desirous of keeping from the world—if it smacked of trade, for instance. Oh!” Miss Cherrystone put a hand to her mouth.

  “What is it?” he asked, moving closer to peer over her shoulder. He doubted that he would understand anything he saw on the page, but he found it oddly pleasant to be so near to her. She drew back at once, however, to regard him with wide, concerned eyes.

  “My lord, is...is it possible...do you suppose...might your uncle have been at all sympathetic to the French?”

  Gavin’s jaw dropped. Suddenly it seemed blindingly obvious to him. After all, he had been instrumental in exposing numerous highly placed men who had raised or donated large sums of money to Napoleon’s cause. Why had that explanation not occurred to him at once?

  “My lord, I am sorry. That was a foolish thing for me to say.” Miss Cherrystone looked extremely distressed and Gavin realized that his face had given his thoughts away. “It was merely—”

  “No, Cherry, it is I who was a fool,” he said quickly, lest she think him angry at her instead of at himself. “I cannot think why I had not considered that possibility before. As I said, I knew little or nothing of my uncle’s character, so it would be foolish in me to protest that he would have been incapable of treason.”

  At Miss Cherrystone’s gasp of dismay over the harsh word, he regarded her sympathetically. “Of course, this is still mere speculation on our part. Tomorrow I shall begin making discreet enquiries. Thank you for opening my eyes to the possibility.”

  “It is only one of many, my lord,” she hastened to assure him. “It is also quite reasonable to assume that he may simply have made unfortunate investments—or even sound ones that have not yet borne fruit. Pray do not convict your uncle until you are in possession of all the facts.”

  Gavin smiled. She truly seemed to care, not only about his feelings in the matter, but for his family honor. “No, of course I won’t.” He glanced at the clock on the mantel. “It is late. Why do you not resume your perusal of those letters on the morrow? I shall do my detective work and you may do yours, and we can meet here tomorrow evening after dinner to discuss our progress.”

  Though her cheeks grew pink, she nodded without hesitation. “Very well, my lord. Let us hope that we both shall have good news to share.”

  She took her leave of him and left the room,
carrying the bundle of letters. Gavin continued to smile after she had gone. He was already looking forward to the next evening. But first, he had much work to do, he realized, his smile disappearing.

  Reseating himself at his desk, he began to map out his best course of action for discovering the truth about his late Uncle Edmund and what had been done with the Seabrooke fortune.

  * * *

  Frederica could feel herself trembling as she closed the door of the library behind her. How on earth, without even so much as flirting with her, could Lord Seabrooke do such things to her nerves? Taking three deep breaths, she looked up to see Mr. Coombes regarding her knowingly from his post near the front door. In no frame of mind to concoct explanations to counter his obvious suspicions, she merely nodded in his direction and proceeded to the stairs in as dignified a manner as she could manage. She was grateful that he did not seem disposed to say anything as she retreated.

  Back in her room, she peeped into the nursery to assure herself that Christabel was still sleeping peacefully before settling into a chair by the candle to continue reading through the letters. Instead of focusing on the words before her, however, she found herself replaying the scene that had just occurred in the library.

  Dreamily, she recalled every look, every word, that the Earl had directed her way. True, he had not flirted in the least, but there had been a warmth, a friendliness, in his manner that meant far more to her than pretty phrases. Frederica realized that other than Miss Milliken, who stood almost in the position of a mother, she had never really had a close friend.

  The thought brought her up short. A friend? Did she consider Lord Seabrooke a friend? Yes, she had to admit that she did. How had she allowed that to happen? She had certainly never intended to become friends with the Earl! And how would this development affect her plan? Could she tarnish a friend’s reputation in the eyes of the world—or even in the eyes of her brother—with a clear conscience?