“A maid? What on earth could there be of any use in that?” Charles said, wondering if he was about to have all his hopes dashed.
“Well Sir, the driver seemed a little put out by her. He said that she is a woman who is above her station, but not because she put herself there.”
“So?”
“He said that she arrived at Thurlow Manor quite out of the blue when she was a girl of just eleven years. She was employed as a maid, but she did not go through the usual training, nor did she ever have to work in the house doing the menial tasks. She went straight to the very top, so to speak.”
“I see,” Charles said, although he really did not see at all.
All he had was an idea that this was interesting somehow, especially since his driver looked pleased with the discovery.
“It’s the only thing that the driver seems to be disappointed in his master over, this girl. I think he’s a bit jealous, Sir, given that it took him many years to get his position. I think he is more disgruntled by the girl herself, though. He does not like the way she goes everywhere with her mistress as if she was her friend rather than her servant. So, I bought him another drink, and then another, and he kept repeating that the girl ought to go back to where she had come from. And it got me thinking, Sir, could there be something in it? Could there be some scandal there that would help?”
“I think you could be right; perhaps there is.” Charles had begun to see a world of possibilities opening up before his very eyes, and his excitement returned with full force. “Did you find out anything else about the young woman?”
“Yes, Sir,” the driver said, and it was clear that he had relaxed now that he could see that Charles was pleased with him. “She was raised in a village called Hollerton. And Hollerton, Sir, is that little village where we stopped in on our first visit. And apparently, the Clarkin family still live there.”
“Do they indeed?”
“And not only do they live there, Sir, but the driver reckons that they have hardly seen their daughter in the years since she started working at Thurlow Manor. It might be because she has ideas above her station now, but couldn’t it be something else, Sir?”
“It most certainly could, my dear fellow,” Charles said with relish. “Whatever the reason, this Ruth Clarkin certainly warrants further investigation.”
With the doom and gloom of the last hours completely lifted, Charles could hardly wait for the day to begin.
Chapter 15
“Are you alright, Miss? These last days you have looked so sad,” Ruth said as she brushed her mistress’ beautifully thick and shiny chestnut hair. “Is it him? Is it Lord Harrington?”
“It is, Ruth. You know, I begin to wish that I had trusted my initial instincts and stayed away from that man.”
“But why? Surely you cannot mean that. He lives so far away, and he has such responsibilities. Is it not natural that he would have to break an engagement or two along the way? After all, from what you tell me, his father sounds very demanding.”
“I know, my dear Ruth. I know I ought to see it that way, but my heart is troubled.”
“But do you really feel there is a reason to mistrust him?” Ruth said gently.
“I do not think there is, but I have the most dreadful feeling that things are not right. After all, this is the second letter of its kind I have received, and it almost mirrors the first. If you remember, the first time he was unable to make it, James wrote me a letter to tell me the same thing; that his father had arranged some engagements at which he would be expected to be present but had neglected to tell him of it until it was too late. I dismissed my concerns the first time, but this time I cannot.”
“But perhaps his father really is so capricious, Miss. And if he is, then it would be perfectly understandable that Lord Harrington would be forced to write essentially the same letter twice.”
“Oh Ruth, thank heavens for you. My mind has been racing and making up stories for me to torment myself with. I wish I had spoken to you about it sooner.” Charlotte turned on the dressing table stool and reached for her maid’s hand. “What would I do without you?”
“I wish you had spoken to me about it sooner too, for then you might not have suffered these last days.” Ruth gave a very warm and appealing chuckle.
It was true; Ruth had made Charlotte feel better. She had not cured her mind of worry altogether, much less her heart of missing her handsome, green-eyed sparring partner.
“I think it is my own vulnerability which is making me worry, Ruth.”
“How so?”
“I know now that I feel so very strongly for him, you see. Ruth, it has been creeping up and creeping up, but that night at Lord Morley’s ball when he, when he …”
“He kissed you?” Ruth said in a whisper, her eyes lighting up with the excitement of it all.
“Yes, when he kissed me, I just knew. In fact, I knew just before. When I walked out onto the terrace in the moonlight and waited for him, I knew that I wanted him to kiss me. But it all seems so very sudden, does it not? Although our acquaintanceship has gone on for some months, our meetings have been sporadic and few. That is what makes me feel so very vulnerable, the fact that I have such strong feelings, such undeniable emotion, for a man I still wonder if I truly know. And if I continue to get to know him, how much deeper will I fall? How much more vulnerable will I become?”
“Is that not how it is supposed to be, Miss? When we truly fall in love, are we not supposed to be vulnerable? Men and women alike? Is it not the whole point of it, the trust you have in another to protect you in your vulnerability and not make it into some advantage?”
“It is the last part which scares me, Ruth.”
“You still mistrust him. You still believe what you believed in the beginning about his status as a Duke-in-waiting? About his privilege?”
“As I come to know him, I believe that less and less. But in his absence, I am afraid that the thought comes back to me. What if I was simply a challenge to be conquered? I know I have a sharpness to my wit that not all men appreciate, and perhaps this is his way of triumphing.”
“You mean that because you were not a simple target, he has seen it as a mission of sorts to turn your affections towards him?”
“Exactly that. And would the culmination of that triumph not be a kiss in the moonlight?”
“You cannot think his actions so cynical, surely. I have seen how he looks at you, and I cannot think him anything other than sincere in his motives. And think of all the effort he goes to in getting here time after time. It is not an easy journey from the west to the east, and yet he makes it as often as he can.”
“But he has means and time in which to do that, does he not? He is a very determined young man, Ruth, and I do not yet know if that determination extends to winning. If it does, then I am afraid that I have been conquered.”
“You have not been conquered, you have simply been kissed,” Ruth said with a laugh. “And I truly think that you have allowed the fact that you are missing him to play upon your concerns and make them bigger than they are. I am certain that he feels for you what you feel for him, absolutely certain. He is true; I am sure of it. I look at him, and he strikes me as a man who is falling in love. And I wish I had some way of explaining it, a list of points that I could give to you to ease your mind, but I cannot.”
“Ruth, you are the most sensible person I know, so perhaps I ought to listen. Perhaps I just ought to wait and look forward to his next letter, the one telling me that he will be returning soon.”
“And I am sure that you will receive that letter very soon, just you wait and see.”
“Thank you, Ruth.” Charlotte rose to her feet and threw her arms around her maid’s neck, holding her tightly.
“This will all work out, I am sure of it,” Ruth murmured and returned her mistress’ embrace.
Chapter 16
Charles Holt had to admit that he felt very much more conspicuous in the little village of Hollerton
than he did in the somewhat more sophisticated village of Belton.
Still, needs must, and he had installed himself at the hostelry he had avoided on his last visit whilst he waited for his driver to make some preliminary enquiries.
As he spooned down what was essentially some sort of inedible stew made of turnips, Charles congratulated himself on having been clever enough to employ a most superior driver.
The man had proved very helpful indeed, not to mention discreet, and Charles thought him to have a very welcome sort of wile about him.
He had decided to send the driver on ahead so as not to immediately intimidate the Clarkin family. Much better any request for them to speak to an attorney, especially when they were unlikely to have ever employed the services of one in their lives, come from somebody of their own station in life.
Charles’ self-satisfaction and delusions of grandeur had most certainly come back to him, and he was feeling very clever indeed. The fact that his successes to date had been due entirely to his driver was not something that he was going to contemplate for long.
The accolades would be all his, not to mention the satisfaction of bringing down a most flippant and self-assured young man as James Harrington.
As he peered down into the watery stew, occasionally prodding at a floating piece of turnip with a spoon he was not entirely sure was clean, Charles grimaced. The less time he spent in the village of Hollerton, the better he would like it.
Still, whatever he discovered he might keep to himself for a day or two whilst he enjoyed a little further relaxation in the fine rooms at the coaching inn at Belton. Unless, of course, he managed to discover something of such great import he would feel compelled to leave immediately.
Just as he had decided to give up on the appalling stew altogether, his driver returned with something of a bright expression on his face. The expression alone gave Charles the highest hopes the Clarkin family had agreed to meet with him.
“Well?” he said as he dropped the spoon down into the bowl and pushed it away from him across the table. “What news?”
“They have agreed to meet with you, Sir,” the driver said triumphantly. “Or at least the husband has. The wife is a different matter; there is a nervousness about her.” The driver was smiling wickedly. “Which I reckon means there’s a secret in there somewhere.”
“Very good,” Charles said in a most satisfied manner. “And where am I to meet them?”
“They are home, Sir, and expecting you to call upon them within the hour.”
“Very well, then I shall waste no time.”
“They are expecting me to come back with you, Sir, if you have no objections,” the driver said, and Charles wondered if that was the truth or if the man was just intent on hearing the rest, his curiosity having got the better of him.
“Well, why not?” He rose to his feet, his chair scraping noisily against the cold grey flagstones. “Lead the way.”
The moment he was outside the Clarkin residence, Charles thought he could already see why it might be that a young woman who had spent so many years at Thurlow Manor might very well not be a frequent visitor to her old family home. As far as he could see, it was little more than a hovel.
Of course, it was nothing of the kind. The Clarkin home was simply a small worker’s cottage, neat and reasonably clean, certainly not wealthy, but not entirely impoverished either.
But Charles Holt always had an unnecessarily strident reaction to such things, thinking that he would rather die than find himself in a position any lower than his own.
“Come in, Sir,” said a nervous woman in her middle fifties as she opened the door cautiously.
If she was Ruth Clarkin’s mother, she was certainly a good deal older than Charles had been expecting. From all that had been gleaned from the Baron’s drunken driver, Ruth Clarkin was just eighteen years old.
He had expected the mother to be no more than early forties at the oldest, and already his suspicions were beginning to rise.
“Thank you, my dear woman, and how kind of you to see me at such short notice,” Charles said grandly and strode past her into the little room that opened out from the doorway.
There was no porch, no entrance hall of any kind, just a door from the street that led straight into the living quarters. Charles refrained from shuddering, although he hoped that his business would be concluded sooner rather than later.
Good afternoon, Sir,” said a man of around the same age who, when he rose to his full height from the chair he had been sitting on, was almost a foot taller than Charles.
He was the same age as the woman but looked fit and vital enough for his years. “I am John Clarkin, and this is my wife, Hetty. What is it that we can do for you, Mr Holt?”
“I appreciate that my appearance is rather sudden, Mr Clarkin, but I have some questions I wish to ask you about your daughter.”
“Jane? Why? What would you want to know about Jane, Sir?” The woman said nervously.
“You have more than one daughter then, Madam? For I was truly referring to Ruth.”
Charles was looking at John Clarkin and could see a little flash of relief in his expression. Was it possible that they favoured one daughter over the other? If that were the case, perhaps it would be easier to find out something of Ruth than he thought.
“Oh, I see,” John Clarkin said and had gone from looking relieved to looking a little shifty.
His wife, on the other hand, looked afraid. His driver had been right; there was a secret in this house.
“Your daughter Jane is married, I presume?” Charles said conversationally. “Or does she live here with you still?”
“Oh no, bless me, Jane has been gone for years. She has children of her own now, a boy of nine and a girl of eleven,” Hetty Clarkin said with pride.
“Then Jane is a good bit older than Ruth, is she not?” Charles said, and Hetty looked suddenly as if she had fallen into a trap of her own making.
“Yes, there was a good space of time between them, Sir,” she said, but her face flushed scarlet, and Charles knew that she was lying.
“Before I continue in my questioning, Mr and Mrs Clarkin, I perhaps ought to tell you that I have not come empty-handed,” he said and removed a well-stuffed velvet purse from his pocket.
John Clarkin’s eyes immediately lit up, and Charles knew there was certainly a negotiation to be had. However, when he peered at the wife, he envisaged a little resistance.
“I don’t know what you think we can tell you, Sir,” Hetty said, her cheeks still blazing with discomfort.
“I’ll deal with this, Hetty.” John Clarkin stepped in a little aggressively.
“John,” Hetty Clarkin began in a frightened, agitated manner.
“I’ll deal with it,” he repeated, and Hetty fell silent.
“I understand, Mr Clarkin, that you do not see very much of Ruth,” Charles went on, keen to strike whilst the iron appeared to be hot.
“She has not been back here since the day she left when she was nothing but a girl of eleven years,” John said with a look of disgruntlement. “But I have seen her alright, out and about with her mistress, playing the part of lady’s maid.”
“Playing the part?” Charles said, and Hetty visibly stiffened.
“Oh, give over, Hetty. We don’t owe Lord Cunningham anything anymore.” John Clarkin was playing right into Charles’s hands, albeit a little aggressively, and he could not help wondering if it was the bulging purse which had swayed him.
In Charles’s experience, money usually won out.
“He was good to us, John. And he paid us.”
“I know, Hetty, but that stopped the day the child left here, didn’t it? What consideration has he given to us since for keeping his secret all these years? Nothing, that’s what. Not a penny.”
“The child is not with us anymore, John. Why would His Lordship need to keep paying us?” Hetty looked desperate, every bit like a woman who knew that the day she had feared for a long ti
me had finally come. “And think of all the years I worked for him. We have things to be grateful for, John.”
“Don’t you think His Lordship has things to be grateful for, Hetty? Us having to bring up a brand-new baby when our own was already nearly grown?”
“You speak as if he forced us, John.”
“He did not need to force us, did he? You were so ready to do your master’s bidding, even though you hadn’t worked for him for years.” John Clarkin was getting angry.
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