A Deception at Thornecrest

by Ashley Weaver

  “Oh, how you flatter me.”

  “What else did this young woman have to say?”

  I related to him the details of Imogen’s visit. He listened with his usual unreadable expression; nothing ever really shocked him.

  “I suppose someone’s been using your name,” I said when I had finished.

  “That does seem a possible explanation, though I don’t know why anyone would want to go to all that trouble.”

  “Obviously someone was toying with that girl.” I felt a surge of indignation. “They gave her a false name, convinced her that they were married, and now she’s been … compromised.”

  “It seems a bit far-fetched. It’s more likely that it’s some sort of ruse. It sounds as though she came here hoping to get money out of you. Perhaps she thought you’d pay her to go away without ever saying anything to me.”

  “The thought had occurred to me,” I admitted. “But there was something very genuine about her. She doesn’t seem to be that sort of person. Once you’ve met her, you’ll see what I mean.”

  “Oh, I doubt very much that I’ll ever meet her. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if she has mysteriously disappeared from the inn by tomorrow. She’s probably already back in London by now.” He reached across the bed and patted my leg before rising. “She may have looked young and innocent, but there are a lot of excellent liars in the world, my sweet.”

  He went then to bathe and dress for bed, and I went back to my book. I found, however, that I still couldn’t seem to concentrate.

  I had the uneasy sensation that there was trouble on the horizon.

  3

  THOUGH I KNEW it would be best to straighten things out as soon as possible, I put off ringing the inn for Imogen the next morning. Perhaps I was not quite ready for the emotional upheaval I knew it was likely to cause.

  Milo, still appearing unperturbed and, indeed, mostly disinterested in the whole matter, had gone off to the stables to see to his horses. A keen equestrian, when he wasn’t darting off to London or the Continent, he was often gone to livestock auctions or horse shows or out riding for long stretches.

  Not that I minded. Truth be told, I was rather glad at the moment not to have him underfoot. Though I truly believed that he was blameless in the whole matter, I still felt unaccountably irritated with him in the way one does when one dreams a spouse has done something untoward and one can’t quite shake the feeling of annoyance upon waking.

  I considered going out walking in the direction of the village to see if I could encounter Imogen casually in the streets or shops near the inn, but I didn’t feel quite up to a strenuous jaunt this morning. Besides, there was no reason to rush.

  I supposed I was just feeling a bit out of sorts. Pregnancy had forced me to slow my usual pace, and I wasn’t used to being at such loose ends.

  Looking around the sitting room, I spotted several items that could use tidying. I had finished knitting a blanket and bonnet for the baby, and there was also a stack of children’s books with colorful illustrations that Milo had purchased in London.

  I had just put everything into my knitting basket to carry to the nursery when Winnelda, my maid, appeared in the doorway.

  “Oh, madam, let me do that for you!” she said, rushing toward me and taking the basket from my hands before I could protest. “You shouldn’t be carrying things, you know. Not at this delicate stage.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of doing it,” I said. I submitted rather than argue, though I didn’t feel at all delicate and was perfectly capable of managing a basket of that size. I was very much looking forward to the baby’s arrival, for it seemed that I couldn’t do anything without being fussed over.

  “Are you feeling all right, madam?” Winnelda asked, eyeing me as she prepared to take the basket from the room. Ever since discovering I was going to have a baby, she had watched me with all the care the proprietor of a china shop might exhibit when dealing with a piece of Royal Worcester bone china. As she was the eldest of six sisters, I thought she ought to know I wasn’t in danger of breaking into pieces at the slightest provocation just because I was with child.

  “I’m feeling very well, Winnelda,” I said, for what was surely the thousandth time in the last five months.

  “Would you like something more to eat?”

  “No, thank you. I’ve just had a very large breakfast.”

  She looked at me a bit skeptically. Her mother, she had informed me, had gained a good deal of weight when pregnant with each of Winnelda’s sisters, and I was not living up to the standard. Though I was fairly tall and naturally slim, Winnelda seemed to think it unusual that I had not grown more rotund.

  I turned, prepared to leave the room.

  “From the back you still can’t tell…” she said sadly. “Maybe if you eat more eggs. And put some extra butter on your toast.”

  I had been eating quite enough for an entire family, so I wasn’t at all concerned. Nor was my doctor, who felt that I was in excellent health.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. I escaped the room then, deciding that a walk would do me good after all.

  I collected a jacket and made my way out the French doors in the morning room. The air was cool but refreshing, and I drew in a deep breath as I walked across the grass, which was still damp with morning dew. Spring had begun to make its first marks upon the landscape, and green was sprouting all around me: the verdant lawns, the leaves on the trees, the last of the snowdrops giving way to the daffodils. It was always lovely to see the first signs of new life emerging in the countryside.

  Fitting, too, I supposed, that new life would be joining my household as well.

  Without thinking too much about it, I wandered in the direction of the stables.

  Milo didn’t enter his horses in the Springtide Festival races. He didn’t think it sporting to pit his Thoroughbreds and show horses against the local animals. It was a snobbish sentiment, perhaps, but I had to agree that it would be difficult for anyone in the county to defeat Milo’s horses.

  I reached the stable door and stepped inside. Things were quiet and neat, everything in its place. In contrast to his nonchalant approach to most things in life, Milo, like the stern captain of a Royal Navy vessel, ran a tight ship in his stables. He had no patience for shoddy or incompetent work, and his somewhat tyrannical approach to the matter had left more than one browbeaten stable hand in his wake.

  I walked alongside the stalls, looking at the horses. The smell of fresh hay hung in the air, and there were the soft sounds of horses rustling and nickering. The biggest stall belonged to Xerxes, the prize of Milo’s stables. He was a coal-black Arabian with the devil’s own temper, notorious for biting and kicking stable hands, and no one but Milo had ever been able to ride him.

  He snorted when he saw me, tossing his jet-colored mane in a show of ill temper. “You needn’t worry, Xerxes,” I said. “I haven’t the faintest intention of bothering you.”

  He stamped a foot in response, but I ignored him and moved on to the next stall. This was where my horse, Paloma, was housed. She was a sleek chestnut mare with white forelegs and face.

  “Hello, old girl,” I said as she came to greet me. I rubbed a hand down her nose and wished that I had thought to bring an apple or carrot with me. For obvious reasons, I had not been able to ride in some time, and I missed our jaunts across the fields together.

  I heard Xerxes snort again, loudly, but paid little attention until a voice sounded behind me. “Oh, good morning, Mrs. Ames.”

  I turned to see Bertie Phipps, Marena Hodges’s young man. I hadn’t heard him approaching. He was a tall, handsomely built boy with a shock of darkish blond hair that he was constantly sweeping back from his forehead. He was dressed in shirtsleeves and grass-stained, mud-flecked trousers and holding a harness in one of his hands.

  “Good morning, Bertie,” I said. “How are you?”

  “Very well, Mrs. Ames. And yourself?” He flushed a little as he said this, his eyes l
anding on my stomach and flittering guiltily away.

  “I’m quite well, thank you,” I replied, ignoring this reaction. “You’re helping Mr. Ames with the horses, I see.”

  “Yes, ma’am. A good day to exercise them, he says. I’m always glad to give them a turn about the pasture.”

  I looked at the specks of mud on his trousers. “Don’t tell me you attempted to ride Xerxes.”

  He shook his head. “Not yet. But one day. It was Hades that threw me. Went over a hedge when I wasn’t expecting it.”

  “You weren’t harmed?”

  “Oh, no. I know the right way to fall. Lady Alma says each fall is a horseman’s badge of honor.”

  Bertie also spent a good deal of time at Lady Alma’s stables. Lady Alma often gave him odd jobs to do, just as Milo did. It had been a dream of Bertie’s to own a horse of his own, and he had saved every penny he could toward that end. Only recently, he had accomplished his goal and purchased a horse he called Molly. Milo had told me Bertie was very much looking forward to riding her in the Springtide Festival race.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re all right,” I said.

  “None the worse for wear, excepting my clothes, of course. It’s a bit muddy now that the snow’s melted, but I don’t mind mud if it means the sun is shining.”

  “Yes, the weather is rather lovely, isn’t it? I saw Marena yesterday. I thought she must have been out for a walk with you.”

  His smile faltered. “We … we haven’t been seeing so much of each other lately,” he said, the slightest flush creeping up on his cheeks.

  I realized that I had made some sort of error; that was what I got for assuming.

  “Oh,” I said faintly. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’ll be all right. We love each other, and that’s what matters in the end. We’ll settle things.” He offered me an unconvincing smile.

  “There you are, Phipps,” Milo said, striding into the stables, his spotless jodhpurs, shining black boots, and crisply pressed white shirt in marked contrast to Bertie’s soiled attire.

  “I’ve sent Geoffrey off with Hades, so you can take Gwendolyn. She’s never been one for hedges.”

  “Right away, Mr. Ames,” he said. He turned, tipping his head to me, the lock of blond hair flopping forward. “Good day, Mrs. Ames.”

  “Good day, Bertie.”

  He left the stables and Milo turned to me. “Do you think you should be out here?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Horses can be unpredictable. I shouldn’t like to see anything happen to you.”

  I sighed. I supposed I was simply going to have to put up with being treated like a porcelain doll until the baby arrived. “I don’t intend to throw myself in the way of any trampling horses.”

  He smiled. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  I glanced at the door just in time to see the departing figure of Bertie Phipps disappearing into the sunlight. “Have he and Marena Hodges parted ways?”

  Milo shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  I was not at all surprised that Milo had failed to keep up with the shifting sands of village romance.

  It was curious. Marena had looked so radiant yesterday. Certainly there had been nothing to mark her as a woman who had recently had her heart broken. I suspected the end of the romance had been more her idea than Bertie’s.

  “Were you looking for me, darling?” Milo asked, recalling my attention.

  “Not particularly. Winnelda was stifling me, and I felt the need to escape.”

  “You’d think in a hundred odd rooms you might have evaded her.”

  He was right, of course. Thornecrest was large enough that one could avoid human contact indefinitely if one had a mind to do so. But rooms full of antiques, however lovely, were no substitute for fresh air.

  “I needed to breathe,” I said simply.

  He studied me, then neatly summed up what I was feeling in that easy way of his. “You’re worried about that girl.”

  I nodded. “Among other things.”

  “You rang the inn?”

  “No. I’ve been avoiding it.”

  “You’ll likely find she’s gone when you do. I’d wager we’ll not see her again.”

  “Perhaps not,” I answered. I didn’t know whether to hope he was right or wrong. A part of me supposed it would be better if that were the case, if Imogen had been hoping to get something from me with her lie and, having failed, would not come back. Another treacherous part of me hoped that there was some sort of mischief afoot.

  While I was enjoying this first phase of motherhood, I had to admit that the past few months had also held something akin to tedium. Despite my increasing maternal feelings, my streak of adventure had not been quelled. And things had been exceedingly quiet since we had returned home from New York in November.

  “Come, darling,” Milo said, sliding an arm around me. “I’ll frighten Winnelda away and you can keep me company while I answer some correspondence. I’ve been neglecting responding to some letters; you know how I hate it.”

  “All right.”

  We walked back toward the house in companionable silence. I glanced at Milo as we went. He looked relaxed and happy. He usually appeared that way after he’d spent time with his horses. I felt some of my own tension leave me, as though his contentment was contagious. His arm was still around me, and the solid warmth of him against my side was comforting.

  I was growing accustomed to it, I realized—of finding comfort in his presence. Our marriage had not always been this way; in the past we had been at odds nearly as often as we were in tune. I was immeasurably glad that, with a baby on the way, we were closer than we had ever been.

  We entered the house through the front door and were greeted by Grimes. For the second time in as many days, his normally imperturbable countenance had slipped ever so slightly, and I could tell something was wrong.

  “What is it, Grimes?” I asked as Milo helped me off with my jacket.

  “There is a … gentleman asking to see Mr. Ames.”

  “Who is it?” Milo asked.

  Grimes hesitated. “He refuses to give his name.”

  How very odd. I didn’t know what to think. Everything was normally so quiet here at Thornecrest, and now we were having all manner of excitement.

  Milo let out a short, irritated breath. “It’s probably one of those Americans with the nightclub. They all seem averse to revealing their identities.”

  Since Milo had thrown in his lot with American bootleggers to open a nightclub in London, I didn’t think he had much room for complaint on their unconventional and secretive behaviors.

  “Where is the fellow?” he asked.

  “He’s in the morning room, sir. He … declined to leave until he had spoken with you.”

  “Thank you, Grimes.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I said. “You know I enjoy meeting your underworld friends.”

  Milo gave me a look but did not protest as I followed him toward the morning room. He motioned for me to precede him as we reached the door, and I caught sight of the gentleman standing before the fireplace and looking up at the painting on the wall.

  He turned at the sound of our approach, and I blinked. The strange young man standing in our sitting room looked so much like Milo that I thought for a fraction of a moment Milo had done some feat of magic and entered the room before me without my noticing.

  Milo, it seemed, must have noticed the resemblance as well, for he dispensed with any formalities. “Who the devil are you?” he demanded.

  The young man smiled Milo’s smile. “My name is Darien Ames. I’m your long-lost brother.”

  4

  I’M FAIRLY CERTAIN I must have gaped at him, so startled was I by this announcement. A brother? Surely not. And yet, the proof seemed to be before my eyes as I studied him. He was a bit younger than Milo, but it was uncanny how much he looked like him.

  He smiled at me, and a dimple appeared in one cheek. “Mrs. Am
es, I presume?”

  “Yes,” I said slowly. I was still uncertain as to how to proceed.

  “I’m pleased to meet you. I’ve seen your pictures in the society columns. You’re even lovelier in person, if possible.”

  “Thank you,” I said vaguely.

  I turned to look at Milo for some cue as to how I should react.

  Milo was never better at hiding his emotions than when there was something significant to conceal, and this incident was no exception. To look at him, one would think our visitor was no more noteworthy than a traveling salesman come to try to ply us with his goods.

  “I don’t have a brother,” he said flatly.

  If the young man was discouraged by this less-than-warm welcome, he gave no sign of it. It seemed Milo wasn’t the only one who could hold his countenance.

  “You do, in fact.” His tone was light. “An illegitimate half brother, at least. Our father had a relationship with my mother for several years, until he tired of her and left her with nothing but a broken heart, a baby to care for, and a stain on her reputation. He was a blackguard, through and through.”

  “I don’t know if what you’re saying is true, but if you’re trying to make me angry by insulting my father, you’ll have to try much harder.”

  The smallest smile flickered across the young man’s face, and I was struck again by how much he looked like Milo. From a distance, I imagined they would be nearly indistinguishable.

  The realization came to me suddenly. This was no doubt the man who had married Imogen, the man that Mrs. Busby had seen in the village when Milo had been in London.

  Things were falling into place. It seemed Imogen had married a Mr. Ames after all.

  “You didn’t like our father either then,” he said. “It seems we have something in common besides our looks, despite having been raised in different households.”

  Milo’s face was still impassive, but I knew his gambler’s brain was running things through, trying to determine what the best course of action might be in dealing with this young man. I thought that perhaps I should say something, but for once all my years of society training failed me, and I was at a loss.