LITMIR.BIZ

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The countess stood up, colour bright in her cheeks as she brushed her skirts into order with some emphasis. ‘Forgive me, my dear. I should remember before speaking that you are my levelheaded son!’

      ‘Indeed, Mama.’ Usually undemonstrative, he surprised both of them by leaning over and kissing her cheek. ‘Be kind to Miss Latham for me. I would wish her to feel at ease. Perhaps the girls could lend her a gown or two?’

      A relaxed Nell would be easier to break down, he thought as his valet slipped back into the room. He was aware that his grim expression had Allsop tiptoeing around, but was disinclined to put on a false front for the man. Let Nell relax, enjoy a little luxury. He would be, if not charming, at least civil, and in time her guard would slip. And then he would strike.

      Nell perched on the edge of the big damask-hung bed and tried not to appear impossibly gauche as she stared round the room. Miriam, the maid who had been sent to her, was unpacking her meagre possessions and conferring with another woman who bobbed a curtsy and left. Doubtless to inform the rest of the servants’ hall just how humble the new guest was, Nell thought with a sigh.

      The rich draperies that hung at the windows set off a dusk-darkened view of sweeping parkland, gilded frames surrounded landscapes and portraits. The furniture was frivolous, French and entirely feminine, and Miriam’s footsteps were swallowed up in the deep pile of the carpet.

      There was a dressing room with its own closet and a tub and room for a hundred more gowns than she possessed and it all seemed achingly familiar. Once she had known a room like this, when she had been very, very small. Mama had been there, young and pretty and laughing with a man she knew must be Papa, and she and Nathan and Rosalind had come in to say goodnight and Nell knew, with a deep certainty, that it was always like that when Papa had been with them. Warmth and luxury and laughter.

      The scent had been the same too. Potpourri, sandalwood drawer linings, the aroma of burning apple wood; familiar and long-lost, just as the library smell had been. Which meant that once they really had been wealthy. Not just comfortably off—she could remember those days clearly: the little house in Rye, the modest respectability that had proved so fragile—but wealthy like this. And looking back she realized that Mama’s style of manner and her insistence on deportment reflected the needs of a life quite different from the one they had been living.

      Miriam had set the battered old writing slope on a table with as much care as if it was a costly dressing case. The feel of the tiny key around her neck had Nell pulling it out, turning it between her fingers. Should she open the box, read the diary and the letters? Which was worse? Knowing the truth or imagining it?

      The other maid came back, garments draped over her arms. ‘Lady Honoria and Lady Verity thought you might wish to borrow some gowns, Miss Latham, seeing as how your luggage got lost. And there’s some indoor shoes, miss, just come from the cobblers, that Lady Verity thought would fit.’

      The key on its ribbon slid back under her bodice as Nell got up. So, her face was saved in front of the servants at least. She smiled and tried not to show her emotions at the thought of those pretty gowns, the light fabrics, the big Paisley shawl, the brand-new silk stockings that lay on top.

      ‘Dinner will be in an hour and a half, miss. Would you like to take your bath and to change now?’

      ‘Yes. Thank you.’ Time to get used to her new clothes. Time to practise walking and smiling and chattering of polite nothings so she could survive the first formal meal in this fairy-tale world into which Marcus Carlow had propelled her.

      But her resolution to think of nothing but ladylike behaviour did not survive long once she was dressed and alone in the jewel box of a room. The writing slope seemed to call to her, crouching like a toad in the middle of the polished table.

      Her hands shook as she opened it. Diary or letters? Just one letter, the most recent, that was all she could cope with. The pink silk ribbon was faded with age as she untied the bow and lifted the topmost folded paper. The paper crackled, brittle and yellow, as she smoothed it out. It was clear to read, a strong male handwriting in spluttering brown ink with a pen that had seen better days.

       Newgate.

      Nell dropped the sheet in shock, then forced herself to pick it up again.

       March 16, 1195

       My darling, tomorrow is my last day on earth. I have stopped hoping now that George Carlow will relent, will make any effort to save me. He could, if he wished, I know it. He has the ear of those high enough, if only he will tell the truth about what happened. Why he will not, I do not know. Is it because of that sin I committed that you, my love, have forgiven me for? Could his priggish disapproval of adultery be enough to see me hang when he knows me innocent of the greater crimes for which I am condemned? Or is there some other reason?

       I can hardly believe that. Yet others believe it of me. If it is true, if George is behind this tangle of lies, you must beware. Trust no one, least of all him. He will try and tell you his conscience and his honour dictated his actions, his treachery to his oldest friend. Honour? I hope he has enough to keep away tomorrow. I do not want to go to my Maker with the sight of his face before me.

      Your money they cannot touch. They have taken my title, my lands, my wealth, my name—my life is the least of it. Your dowry is safe. Even at my most profligate, I never touched that. You know where to go, where to hide to start your new life.

       I beg you not to come tomorrow. I want to know you are with the children, that you, at least, are safe. Kiss them for me. Tell them their father loves them as I love their mother. I have not always shown that love as I should, but I give it now, with all my heart. Your devoted husband, to death and beyond, William.

      Her father had hanged for something so awful that they had stripped him of his title. Hanged. That was what the silken rope was about. She remembered now, a nobleman was hanged with that, not with coarse hemp.

      The letter fluttered to the embroidered bedcover and this time she did not pick it up. Papa had gone to his death believing that George Carlow—the Earl of Narborough, that nice man who was so ill—could have saved him, and suspecting that he had the worst of reasons for not doing so.

      Her father had betrayed her mother with another woman and had been forgiven for it.

      Nell stared blindly at the wall. So much made sense now: her mother’s reticence; her aloofness from their neighbours; their quiet, retired life. The money from a fixed income ebbing away inexorably as three children grew up and prices rose. Her bitterness and sadness.

      Had Nathan and Rosalind known the truth? Nathan should have inherited a title, lands. She scrabbled through the pile of letters until she found an earlier one with the address wrapper still intact. The Countess of Leybourne. That made sense now, the memory of someone talking about the Earl of Leybourne when she had been small and of being hushed.

      An earl. Hanged. She had known there had been scandal and tragedy surrounding her father’s death, but not this, never this. A dry sob rose in her throat, but there were no tears. Perhaps it was the shock, but her mind was clear and her hands, as she folded the letter away and turned the key, were steady.

      Courage, she told herself. Somehow her own tragic history had resurfaced; it was too much of a coincidence that she had become accidentally entangled with the Carlows just when someone decided to attack them with the memories of that old scandal. Someone was pulling strings, and she had no idea who or why.

      Now she had to go downstairs, make conversation, sit and break bread with the man who had stood by and let her father hang. If her father’s suspicions were correct, Lord Narborough might even have been guilty of something far worse than abandoning his friend. She had to keep her knowledge secret. If Marcus Carlow found out who she was, he would believe she had every motive in the world for seeing his father dead, for wreaking vengeance on the entire Carlow family.

      There would be a time to let her emotions sweep her away with grief for the past, for her parents. But not now, not while that man

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