Page 15 of My Devoted Viscount (Brazen Bluestockings #2)

Sylvia kept her teacup away from its saucer so she couldn’t rattle them.

Today she had been too busy catching up with transcribing notes that she had not had a chance to go down to the cave and check on Mildred, and inquire why in the world she was walking on the beach so much after dark.

The foolish chit was putting herself in danger!

Perhaps she was hungry, and using the cover of darkness to enhance her disguise as an old woman when she walked down to the pub in Sidmouth for a meal? Sophia fervently hoped Theo had been able to take food and drink to her today.

“If we have him over for dinner, which we should do as good neighbors,” Mrs. Digby said, “we can inquire if there have been any unusual sightings on his property.”

“Oh, yes, excellent idea,” Mrs. Royston said, helping herself to another biscuit. “We could invite a few other neighbors. We haven’t entertained since before Lady Lyttleton’s funeral.”

“Excellent idea,” Lord Fairfax seconded. “It will be good to hear the vicar, Mr. Middlebrook, again. If Mr. Middlebrook is still the vicar?”

Mrs. Digby assured him he was.

Fairfax turned his warm brown eyes on Sophia. “Miss Walden, your playing and voice is as good as you professed at luncheon. Your students must have greatly benefited from your instruction. I’m surprised the Academy let you leave their employ.”

“My departure was not of my choosing, I assure you,” she replied, trying not to sound wistful.

“The headmistress and owner, Madame Zavrina, died in an accident and unfortunately had not made provisions for the school in a will, and so it went to her brother, Mr. Smythe. The assistant headmistress and Miss Hamlin, Madame Zavrina’s assistant, were happy to keep running the school, but Mr. Smythe said he didn’t want to own an establishment run by women.

He closed the school and gave the staff two weeks’ notice to vacate the premises unless we wanted to work for him in his new enterprise. ”

Mrs. Royston leaned close. “What is his new enterprise?”

“He calls it a social club, but everyone knows it’s a brothel.”

Fairfax choked. When his aunts made concerned noises, he held up a hand, indicating he would be fine. After a moment he took another drink of tea. “My condolences on the loss of your livelihood, Miss Walden,” he said.

Sophia inclined her head, not trusting her voice.

He set aside his cup and seated himself at the pianoforte. “Any requests? And whatever they are, I expect to hear four voices.”

They passed another hour making music. Lord Fairfax played the pianoforte as well or better than he had the violin, and not only did he coax the two older ladies to sing, to everyone’s amusement Henry often joined in, howling on the chorus.

As a gentleman, of course Lord Fairfax would have the time and means to become proficient on two musical instruments.

After the discussion they’d had about the Catch Club competition, Sophia expected his voice to be stronger.

He had excellent pitch and breath control, though, and after only hearing and teaching female voices for so long, having a tenor in the mix was a pleasant change.

The next day Sophia again had to refrain from going down to the beach to check on Mildred.

Lord Fairfax and his two aunts left to pay calls on their neighbors, especially Mr. Thorpe.

Sophia was concerned that their view down to the beach from Mr. Thorpe’s home would include seeing Mildred.

As Sophia had been unsuccessful in persuading the adventurous miss to become an official guest of Mrs. Digby, she was hesitant for her employer and Lord Fairfax to see her with Mildred.

Sophia would be unable to answer the most basic of questions about the girl being there alone, unchaperoned, with no family nearby.

The break in new dictation from Mrs. Digby allowed Sophia to work on transcriptions. The paper Lord Fairfax had brought from the London stationer was indeed lovely and smooth to write on, and she made significant progress.

A quick trip to the kitchen in mid-afternoon yielded nothing more than a snack for herself, as not only were the cook and scullery maid present, so was Enid, eyeing Sophia with suspicion. No chance to sneak anything down to the cave for Miss Ebrington.

After dinner, they enjoyed another evening of making music as a foursome—occasionally a quintet when Henry howled—breaking out the songbooks and sheets of music in Mrs. Digby’s cupboards.

Many of the songs she or Mrs. Royston requested were from half a century ago.

Some of the battered books had likely traveled around the world with her as she followed the drum with her Army officer husband.

Lord Fairfax had not mentioned leaving for Italy again.

Sophia felt torn.

While she didn’t need anyone else looking into the story of the “ghost” who had been spotted on the beach several times, she thoroughly enjoyed his presence as a musical collaborator.

His skill on the pianoforte and harpsichord were almost as good as hers, he was better than her on the violin, and his mellow tenor singing voice gave balance to the otherwise all-female chorus when they sang.

And oh my, was he pleasant to look upon.

She steeled herself not to titter like a schoolgirl when he winked at her, not to sigh when he shook his long black hair from his face, and definitely not hold her hand over her heart when he gave her one of those sideways looks, one eyebrow raised, the other lowered, inviting her to join him in mischief.

He was passing through, and soon she would also depart. Much like admiring a painting or statue in a museum, she would enjoy observing his flirtations, but she would not partake. Would not succumb to any temptation. She could not allow anything to tarnish her reputation.

Any day now, she expected responses to the employment inquiries she’d sent before she left her cousin Claire’s home, as well as to those she had sent since arriving at Hobart Grange.

She needed to have another position lined up by the time she completed Mrs. Digby’s memoir.

She could not go back to Claire, whose husband Stanley would demand Sophia’s wages from Mrs. Digby for rent and food.

No matter how tempting Lord Fairfax was as a distraction, she needed to focus on keeping her reputation spotless, keeping Mrs. Digby happy, and finding out about Mildred’s fiancé, Lord Wingfield.

* * *

As soon as Vincent confirmed that Gert and Agnes had retired for their afternoon lie-down the next day, he went to the library.

As expected, Miss Walden was not there. The downstairs maid, Enid, had informed him that Miss Walden tended to go for a walk on the beach in the early afternoons, often with the young footman named Marshall.

Feeling like an intruder, Vincent sat at the desk.

Since Miss Walden had tidied and put away everything, he began looking through the drawers.

Ink pots and pounce pots, quills, penknives, pencils, stacks of blank sheets of paper …

everything one would expect to find in a desk.

In the bottom left drawer, he pulled out a thick stack of papers covered with writing.

In beautiful penmanship was the life history Gert was dictating, its legibility in stark contrast to the hen scratch of Gert’s letters, the lines as straight as if written with a ruler.

He skimmed through pages, recognizing some stories that Uncle Digby had regaled the family with when Vincent was young, others being new to him about Gert’s struggles to find food and fuel for fires at some posts when the Army did not provide, interactions with other wives and hangers-on, and the local people.

Tucked into the stack was a sheet that explained the neatness, at least partly.

Vincent grinned when he saw the single sheet, covered with evenly spaced, thick, solid lines.

As though a ruler was used to make them.

He took a random sheet of text and placed it on top of the lined page, and chuckled when they lined up perfectly. One of Miss Walden’s secrets revealed.

Reminding himself he could read the memoir later, he bent to return the papers to the drawer, in their correct order, when sheets on the bottom of the stack caught his attention.

Entire pages, front and back, covered with swoops and swirls, loops and squiggles, all in pencil, arranged on the page as one might expect to see letters or words. The lines were not as neat as the memoir—some angled up or down, and there were a few clusters off to the side here and there.

What on earth was this? A secret code?

Each page was numbered at the bottom, in the same neat hand as the memoir.

What language could this be? He’d studied Italian, French, Latin, and Greek, could even read a smattering of Cyrillic, but could make no sense of these marks. What was Miss Walden writing?

More importantly, what was she hiding?

Clearly she knew more about the ghost than she’d let on. She became jittery whenever it was mentioned. Was she involved in some secret plot, and he held the plans in his hands?

The Hobart family had owned this property for at least three hundred years.

The house and its sandy beach had been used numerous times for questionable or outright illegal activities, everything from smuggling to hiding those who supported or opposed various political or religious powers.

As a youth he’d spent countless hours playing and exploring the caves and secret tunnels.

Once he’d been stuck in a priest hole in the attic all afternoon when he couldn’t figure out how to work the door latch in the dark after it closed on him.

Thankfully, Aunt Gert knew he wouldn’t intentionally miss a meal and had everyone in the household join the search for him.

Vincent slipped one page of the mysterious script out of the middle of the sheaf, folded and tucked it into his pocket, and put the others back.