Page 15 of The Incident at Ingleton (Beau Monde Secrets #3)

F rank did not come back on Monday or Tuesday, as originally planned. Instead, he sent a letter saying that Montgomery’s health had worsened; the end was approaching faster than anticipated. The poor man had no family nearby, so Frank planned to stay on hand to comfort and to minister to his friend in his last days.

No one liked this delay. Though Rose felt sorry for poor Mr. Montgomery, she thought it vastly unfair that her husband should be called out of town when her expected date of confinement was so close. Meanwhile, Neville Butler lingered in Ingleton during Frank’s absence, covering the religious services at St. John’s. Hester waited anxiously for Butler’s next move, certain that he had not given up the fight.

During the last week of June, summer warmth blanketed the town, and children played on the green late into the long summer evenings. Rose’s due date came and went, taking with it her usually cheerful disposition. She grumbled about her discomfort, complained about the warm weather, and wondered whether her baby would ever arrive.

Rose experienced occasional contractions, but they stayed a good five or ten minutes apart, never coming closer together. Her doctor called it “false labor” and warned her that true labor might still be weeks away. Rose was not best pleased by this information.

In the meantime, the nursery stood ready and waiting for the baby, and Rose interviewed and hired a monthly nurse who moved into the already-crowded servants’ quarters so she’d be on hand for labor and delivery.

On Wednesday, the mercury in the thermometer climbed to its highest yet. Hester and Rose lounged in the garden, hoping to catch a breeze. At first, Rose fanned herself and groused about the heat. Then she fell silent, lay down her fan, and closed her eyes, apparently lulled to sleep.

Hester kept moving her chair in an attempt to find the best shade. The warmth did not bother Hester, but the bright afternoon light exacerbated the headache she’d been nursing all day. Left to herself, she would have preferred to rest indoors, with the curtains drawn against the light. She’d only come out to the garden to keep Rose company.

One of the housemaids stepped out of the house, shading her eyes against the light. “Lady Hester? Mr. Haworth has called and wishes to speak to you.”

Hester looked up from her sewing. Rose opened her eyes, apparently not asleep after all. “To see both of us, or just Hester?” she clarified.

The nervous maid twisted her apron. “He only said Lady Hester, ma’am.”

Hester exchanged a puzzled look with Rose. It must be something to do with Neville Butler, Hester guessed. Had Butler made some new threat? What more could he do than he’d already done? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Just thinking of the possibilities made her palms sweat.

“I will meet him,” she told the maid. “He is in the parlor, I presume?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Daisy. You may tell him that I will be there in a minute. And please fetch a pot of tea for us, if you will.”

While the maid hurried to pass on the message, Hester took a moment to tidy her wind-blown hair and brush off her gown. She wished she had a looking glass on hand, but she did not want to go all the way to her room first. That would make it look as if she were deeply concerned about her appearance, which of course was not true. There was no need to make a special effort for Mr. Haworth.

Hester drew a deep breath and stepped back into the house. After the bright light of the sun-drenched garden, the corridor seemed downright Stygian. Each step she took sounded unnaturally loud, leaving her feeling like an iron-shod draft horse.

She found Walter Haworth in the parlor, pacing back and forth in front of the window. He turned towards her the moment the door opened. The slanting afternoon sunlight gilded his hair and glinted off his spectacles, making him look unexpectedly prepossessing.

He ceased his pacing and stood before her. “Lady Hester, thank you so much for meeting with me today! I promise not to take up too much of your time.” His deep voice, sounding both firm and unflappable, could have reassured a herd of skittish deer.

“You are very welcome.” Though his confidence reassured her, Hester still spoke more softly than usual, because finding the right words had become surprisingly difficult. “Won’t you have a seat, Mr. Haworth?”

She herself sat on what she knew to be hardest, least comfortable chair in the room. She needed the support of the straight back, because something fluttered in her stomach, making her feel oddly shaky.

Strangely, Hester felt more nervous around Mr. Haworth now than she had when they first met, weeks ago. She could not imagine why that would be the case. By now, he’d proven himself to be a perfect gentleman in nature, if not by birth.

“Thank you,” he repeated. “I would not have troubled you with this matter, if your brother were available. However, I am leaving town tomorrow and I doubt he will return in time for me to speak to him. I thought it best to speak to at least one member of the Bracknell family.”

Hester’s mouth went dry. She swallowed heavily, wishing she had a cup of tea. Ought she to ring for tea? “What matter do you speak of?” His solemn expression suggested it must be bad news of one sort or another.

Mr. Haworth took off his glasses, pulled out a handkerchief, and polished the lenses. “This is very awkward to explain. As you know, I needed a sample of Mr. Butler’s writing in order to investigate some criminal activity.” He put his spectacles back on and looked up with a little more confidence. “By the way, I must thank you again for giving me that note about the poems. It looks perfect for our purposes. In fact, I am on the way to Bristol to give the paper to Mr. Hunt, the handwriting expert assisting with this case.”

“You are very welcome,” Hester assured him. “I am glad to have been of service.” She glanced at the door, realizing that she’d let it fall closed, rather than propping it open for the sake of propriety. If anyone walked in on them, what would they think? “Was that all you had to say?”

“No.” He cleared his voice, looking as nervous as Hester felt. “As I was saying, I needed a piece of Butler’s writing. Before you gave me that excellent sample, I—well, I must confess that I searched Mr. Butler’s guestroom in the hopes of finding a useable piece of writing.” The tips of his ears turned bright red.

Hester blinked. “Oh my,” she said, because some response seemed to be necessary. She didn’t think it would be helpful to ask, “Weren’t you ashamed of snooping through his personal effects?” or “What has this to do with me?” even though she wondered about both questions.

“I did not find what I wanted.” Mr. Haworth drew a deep breath and continued, although he kept looking away from Hester. He stared out the window, as if there were something positively riveting about the summer day. “But I found a letter that I thought you—or your brother—might be interested in. You see, it mentions the Bracknell family by name. And it refers explicitly to you.”

“It does?” Hester spoke more sharply than she’d intended. He had her full attention now.

Mr. Haworth pulled a folded letter out of his pocket. “Yes. You can see right here, the paragraph beginning ‘Be sure.’ I circled the relevant part with a pencil.”

He handed her the letter, and she peered down at it. The circled text made the selected passage easy for her to find. Unfortunately, it did not make for easy reading.

Be sure to let me know how your heiress trap works. You’ve chosen a good target. The Bracknell family is particularly vulnerable now , thanks to L. having blackmailed C two or three years ago. The plan failed when C. fled the country, but L. assures me that he still has the stolen letters and is prepared to use them if C. ever returns. I suspect Reading will agree to well-nigh anything to keep the family name from being further sullied.

A sour taste filled Hester’s mouth. She had no idea who L. was, but C. must be her brother, Lord Crowthorne. At a winter house party two and a half years ago, he had stolen a fortune’s worth of jewelry, only to lose the jewels when a Bow Street Runner found them. Over and over in her head, she wondered: blackmailed for what ? What could Crowthorne have done that was so terrible he’d steal his own mother’s jewelry to silence his blackmailer?

The letter began to shake as her hands trembled. She handed the paper back to Mr. Haworth and clasped her hands together, hoping to still the tremor.

“Yes, I know. I have no idea whether that is true; you might know better than I.” He looked at her expectantly.

She shook her head. “In the note he left for my mother, Crowthorne said only that he needed the money to cover debts of honor. That was all the reason he gave us.” Everyone had assumed that “debts of honor” meant gambling debts, though they’d not previously realized he had a gaming habit.

Crowthorne had only written home once since then, to announce that he’d arrived safely in America. He hadn’t even given them an address at which they might contact him. He’d told them not to worry, but Hester knew her mother worried her heart out, anyway. How could she not? As for their father, well, the Marquis simply refused to discuss his eldest son.

“I don’t know if this has occurred to you,” Mr. Haworth said diffidently, “but if you ever needed evidence of Mr. Butler’s scheme to compromise you, this might help make your case.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.” All her attention had been consumed by the references to her older brother. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to find out who this L. person is?”

Mr. Haworth hesitated. “Mr. Butler might be able to tell us that, but I rather doubt that he would be willing to talk.”

Hester nodded, since she’d expected that. “May I keep this letter? I would like to show it to Frank when he comes home.”

She hoped he’d know what, if anything, they should do with this information. Hester herself had no idea whether her parents should be informed about the blackmail. If there was nothing that could be done to help Crowthorne, there might be no point in revealing the contents of the letter.

“Of course!” Mr. Haworth smiled crookedly. “I only wish there was more I could do to help you, my lady. It is most unfair that your family has been targeted in this way.”

Hester returned his smile. “You have been immensely helpful already,” she assured him. “I am in your debt.”

At that moment, Daisy returned, bearing a heavily laden tea tray. Hester did her best to set aside all her questions so she could play hostess. “Can I offer you any refreshments?”

Mr. Haworth shook his head and rose to his feet. “I thank you, no. I had best return to the castle and ready my things for tomorrow’s journey.”

“Then I must wish you safe travels.” She offered him her hand in farewell.

He took her hand, squeezed it gently, then bowed a farewell to her. She stared after him a moment before sitting down to brew the tea. She needed liquid sustenance after the revelation about Crowthorne, and she hoped the homely business of drinking tea would restore her composure.

Rose returned from the garden to take tea with her. When she entered the room, she shot a curious look at Hester, but something about Hester’s face must have dissuaded her from asking any questions about the encounter with Walter Haworth.

Instead, she settled herself comfortably on the sofa, then asked, “Did you hurt your hand?”

“Hmm? What do you mean?” Hester stared blankly at Rose. At the moment, the only pain she felt was the dull ache of her fading megrim.

“You keep rubbing your right hand,” Rose explained. “I thought you must have somehow injured it. Did you burn it on the teapot?”

“Oh!” Hester glanced down at her hand. She had been cradling it in her left hand without realizing it. “No. Um. Not exactly. Something just irritated it.”

Irritated was not really the right word, but even if Hester had known the correct word, she would’ve been too embarrassed to say it. Ever since Walter Haworth squeezed her hand, she’d been hyperaware of it, as if his touch haunted her.

She wasn’t starting to fancy Mr. Haworth, was she? Oh, how foolish! She had just escaped a potentially scandalous situation with Mr. Butler. She could not afford to develop a tendre for a man whom her parents would undoubtedly consider ineligible. That way lay nothing but heartache!