Counterfeit Earl. Anne Herries

you back. I understand the request came from the Earl of Heggan, and since it is a command from the Regent that I accede to that request, I can only obey.”

      An immediate return to England was the only avenue open to Jack since his commander had given the order, but the resentment was eating at his guts as he turned away. Since he was ordered to return to England, he would do so, but nothing on this earth should make him return to that lonely, forlorn house in which he had been born. If the Earl of Heggan wished to speak to his grandson, he would have to come in search of him.

      Jack had made a vow never to return to his father’s house long ago, and he was determined to keep it!

      “Is that a letter from Beatrice by any chance?” asked Mr Bertram Roade as he entered the parlour that afternoon in late June 1812 and discovered his youngest daughter frowning over her correspondence. “What does your sister have to say, Olivia?”

      “She writes to ask me to visit her,” replied Olivia, glancing up with a smile. She suspected that Papa was missing Beatrice more than he admitted. “She and Harry are going to Brighton soon and would like me to accompany them.”

      “Ah…” Mr Roades eyes gleamed behind his spectacles. “I wonder if this would be a good time for me to begin my work at Camberwell? I have made excellent strides since I last spoke to Ravensden.”

      “Bellows brought a letter for you, too, Papa,” Olivia said. “It is there on the sideboard. I suspect that it may be from Lord Ravensden.”

      “I shall read it immediately. Harry always writes such interesting letters. Excellent mind, excellent mind.”

      Mr Roade pounced on the small packet with evident pleasure, smiled at his daughter and went off to his study, leaving Olivia in sole possession of the parlour.

      She did not immediately return to her letter, laying it down on the little occasional table beside her, together with her embroidery and a book of poems she had been reading when their manservant brought the mail. Her sister’s letter had made her restless.

      Since Beatrice’s marriage to Lord Ravensden six months earlier, she had written several times to ask Olivia to stay with her. Until now, Olivia had made various excuses, the most truthful that she felt she needed to spend a little time with her father and Aunt Nan.

      Getting up from her seat, Olivia sighed and wandered over to the window to glance out at the view. Roade House was set on a little rise just at the outskirts of the village of Abbot Giles. On a clear summer afternoon like this one, she could see the church spire and some of the rooftops of the village houses…and in the distance the brooding presence of Steepwood Abbey.

      How that place haunted her! There had been such shocking happenings at the Abbey these past months, culminating in the recent news that the Marquis had been brutally murdered in his bedchamber with his own razor.

      A shudder ran through Olivia as she reflected on the strangeness of fate. Only a few months back, when she had first come to live with Beatrice and her father in Abbot Giles, they had all been agog at the news that the young Marchioness had disappeared. Olivia herself had been certain that Lady Sywell had been murdered by her brute of a husband, and despite all the rumours since, the most recent of which seemed to lay the blame for the Marquis’s murder at his wife’s door, she still wondered if Lady Sywell’s body had been concealed somewhere in the grounds of the Abbey.

      Olivia did not believe for one moment that the Marchioness was the murderer of her cruel husband. If the stories were to be believed, there had been a terrible fight, the Marquis having put up a struggle for his life. He had been a large man, built like a bull and strong. A woman would surely not have had the strength to overcome him.

      No, Olivia thought, it could not have been his wife. Yet whoever had done it must have known the Abbey well. There had been wild rumours circulating in the village, but Olivia believed it must have been an itinerant journeyman or perhaps a servant who had been unfairly dismissed.

      In the past few months there had been tales of a hoard of gold sovereigns allegedly stolen by the Marchioness in her flight from the dominance of her husband, though since the tale had apparently come from a laundress, who could know if it was true? And now the villages were reeling with the shocking news that Lord Sywell had been murdered on the evening of the 9th of June.

      Naturally, no one had talked of anything else since. Despite the general dislike felt by local people, Lord Sywell was nevertheless a member of the aristocracy and there was bound to be a thorough investigation of the crime. Some people were saying that the Regent himself had ordered a report to be made directly to him.

      Olivia had not been near the Abbey grounds since that terrible morning in November the previous year, when Sywell had threatened her sister with a blunderbuss. Although Lord Ravensden’s brave action had diverted his attention, and Olivia’s own actions had caused the Marquis’s shots to go wide, they had resulted in Harry falling from his horse and so nearly ended in a tragedy. The whole affair had given Olivia an acute dislike of the place and its master, and these days she stayed well clear whenever she went walking.

      Since her sister’s wedding, she had been making friends with various young women in the four villages. One of her particular friends was Lady Sophia, daughter of the Earl of Yardley, but Sophia had gone up to town earlier in the year and after a brilliant Season was engaged to be married. Robina Perceval, daughter of the vicar at Abbot Quincey, had also been in London. However, in the last letter Olivia had received from her, Robina had told her that she’d been invited to go down to Brighton.

      Olivia sighed again. It was foolish of her to feel so low, but she could not help herself. Her life was so very different these days.

      “Is something wrong?” asked Nan, coming in behind her. “Why don’t you go for a walk, Olivia? It is a pleasant afternoon, and you might meet someone.”

      Olivia turned and smiled at her aunt. She was a pretty, delicate girl with fine dark brows, and her hair was a wonderful, honey blonde: an unusual combination, which always made people look at her a second time. Her eyes were blue, though at times they could take on a greenish tint, but it was when she smiled that her beauty really showed through.

      “Is it so obvious that I am moping?” she asked, knowing that Nan did not have as much sympathy for her as her sister had always shown. “I know I should not. It is just that I miss Beatrice.”

      “You are not the only one in this house who misses her,” Nan said, and frowned. “Why do you not go and stay with her? She has asked you often enough.”

      “She has written to ask me to accompany her and Harry to Brighton next month,” Olivia said, wrinkling her brow. “Do you think I should go, Nan?”

      “Most of your friends will be there,” Nan said. “You will have to face up to it one day, Olivia. You cannot hide in this house for the rest of your life…unless you mean to go into a decline?”

      “No, no, I do not mean to do that,” Olivia replied. “And I am not afraid of facing people, Nan. Besides, Harry has told everyone that the talk of my having jilted him was simply a mistake, that we agreed to part on a mutual wish… because he had fallen in love with my sister. People may not believe it in their hearts but if he says it is so they will accept it, and of course no one will criticise him, because of who he is.”

      “Money and power will sway most,” admitted her aunt. “And you cannot blame people for being shocked, though I believe you did the right thing in the end. I am sorry the Burtons treated you so harshly, my dear. It was unkind of them to turn you out simply because you decided you did not wish to marry Lord Ravensden—but by staying here in obscurity, you are giving them best. Lord Ravensden settled a generous sum on you. Why don’t you make some use of it? Show all the scandalmongers that you are more than a match for them!” She smiled at Olivia. “I know you sometimes feel I am not as understanding as I might be, my dear, but it is only my way. I should like to see you happy, and that is something you are obviously not at this moment.”

      “I have tried to be content here with you and Papa,” Olivia said, “truly I have, Nan. It is