Elinor drew in a deep, shivering breath that rattled every bone in her body. With a worried look up at her, Sir Jessamyn leaned even more tightly into her side—but for once, his warm support couldn’t make any difference. Not with her sisters’ letters so close…and so completely out of reach.
“Very well.” Elinor’s shoulders sagged. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
Chapter 14
An hour later, when a different housemaid brought Elinor the message that Miss Penelope was waiting for her in the gold drawing room, it was all that Elinor could do not to hide her head under the covers.
Penelope wanted the famous Mrs. De Lacey to make her country début a success. Benedict Hawkins wanted to protect his friend from Mrs. De Lacey’s nonexistent marital traps. And Sally had laid down her own ultimatum: ‘Mrs. De Lacey’ had to expose Penelope’s friend Lucinda Grace as a thief.
“A thief?” Elinor had gaped at Sally when she’d heard her pronouncement. “Lucinda? Truly?”
“Oh, she’s kept it very quiet,” Sally said. “But believe you me, all the servants know it. You can’t protect any little trinkets that catchhereye whenever she comes into a room. Usually, the gentry just think they’ve gone missing, so no one’s harmed. But then she took it too far.” Sally’s brown eyes narrowed. “Her family had that big supper party last month—do you remember? The one Miss Penelope threw a fit about, because her dressmaker couldn’t get a new gown ready in time?”
Elinor grimaced. “I remember. She didn’t end up going after all.” It was impossible to forget, because Penelope—furiously betrayed by the injustice of life and recalcitrant dressmakers—had made the next few days an abject misery for the rest of the household.
“Of course she didn’t. Couldn’t show off in front of her friends if she didn’t wear a fancy new gown for it, could she?” Sally rolled her eyes. “Otherpeople did, though. And the Graces hushed it all up afterwards, but the truth is, by the end of that evening, Mrs. Knighton was shrieking her lungs out about theft, because her new fan had gone missing.”
Elinor winced, imagining the scene. Mrs. Knighton might be the wife of the local vicar, but Elinor doubted that she had ever listened to a word of her husband’s sermons about charity. “How on earth did they keep that quiet? If Lucinda was caught—”
“Oh,Lucindawasn’t caught. Not her.” Sally crossed her arms. Her round face had looked friendly before, but now it was set in dangerous lines. “No, Lucinda’s no fool, not like that Millie Staverton who only follows her and Penelope around like a puppy-dog. Our Lucinda thought on her feet.”
Elinor’s heart sank. “What did she do?”
“Well. Everyone knows who to blame whenever things go missing, don’t they?” Sally gave a derisive snort as she leaned back in her seat, resting against the dressing table. “No one ever trusts a servant when a fine lady’s weeping. And when Lucinda disappeared for ten minutes, then claimed she’d seen one of the maids take it—said she’d suspected the girl of such things even before…well, then our innocent young miss led them all up to the servants’ quarters, where they found that fanandseveral other pieces that had gone missing in recent times, all tucked up right underneath Daisy’s covers.”
Elinor sighed. It was only too easy to imagine. “What happened to her?”
“Well, she lost her position, didn’t she? She would’ve been hauled up in front of Sir John as the magistrate, too, only the Graces wanted it kept quiet. So she was sent off without any pay or any references and warned not to show her face again in the neighborhood.” Sally’s face tightened, but not quickly enough; Elinor had already spotted the pain mixed in with her fury. “Now she’s been sent away and can’t get another position anywhere, and no one even cares if she ends up starving on the streets, all for the sake of Miss Lucinda’s reputation.”
“Someone cares,” Elinor said, watching her. “Is she a friend of yours?”
“Oh…you might as well know that she’s my sister,” Sally muttered. “I was the one who found her that position—and I talked her into taking it, too, so we’d be close. Butthatdidn’t work out so well, did it?” She gave a jerky shrug and seemed to fold more tightly into herself. “So, she needs a new position.” She looked pointedly at Elinor. “That’s where you come in.”
Reluctantly, Elinor shook her head. “It’s not that I don’t sympathize,” she said, “but you know my situation. I can’t afford to hire her myself. Even if I wrote her a reference, her new employers would only have to ask the real Mrs. De Lacey to discover that it was forged. And—”
“Don’t be daft!” Sally said. “I know all of that. I could write her a reference myself, if all I wanted was a worthless piece of paper that would only get her into evenmoretrouble! Butyoucan see her name cleared after all if you show Lucinda Grace as the lying thief she is.”
“Me?” Elinor stared at her. “What if she doesn’t steal anything in front of me? I can’t accuse her without proof.”
“So you’ll just have to make certain she does steal something.You’reclever; we all know that. So I know you can find a way…if you care enough to try.” Meaningfully, Sally tapped the pocket of her apron, where she’d stashed the packet of letters from Elinor’s sisters.
Elinor dragged her gaze away from the apron, forcing herself to think. “Even if I do expose her, that doesn’t mean your sister will be re-hired. The Graces will hush up any scandal, and the Hathergills will help them, for the sake of Penelope’s friendship. For Lucinda’s family to publicly admit that she’d lied about their maid...I can’t imagine any way they would agree to it.”
“Well, I don’t care what you can imagine,” Sally snapped, “orhow you do it. AllIcare about is fixing what she did to my baby sister, no matter what it takes!” She stood up, her colour high, and shoved her loose strands of hair back into place underneath her cap, shaking out her shoulders and jerking her chin high. “So, youwillexpose Lucinda within the week, Miss Elinor, or I’ll make sureeveryoneknows who you really are. Then you’ll be the one facing magistrate’s charges…andyou’ll lose these letters for good. Do you understand me?”
All too well. But in the hour that had passed since that conversation with Sally, Elinor still hadn’t managed to come up with a sensible solution to the problem.
There was only one consolation she could find, as she walked down the staircase to the gold drawing room. If they really were to hash out all the interminable details of Penelope’s début, then it would be only reasonable to order plenty of tea and cakes as accompaniment. Sir Jessamyn wasn’t the only one who was starving, after they had both missed luncheon. If Elinor was really lucky, her mind might start to work better once she’d eaten.
Unfortunately, when she stepped into the drawing room, the sight before her turned her stomach.
“Oh, I shouldn’t even be speaking to you!” Penelope waved her embroidery frame threateningly at Benedict Hawkins as she shifted away from him on the couch—but Elinor knew her cousin, and she was not fooled.
Penelope would never be caught dead near household mending, but she embroidered beautifully, and she brought out her embroidery frame whenever she wished to look particularly feminine, accomplished and industrious. She had begun this particular piece long before Elinor had first arrived at Hathergill Hall, and she was still nowhere near finishing it...but visitors always oohed and aahed over it, and even Elinor had to admit that it was truly beautiful—a cluster of bright flowers and vibrant green leaves that spilled across the fabric in a design of Penelope’s own invention.
As Penelope batted Mr. Hawkins’s arm with it, pretending—adorably—to scowl, sunlight poured through the windows onto them both and surrounded them in a golden glow. Neither of them had noticed Elinor’s arrival yet. Lucinda and Millie, on the opposite couch, were far too busy ogling the spectacle before them, and whispering excitedly to each other, to take note of anything else short of an explosion.
“Youpromised to sit beside me all through luncheon to protect me, and what did you do but disappear? So for all your fine words now—”
