Lucille sighed. She thought of the uncharacteristic excitement with which she had hurried to ask Miss Pym for leave from the school, and her pleased surprise when that good lady had cautiously agreed. Her anticipation at visiting Cookes had reached fever pitch by the time Susanna’s summons had arrived. On the day after the meeting at Felixstowe Lucille had rolled into Dillingham village in Susanna’s carriage. A bevy of small children had run alongside the coach, chattering and laughing, but their elders had stood silently on the roadside, watching as she passed by. In her ignorance, Lucille had not considered that significant until this day.
But now…she was wearing borrowed plumes and impersonating a notorious woman who, if Seagrave was to be believed, was not at all welcome in the rural tranquillity of Dillingham. She did not doubt that Seagrave had meant every word he had said when he had threatened to drive her out of the village. Lucille sighed again. Why had she given into the cowardly impulse to play along with the masquerade when it would have been so much more sensible to tell him the truth? Now she really was starting to weave a tangled web through her deception!
There was a tap at the door and Mrs Appleton stuck her head around it. Felicity Appleton had accompanied Susanna to Dillingham when she first claimed Cookes, in the hope, Mrs Appleton had said with a wry smile, that the presence of a reputable older woman might reassure the good villagers of Susanna’s own respectability. It had been an unsuccessful attempt. The small resident staff at Cookes had walked out in a spirit of righteous indignation as soon as their new employer had arrived, and from then onwards Mrs Appleton had had to run the house single-handedly.
‘I do apologise, Miss Kellaway,’ Mrs Appleton said now, her plump, motherly face creased with anxiety. ‘I tried to tell his lordship that you were not receiving, but he would not be gainsaid!’
Lucille laughed at the thought of Mrs Appleton trying to deter the Earl from his visit. Nicholas Seagrave had hardly struck her as the sort of man to brook any opposition.
‘Pray do not concern yourself, Mrs Appleton! His lordship is very forceful, is he not!’
‘A man used to command,’ Mrs Appleton agreed with a twinkle in her eye. ‘I saw him a few times when I was on campaign in the Peninsula with my husband’s regiment. He was one of Wellington’s brightest officers, you know, and an inspirational leader of men!’
Lucille already knew that Mrs Appleton was the widow of an army sergeant killed at Vittoria, though how this pillar of rectitude had fallen in with Susanna was another matter. Lucille had not pried into their connection, and was only grateful that she had both Mrs Appleton’s calm good sense and knowledge of fashion to call upon. The housekeeper had advised her on matters of dress and hairstyle with a patience which Susanna would never have shown, and the result had been surprising. Although Lucille would never achieve the high fashion of her sister, the simple elegance of her new appearance gave her an absurd pleasure that astonished her. She had never been concerned with her dress before, but then, she had not met the Earl of Seagrave before…She shook her head to drive the thought away.
‘Well, would that Seagrave had left his military manners behind in Spain!’ she said crossly, still smarting from the Earl’s arrogant attitude. ‘The man is overbearing to a fault!’
Mrs Appleton laughed. ‘But prodigious attractive!’ she said shrewdly, and did not miss Lucille’s telltale blush. Her smile faded a little. ‘I must own myself vastly surprised to see him,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Your sister may have told you, Miss Kellaway, that Seagrave never spends time on his estates! I can only assume that the furore caused by Miss Susanna’s arrival here has brought him from London! She will be most disappointed to have missed him!’
‘A sorry business then, since I had no wish to meet him at all!’ Lucille said, with a sigh. It was a half-truth, for whilst Seagrave held a mysteriously strong attraction for her, she certainly had no wish for him to think her Susanna. ‘I realise now that I have been very naive about the whole situation!’ She continued wryly, ‘I truly believed that I would not need to meet anyone during my time here, and that Susanna would only be away a week or two.’
Her worried blue eyes met Mrs Appleton’s kind brown ones. ‘You must have wondered, ma’am, how I could ever have lent myself to such a deception! I agreed on impulse, you see, wanting a change from a routine that was becoming irksome, and now I am well served for my folly! I do not mind admitting that I almost confessed the whole to Lord Seagrave, and would have done so had he not appeared so terrifying!’
Mrs Appleton sat down, wiping her floury hands carefully on her apron. ‘Miss Susanna explained to me her concerns about the lease, and that she had persuaded you to come here to represent her interests whilst she was away.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘She told me that you were a…’ she hesitated, then smiled in a kindly fashion ‘…forgive me, a bluestocking, was her description of you! She said that you were looking for a rural idyll in which to walk and read! I must confess, Miss Kellaway, that I thought it a foolish scheme from the outset! How Miss Susanna ever thought that you could impersonate a courtesan, I cannot imagine! You may have had no notion of having to meet people here in Dillingham, but she has no excuse! She must always have known that there was a chance someone would seek her—you—out!’
Lucille raised a hand in rueful protest. ‘Please do not exonerate me of blame entirely, Mrs Appleton! My conscience is happier if I admit to some responsibility! I may not be worldly, but I am not stupid. I should have guessed what might happen! Indeed,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘deep down I probably knew the risk I was taking, but I wanted to escape the school so much that I was prepared to do it!’
There was a silence whilst both of them contemplated the situation. After a moment, Mrs Appleton spoke a little tentatively. ‘I suppose the Earl wants us out of Dillingham? I thought as much, for he has already begun a war of attrition! They will not serve me in the shops, Miss Kellaway, and some most unpleasant things are being said! I would counsel you not to go out into the village. Feeling is running very high!’
Lucille stared at her in growing disbelief. Until that morning it had not occurred to her that the inhabitants of Dillingham would react so badly to her presence among them, but this was all far worse than she could have imagined. She knew that the local gentry would not have condescended to acknowledge Susanna, but that had not worried her as she had had no interest in mixing in rural society. This malicious campaign, though, was another matter again. To be starved out of the village seemed a horrid fate. Mrs Appleton, somewhat shamefacedly, was retrieving something from her apron pocket.
‘I had thought not to trouble you with this, Miss Kellaway,’ she said a little awkwardly, ‘but perhaps you should know…It arrived just like this, with no envelope. Of course, I immediately realised what it was and I will put it in the kitchen fire directly.’
Lucille realised with a sudden shock that it was a letter she was holding out, a letter printed with bold capitals which she could read quite easily, ‘…nothing but a shameless whore and we do not want your sort here…’ She flushed scarlet and looked up at the housekeeper in horrified understanding.
‘An anonymous letter! Oh, Mrs Appleton, how dreadful! But when did it arrive? Who could possibly…?’ Her voice trailed away as she realised that any one of Dillingham’s outraged inhabitants could have composed the missive. Mrs Appleton had not exaggerated when she had spoken of feelings running high.
The housekeeper’s mouth was a grim line as she stuck the offending letter back in her pocket. ‘I am so sorry that you have been exposed to this, Miss Kellaway! The only advice I can offer is that you return to Oakham at once, before matters become even more unpleasant. Can that be arranged?’
Lucille rested her chin thoughtfully on her hand. ‘I cannot return to Oakham for another ten days,’ she said dolefully, ‘for Miss Pym has closed the school and gone to visit Fanny Burney, the authoress, whilst I am away! Only Mr Kingston, the music master, has been left to keep an eye on matters in her absence. It would not be appropriate for me to stay there alone with him—’ She broke off, unable to