Page 45 of The Untamed Heart

Lucius nodded with satisfaction. “Well, that’s all right, then. We can be on our way at once.”

“We most certainly cannot,” Sherry said in disgust. “I’m not going anywhere with you until you have scrubbed yourself with carbolic soap. We shall find an inn, and I shall have a brandy to steady my nerves whilst you remember you are a gentleman.”

“Lord, but you’re a dreadful snob,” Lucius said, shaking his head.

“I am nothing of the sort,” Sherry retorted, stung by the accusation. “But I see no need to get myself filthy to prove the point.”

“Well, there’s an inn right there, we could—”

“And risk you rushing back to the bosom of your new friends? I think not.” Sherry rapped loudly on the roof of the carriage, which rocked into motion.

Lucius folded his arms and glowered at Sherry, who ignored him. The sooner they found Major Keller and retired from this life of insanity, the better, for he hardly dared imagine what Lucius might get up to next.

Chapter 13

Regrets, I’ve Had a Few

Hatherley Hall, Little Valentine, East Sussex, 27th September 1816

“Hell and the devil!”

“Alexander! Language,” reprimanded the dowager, raising her head from the novel she was devouring to glare at him. Which was rich, really, for she had a rather salty turn of phrase when she was in a temper.

All the same, Alex resisted the temptation to throw Sheringham’s letter into the fire and let out a breath. “I beg your pardon.”

The old lady waved this away and set her book in her lap, her shrewd blue eyes fixed upon him. “Whatever is the matter? You’ve been out of temper ever since you got caught out in that downpour. Have you caught a chill?”

“I have not,” Alex replied, though he wished he had.

He wished he’d caught bloody pneumonia rather than taken shelter with Clara. Anything to save him from speaking those cruel words, words he had not meant in the way she had believed, but what did that matter? He had hurt her. Somehow, in doing so, he had hurt himself too. That was what he did not understand. Yes, he should feel guilt and remorse for having hurt his friend’s feelings, but why did the wound fester and nag so savagely?

He had returned to her house twice since then, ready to make an abject apology, but on the first occasion he had met the Misses Brumley out walking just as he reached Willow House, and he did not dare cause gossip about Clara, so he’d carried on his way. The second time, she had evidently not been at home. Either that, or she had refused to answer his knock. He’d not knocked a second time for fear of alarming her aunt if she really was not there. She would not thank him for that.

“Well, what is in this letter that has made you so out of reason cross?”

Alex frowned at his grandmother and then returned his attention to the matter at hand. “You have said nothing about this trouble of Marcus’s to anyone?”

She returned a glare that might have etched glass and Alex hurried on.

“No, of course not. Well, Sheringham and Lord Darenth have been trying to determine the source of that anonymous letter. They discovered there had been an order to tell Marcus to retreat; Darenth has traced it as far as Major Keller. Heaven alone knows how he did it, for it must have been a needle in a haystack. Anyway, this Keller had assigned it to a courier whom they are also trying to trace. When they went to speak to Keller, it was to discover he had left his lodgings with money owing.”

“Yes, yes, you told me all this,” Gee-Gee said impatiently. “What news is there now?”

Alex glowered down at the letter again before folding it neatly and tucking it away in his waistcoat pocket.

“Nothing very satisfactory, but Keller looks increasingly suspicious. Lucius told us the blackmail note was written on paper made at Martha Lay’s paper mill in Kent. Well, they have confirmed that Keller’s family bought paper directly from that very mill. They went to the family home, and his father confirmed his son was Major Keller and had been there until the previous day. He only made a brief visit—for money, reading between the lines—and then he left.”

“A lively fellow, this captain,” Gee-Gee remarked. “Anyone would think he feared someone was after him.”

Alex snorted. “I don’t doubt there are many someones. A fellow who leaves his lodgings unpaid has likely other debts, and those won’t be owed to landladies but rather more serious fellows, the kinds one does not escape with all limbs intact.”

Gee-Gee shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, you do not care if he’s put to bed with a mattock and tucked up with a spade, one supposes, so what is it that troubles you?”

Alex eyed his grandmother dubiously. “You worry me at times, Gee-Gee.”

The old lady gave a wicked chuckle. “Just because I look like butter wouldn’t melt—”

“Oh, believe me, I learned that lesson a long time ago, you wicked creature,” he said with a huff. “And what troubles me is that, if this fellow is the blackmailer, he might not stop at threatening letters.”