Lady Silence (29 page)

Understand?
She was positively basking in his protection. Removing her
from her legal guardian was quite impossible, of course, but
somehow she had never felt so protected since the moment her
Grandfather Challenor died. It was quite, quite
wonderful.

Even if Damon had not a legal leg to stand
on.

If only he would continue to hold her like
this . . . and never, ever let her go.

~ * ~

While Katy waited for the axe to fall, life
in Brock Street ran at an agonizingly sedate pace. Mornings in the
Pump Room, walks in the park, shopping, visits to the lending
library, an evening in the Lower Rooms with a string quartet so
somnolent that Katy was unable to keep her beasts at bay. While the
music droned on, her head whirled with every misguided decision she
had ever made, every disaster she had surely brought down upon
herself, and visions of the appalling events that might could occur
if she were to reveal herself as the true Lucinda Challenor.

The warmth of Damon’s embrace was not
renewed, though Katy clung to the memory, hoping against every
reality that it was an augury of things to come. The colonel did,
however, accompany her on her morning rides. Though he said little
beyond punctilious inquiries about her health, her plans for the
day, or the vast improvement in the weather, somehow they
recaptured much of the camaraderie that had frequently marked their
days at Farr Park. Yet beneath this smooth façade Katy felt the
tension. It was as if they were suspended in time, waiting . . .
waiting for something momentous to happen. The birth at Castle
Moretaine, expected within the month?

Or was the colonel waiting on Baron Oxley?
Waiting and watching . . . daring him to attempt to take Katy
back.

Yet how could he? Lord Oxley already had a
Lucinda Challenor.

If only he would say
something . . . tell her what was going on
.

The colonel bowed and nodded to his mama’s
friends . . . he tolerated the predatory thrusts of the Hardcastle
ladies with commendable graciousness. Or so twittered Lady
Moretaine’s friends. The colonel did not, however, sample the
waters. The countess’s friends took a good long look at his erect
carriage, broad shoulders, and decisive manner, and decreed that it
was quite obvious Colonel Farr did not need the waters.

And then one perfect spring day everything
changed. With the brilliance and unexpectedness of a lightning
strike out of a clear blue sky, Katy Snow’s world was turned upside
down. Her first inkling that this day would be different was when
she woke to unusual bustle in the house on Brock Street. “We are
expecting guests for tea,” Serena Moretaine informed her. “Wear
your rose muslin with the lace inserts, child. And have Clover do
your hair. I wish you to look your very best.”

Katy blinked. “Yes, my lady.” But when
she questioned Damon, he would say nothing beyond the mild
observation that he believed a rather large number of guests was
expected.
Maddening man!
He
and the countess were keeping something from her, she knew it. She
was nineteen years old, no longer a child. They had no right to be
so mysterious.

They had every right, of course. They were
her employers.

Katy shook her head, withdrawing into
herself. The arrogance of her childhood seemed to cling forever.
Would she never learn that, to these people—for all their charity
and condescension—she was nobody?

“
Mama, you will please sit in your
usual place at the tea table,” Damon directed later that afternoon
as the countess and Katy arrived in the drawing room. “And, Katy,
since there is to be rather a large crowd for such a modest-sized
drawing room, would you kindly sit on the tabouret by the
pianoforte? There you will look quite at home and make more room
for our guests.”

She was not to have a chair, when the
room was spilling over with them, with at least six chairs from the
dining room brought in to augment the fine upholstered furniture
that customarily graced the Brock Street drawing room?
Goodness!
It appeared attendance at
this tea party would rival the one at Castle Moretaine, but in
one-tenth the space. Katy sat tall and straight on her backless
bench, carefully adjusting her rose muslin skirts around her. She
might be shunted off against the wall, but she would follow the
countess’s admonition to look her best. There had to be a
reasonable explanation for all this.

“
Lord and Lady Oxley,” Jesse announced.
“Miss Hardcastle, Miss Challenor.”

Oh, no!
The
Hardcastles
here
? What had
Damon done? For a moment, Katy swayed on her bench, then, gritting
her teeth, she lifted her chin and stared into space as the four
guests were seated. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the
dowager pouring tea. When Damon brought her a cup, Katy’s hands
betrayed her, shaking so hard the colonel was forced to place the
cup on a side table. With his back to the room to hide his gesture,
he put his hand over hers. “Courage,” he whispered. “All will be
well.”

She was in a room in close quarters with the
Hardcastles and a female pretending to be herself. She might love
the blasted man, but Katy was not reassured.

Oddly enough, as the guests drank tea,
sampled delicate pastries, and chatted, the other chairs in the
room remained empty. Where were the other guests?

Oh, yes, something was happening here that
did not meet the eye. Katy sat with her hands in her lap, unable to
swallow so much as a mouthful of the fragrant tea. Her throat was
dry, but if she attempted to drink, she would undoubtedly commit
the heinous crime of spilling tea into her saucer. So she sat and
suffered. And waited.

Colonel Farr rose to his feet, waved his hand
about the room at the empty chairs. “Undoubtedly, you are wondering
about our other guests,” he said in the mildest of tones. “And you
are quite right. This is a very strange sort of gathering. Our
other guests are currently enjoying tea in one of our rear
parlors.”

Baron Oxley set down his glass of Madeira
with a decided thump.

“
We are about to attend my own version
of an assize,” the colonel continued. “For this special private
session I have brought together a fine collection of
dei ex machina
, for whose testimony
I find myself organizer, moderator . . . and judge. Though I expect
by the time we are finished here, no one will be in doubt about the
truth.”

He was going to expose
her!
Katy clutched the sides of the tabouret and hung
on tight. She had never fainted in her life. She would not
now.

The colonel moved the imposing petit-pointed
arm chair brought in from the head of the dining room table to a
prominent position just to the left of the door from the corridor.
“Wiggs,” he declared , “you may bring in the first witness.”

The only sound to be heard as a well-dressed
man of middle years entered the room was a gasp from Katy Snow. The
Hardcastles were expressionless. Evidently, the so-called witness
was a stranger.

The colonel waved the gentleman to the
prepared seat. “Will you please be good enough to state your name,
your occupation, and why you are here,” Damon said.

“
I am Charles Farleigh, Rector of
Pembridge-on-Steyne,” said the gentleman in the rounded tones of a
man accustomed to delivering sermons. “But at one time I was
privileged to assist the Bishop of Hulme. And there I was
acquainted with the bishop’s granddaughter, Lucinda Challenor. A
remarkable child, fully worthy of the information the bishop
stuffed into her head. Though the purpose of Latin for a female, I
admit I never could understand.”

“
Precocious, was she? Miss Challenor,”
the colonel purred, “perhaps you would care to translate,
‘
Veni, vidi, vici
,’ for
us.”

“
Do not be absurd! I do not do tricks
like some circus monkey.” But the alleged Miss Challenor had turned
decidedly pale.

“
Katy . . . perhaps you would care to
tell us.”

The fiend!
But
had she not once been the obnoxious little blue stocking who loved
to demonstrate her knowledge. “I came, I saw, I conquered,” Katy
stated clearly.

“
Indeed.” The colonel nodded his
approval. “Mr. Farleigh, I realize it has been some years since you
saw Miss Challenor, but do you happen to see her here in this
room?”

The rector turned a slow, indulgent smile
toward Katy Snow. “I had thought it might be difficult after so
long, but the young lady has changed only in becoming more of a
beauty than she was as a child. There, sitting on the bench, that
is Lucinda Challenor.”

Not bothering to hide his smile of triumph,
Damon thanked the rector and directed him to another chair.

Katy’s eyes shone as a second acquaintance
was shown in.

“
Please state your name and why you are
here.”

“
Martin Trembley, solicitor,” said the
man now seated in the witness chair. “During the course of an
investigation requested by a client, I became aware of
certain—ah—irregularities in regard to Miss Lucinda Challenor. Her
long absence from the shelter of her family, her miraculous
rediscovery, the seeming disappearance of the dowry left to Miss
Challenor by her grandfather, the Bishop of Hulme.”

“
Was this a large sum of money, Mr.
Trembley?”

“
Large enough. The bishop willed some
of his fortune to charity and to the church, but a dowry of
twenty-five thousand pounds was reserved for Miss
Challenor.”

“
And it is gone?”

There was a strangling sound from the
upholstered chair occupied by Lord Oxley. He tore at his cravat,
his face turning purple.

“
I went to London and consulted with
the bishop’s primary solicitors,” Mr. Trembley continued. “Not a
sign that the money was ever held in a separate trust account for
Miss Challenor. It simply . . . disappeared.”

“
Thank you.” Damon waved the solicitor
into one of the empty side chairs.

“
Mrs. Matthias Alburton, Mr. John
Alburton,” Jesse Wiggs announced from the doorway.

Katy stared . . . but could not see
them for the tears that rushed to her eyes. Her grandmother? Her
uncle?
Oh, no, not possible. It could not
be.

The colonel stepped forward to draw up
another chair, but Mr. Alburton waved him aside. Although a
middle-aged man not much over medium height, he had the dignity and
bearing of one accustomed to authority. Here in this bastion of
the
ton
, he stood four-square
beside his mother’s chair, regarding the colonel with proud
attention.

“
Ma’am,” said Damon, addressing the
white-haired woman seated in the witness chair, “would you please
tell us your relationship to Miss Lucinda Challenor?”

“
She is my dear granddaughter, who was
taken from me after only a few weeks in our care. I was
heart-broken. First my daughter, then the baby.” Emily Alburton
faltered. Her son gripped her shoulder, and after a moment she
continued. “We tried so hard to keep watch over her, to know all
was well with her. When the bishop died, we thought to get her back
at last . . . but she went to a Challenor, of course. To Lady
Oxley. In spite of our disappointment, it seemed a just decision,
for there was a girl her own age, but . . .”

This time, when Mrs. Alburton faltered,
Jonathan Alburton took up the tale. “Lucinda had been gone from the
Hardcastles for nearly a year before word got back to us. A child
of her years, alone. I sent out an army of men, those who already
worked for me, and professional investigators from London as well.
Nothing. We never gave up hope, but I was forced to counsel my
mother that we must expect the worst.”

“
I knew he was right . . . that we
should never see the dear child again,” Emily Alburton said, “but
always I hoped. And then the miracle.” She turned accusing eyes on
each of the Hardcastles, finally resting them on the alleged
Lucinda. “I was so beside myself with joy when we heard you had
been found.” Mrs. Alburton’s face turned grim. “But when I met you,
I saw nothing of my daughter in you. Nothing of my sisters, my son
. . . or of his children. Once again, I was heartsick . . . and
thoroughly confused.”

“
Fortunately,” Jonathan Alburton said,
“I am trustee for the sixty thousand pounds and have the right to
withhold it until Lucinda’s twenty-fifth birthday. Therefore, the
inheritance is still intact, awaiting confirmation of my niece’s
identify.”

“
I do not suppose you have a portrait
of Miss Challenor?” Damon inquired with bland innocence.

Jonathan Alburton held out an arm, and Jesse
Wiggs presented him with a large painting, draped in blue velvet.
“I fear not, colonel, but I have a portrait of my sister Belinda
when she was eighteen.” He turned and looked directly at Katy. I
fear we spied on you yesterday in the Pump Room, my dear, so I know
you will find this portrait of interest.” He whipped aside the
cloth.

Lady Oxley moaned, Eleanore shrieked.

“
Knew it was too good to be true,” said
the alleged Miss Challenor with disgust. “Shoulda stayed with
walk-ons at Drury Lane, I should.”

“
A nearly exact image of our Katy, do
you not agree, mama?” said the colonel, his eyes as full of
mischievous triumph as a boy of ten.