The Return of Lord Conistone by Lucy Ashford Page A

earlier to get me the latest news. I think Mr Mayhew wanted to explain to you himself’.
    ‘To explain
what?’
Her voice shook with tension.
    ‘As you know, Colonel Harrap accused your villagers of signalling to the French, on the night in question. The magistrates said there was not enough proof, so the case was dismissed’.
    ‘Entirely?
They are quite free?’
    He hesitated. ‘There was a small matter of surety, as a guarantee of their good behaviour in the future’.
    Oh, no
. Surety. How could the estate ever afford it? ‘H-how much?’
    ‘There is no need whatsoever to concern yourself,’ Lucas went on quickly. Too quickly. ‘A friend, a well-wisher, has settled the matter’.
    ‘Mr Mayhew! But he has already done so much for us, he has never charged us for
anything
since my father went away, I cannot allow this—’
    Something in his face made her break off. Suddenly, with a sickening lurch of her stomach, she knew. ‘Lucas. It was you, wasn’t it?’
    ‘I told Mr Mayhew that I wanted to help if the question of surety came up, yes’.
    She stared at him, her heart thudding. ‘And his bills? For his services to my family? ‘
    He said nothing. She breathed, ‘You have been paying those too.
Why?’
    He spread out his hands. ‘I wrote to offer my help, Verena, when your father died. I suggested that paying your legal bills might be one way in which I could serve your family. You told me earlier that you got my letters,but didn’t read any of them. Because you never replied, I assumed the arrangement was acceptable’.
    She had burned his letters without even reading them.
    And Mr Mayhew too had perhaps assumed that for the sake of her family she was happy to quietly accept Lucas Conistone’s money.
    Never. Never. Nothing would make up for either his grandfather’s callous cruelty, or for Lucas’s betrayal of her. Now she whispered, ‘You must go. Please. I will speak myself to Mr Mayhew, of course, but this—your being here—is impossible…’
    He gave a slight bow. Said quietly, ‘Of course’.
    As she was turning to leave, she saw suddenly that there was a plan laid out on the table, a plan of the Wycherley estate, and froze. ‘What is this?’
    ‘It’s something Mayhew brought over,’ he said, walking over to gesture at it with his uninjured arm. ‘Verena, did your father ever say anything to you about a stream that ran through Wycherley’s lands, close to the border with my grandfather’s estate?’
    She lifted her head to him almost in despair. ‘No.
No
. Lucas, when will this interfering stop? When will you leave us alone?’
    He folded the map away, his face sombre. ‘I will make arrangements to depart first thing in the morning,’ he said.
    She lifted her chin. ‘Very well. As it happens, I’m visiting my sister, Pippa, tonight—’
    He broke in sharply. ‘You’re not going there alone? ‘
    ‘David, her husband, is calling for me! So you may well have gone, my lord, before I return tomorrow!”
    ‘Then it’s—farewell,’ he said softly.
    She nodded and stumbled towards the door. Once outside, she stood there in the passageway, shaking.
    What else was going on that she had not been told about?
    He had to go. He had to leave Wycherley as soon as possible. Because with just one word, just one touch, he could hurt her with the kind of pain she hadn’t even realised existed.
    But then she would never see him again. A black abyss of total despair opened up before her. She stood there a moment, looking—as Turley, who passed by the end of the corridor, told Cook later—as if the life had gone out of her.
    ‘Damn,’ Turley, with awe, heard her breathe. ‘Damn, damn,
damn
. I will
not
accept his charity, I will not accept
anything
from him, I will not have him in this house any longer!’

Chapter Nine

    A fter Verena had gone, Lucas slept for an hour on his bed. He’d refused Dr Pilkington’s laudanum, because it disturbed his dreams; but the dreams came anyway, and