Page 58 of Contracted as His Countess

He discovered Paulson with his head down in the account books and Lyminge checking leases against vast estate maps unrolled on the library table. Neither had seen Madelyn since breakfast, they explained when he looked in on them. They had eaten at their work, interrupted only by an occasional stroll up and down the weed-grown terrace outside to stretch their legs.

Jack rang for Wystan, expecting to hear that Madelyn was resting in her room or perhaps exploring the garden, notebook in hand, but the butler shook his head. ‘No, my lord. Her Ladyship has not returned from the village.’

‘What time did she go out?’

‘Just after you left, my lord. Certainly before ten. She drove herself.’

Madelyn had said she was going to explore the village but even allowing for a lengthy period of prayer or reflection in the church, that could not have kept her away for more than two hours.

‘Did she say anything about going into the town?’ The nearest was Castle Hedingham, but it was hardly more than a large village itself. Surely she would not have driven as far as Halstead by herself?

She would probably come up the drive at any moment, coolly dismissive of his worries, Jack thought, trying to reassure himself.

‘I fear Lady Dersington may have suffered an accident to the trap or the pony has gone lame,’ he said. ‘I will ride into the village and see if I can find her.’ A simple mishap was the most likely cause of a delay, the roads, although not busy, had plenty of traffic and respectable local people to help someone with a lame horse or a broken shaft. There was nothing to worry about—nothing except the deep-down fear that Madelyn had left him.

* * *

The village boasted one disreputable ale house and one decent inn. They faced each other across the green, with the church halfway between them and the Squire’s brick Queen Anne house opposite that, with the vicarage beside it. Jack rode into the Dersington Arms to enquire if they had seen his wife and found the fat grey pony tied to a ring in the stable yard lipping at a pile of hay and the trap resting on its shafts in a corner.

A stable lad came running as Jack rode into the yard. ‘Take your horse, sir?’

‘The lady who came in the trap there. Is she inside?’

‘No, sir. She went off in the carriage with the gent. She left a letter, sir. Gave me a crown to take it up to the big house with the pony and trap, but not until six o’clock, she said.’

‘Give me the letter now,’ Jack said, hearing his own voice coming from a long way away.

‘Aye, sir.’ The lad ran for the back door of the inn and Jack sat quite still, feeling the cold, sick feeling in his gut build into actual pain. He should have listened to his instincts—Madelyn had left him. But with whom? Altair fidgeted, aware of his rider’s emotions, and Jack stilled him with a curt word.

‘Here you are, sir.’ The boy handed up the letter and waited while Jack broke the seal.

I never meant to do harm, only the right thing. You say you are sorry for doubting me, but I know you only believe you should say that because now you are burdened with me.

I can think of only one thing to do to try to make this right.

Madelyn

‘Do you know who the man was?’ he asked abruptly, making the boy jump and Altair snort.

‘He was a stranger, sir, but he stayed last night. I can go and look in the book, sir.’

He was off and running before Jack could agree and he came back with a piece of paper in his grubby hand. ‘Guv’nor wrote it down, sir.’

Richard Turner Esq

Long Meadow Grange

Maidstone

Kent

3 Adelphi Apartments

East India House

Leadenhall Street

London

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