The Lady's Scandalous Secret (The Discreet Investigations of Lord and Lady Calaway Book 7) Read online

  The Lady’s Scandalous Secret

  The Discreet Investigations of Lord and Lady Calaway: Book Seven

  Issy Brooke

  Contents

  Foreword

  1. Norfolk, spring 1894

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  About the Author

  Foreword

  Author’s note: this book is written in British English. It has been edited professionally, but the grammar, spelling and vocabulary may be unfamiliar to some readers.

  1

  Norfolk, spring 1894

  “They must stop the train!” Adelia cried, jumping to her feet, and reaching out for the door of the compartment, lurching slightly with the motion of the locomotive. “We have gone wrong! We ought to have arrived by now. We ought to have arrived fifteen minutes ago. We cannot be on the right train. That boy at the station lied to us!”

  She glared at Smith as if she, too, were part of the conspiracy.

  Smith had been lady’s maid to the Countess of Calaway for almost all of her considerably long life. She was utterly uncowed by her mistress’s order and she didn’t stir from her seat. They weren’t in a first class coach, not exactly; the country trains of East Anglia obviously didn’t have enough persons of quality travelling in them to justify a decently segregated service like you’d get in the cities. But they were, at least, alone in the shabby carriage, and therefore Smith could speak freely.

  Well, what one person called “freely”, another might have said “in a manner wholly inappropriate; simply rude for a servant to be so bold.”

  “My lady, they won’t stop for you or for anyone,” Smith pointed out. “We simply have to remain as we are for the moment, disembark at the very next stop, and ensure that we are put back onto the right train. We will be late, no doubt, but there is nothing to be done about that. It is more fashionable to be late than to be early.”

  Adelia knew that Smith was right. As usual.

  She sank back onto the frayed seats and inwardly cursed the fresh-faced young man on the railway platform who had directed them to take this train. Now, in hindsight, she was sure that he had been laughing.

  They would be late. They would miss dinner. What would her daughter think of this? No doubt she’d be upset. Lateness was unforgivably rude, Adelia thought. She really didn’t hold with the idea that one ought to be late. In Adelia’s mind, being late told the host that they were not considered to be of value. Adelia knew her daughter Anne was very sensitive to perceived slights, though unlike some of her sisters, she did not indulge in great shows of hysterics or fits of weeping. Nor did she incline to anger. No. Instead, Anne simply went very quiet and nodded and retreated and mused deeply upon things, and built up a wall around her heart.

  They had not seen one another for years. This was an inauspicious start to the reunion.

  Adelia leaned forward as if she could will the train to come to a station more quickly.

  Yet of course, it was now inevitable that the train did not seem inclined to make any stops at all. Sighing dramatically, she periodically got up and looked up and down the corridor as if a guard might appear by magic in the carriage. But this was an old-fashioned train and each carriage was quite separate from the other. Outside, the inky blackness of a Norfolk night pressed on the windows without a single light ever to be seen. They could have been plunging into hell.

  When one looked on a map, Norfolk looked to be such a nice, accessible county. It was just there above London, a fat pregnant belly of Norfolk and Suffolk, promising wide beaches and rolling landscapes and friendly farmers.

  So far, Norfolk had been a place of liars and tricksters, darkness and mystery.

  Adelia tried to dismiss these gloomy thoughts.

  But Smith must have caught something on her face.

  She said, “Do not let this little diversion vex you, my lady. We will soon have this sorted out.”

  “I was not thinking of the train. You are quite right, of course. We will hop on the next train back and retrace our steps. It is easily managed.”

  “Is there something else the matter?” Smith asked boldly.

  Adelia was, curiously, glad that Smith had asked, as if it gave her permission to speak about her feelings. “We have had such a delightful time at Dido’s house these past few weeks,” she said. “And wasn’t it marvellous to see Felicia again? She was so well. And a mother – at last.”

  “It was wonderful indeed, my lady. Her child is beautiful and I have never seen the family so happy. But you can return to them all just as soon as this particular matter has been, um, dealt with.”

  “This matter,” said Adelia, shaking her head. “I am sure that my husband will solve the mystery in but a handful of days, upsetting half the parish as he does so. I am not concerned about this matter, as you call it. It is simply that … my dear Anne is a strange girl, don’t you think?”

  “All of your daughters have their unique ways,” Smith replied diplomatically. This was uncharacteristically tactful of her.

  “Yes, and I am fully aware of all the ways of all of my other daughters. Except Anne – she puzzles me. She has never come to me for solace. She has always been prone to dark moods and far too much poetry.”

  “I am sure that her husband has been a steadying influence on her. And now she is a mother, too, which makes all the difference.”

  “It does make a difference. I hope, in her case, that it has made a good difference – oh! Are we slowing? We are slowing! Be ready for a swift exit, Smith – grab the bags – look, mind your shawl … come along, as quick as you like.”

  Adelia and Smith leaped from the train before it had come to a full halt, landing on the dimly lit platform in a flurry of steam and carpet bags. As the train pulled away, clearly not wanting to linger too long in this place, Adelia looked around wildly for any member of staff or even a responsible-looking man whom they might approach for advice.

  Then she caught sight of the station name.

  “Great Yarmouth!” she said in dismay. “My goodness. However did we end up here?”

  “It is not somewhere that one might choose to arrive in,” Smith replied darkly.

  That raised a slight smile, a fleeting one, there-and-gone, on the face of a middling-aged woman standing close by. She was well-dressed in the fashion of a few years past, and her face was narrow and pinched, only lit by her brief smile of amusement before closing down into a severe look once again. She realised Adelia was looking her way, and turned her head, pointing her sharp nose away to signal she had no intention of conversing with them.

  Adelia respected her isolation and said, crossly, to Smith, “Can you see anyone who might help us get to Empton?”

  The woman nearby shrugged her shoulders, as if sighing to herself, before she turned and said, in a small and reluctant voice, “Begging your pardon, ladies, but if it’s the Empton trai
n you want, then it will be along in only a few minutes.”

  “Are we waiting in the right spot?” Adelia demanded. “We had no intention of coming to Great Yarmouth.”

  “No one does. Or, no one should,” she replied. “Yes, you are on the right platform. I am boarding the same train myself.”

  “Oh, how marvellous. You are a perfect saviour,” Adelia said, and something crossed the woman’s face like a shudder.

  Adelia stepped closer to offer her hand and to examine the woman. The woman took her gloved hand gingerly and pressed it lightly, the barest amount of politeness one could show. She had neat hair tucked up under a hat but there were pale streaks in the edges. It was impossible to tell the true colour of anything in the light of the gas lamps but she had pale skin and rather large eyes that made her thin face look almost fey, especially as the lamps cast unnatural shadows under her cutting cheekbones.

  Adelia was about to formally introduce herself but the train then pulled in with a great screech. Their companion darted forward as if to escape from them, but Adelia was ready and she followed close behind, leaping up into the same carriage. Like the previous train, this too did not stop for long. It jerked and Adelia half-fell onto the bench seat opposite the now-rigid woman, who smiled with thin lips and then turned her head to look intently out of the window as if they were passing through the most beautiful scenery and not, in fact, a mere blur of town lights and then, so soon, just endless cloying darkness beyond the blurry glass.

  She clearly did not want to talk. Adelia could not now force her introduction onto the woman, so all three of them sat in an uncomfortable silence.

  Eventually Adelia could bite her tongue no longer. She said, “Are you disembarking at Empton?”

  “Yes,” the woman replied tersely. “I shall not let you down; it is only a journey of fifteen minutes and I shall alert you just before we arrive.”

  “You know it well, then?”

  “Intimately,” she replied with a grimace, turning away again.

  It was an excruciatingly long fifteen minutes, by all accounts, and a great relief to all three of the passengers when the train began to shudder and slow. The woman got up and nodded at them, not speaking.

  But Adelia was not done with her yet. As they alighted the train, they found themselves on a platform even more dimly lit than the one at Great Yarmouth. There was a station office to one side of the exit and the door was standing open but there was no one inside to advise Adelia about obtaining a cab or carriage.

  Adelia caught up with the woman.

  “I say, just one moment, if you would…”

  The woman stopped and turned.

  “This area is new to me,” Adelia said, and felt a pang out of the blue. She’d never yet visited her daughter Anne, for one reason or another. This area ought not to be new to her. She shook off the regrets and continued. “Are there likely to be cabs outside or some way of finding a conveyance to the house called Litton?”

  “To – Litton?” the woman said in shock. She took two swift steps back, as if Adelia had emptied a basket of snakes at her feet. “To Litton!”

  “You know it? I am –”

  “I know who you are and what you are about, now! You’re joining the others and you are poking into things that ought to be left well alone. I’ve heard about them, already. I’ve seen their looks and heard the questions. You dare to speak to me? Oh, why cannot I be free?”

  The woman’s words became a plaintive wail and she spun around, darting off into the night.

  Adelia was far too stunned to go after her. She remained stock still, her heart pounding, and that was all the time that the capable Smith needed to engage a cab – seemingly out of nowhere – and soon they were rocking in relative comfort, on their way to the house of the Baron Bernard Blaisdell-Smith and his wife, a woman half his age, Adelia’s fifth-born daughter, Anne.

  Litton appeared as an absolute haven, a golden glowing sanctuary that rose up like a glittering vision in the gloom of the night. Rain was beginning to fall but it was immediately forgotten as Adelia and Smith were swept into the grand Georgian house. It was wide, boxy, square, and warm, with every window shuttered tight against the night air. Once they were inside, all was light and welcome.

  Anne was there to greet them, of course, but she was barely able to get close to her mother. Instead, Theodore descended upon his wife and hugged her in front of everyone watching, which made Smith tut in disapproval. Adelia broke free as a hearty male laugh rose above the chatter. It was Bernard, the Baron Blaisdell-Smith, roaring with delight to see such an affront to propriety in his front of his own hearth. He followed Theodore’s lead and came at Adelia with his arms open as if he, too, were to take the liberty of embracing her. She stiffened, ready to evade him if necessary.

  At the last minute he grabbed her hand and sank to his knees.

  But before the baron could spill any pretty words of greeting, he was knocked to one side by a two-year-old boy, still unsteady on his own feet, crying, “Is this grandmamma at last?”

  “At last?” said Adelia, feeling a lump in her throat. She bent and greeted the toddler. Two years old! Already!

  “Patrick!” It really was, to her shame, the first time she had seen the lad. He seemed as hale and healthy as Anne had assured her that he was, in her infrequent letters.

  She looked up to try to catch Anne’s eye but everything was a whirl as the servants danced around, a nursemaid trying to grab the young lad, Smith ordering Litton’s servants in a way that would surely lead to arguments, and there – behind Theodore – were two other people.

  She recognised one, Bamfylde, and she had expected to see him here. He was Theodore’s only son, eldest child, and recently reconciled heir. She was still a little unsure of her own relation to him. He was always polite to her, but noticeably, he had managed to avoid ever having to address her directly. For what was she? “Mother” would have been the convention but it felt wrong, somehow. She had been no mother to him. She’d barely been a step-mother.

  Bamfylde had been in London with Theodore when Baron Blaisdell-Smith had suddenly and urgently called them to his home here in Norfolk.

  The other person present was a woman with a face so sour she made the mysterious lady on the train look positively joyous. She glared at the whole happy scene as if it was a personal attack upon her person. She made no move to come forward and greet anyone, and she was apparently forgotten in the chaos, remaining at the back of the room with her faced closed up and her eyes like narrow slits of disapproval.

  Dinner was a noisy and enchanting affair. Whatever Adelia had been expecting in the home of her melancholy daughter, it was not this. The room was pleasantly lit with the focus on the centre where the table groaned with plain but nicely-done food. The furnishings of the place were likewise plain but solidly made. The curtains were thick dark burgundy velvet but without embellishments. The walls had some paintings but they weren’t crowding like a London gallery. Most of the ornaments on display seemed to have a story behind them – nothing was simply to advertise wealth or status. The whole atmosphere felt warm but homely, with no worries about whether one was behaving well. It felt, in truth, like a family.

  And Adelia asked herself, well, what else ought it to have felt like?

  Bernard Blaisdell-Smith was a hearty man in his forties, a learned sort of chap who had given up his professorship at Cambridge, retiring early from teaching and settling in this damp corner of Eastern England to do his research and write his books in peace. He hailed from this area originally and Litton had been the ancestral home of the barons for many generations. He had been married before, but no one spoke of it nor of his dead wife. Anne, at twenty-two, had been married to him for over three years, and although she did not laugh as loudly as Bernard nor for as long, the fact that she laughed at all was an astonishing revelation to Adelia.

  The only person not laughing was the strange woman with the sour face. She was also in her forties and ag
e had not been at all kind to her. She was finally introduced to Adelia as the spinster Emily Johnson, and it was to be assumed that she was some distant connection of the Blaisdell-Smiths, but no one explained anything. It infuriated Adelia who kept a comprehensive track of most people’s family trees.

  But there was no opportunity to ask any personal questions, for all the talk around the dinner table was of the murder – of course.

  “Walter Spenning was a mean old miser,” Bernard explained, firing bits of crab across the table as he waved his fork for emphasis. Anne smiled at the mess indulgently.

  “Did he have a lot of money?” Adelia asked.

  “Oh, he had simply piles of it, heaped up and doing nothing good for anyone while his house fell down around his ears. One really can’t get into the head of people like that, can one? What is the point of having money if one does nothing with it?”

  “It’s a form of control, I think,” Adelia suggested. “Those sorts of people seem to control their wealth to an unhealthy degree. It’s not about being rich, it’s about controlling the money. Because money means power, so if you control money, you can tell yourself that you are controlling power, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, yes, oh yes! You are very correct there, my good lady – astute, astute. For he was a controlling sort of person, in his personal life and in business. If he could have controlled the manner of his death, he would have done. But he couldn’t.” Bernard paused dramatically. “For someone stabbed him – just once, right through the neck! – almost a year ago this month.”