“Then it is a mercy.”
“Indeed, it is,” Lady Lyndon went on. “But it does not change the fact that I made the gravest error. I should have seen what was right under my nose all along.”
“What was that?”
“That Lady Louisa Wimborne is not the woman who shall open my nephew’s heart and find the man he used to be locked up tight within.”
“She is not?”
“She is not, my dear because you are.”
“I am?”
“You look as if you do not believe me, Miss Darrington, but you must. Or, at least, you must trust me at any rate.”
“Of course, I trust you, my lady.”
“You love him, do you not?” Lady Cynthia smiled but held Georgette’s gaze very firmly.
“I … I …” Georgette said a little helplessly.
“I shall take your stuttering as confirmation, my dear,” Lady Lyndon said and laughed once more. “So now you see what a great responsibility you have upon your shoulders. You must find him, Miss Darrington. You must release my nephew from the prison of his own heart.”
Chapter 28
As the carriage rolled northwest out of Oxfordshire, Georgette could hardly believe how quickly things had happened. The very moment she had decided that she must go to Wales to find the answer, Lady Lyndon had suddenly become the most productive and efficient ally she could ever have imagined.
“Wales?” Lady Lyndon had said somewhat confused when Georgette had first mentioned it.
“Yes, I see it now most clearly, Lady Lyndon.” Georgette, once the idea had come to her, had known instantly it was the right thing to do. “You and I both know, My Lady, that I shall not be granted admittance into Draycott Hall and, therefore, have no opportunity to beg an audience with your nephew. There is nothing I can do that I have not already tried, and I have nothing to say to His Grace which could possibly convince him that his sister did not despise him after all. All I can do is go to Wales myself, go to Beddgelert and see what truth I can find there. I realize that there may be nothing for me to find, but I cannot see what else there is for me to try.”
“Then you shall take my driver and my carriage, my dear,” Lady Lyndon said in a brusque and suddenly businesslike manner. “And I shall write off immediately to the housekeeper there to let her know that you are coming and to beg that she help you in any way she can in your endeavours.”
Without further ado, Lady Lyndon walked across the room to a small bureau and sat down to immediately write the letter. For a moment, Georgette was painfully reminded of the Duke writing her character reference before dismissing her from his home.
But she knew she must not allow herself to be waylaid by such feelings; after all, it was for him that she was doing all of this.
“I thank you, My Lady, but how should you manage? I shall be gone for some time for it is such a great distance, is it not?”
“It is more than two hundred miles, my dear, but I shall manage perfectly well. And I shall not see you paying out to cross the country by post-chaise, my dear.” Lady Lyndon continued to write as she spoke. “Now then, Mrs Evans, the housekeeper, is rather a nice sort of a woman as I remember. Of course, I have only attended Beddgelert once in my life, and that was when the children were not long born. Anyway, Mrs Evans was really rather pleasant to me, and I daresay that nothing has changed.”
“Then she lives in the house, My Lady?”
“Yes, she still lives there. She was a live-in housekeeper at the time and, when the estate was moved to the care of my nephew for the safekeeping of his nieces, there were full instructions that money should come from the estate to pay to keep the housekeeper on.” Lady Lyndon trailed off for a moment before resuming. “And that is just what my dear little Josephine was like. She obviously cared for the housekeeper a great deal and would not have seen her cast out of her home and without a job. And, of course, she no doubt hoped that the good woman would still be there one day when her girls returned.” For a moment, Lady Lyndon seemed to be blinking hard, and Georgette realized that she was greatly moved.
“I must admit it is a great comfort to me to know that there shall be somebody in residence when I finally arrive,” Georgette said, trying to distract Lady Lyndon from her pain.
“And I have told Mrs Evans in this letter that you are to be allowed access all about the house. You may look at whatever you wish, Miss Darrington, in order to get to the truth.”
“I thank you for your confidence in me, Lady Lyndon.”