Edward rolled his eyes with tolerant amusement. “Yes, I am well. Thank you, vicar.”
“Do forgive me, Bradley. How are you? Look a bit tired, I will say.”
“I am well enough.” Edward flipped a page. “Now that you’ve dispatched with the niceties, do help yourself to breakfast.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
A few minutes later, Hodges returned with the tray and offered Edward his post. Ignoring his friend’s moans of gourmand delight, Edward opened the first letter.
And froze.
His body broke out in a cold sweat. The script blurred and then focused once more.
Lady Brightwell has never borne a living child.
You may be innocent, but your father has knowingly
deceived the world at the cost of another. Where is justice?
“My friend, what is it?” Mr. Tugwell asked around a bit of crumpet. “You look very ill.”
Edward threw down his serviette and rose abruptly, toppling his chair in his wake and preparing to bolt from the room.
Tugwell rose as well. “Edward, wait!”
Edward pressed his eyes closed and took a deep breath.
“What is it? My dear friend, I have never seen you thus. You have come undone.”
Panic rising, Edward paced the room liked a caged animal. “Exactly so. Undone, unwoven, unstrung.”
“Edward, you alarm me! Do tell me what has happened.”
“Have I your promise of secrecy?”
“Need you ask?”
Edward tossed him the letter, which the vicar read and read again, sitting slowly back down as he did so.
“Is it true?” he whispered, eyes wide.
Edward’s pulse pounded in his ears. “I would not be this upset over a rumor.”
“Lord Brightwell . . . ?”
“Admits it. This letter is not the first.”
“I am sorry, my friend.”
“You are sorry?” Edward bit back his frustration and lowered his voice. “Yes, well, so am I.”
“Has he told you who or how . . . ?”
“Only that I was a foundling, taken in by them.”
“Generous.”
“Generosity was not the primary motivation. Rather, a determination that my uncle Sebastian never lay his hands on Brightwell Court.”
“But he is dead now, is that not so?”
“Yes, which leaves Felix.”
“Do you think—?”
“I don’t know what to think.” Edward raked agitated fingers through his hair. “Or who to blame.”
Charles Tugwell stared at the letter once more. “And when this gets out . . . ?”
“If it gets out, I am ruined. My reputation . . . shot—baseborn nobody. Title, gone. Peerage to Felix. Political future . . . dead. Why do you think I was so determined to keep Miss Keene cloistered here?”
“She knows?”
“Yes. She overheard—the night she was arrested.”
“Ahh . . .” The vicar slowly shook his head, eyes alight in deeper understanding.
“I stand to lose everything. My inheritance. My home. My very identity.”
Charles set aside the letter and stood. “No, Edward. That you will not lose.” He clasped Edward’s shoulder. “Dear friend, whatever happens, you will always be God’s child. ‘And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.’ ”
Edward ran a weary hand over his face. “Cold comfort, Charles, when I believed myself heir to an earldom.”
After Charles Tugwell took his leave, Edward sought his father in the library. Finding him at his desk, Edward carefully closed the door behind him and flopped down in a nearby chair. His father raised his eyes, taking in Edward’s disheveled state.
“So much for parliament,” Edward began.
“What are you talking about? Of course you will be summoned to take my seat after I am gone. It is what is done.”
“Not in every instance, and certainly not in this.”
“What has brought this on? You are my heir apparent—the next Earl of Brightwell. No one can take that from you.”
“Are you sure about that, Father?” Edward tossed the note onto the desk.
“What is this? Hand me my spectacles.”
Edward rose to deliver the wire frames and then watched as his father read the brief note. Lord Brightwell removed the spectacles and rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. He sighed deeply. “When did this come?”
“This morning.” Instead of resuming his seat, Edward resumed pacing.
“Have there been others?”
“This is the first directed to me. Have you received others?”
“Not since that first one before your mother and I departed for Italy.”
“Who could have written this?”
“I don’t know. I have never told anyone. I cannot speak for your mother, of course. I suppose it is possible she confided in someone—a friend or someone from her family.” The earl looked far off for an answer. “Devil take it, who would do such a thing?”
He pulled the first letter from a desk drawer and laid both side by side. Edward looked over his shoulder and studied the handwriting.
His father asked, “Were both written by the same person, do you think?”
“I assume so. But it is difficult to tell—the first was so brief.”
Lord Brightwell held the most recent letter at arm’s length and regarded it, chin tucked. “Looks like a woman’s hand to me.”
Edward straightened. “But Felix is the obvious suspect.”
“Felix? Felix can barely plan his attire, let alone a scheme like this.” His father returned the letter to him.
“He has the most to gain.”
“Not at present. Do not forget, Edward, the courtesy title you use is mine. Even if you were to give it up, Felix cannot use it in your stead. He would only be my heir presumptive, with no title and no inheritance until after my death.”
Edward nodded and began pacing once more. “It may not change the present, but certainly his prospects for the future.”
“I suppose you are right. Still I cannot credit it. From where was it posted?”
Edward turned the letter over. “Cirencester.” The word echoed in his mind, and he recalled Miss Keene’s recent trip there to “purchase cheese for the almshouse.” Edward frowned. Just a coincidence surely.
“From so near!” Lord Brightwell said.
Should he tell his father? But no, it couldn’t be Miss Keene . . . could it? He decided not to reveal, for the present, the fact of her being in Cirencester a few days ago.
“Is not Felix back at Oxford?” his father asked.
“Yes. But it is not so long a journey, if he wanted to throw us off the scent.”
Restless and unable to focus on the accounts, Edward tucked the estate ledger under his arm and went to return it to Walters. When he could not locate the clerk, Edward took himself upstairs instead. He felt the need to see Miss Keene, to somehow reassure himself of her innocence.
Ledger still under his arm, Edward silently let himself in and stood at the back of the schoolroom. Audrey and Andrew, eyes forward, did not even notice him enter. Miss Keene did, however, and faltered in the lesson she was delivering. She glanced expectantly at him, but when he did not speak, she continued the Latin lesson, though clearly distracted by his presence.
“ ‘Terms Seldom Englished,’ ” she read from the text. “ ‘Viva voce, meaning by word of mouth. Inter nos, between ourselves.’ ”
Did she choose those terms for my benefit? Edward wondered. He thought back to the days when he alone heard Miss Keene’s voice.
“ ‘Argumentum ad ignorantiam, a foolish argument.’ ”
Oh yes, they’d had a few of those. Crossing his arms, Edward leaned against the wall, watching her closely.
“ ‘Alias, otherwise.’ ”
Edward raised his brows. Had he not once accused her of giving an alias instead of her real name? Was it his imagination, or was a flush creeping up her neck?
“ ‘Alibi, being in another place.’ ” She glanced up at him—guiltily, he thought. Had she need of an alibi? In his current state of mind, every word she spoke had some latent meaning, and seemed to accuse her. But she was innocent, was she not?
She cleared her throat, then continued, “ ‘Bona fide, without fraud or deceit.’ ”
Was Miss Keene without deceit? His father believed she was. And Edward very much hoped he was right. But she was hiding something. She had never really explained how she had come to be at Brightwell Court with no belongings and no plans other than the name of a school, nor why she had initially concealed where she was from. No doubt it had something to do with her foul-tempered father. But even so, it did not mean she had anything to do with the letters. Merciful Lord, let her have nothing to do with the letters. . . .
“ ‘Extortus, meaning extortion.’ ” Miss Keene glanced at him once more, clearly self-conscious, then closed the book.
Why was she so nervous?
“Well, I believe that is enough Latin for today. Let us move on to arithmetic. Your slates please, children.”
She was turning to the shelter of the subject she knew best, he realized, recalling her tale of the public-house contest. Suddenly curious, he raised his hand. “May I pose a question?”
The children turned to smile at him, but Miss Keene looked anything but pleased. “Very well.”