Wentworth Hall (23 page)

Lady Darlington nodded and recommenced massaging her bruised wrists. “I wish I knew who the father of my first grandchild was as well, but Maggie absolutely will not speak of him.”

Lord Darlington nodded slowly. “I see. Well, I am sure I can find a way to make her speak the truth.”

“She’s liked a locked safe. You’re not going to get anything from her. Believe me, I’ve tried,” replied Lady Darlington.

Lord Darlington shifted and began to walk from the room, his voice thick with emotion. “You haven’t tried like I will. Oh, she’ll speak. She’ll speak if it’s the last thing she does.…”

Lila jogged across the expansive green lawn toward Wentworth Hall. This plan was going to work. It
had
to work. It was the last chance for Maggie, Michael, and baby James to be together, to be a happy family with a new start.

She stopped and considered what she was about to
do. It was such a bold move. And it would cost her. Her parents would probably be furious. They might never even forgive her. But Wes would be onboard. She could count on him, and even if they never forgave her, Lila knew Wes wouldn’t turn his back on her. He’d make sure she’d never be left penniless.

It had to be done. It was the right thing to do.

It was the
only
thing to do.

Wiping the sweat from her brow, Lila took a deep breath as she pushed open one of the heavy doors leading into Wentworth Hall. The last piece of the puzzle to her plan lay inside. Before going to Maggie, she had to convince one last person of this plan. She had to find Ian, and she had to find him fast. Time was of the essence—if she didn’t move quickly, all could be lost in a matter of moments. Hopefully, Ian and his motorcar would be willing to be of help.

Chapter Twenty-Two

S
OMETHING SIGNIFICANT HAD HAPPENED.
Every instinct for gossip that Nora possessed told her so. She’d seen Therese earlier rushing back to the servants quarters and the girl wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. Wesley was brooding on a long walk in the fields, and had opted not to take Ian. Lord Darlington’s face was scrunched into a permanent scowl and someone had quite obviously slapped him across the face. Lila had come in and darted up the stairs, seemingly in a frantic search for something or someone. Lady Darlington was lost in thought and kept rubbing her wrists. Maggie was nowhere to be seen at all.

The result was that Nora found herself squirming in a torment of curiosity. She had to get the facts on this situation. That all this activity was swirling around her and
that she hadn’t a clue to what was going on was completely unacceptable.

She would speak to Therese. Nora sensed that somehow she was at the heart of this. She checked in the nursery and found the baby fast asleep. During those breaks, Therese often went to read or write letters in her bedroom. Climbing the stairs to the servants’ quarters, Nora resolved to demand the truth from the girl.

She entered their room to find the drawers of every dresser had been pulled open and emptied, and the top of Therese’s dresser had been cleared of everything that had been there except for several sheets of paper folded together. Therese must have left behind one of those letters home that she was always writing.

Moving to the closet, Nora saw that it, too, had been emptied. “She sure cleared out fast,” Nora muttered. What had sent her running away like this?

Nora lifted the folded papers from the dresser. Curious as ever, she opened the papers and began to read the top page:

Dear Nora
,

If you are reading this, then you are already snooping in my
things. It is all right. I had counted on it. Forgive me for departing with no parting farewell, but it was at Lord Darlington’s insistence. I thank you for your friendliness to me and would like to do something for you in return. My mother was able to afford her flower shop because of the Darlington family, and I think that the least the Darlington family can do is make it possible for you to have your tearoom. At the rate you are going, sewing when you are able, you will be an elderly woman by the time you can afford to achieve your dream. But this satire I have written will help your dream come true much faster.

Yes, your suspicions were correct, I am the author of the satires. But it was not greed that led me to betray the Darlingtons. The satire enclosed here will be my last. And it is my parting gift to you. I believe its contents will explain why I have done what I have. If you take it to them, the Sussex Courier will pay fifty pounds for it. The series has become so popular that if you insist on sixty pounds there is an excellent chance you will get your price.

Good luck to you, my friend. I hope that someday I might return to London and enjoy a cup of tea and a scone at your lovely teahouse.

Therese

So Therese was the author of those scathing satires all the while! Why did she do it? What could possibly have made her despise the Darlingtons so much that she would want to hurt them like that?

It had to have been for the money. But for that, she could have twisted Wesley around her little finger; he was clearly so enamored of her. Yet she hadn’t given him the least encouragement. Strange.

Filing the front page to the back, Nora began to read Therese’s last satire. As she scanned the handwritten piece, her eyes widened and her jaw went slack with surprise.

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF…

THE WORTHLESS SAGA

The Last Rib-Tickling Installment

of our Popular New Series

“What Does Another Heir Matter

When There’s Nothing Left to Inherit?”

Anyone who has visited Faded Glory Manor lately has seen the depths to which the Worthless family has tumbled.

Just recently Lady Worthless was seen with her hair disheveled, her collar torn, rocking a bawling baby in her arms. “I’m too old for this!” she shouted as a door fell off its hinges. “I thought I could raise this baby as my own, but I’m simply too antiquated.” She pointed to a gilt-framed portrait of one of the Worthless ancestors—a soldier in a doublet and velvet tights—on the wall, dating back to the 1600s. “I’m almost as old as
he
is,” she said with a sigh. “At least I feel that way since this baby came along.”

Snobby came running in. “How is my little cutesie-bootsie today?” she asks, tickling the baby under the chin.

Lady Worthless shooed Snobby away. “Don’t even look at this baby. Someone might notice his resemblance to you and to a certain someone.”

Snobby looked away from her mother. “I
can’t imagine what you might mean by that, Mother,” she said with mock sincerity.

“You understand full well what I mean,” Lady Worthless insisted.

“I assure you, I do not,” Snobby replied.

“Can I remind you of a few months back when your belly looked as if you’d swallowed a melon whole,” Lady Worthless retorted.

Snobby stuck a finger in either ear. “I can’t hear you!” she sung out.

Lady Worthless stamped her foot in frustration. “Oh! You make me so mad! You are just like your father!”

“My father?” Snobby gasped. “In what manner could I possibly resemble that blustering old coot?”

“Well, you both have a child that you won’t admit to!”

“Shh!!!!” Snobby hissed sharply. “What child won’t father admit is his? Doodles?”

Doodles rushed in. “I’m not father’s child?” she asked, aghast.

“Shh!” Lady Worthless and Snobby shushed her at once. “No, not you, Doodles, silly girl,” said Lady Worthless. “The nanny.”

“The nanny?!” Doodles and Snobby cried in one voice. “The nanny is a Worthless?”

“I’m afraid it’s true,” Lady Worthless admitted as she continued to bounce the baby. “Years ago Lord Worthless dallied with Nanny’s mother, who was a very young maid in the household. They sent her off to France and paid her never to return.”

“But she did return?” Doodles asked.

“The child grew up to be Nanny and she came back to claim her inheritance. She fooled us all by pretending to be poor.”

“But she is poor,” Snobby reminded her mother. “Everyone who works for us is poor because we pay them hardly anything.”

“I suppose that’s so,” Lady Worthless agreed as a slab of ceiling crashes to the floor at her feet.

“Are you telling us we have a poor relative?” Doodles asked in horror.

“Shh!” Lady Worthless said again. She lowers her voice. “That’s why your father wouldn’t admit to having a child by a maid. It’s so embarrassing to know poor people, let alone be so… familiar… with one.”

“But Mother, aren’t we poor now?” Snobby asked.

“Shh!” said Lady Worthless. “We are not poor. We’re impecunious.”

“What does that mean?” Doodles asked.

“Poor,” Snobby filled her in.

“No! No!” Lady Worthless objected. “We’re penniless but not poor. We still have the Worthless name, which is worth its weight in gold.”

“A name weighs nothing,” Doodles said.

“Exactly!” said Lady Worthless.

Snobby scratched her head in bewilderment. “So how does that make me like Father?”

“You dolt!” Lady Worthless cried. “You both have a child you won’t admit is yours.”

“Snobby has a child?!” Doodles cried.

“Shh!” hissed Snobby.

At that moment Jon Handsome, the stable boy, stomps in, leaving muddy boot prints on the floor. He snaps the straps of his overalls and lifts the baby out of Lady Worthless’s arms, letting his feet dangle in the air. “There’s my darling son,” he said proudly. “He looks just like me, don’t you think?”

“Hush!” said Snobby. “He most certainly does not!”

“Sure he does,” Jon insisted. “He’s lucky. I’m a good-looking fellow. At least that’s what you told me that night in the stable. Don’t you remember?”

“You must be thinking of someone else,” Snobby insisted.

“No, I’m not. It was you all right!”

“You win! He is our baby. Now the whole county will know,” Snobby said. “If we raise him as a Worthless, though, he will inherit the Worthless fortune.”