A Youthful Indiscretion: A Novella (Kindle Single) by Edmondson Elizabeth

Author:Edmondson, Elizabeth [Edmondson, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Belsyre Books
Published: 2015-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

They said goodbye to him outside the pub and as he went he raised his stick in a cheery salute.

“What do you think of all that?” Freya said, as they waited for a gap in the traffic.

“He’s told us something about Marie Louise, but not much about your uncle, nothing that you hadn’t learned from Lady Priscilla. Does it satisfy you?” He saw the expression on her face, and laughed. “I thought not. You want to find out what happened to her after she went back to France, and I’m damned if I know how you can do that. For now, let’s go and see if we can dig Leo out. He must have finished his tutorial by now and he’ll want to know what Burnley told us.”

They found Leo crossing the quad at his college. It was a small and intimate space, with ivy growing up the warm yellow stone of the walls; it made no attempt to impress or overwhelm.

He listened to what they had to say with keen interest and came at once to the point. “There are four possibilities. First, Lord Selchester, as I feel I must still call him even though he wasn’t Lord Selchester then, simply lost interest in Marie Louise. An obsession that vanished as quickly as it came. It can happen, and perhaps if there was something in her behaviour that disgusted him or she showed a strong preference for another man, he might very well abandon the chase.”

“Second?” Freya said.

“The second possibility is that he seduced her. That her fondness for him overcame her respectable upbringing and her virtue and she succumbed to his embraces. And after the chase was brought to a satisfactory conclusion, that was the end of the affair as far as he was concerned. He wasn’t going to alienate his father and endanger his inheritance for her. In those circumstances I think he would swiftly find ways to get rid of her, probably try to pay her off.”

He paused and frowned. “The third possibility is distasteful. He might have taken advantage of her, grown exasperated with her refusal to respond to his advances, and taken matters into his own hands.”

“You mean rape,” Freya said bluntly.

“I do. In which case she might well have fled, after sending him that anguished letter.”

“What a deeply unpleasant thought,” Hugo said. “Surely her father would have protected her, kept a close eye on her?”

“He was busy with his work, and no doubt trusted her,” Leo said.

Freya, appalled by the thought that her uncle might have done any such thing, said, “We know how powerful in his passions my uncle was, and how willing to force people, especially women, to do what he wanted. And you think that in that case, just as if she’d consented to a liaison, he would get rid of her?”

Leo nodded.

Hugo said, “What’s the last possibility?”

Leo said, quite casually, “Oh, that he did in fact marry her.”

“I did wonder, when I saw the letter,” Freya said, “but of course that’s impossible.

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