Francesca by Joan Smith

Author:Joan Smith [Smith, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Regency Romance
Publisher: Belgrave House
Published: 1992-08-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

“Nonsense!” Lady Camden declared when Mrs. Denver and Mr. Caine returned with news of a cottage for hire in Crawley, close, but not too close, to her ancestral home. “If I run away, everyone will think I am guilty. I must stay and clear my name.”

“How do you propose to do that?” Mrs. Denver demanded.

“I have friends. I shall put all my friends on the alert to learn what they can of David’s bit o’ muslin. Someone is bound to know who she is. I have been too backward, until now, trying to spare Lady Maundley. The Maundleys are sparing me nothing, so I shall mount a concerted attack.”

“Even if you discover who she is, Fran, the woman will have the thing hidden away in a vault. You’ll never prove David gave it to her,” Mr. Caine pointed out.

“I’ll worry about that when I learn who she is,” she replied mutinously. “I will not have horrid people saying I am a thief, and worse. The first friend who calls to offer comfort, I shall enlist his—or her—aid.”

The door knocker remained adamantly silent throughout the morning. Mrs. Denver and Mr. Caine extolled in vain the virtues of a Queen Anne cottage at Crawley, and some peace and quiet.

“We seem to have plenty of both here,” Francesca scowled. Some part of her did want to escape the awful worries that engulfed her, but she would not allow the likes of Lord Devane to blacken her name without at least trying to clear herself. As soon as she had cleared her name, however, she would retire permanently from London.

“What about a visit to Mary?” Mr. Caine suggested, hoping the word visit might be less despised than moving away.

“I should enjoy it very much—after I find the necklace.”

Mr. Caine remained to lunch because he did not like to see poor Mrs. Denver left alone with her unmanageable charge. The woman looked on the verge of a breakdown. At two-thirty the long-awaited sound of the knocker was heard, and Francesca gave a smile of triumph. “I told you my friends would not desert me.” She would not let herself think, for even an instant, that it was Lord Devane come to apologize.

It was Mr. Irwin who was shown in, and her sinking heart told her that hope had risen, despite her better judgment. “I came to see if I could offer any consolation at this trying time,” he said, as if entering a house of death.

Mr. Caine, willingly assuming the role of chief mourner, replied, “Very kind of you, John. Pray, have a seat.”

“You can offer more than condolences, sir. You can offer to help me,” Lady Camden said, and indicated a seat by her side.

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure, ma’am. Only say the word.”

“A drive, that is the word,” she replied. “Take me for a drive in the park. I want to meet my friends, and try if I can gain a circle of supporters.”

“Upon my word, she’s mad,” Mr. Caine said aside to Mrs.

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