Regency Scandals and Scoundrels: A Regency Historical Romance Collection by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Romance, Historical, Fiction
Publisher: Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2019-06-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

The meeting with the female staff had gone predictably if ineffectually. She had no real authority in the house and everyone knew that. Still, Beatrice had attempted to be firm in regards to maintaining propriety with Dr. Warner and not appearing to be a house in chaos. Her admonitions had been met with blushes and giggles hidden behind hands. They would do what they wanted and there was little she could do about it. And who was she, after all, to take someone else to task for their loose behavior when she was carrying on so herself?

Entering her chamber, she did not shriek in surprise. Even before her gaze settled on him, she knew that she was not alone. His presence filled the chamber. But as she observed him, it became immediately clear that he was more troubled than he had been before. He looked very much as if the weight of the world were pressing in on him. It was a feeling she recognized well. She closed the door softly and walked toward the man who awaited her.

“What is it, Graham?”

“Must it be something other than the desire for your company?” he asked, his lips quirking upward in a half-smirk. The expression was simply a mask, but the truth was revealed in his gaze. He was hurting.

“You would not risk coming here at this time of day if there was not something afoot. Did you learn something from Mr. Eaves?” she asked. There was something in his expression that had alerted her to the truth. He had discovered something and it was deeply disturbing. “Tell me.”

“He knew where I was. All along,” Graham admitted. “For the past five years, they knew where I was.”

“Who did?” she asked, horrified at the notion.

“Edmund and Mr. Eaves. They had spoken with the captain I sailed under for all those years. Five years ago, while we were in port at Antigua. He relayed the entire tale to them then and gave them my direction, told them which inn I was lodged at while we were there, where we were to sail to next and when we were expected to return… and they never sought me out.”

Beatrice sank down onto the edge of the bed. That kind of willful cruelty was alien to her. She could not fathom it. “All this time, when Edmund has been badgering Lady Agatha to have you declared dead, he knew that you were not?”

“Precisely,” he answered.

“How did you discover this? I have to assume that Mr. Eaves was complicit in all of it!” Her dislike of Mr. Eaves had been immediate, but Edmund had offered the sensible argument that information was often traded in shady places and who better to ferret it out than a slightly shady character. She’d had no cause to gainsay him, but it had not changed her opinion of Mr. Eaves.

Graham stepped forward, a letter in his outstretched hand.

August 14th, 1817

Mr. Blakemore,

I spoke with a man in the port of Antigua, Captain Jasper Smith, who reported fishing a young lad from the sea in the winter of 1804 off the coast of England.

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