The Defiant Lady Pencavel by Lewis Diane Scott

Author:Lewis, Diane Scott [Lewis, Diane Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Books We Love Ltd.
Published: 2013-09-17T22:00:00+00:00

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Melwyn laid her chipping hammer away in its leather case, on top of her Louis XV style desk with floral marquetry and cabriolet legs. “I’ll be written down in archeological magazines for my find. The Royal Society will clamber for me to join them.”

“If Sir Arthur don’t steal your discovery. ‘Ee should o’ brought that vase here an’ not let him keep it at the ruin.” Clowenna brushed the dirt from Melwyn’s hem. “That’ll need to be soaked in urine to take out them stains.”

“Always the voice of doom, aren’t you? But I will keep a gimlet eye on Sir Arthur.” Melwyn walked to her window and swept aside the muslin curtains. The rolling green land stretched toward the sea. Her time with Sir Arthur had sped by, and the bluebells and sea pinks withered among shards of granite in the August heat. The scent of flowers mixed with the briny smell of the ocean. She recalled romping on the grounds with her governess, and wondering why she had no brothers or sisters, and why her mother spent so much time in the servants’ hall.

She turned back to her maid. “I continue to ponder who this mystifying benefactor might be. Who would care so much to give me this opportunity?”

“I still say it be Lord Lambrick. He has the blunt, don’t he?” Clowenna dusted rosemary into Melwyn’s boots to sweeten the sweat. “An’ from what I seen, he loves ‘ee, as much as ‘ee love him.”

“Balderdash, on both counts.” Melwyn twitched the curtain closed as her pulse jumped. “There is no love between us. And why would someone with Sir Arthur’s sterling reputation deal with a man like Lambrick? I think he’s a smuggler.” She had eavesdropped on her aunt’s and the duchess’s whispers about the viscount.

“Why don’t we find out, m’lady?” Clowenna shook out a chemise from Melwyn’s portmanteau, her gaze alight with mischief.

“What do you mean?” Melwyn sat on her bed, hiked up her skirt and two petticoats, and untied her gold filigree silk garters from above her knees.

“I mean, ‘ee need some adventure afore you leave England. Still over two weeks till you’re of age, an’ no promise o’ money to sail. We could travel to that there Merther Manor an’ see what the man be up to.” Her abigail sat beside her. “I could question his servants, now couldn’t I?”

“That sounds foolhardy to the extreme.” Melwyn rolled down her stockings, her mind tumbling over this suggestion. The possibilities of seeing Lambrick again did entice yet unnerved her. “Why would I care to be anywhere near that blackguard, in his own home, under his jurisdiction?”

“To uncover the true criminal that he be?” Clowenna poked her shoulder with a forefinger. “‘Ee could snoop about that huge manor ‘ee refuses to be mistress of. No secret your da controls your inheritance. If we prove his lordship be a miscreant, it might shock the master into givin’ ‘ee control. How else is we to live abroad?”

“You are a conniving wench, whom I’ve taught well.

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