Free A Scandalous Plan by Donna Lea Simpson Page B

doubt lingering as to what his recent experience really meant. “Do you know a Mrs. Harriet Parsifal?”
    “The widow Parsifal; indeed I do.” He sat back in his chair, resting his hands on his paunch and steepling his fingers. A stray beam of sunlight in the dim office glanced off his balding pate.
    “Did she recently come into an unexpected inheritance?”
    “She came into an inheritance,” he said cautiously. “But it was hardly unexpected. She has known about it for some time, but she is not one to talk, you know. How, if I may ask, did you come to know about it?”
    “It is being talked of in the butcher shop. But it is clearly being spoken of as unexpected, as though she had no idea it was coming and it was some sort of miracle.”
    Dartelle shrugged. “Misunderstanding, merely. Things get twisted in the telling, you know. One person whispers, another mishears . . . happens all the time.”
    “I suppose,” James said, reluctant to let go of the mystery. He toyed with a seal on the desk, turning it over and over. “If someone had not named my son in conjunction with it, I would not be even mentioning it. But someone said something about Jacob and a visit to Mrs. Parsifal before she learned of the inheritance.”
    “Preposterous,” Dartelle said, sitting up sharply, his chair clunking down on the wood floor. “Widow Parsifal knew about the inheritance before you and your children even came to St. Mark.”
    There was no arguing with such certainty, so what he heard must be gossip or misunderstanding only. James stood and extended his hand. “Thank you, Dartelle. I will see you again soon. I am still thinking about buying Meadowlark. My concern is my children, but they seem to be getting along much better, thanks to Lady Theresa.”
    The other man stood. As he took James’s outstretched hand and shook, he chuckled and said, “That lady is a spark, Mr. Martindale! If she is sponsoring you, you are assured of acceptance in this village. Old family, sir, and an honored one.”
    James was tempted—so very tempted—to ask questions concerning the lady’s single state. It was a mystery to him how a woman with charm, family, and money could have remained in her single state. It had to be by choice; there could be no other explanation. Or there could, he supposed, be some tragedy there of which he knew nothing. But he would not expose her to gossip by asking Dartelle.
    He left with more questions than he had when he arrived.

Ten
     
     
    Two long, wearisome days had passed since she had been in the village with Mr. Martindale. Lady Theresa, accompanied by her maid, could barely summon the energy to control her mare, so it was lucky that the horse knew her own way home. She was so very tired and sad. Helen, her good friend from childhood, had given birth to her child the night before, but it was, tragically, dead. Theresa thought, looking back, that Helen had suspected it; whenever her husband would speak of their coming child, their first to be carried the full nine months, she was silent and occasionally tearful. She may have known she was carrying a dead child; after all, there must have been no movement, and there should have been some.
    She was just able to hand the reins of her gig over to old John, who took one look at her and stayed silent, not even asking after the baby, which he normally would do. She had already sent her maid ahead with the order to prepare her bed and a cup of hot tea, and she trudged wearily up to the house alone, her eyes dazzled by the angle of the setting sun and the tears that would not abate.
    When she heard the voice she was not sure who it was at first, an error that could only be explained by her exhaustion.
    “So, you’re home at last, back from your latest round of meddling!”
    She halted, shaded her eyes, and stared. “James!” she blurted, forgetting her usual careful address. She felt a little spurt of happiness that he should be there to greet her, but then his