Free An Impossible Confession by Sandra Heath Page B

from the Jockey Club inquiry. The colonel could have been forbidden from having anything more to do with racing, Miss Fairmead,’ explained the maid.
    ‘I realize that, Mary, please go on,’ replied Helen quietly, shocked by the story of trickery she was hearing.
    ‘The colonel sent for Sam Edney, pretending he wished to discuss a forthcoming race with him, but when the jockey arrived he was immediately faced with what Mr St John had seen. At first he denied everything, but at last admitted he’d conspired with Lord Drummond to lengthen Prince Agamemnon’s odds. The horse had simply been given a bucket of water before the minor race, it was as easy to do as that.’
    ‘Lord Drummond wouldn’t do such a thing, Mary,’ declared Helen firmly.
    ‘He didn’t deny it when accused, Miss Fairmead, and he did come into a great deal of extra money,’ pointed out the maid. ‘Naturally, the Jockey Club inquiry was told everything, but before Sam Edney could be barred from riding in this country, he vanished. It seems he went to America, where he’s doing very well for himself. Lord Drummond sold his own racehorses and withdrew from the turf, but he’d have been barred anyway for what he did.’
    Helen gazed at the clutter on the dressing table. Adam’s words sounded clearly in her head. My name was involved in an unpleasant cause célèbre last summer, and the experience was enough to persuade me to withdraw. My presence at Royal Ascot this year will undoubtedly raise a great many eyebrows, and if it hadn’t been for my sister, I’d have stayed away, but she persuaded me that nonattendance would be construed in some quarters as proof of a guilty conscience . But if he didn’t have a guilty conscience, why hadn’t he protested his innocence when accused?
    Helen drew a long breath. ‘Please continue, Mary. What happened after that?’
    ‘Well, the colonel was anxious to put it all behind him. He felt that his reputation had already been damaged enough, and since the newspapers hadn’t printed anything, he thought it best to let the dust settle. He’s never forgiven Lord Drummond, though, for not only was his lordship guilty of behaving very dishonorably, he also acted without any thought of the colonel at all. Lord Drummond must have known that any wild differences in the horse’s running would inevitably lead to a Jockey Club inquiry for the colonel. It was a very low thing to do, miss.’
    ‘ If he did it.’
    ‘But, Miss Fairmead, the evidence is all there,’ protested the maid.
    ‘I still don’t believe it of him.’
    ‘No, miss.’
    ‘Well, you saw him at the Cat and Fiddle, Mary, do you think he’d do all that?’
    Mary said nothing, but the look on her face spoke volumes of her doubts.
    Helen saw the maid’s expression and sighed inwardly. Maybe Mary was right to be so mistrusting, maybe it was the height of gullibility to have faith in him simply because his smiles and kisses had kindled a fire within her. She was a green girl, fresh from school and without experience of the world, so how could she expect to judge such a man? Maybe she couldn’t, but she had a very firm conviction that he was innocent. She trusted her instinct where he was concerned, and above all, she trusted her heart.
    A little later, dressed in a lemon-and-white-striped lawn gown,Helen went down to join her sister for breakfast. Her hair was dressed in a pretty knot, with ringlets falling to the nape of her neck, and the ribbons of her tiny white lace day bonnet were untied, fluttering as she moved.
    Margaret was alone in the sunny peach-colored breakfast room, the French windows of which stood open toward the stables. The view was clear to the archway beneath the clocktower, and Gregory could be seen in the yard beyond, deep in conversation with his head groom. In the room the smell of coffee, warm bread, and bacon hung in the warm air, together with the sweet perfume of carnations from the bowl in the center of the