Free The Return of Lord Conistone by Lucy Ashford

long before dawn, her heart full of despair, wondering how she would endure his presence here.
    Harlot. Fortune-hunting harlot.

Chapter Seven

    ‘I s it true, Verena? That Lucas will have to stay here till he’s better? And will they catch the ferocious band of smugglers who shot him?’ Verena’s youngest sister Izzy was first to join Verena at breakfast the next morning, bubbling with excitement.
    So the rumours were already spreading
. ‘We’re not absolutely sure who did it, Izzy,’ Verena told her gravely. Cook’s strong, sweet tea and the normal demands of the household had restored her to relative equanimity. ‘But, yes, he will stay for a day or two, until he’s well enough to move. And you must call him Lord Conistone’.
    Seventeen-year-old Izzy’s face fell, then brightened. ‘But he’s actually in our house! And he’s so handsome, Verena. Wait till I tell my friends! I shall write to them all this minute…’. She was already on her feet, breakfast forgotten.
    Verena cut in. ‘No gossip, please, Izzy. Remember, he is our guest!’
    Izzy pouted and ran off. But Pippa, her red-headed, lively,
sensible
sister, had ridden over from the farm nearFramlington that morning with a basket of eggs and had appeared just in time to catch Verena’s last words.
    ‘Well,’ Pippa declared, ‘David says Lord Conistone most certainly won’t want to stay for long in a place that’s been stripped of half its furniture!’ She settled herself at the table and started pouring tea. ‘Why
did
he come here in the first place, Verena? I’m intrigued. Was it to gloat?’
    ‘Over our misfortunes? Our
disasters?
I don’t know, Pippa. I really don’t know’. Verena was shaking her head, still fighting to dispel the dreams that had haunted her sleep. ‘And do you know, yesterday Luc—Lord Conistone—actually had the effrontery to offer me money for our father’s private papers? Or rather, he said he knew people who would pay for them! I don’t understand why
anyone
would want them, do you?’
    Pippa frowned. ‘You mean our father’s letters to us?’
    ‘Oh, letters, maps, diaries, I think; you know how he always wrote about everything on his travels, in the minutest detail! But I told Lucas I would never, ever sell anything of Papa’s!’
    ‘Good for you. But now you’re stuck with his lordship in the house. It really is appalling luck’. Pippa sipped her tea. ‘Although dear Mama will be delighted to have Lord Conistone a captive, as it were, under her roof’.
    Verena absorbed herself in buttering a piece of toast. ‘They say he is as good as betrothed already, Pippa’.
    Pippa snorted. ‘That story about Lady Jasmine, you mean? London tattle. Anyway, you think that would deter Mama? Here is her dream: a real-life viscount on the sacrificial altar of marriage, so to speak’.
    ‘Oh, Lord,
don’t
, Pippa!’ Verena feigned lightheartedness. ‘Mama must be kept away from him at all costs. And,’ she added more quietly, ‘it’s going to be hideously awkward for Deb’.
    Pippa knew nothing about the Earl’s terrible letter to Verena. But Pippa did know about Deb’s encounter with Lucas at Lady Willoughby’s ball.
    ‘Deb? I see the problem’. Pippa frowned. Then her face brightened. ‘My goodness, I might have
part
of the answer! Don’t you remember? Mama and Deb and Izzy were supposed to be going to Chichester later today, to stay with Aunt Grace for a few days and visit the shops…’.
    ‘But then Mama vowed she could not travel into Chichester because of the shame of the dispersal sale!’
    ‘Nevertheless,’ said Pippa, eyes gleaming, ‘we will tell Mama that even if
she
doesn’t go, the girls absolutely must, this very afternoon! How will that do? I’ll persuade her, never fear!’
    Verena’s spirits lifted. Aunt Grace, their father’s widowed cousin, often played host to the Sheldon family. ‘If you
could
, Pippa! But we must remind Mama and the girls that—’
    ‘That we’ve