The Enigmatic Rake

In the end, when Sarah had once more cried off from a stroll in Grosvenor gardens, the Countess of Painscastle took matters into her own hands with high-handed Faringdon initiative. After discreet enquiries of Millington, she took herself to Joshua’s house at a time of day when she presumed that both her brother and his chère amie would be absent. She stood in the entrance hall to face the new and most supercilious butler, Millington.

‘Good morning, Millington. I would wish for a word with Lord Faringdon’s housekeeper—on a matter of business.’ Although why she should need to give a reason, she knew not.

‘Mrs Russell, my lady?’ Millington could hardly disguise his interest, which Judith promptly ignored.

‘Perhaps I could speak with her in the blue morning room. If you would be so good as to ask her to come?’

‘Very well, my lady. Would your ladyship require refreshment?’

‘No. All I need is a few moments of Mrs Russell’s valuable time.’

A short time later Sarah arrived with a carefully blank expression belied by a surprisingly fierce light in her blue eyes, followed by Millington, to come to a halt in the doorway of the elegant room where Judith was standing before the fireplace, removing her gloves. ‘You wished to see me, my lady.’

‘Indeed I did, Mrs Russell. There is no need for you to stay, Millington.’

He bowed and departed with ill-concealed disapproval and curiosity, in equal measure.

‘Sarah!’ Judith dropped all formality along with her gloves and parasol on the side table. Seeing the closed expression on Sarah’s face—much as she had expected, of course—she decided to approach the matter head on, immediately on the attack. She wasted no time. ‘Why have you not been to see me? And baby Giles? Should I suppose that you no longer wish to acknowledge me as a friend?’

‘Judith …’ Sarah drew in a breath against the obvious tactics. This would not be a comfortable meeting as she had known from the moment that Millington had delivered the message. If only she could have thought of some reason not to face Judith. But she could not, of course. A housekeeper could not claim the absolute necessity to clean out a fire-grate. ‘You know why I have not visited you. You should not have come to see me here. It will only give rise to unpleasant gossip.’

‘I told you it was a bad idea from the very beginning! I should never have allowed you to come here.’

Sarah could find nothing to say. Neither could she meet Judith’s gaze with its mixture of concern and hurt. But her own resentment died away. All she could do was answer the following catechism.

‘Are you well?’

‘Yes.’

‘And John?’

‘He is in good spirits—and enjoying living here, I think.’

‘How is Celestine?’

‘She seems to have settled in.’

‘Are you content?’

‘Yes.’ Sarah risked a glance. ‘I must thank you. I know you do not like it, but it was for the best.’

‘Sarah! Next you will be addressing me as my lady! In fact, you did just that when you came into the room!’ Judith almost hissed in annoyance. Except that sympathy for Sarah’s plight threatened to bring tears to her sharp and watchful eyes. She surveyed the folded hands, the deliberately quiet demeanour. The lack of any smile or sparkle in Sarah’s face. The plain gown and rigidly confined hair, the lace cap. All in all, the epitome of a competent housekeeper or governess! ‘You must not cut yourself off, you know. I am your friend.’

‘But it is not appropriate for me to be a close friend of the Countess of Painscastle. Indeed it is not, as you are well aware.’

And Judith was aware, but that did not make her retreat.

‘Nonsense. I shall inform Thea and insist that she come to see you and take you in hand if you continue to distance yourself in this manner!’

Which brought a smile to Sarah’s lips. Indeed, she laughed at her friend’s outrageous threat. ‘I thought you would already have done so.’ Which had the effect of spurring Judith into action. On impulse, oblivious to convention, she covered the expanse of opulent carpet between them to fold Sarah in a warm embrace and kiss her cheek.

‘Dear Sarah. You do not know your own worth—that is the problem. You must not allow the past to weigh on you so much.’ Judith kissed her again with another quick hug. ‘I have missed you.’

Only to become aware of the opening of the door into the morning room. And there, of course, stood Lord Joshua Faringdon, dark brows raised in total astonishment at seeing his sister warmly embracing his cool and icily reserved housekeeper. He looked from one to the other. They returned the look, green eyes quite defiant, blue ones with obvious discomfort, perhaps even shame. His mind worked furiously. He could think of nothing appropriate to the occasion to say.

‘Forgive me, ladies.’ He resorted to the banal. Executed a respectable bow, despite the discomfort. ‘It would appear that my presence is decidedly de trop. Judith—I shall be in the library—if you would care to see me before you leave.’ He turned his back, quietly closing the door behind him, leaving the two ladies to look at each other.

‘I shall have to tell him, Sarah.’

Sarah set her shoulders. It had to happen some time, she supposed. ‘As you will.’

And then I shall see if Lord Faringdon truly wishes to employ Sarah Baxendale under his roof!

‘Well?’

‘Well what, dear Sher?’ Judith cast herself down into a chair. Her brother remained seated behind the massive Chippendale desk, if not in comfort, at least where the sharp agony in his knee and thigh was most bearable. He folded his arms on the polished surface and regarded his sister with an accusatory stare.

‘Don’t play the innocent with me, Judith. I was aware, I believe, that you had recommended Mrs Russell for the post here. I certainly did not think to find you on such close terms—intimate even—with the lady. So tell me. Who is she?’

Could she bluff and keep Sarah’s cover? Judith had her doubts. She tried an ingenuous smile. ‘I have known Sarah Russell for some years.’

‘Come on, Ju! Perhaps you have. But you do not normally embrace your housekeeper with such obvious affection. I have wondered about her … Who is she?’

Judith sighed. But what did it matter? She would tell her brother the truth. If he did not wish to employ her—all well and good, even if Sarah would not see it in quite that light. It would rescue the lady from a situation that was, in her own eyes, unpalatable.

‘She is Sarah Russell. But her name was Baxendale. She is Thea’s sister.’ Judith awaited the explosion. She was not to be disappointed.

‘What?’

‘Theodora—who married Nicholas—when you were still in France.’

‘I know very well who Theodora is!’

‘Thea was brought up by Sir Hector and Lady Drusilla Wooton-Devereux. But she and Sarah are sisters.’

‘So with such a family behind her, what in the devil’s name is she doing as my housekeeper?’

‘She needed a position and an income—against my advice, I must tell you.’

‘I see.’ He tapped the papers in front of him into a neat pile with short, sharp gestures. ‘Why did you not tell me of this?’

‘You would not have approved. Even less than I. Sarah threatened to take a position elsewhere if not this one. She can be very determined. So I said nothing.’

He thought for a moment.

‘I thought she came from some genteel family who had perhaps born a child out of wedlock and been cast off by her family.’

‘No—nothing of that nature. She is indeed a widow. Her husband has been dead some five or six years now. A naval captain, killed in action.’

‘Wait a minute!’ Lord Faringdon fixed his sister with a fierce stare. ‘Baxendale. Baxendale, did you say? Edward Baxendale? Surely that was the name of the man who laid a claim against the Faringdon estates in the name of his sister—or his wife, as it turned out. I was in Paris so did not know the full gist of it, but I am aware that it rattled Lady Beatrice. She wrote to inform me of it, without one word of censure in the whole letter of my own errant behaviour, which was a miracle in itself. So—was that the name?’

‘Yes—yes, it was. Sarah is sister to Sir Edward Baxendale.’ Accepting the inevitability of it, she sat back in her chair and prepared to be communicative. Sarah would not approve, but her brother, as she knew, could be like a terrier with a rat. ‘It seems that I must tell you the whole story.’

‘I think you must.’ Joshua pushed to his feet, to limp across to the sideboard to pour two glasses of claret, handing one to Judith. ‘This may take some time.’

‘Yes. It is quite complicated.’ So she took a strengthening sip and told him. How Edward Baxendale had devised and executed a plot to present his own wife Octavia, masquerading as his sister, as the legitimate wife of Henry and Nicholas Faringdon’s eldest brother Thomas, who had died in a tragic accident. Thus Octavia would have a claim on the Faringdon estate and her child, Thomas’s son as she claimed, would be the Marquis of Burford. And how Sarah, under severe pressure from her brother, had allowed her son to be used in the charade as the son of Octavia and Thomas Faringdon and had herself taken on the role of nursemaid to the child. Such detail of which Joshua had been unaware.

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