Heiress in Red Silk by Hunter, Madeline (best mystery novels of all time TXT) 📗

ride in coaches or on horses, and we are down below, on foot along the edges.”

“I’m sure I would have noticed you if I rode past you on my horse.”

“When you are lost in your thoughts, me thinks you don’t notice anything at all.”

He did not argue the point. He opened the other window so the breeze could waft through. “How many sisters do you have?”

“Just one. Lily is fourteen, much younger than me. She was a child when our father passed away. I had to leave her in the country while I found employment.”

“Now she will attend a school, however. That is why those plain dresses were ordered, you said.”

“Minerva helped me find a school. Lily will have a fine bit of catching up to do. But she will come out of it with an education. I am hopeful that when she be grown, she will make a good marriage. I have settled some of the inheritance on her, to help with that.” She realized she was talking too much again, about things of no interest to this man. “Anyway, that be me plan.”

“That is generous of you, to have thought of her first, even before indulging yourself.”

He seemed sincere in saying that. “Do you think it will work? If she be educated and finished, and has a settlement, that she might marry well? I’d like it to be a gentleman, so she would not have to worry about money. It could be a middling sort of gentleman.”

“It could happen that way. You have made a friend in Minerva. When the day comes, she can help ease her into the company of such gentlemen.”

“She’ll still be the daughter of a tenant farmer. I can’t change that.”

“A fortune has a way of obscuring the details of one’s birth.”

She hoped so. Not only for Lily, but for herself. She was counting on a big fortune obscuring quite a lot. Yet there were things she could not hide. She knew that. She had not been educated, for one thing. She didn’t speak like the ladies she heard. Her reading was only passable and her hand when writing not elegant.

You make hats, her inner voice said. The nicest wardrobe, the biggest house, will not change who you be. Charles will never marry you.

“You are brooding,” he said.

She looked over to see him smiling, as if he knew how peculiar it was for him to make that accusation instead of receive it. She had to laugh.

“Let me see if I can guess what occupies you.” He leaned forward and looked into her eyes in that disconcerting, piercing way of his. “You are thinking that you will hold her back, no matter what you do for her.”

It touched her that he guessed. That he knew. She could not agree and keep her composure, so she only looked back at him. That connected gaze and their close proximity sent a little buzz to humming through her.

“It is not so hard to imitate a lady. It merely takes a bit of practice. Such a change does not make you one, but it prevents people from marking you otherwise too, until they know your history.” A slow smile broke. “Even that has been known to be altered.”

What an astonishing suggestion. It was too late to create a new history for herself with regard to Charles and his family, but for her sister’s sake—

“Chase? Is that you in there?” The woman’s voice all but shouted in Rosamund’s ear. She looked over to see another coach so close that she could serve coffee to its inhabitants.

“No, that’s Kevin,” a younger voice said. “Kevin, how odd to see you here. You never come to the park at this hour.”

Two women’s faces filled the other carriage’s window. An older woman with dark hair squinted to see Kevin. A younger woman with blond hair looked directly at Rosamund herself. They both wore bonnets that did not flatter them, in Rosamund’s opinion. Expensive, though. She took note of the intricate pleating on the underside of the dark-haired woman’s brim.

Across from her, Kevin stifled a groan. He slid to the window. “Aunt Agnes. You are looking well.”

“You are probably shocked to see I am alive. It isn’t as if you ever call when you are in Town.”

“I have been very busy.”

Her gaze shifted from him to where Rosamund sat. “I can see. Isn’t that Chase’s coach?”

“It is. I am escorting one of his houseguests this afternoon.”

“Are you going to introduce her? Bad enough you have reduced yourself to trade, but must you also adopt the rude behavior of your fellow tradesmen?”

Rosamund saw how Kevin’s smile formed a thin line. He looked back at her with something akin to an apology. “Aunt Agnes, Felicity, may I introduce you to Miss Jameson? Miss Jameson, this is my aunt, Lady Agnes Radnor, and my cousin’s wife, Mrs. Walter Radnor.”

Two frowns. Two pensive faces. Then two startled expressions turned to each other. “Did you hear, Felicity? That is Rosamund Jameson,” Lady Agnes said.

“I heard. Oh my.” The younger woman stared hard at Rosamund. “Oh my.”

“How dare Chase not inform us all that she has been found?” Lady Agnes said loudly.

“You will have to ask him,” Kevin said. “Now, we are due back at his house—”

“Nonsense. Stop that carriage so I can make Miss Jameson’s acquaintance.” Lady Agnes loudly ordered her own carriage to pull out of the stream. “A whole year we have been waiting. I had come to believe she would never be found. Dolores will be—well, shocked to say the least.”

Kevin cursed under his breath. “There is nothing else for it now. Allow me to apologize in advance, Miss Jameson.” He shot open the carriage trap door to give the coachman directions to turn out of the line at once.

“Must we do this?” Rosamund asked while the carriage maneuvered to a place to stop.

“Why would they want to talk with me? Lady Agnes did not look happy even to see me.”

“My aunt never loses an opportunity to