The Deception by Joan Wolf

I knew it lay near Newbury, some fifteen miles away. It was fully dark by now, but I certainly wasn’t going to try to persuade him to stay. “Yes, my lord,” I said in the same polite voice as before. He scowled, and I backed up one more step. As soon as I realized what I had done, I stepped forward again. I uncrossed my arms, stood straight, and looked him in the eye. He looked as if he was going to say something else, but then he turned and strode out of the room. The door closed behind him with a very final thud. I went to the window seat, sat down, and began to shake.
     

Chapter Four
     
    “Just a little bit of bread and cheese, Mrs. Noakes?” I coaxed. “I’m frozen and I need food to help me thaw out.”
    I loved the kitchen at Lambourn. It was always so delightfully warm and cozy, with delicious smells emanating from the great iron stove and a fire blazing in the big stone fireplace. I sat at the well-worn wooden table and watched as the housekeeper, who was also the cook, turned to me with her hands on her ample hips.
    “If you had the sense of a booby bird, my lady, you’d know enough not to go out into this weather,” she scolded. “Lord knows you don’t have enough flesh on your bones to keep you warm in decent weather, let alone in the cold rain we’ve been having this last week.”
    I gave her my most ingratiating smile. “I just went down to the stable for a while.”
    Mrs. Noakes came over to the table and picked up my hands to test their temperature. They were still extremely cold. She clucked—she really did look quite remarkably like a hen—and said, “You’ll be getting chilblains if you don’t watch out. Fine things for the Countess of Greystone to have on her hands!”
    “Even if I do get them, no one will ever know,” I said cheerfully, and ignored the look that Mrs. Noakes exchanged with her husband, who was Lambourn’s general man of work.
    “Mrs. Noakes is right, my lady,” the old man said gruffly.
    “Willie and George can look after those horses. There’s no need for you to go out in such nasty weather.” He beetled his bushy gray eyebrows together and added meaningfully, “Particularly in that thin old pelisse of yours.”
    I sighed. Mr. and Mrs. Noakes were dears, and I had become very fond of them in the eight months I had been residing at Lambourn Manor. I knew they were fond of me too, but for some reason they persisted in treating me like a wayward and not overly intelligent child. They might call me “my lady,” but on their lips it sounded more like a child’s pet name than a title.
    “I just went to visit Elsa,” I said now patiently. Elsa was a beautiful bay Thoroughbred mare who belonged to Adrian. When he had first joined the army and gone off to fight Napoleon he had sent her here to Lambourn, where the grass was heaven for horses. She had basically been retired until I arrived and decided to put her back into condition so I would be able to ride. She was sixteen, perfectly sound, perfectly healthy, and delighted to be useful once again. I adored her.
    Mrs. Noakes snorted, but she brought me a plate of hot soup as well as a wedge of cheddar cheese and a loaf of fresh bread. I grinned at her, picked up my spoon, and dipped in.
    “There was mail for you today, my lady,” Mr. Noakes said after a few moments. He was sitting across from me at the table having one of the dozens of cups of tea that he drank during the course of the day.
    My head came up alertly. “There was?”
    “I put it in the library.”
    The soup was hot, and I blew on my spoonful before putting it in my mouth. When he did not volunteer anything more, I knew the letter had to be from Louisa. If it had come from either France or Ireland, Mr. Noakes would have said something.
    Mrs. Noakes lifted the cover of an iron kettle pot on the stove and inspected the contents carefully. She sniffed, nodded, and turned back to me. “I have told you many times, my lady, that you should invite