Page 48 of The Viscount and the Vicar’s Daughter

Felicity Brightwell had destroyed all but the one page. And even that was splotched with ink. The illustration was still visible, thank goodness. And Valentine knew the psalm her mother had quoted backwards and forwards. All that was left was to begin at the beginning. To attempt to reconstruct her mother’s legacy to her from memory, one Bible verse and one rudimentary sketch at a time.

She was thus engaged on a Tuesday, during her third week in residence, when Lady Hermione entered the morning room with a newspaper in hand.

“The Brightwells have arrived in London,” she said.

Valentine looked up from her work. She’d just finished copying out a verse she remembered as having been at the front of her mother’s book. Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. It had been illustrated with a stag and a lion with an eagle flying overhead.

She put down her pen and flexed her hand. Her fingers were cramped and stained with ink. “Have they?”

“Just yesterday. It’s here in the papers.” Lady Hermione came to the desk and peered over her shoulder. “Is that a sketch of Primrose?” she asked. “No. It can’t be. The proportions are wrong.”

“It’s meant to be a lion.”

“With a corkscrew tail?”

“That’s not the tail. It’s part of the vine that grows around the illustration. See here? These are the flowers. And this is the tuft of grass beneath.”

“Hmm. I daresay it will look more like a lion when you have painted it in.”

Valentine doubted it. She wasn’t an artist. Not by any measure. She rose from her chair to join Lady Hermione on the settee. A glance at the newspaper confirmed her distant cousin’s report. Lady Brightwell and her daughter had returned to London for the Christmas season. They had taken up residence with friends in Park Lane.

“May we count on their discretion?” Lady Hermione asked.

Valentine shook her head. “Felicity as good as promised that she would tell everyone about what happened in Yorkshire. She’s determined to ruin me.”

Lady Hermione gave an unladylike snort. “Stuff and nonsense. How can she tell anyone anything without admitting to having been at the Fairfords’ orgy herself?”

Valentine winced. She wished Lady Hermione would cease referring to that wretched house party as an orgy. She felt bad enough about having been there already. “Felicity never cares about the consequences of her behavior when she is in a temper. She’ll say and do whatever she pleases. Whatever is most cruel.”

“She sounds positively charming.”

“Yes, well…she wanted to marry Lord St. Ashton quite desperately.”

“Clearly. I expect she thought to lure him into an indiscretion at Fairford House and then trap him into marriage. A ridiculous plan. A man like St. Ashton can’t be caught. A gentleman must have a sense of decency in order to do the right thing.”

Valentine held her tongue. This wasn’t the first time someone had alluded to Tristan’s lack of honor—at least insofar as women were concerned—and she doubted it would be the last.

“How very tiresome.” Lady Hermione sighed as she rose from the settee. “I had planned to wait until after the holiday, but if this Brightwell chit interferes…” She walked to the window and back again, brow creased in contemplation. “There is nothing for it,” she said at length. “We shall have to pay a call on Stokedale.”

Valentine’s eyes widened in alarm. “Now?”

“No, not now. We’ll go tomorrow morning. Stokedale mustn’t hear about you from other quarters. It would be fatal to our cause.” She cast a distracted look at the door. “It’s early hours, but I must call on Penelope and Euphemia. They will wish to know all.” She glanced back at Valentine. “I’ll return by luncheon,” she said as she moved to depart. “In the meanwhile, have Maisy prepare a solution for those ink stains on your fingers. A good soak should do the trick. We can’t have you meeting your uncle looking like a renegade copy clerk.”

When Lady Hermione had gone, Valentine returned to the little walnut desk in the corner and resumed her work. She was determined to finish her illustration before she subjected herself to one of the housekeeper’s lemon juice soaks. But, upon lifting her pen, she realized that the news that tomorrow she would finally be coming face to face with the Marquess of Stokedale made any further drawing impossible. Her hands were too unsteady.

Andrew Albert Caddington, Marquess of Stokedale was her mother’s only living sibling. He was a widower of one and fifty. The father of three boys and three girls, all of whom had now reached adulthood. He was a proud man, as the late marquess had been before him, and, according to Lady Hermione, set great store in the excellence of the Caddington bloodline.

When his younger sister, Lady Sara, had found herself with child, he’d taken his father’s side in the matter, refusing to lift a finger when Lady Sara was cast out into the streets.

Valentine had never felt hatred for anyone. Everything within her rebelled against such an emotion. It was wicked and unchristian. But when she thought of the Marquess of Stokedale, something roiled inside her that must be very much akin to hatred.

The man had stood by and done nothing when his only sister had—as Lady Hermione so often put it—been thrown to the wolves. He’d done nothing when Valentine had written to him for help. It seemed that, as far as he was concerned, Lady Sara’s memory and her bloodline could die out. Could be eradicated root and branch. He simply didn’t care. She was a bastard, after all. A March, not a Caddington.

“And happy to be so,” she muttered to herself as she set down her pen.

Papa hadn’t been perfect. He’d been judgmental, often hypocritical, and always impossible to please. Indeed, the more she worked on the book of the verses, the more Valentine grew to believe that it was a task her father had set for her mother. A sort of penance for her sins, as it were. He’d always said she was guilty of wantonness. And yet…

When he’d found Lady Sara, nearly six months gone with child, weeping in the vestibule of his church, he had, ultimately, done the right thing.