Page 72 of The Countess Caper

“Miss Smith.”

“Her actual name, I assure you.” She huffed an impatient sigh at herself. “Eleanor, honestly,” she muttered. “Miss Smith finds herself with child and without family.”

“Without husband, I assume.”

“Definitely not.” Her brows beetled together. “And I am planning violence.”

Tessa grinned. “Now we are getting somewhere. How can I help?”

“Winifred said you might take her in? Help her find alternatives to ruination and orphanages? The viscount in question is willing to take in the child as long as Miss Smith disappears. I don’t like the way he says it.”

Tessa narrowed her eyes. “I see.”

“I think you do. She is my… friend, and I cannot protect her.” Frustration laced Lady Eleanor’s words, agitated her movements. “He has been to my house three times this week alone. If I take her in right now, it would be the same as advertising her whereabouts.”

Tessa nodded once. “Send her to me,” she said. “There’s a coaching inn not far from Fox Hollow. Send word when she is en route and I will meet her there. I’ll need his name, where he keeps house, and any pertinent details you might have. Travel plans would help.” The roads were dangerous, after all. There were highwaymen lurking everywhere.

Lady Eleanor grabbed her hands and squeezed them. “You are an angel.”

Tessa had to smile. “According to my husband, I am a devil.”

Lady Eleanor winked. “Lucky you.”

Her luck did not hold out.

“Oh, my lady,” one of the maids said when Tessa returned to her chamber. She was clearly stricken, her eyes wide as teacups. “I don’t know what happened!”

Tessa knew exactly what had happened. Her chambers had been tossed. Her dresses lay in heaps on the ground, her shoes scattered in every direction. Pillows were scattered, the mattress half pulled off the frame. The drawers of the pretty escritoire were all open, as were any of the decorative boxes sitting on tables and the mantlepiece. Her necklace and earrings glittered from inside a potted plant, hastily retrieved by another maid.

“I don’t think anything is missing.” Tessa crouched to right an orchid spilling dirt on the carpet.

“Oh no, my lady, let me.” The first maid looked like she might cry.

“It’s not your fault,” Tessa assured her.

“I don’t wish to lose my post. I only just started.”

“You won’t,” she promised firmly. “This wasn’t your doing.”

“Who would dare? In the marquess’s house?” the other maid said. “He’ll be furious.”

“He doesn’t have to know.” What would it serve except to heap more scandal onto Tessa’s name, and therefore Roarke’s? She forced a smile, one she hoped was insouciant but suspected showed far too many teeth. “Perhaps it was a jest.”

The first maid narrowed her eyes. “It’s not funny.”

“No, it really isn’t.”

“What a terrible mess. We’ll have it put to rights by the time you return from the afternoon’s entertainments—don’t you fret.”

As she routinely slept in a room with moss growing on the windowsill, fretting had not occurred to Tessa. Frankly, a small, cowardly part of her would prefer to stay and help tidy up rather than parade around with her you-don’t-bother-me smile. Ah well. A small price to pay to be able to properly protect her friends.

But who would do such a thing? Was it personal? Accidental? Merely a fit of pique that she had been welcomed back to Society, if begrudgingly? She wondered if Lord Tewksbury had any relatives at the party. George certainly wouldn’t bother—he already had everything of value she had ever possessed.

She had her answer at the bottom of the staircase, where the guests had gathered in their beaver-crowned hats and pelisses for a walk to the garden folly.

Lord Beville.

Her stomach dropped. Did he suspect she had lied to him? Would he return, hunting for Holly despite everything?