The Virgin Who Vindicated Lord Darlington - Anna Bradley Page 0,1

wrong, Daniel could be at her side in a matter of hours. Nothing would go wrong, of course, yet it comforted her nonetheless he should be so near, and so reassuringly large.

Why, half a day was nothing, a pittance, an instant, a snap of the fingers—

“Beg pardon, Cecilia. Did ye say something?”

Cecilia turned to find her new acquaintance regarding her with a puzzled look. Molly was her one and only friend in Edenbridge, and it wouldn’t do to frighten her away by muttering to herself like a Bedlamite. “No, I…I was just saying it’s taking ages for our driver to hand down our baggage.”

Molly’s broad face split into a grin. “Anxious to get on, are ye? Ye never did say what brings ye to Kent. Do ye have a sweetheart here?”

Cecilia smothered a snort. The closest she’d ever come to having a sweetheart was an infatuation with Valancourt, the hero of Mrs. Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho. “No, no, nothing like that. I’ve come to take up a post as a housemaid.”

Housemaid, investigator, spy—weren’t they all just varying degrees of the same thing?

Molly gave Cecilia a doubtful look. “Ye look a bit dainty to be a housemaid, but no matter.” She nodded at their stagecoach driver, who’d climbed onto the roof and was handing the baggage down. They hurried to retrieve their things, then stepped aside as the other passengers pressed forward. “My father’s coming here to fetch me. Mayhap he can take ye where yer going, to save ye the walk.”

“Oh, that’s kind of you. I’m going to Darlington Castle.”

A gasp arose from the small knot of travelers nearby. The coachman froze, a trunk tumbling from his hands and landing with a thump in the frozen dirt below. Cecilia glanced behind her at the scuffle of shuffling feet, and found her fellow travelers had backed away from her, as if she were tainted.

Molly stared at her, aghast. “Darlington Castle? Ye mean ye’re going to serve as housemaid for Lord Darlington?”

Cecilia gulped as her gaze shifted from one horrified face to the next. “Er, yes. I—”

“But he’s a murderer!” Molly patted her chest, as if the very mention of Lord Darlington was giving her palpitations. “Did away with his wife, didn’t he?”

“There’s no proof he—”

The lady beside her silenced her with a hiss. “Don’t be daft, girl. Everyone in England knows he did away with his wife.”

A murmur of assent rose from the crowd, and a craggy-faced man stepped forward and shook his finger in Cecilia’s face. “Sent her off to an early grave. Make no mistake about it, miss. He’s the Murderous Marquess, sure as I’m standing here.”

Cecilia pressed her lips together. They called him the Murderous Marquess here in Edenbridge, as well? She’d thought the nickname an invention of the ton, but it seemed folks here were quite as capable of being horrible as those in London were.

Perhaps Lord Darlington was a murderer, and perhaps he wasn’t. Lady Clifford had tasked Cecilia with unraveling that particular mystery while his lordship was in London with his betrothed, Miss Fanny Honeywell. Cecilia had seen him there herself just yesterday, walking in Hyde Park with Miss Honeywell on his arm.

For her part, Cecilia didn’t think he looked much like a murderer. Given the gossip about him, she’d been expecting a sinister, monster of a man, but if Lord Darlington had committed the wicked deeds he was rumored to have done, his sins didn’t show on his face.

Even her friend Georgiana, who knew a great deal more about sins and murder than Cecilia did, had admitted that if Lord Darlington was a murderer, he was an exceedingly elegant one. Of course, Georgiana had also pointed out a handsome gentleman in a fine silk waistcoat was as likely to murder his wife as any other. More so, really, as people were quicker to condemn a plain face than a pretty one.

But it wasn’t his handsome face that inclined Cecilia in his favor. No, it was the protectiveness with which he held Miss Honeywell’s arm, his head bent graciously toward hers as he guided her over the uneven pathway. He was a large man, far larger than Fanny Honeywell, who was a petite, fair-haired creature, and he handled her with great care, as if she were a delicate china figurine on the verge of shattering.

Try as she might, Cecilia couldn’t imagine so civilized a gentleman would murder his wife, not even when Georgiana reminded her the notorious highwayman John Rann was thought to be