A Lady's Guide to Mischief and Mayhem - Manda Collins Page 0,81

world around them, enforcing the rules that they believed governed polite society. Before her fall from grace, a word from Miss Frampton, as she was known then, could see a rival excluded from all the best parties or even ruined entirely. Now, though she was the one who’d been shunned, she still seemed to prize the proprieties. It was rather like following the regulations of a club from which one had been blackballed.

“Perhaps we should change the subject,” Kate said in an effort to keep further strife from Valentine’s dinner table. “Is anyone familiar with the village of Crossmere?”

Valentine gave her a silent nod of thanks for diverting the conversation. “A bit. It’s twenty miles or so from Lewiston. Charming but remote. Unfortunately, it was one of the villages bypassed by the railway, so it’s a bit isolated.”

“Are you considering a visit?” Caro asked, her eyebrows raised.

“Of course, that’s impossible.” Lady Eggleston didn’t bother to hide the smugness in her tone. “Lady Katherine is confined to Thornfield just like the rest of us.”

“Unless Inspector Eversham has given her some special dispensation,” Mr. Thompson said in a teasing voice.

Perhaps they hadn’t been as discreet as Kate had thought. She would need to keep her distance from Andrew for the next few days.

Or at the very least have Caro put it about that she was ill with a headache tomorrow while she was gone to Crossmere with him.

“Of course not. I was reading about the”—she searched her mind for some reason Crossmere might be referenced in a book—“historic church.” Since the English countryside was littered with picturesque houses of worship, it stood to reason there was one in Crossmere. “I find something so charming about a country churchyard.”

“Sebastian Philbrick has a poem about such a churchyard,” Miss Barton said. “There were a few of his books in my bedchamber and I’ve quite enjoyed them. I wonder why he never achieved the same degree of fame as his mentor, Mr. Wordsworth.”

For all that she’d spent the past few days thinking of Philbrick, Kate hadn’t thought to read the man’s verse.

“I’ve always suspected if he’d lived longer, his poetry would have become more popular,” Genevieve said thoughtfully.

“Keats died young,” Caro argued, “but he gained a following.”

“I think Philbrick’s day has yet to come.” Mr. Thompson’s voice held a surety that made Kate turn to look at him.

At her scrutiny, color rose on his cheekbones.

“I do not speak with any authority,” he said hastily. “Just that of an admirer of the man’s work.”

The rest of the meal passed without incident, but Kate couldn’t stop thinking she was missing something by ignoring Philbrick’s writings. What if the man had written about Delia in his work?

She knew some of his poems had been published posthumously. It was entirely possible that there might be some clue as to where his wife and child may have settled after his death there.

Once the household had retired for the night, still dressed, she crept down the hall to the library.

Fortunately, it was a separate chamber from Valentine’s study. She hadn’t spoken to him privately since learning he’d struck Eversham. And she was still too angry with him to do so.

She appreciated that he looked out for her well-being, but that didn’t mean she wanted him to ride to her rescue whenever he considered her to be at risk.

What had happened between her and Eversham was no one’s affair but their own. And she didn’t appreciate Valentine assaulting her lover, no matter how justified he might think his actions.

When she stepped into the book room, she was relieved to find it empty. Given that the guests were confined to the house for the time being, it would not have been surprising to find they’d sought out entertainment.

The only light in the room was from the lamp she’d brought with her and the fire in the hearth. The rest of the chamber was bathed in shadows.

Kate wasn’t normally given to flights of fancy, but perhaps because of the discussion of murder at dinner, she felt a shiver run through her as she contemplated the dark corners of the library.

“Don’t be foolish,” she told herself. Her pragmatism was something that had stood her in good stead, and she wasn’t about to let a little darkness frighten her.

Squaring her shoulders, she made her way to the shelves where she recalled seeing the Philbrick books on an earlier visit to the room. Soon enough, she found them. And not only were there books of his own