Squeezing her shoulder, Lady Hillbrook bent to kiss her cheek. “You want to be alone. And you think I’m prying.” The sincerity in her voice appeased Nell’s stirring resentment. “I know how it feels to believe that you bear the world’s troubles all alone.”
“There’s… there’s nothing to be done,” Nell said, before realizing how that broken little admission confirmed Lady Hillbrook’s suspicions.
“There’s always something to be done.”
“Not in this case,” Nell muttered, digging her hands into her skirts.
Lady Hillbrook’s smile was compassionate. “Be brave and follow your heart, Miss Trim.”
“My heart is no reliable guide,” Nell forced out, desperately wishing the woman would go. Her pride became more threadbare by the minute.
“Sometimes it’s the only guide that matters.” Lady Hillbrook stepped away. “But of course, you wish me to the devil.”
Nell summoned a smile. She hoped it looked more genuine than it felt. “I wouldn’t be so rude.”
Lady Hillbrook laughed softly. “You know, Miss Trim, you’ll do. You really will. And don’t let anyone tell you differently.”
Nell frowned, not sure whether this was a compliment or not. “You’re…”
“Not making any sense, I can see. I shouldn’t torment you. I just wanted to tell you that you’re not alone, although I imagine you feel like it in this house full of strangers.”
“That was kind,” she said.
Lady Hillbrook sent her a shrewd glance. “It would be kinder to leave you in peace.”
“Thank you,” Nell said in relief. When she’d come upstairs, she’d dreaded that her brazen antics in the library might arouse disdain and disgust. This undeserved offer of friendship was harder to accept.
Lady Hillbrook turned toward the door. “Good night, Miss Trim.”
“Good night, your ladyship,” she whispered, before Lady Hillbrook granted her the privacy for a good, long cry.
Chapter Thirty
It’s time we found a solution to the Greengrass problem.” Hillbrook settled into a chair in Sedgemoor’s library and brought the delicate coffee cup to his lips. “He’s clearly up to his old tricks.”
Sedgemoor had called this meeting of Leath, Hillbrook, and Harmsworth after breakfast. Leath understood Eleanor’s pique at being excluded. But she’d done enough, however misguided, in this quest to end his dead uncle’s baleful influence. The task was men’s business now, not least because the others had experience with that dangerous thug Hector Greengrass.
He’d cut off his hands before he put Eleanor in danger.
How he’d hated letting her go last night, especially when they’d only just found each other again. But he retained enough discretion to know that he couldn’t share her bed. Not without shaming her.
“I had men scouring the kingdom for the bugger after that swine Fairbrother shot himself…” Sedgemoor cast Leath an apologetic glance from his seat near the hearth. “Sorry, old man. I know he was your uncle, but he was rotten to the core.”
“Don’t apologize for insulting the blackguard,” Leath said, standing near the window. The view outside was wet and gray and uniformly gloomy. “I wish he’d been drowned at birth.”
“It’s easy enough to disappear under a different name.” Harmsworth lounged against the mantel, looking like an illustration from a fashion periodical. His surprisingly disreputable-looking hound lay a few feet away. Leath had always dismissed the baronet as Sedgemoor’s brainless satellite. But noting the firm jaw and intelligent eyes, now he wasn’t so sure. “Greengrass took a leaf from his master’s book. I gather your uncle stole your name to despoil virgins up and down the country.”
“Apparently,” Leath said drily.
“And among these women was Miss Trim’s sister,” Sedgemoor added. “Damned bad business, that.”
“Half-sister. Which is why Miss Trim used her real name at Alloway Chase.”
“That’s one enterprising female.”
“She has no shortage of courage.” Leath kept his tone noncommittal, although he suspected that all these men—and their wives—guessed that he and Miss Trim were more than former enemies, now reluctant allies. The fact that he and Eleanor had been left alone last night spoke volumes for what these sophisticated, clever people assumed about his relations with his housemaid.
He wondered what they’d say if they knew he’d proposed to that housemaid. And that the housemaid had had the temerity to say no.