A number of people were wandering in the Dutch garden, with its hedges and flower beds and geometrical paths. A lady in mourning dress on the other side of the pond caught Arabella’s attention. Was that Helen Dysart?
The lady glanced around in a manner that was almost surreptitious, then bent and placed something in a stone urn in which a palm grew.
Arabella halted in the middle of the path. Memory flooded her. She saw a sheet of paper covered in Lady Bicknell’s scrawled handwriting. You may leave the bracelet in the Dutch garden in the Kensington Palace Gardens. Hide it in the urn at the northeastern corner of the pond.
The lady in mourning walked briskly away. She wore a veil, but her figure, her style of walking—
It was Helen Dysart.
Arabella hurried around the pond. She bent over the urn and felt among the palm fronds. Her fingers found a package.
“What’s wrong?” Polly asked, behind her.
“This.” Arabella pulled out the package. It was about the size of a small book, wrapped in black cloth and tied with ribbon.
“What is it?”
“Blackmail,” she said grimly. “Lady Bicknell. Quickly! We have to find Helen.” She saw Polly’s bafflement, but spared no time to explain. Instead, she caught up her skirts and hurried in the direction Helen had taken, almost running along the path, up the shallow steps, past the hedge—
“Helen!”
The lady in black turned swiftly. She hesitated, and then raised her veil. “Arabella?” Helen’s smile was strained. “What are you doing here?”
Arabella held out the package. “You left this behind.”
Helen’s face whitened.
“You’re being blackmailed, aren’t you?”
Helen made no answer. She took the package with a trembling black-gloved hand.
“I know who’s doing it,” Arabella said. “Lady Bicknell. She’s done it before. And I can promise that she won’t be content with one payment. She’ll want more.”
“I don’t care.” Helen pushed past her. “I have to put it back!”
Arabella caught her elbow, halting her. “Helen, let me help. Please.”
Helen shook her hand off. “I can’t,” she said, not meeting Arabella’s eyes.
“That’s money, isn’t it? Banknotes.”
Helen bit her lip.
“How much?” Arabella asked quietly.
Helen swallowed. She turned the package over in her hands. “Five thousand pounds.”
Arabella stared at her, appalled. “Helen, nothing you can have done is worth that much!”
“It’s not something I did,” Helen said bitterly. “It was George.”
“Then don’t pay!”
Helen clutched the package to her breast. “I have to.”
Arabella was silent for a moment, looking at her friend. “What did George do?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Helen, nothing you say will shock me. I grew up in the slums. Remember?”
Helen glanced at her.
“What did George do?” Arabella said softly, holding her friend’s eyes.
Helen’s face twisted. She looked down at the ground. “It’s how he died.”
“In a brothel, you said.”
“Not . . . not an ordinary brothel. He wasn’t with a woman. He was with a young boy. A child.”
Arabella briefly closed her eyes. She understood Helen’s horror.
“I didn’t know until I received the letter,” Helen said. “I thought . . . I thought it was a lie! I asked George’s lawyer and he said . . . it was true. They’d decided not to tell anyone because it was so . . . unpalatable.”
Yes, very unpalatable.
Helen clutched the package tightly. Tears shone in her eyes. “Arabella, I couldn’t bear it if the truth came out. I simply couldn’t.”
“But it’s not your name that will be besmirched, it’s George’s—”
“And mine with it!” There was an edge of hysteria in Helen’s voice. “Of all the things George did, this is . . . this is—” She swallowed convulsively. “I have to keep it secret.”
Arabella touched her friend’s arm lightly. “Helen—”
“I know you want to help,” Helen said in a trembling voice. “But please . . . let me deal with this.”
Arabella looked at her for a long moment, then withdrew her hand and stepped back.
“Thank you,” Helen said. She hurried back towards the sunken garden and the pond.
Arabella watched until she was gone, then she turned to Polly. “Lady Bicknell needs another lesson,” she said grimly.
“I’LL GO TO Lady Bicknell’s tonight,” Arabella said as they walked back to the Long Water. “Before she has a chance to spend the money.”
Polly nodded. “Do you think she’ll use the same hiding place?”
“Probably not. I wouldn’t, if—” Her attention was caught by a man walking towards them. His height, his easy, athletic stride, the austere elegance of his clothing, told her who it was before she saw his face. Her heart began to beat more loudly.
“Handsome, isn’t he?” Polly said, her tone ingenuous.
“Shh!”
Polly grinned and fell back a pace, becoming a demure lady’s maid.
St. Just lifted his hat and bowed. “Good afternoon. I hoped I might meet you here.”
“You did?” When he looked at her like that, with such warmth in his eyes, it caused something in her chest to ache.
“I called in at your grandmother’s house,” St. Just said, offering her his arm. “She said you were here.”
Arabella laid her hand on his sleeve. Delight and panic mingled inside her. I’ve agreed to marry this man.
The panic surged and she knew, with sudden and absolute certainty, that marrying Adam St. Just was a mistake—but then she glanced up at his face and the certainty fled and the panic twisted into joy. She saw the smile on his mouth, the warmth in his eyes, and knew that she loved him.
What am I to do?
“Would you like to drive out to the school with me tomorrow?” St. Just asked.
“Oh!” Her eyes widened. “Oh, yes.” She’d imagined it so many times: the neat rows of beds in the dormitory, the schoolroom with its desks and bookshelves, the long tables and benches in the dining room, the tall oak tree in the front and the vegetable garden out the back—
And then she remembered.
She clutched his arm urgently. “Oh, Adam, you’ll never guess—! Lady Bicknell is blackmailing someone else.”
“What?” The smile vanished. His face was suddenly stern.
Arabella told him what she’d witnessed in the Dutch garden. “Something must be done!”
“Something will be done.” St. Just’s voice was hard. His expression made her shiver. “I’ve proof that Lady Bicknell was Grace’s blackmailer.”
Arabella opened
