Page 10

A short while later

On the way to Keyworth House

Mayfair London

Lenora kept her eyes closed on the coach ride home and concentrated on not casting up her accounts. She lay upon one seat, and Mama, Jason Steele, and the Dowager Countess of Darlington-Pope sat crammed together on the opposite.

Celestia and Lady Darlington-Pope’s abigail had awaited the arrival of the Keyworths’ coach after the lad had been sent to notify the driver to come around to the other side of Burlington Arcade.

“Do not fall asleep, Miss Audsley, though I know it is tempting,” Captain Steele repeated for at least the sixth or seventh time.

Bossy.

How does he know anyway?

Had he been cracked upon the noggin?

“A physician needs to examine you first,” he reiterated again.

He was a ship’s captain, which undoubtedly explained his commanding presence and why he felt he could order her about and expect prompt compliance.

“Miss Audsley?” he persisted, more annoying than a fly buzzing over teatime dainties or stinging ants at a picnic.

“I’m awake, Captain,” Lenora responded, though the effort to open her eyes was too great.

In truth, sleep sounded utterly splendid. However, she’d hit the back of her head, and the risk of concussion was real. At present, Captain Steele’s neckcloth served as a bandage wrapped around her head to hold the pilfered handkerchiefs in place.

She must look an utter fright.

Lenora couldn’t bring herself to care a whit.

Mama had been peculiarly silent except when Captain Steele had lifted Lenora into his arms with the ease of a child picking up a kitten.

“I am Lenora’s mother, Ruth Smith, and I shall accompany you to Keyworth House, Captain Steele,” she’d announced in a no-nonsense tone.

Mama had never taken up her actual name of Smythe-Shufflebottom after Papa’s perfidy. Not that Lenora blamed her in the least. She had reason to be angry and resentful. Papa’s behavior was untenable, especially for a man of God who regularly preached morality from the pulpit.

Do as I say and not as I do seemed to be his doctrine.

“Naturally, you must accompany us, Mrs. Smith,” Lady Darlington-Pope had agreed, wincing slightly as her coachman handed her into the waiting conveyance. “You must be so proud of your daughter’s courage.”

Mama made a noncommittal sound in her throat as the coachman assisted her inside.

Proud mightn’t be the best terminology to describe Mama’s sentiments. She loathed dramatics and ostentatious emotional displays. More on point, she despised her own loss of self-control. She prided herself on her restraint during taxing situations and to have shrieked Lenora’s name, not once, but twice in public…

Likely she was wallowing in self-recrimination.

To a small degree, Lenora was as well.

She disliked upsetting her mother. Likely, Mama was more upset that Lenora had put herself in harm’s way than her unseemly public behavior. She mightn’t have given birth to Lenora, but no biological mother could be more devoted or love her daughter more.

Lenora had never known her own mother. Consequently, she didn’t miss the woman who’d given birth to her. Nevertheless, that lady, the now-deceased Countess of Keyworth, had loved her, Landry had told Lenora.

She’d not relinquished Lenora willingly, but as Lenora was the result of a love affair, the previous earl had made arrangements for Mama and Papa to raise her. All without the countess’s knowledge or consent.

Upon her deathbed, the Countess of Keyworth had confided in her son, and Landry had spent the next eight years looking for Lenora. Only back then, she’d gone by the name Laureen. Mama hadn’t asked why she and her husband were given a tiny days-old babe, but she suspected the truth would be unsavory. Prudently, she’d changed Lenora’s name.

After Landry’s investigator had located her, and she’d learned who she was, Lenora changed her name to the one her birth mother had given her. Mama hadn’t minded. She said it was the least Lenora could do to honor the poor woman who’d had her infant daughter stolen from her.