Letters to a Lady Read Online Free

forward to add their observations. One had seen a dark-haired young jackanapes peeking into the private parlor while Diana was glancing at the paper. He had inquired of the clerk if a Miss Peabody or Miss Beecham had hired a parlor and asked which one. This was deemed highly suspicious. Another had seen him hurry out but hadn’t seen the purse. Still another had thought the lad was fair, not dark. After a quarter of an hour it was clear that the thief had gotten clean away on a mount tethered just outside the inn door. While a rumpus was being raised within, he had mounted and pelted away like lightning. The only useful thing learned was that the man had headed off toward London.
    Miss Peabody marched straight off to the constable’s office to lay a charge. Constable Shackley agreed to take a ride down the London road, but by then the ladies knew they would never see the purse again, and Constable Shackley knew Miss Peabody’s opinion of his sitting on his haunches while decent ladies were robbed of ten guineas.
    “All our money gone,” Diana moaned. What fun was London without money? “How shall we pay for our hotel? It nearly cleaned me out, paying for lunch and the change of team.”
    “That is not the worst of it,” Peabody said. Her face was pinched with chagrin and her voice weak with guilt. “Harrup’s letters were in my reticule. I have failed him.”
    “The letters! That’s it!” Diana squealed. “You remember the clerk said someone was asking for our parlor. We thought it very odd at the time. He was after Harrup’s billets-doux.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous. How could anyone possibly know I had them in my reticule? It was our money he was after. I never can step foot outside the house without something dreadful happening. Ten guineas gone. How can I tell your papa?”
    “Mrs. Whitby knew you had them,” Diana countered, and stared at her chaperon with a sapient eye.
    It did not take Peabody long to agree with this delightful conclusion. Any possibility that the affair was still in progress was ended now. “I never did trust that sly blue eye in her head. But why would she agree to return Harrup’s letters if she only meant to have them back?”
    “She wouldn’t incur his anger by refusing,” Diana suggested. “But Mrs. Whitby has decided she shall be paid when she blackmails him with them.”
    Miss Peabody thought she was up to all the rigs, but the blackest idea that had occurred to her was that Mrs. Whitby wished to keep the letters for sentimental reasons, despite her sly blue eyes. A look of surprised admiration lit her face. “I believe you have hit on it, Di. Was there ever such a piece of wickedness in Christendom? And how am I to tell Harrup about it?”
    Diana patted her arm consolingly. “Don’t worry about it, Peabody. I shall tell him,” she said with quiet satisfaction. Peabody was groaning into her handkerchief and missed the expression that Diana wore. Had she seen it, she would no doubt have recognized it as being similar to Mrs. Whitby’s conniving face.
     

Chapter Two
     
    The fates conspired to heap more misery on Miss Peabody’s trip. Roads were full of potholes that delayed their time abominably. A violent megrim took possession of her head, and just outside of London a buck forced their rig off the road in a game of hunt-the-squirrel. It took John Groom half an hour to haul the team out the ditch and make sure the carriage was sound enough to continue their journey.
    Informing Harrup of the loss of his letters was so urgent that she had the carriage driven straight to his house in Belgrave Square. In the lengthening shadows of twilight, stately brick homes glared down at their passing, like dowagers at a ball, stiffly disapproving of parvenues.
    It was with a tremor of apprehension that Peabody lifted her hand and sounded the brass knocker. She didn’t recognize Harrup’s butler, who looked as imposing as a duke as he stared down his Turkish nose at them and