Skylark by Jo Beverley Read Free Book Online

skylark?” He snorted. “Not for your singing, either. For your larking around.
    But you’ve turned out to have all your wits about you. Hal was fortunate.”
    It was the first time he’d said anything like that to her.
    “Thank you, sir. I do grieve for him.”
    “Aye.” He sighed. “He lived for hunting, though.”
    “He would have chosen that way to go,” she agreed. He certainly wouldn’t have wanted to outlive his ability to ride and hunt, as his father had.
    “I suppose you’ll want to put off your departure,” he said.
    Laura’s stomach tensed. “I don’t think that’s necessary,” she said as casually as she could manage. “Children get over these things quickly. Unless Harry seems worse, we will leave tomorrow as planned.”
    She braced for resistance, but he nodded. “Aye, that would be best.”
    Laura curtsied and left, relieved in one way but not in another. Did Lord Caldfort share her suspicions? Could his distress this morning have been due not to a letter, but to something Jack had said?
    She paused in the hall to go over everything, and she couldn’t make it fit. She was almost certain Jack hadn’t visited that early, and everything pointed to Lord Caldfort being alone, reading his correspondence when the shock occurred. . . .
    “Laura? Is something the matter?”
    She started and whirled, hand to chest, to find that she hadn’t imagined that distinctive, slightly drawling voice.
    “Stephen! What on earth are you doing here?”

Chapter 6
    Elegant, blond, lean, and quizzical, Sir Stephen Ball was indeed standing across the hall from her, though her stunned mind couldn’t imagine how. It was as if he’d appeared in a puff of theatrical smoke.
    “What am I doing?” he asked, strolling toward her. “Attempting to speak to Lord Caldfort on a political matter, but I gather there’s a problem in the house. Cook’s burned the sauce? A rat’s invaded the larder?”
    Stephen, here, sardonic as always. Wishing to speak to Lord Caldfort . . . ?
    Her dazed mind suddenly sharpened. Was his arrival connected to Lord Caldfort’s earlier shock? Had a letter heralded political scandal or disaster?
    “Laura?” His brows had risen, and his lazy eyes were now sharp. As her shock faded, she realized that he hadn’t appeared in a puff of smoke, but simply walked out of the reception room.
    She gathered scraps of information. He’d come here to speak to Lord Caldfort and been shown to the reception room. Her drama had distracted all the servants and he’d been forgotten.
    She managed a light laugh. “Stephen, I’m so sorry! As you say, we have all been distracted by a domestic matter, but how shameful that you’ve been neglected. You’re here to see my father-in-law? I’ll go and let him know—”
    She began to turn, but he caught her arm, shocking her. As she turned back, she knew it wasn’t just the outrageousness of it. It was a man’s touch. It had been so long since she’d felt a man’s touch like this.
    But Stephen . . . ?
    “Take a moment to settle your nerves,” he said, letting her go. “I don’t wish to intrude, but is there anything I can do to help? I’m quite a hand at catching rats.”
    To spill every detail to him now was perhaps the strongest temptation Laura had ever experienced, but she stopped herself. Once they had been as close as sister and brother, but once long ago. For six years, he had avoided her as deliberately as she had avoided him.
    “Thank you, but the drama is over. My son ate something noxious and I had to give him an emetic. Lord Caldfort is upset because, of course, Harry is his heir.”
    “What did he eat?”
    “A bun of some sort, dropped in the churchyard.”
    She managed to speak lightly, but shocked thoughts rushed in anyway. And possibly deliberately laced with poison.
    An arm came around her and she needed it, needed assistance into the reception room and onto the sofa there. She couldn’t afford to be so weak, but muscles and sinews