“Oh, we’ve met.” He smiled. “Tell her I’ll be in touch.” Nodding again first to Jason then, strangely, to the dog, he turned and disappeared i
nto the crowd.
THE END
Read on for an excerpt from Guinevere’s Revenge by Lucy Blue, available now from Falstaff Crush!
Guinevere’s Revenge
Chapter 1
Stella had never intended to attend her mother’s ridiculous shooting party. No pheasant had ever done her harm. Live and let live was her motto. But she was on the run from Hollywood, and New York had let her down. So she’d come all the way to England.
She glided down the stairs of her stepfather’s grand country estate, practicing her smile. From the drawing room, she could hear her mother’s braying laugh and the politely condescending chuckles of her guests. “That horrid American woman,” they would all be thinking, exchanging pointed glances over their teacups. Mom would pretend she didn’t notice, and lovely Henry, her husband and Stella’s latest stepfather, would shield her as best he could. But the spectacle of it all made Stella feel sick.
She was just girding her loins when she heard the sound she’d learned to dread—the ringing of the telephone. “Oh no,” she muttered to herself as her heart raced with panic. “It can’t be him.” She hadn’t known Barrington Hall even had a telephone. But there it sat on the hall table at the foot of the stairs, black and smug and ringing. “He can’t possibly know I’m here.” The butler had come out of the dining room and was gliding toward the phone. She rushed past him and snatched up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“And who is this then?” The voice was female and extremely cross. “Where is he?” She wasn’t the man Stella had been dreading, which was good. But she didn’t sound like anyone who ought to be calling Barrington Hall, either.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know who you mean.” Stella was so relieved, she was almost laughing.
“Oh ho, ain’t we posh? And an American, no less.” The woman on the phone sounded like a Cockney gutter snipe in a pantomime. “You listen to me, Miss Rockefeller. You tell him it’s nothing to me if he’s found somebody else to toast his crumpet; have it and be glad. But I ain’t going to just up and disappear. You tell him I meant what I said about coming to settle accounts.”
“Miss, really,” Stella said. “I’m absolutely positive you’ve dialed the wrong number. This is Barrington Hall.”
There was a short pause and sharp intake of breath. “I don’t care if it’s bloody Buckingham Palace,” she said at last, sounding a bit less sure of herself. “You just tell him what I said.” Before Stella could answer again, she had hung up.
“May I be of help, miss?” the butler said. “I am accustomed to answering the telephone here at the Hall.”
“No, it’s all right,” Stella said, hanging up the receiver. “Sorry, Hennessey.” Whoever the lout was, she hoped the girl found him. “I think it was a wrong number.” From the drawing room, she could still hear the clink of teacups. Suddenly, she simply couldn’t face it. “Thank you,” she said, smiling at the butler. “If my mother should ask, tell her I went for a walk in the garden.”
“Yes, miss,” he said, bowing as she headed out the door.
She started down the gravel drive with a vague plan to wander in the hedge maze. Then she heard the sputter and roar of a motorcar. A smart little roadster was racing up the drive in a cloud of dust, and she smiled in spite of her blues. “George!” she called out, waving.
The car screeched to a halt, and a long, lean scarecrow in tweed unfolded from the driver’s seat. “Cuz!” Her stepfather’s favorite nephew threw off his cap and goggles just in time to catch her as she threw herself into his arms. “It’s been donkey’s years!”
“It has.” George was the only Englishman she’d met, except Henry, who could give a girl a proper hug. “Mom didn’t tell me you were coming.” She drew back and looked up at him, feeling stupidly emotional all of a sudden. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“Likewise, sausage.” He frowned. “Say, what’s the trouble?”
“Nothing, honestly,” she lied. “I guess I’m still worn out from the boat.” She made herself let him go. “You should go in. Everybody’s in the drawing room having tea.”
“There’s a shock.” Compared to the Hollywood types she’d been around lately, she supposed George was too endearingly peculiar-looking to really be handsome. But he had warm, sparkling eyes that never looked bored and a crooked smile that made her happy every time she saw it. “Where are you off to, then?”
“Just a walk,” she said. “I’m not thirsty.”
“I’m parched, but not for tea.” The footman had come out, and he and George’s valet were unloading valises and George’s guns from the car’s little trunk. “Let’s toddle down to the village pub, and you can tell me all about what’s not wrong.”
“That sounds wonderful,” she said, feeling better already.
“At last!” a woman’s voice said from the steps behind them. “Good God, Georgie, where have you been?” A girl of about Stella’s age dressed in a tweed coat and jodhpurs was coming down the steps with a fluffy little dust mop of a dog in her arms. “I’ve been bereft.” She had blond hair and the odd combination of rose petal skin and horsey features peculiar to young ladies of the English upper-est class. She threaded her arm not holding the dog through George’s and gave Stella a catty look. “But who is this?”
“Lady Barrington’s daughter, dearest,” George said with the mildest tone of reproach. “This is my cousin, Stella.”
“Oh my,” the girl said, laughing. “I’ve stepped quite in it, haven’t I?”