Read Online Unclaimed by Courtney Milan - Free Book Online

her head at him mournfully.
    And yet they hadn’t done for him, decades past. It felt the height of decadence just to live in his mother’s house and have new bread. He’d come back here to recall that time, not to bury the memories in luxury.
    “Nonsense,” Mark said. “The papers will just chalk it up to my eccentricity.”
    She sniffed. “Eccentric? You? Not likely, that. You’re not the one who’s decidedly out of place—that is to say, I won’t speak any ill. Unlike some others.” She sniffed, and when Mark didn’t ask her to elaborate, she immediately broke her own dictum. “Unlike the other newcomer,” she said carefully.
    Mark set his hand, palm down, on the table before him, keeping the gesture as casual as possible. There was only one other newcomer. He could see her clearly in his mind’s eye, drenched from the downpour, her hair sliding out of its pins.
    But, no. He wasn’t one for gossip. He didn’t need to ask. He wouldn’t even let himself think of her.
    “Ah?” he said.
    Ah, he decided, was not asking.
    But Mrs. Tatlock understood. “Mrs. Farleigh.” Her voice crept low, the syllables rounding out in warm west country tones. “Mrs. Farleigh, she writes letters every week.”
    Mark felt his chin twitch in the barest of nods.
    “Regular, like the crow of a cock, she does. Sends out two or three every time she stops by.”
    “Ah.” The syllable escaped again.
    “But does she receive anything in response?”
    Mark’s hand curled against the wood of the counter. The missives in his pocket felt suddenly heavy. He’d known the letter would be waiting for him, had known that his brother’s wife would have penned a thorough response—never mind that she was a busy duchess. Just as surely, he’d expected his other brother’s reply—fewer in pages, but no less caring. If the letters hadn’t come, he would have worried that something had gone amiss.
    Mrs. Tatlock smiled grimly. “Well,” she said slyly. “She hears from her solicitor.”
    “Perhaps the letters are written to an invalid,” Mark suggested.
    “Perhaps. It’s the other letters that go unanswered.” Mrs. Tatlock shuffled in the mailbags behind her and came up with two envelopes, both stamped with penny reds. The direction was written in a fine, strong hand; no curlicues or spidery lines from Mrs. Farleigh. It was addressed to a Mr. Alton Carlisle in Watford. Mark had heard of the town; he thought it somewhere closer to London, although his memory was vague. The other was addressed to an Amalie Leveque, in London proper.
    “She brings these letters by every few days. And every day, it seems, she asks if she’s had any replies.” Mrs. Tatlock shook her head. “I do wonder who she’s writing to. A Frenchwoman, by the sound of it—and we know precisely what sort of people they are. No morals to speak of. And no doubt the other’s a lover, and one that’s scorned her.”
    Mark thought of that flinch, of that spark of…of something he’d seen in her eyes two evenings before. He could almost hear her speaking, even now. I did it because I hated you.
    “No,” he said softly, “I don’t believe she’s pining after a lover.”
    He’d met women on the hunt for a lover before. She’d made a fair facsimile of one at first—the glances that dared him to draw closer, the state of undress she’d so carefully engineered. But there had been something…something brittle about her come-hither. He couldn’t imagine that she was sending letters to a lover in desperation. No matter what she’d tried to do to him, the thought of her sending out letters and receiving no response…it made him want to comfort her.
    Mrs. Tatlock snorted. “What, you think she has more than one lover, then?”
    He drew himself up and looked down his nose at Mrs. Tatlock. “Do you have intimate knowledge of her situation?”
    “I— Well—”
    “I’ve heard a great deal of gossip about Mrs. Farleigh since I’ve arrived, and yet nobody