Chapter Fourteen
November 12th, 1808
Whiteoaks, Wiltshire
On Saturday, Letty went back to being an heiress. The journey from Basingstoke to Whiteoaks in Wiltshire was thirty-odd miles. In the post-chaise, Letty considered spinning a tale for Eliza and Green that explained why she was going to stay with her cousins and Reid wasn’t. A mysterious family feud, perhaps? And then she saw a set of balance scales in her mind’s eye, weighed down by three deaths on one side and by her lies on the other. No, she’d tell no more falsehoods than were absolutely necessary.
“My husband prefers to stay in Marlborough when I visit Whiteoaks,” she said, and left them to make their own guesses as to why that might be. “Eliza, you’ll stay in Marlborough, too. I shan’t need you at Whiteoaks, but next week w
