It was of a beautiful blonde woman in a rose-coloured gown. But beautiful was too mild a word. The woman was radiant. Her hair was gold and her cheeks a delicate pink overlaying the cream of her skin. Her breasts were high and round, and outlined against the curve of her bodice. Her height must have been almost a head below Miranda’s own. And yet the painting was more than life size, and she felt dwarfed by it.
‘This is Bethany. She was quite the loveliest woman ever to grace this house.’
‘Is she an ancestor of yours?’ Even as she said it, she revised her estimate. The gown was only slightly out of fashion. This woman must be her contemporary.
‘No ancestor of mine. But you have much in common with her. You share a husband. Bethany was my brother’s first wife.’
She stared in stunned silence. No wonder he was angry to find himself attached to a dowdy hen after losing this angel. ‘And she died in childbirth?’ She could see how it was possible. The narrow-hipped girl in the picture scarcely seemed large enough to bear a child.
‘That is what they say.’ His voice was strangely flat.
She stared at him in curiosity. ‘Do you have any reason to doubt the story?’
‘Oh, she died in childbed, sure enough, but I always thought …’ he sighed ‘… had she married happily, the end might have been different for her.’
‘She was not happy?’ It seemed so odd that a woman such as this would not have been happy.
St John’s smile was tight-lipped. ‘You have met my brother, Miranda. And seen his moods. It was like throwing a butterfly into a storm to wed the two together. They were married less than a year when she died, but her spirit had fled long before her body failed her.’
‘But, why—?’
‘Why did she marry him?’ St John sighed. ‘Why would any woman choose my brother? Be honest, my dear. For the same reason that you came to him.’
Desperation, she thought, bitterly.
St John continued as though an answer wasn’t required. ‘The title. Say what I might about him, my brother is a powerful and a rich man. There is much temptation in that. And she had much to offer.’ He paused, looking back at the picture. ‘This does not do her justice. Her eyes were bluer than that. Her hair more gold, and soft as silk to the touch. She sang like an angel, and her laugh itself was music. And she was delicate. To look at her made you think of a crystal goblet.’ His eyes grew hard. ‘My brother saw her once and knew he must have her. She was dazzled by his wealth and went willingly into his arms.’ His body tensed. ‘And when I saw her, just a few months after the marriage, she was desperate to get away. He terrified her. When I think of her, soft as a rose petal, in the hands of that—’ He choked on the last word, unwilling or unable to say what he was thinking. ‘But there was nothing I could do. I was only eighteen, had no power, no money to offer her.’ He gripped her by the shoulders and spun her to look at him. ‘I will not make the mistake again. Miranda. My means are limited, but, should you need them, all I have is yours to command.’
She struggled for a response. Foremost in her mind were the words, too late. ‘If you had a warning to share, yesterday would have been a better time than today.’
‘Yesterday my brother was still in the house and the servants obey him, not me. He’s gone, now, and I can speak freely. Say the word and I will help you flee and you can be long gone before he returns.’
Flee to where? There was no home to return to, no friend to take her in. ‘I am not afraid of the duke,’ she lied. At least, with Cici’s training, and St John’s warning, she would not go into the marriage as empty headed as the late Bethany. Foul words left no mark and bruises healed. And if the duke threatened her with worse, she would cross that bridge when she came to it.
‘I thank you for your kind offer, and will remember it if I need you, but am sure it need not come to that.’
Chapter Ten
Marcus looked up at the fading paint on the inn’s sign: The Duke’s Right Arm.
It sounded promising. Lucky, if he believed in luck. But the picture, which was of a dismembered arm lying on a grassy background, spoiled the image he wanted of a place that offered aid and succour. It would have been his last choice if he needed a bed for the night, or a drink, for that matter. The windows were dirty, and the door forbidding. It was his last choice now, as he’d visited all the other inns in the area.
Gentle questioning of the innkeepers had revealed a thorough knowledge of the area’s great houses and their inhabitants. Everyone knew the local lords, and their families. If he combined the information gained from the various places, he had a good idea of the comings and goings of the guests in the area. Small amounts of gold, spread amongst the ostlers and stable boys, told him all there was to know about who had visited whom and what they drove to get there.
And no one, anywhere, knew anything of Miranda Grey or Cecily Dawson. Or recognised the vague description he could give of a woman in her fifties and her tall ward.
They were not members of any of the families. They had not stayed in any of the inns at times corresponding to the dates on the letters. They had not been seen travelling. They were not known to be residing in any of the places he had visited.
Short of barging up to the front doors in question and demanding to know how Cecily had come by her writing materials, there was little hope in that direction.
This was his last chance. A disreputable inn in a miserable village that was little more than a cluster of cottages for workers at the nearby textile mill, owned by the cit whose stationery he kept folded in his pocket. It was not the place he wanted to find information about his new wife, but it made an irritating sort of sense. The factory owner’s stationery had been used to write the last of the letters to his mother. If the writer had worked hardest to create a good impression for the first letter, perhaps she’d grabbed what was closest to hand when writing the last.
He opened the grimy door and stepped into the taproom of the inn, and all faces turned towards him. The wave of disdain from the other customers was palpable.
He stepped forward and took a seat, staring back and daring them to find his presence strange. The thought crossed his mind that no one knew his location, and his purse was dangerously heavy. If he did not watch his back on the way out, he was likely to finish this search by receiving a knock on the head and a push into the nearest ditch.
The serving girl fixed him with a sullen glare, not bothering to flirt or flounce. Apparently, she felt the chances of gaining a few coppers by courtesy were not worth the effort. Without asking for his order she put a pint of ale in front of him. ‘If you want else, go elsewhere. You get what we have.’
He caught her wrist as she turned away from him. ‘Maybe you can help me. I’m looking for two women.’
She pulled her arm out of his grasp. ‘I said, this is all we serve. You will get nothing more from me.’
‘I apologise for the familiarity.’ He tried to look as harmless as possible. ‘I need nothing more than information.’
‘You’ll find little of that here.’ Her gaze never wavered. ‘But I can offer you advice. We serve ale. It sits in front of you. Drink it and go back where you came.’
He laid a gold coin from his purse on the table in front of him and she glanced at it hungrily. ‘Cecily Dawson. Or Miranda Grey. Have you ever heard the names?’
For a moment her eyes sparkled with something more than lust for the gold in front of her. Then she walked back to the bar and muttered something to the man behind it. He cast a look in Marcus’s direction, and they conversed between themselves. The girl was trying to persuade him of something and he was shaking his head. She persevered. At last, he shrugged and ambled towards the table.