quite wound me,” Sinjin said, too lightly to be reproachful. “I have the utmost respect for you, my dear.”
Vivian was incapable of being less than dignified, but she came very close to a snort. “What do you require, Sinjin? A loan for the repayment of your debts?”
Sinjin’s expression grew pained. “I am not so mercenary as you think, Mother.”
She sipped her tea delicately. “If you had gone into the army as your father intended, you would not be in such straits.”
For all the relative brevity of their acquaintance, Mariah knew how much Sinjin despised this topic. “Lady Donnington,” he said pointedly, “must find such a subject tedious, Mother.”
Mariah knew it would have been politic to absent herself, but Sinjin’s eyes begged her to stay, and she wasn’t of a mind to hand the dowager an easy victory. “The army is a fine vocation,” she said. “For those suited to it.”
“Indeed,” Sinjin said. “A vocation to which I could not have done proper justice.”
A teacup rattled in its saucer. Vivian waited while Barbara mopped up the almost invisible spillage where the dowager had set down her cup with a little too much force. “You do proper justice to very little,” she said in a brittle voice. “If your brother were here …”
“But he is not, is he?” Sinjin stood abruptly. “I shall not impose upon your sensibilities any longer.”
Vivian looked almost surprised at the vehemence beneath his veneer of unruffled courtesy. “There is no need for you to go.”
“But I cannot replace the earl as company for you and Lady Donnington,” he said. He bowed with soldierly precision, first to his mother and then to Mariah. “If you will excuse me …”
His stride was brisk as he left the room. Mariah excused herself with equal haste, earning a glare from the dowager, and hurried after him.
“Sinjin!”
He turned, slightly flushed, and doffed the hat he’d already retrieved from Barbara. “Lady Donnington,” he said. “I apologize for my hasty departure.”
“Oh, pish,” Mariah said. “Don’t come all formal with me, Sinjin.”
His anger evaporated into his usual good humor. “How you deal with her every day is beyond my capacity to understand.”
“No it isn’t. You’ve dealt with her all your life.”
He offered his arm, and she took it. They left the house, and Mariah was distracted by thoughts of Ash, so near and yet so far away.
Ask Sinjin. He would be glad to help.
But what if he already knew about the prisoner?
She refused to believe it. Not Sinjin. He was a good man.
As Donnington is not?
“A penny for your thoughts,” Sinjin said, peering at her face with his keen brown eyes. “You look positively pensive, my dear. Are you yearning for Donnington?”
“It’s nothing,” she said, refusing to rise to his bait.
“Ha! Mother won’t leave it alone, will she? How can she blame you?” He laughed. “Then again, how can she not? It’s in her nature. My brother can do no wrong.”
It wasn’t the first time the subject had come up between them, and ordinarily Mariah would have been glad for his sympathetic ear. But self-pity seemed very unimportant in light of this morning’s encounter.
“I do find it a bit odd that she has remained so calm,” he went on, oblivious. “I should have expected her to go a little mad, not knowing where her darling has gone.”
Mariah flinched at the mention of madness. It’s only a word, she thought. But it wasn’t. Not today. Not ever.
“Mariah.”
She looked into Sinjin’s eyes. He wasn’t laughing now. “How has it been with Mother?” he asked. “I am perfectly fine, Sinjin.”
He drew her hand from the crook of his arm and held it in his. “Has she made any sort of comment … any kind of intimation that you … that you might be …”
“Might be what?”
Seldom had she seen Sinjin look as uncomfortable as he did in that moment. “Seeing someone,” he said.
“Seeing someone? I see Lady Westlake, Lady Hurst …”
“A man, Mariah. Seeing a man.”
Slowly she began to take his meaning. “A man?” Her face grew hot. “Do you mean—”
But she really didn’t have to ask. He was talking about an affair. Something she’d only read about in books and heard of in the ghosts of rumors about a society to which she didn’t belong.
“Don’t look so shocked, Merry,” Sinjin said, using her nickname in the familiar way to which they both had become accustomed since her arrival at Donbridge. “You may not have much experience of the world, but I know you aren’t that naïve. Mother’s wanted an excuse to end your marriage to my brother ever since he brought you to England. She’d love to think the worst of you.” He sighed. “She mentioned to me once—just in passing, you understand—that she thought it odd that you spend so much time walking alone in the early mornings. Ridiculous, I know. There is no one in the world less likely to be unfaithful than you.”
But she scarcely heard his reassurances. All she could wonder was how long the dowager had harbored such suspicions. Since the very night Donnington had left? A week after? A month? Did she have someone specific in mind?
“I shouldn’t have spoken up,” Sinjin said, his voice tight with remorse. “I just thought that perhaps it would never occur to you that she might think such a thing. She isn’t quite rational when it comes to Donnie.”
Mariah removed her hand from Sinjin’s. “I’m glad you did,” she said. “I knew there was something more to her anger than blaming me for Donnington’s sudden absence.”
Sinjin puffed out his cheeks. “Well, then,” he said. “You’ve handled the whole thing admirably.” He caught her hand again and lifted it to his lips. “You know you may always count on me for anything.”
She managed a smile. “And you may count on me. I shall send a check for whatever you need.”
If he had been as mercenary as his mother supposed, he wouldn’t have looked so uneasy. “I’m not so badly off as all that. I shall recoup.”
“If only you’d stop the gambling—”
“For God’s sake, Merry. One Lady Donnington is quite enough.”
“I apologize. Sinjin …?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you very busy at Marlborough House?”
“Not terribly. I come and go. Why?”
“If you can spare the time, I might ask for your assistance.”
“With what?”
“I would prefer to explain when I have … certain additional information.”
“How very mysterious.” She could see he was about to make an unfortunate joke before he thought better of it. “Just as you wish, little sister.”
They turned and walked back to the house. After Sinjin had gone, Mariah wrote a letter to her banker in London, authorizing a transfer of funds to the Honourable St. John Ware. At least it was her money to do with as she chose, now that Parliament had passed the act allowing wives to keep at least some of their own wealth.
Somehow she made it through the rest