The Swordmaster's Mistress: Dangerous Deceptions Book Two(6)

‘Not at all, my lord.’ Her smile to her husband was immediate, warm. Jared would have sworn it was affectionate and unfeigned. Whether real or not, it transformed her face, made her look even younger and far more vulnerable. Innocent. ‘Do sit down, Mr Hunt.’

The smile was gone as soon as the door closed behind the Viscount. She sat in an upright chair, her red skirts around her like the petals of a rose against the green brocade of the upholstery.

Jared selected a comfortable upholstered chair, subtly making the point that he was not a domestic servant, and produced his notebook and a pencil.

‘How clerkly of you, Mr Hunt,’ Lady Northam remarked. ‘I had expected swords and pistols from a bodyguard, not jottings.’

He glanced up, met her gaze. She is deliberately goading me, he thought. Now why should that be? ‘My memory is good, Lady Northam, but there is much information I will need from you. I prefer not to risk any detail being forgotten. I shall begin by being very clerkly indeed and noting your name. Guinnie?’

‘Guinevere.’

Arthur’s wife, the beauty who enchanted the knight Lancelot into betraying his king for a doomed love affair with his queen. He was no knight and this was no queen, he reminded himself and he had no intention of being distracted, whatever the temptation. ‘Your maiden name?’

There was the faintest hesitation. ‘Holroyd.’

‘And this is your first marriage, Lady Northam?’

The hesitation was palpable this time. ‘Yes. No. Not exactly.’

‘Which, my lady?’

‘Why does it matter? How is this relevant?’ She was pretending anger and distain to cover something else, he realised, raising his gaze from the notebook to study her face. She stared back, chin up. Fear? Possibly. Talking of her past distresses her so she hits out at me to give herself courage.

‘Anything may be relevant. I need to understand you, your background, your life now, your past, if I am to discover who wishes you dead.’

‘You are forthright, Mr Hunt. Do you not fear I will faint or have the vapours at such direct speaking?’

‘No,’ Jared said bluntly. ‘I do not. Your first husband, ma’am?’

‘It was a Scottish marriage,’ she snapped.

‘That would still be legal here provided it was performed according to Scottish law before witnesses.’ A runaway match, no doubt, if she was so defensive of it.

‘It was. But that is irrelevant. My… He is dead.’

‘His name, please. And how and when did he die?’

‘Francis Willoughby. He fell from a window onto a stone terrace while drunk and broke his skull. He was dead when they reached him. It was almost two years ago.’

‘I am very sorry,’ Jared said. ‘It was an accident, I assume?’

‘Yes. The coroner was satisfied, although there were no witnesses to the actual fall. As I said, drink had been taken.’

‘It must have been very distressing for you. I can imagine your grief.’ Bland statements and clichés like that often had the effect of provoking a response and it worked this time.

‘Can you imagine how I felt? You are an unusual man if you can, Mr Hunt.’ Lady Northam turned her head and looked him straight in the eye. ‘Or was that remark intended to be provocative? Yes, I think it was. Very clever.’

He managed not to wince at her perception, made the movement into a nod.

‘No doubt you would prefer not to have to drag this out of me quite as much as I would prefer not to have it dragged,’ she said tartly. ‘Here it is then without the trimmings – I was a foolish girl who fell for a plausible seducer. I ran away with him, my family cut me off, he was infuriated that my dowry was not forthcoming. In other words it is a commonplace story about a commonplace man and a very naive girl. He was a most unsatisfactory husband and I would have rejoiced to find myself free if I had not found myself with a mountain of obligations and debts.’

She was pretending a hardness and a sophistication that was alien to her, Jared guessed. ‘A wife is not held responsible for a husband’s debts,’ he said mildly.

‘But what she inherits may be entirely dissipated in paying those debts before she can inherit it.’ Lady Northam shrugged. ‘Not that I inherited anything beyond threatening debtors making demands they did not believe I could not meet.’

‘Was Lord Northam someone to whom Mr Willoughby owed money?’

‘No. This happened near an estate he had newly acquired.’

‘I see.’ Of course, the estate he had purchased to help his distant cousins.



‘I very much doubt it,’ Guin said. The compelling eyes that seemed able to read her mind narrowed, then Jared Hunt looked back at his notes. This hard-faced stranger thought she had sold herself to an old man as a way out of her troubles. There had been that of course, but there had been far more. More that she had no intention of discussing with a bodyguard. Where had Augustus found him? Jared Hunt was certainly no Bow Street Runner for hire. One look at him with his dark, severe clothing, those penetrating eyes had put her on edge, on the defensive.

‘Had your – had Willoughby family, friends?’

So, he had the sensitivity at least not to call Francis your husband. Perhaps this would be like going to the dentist where the one who got on with it, pulled the painful tooth hard and brutally, was the one who caused least pain in the long run.