The Swordmaster's Mistress: Dangerous Deceptions Book Two(73)

Now she kept the smile in place, moderating it towards sympathy. ‘It must be very hard to have to entertain guests while you are in mourning. How long is it since your husband died?’

‘A month. I am amazed that Jac – Jared did not know of it.’ Bella moved around the room shifting the position of a vase of flowers, aligning the edges of the books on the bedside table.

‘I doubt he scours the death notices – or any others, for news of Yorkshire,’ Guin said. ‘It must all have seemed very remote to him.’ Nor had she seen anything and she thought she would have noticed news of a death so close to Allerton, even though she did not know the family. The accidental passing of the heir to an earl who lived quietly in the country with no political ambitions was hardly something that would attract great notice.

Her conscience was troubling her, a little. If Bella and William had resorted to such an appalling subterfuge to wed, this had been a love match. ‘You must miss your husband very much.’

Bella shrugged. ‘One becomes used to marriage, of course. One grows up and becomes oneself, not a girl anymore. One sees that it is not all rose petals and champagne, does one not?’

She fell out of love with him and he with her. This is a woman who needs rose petals and champagne, not life on a windswept moor with a father-in-law who disapproved of her and a husband who did not deliver the fairy tale romance she had perjured herself for.

‘Your daughters must be a comfort to you. You have three, do you not?’

‘They are with my mother in Whitby. I saw no reason why they should be shrouded in gloom here.’

The gloom was within their mother, Guin thought. And within their grandfather, of course. No wonder Bella made friends with the Quentens when they arrived in the neighbourhood. Perhaps it had been almost a welcome distraction to support Elizabeth in her troubles – the family’s financial woes, her anguish over Francis. I am becoming all too sympathetic, she thought. Time for that once we have stopped these murderous games.

‘You do not wear mourning,’ Bella observed, her hand on the door.

‘No. Augustus did not like it.’

Bella made no observation on that, merely observing, ‘There will be tea in the Green Parlour in a short while,’ as she closed the door behind her.

What does she know, I wonder?



‘You want me to invite a murderer into my house?’ His father sat back in his desk chair with a grunt of disbelief.

‘I want you to invite your neighbours the Quentens and a complete stranger to join your house party and to set a trap. When I tell you the history of this I think you will agree.’

They would not be overheard, not with Dover taking a leisurely interest in the trophies of arms set along the passageway outside. Jared set himself to explain the history of Guin’s marriages and Theo’s inheritance.

When he finished the Earl sat up, thumped his fist on the desk. ‘The woman’s insane.’

‘She is certainly not in her right mind. Her servant, Thomas Bainton, is plainly in possession of all his faculties. Whether he is acting out of warped devotion to his mistress or for gain, I do not know.’

‘They have killed Northam, attempted to implicate his nephew and harassed Lady Northam in the most serious manner,’ his father summarised, suddenly looking like the magistrate he was. ‘These are people I have entertained in my house, neighbours my daughter-in-law is intimate with.’

‘I have no idea whether Quenten himself realises what is going on,’ Jared said. ‘No proof either way.’

‘And we need to entertain them again, offer hospitality under our roof.’

‘And give her the opportunity to murder.’

‘Is this what your life has been since you left?’ his father demanded suddenly. ‘Murder, treachery?’

‘Not so much. There were moments when I was travelling around the globe with Calderbrook when having one’s throat cut was a daily danger and there have been moments of some drama since, but I was settling down to perfect tranquillity as a swordmaster with my own salle d’armes and a prospect of peaceful respectability.’

There was a snort from across the desk. Jared found that he was beginning to like the man, which was a surprise. ‘To be accurate about these invitations – the complete stranger is already on his way and should be here tomorrow along with the Quentens.’

His father waved a hand in acceptance. ‘This is your home, invite who you wish.’ Then his gaze sharpened. ‘Am I making assumptions? Are you going to stay or are you leaving again, back to London and your alias and your swords?’

It was the question Jared had been avoiding asking himself, but he knew the answer. ‘I am staying.’ Not that he liked that answer but there was one thing he could not walk away from and that was a title that would always follow him and an estate full of people who relied on him for their livelihoods. And generations of history that were strangely compelling now the responsibility of carrying them was in his hands.

‘I’ll keep the salle d’armes as an investment and because I am interested. I’ll find a swordmaster to run it.’ And move my big carved bed and my copper bath into the Huntingford London house. He pushed away the worry that he was never going to see Guinevere in that bed. ‘I’ll use the Town house if I may, move between there and here.’