‘Jane, I need your help.’ Ivo’s voice was so unexpected that she jumped, banging her elbow on the window frame.
‘Ivo?’
‘I am sorry I startled you, I did knock.’
‘I was thinking that I must tell your grandfather,’ she said.
Ivo waved away the rest of the sentence. ‘He’s gone over to the Farringdon estate, said he would probably stay the night. He and the earl have a scheme involving breeding foxhounds, I believe. I have to take Daphne home now—the longer we leave it, the worse the situation becomes. But I cannot take her by myself—think how that will look. Will you come, too? I will leave a letter for Grandfather.’
It took a moment for what he was asking to sink in through the general fog of misery. ‘You want me to chaperon her?’ But Ivo was right—if Daphne had been heard telling her husband that she wanted Ivo to save her, then the fact she had run to him was damning enough. If they travelled back alone, then it reinforced the suspicion that she had an even stronger motive for murder than a desire to be free of the baronet—and it possibly implicated Ivo in some kind of plot.
She took a deep breath. ‘Very well. I can see that would be necessary.’
‘I am very grateful. Thank you,’ he said. ‘I have asked for an early luncheon. We should set out as soon as possible and travel through the night.’
He looks grim, she thought. Daphne’s situation must be so worrying. And whose fault is that?
It was an effort to try and be fair, to suppress the suspicions that were, surely, fuelled by jealousy.
‘And, Jane, I do not think we should tell anyone outside this house about our decision not to marry. Not yet. I have seen Ranwick and he will not send out any announcements yet.’
‘Of course.’ Her presence as Ivo’s betrothed would be an even clearer indication that he and Daphne were not conspiring together. She supposed that Ivo thought that, as she had no feelings for him, that she would not mind doing this. Her stomach felt as though she had swallowed pure vinegar. From somewhere she found the strength to stand up and speak briskly. ‘I will go and tell my maid what to pack.’
* * *
Daphne, Ivo realised, was Being Brave. Had she always play-acted like this and he had been too besotted to notice? As the carriage turned out between the lodge gates and on to the highway she had her chin up, her expression set in tragic lines, her handkerchief grasped firmly in one hand.
Jane, he was relieved to see, had her small sketchbook with her and was drawing rapidly, although he could not see what her subject was. She was determined on rescuing him again, he was certain, although enough of a small, niggling doubt remained for him not to show his hand yet. If she truly would prefer to be a professional artist instead of a countess—his countess—then he was going to have to let her go, just as she was determined to free him. But he knew her well enough now to sense her true emotions behind whatever façade she had erected and she was not happy. He did not want to hurt her, never that, but some part of him hoped that he was right, that this was as hard for her as it was for him.
* * *
‘I have sent express letters to the coroner and the magistrate, Daphne,’ he said after the silence had dragged on for half an hour. ‘They should arrive a little before we do and may help. I have explained that you were so distressed that you fled to the Marquess because he, a neighbour from your childhood, was the nearest person to a grandfather that you have.’
‘But I came to you,’ Daphne said, reaching out her hand and he took it because she was swaying towards him on the seat.
Jane looked up from her sketchbook. ‘Excellent,’ she said crisply. ‘Say that if you want to show everyone what an excellent motive you had for murdering your husband.?
?? She was making no attempt to hide her exasperation.
‘Oh.’
Ivo let go of Daphne’s hand and she pouted.
You came to me because you wanted to heap more guilt on my head, Ivo thought.
‘You were distressed and confused and needed male guidance,’ he continued, receiving an incredulous look from Jane whose views on male guidance were abundantly clear to him. ‘Naturally my grandfather sent you straight back with me as escort and with Miss Newnham as chaperon.’
Daphne brightened up. ‘If a marquess tells the coroner that it was an accident he will have to believe it.’ She went back to gazing out of the window. Or possibly, admiring her own reflection in the glass.
Was she always this self-centred? He did not think so. But she had been spoiled and indulged because she was so pretty and her aunts were, as they were now ruefully realising, completely inexperienced in rearing a wilful girl. Perhaps he was the only person who had not given her what she wanted, when she wanted it.
* * *
They reached Kensington, and the Meredith house, at eleven the next morning, stiff, travel-worn and weary, but they went directly to the magistrate and then to see the coroner. To Jane’s relief even Daphne was too subdued to complain when Jane took her arm, detaching her from Ivo for the duration of the interviews. Ivo, thank heavens, had too much sense to let Daphne cling to him, however much he wanted to support her. She had seen the way they had clasped hands in the carriage.
‘That went better than I had hoped,’ Ivo said when they finally arrived back and sank into chairs in the drawing room.
Both men had been stern but avuncular with Daphne and Jane realised that they had found nothing strange in her behaviour—they expected gently reared females to go to pieces in a crisis and rush off to find male aid. The inquest had been adjourned until the next day, after which, they told Daphne, she could make arrangements for the funeral.