And then they drove through St James’s Park, saw the Queen’s House and the lake, passed into the informality of Green Park with its herd of cows and milkmaids selling glasses of fresh milk and into Piccadilly. Meg knew they were almost back.
Ross’s fingers slid under hers, curling until their hands were clasped. Meg returned the pressure, and his thumb found the bare skin below the button of her glove, stroking against the pulse point. ‘I have made a decision, my lord. About the matter we discussed in Cornwall.’
He went very still, just as a man might who had been waiting with desperate patience for the answer of a woman he loved. But he did not love her, only desired her and, it seemed, he enjoyed her company. Was that enough to sustain her need to love and be loved? Perhaps it would be enough to overcome the revulsion he must surely feel when she told him her story as she was determined to do, now, before she lost her nerve.
They maintained a flow of innocuous conversation up to the house in Clarges Street, in through the front door while Ross handed his hat, gloves and cane to the butler and Meg untied her bonnet strings.
‘Could you join me in the study, Mrs Halgate?’
‘Of course, my lord.’ She followed him, her heart thudding, telling herself over and over again that this was right and she would release him first from the offer he had made. Then, when he understood just who and what she was, he could make up his own mind.
‘Excuse me, your lordship.’ Woodward clear his throat. ‘A lady and gentleman are waiting for your return. I explained you were not at home, but they intimated that it was a matter of some urgency.’
‘I will come to the study later, shall I, my lord?’ Meg was already at the foot of the stairs, shaky with relief at the postponement of the fateful interview. She should not speak on the spur of the moment; she would collect herself, compose what she was going to say.
‘Thank you, Mrs Halgate.’ Frowning, Ross reached for the card on the salver Woodward held, but she was already up the stairs and away.
Ross picked up the card, smiling at his own disappointment. Like a child deprived of a sweetmeat. Meg was going to say yes, he knew it. Her fingers curling into his for those last few minutes, the touches of colour on her cheek-bones, the flustered way she had fled up the stairs. Yes, he told himself. Yes.
And then he looked at the rectangle of pasteboard in his hand. Mr James Walton Halgate, The Grove, Martinsdene Parva. ‘Halgate?’ he demanded.
‘Yes, my lord. But as they did not enquire for our Mrs Halgate I assumed it was a coincidence.’ The butler looked a trifle uncertain. ‘I took in refreshments.’
‘Very well.’ With something unpleasantly like apprehension knotting his stomach Ross opened the drawing room door and went in.
A tall man, his once-blond hair now pepper and salt, stood up. Slightly faded blue eyes fixed on Ross as the woman by his side came to her feet. A good-looking couple, he thought, with the sensation of time slowing that happened just before an encounter with the enemy.
‘Lord Brandon?’
‘I am Brandon. Mr and Mrs Halgate, please, sit down. How may I help you?’
He was managing to sound calm, if not particularly cordial, some remote part of his mind observed.
‘We feel it our duty to inform you of a certain most delicate matter,’ Mrs Halgate said, her lips tightening into an expression of righteous indignation. ‘We understand from Sir Edmund Keay, an old family friend who has recently moved to Falmouth, that you have employed a new housekeeper.’
‘Sir Edmund, whose acquaintance I have not had the pleasure of making, is correct, although, forgive me, I am not clear how it is any concern of his.’ So, it was about Meg and the names were no coincidence.
Mr Halgate flushed at the ice in Ross’s voice. ‘He felt it his duty to tell us that Margaret Shelley is fraudulently continuing to call herself Mrs Halgate and is representing herself as our late son’s wife.’
‘Fraudulently?’ Ross realised he was staring blankly. He had expected—feared—they were going to say that James Halgate had not been killed but had gone missing and had now managed to get back to English assistance. He had feared discovering that Meg was still married, even as he hated himself for wishing a fellow officer dead. ‘Fraudulently?’ he repeated.
‘She prevailed upon our poor James to run off with her,’ Mrs Halgate burst out. ‘He was already married, the foolish boy. Most imprudently, I fear. But then that little trollop?
??’
‘Madam,’ Ross interjected, ‘I am aware that your feelings are agitated but Mrs…Meg is in my employ, I will not have her so described under my roof.’
‘She was always wild,’ Mrs Halgate said. ‘Wild and wicked and out of control. She seduced poor James into a bigamous marriage and now she has the effrontery to continue to use our name. His name.’ She buried her face in a handkerchief and gave way to her feelings.
‘And your son’s true widow?’ Ross felt rather as he had the first time he had been wounded. Strangely breathless, but numb, although he knew something should be hurting very badly indeed. The pain had come later. Then he had wanted to scream, although he had not.
‘Dead.’ Mr Halgate said grimly. ‘And the child too. An imprudent match, I fear. Not at all the wife we would have chosen for him—a tavern owner’s daughter. They became lovers, he married her when they learned a child was on its way, but then he received his orders so he left, telling her he was coming home to make his peace with us. Of course, we would have done what we could to buy the unfortunate creature off and take the child to rear properly ourselves once we had known.
‘But then that hussy got her hands on him, persuaded him to abandon a marriage he was already regretting and the child with it. Of course we knew nothing of the real wife until the letter from his commanding officer enclosing his will, by which time it was too late, some fever had carried them both off. But the fact remains, Margaret Shelley seduced our son away. And we heard what happened after his death. He was scarce cold when she had taken up with another man, living with him brazenly, acting as a common nurse.’
‘She was not his mistress.’
‘She would say that, no doubt.’ Mrs Halgate sniffed. ‘I do not suppose she told you the truth about her marriage, did she?’ When he did not reply she nodded sharply. ‘Then why do you believe her about the other man?’