‘Lady Sara’s out on the balcony,’ Mrs Farwell announced with a wave of her hand towards a door in the back wall. ‘I’ll brew some tea. Expect you’d like some cake, most men do.’ Having reduced a marquess to the level of a small boy greedy for sweets, she stomped off through the curtained opening.
Lucian knocked on the door she had indicated and opened it to find himself apparently in mid-air over the sea. He covered the instinctive grab at the wall by closing the door and remembered that the hill that the street climbed was in fact a cliff, so the houses on this side of the road were built virtually to the edge. On either side the owners had cultivated tiny strips of clifftop garden but Sara’s shop, and a few other buildings, had balconies stretching along the width of their properties.
‘Good morning. You have no fear of heights, I see.’
Lady Sara was leaning on the elegant but terrifyingly spindly balcony railings facing out to sea. Lucian hitched one hip on the rail, leaned against an upright, and ignored the same unpleasant sensation low in his belly that he had experienced crossing Alpine passes on his Grand Tour. He itched to reach out and pull her back against the wall, away from danger.
‘Nor have you.’ She smiled as she turned her head and the heavy plait of hair slid over her shoulder to swing over the waves crashing below.
His stomach swooped in sympathy even as he admired the unconventional simplicity of her hairstyle. ‘Loathe them,’ Lucian confessed. ‘But it doesn’t do to give in to things.’
‘Does that work, or do you simply become good at dealing with the fear? I am afraid of snakes, which is a ridiculous thing in this country. In India there are a whole variety of lethal ones and it was quite rational to be wary of them. But here, my brother assures me, I would have to find an adder and then prod it with my finger to encourage it to bite me.’ He laughed at the image of Sara experimentally prodding an adder, but her smile faded. ‘I have never before come across a man who is actually prepared to admit that he is frightened of something.’
‘You see that as a sign of weakness?’
‘No, certainly not.’ She straightened up, very earnest now. ‘I think it admirably honest, though surprising.’
‘It depends what it is and to whom one is confessing. I wouldn’t admit a weakness, any weakness, to another man or to anyone who I suspect might want to do me harm: that would be a foolish thing to do, like showing a housebreaker where you keep your front door key. Besides, if it was something I was afraid of, but didn’t have the guts to confront, then I doubt very much that I’d own up to that, to you or anyone else.’ The fleeting look that she gave him expressed considerable doubt that he was keeping that kind of secret. Which was flattering.
‘A man challenging another to a duel, or accepting a challenge—he would be afraid, wouldn’t he?’ Sara asked, abruptly.
‘He’d be a fool not to be, just as a soldier going into battle must feel fear. The knack is not to show it, to harness it so that it sharpens you, not blunts you. Why do you ask about duels?’
‘Oh, no reason.’
She is lying, he thought, and waited.
‘Did you challenge the father of Marguerite’s child?’
Ah, so that was what this is about. ‘No, not yet,’ he admitted.
‘Not yet? You mean he refused your challenge?’
‘No, it means that I have not been able to lay hands on the bas—on the swine yet.’
‘Will she not tell you where he is? Or who he is?’
‘Oh, I know who he is all right. I trusted him, employed him, in fact.’ He hadn’t even managed to keep danger out of the house, but had invited it in to share the place with his innocent sister. ‘He abandoned her. She denies it, says something must have happened to him, but he walked out on her because of the baby and because the money had run out, I would wager anything on that.’
‘Oh, poor girl, she must be heartbroken, to lose both him and the baby.’
‘She is well rid of him. This is not some damned romance,’ Lucian snapped as the door opened and Mrs Farwell brought out the tea tray.
‘Language,’ she said, giving him what he categorised as A Look.
‘Thank you, Dot, that is delightful.’ Sara gave him the twin of the look and reached for the teapot. ‘Tea, my lord? Do take a scone.’
Lucian gritted his teeth into a smile at Mrs Farwell who looked less than impressed as she marched out, leaving them alone again.
‘Tell me about it if you can. I am exceedingly discreet.’ Sara handed him a cup and settled down on a rattan chair. He took its twin, glared at the scones, decided it would hurt no one but himself to ignore them and heaped on strawberry jam and cream.
‘I employed Gregory Farnsworth as my secretary eighteen months ago. He was just down from university, the third son of our rector. He proved intelligent, hard-working, personable. I began to include him in dinner parties and so on when I needed an extra man and before long he was part of the household. I trusted him implicitly.’ He took a bite of scone, savoured the delicious combination of cream and jam and made himself go on with the story.
Whatever your doubts, whatever errors you make, you keep to yourself, his father had told him. Remember who you are, what you are. And here he was, spilling out every detail of his failure to a woman he hardly knew.
‘Marguerite was just turned seventeen. Not yet out, but free of her governess and in the hands of my cousin Mary to acquire some polish before she made her come-out next Season. Mary apparently noticed nothing between them and I certainly didn’t, fool that I was. Not until, that is, the young puppy comes in one morning and announces that he is in love with Marguerite, that his affections are returned and that he wants my permission for them to be formally betrothed with the intention of marrying when she was eighteen.’
‘How old was he?’