‘Your own family?’
How foolish not to have expected this, not to have armoured herself against just this interrogation. She had been expecting a Bow Street Runner, a reassuring, stolid, middle aged man, wise in the ways of the streets from which he had risen himself. Avuncular perhaps, in his blunt way. This was a gentleman, as intelligent as a lawyer, she suspected. As precise as a surgeon. It had been fear she had felt when he had entered her room. Fear and a treacherous shiver of attraction.
Chapter Three
Guin tried charm, smiled at Mr Hunt a little, head tilted to one side, invited him to share her rueful regrets. ‘My own family? Alas, no. My father disowned me when I eloped. My mother was dead by then. I have a brother and two sisters in Lancashire. They too cut me off.’
‘Even now you are married to a viscount?’ No, he was not in the least bit charmed. The man had probably never flirted in his life. Perhaps he was some kind of monk.
‘Even now,’ she agreed, her voice dry as she abandoned feminine wiles. ‘I was desperate enough to write to them for aid immediately Francis died. When I received back my letter torn into shreds I allowed my distress to turn to anger. What I wrote in response was, apparently, both unforgivable and unforgiven. None of them come to Town. My father has died now, although I had to find that out from the newspapers, and my brother inherited the baronetcy. He is not a wealthy man, not one given to visiting London or fashionable watering places. My sisters are married to Northern gentleman who prefer to remain on their own acres.’
‘So, who have you offended or threatened, Lady Northam? Who hates you or fears you? Who covets what you have enough to want you dead?’
‘I have no idea,’ she said with perfect honesty. ‘That is the truth. I have not quarrelled with anyone, Augustus was not courting any lady who had expectations when he married me. I have racked my brains for any memory of saying or doing something that might have hurt or upset anyone and cannot. I have no money of my own to leave, no expectation of inheritances. No secrets. Nothing.’
His eyes narrowed and she wondered if he thought that she was lying to him. ‘There is nothing that you know of or suspect, nothing that you put sufficient weight on,’ her new bodyguard corrected her. ‘Unless you are imagining these incidents, or they are the most improbable coincidences, then someone is trying to harm you, Lady Northam, and there has to be a reason behind it. Their motives must seem good to them, however trivial or obscure, or even insane, they will seem to us when we know them.’
Guin closed her eyes for a moment, almost breathless with the confidence in that deep, quiet voice. When we know, not if. When. We. There might be safety from this fear after all. But she could not give way now. Staying calm, doing nothing to worry Augustus – more than he was already worried, poor man – was essential. When she was calm, he was calm also, his entire focus bent on supporting her.
‘Lord Northam has a large family, I gather. Two daughters, one son-in-law, three granddaughters and two grandsons, in addition to his brother and his son and some distant cousins.’ He did not consult his book for that, she noted.
‘Yes. The daughters are pleasant enough to me – they think their father a doting old fool to marry so young a wife, but they just manage not to say it. Possibly reassurances about his will have helped with that.’ She hoped that did not sound acid, that had not been her intention. Of course her daughters-in-law would have been worried about the marriage, it was only natural. They had really been very decent about it all. Distant but decent. She wanted to get up, fidget about the room, move from under that cool, assessing scrutiny. Guin folded her hands in her lap and made herself sit still.
‘The granddaughters are my age, more or less, and perfectly civil, as are the grandsons. The boys descend in the female line and it is not as though any of them have expectations of inheriting the title, not with heirs in the male line. Lord Northam made it quite clear to them all that their positions in his will are unaffected by this marriage. I cannot see that they are threatened by my existence.’
‘Lord Northam’s brother and his heir might, however, have cause for concern as heirs presumptive if they believe they may be displaced.’
Was that a question? Was he asking if she had intimate relations with her elderly husband? Well, he could ask straight out if he was wondering about that. If he had the gall.
‘I have no idea whether they feel concerned or not. They have always been pleasant to me. Amiable, in fact.’
‘You are not with child?’
It seemed he did have the gall to be very blunt indeed. ‘No,’ Guin said.
‘May I?’ Mr Hunt waved a hand in a gesture that encompassed the room.
‘Yes, certainly. What are you looking for?’
He got up as she spoke and moved slowly about her sitting room, head slightly tilted as he studied the hangings, the pictures, the furniture. He bent to read the book titles on the shelves, glanced at her embroidery tossed carelessly on a side table. He touched nothing, but his gaze skimmed over surfaces, noted details. Then he turned to her and stripped her to the skin with his eyes. She fixed a faint smile on her lips. He was not getting to her soul.
‘What am I looking for? Why, for you, Lady Northam.’
‘I am here,’ Guin pointed out, perhaps rather more tartly than good manners dictated.
Mr Hunt turned to resume his study of the curios on a side table. She caught herself admiring the way he moved, the breadth of his shoulders, the ease with which he hunkered down to look at the lowest shelf then rose effortlessly again. It was enough to make any woman irritable, to find herself doing such a thing.
‘And you are here.’ This time the sweep of his hand encompassed the pictures she had chosen and the books she read, the way the furniture was arranged, the colours she favoured. He had long fingers, she noticed, unadorned by any rings. ‘At the moment you are tense, fearful and mistrustful. You are keeping secrets from me and I do not blame you. I need to understand Guinevere Quenten, née Holroyd, lately Willoughby – the real woman, not Lady Northam on display – before I can help her.’
‘I am not fearful.’ It was a lie, of course, one she kept telling herself. She was not very convincing, apparently.
‘Then, as an intelligent woman, you should be.’ For the first time Jared Hunt sounded less than calm and neutral. He sounded irritated. ‘Unless this is all your fantasy or a device to get your husband’s close attention?’
‘It most certainly is not. And if you must have it, yes I am afraid and yes, I am afraid of showing fear,’ Guin said flatly, insulted into truthfulness.
‘Good.’ He smiled and she caught her breath. ‘Now we have honesty we can work.’ He smile was gone so fast she thought she might have imagined it.
‘Work? I thought you would guard me, that is all.’ Yes, the smile was gone, but with it, the cold assessment. Somehow they had reached an understanding. Did his fencing pupils feel like