“Why exactly do you want to know?”
“Isn’t you being my wife reason enough? We’re bound together for the next few years, so knowing something about you doesn’t seem unreasonable.”
She had the worrying thought that he was trying to distract her. “We’re married in name only. My past cannot mean anything to you.”
“Maybe I’m simply curious. But”—he shrugged—“if you don’t want to satisfy my curiosity, I can always go back to throwing myself against the door and cussing and swearing over the next twelve hours.” His lips twisted into a quirk of a smile, which got to her in ways it really shouldn’t have.
“I guess satisfying your curiosity will be a lot less harmful to you, not to mention the door and the contents of my room.”
“Good.” He took a sip of his tea, grimaced, and then sat back in the chair. “So, were you running to, or from, something?”
“From, as you can no doubt guess. After my father and brother died, my mother wanted to make a new start.” She held her breath, hoping that he wouldn’t ask about the circumstances of her father's and brother’s deaths.
“Away from her family and friends? That’s unusual.”
She released her breath. “My mother decided it was best for both of us to leave.”
“Why England? Did she have connections here?”
Indra shook her head. “None.” She could have invented some, but she’d always been hopeless at lying and knew that Sebastian’s sharp mind would catch her out, eventually. The fact she had no relatives or connections in England was the main reason her mother had chosen to settle there. Their enemies wouldn’t think to look for them there.
“So she answered an agency advertisement for housekeeper here, at Richmond?”
“That’s right. Live-in housekeeper, at Richmond, where we could make a new start.”
“Not much of a start, I shouldn’t have thought. Miles from anywhere.”
“It was what we wanted.”
“We? You would have been around twelve?”
She nodded.
“So it was what yourmotherwanted.” He took another sip of his tea before fixing her with his steady gaze. “To disappear.”
She lowered her eyes to look into the clear golden tea, watching as fragments of the chamomile flowers shifted around the bottom of the fine porcelain cup. She’d never told anyone why she and her mother had come to England so long ago. But, then, no one had ever had the temerity to ask, and they’d been protected by Charles Richmond. But no longer. Charles had lifted that protection when he’d bound her in marriage to his son. If Charles thought she could stand on her own two feet, then maybe she could.
She raised her eyes to his. “Yes. To disappear.” With careful deliberation, she placed her cup back on its saucer, sat back and folded her hands in her lap. “There were… business complications which my mother didn’t wish to be connected with, so she brought us here. She made us disappear, as you say.”
Sebastian didn’t appear shocked by her revelation.
“I imagined it must have been something like that.”
“I’m still not sure why you’re so interested.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. The fact is, I am. Thanks for telling me.”
She let out a small sigh of relief, as the tension eased. Maybe she’d escaped the worst of it.
“One more thing. What was your father’s business?”
She shrugged. “He traded in many things. Importing… you know.”
“And these imports were from which country?”
She shrugged. “Russia primarily.”
“And were these things dangerous?”