of talk he looked forward to — it was her, at the end of every night, that made the days bearable. He didn’t say it, though. He turned to Marcus instead. “It might be worth the effort if you returned to the village today, and perhaps the next town or two beyond that. As word of the fire spreads, someone may remember something.”
Ellie finished her chocolate and pushed away her plate. “Is there anything you wish for me to do? Or should I merely keep the guests entertained until you are ready to bait them?”
He couldn’t tell whether she wanted to help, whether she was just being polite, or whether she hoped to get him alone. He tried to read her, but her smile wasn’t calculating or inviting and there were no clues in her eyes.
Perhaps he should stop trying to read her and start asking her. “Do you want to help?”
She blinked. The question surprised her, just as every choice she was offered by him surprised her. That blink was enough to reassure him, even though he tried to wait for her words rather than just listening to his gut.
“I want to help,” she said. “I must take care of my responsibilities this morning, but I shall be free in two hours or so.”
He looked at the clock. It was only half past eight, still too early to make a call. But he nodded in her direction. “Eat something else — you’ll need your strength. And then you should change into something warmer. Meet me in the front hall in two hours. We are overdue for a visit to the dower house.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Nick’s imagination had made the dowager marchioness into something of a dragon. She had raised one of the least pleasant men Nick had ever known — Charles’s upbringing had to count for something. And the Claibornes’ longstanding refusal to acknowledge Nick’s family had continued even after all the other Claiborne men were dead, which meant the marchioness was just as stiff about class and blood as all the rest.
But when Nick and Ellie walked into the dower house, the elderly woman they found in the overheated, overstuffed drawing room matched her surroundings, not her station. She was so wrapped in shawls and scarves and lap blankets that her dress — black bombazine dripping with more jet beads than were strictly approved on a day gown — was nearly rendered an undergarment. She wore a ring on every finger and great drop earrings that emerged from foggy wisps of hair to bracket the pinched hollows of her cheeks.
“Lord Folkestone,” she said faintly, sniffing as she extended a hand to him. “Welcome to my humble home.”
She sniffed again as she said this. Nick didn’t know whether she was more upset that he had her dead son’s title or that she had been relegated to the dower house. Regardless, he bowed over her hand as though he were pleased to do so. “Lady Folkestone. Please accept my belated condolences on your loss.”
The dowager’s performance intrigued him. She let one of her shawls slip, and it fell away to reveal a braided bit of hair pinned to her dress. “My poor, dear Charles. In the prime of his youth, and yet he never experienced the marital happiness I had with his dear father. If only he had left an heir before he was taken from us.”
She hadn’t acknowledged Ellie — hadn’t even looked at her — but he knew the direction of that barb.
Ellie knew it too. Nick turned in time to see Ellie shrug. “If there had been a babe, it likely would have been a girl. You had three daughters and only one son. My odds might have been just as bad.”
The dowager glared at Ellie. “Impertinent as always, I see. If you can’t mind your tongue, you may take your leave.”
Ellie sat instead, choosing one of nearly a dozen chintz-covered armless chairs that had been squeezed into the room by some feat of organization that surpassed Nick’s abilities. She bumped one elbow on a side table and the other on a pedestal displaying a mismatched assortment of knick-knacks. But when she spoke, her voice was kinder than before. “Shall we declare a truce, Lady Folkestone? It has been a decade — surely we can be in the same room without incident.”
“With your reputation?” Lady Folkestone snorted, but her voice warmed to what seemed to be a familiar theme. “My only comfort is that Annabel and Clarabel found husbands