The Obsessions of Lord Godfrey - Stephanie Laurens Page 0,42

so perhaps tomorrow, I might escape this bed?”

She arched her brows noncommittally. “Perhaps. We’ll have to see whether your cough is less chesty tomorrow.”

“Assuming my cough has the good sense to subside, I might finally get a chance to interact with the others staying here. I’ve met Pyne and Morris, and Harry mentioned their long friendship with your father, but although I’ve met and spoken briefly with Masterton, I’m unclear as to his connection with the household.”

She looked down lest he see in her eyes the irritation Masterton customarily provoked. “Masterton is a distant cousin—once or twice removed, something like that—on my father’s side. He lives in Ripon, and as there are few other Hinckley relatives still living, Papa welcomes him here.” She shrugged lightly and didn’t look up. “Masterton has proved helpful over the years, especially in making Papa feel…connected with the outside world.”

I tolerate Masterton because of that.

“Ah—I see.” Godfrey eyed Ellie’s bent head and elected not to push for more, at least not at that time.

“So tell me.” She looked up from her embroidery. “What does your sister do with these musicians you say she collects?”

He smiled and swung into a description of the musical academy his sister, Stacie, and her husband, Frederick, had endowed.

But he wasn’t going to forget Ellie’s equivocal attitude to Masterton—that had come through quite clearly—nor the fact that she hadn’t wanted to meet his eyes while discussing the man.

What, exactly, all that meant, Godfrey wasn’t sure he could even guess, but the question the exchange left circling in his brain was: What was Masterton to her?

The answer came from an unexpected source.

First, however, early the following morning, his hopes of escaping the bed were dashed by the outcome of a bedside conference attended not just by Ellie, Mrs. Kemp, and Wally but also by Cook—apparently the most experienced in the treatment of chest complaints. A plump, gray-haired veteran, Cook had walked into the room in time to hear him cough as Wally had helped him to sit. She’d instantly looked askance at him, and when Ellie had asked for her thoughts on his proposal to get up and dressed and go downstairs, had shaken her head and opined, “Still too heavy on his chest. If he gets up and goes downstairs, it’ll flare up again, like as not.”

And that had been that.

He’d taken one look at Ellie’s and Mrs. Kemp’s faces—he hadn’t even bothered to check Wally’s—and slumped back on his pillows, defeated.

So he was languishing under the covers when, just past eleven o’clock, a tap fell on the door. At his somewhat terse “Come in,” the door opened, and Maggie bounced into the room, whirled, and quickly shut the door.

Then she turned to him, grinned, and came forward to curl up in the wing chair as she’d done the previous day. “I thought you must be utterly bored, so I’ve come to entertain you.”

He set aside the book—a second history of the house covering the years since 1700 that Ellie had found for him—that he’d slowly been leafing through, hunting for any mention of old paintings. Meeting Maggie’s bright, encouraging eyes, he asked, “How are you proposing to accomplish that?”

She arched her brows and tapped her chin, then offered, “You answered a lot of our questions yesterday. Is there anything about the Hall you would like to know—anything I can tell you?”

He remembered his thought that Maggie was insightful. He suspected that also made her observant.

He wondered how to word his question so he didn’t give her more ammunition regarding him than she already held. “Your sister.” He felt sure Maggie had noted his interest there. “Has she any current suitors? Anyone she favors?”

Maggie’s wide grin suggested he’d guessed aright; she wasn’t the least surprised by the direction of his interest. “As to the second question, there’s no one she encourages. But the answer to the first is that there are two.”

“Two?” Who didn’t he know about?

Maggie nodded in a sage way that sat oddly on her pixielike countenance. “Masterton and Mr. Morris.”

“Ah. I see.”

“Actually, you probably don’t.” Without further prompting, she elaborated, “Masterton first offered for Ellie about six months ago. She’s never entertained the slightest feelings for him and declined his offer, but he seems determined to keep his offer on the table, as it were, presumably hoping she’ll change her mind.” Maggie shook her head. “She won’t, but he doesn’t seem to see that.”

Maggie drew in a breath. “As for Mr. Morris—well, he’s an older man with an