A Stroke of Malice (Lady Darby Mystery #8) - Anna Lee Huber Page 0,121

and find out if anyone saw Lord John pass that way,” I told Bree.

Inferring my intentions, she glanced from me to the courtyard, noticeably conflicted about whether she should obey. However, I didn’t feel the slightest qualm about being alone with Lord Henry. I never had. Though I couldn’t understand precisely why.

“Go,” I told her gently.

Her warm brown eyes searched mine a moment longer before she nodded and hastened down the corridor.

I glanced back at Lord Henry, but he gave no indication he’d noticed me. Then I returned to the vestibule to grab a cloak dyed the shade of deepest claret and pulled it around my shoulders before stepping through the door. The ground in the courtyard was still coated in patchy mounds of snow. The fault of the high walls surrounding it, no doubt, which made it impossible for direct sunlight to penetrate here except for a scant two or three hours a day. I suspected that was why Lord Henry had settled on the bench nearest the door, for he wore soft leather shoes rather than boots.

He didn’t speak when I moved forward to join him, but he did clear the bench on his right of further snow and slid over so that I might have the warmer, dryer seat. Once I was seated next to him, with the sleeve of his coat brushing against my shoulder, I found I didn’t know what to say. Or if I should say anything at all. Perhaps it would be best to allow him to supply the conversational gambit. Maybe that would reveal more than my interrogating him ever could.

So I settled back to study the play of the sunlight over the snow and the windows overlooking us above. The courtyard was thick with the scents of damp and stone, and the earthy scent of moss and lichen which sprouted along the southern face. It being midmorning, the sun had not yet risen high enough to illuminate the eastern half of the space, so we were seated in chill shadow. One that only deepened as the thick gray clouds above encompassed the sun once again.

“You and your husband have caused me a great deal of strife, Mrs. Gage,” he finally said, his voice low and unhappy.

I huddled deeper into my borrowed cloak and turned to him to reply, but the subtle “oh” of inquiry I’d planned to utter came out more like a strangled gasp. For with his face tinted with shadow, his brow furrowed in discontent, I’d suddenly realized why he seemed so familiar to me.

The cleft in his chin, the strong jawline and high cheekbones, the unruly twist of curls that had fallen over his forehead. I traced just such a profile in bed every night, and I’d noted it a little more than a month before as I rode in a darkened carriage beside my father-in-law.

Lord Henry turned to me, his gaze sharp with confusion. Even the shade of his gray eyes was the same as the man who must be his real father, even if his auburn hair had clearly been inherited from his mother. “What’s the matter? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost,” he demanded, as I struggled to find my voice. His face contorted with disdain. “Or do you think I’m a killer?”

“No,” I finally managed to pant. “No, I . . . I’m sorry. I just . . .” I pressed a hand to my chest. “I had something caught in my throat.”

It was a ridiculous excuse, and we both knew it. And yet I could hardly state the truth, or allow him to believe what he’d assumed.

“You said we’ve caused you strife?” I queried a shade too brightly.

It was then that comprehension seemed to dawn, sharp and swift, transforming his expression from chary to diffident. “Ah,” he breathed, confirming my suspicions without ever truly saying a word.

Once again, I didn’t know what to say. The truth about his paternity was not his fault, and yet I knew it would hurt Gage terribly. Henry was perhaps eight and twenty, six years younger than Gage. Which meant that Henry had been conceived while Lord Gage was wed to Gage’s mother, who had been ill for much of Gage’s childhood, and lucky to see her husband two weeks out of the year while the war with Napoleon was on.

Lord Gage’s liaison with the duchess must have occurred on one of his trips to London. As a naval captain, he would have been required to