“You forget, Lord Trentham,” she said, “that it is women who bear children. It is generally agreed that the pain of childbed is the worst pain there is.”
“You have children of your own?” he asked.
“No.” She closed her eyes again and for no apparent reason continued—on a subject she almost never spoke of, even to those nearest and dearest to her. “I lost the only one I conceived. It happened after I was thrown from my horse and broke my leg.”
“What were you doing riding a horse when you were with child?” he asked.
It was a good question, even if it was an impudent one too.
“Jumping hedges,” she said, “including one neither Vernon—my husband—nor I had ever jumped before. His horse cleared it. Mine did not and I was tossed off.”
There was a short silence. Why on earth had she told him all that?
“Did your husband know you were with child?” he asked.
It was an unpardonably intimate question. But she had started this.
“Of course,” she said. “I was almost six months into my confinement.”
And now he would think all sorts of uncomplimentary things about Vernon without understanding at all. It was unfair of her to have said so much when she was certainly not prepared to launch into lengthy explanations. She seemed to have done nothing but show herself in a bad light since she first set eyes upon him and cringed in fear. Yes, she really had. She had cringed.
“This was a child you wanted?” he asked.
Her eyes snapped open and she glared at him, speechless. What sort of question was that?
His eyes were hard. Accusing. Condemning.
But what did she expect? She had made both herself and Vernon seem unpardonably reckless and irresponsible.
It was time to change the subject.
“Is the blond gentleman downstairs a guest at Penderris too?” she asked. “Have I imposed upon a house party?”
“He is Viscount Ponsonby,” he said. “There are six guests here, apart from Stanbrook himself. We gather here for a few weeks each year. Stanbrook opened his home to us for several years during and after the wars while we recuperated from various wounds.”
Gwen gazed at him. There was no outer sign of any wound that might have incapacitated Lord Trentham for that long. But she had been right about him. He was a military man.
“You were or are all officers?” she asked.
“Were,” he said. “Five of us in the recent wars, Stanbrook in previous ones. His son fought and died in the Napoleonic Wars.”
Ah, yes. Shortly before the duchess leapt from the cliff top to her death.
“And the seventh person?” she asked.
“A woman,” he said, “widow of a surveillance officer who was tortured to death after being captured. She was present when he was finally shot.”
“Oh,” Gwen said, grimacing.
Now she felt worse than ever. This was far more terrible than imposing upon a simple house party. And her own sprained ankle seemed embarrassingly trivial in comparison with what the duke and his six guests must have endured.
Lord Trentham had picked up a shawl from the back of a nearby chair and came closer to spread it over Gwen’s injured leg. At the same moment the drawing doors opened again and a woman came inside carrying a tea tray. She was a lady, not a maid. She was tall and very straight in posture. Her dark blond hair was pulled back in a chignon, but the simplicity, even severity, of the style emphasized the perfect bone structure of her oval face with its finely sculpted cheekbones, straight nose, and blue-green eyes fringed with lashes a shade darker than her hair. Her mouth was wide and generous. She was beautiful, despite the fact that her face looked as though it were sculpted of marble. It looked not only as though she never smiled but as if she were incapable of doing so even if she wished. Her eyes were large and very calm, almost unnaturally so.
She came toward the sofa and would have set the tray down on the table beside Gwen if Lord Trentham had not taken it from her hands first.
“I’ll see to that, Imogen,” he said.
“George guessed that you would consider it quite improper to be in a room alone with a strange gentleman, Lady Muir,” the lady said, “even if he did rescue you and carry you back to the house. I have been designated as your chaperon.”
Her voice was cool rather than cold.
“This is Imogen, Lady Barclay,” Lord Trentham said, “who never seems to consider it improper to stay at Penderris with six gentlemen and no chaperon.”
“I would entrust my life to any of the six or all of them combined,” Lady Barclay said, inclining her head courteously to Gwen. “Indeed, I have already done so. You are looking embarrassed. You need not. How did you hurt your ankle?”
She poured three cups of tea as Gwen described what had happened. This, then, she thought, was the lady who had been with her husband when his torturers had killed him. Gwen had an inkling of the torments she must have lived through every minute of every day since. She must forever be asking herself if there was anything she might have done to prevent such a disaster. Just as Gwen forever asked it of herself with regard to Vernon’s death.
“I feel very foolish,” she said in conclusion.
“Of course you do,” Lady Barclay said. “But it could have happened to any of us, you know. We are always up and down to the beach, and that slope is quite treacherous enough even without the shifting stones.”
Gwen glanced at Lord Trentham, who was silently sipping his tea, his dark eyes resting on her.