Hiring a hack from Martin McBroom’s stables, Sebastian rode out to the former Dower House of Maplethorpe Hall.
He could see Liv Weston deadheading spent blooms in the long border when he reined in before the house’s simple portico. She had an unfashionable straw hat tied over her fair hair and an apron protecting her serviceable, faded gown of dark blue muslin; a deep, weathered basket hung by its handle on one crooked arm.
“My husband isn’t here,” she said when Sebastian left his horse in the groom’s care and walked up to her.
“Actually, I’d like to speak with you, if you don’t mind.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Why would I mind?”
Her face was faintly lined and browned from her days spent in the garden, her nose small and upturned, her cheeks rosy. She didn’t strike Sebastian as the type of woman who would succumb to a fit of the vapors if she chanced to overhear her husband discussing an unknown woman’s murder. So why had Weston been so anxious that first day to keep Sebastian away from his wife?
He said, “We’ve recently discovered that Emma Chance—or rather, Chandler—was the natural daughter of Lady Emily Turnstall. I understand you knew her.”
Liv Weston’s face went slack with surprise. “Emily? I knew her, yes. We were in school together for a year, in Hereford. I had no idea she—” She broke off, her breath hitching. “Dear God, is that how Emily died? In childbirth?”
Sebastian shook his head. “No. Although it wasn’t long afterward. When was the last time you saw her?”
“It must have been . . .” She paused, thoughtful. “Yes—it was at a house party my parents gave the autumn before she died.”
“Did she ever contact you after that?”
“She wrote to thank us, of course. But when I sent her a letter several weeks later, she never answered.” Liv Weston was silent a moment, obviously doing sums in her head. “When was her child born?”
“Late May. I’m told it came some weeks early.”
Sebastian watched as a strange hardness crept over her features. “Who fathered her child? Do you know?”
“No. It’s why Emma Chandler was here, in Ayleswick; she was trying to find out. Did you not recognize her? She resembled her mother quite strongly.”
Liv Weston shook her head. “No. To be honest, I have only the vaguest recollections of what Emily looked like. It’s been so long. But . . . good heavens. Are you suggesting that’s why the young woman was killed?”
He met her gaze squarely. “I think it a strong possibility, yes. How well do you remember that September? Do you have any idea who might have fathered Lady Emily’s child?”
“Honestly? No. I was seventeen and very much wrapped up in my own affairs, while Emily . . . She was quite pretty, you know. Pretty and fabulously wellborn as well as wealthy. I remember being rather envious of all the admiration and attention she attracted from everyone without even trying.” She paused. “It’s not something I’m proud of.”
“Yet you invited her.”
“I did, yes. We were friends at school. I liked her. But that didn’t stop me from being jealous once I saw how all the gentlemen reacted to her. When I heard that next summer that she had died, I felt . . . very small.”
It was a startlingly frank admission. Liv Weston was obviously one of those rare people who had no difficulty acknowledging her faults. In that, she was most unlike her husband.
Sebastian said, “Whoever fathered Lady Emily’s child forced her.”
“Please tell me it wasn’t someone at our house party.”
“Not a houseguest, no. She told her governess it was someone who lived in the area.”
Liv Weston was silent again, and he knew she was running through the possibilities in her mind. Had she noticed Major Weston’s long-ago flirtation with the pretty young earl’s daughter? Sebastian wondered.
Surely she had.
He said, “Do you remember anything—anything at all—from those days that might help make sense out of what is happening now?”
“Not really. You know what house parties are like. Lots of harmless flirting and some not-so-harmless affairs.” She let the basket slide down her arm to her hand and set it on the grass path at her feet, the secateurs resting atop the cuttings. She straightened slowly, the fingers of her hands knit together before her. “There is one thing. . . . Emily had what I thought at the time a rather strange fascination with a boy down at the Ship.”
“You mean, Jude Lowe?”
She shook her head. “No, not Lowe; his brother. He was slightly younger than she was, but so very attractive. It was as if she were obsessed with him. I remember he had the strangest yellow eyes; I’d never seen anything like them. I mean . . .” She stared at Sebastian, a faint touch of color riding high on her cheeks, then looked pointedly away.