“I am well, thank you. And you are in good health, I trust?”
“Tolerably well, yes.”
Her gaze fixed on Lady Fitzhoward, eyes narrowing, sunlightfrom the arched refectory windows giving them a steely tint.
“Lady ... Fitzhoward ... did you say?”
“That’s right,” Rebecca’s employer replied in equally cool tones.
“You seem familiar to me, yet your name does not.”
Lady Fitzhoward met the woman’s challenging stare and said mildly, “Yet it is my name.”
The dowager Lady Wilford said, “I do not know any Fitzhowards.”
“And yet I have heard a great deal about the Wilfords.”
One of the dowager’s dark eyebrows rose expectantly, but Lady Fitzhoward did not expand on her reply.
Rebecca began to grow uncomfortable. Sir Frederick, clearly also noticing the tension, shifted and said soothingly, “Do you know, Mamma, I thought Lady Fitzhoward seemed familiar too when I first met her here in the hotel.”
He smiled from one woman to the other but neither returned the gesture.
His mother’s gaze remained on Lady Fitzhoward. “And your husband was...?”
“Sir Donald Fitzhoward.”
“Would I have met him?”
“Doubtful. He was from the north. Manchester.”
“And his title?”
“Mamma!” Frederick protested in dismay.
Lady Fitzhoward’s eyes glinted. “I shall save you the trouble of consultingDebrett’s Peerage. My husband was knighted for service to the crown. He was not a baronet, as was your late husband.”
“Ah.”
Lady Fitzhoward inhaled and said, “I do hope that satisfiesyour curiosity. Now, if you will excuse me, I find I am not hungry after all.” She turned and walked away, head held high.
Even so, Rebecca noticed the slight tremor of her hand.
Voice low, Sir Frederick said to his mother, “It was unlike you to pry like that. I must say you were rather rude.”
“I don’t know what came over me. I am sorry to embarrass you.”
Rebecca turned to go. “I shall take my leave as well.”
“No, do stay, Miss Lane,” the dowager urged. “I apologize to you too. And please join us.” She gestured to a waiter, and Rebecca was soon seated with a bill of fare.
The older woman glanced briefly at the day’s selections, then set down the card, her brows knit. “It is just ... I know I have seen that woman before in some other context. And she was not the wealthy widow of a knight then.”
Rebecca said, “She is the widow of Sir Donald Fitzhoward. That I can attest to. He was a successful manufacturer. He developed some improved piece of machinery—I forget what—that helped many others in his trade.”
“Trade.” The dowager shuddered. “I do wish monarchs would cease granting knighthoods to ignoble persons.”
“Mamma, you sound terribly haughty.”
