Aunt Roz nodded. “I’ll give her back to her mum tomorrow. I just feel bad for the poor thing. Alone with a baby, and at her age. She’s no older than Pippa, perhaps not even. And no money to speak of. That dress was several years out of date, and she clearly hasn’t had enough to eat lately; God only knows how she got here from London…”
“How do you know she came from London?” Constance wanted to know.
“She came to the flat to see Christopher last week,” I said. “And I’m sure she’s the same woman who came to Sutherland House a couple of months ago to look at St George, too.”
Although I didn’t know that for a fact, admittedly. He hadn’t actually said so. But how many young women with Sutherland babies were likely to be roaming England at any given time, really?
Then again, considering St George’s proclivity for getting under women’s skirts, there might actually be more than just this one.
This time, when I scowled at him, he was actually looking my way, and arched a questioning brow. I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything, Laetitia noticed that his attention had strayed and brought him to heel with a tap on the nose.
I closed my mouth again and huffed.
“The girl, Pipsqueak,” Francis said, and I turned my attention back to present company.
“She was in London a week ago. She was in London this spring. She’s likely to live in London.”
She didn’t look like a country girl, certainly. Not enough tweed.
“Do you know anything else about her?” Constance wanted to know. “Other than—” she hesitated, “the obvious?”
“I know her name,” I said, “if she told me the truth. Abigail Dole. I know the baby’s name. Abigail called her Bess. I assume her given name is Elizabeth.”
“There are no Elizabeths among the Astleys,” Aunt Roz said. “Not for several generations.”
“Abigail might just have liked the name.” If she didn’t even know the name of Bess’s father, she wasn’t likely to know about any Astley family names, after all. “The Duke and Duchess of York did just have a baby they named Elizabeth.”
Aunt Roz nodded. “In any case, there’s no helpful information there. If her name had been Charlotte, it would have been a different story.”
It would. Although even that wouldn’t have been proof of anything.
“And that’s all I know,” I told Constance. “Her name and the baby’s name. And the fact that Bess’s father almost certainly has to be a Sutherland. When Abigail first knocked on the door at Sutherland House, she told Rogers that she was looking for the Duke’s grandson.”
We all chewed on that bit of information for a moment.
“This was when Henry was alive,” Aunt Roz said.
I nodded. “Sometime in the spring. Before the end of April.” Before Duke Henry and Crispin’s father died. Before Grimsby the valet shared all his blackmail information with us.
“Herbert’s father had four grandsons. Robbie’s gone?—”
“Too long ago to have had anything to do with this,” Francis said gruffly. Even after almost a decade, he doesn’t like to be reminded of his dead brother.
Aunt Roz nodded. “Then there’s you, and Christopher, and Crispin.”
And there was us, going around the same mulberry bush, beating the same dead horse.
“I’m as certain as I can be that Christopher didn’t bed this girl,” I said. “It’s impossible to be one hundred percent certain, but he said he didn’t, and besides?—”
Besides, Christopher isn’t attracted to women.
Aunt Roz nodded. “You say you didn’t, Francis…”
“I don’t think I did,” Francis said coolly, while beside him, Constance flushed pink. “I don’t remember her. And I can’t imagine when it would have happened. I don’t spend much time in Town, and unlike my cousin, I’m not in the habit of bedding women indiscriminately…”
Although Francis does occasionally go up to London, and in the past, he had also done enough dope that certain things might have slipped his mind. It was just possible that a single encounter with Abigail Dole could have been one of those things. So like with Christopher, we could be almost certain it hadn’t happened, but not one hundred percent.
“Crispin has told me categorically, over and over, that it wasn’t him,” I said. “He’s been absolutely adamant about it.”
