He didn’t see the old woman in the garden until she straightened up from a bank of peas. She placed her hands on her generous hips and watched in silence as Tristan climbed down from the carriage.
“You must be the duke, then,” the woman remarked. She sounded almost disapproving and did not venture a curtsy of any kind.
“You are correct, madam,” Tristan responded brusquely. “Where is my nephew?”
“In the house,” the woman answered, jerking her chin in the direction of the cottage. “He wasn’t hurt, which was nothing short of a miracle.”
Tristan glanced briefly at the cozy-looking little cottage. It was sosmall. How could Anthony have lived there? Did he never think regretfully of the vast houses and glorious company he’d kept in London?
It is too late to ask him now.
Tristan swallowed past a lump in his throat and forced himself to glance back at the woman. On closer inspection, she was not as old as he’d thought. She was perhaps in her mid-forties, with iron-gray hair and a lined, weathered face. There was redness around her eyes, and Tristan realized she must have been crying.
“You missed the funeral,” she stated bluntly. There was no getting past the tone of accusation in her voice, and Tristan flinched.
“I came as soon as I could. My brother and his wife are buried in the churchyard, I might assume?”
She studied him for a long moment. “You don’t seem upset.”
Tristan flashed her a brittle smile. “Don’t presume to interpret my emotions, my dear woman. Do you have any idea of the details of what happened?”
She let out a long, ragged sigh, raking a hand through the braided hair. For the first time, Tristan saw dark circles under her eyes from exhaustion.
“Betty got sick first,” she murmured, almost in a whisper. “Then Anthony took ill. It was some sort of fever, I think. A nasty one. It killed a good few of the locals last year. Well, they decided to find a better doctor in a neighboring town and took themselves off in the cart. It was raining heavily, and I suppose he was too ill to drive well, and…” She trailed off, shaking her head.
“The cart slipped off the road and rolled down a hill. Both of them broke their necks. It was as sudden asthat,” she snapped her fingers, “which must be a comfort. The babe was wrapped up tight and secure in his basket and was miraculously unharmed. It was his squalling that led us to them, though. Poor little mite.”
Tristan found that his throat had tightened almost unbearably. He swallowed a few times determinedly, trying to compose himself.
“And the letter? Who sent me the letter?”
“I did.”
He blinked. “You wrote it? Extraordinary. Allow me to compliment you on your penmanship. Who taught you to read and write?”
The woman narrowed her eyes at him. Tristan had seen this look aimed toward him before, generally on the faces of people who were imagining hitting him with something heavy.
“Betty taught me,” the woman said at last. “She’s my niece.”
“I was not aware that seamstresses had such excellent handwriting.”
Betty’s aunt heaved an angry sigh. “Well, she was taught by a lady, wasn’t she?”
This gave Tristan pause for thought. He had had no idea that his brother’s ill-chosen wife had such lofty connections. Unless, of course, this woman thought that rector’s wives and farmers’ daughters counted asladies.
“Lady? What lady?” he demanded.
“Her friend,” the woman snapped, losing interest and picking up her hoe again. “The lady in the house.”
“In thehouse?”
“Yes, in the house, little mockingbird,” Betty’s aunt snapped, beginning her work again. “Go on in if you like.”
Tristan spared no further pleasantries. He strode up the paved pathway toward the pretty little cottage. He was nearly at the door when movement caught his eye through the little window. Pausing, he peered inside.
A young woman stood there with her back to the window, cradling a baby to her chest. He could see the baby’s fat little hand reaching up toward her face. Her hair, a muted gold, was pulled back in a demure knot at the back of her head.
His heart sank. It was, quite unmistakably, Lady Madeline Huxley.
