“What is it?” Lily had climbed in after me and took the seat across.
I shook my head, not at all certain I had seen anything of importance.
“Nothing,” I replied as we settled ourselves for the ride across the city.
Yet I was unable to shake the feeling, more the certainty, that the man I had seen was somehow familiar.
We arrived at the Walsingham residence, and I asked Mr. Jarvis to wait. It was quite possible that the meeting might be very short indeed as I had no way of knowing what to expect when I explained the reason for our visit.
A housemaid answered the door, and I introduced the two of us. She nodded and showed us into the front parlor.
“Her ladyship will be with you presently.”
While we waited, I took in the details of the front parlor—the Queen Anne furnishings, two portraits of an older man and woman, perhaps the parents of either Sir Walsingham or Lady Walsingham.
There was a side table beneath windows that looked out onto a narrow garden that separated the Walsingham residence from the next one over. More photographs sat at the table.
One was in sepia tones, the subject was a small child of perhaps three or four years. Another was a tall youth in a school uniform with a shock of dark hair that spilled over his forehead. The last photograph, in black and white tones, was of the same young man with a long rifle and a pair of dead grouse at his feet.
“Our son, Jack. He was named for my husband.”
I turned. Lady Walsingham stood framed in the doorway to the parlor.
“We have never met,” she said as she came into the room. “But I have heard of your adventures from Lady Antonia. And now you are here, Lady Forsythe. And the matter you spoke of—I might have hoped for a different occasion to meet.”
She had asked the reason I wanted to meet in our brief conversation the day before. I had not gone into detail, only that it was a matter that might be related to her son’s accident. Meeting her now, I felt a twinge of regret that it was under such difficult circumstances.
She was an attractive woman, not a great deal older than myself, I would have guessed, with dark brown hair, blue eyes framed by dark lashes, and a soft smile framed by perhaps more lines than she might have had before the accident.
It was there in her eyes as well, a look that I had seen before, that came from the pain of loss and never went away.
“And you are?” she inquired with a look at Lily who introduced herself.
“Ah, Miss Montgomery. Lady Antonia has spoken of you. Perhaps following in Lady Mikaela’s footsteps?”
Lily nodded but made no comment.
Lady Walsingham then gestured to the chairs that sat before the fire at the hearth. When the maid reappeared, she ordered tea to be served.
“You spoke yesterday of a matter that might be related to my son’s accident.”
I waited until tea had been served and the maid then left.
“We have taken an inquiry case that has been most baffling,” I began and left out the details of the deaths of the two other two young men.
“There is reason to believe that it may be regarding Sir Walsingham’s friendship at university with three young men.” I saw the surprise in that soft blue gaze.
“In what way?”
“We’ve been asked to investigate a recent situation, the attack on a young man at Marlborough House.”
She nodded. “Dreadful situation. We did not attend as we have not yet accepted any social invitations. Yet, we were aware of it through others who were there that night. And my husband is acquainted with Lord Huntingdon.”
“A gentleman called upon us yesterday, without a previous announcement,” she continued. “Sir Avery Stanton of the Special Services. Neither of us were here at the time.”
Bloody hell.
I could only imagine what that might have been like if he had been able to question either of them about their son’s “accident.” Sir Avery had served a career in the military. His manner was blunt and quite brash with little regard for anyone else.
