* * *
“Mr.Eames, before we part, I should like to ask you a question.”Georgiana chewed on her bottom lip.“A question that concerns Meggie.”
“Yes?”he acknowledged warily.
She placed a reassuring hand on his arm.“It is nothing…negative.I only wondered… You said earlier that Meggie refers to me as the ‘kind, dark-haired lady’?”
“Yes.”He still sounded cautious.
“I believe she met the Duchess of Moreland?Once, at least.”After which, Georgiana knew, the duchess had requested that Meggie not be allowed on the beach again when she herself was walking there.
“Yes.”Eames sounded even more reserved.
Georgiana gave his arm a comforting squeeze.“I simply wondered if Meggie had her own unique description of the duchess too.”
She had no idea why she thought this was relevant when so many other people had already expressed their dislike of Annabel Sotherby.She only knew that she believed Meggie’s opinion, as it was usually expressed with childlike candor, would be more bluntly accurate than any other.
“Ah.”The estate manager’s brow cleared.“She refers to the duchess as ‘the mean, bad lady who went away,’” he confided with a wince and a guilty look in Julian’s direction.
As Georgiana had thought, Meggie’s opinion of Annabel Sotherby was indeed much more candid than any she had previously heard.
Georgiana nodded.“Please give Meggie my kind regards and tell her I will visit her tomorrow.If you are still agreeable to that arrangement, of course?”
“I am,” Eames confirmed.
“Good.”Georgiana stepped back with a smile.“Until tomorrow, then,” she added warmly before turning away to rejoin her friends.
Friends who had traveled all the way from London to bring them whatever news they had garnered from their investigations.
Georgiana continued to inwardly pray that it was good news.
Although, she wondered what exactly would begoodnews…
CHAPTERTWELVE
“So, what, if anything, do you have to tell us?”Julian prompted his visitors as he paced up and down the carpet in the formal salon decorated in green and gold.He was too restless to sit down.
The six of them had come here to talk while the two guest bedchambers and baths were prepared for the Dukes and Duchesses of St.Albans and Hellsmere.Dalton had brought tea and biscuits, and now that Georgiana had poured and dispensed those, it was time for them to talk.
He rarely used these formal rooms anymore, having a dislike for the overly ornate gold filigree work on the cream walls and around the painted frescoes of cherubs and angels on the ceiling.All of which Annabel had insisted there should be in a house belonging to a duke.
To Julian, the room now appeared gaudy and ostentatious.
Georgiana’s horrified expression when they first entered the salon said she had not been in this room before, and now that she had, she obviously echoed his sentiments toward it.Having carried out the niceties of welcoming their guests with a cup of hot tea, she now sat primly on the edge of one of the three—three!—couches upholstered in a rich gold brocade on a thick green Aubusson carpet.
St.Albans and his duchess occupied another.
Hellsmere and his duchess were seated together on the third one.
“Well, we have looked into all the matters you requested,” St.Albans began.“Our ladies have searched diligently for any word of the whereabouts of the duchess’s maid, with no success.The same has been done in regard to the duchess’s aunt whom you said resided in Bloomsbury.There is no record of the maid, Mary Jones, or the aunt, Clara Mayweather, ever having been born in or having lived in London.Indeed, we could find no evidence that either of those ladies has ever existed anywhere,” he announced happily.
“What!”Julian stared at them in disbelief.“Of course they existed.I met them!”
Georgiana stood to cross the room to his side and lay her hand upon the sleeve of his jacket.“Think further on the matter, my love.”
The endearment was enough to break Julian out of the circle of chaotic thoughts.Thoughts that seemed to have no beginning and no end.Now that they had, he truly hoped that he was, and would remain, Georgiana’s love.
“How much further?”he echoed gruffly.
