Hazel suppressed a wince. “Even vulgar American vagabonds can feel concern for someone who is suffering, my lady,” she persisted. “What is the cause of your grief? Is it me?”
“You possess an awfully high opinion of yourself to imagine I would concern myself over you, Miss Montgomery,” Lady Beaufort said. “Of course, I worry about Arden’s reputation, but he can weather any scandal you decide to cast in his direction. No, these tears are purely selfish. They are for me alone.”
Hazel had not been expecting such brutal honesty, but she could respect it. “The tears are for you?”
Lady Beaufort sniffled. “To be precise, they are for my beloved Beaufort. Today marks the day of my Arnold’s death.”
It was as she had suspected then. Hazel’s heart gave a pang. “I am sorry, my lady. I know how difficult the death of the one you love can be.”
“How can you know, Miss Montgomery?” Lady Beaufort demanded. “I daresay you never knew love in your life, else you would have been married already at your advanced age.”
The advanced age comment did smart, but she supposed it was not altogether incorrect. Hazel was twenty-eight years of age or thereabouts. She would never know for certain.
“I would know, because I loved and lost the man I was going to marry,” she said, though her voice trembled a bit under the force of remembrance. “He was shot in front of me, and he breathed his last breath on this earth as he lay dying in my arms.Thatis how I know, my lady.”
Lucien’s always dignified aunt appeared to crumple before her. “I am sorry, Miss Montgomery. I ought not to have said something so horrid.”
“I understand the bitterness grief brings.” She paused, offering Lady Beaufort a gently reassuring smile. “Do you care for company?”
Lucien’s aunt was quiet for so long, Hazel braced herself for a rejection and a request for her to leave. Instead, Lady Beaufort sighed and gestured to a sitting area near the hearth. “We may as well sit, Miss Montgomery.”
Her grudging invitation made Hazel’s smile deepen. Here, at last, was evidence Lady Beaufort did not loathe her entirely. “Thank you, my lady.”
They settled into the overstuffed chairs by the cheerful little fire crackling in the grate. The autumn day was cold and wet, and the warmth of the fire felt good to Hazel after a day spent in and out of the carriage and traipsing about in the railways. She recalled Lady Beaufort’s absence at dinner, and her assertion she was not hungry, when she had assumed Hazel had been her lady’s maid.
“Have you eaten, my lady?” she asked, as she arranged her divided skirts in a concession for Lady Beaufort’s sensibilities. “May I ring for some tea?”
Lucien’s aunt was staring pointedly at Hazel’s trousers, but to her credit, she made no comment on them. “No, thank you, Miss Montgomery. I have already taken my tea for the day, and I have no desire to eat. This day has been a dark one for years. I allow myself a few days of sorrow, and then I go on.”
Hazel rather suspected Lady Beaufort had not, in fact, gone on. Her perpetual mourning attire, the brooch she wore pinned to her bodice each day, even the style of her hair and dress, outdated by decades, suggested a part of her remained trapped in a happier past. That part of her had never moved on from losing her husband. And Hazel saw a great deal of herself in the older woman, if she were brutally honest. The love she had lost had made her close her heart. She had devoted all her time and energy to being a Pinkerton agent.
“Sometimes,” she said tentatively, “talking about what happened can help to ease the pain. Would you like to tell me?”
She knew she was prodding, that there was a chance Lucien’s aunt would recoil and demand she leave at once. Still, she hoped the opposite would be true.
After another lengthy silence, punctuated by nothing more than the crackling fire and the rain pattering on the windows, Lady Beaufort took a deep, shuddering breath. “It was a carriage accident. And he suffered. I know he did. They did not find him for hours, and even then, he was still alive. When they brought him back to me, I was convinced he would live. I just knew it in my heart.”
Hazel said nothing, understanding there was more to the story, and that she needed to allow Lady Beaufort to tell it at her own pace. That she needed to unburden herself.
“He fought. For an entire night, he fought.” Lady Beaufort’s voice broke. “But he could not survive the injuries.”
Her heart ached on the older woman’s behalf.
“I am so sorry, my lady,” Hazel said.
“As am I, Miss Montgomery,” Lucien’s aunt said, sounding weary. Almost defeated.
“Call me Hazel, if you please,” she urged.
Lady Beaufort extracted a handkerchief from a pocket in her robe and dabbed at her eyes. Even that motion was elegant and refined. “I prefer Miss Montgomery.”
Hazel almost smiled. It was a relief to have proof Lucien’s aunt was still her redoubtable self, even in her grief. “As you wish, Lady Beaufort.”
“You will not tell Arden about this undignified display, madam,” Lucien’s aunt warned her next. “He has suffered enough sadness in his lifetime.”
“You refer to Arden’s mother,” Hazel guessed.
Lady Beaufort’s brows rose. “He has spoken of the duchess with you?”
