Kendra nodded. “What about Mr. Goldsten?”
Lady Harrington moved to the stone balustrade. Bracing her hands on the railing, she stared out into the gardens. The clouds had thinned into gossamer strands, allowing moonlight to wash the trees and shrubbery, still dripping from rain, in quicksilver. Hauntingly beautiful, but Kendra doubted Lady Harrington was seeing it at all.
“I remember when Grace first met Mr. Goldsten,” the matron said softly. “It’s been many moons since we were fresh-faced innocents, but I could see something in her then. A lightness of spirit that I hadn’t seen before. She was happy. Until . . . she was no longer.” Lady Harrington tilted her head to meet Kendra’s eyes. “There is nothing so disheartening as a love affair turned to dust.”
“Their affair was over?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Did she say?”
“Not when I found her weeping. But several days later, I quizzed her again, and she admitted there was another woman. Younger, prettier—of course.”
Kendra straightened up. “What was her name?”
“I don’t know. I’m not certain Grace knew.”
“How’d she know that the other woman was younger and prettier?”
“She saw them together. Grace called upon Mr. Goldsten at his clinic and saw him leaving with the creature.”
“That seems pretty innocuous. Why did she assume he was being unfaithful?”
“I asked her that as well. But from what she said, it wasn’t one thing, but many. He’d grown distant, preoccupied. Then, when she asked him about the woman, he acted oddly and lied. He said she was the wife of one of his apprentices, that he was walking with her because the streets around his surgery are unsafe. Mr. Goldsten’s apprentices are all young men; Grace was quite certain none had a wife. She told me Mr. Goldsten became quite upset when she pressed him for answers. He said that if she trusted him, she would never mention the subject again.
“Suspicious,” Kendra agreed. “Did Lady Westford ever mention a woman named Clarice?”
Lady Harrington gave her a sharp look. “No. Do you think she may be the other woman?”
“I’m not sure. What was Lady Westford’s mood like when you saw her on Friday?”
A sudden gust of wind stirred the trees and shrubbery, scattering rain drops to the ground. The flames from the surrounding torches flickered madly, plunging Lady Harrington into shadow, making it impossible for Kendra to read her expression.
“She was late in arriving at Buckingham House,” the matron replied. “Grace was well-named: her manners pretty, her comportment always graceful. But on Friday, she seemed to have butter on her fingers. She dropped the sewing kit twice, and accidently knocked over her teacup while serving tea.
“She was in a brown study. Her Majesty spoke to her several times, but it was as though she never heard her. I knew something dreadful must have happened. I managed to get her alone, but she dismissed my concerns. Except . . . she said the strangest thing.”
Kendra waited.
Lady Harrington took a breath. “Exitus acta probat.”
“The outcome justifies the means,” Kendra translated.
Lady Harrington lifted her eyebrows. “You know Latin?”
“A bit. Did you ask her what she meant by that?”
“I was about to, not only because it was so peculiar, but because of how she looked when she said it.”
“How was that?”
“She looked afraid, Lady Sutcliffe. I was summoned by the Queen and never had the chance to ask her about that comment, or the fear that I saw in her eyes,” she said in a voice aching with sadness. “Now, I never will.”
Chapter 21
“Exitus acta probat.” Rebecca paused in spooning up lemon cream from the delicate blue Wedgwood bowl she was cradling in her palm. “Whatever does that mean?”
“The outcome justifies the means,” the Duke answered, ladling lemonade from a crystal punchbowl into his glass. “If I’m not mistaken, ’tis a quote from Ovid’sHeroides.”
