After a moment, he turned his hand and took hers. “I shouldn’t have burdened you with all that.”
“If it’s a burden shared, I don’t mind. You said that childbirth killed your mother?”
He looked up then. “Determined to turn the screw? Yes, and I was seven then. I remember the noises. Not screams so much as howls. Then silence. It’s a wretched business.”
“At worst. Not at best.”
“I know. I witnessed some births in Italy.”
“All went well?”
“In some cases with ridiculous ease. Peasants,” he dismissed.
“Not only peasants. I don’t know how the queen’s births went, but she survived a great many of them.”
“But Princess Charlotte died. I visited Prince Leopold, to offer him the sympathy of one who knew. He seemed to appreciate it. He, too, does not intend to marry again.”
He produced that like a weapon, so he wasn’t unaware of the trend of her thoughts.
“He may change his mind in a year or two.”
He kept silent, not making the obvious comment.
Ariana thought of something to say that shouldn’t be painful. “I’ve been wondering what to do about Cleo. I mean, the mummy case.”
“Where is it? It wasn’t in the cellars.”
“I asked Mr. Peake to move it. It’s in one of his spare bedrooms. She is. I can’t stop thinking of her as she, and alive.”
“She’s not.”
“I know that. It doesn’t affect how I feel! I don’t want her on display, in Peake’s house or in a museum. I certainly don’t want her ground up to make love potions and such.”
“What?”
“You weren’t there when Peake told me that. Apparently that’s what happens to many of them. That’s why he bought it. Her.”
“Good man. I could purchase the mummy and store it somewhere at Delacorte.”
“Another cellar? It doesn’t seem right.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know.”
They were still standing, outer clothes on, caught between the need to leave and the impossibility, but Ariana was feasting on every moment and thinking of more....
A knock at the door broke the spell. She’d not realized they were holding hands until he stepped apart. “Come!”
It was the innkeeper again, looking anxious. “Beg pardon, my lord, ma’am, but did you say the gentleman was your uncle?”
“Why?” Ariana asked. “Has he left his bill unpaid?” That would be typical.
“In a manner of speaking, ma’am. The fact of the matter is... he’s dead.”
“What?”
“I do apologize for giving you such a shock, ma’am, but he refused to return to the coach, and when one of my maids tried to rouse him, she found him... already gone. He wasn’t a well man.”
