“Once you’re settled, we should sit down and discuss your expectations, ma’am.” Mrs Boswell folded back the coverlet and placed a sprig of dried lavender on the pillow.
“You mean I shouldn’t expect too much of him?”
“I mean, discuss the maids’ routine, the menus, and which room you’d like for your private office, where you might deal with correspondence. There’ll be letters from charitable foundations and invitations to balls, though not before you’ve been presented at court. We’ll need to hire a modiste to design your wardrobe. The countess can recommend someone suitable.”
“Oh. I see.” It all sounded rather daunting. And to think she’d imagined spending her days walking the grounds with him, discussing poetry. “Forgive me, I’ve been so intent on solving a mystery, I’ve not given it any thought.”
“The mystery of who killed Mr Lovelace and why someone might wish to blame you?”
“That, and how best to help my husband manage his feelings, though the latter is rather more complex, I fear.”
Mrs Boswell gave a knowing smile. “May I speak freely, my lady?”
“Of course.” She was out of her depth in every regard.
“Shall I tell you how many ladies his lordship has invited into this house since his father passed nine years ago?”
“Please do.” Jealousy slithered through her chest like a serpent in the grass. In truth, she would rather not know.
“None.” Mrs Boswell paused, letting Olivia feel the weight of her answer. “And shall I tell you how many ladies have occupied space in his mind?”
“I suspect you’re going to.”
“None but you, ma’am.”
That wasn’t entirely true. “His preoccupation with Miss Bourne is common knowledge. He refers to her often.”
“Then I ought to have spoken more wisely,” Mrs Boswell said, inclining her head, “and said how many ladies he’s thought of with any real feeling. The Marquess of Rothley does not kiss in corridors, nor does he keep a particular poetry book at his bedside. He lets no one into his carefully constructed world.”
“What are you saying, Mrs Boswell?”
“I’m saying he hasn’t been the same since he met you, my lady. And now he’s gone and broken his word, and nothing unsettles him more.”
“We merely kissed.” Which was entirely her fault. “He’s not really broken a vow.”
“You can be sure he has in thought, if not in deed, ma’am.”
Her mind raced. What had he imagined them doing? Doubtless something so passionate it had driven him to this moment of self-flagellation.
“And this obsession with honour stems from his parents’ raucous parties?” Small wonder the gossips never let him forget.
Mrs Boswell paled, her shoulders curling inward. “No child should see the things he did. I was barely a woman myself then, but it shocked me to the core.”
Olivia studied her, struck by the depth of her distress. Itexplained his hatred of the house. A place more like a mausoleum than a home.
“Then why stay here? Why torment himself with painful memories when he has a grand property in town?”
Mrs Boswell moved to the door, peered into the corridor, then returned and lowered her voice. “He’s afraid she’ll return.”
“Miss Bourne?”
“His mother.”
Olivia pressed a hand to her throat. “I assumed she passed years ago, before the incident with Miss Bourne.”
“She left after his father died, when he needed her most. The butler went with her. When his lordship inherited, he dismissed her lover and forbade her friends from calling at the house.”
Olivia’s heart sank. He had comforted her while carrying his own sorrow alone. And she’d never even thought to ask.
