It appeared she was—at first.
Erudite conversation neither confused her nor led her to show off.She seemed as happy to discuss the weather, and there was no obvious derision in her face at either.She even laughed at Fosterson’s jokes and discussed the health of Great Aunt Prudence—apparently an old friend of hers—with April.
“I expect she likes you,” the old lady remarked—accurately, as it happened.“Not just in the common way, are you?”
Although she spoke pleasantly enough, Piers caught the glint of mischief in her bright eyes.As though she knew that common was exactly what April was and wanted to see if she would rise to the bait.
“Like all the Withans, my wife is unique,” Piers said.He kept his voice light and good-natured, and Lady Temperley met his gaze with limpid innocence.All the same, she must have got the point because she changed the subject.
All went well until Becky got in Stewart’s way.
Stewart was re-filling wine glasses, while Becky cleared dishes from the table.While Stewart was adept at most tasks, domestic and otherwise, Becky did not normally serve or clear away at table.She was a chambermaid and didn’t know the rules.So she collected a plate from the wrong side of Lady Temperley and Stewart, moving at the same time, jostled her arm so that a splash of gravy landed on the tablecloth.It would have been worse, except that Stewart steadied her arm with his free hand and jerked his head to show her the correct side.
“Idiot girl,” Lady Temperley snapped.
Becky smiled a tremulous apology at Stewart, which was not lost on the old lady.
“What are you smiling at him for, girl?It’s back to the old man for you.”
Piers, about to step in verbally, suddenly set down his glass.
Vaguely, he was aware of April saying everyone was muddling through in difficult circumstances.Of tears welling in Becky’s eyes as she seized the last plate and cutlery and fled.
Peggy had just come in with a light, creamy dessert.“Don’t cry, silly,” she muttered to Becky, her voice not unkind.“You never stood a chance with Edward either.”
Piers stared fixedly at his glass.Either.Did that mean neither Becky nor Peggy had stood a chance with Edward?Or that Becky had stood no chance with some other man?
What man?
Back to the old man, Lady Temperley had said viciously.
Becky still in her crumpled clothes from the day before at three o’clock on the morning Edward was attacked.
Becky.Was Edward protecting Becky?Because he cared for her?Or because in his new understanding, he owed her?What relationship had his intervention ruined for her?
The gears of his brain turned and clicked into place.He had all the pieces of the puzzle.And none of the proof.
***
“YOU HAVEN’T GIVEN UPat all,” April accused, as soon as she had shut the bedroom door behind them.
Piers had almost dragged her with him upstairs and now went straight to her desk to take out the notebook.She knew he would try fitting every fact and every observation into whatever new theory he had come up with.
“It’s funny, isn’t it?”he said unexpectedly, flipping through the pages as he walked to the bed and sat on it.“How everyone suffers by comparison?We both considered Becky as being physically capable of striking Edward so hard.Peggy we only considered in so far as some besotted man defending her honour.”
April’s eyes widened.“Peggy?You thinkPeggydid it?”
“No, no, think the other way.Beckyhad another man.Why shouldn’t she?She’s a kind, hard-working girl, and pretty in her own way.She’s just not beautiful beside Peggy.She’s probably always suffered by that comparison, so she couldn’t believe her luck when Edward’s roving eye finally noticed her.”
April sank down beside him on the edge of her bed, watching him scan the notes they —mostly April—had made since coming here.
“He turned her head?”she said slowly.“She probably thought he wanted to change, to settle down and had picked her, the good girl to Peggy’s flirt.But why do you think she had a previous commitment?We never heard any such thing.”
“No.And maybe she didn’t.But Lady Temperley had heard it.”
“Back to the old man,” April quoted.He had expected her to pick that up, though she’d been too incensed with Lady Temperley’s cruelty at the time.“But what old man?Becky’s father?He doesn’t live in the village but further east with an older daughter.”
“How do you know these things?”he asked, briefly distracted.
