Her mouth curved into a smile. “Very well. I did not. She was very pretty, arrestingly so. But there was something hard about her, I thought. Watchful. It was as though she were always assessing, calculating, waiting to discover what part she should put on to play a role.”
“What role?”
She spread her ringed hands. “Mistress of this castle. She was a governess, Miss Speedwell. She had been trained to serve, to fit in, to be unobtrusive. But something drove her, some determination to better her station. I did not fault her for it, mind you. Women in this world have to compete and there is only so much to go around. If she managed to stake her claim here and made good, I was prepared to accept her as Malcolm’s wife.”
“Your attitude is a very modern one,” I told her.
“I am, unlike the Romillys, a realist. I know too well what the world is like,” she reminded me. “Hence my advice to you yesterday about securing the viscount while you have him. Although I think your inclinations lie elsewhere,” she added with a flick of her gaze towards where Stoker stood at the fireplace, quietly making his way through a plate of cream buns.
I murmured something indistinct into my teacup and she laughed, leaning forward to tap my knee. “Do not worry, my dear. Your secret is safe with me. Betrothed to one brother and cavorting with the other on a beach while he is disrobed! Another woman might be shocked, but I take my hat off to you,” she said.
I thought back to the flicker of movement I had detected out of the corner of my eye while we were on the western beach. “You saw us.”
“I did.”
“Would it help if I confessed that I am not, in fact, actually betrothed to Tiberius? It was a stratagem because he worried that our traveling together would offend Malcolm’s Catholic sensibilities.”
“Are you his mistress?” she inquired bluntly.
“Certainly not,” I returned. “Tiberius is a friend, nothing more. He has arranged for me to add several specimens of the Romilly Glasswing butterfly to my collection.”
“And his brother?” she asked, her eyes straying once more to Stoker.
“We work together. We are employed by the Earl of Rosemorran to establish a museum.”
“How disappointing!” she said with a smile.
I bristled. “Because I am in trade?”
She rapped my knee with her knuckles. “No, my dear. I, too, am in trade, after a fashion. No, I meant your chaste connection with the younger Templeton-Vane. I saw well enough what is under those clothes, Miss Speedwell. Permit me to observe that you are wasting an opportunity there.”
I could not help but agree. She made a compelling point.
•••
At dinner that night we dutifully made our way through several courses of excellent and largely untouched food, our conversation stilted. Helen did not appear.
“Mama never likes to be in company before a visitation,” Caspian explained.
“A ‘visitation’?” I asked.
“That is what she prefers to call these encounters,” he told me. He was pale and darted several tight-lipped looks towards his uncle, but otherwise his mood was gravely courteous.
“How did your mother discover her abilities?” Tiberius queried.
Caspian shrugged. “She has always been sensitive to atmospheres. After my father died, she was inconsolable. She called upon a medium in order to speak with him but we never heard from him.”
Mertensia snorted. “You make it sound as if it were a social call.”
“In many respects, that is precisely what it is,” he insisted. “She establishes a connection with the world beyond, and if the spirit she wishes to speak with is inclined to communicate, he or she will respond. If not, Mama is given her congé.”
“Not at home to visitors,” I quipped.
His smile was warm. “Just so.”
“How fascinating,” Tiberius said, his gaze inscrutable as it rested upon the young man. “I must make a point of speaking with her on the subject.”
“I am certain she would be amenable to that,” Caspian returned.
