Sebastian glanced around the room, wondering about the propriety of a private audience with Lady Kendall. He ran a finger around his stock, which had become even more uncomfortable.
He followed her through the doors onto a terrace and into the night. She shivered in the cool night air, and Sebastian offered his jacket, which she declined.
‘I will not detain you long.’ She took a sip of champagne. ‘I like you, Lord Somerton, and I wouldn’t have you think ill of me.’
He started to protest, but she interrupted him, ‘I do not wish you to be under a misapprehension about my relationship with your late cousin.’
Sebastian spluttered on his champagne. ‘My dear Lady Kendall, your relationship with my cousin is of no interest to me.’
‘Yes, but it matters to me. I know what people say and, more painfully, I know what Lady Somerton believes. You are an honourable man and I would like to share a confidence with you.’
‘A confidence?’
She moved closer to him. Her exotic perfume wafted towards him in an intoxicating cloud of roses and spice.
‘It suited both Anthony and me for our own reasons to be gossiped about in a certain fashion, but we were not lovers. Our relationship was purely platonic. People do not speak kindly of Anthony or his treatment of Isabel. The truth is that Anthony was a deeply conflicted man,’ she paused. ‘His own nature did not incline him to the female sex.’
Lady Kendall’s revelation only confirmed the growing suspicion that the careful picture of a womanising, gambling rake Anthony had painted of himself was just an artifice, but it suited Sebastian to pretend ignorance.
‘What do you mean?’
Georgiana Kendall put her head back and laughed, a soft, tinkling sound swallowed up by the dark night. ‘Surely, Lord Somerton, you are a man of the world?’
‘I am the son of a parson. I was brought up in a vicarage in a small village. I am not a man of yours or Anthony’s world.’
‘But you have been a soldier,’ Lady Kendall said. ‘Surely you must have seen such relationships in your time?’
Sebastian considered for a moment. He had been aware of certain particular friendships within the army, but as long as the parties had been discreet and it had not affected the morale of their company, it was something to which the senior officers, some of whom were similarly inclined, were prepared to turn a blind eye.
Lady Kendall drained her glass and stood for a moment looking into its empty depths as the sound of music, laughter, and bright chatter spilled from the open windows of the house.
‘And you were happy to be complicit in maintaining this fiction? Even at a cost to your own reputation?’ Sebastian asked at last.
She laughed. ‘Oh, I know my reputation, Lord Somerton. In truth, I was being pursued by a man in whom I had no interest and it suited me to be known as Anthony’s mistress. The manconcerned would not cross Lord Somerton, and Anthony ...’ She shrugged. ‘At first, the pretence concealed his other life but, in more recent times, it can happen that some men can lean in either direction. I believe Anthony had come to love his wife.’
Sebastian gave a derisory snort. ‘He had a strange way of showing it,’ he said.
‘I am not privy to the Somertons’ private affairs,’ she responded in a sharp tone. ‘I know only what Anthony confided in me, Lord Somerton, and trust me when I say I believe myself to be his closest confidante. Anthony had fathered a child with his wife, a child on whom he doted and, in the months following the child’s birth, he had grown to love his wife deeply, but he was not a man who knew how to demonstrate such affection. William’s death was a bitter blow and Isabel’s grief was so great that he felt himself inadequate to provide the solace she needed. His answer was to resume his former ways, but it masked a very different man and brought him no comfort.’
‘If what you are telling me is true, then it is a sad story,’ Sebastian said. ‘I am certain, from what little she has told me, Lady Somerton had no idea of the depth of his feeling.’
‘And I am sure you are correct. I counselled him to confide =in her and I believed he was about to do so. I would tell her myself.’ Lady Kendall looked away, and her shoulders stiffened. ‘Lady Somerton, quite rightly, shuns my company, which is a pity, because I would have greatly valued her friendship.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’ he asked.
She turned back to look at him and shook her head. ‘I think sometimes when a person has a dark secret, such as that Anthony concealed, it leaves them vulnerable.’
‘Do you think his death an accident?’ Sebastian ventured.
She shrugged. ‘He left here in high spirits. I have no reason to think it was anything more than just a tragic accident.’
But you haven’t seen the saddle, Sebastian thought.
Before he could speak again, she moved closer to him, her hand resting on his arm. Her cloying perfume enveloped him,but he found himself unmoved by her advances, if that is what they were.
‘We’ve been gone long enough, Lady Kendall,’ he said.
She laughed. ‘Indeed, even for a woman with my dubious reputation.’
