When Barney had dealt with most of his breakfast, and was onto his third coffee, Marcus broached the question.“Tell me about Lady Hewitt.Everything you know about her.”
Barney buttered a piece of toast and spread it with marmalade, shaking his head sorrowfully all the time.“Marcus, you madman.Did I or did I not warn you against that woman?She’ll eat you alive, man—or her brother will, which is just as bad.”
Marcs snorted.“Eat me alive?”
Barney crunched down his toast, drank some coffee, swallowed and said, “Hard to believe, isn’t it, but trust me, she’s as cold as ice and worse—she’s heartlessly, ruthlessly avaricious.She’s already bled two husbands dry and if she was at the party the other night, it means she’s on the hunt for a third.It’s the only time she ever appears in society, so be warned.”
Marcus was stunned.Two husbands?At her age?“You mean she’d been married before Hewitt?”
Barney, his mouth full of toast, nodded.He swallowed.“The first one was old Lord Holgrave.”
Marcus had never heard of Lord Holgrave.Nor Lord Hewitt for that matter.His brain was still reeling at the thought that Tessa had been married twice before.“What do you mean ‘old’ Lord Holgrave?”
“He was past eighty when he married her.”
Marcus’s jaw dropped in shock.“Past eighty?And she must have been—?”
“Very young.”Barney grimaced distastefully.“Holgrave liked them young.”
“Good God!She can’t have wanted him.”
Barney shrugged.“Word is, her father brokered the match.Was in debt to the eyeballs.Worked too.As I said, she—or rather her dear papa—bled the old man dry.By the time old Holgrave died, he was a pauper.But a happy one, I gather, with a beautiful young girl in his bed.”
Marcus felt ill.It was a most unsavory tale.“You say she lost her second husband, too?What did he die of?”
“Old age.”Barney buttered another piece of toast and spread it lavishly with marmalade.“Are you sure you don’t want some toast?This marmalade is dashed good.”
Marcus ignored him.“Old age?”he repeated, stunned.“You mean she marriedanotherold man?”
Barney nodded.“Bled him dry too.I expect they’re looking for a third rich old octogenarian for her to wed.She’s obviously making a career out of it.”
Marcus swore silently.The story appalled him, disgusted him.Tessa couldn’t be more than twenty-four or five.Two elderly husbands and both dead and stripped of their wealth?And now there appeared to be a third octogenarian courting her.If that was true, she must have a heart of ice, as Barney had suggested—or no heart at all.
But was it true?She hadn’t appeared to encourage her elderly swain at all—far from it.Though some women did play hard-to-get.And some men loved it.
Barney was up to date with every bit oftongossip, but Marcus was sure there was more to the story.There had to be.
He simply couldn’t believe that the wild little scrap who loved the forest, who called foxes her friend and slipped out at night to watch badgers and otters and their cubs, could turn into a coldly mercenary young woman who would barter her body to old men and strip them of their fortunes.
He needed to speak to her in person.“Do you know where she and her brother are staying in London?”he asked Barney.
“Brother keeps their address pretty close,” Barney explained, waving a triangle of toast vaguely.“Always a rented house that changes every few months.Don’t want callers.”He snorted.“If you ask me it’s debt collectors—or worse—he don’t want calling.”
Marcus swore under his breath.
Barney eyed him, then shrugged.“I did hear a whisper that his current abode is in Cressy Lane.Not exactly a salubrious address, but neither is it quite in the slums.”
“Excellent, thank you.I’ll track him down.”
It took him a day or two, but by sending a footman to Cressy Lane with a letter addressed to Lord Blaxland, the man, by dint of trial and error, eventually found which house it was.The letter, of course, was blank inside.Marcus had no intention of warning Edgar Blaxland of his interest.
He was shocked by what Barney had told him.Two marriages already, and both to wealthy old men.He could scarce believe it.
It was almost eleven in the morning when he turned the corner to approach her house.As he did, the front door opened and Edgar ran down the steps, climbed into a hackney cab and drove off.
Perfect.He could speak to her without Edgar’s interference.
He rang the doorbell.A man—a shabby sort of butler—opened the door, but when Marcus asked for Lady Hewitt, he said indifferently, “Milady is not at home.”
