“A draper,” she said so quietly he had to lean close to catch her next words, “such as Harvey Nichols.” After a pause, she added, “Or a tailor.”
By this time, her words were so softy spoken, he wondered if she had a sore throat. He’d never heard the like in a female who didn’t need a lozenge or, at the very least, some hot whiskey and honey.
“Are you ill?” Owen asked, again hearing an unusually irritated quality to his voice that he didn’t care for but couldn’t seem to stop.
She shook her head.
He sighed. He would simply ask his valet, who, if the man was worth the cost of his service, would know the whereabouts of every handkerchief seller. Nevertheless, Owen wasn’t ready to release Lady Adelia. Not that he wished to torment her, but he wanted to discover why she was so intent onnotspeaking to him.
“We have danced together, have we not?”
She nodded.
“Have I offended you in some way?”
She shook her head again.
Infuriating woman!If asked, he would still be unable to tell a soul whether her voice was that of a sweet angel or a raspy old man.
“Is your driver close by?”
She pointed over his shoulder, and he realized a carriage was following along a few yards back.
“Good.” For if she were ever in trouble, he doubted she could yell for help.
Had Sophia yelled with no one to come to her rescue?He fisted his hands at the painful question. He had best leave the lady before his temper flared, making him unfit, according to Whitely, for company.
In fact, he noticed her glance take in his clenched hands, and he purposefully relaxed them.
“I am sorry to have taken up your time. I hope to see you again at some event this Season. I bid you good day.”
She offered a ghost of a smile, perhaps relieved he was finally taking his leave.
Bowing to her and receiving a nod in return, he went back the way he had come. Belatedly, it occurred to him how Lady Adelia had been in ballrooms and at dinner parties for a few years now. Why she hadn’t been snapped up, pretty as she was, he could not fathom. He supposed next to the likes of his sister or any number of friendlier women, Lady Adelia had always seemed…well…exactly as he found her today—particularly disinterested and unresponsive to any overtures to engage in conversation. What’s more, she was not the least flirtatious.
Off-putting to a fault.
Be that as it may, perhaps he should show her the handkerchief because she, as well as any lady, might have needed to borrow one in the past or, at the very least, know the owner of the kerchief in question. He very much doubted if Lady Adelia had ever used one for the more coquettish reason of signaling to a lover. Nonetheless, he couldn’t discount her as having information.
Anyway, he needn’t tell her why he had it or why he wanted to find its owner. Turning, he surveyed the crowded pavement in front of him, only to discover she had vanished. She might be quiet, but she wasn’t slow.
Hailing his driver, Owen had half a mind to head to the police headquarters at Whitehall and berate the detective sergeant once again but thought better of it.
“Lord Westing’s house. Arlington Street,” he added, in case his coachman took him to the senior Duke of Westing’s townhouse on Grosvenor Square, rather than to the more modest home of his friend, the marquess, near St. James’s Palace.
When his footman closed the carriage door, Owen settled back to think. Instead of any useful ideas about finding his sister’s murderer, however, his mind returned to Lady Adelia Smythe.
She didn’t seem weak or feeble-minded to him, yet she could barely speak above a whisper. He tried to recall anything definitive he’d ever heard about her. No broken contracts of marriage, no hint of scandal, no gossip about her at all.How could that be?
The only thing he recalled was what he and Whitely had discussed the other night, that her father, the Earl of Dunford, had passed away not too long ago. But Owen seemed to think her mother had died many years prior to that.
He had no knowledge of whether she’d always been a reticent person or if something in her life had caused her to behave in such a manner as to hardly fit into well-bred society at all.
When he alit from his carriage and knocked on Westing’s door, he was none the wiser for his ponderings. Thus, as the butler allowed him entrance to the foyer, his thoughts remained elsewhere. He didn’t realize at first that his other friend, Whitely, was already in the parlor until he heard the latter mention his own name.
“I don’t know what we are going to do about Burnley. I’ve never seen him in such a state. I tell you, I fear for his health.”
“He’s not as bad as all that,” came the tempering voice of Lord Christopher Westing, heir to the dukedom.
