This time, Mrs. Malcolm shrugged. “Some say they make reference to Bath’s founder, King Bladud.”
“I confess to being like Lady Susanne with Lord Sydney and his gardens,” he said. “I have never heard of this king.”
Mrs. Malcolm smiled softly. “I do enjoy reading about the details. Very well, if you want to know, he was a mere leper swineherd with many pigs at the time he came here. This could be anytime between 500 and 900 BC.”
“That is a large span of ‘anytime’,” Adam pointed out.
“It is. As the story goes, he escaped being locked up for his leprosy, contracted in Greece of all places, came to Bath, and discovered the healing waters.”
Adam frowned. “That doesn’t sound correct. I’ve never heard these waters cured leprosy. Anyway, how did he become king, and of what?”
“You know good old Geoffrey of Monmouth'sHistoria Regum Britanniae?” Mrs. Malcolm asked her question the way most women discussed a novel of one of the Brontë sisters, only recently revealed not to be gentlemen writers with the last name of Bell. “He first mentions Bladud as a King of the Britons, son of King Rud Hud Hudibras,” she continued, “but no one knows for certain if either were even real.”
“What about his pigs?” Adam asked, entranced by her.
“Bladud noticed his pigs had good skin after wallowing in the warm mud of Bath.”
“You are running rig on me now,” he said, delighted.
“I am not, I promise you. Bladud tried the warm mud and cured his leprosy. His father restored him as heir to the throne, and Bladud founded Bath in order to bring restorative powers to others.”
“What about the acorns?” He waved his hand at the many finials three stories above them.
“Oh, those.” She arched a flawlessly shaped eyebrow. “All pigs love acorns. Didn’t you know that?”
“Again, I am suddenly reduced to the position of pupil with you as my teacher.” He appreciated her knowledge and told her so. “You are impressive, Mrs. Malcolm.”
“Thank you.”
Having traversed the Circus, they were now heading along Bennett Street and had lapsed into silence. Adam realized, inall the talk of pigs and kings, she hadn’t answered his original question about how her husband died.
“Why don’t you wish to speak of Mr. Malcolm?”
“Mr. Malcolm,” she repeated. Then she said something more under her breath.
They turned onto The Paragon, which he thought a strange name for a street. It stretched for thirty-seven identical white front doors under thirty-seven triangular pediments, all three-story facades, also with matching wrought-iron railings out front.
On this street of sameness, Mrs. Malcolm’s next words, so extraordinarily frank, shocked him.
“Because my husband was a bastard through and through. I don’t mean that literally. He wasn’t born on the wrong side of the blanket, as they say, but his nature was as base as they come. Therefore, you must excuse me if I don’t wish to waste a moment of otherwise pleasant discourse on him.”
Adam swallowed.He hadn’t expected that!They circled around to the alley where a groom would take all three mounts, and Mrs. Malcolm would disappear indoors.
Wishing he could think of something to say that didn’t sound trite or pointless, Adam finally blurted out what he felt. “Then I am truly sorry you married him.”
“As am I,” she said.
“And why did you come to Bath?” He had to ask. For of all the places in Britain or the world, he wondered how she had ended up there, where he had found her.
She cocked her head, then sighed. “Because ofNorthanger Abbey.”
He didn’t know what to say since he hadn’t read it.
“A favorite of mine,” she added.
And that was all he was going to get out of her.
Soon, he had dismounted and raced the groom to help her down. She seemed to be in an ill humor, and Adam blamed himself. They could have simply continued discussing Bath or buildings, or even how long she’d been playing the violin, but he’d gone and pried into something painful.
