Bridget sat at the table. “I hear they are taking down that burned-out shell. Is it true? Was it your doing?”
“It was not my doing, but it is true.”
“Terrible thing, that fire. I was a girl then. All the talk it was. And for that poor woman to die in it.” She shook her head. “They say she was lovely. Beautiful. So sad.”
The biscuit suddenly tasted dry in her mouth. Davina drank some ale. “I did not know it was a woman.”
Bridget nodded. “A visitor. She and the duke—of course, he wasn’t the duke then, but the marquess of something—had been there a fortnight, then suddenly that fire. You could see it for miles. Not the flames, but the whole sky over that way was bright with red and orange. It looked like hell had opened, my mother said. Those who came out of it said it felt like hell too.” She reached for her tin and placed another biscuit in front of Davina. “It is so good to hear what remains is finally being removed. Like a scar on the land, it is.”
Davina made heroic efforts with the second biscuit, but a thick sadness filled her from her ribs to her throat. When she could do so graciously, she took her leave and climbed into the phaeton beside Rufus. She said not a word all the way back. Her mind raced in circles, seeking a way out of the implications of what Bridget had told her.
She and the duke had been there a fortnight. A woman had died, but not any woman. Not a servant, as she had assumed. A lovely woman. A beautiful one.
No wonder he hated that house and that property. His lover had died there.
* * *
Davina was nowhere to be found. Eric had seen her return from today’s mission of mercy, but after that, she disappeared. He finally looked in the garden, although the day’s sharp wind hardly encouraged time there.
The overgrowth of shrubbery and intrusion of grasses meant most of it could not be viewed from the terrace. He plunged in, peering for her among the branches. Spying her blond crown, he changed directions.
He did not find Davina, but instead Roberts. Arms folded and brow furrowed, the steward eyed the wilderness swallowing the space like an invading army.
“Unsightly. A gardener could do wonders with it in a few seasons, though,” he said.
It was in terrible condition, Eric had to admit. More negligence on his part. He had starved the house of funds, as if hoping it would waste away and disappear. “You should hire a gardener, then. Add it to the accounts.”
Roberts looked around. “It is big. Two would be better. If you will be visiting regularly, you’ll want a nice garden.”
“What makes you think I will be visiting regularly?”
Roberts shrugged. “The duchess is a Scot by blood and heart. She’s grown partial to the people in these parts too. I think it’s her idea to come here frequently.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“Not in so many words. She just stopped to chat when she saw me. Told me to do something to make this garden usable. In future years there would be many visitors, she said. I suppose she meant parties and such.”
She meant the visitors to her pharmacy and the inmates of her infirmary. “Where did she go after she spoke with you?”
“Toward the back.” He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder.
Eric headed that way. He still did not find her, but he noticed a back portal stood ajar. He stepped through and the wilderness fell away.
No one had planted trees and shrubs on this side of the wall, so it was just grass intermingled with a few wildflowers still valiantly sending out blooms. A rough fence cordoned off a large section where the few horses at the house grazed. To the right, up a little hill, was the old graveyard amid a few trees.
He spied a sliver of blue and gold among the stones there and aimed for it. He found Davina, arms folded, eyeing the markers much as Roberts had been examining the wilderness.
He realized which grave arrested her attention.
She noticed him. Her gaze returned to the grave. He walked to her.
“Jeannette O’Malley,” she read. “An unusual name.”
“I don’t think Jeannette was her true given name. I suspect she adopted it when she went on stage because it sounded French.”
“An actress or a singer?”
“An actress.”
