She pasted on a smile, but her gaze carried unmistakable hatred. Ives could not blame her for her reaction. Two years ago her common-law husband, Harry Trenholm, had been transported after a trial in which Ives prosecuted. The charges had been arson and sedition, for burning down a factory near Liverpool, one owned by an industrialist who had contributed plenty of fuel to the confrontation that ended in those flames. As for the sedition—Trenholm had cloaked his act in political rhetoric to justify himself.
The fool hired to defend failed to make sufficient use of that factory owner’s provocations, or of the fact no one had been injured. Ives artfully did instead, thus keeping this woman’s husband from the gallows. She could be excused if she did not appreciate the effort. Her man disappeared anyway, and was dead to her for all intents and purposes.
He paused on the building’s stoop. “Mrs. Trenholm. It is always nice to see a familiar face when on a strange street.”
“The pleasure is all yours, I am sure.”
“How do you fare these days?”
She gritted her teeth behind her smile. That made her already prominent chin cut forward more. “Life goes on. What brings you here? Not the sort of street that sees many of your sort, or carriages like that one down there.”
“I am seeking the home of Mr. Belvoir.”
“You, too, eh. Well, up one set of stairs and there you are. What’s he done to make you interested in him? He must be in gaol. That explains why it is so silent up there these past weeks, doesn’t it?”
“Do you know him well?”
“He’s a strange one and keeps to himself. I figured he mighta died up there. I’ve been waiting for the smell to tell me so. I’ve no time for crazy men like him. I work in a flower shop now, and I’ve a new gentleman in my life, so I am not here most days.”
“I am glad to see that life indeed goes on for you. Tell me, what did you mean when you said,You too? Has someone else visited Mr. Belvoir’s rooms?”
Her eyes looked upward. “A woman. She’s up there now. She has been for over an hour.”
“An attractive woman with very dark hair?”And porcelain skin and star-filled eyes with lashes thick and dark?
“Attractive? Hardly. She is freakishly tall. That is all one notices about her, how she is as tall as some men.”
What a ridiculous description of Miss Belvoir. Anyone with a discerning eye could see that her height gave her elegance, distinction, and presence. She pulled it off so well because she did not try to do anything in the false hope it would make her appear smaller to stupid women like Mrs. Trenholm, whose flamboyant hair and painted face marked her as without taste.
He let himself in, and walked up the stairs. No sounds came from above. No steps on the floorboards. PerhapsMrs. Trenholm was wrong, and Padua Belvoir no longer remained in her father’s chambers. A note of disappointment played in his head, surprising him.
The door to the chambers stood open. He looked in. Padua had not left yet. She sat on a wooden chair. Beside her, on a small table, lay an open glove box.
She read something. Whatever it was had transfixed her, and affected her entire being. Her face appeared very soft and young and vulnerable. The chamber’s dusty light bathed her and made her skin luminous. Not merely attractive. Beautiful.
It seemed a cruel intrusion to interrupt whatever thoughts her mind contained. So he remained across the threshold, waiting for her to return to herself.
CHAPTER6
Padua read the letters one by one. Not just normal letters. Love letters. Beautiful, passionate love letters. She almost put the first one away when she realized that. Her mother’s voice moved her, however. In her mind she heard the words spoken as she read. She continued so that she might preserve that vivid memory for a while.
In doing so she learned her father’s appeal to her mother. In a world that laughed at her ambitions, he loved her for them and encouraged her ever higher. Together they were poised to join the pantheon of Europe’s most celebrated minds. Fame waited, and royal patronage and a future free to devote to investigations of the natural order of the universe.
Then disaster struck. While her father enjoyed aspecial appointment at Oxford and her mother held dazzling salons, a child had been conceived. In the last few letters, written while her father sought a living anywhere, practicalities replaced dreams and passion. There were no letters after she was born, or at least none that found their way into this box.
Padua folded them all and replaced them in the box. She did not regret reading them, even if the last ones left her sad.
No wonder her father did not love her. She had ruined his future and forced the most ordinary of concerns into his life. As for her mother, who had sacrificed much more...
A floorboard squeaked. She looked in the direction of the sound. There, outside the doorway, stood Ives. He kept turning up like a bad penny, except—his green eyes held dark depths right now, and his expression showed subtle sympathy, as if he read her thoughts.
“You mentioned the street,” she said. “It was not hard finding these rooms once I knew that.”
He entered the sitting room. “Have you found anything of use?”
She shook her head. “Only some letters from long ago. I had hoped to discover some documents he should have, or anything that might explain why that money was found here.”
He glanced around at the disorganized papers and books. “It is a wonder anyone could find anything at all.”
