“—and she told me about this man Delphine—well, Jane Fawley—had married years ago. I found the man’s London address on the envelope of a letter he’d written to her, from that box you gave me, and I paid a call. His footman informed me that his master makes frequent visits to London, but now resides almost entirely here, at his country estate.” Jack turned to me with a grim smile, holding one hand out toward the manor house. “Thusly, here we are.”
“Thusly?” This was ridiculous. Everything was ridiculous. Surely there was no credibility to anything Jack dragged up. “You cannot seriously expect me to call upon this man.”
He leveled a look at me. “I thought you wanted to know.”
I looked down at the rocky lane. “I suppose there are some things I don’t wish to know.” My voice was small. Insignificant.
“I have a feeling about this, Ella. The truth is just beyond those walls, if only we can find it. What if this man, in some jealous fit, is the one who set out to destroy your mother? What if I can prove your father is innocent?”
I did not acquiesce, but I followed him through the open gate and up the lane. The noonday sun shone down at us through the trees, blinding me with every break in the canopy of leaves. “Other husband,” I mumbled, shaking my head.
“Perhaps there’s an explanation.”
“I know what you’re thinking, but it isn’t money. Mum wouldn’t have married someone else for that reason, no matter how desperate she was.” Yet there was the niggling little truth that my parents’ fairy-tale romance and their marriage had always remained a secret.
“You cannot know that for certain. People are surprising.”
“Idoknow. We lived in near poverty all my life. A rookery south of St. James Street. And she seemed quite content with it too.”
He said nothing. But then there was a woman up ahead, kneeling before a flower bed, pressing new little plants with gold blooms into the earth.
“I cannot, Jack. I cannot do this,” I whispered desperately.
“Just listen. Let me talk, and you keep your eyes open.”
The woman stood with some hesitation and turned to greet us as we disembarked the hackney, her lovely face both aloof yet quietly welcoming. “Forgive my stiffness,” she said pleasantly. “Age has snuck up on me, I’m afraid.” Although her fair skin hardly looked a day over forty and her figure was slender. “Welcome to Balthorp House. This is a delightful surprise, having strangers happen upon us. May I ask who you are, and how you’ve found your way to our home?”
Jack extended his hand. “Please forgive the unsolicited call, but we were hoping to have a word with Lord Gower.” She offered her hand and he bowed over it.
“He isn’t home at present, but perhaps I can help you. I am Lady Gower.”
Jack flashed me a look of uncertainty. Dared we risk revealing what her husband may have kept from her?
She broke through his hesitation. “Come, let us take tea onthe veranda. You’ve had quite a journey, I’m sure. There isn’t much within a comfortable distance of Balthorp House.”
We followed her to the well-appointed side veranda laid out with white metal benches and tables and took our seats as Lady Gower rang for refreshments. I stared out at the fountain to our right with water cascading down two levels. What would it have been like to grow up here? To have these gardens as my escape every day, this house protecting me every night? Perhaps it had once been the intention.
In the shade of the veranda, I looked at Lady Gower up close, peering under the brim of her straw hat, and she was quite lovely. Pure of skin and self-possessed, the way a lady of the house ought to be. And she did look like Mama. Startlingly so. Blonde hair waved back from a heart-shaped face and wide smile. There was no comparison to Mama’s homespun sweetness in her, but the woman’s poise spoke of good breeding and the serenity of one who did not worry about money, or much of anything at all. Perhaps she truly didn’t know. “Now, how may I help you?”
“We’re here from London tracking down some information.” Jack dove right in. “We’re wondering what you could tell us about Delphine Bessette.”
She blinked with a tiny frown. “Why would my husband be concerned with a dancer?” She looked at us both, then stared at me, her gaze lingering upon my face.
“We heard that he may have been acquainted with her.” Jack, always the diplomat.
“I see.” She looked back and forth between us, as if assessing how much to tell us.
“It has even been said that she was once ... romantically involved with him.”
Her eyebrows rose, and she looked a mite offended. Somehow we had to urge her past the strict social code that told her one never spoke of such things, even if she knew of them. Her silence was all the answer she afforded this question.
Jack rushed on, unplagued by social rules. “We were wondering if, perhaps, your husband has mentioned anything about her. Anything of her nature, or her friends. Something to give us a small picture of what she was like.”
“What interest have you in the personal affairs of a theater woman?” She seemed to be deciding still if she approved of us, with our involvement in something she was meant to find distasteful.
“We’re working on a ballet about her life. She’s become something of a sensation in London, the ghost of Craven, yet no one truly knew anything about her as a dancer. A woman.”
She fingered the design on the table. A tea cart rattled out then, with two maids coming to set up the service. Lady Gower paused to make an elegant show of pouring tea for us. “Thank you, Glenna. You may go.” After she’d poured three cups and taken a leisurely sip from her gold-rimmed one, she looked at us. “I’m afraid I cannot be of much help to you. I knew the name of course, but...” She waved away the rest of that sentence.
