“How on earth did you end up on intimate terms with the lady’s maid of Miss Annabelle Sinclair?” demanded Ambrose.
“Why on earth is Ellen’s mistress pursuing you in such a brazen fashion?” Colin put to him at the same moment.
“You go first,” Ambrose insisted, aware that he would not be able to answer his friend’s question, lacking any real insight into the motives of Annabelle Sinclair.
Willingly enough, the Duke of Redford revisited his evening in Chelsea at the Three Tuns and his encounter with blonde-haired, green-eyed Ellen. He was not a man to talk in detail of his bedroom conquests, but from the little he did say of what had occurred once the young woman came back to his apartments, Ambrose could quite imagine how the pair had spent the night.
“So, you see. That is all there is, I think. We were both in Chelsea, I picked Ellen up in the Three Tuns…”
“She picked you up,” Ambrose corrected his friend, having asked some telling questions about the logistics of this meeting as he listened. “From what you say, this woman made a distinct effort to catch your attention, already knew something of you, ostensibly from a newspaper article, and planned to go home with you before you even suggested it. But why?”
“Why?” repeated Colin with an expression that was injured but amused, smoothing down his waistcoat and patting his perfectly coiffed hair. “Must she have an ulterior motive? Am I losing some of my youthful good looks and charm?”
“I’m sure there were at least five other lovely young women in that tavern, several only too willing to pass the night witha man of such good looks and general amiability. Still, this young woman, Ellen, seems to have been waiting there for you specifically, does she not?”
While Colin’s eyes were doubtful, they were also thoughtful.
“She was unusually keen,” he admitted, with a sigh. “These things are not always so speedily agreed between two strangers of any sense as they were between Ellen and me.”
“A woman of sense, you say?”
“Many maids are,” Colin defended himself with a shrug, misinterpreting Ambrose’s curiosity as mockery. “Being a lady’s maid is a sought after position for a young woman from the lower classes. This particular woman certainly had her share of sense, as well as sharpness of wit and full awareness of her own physical charms.”
Like her mistress, Ambrose thought to himself gloomily. Both Annabelle Sinclair and her maid knew what they wanted from men and how to get it – although not with him. This was the complete opposite of Frances, who neither knew what she wanted nor how to get it. The thought of her filled him with both protectiveness and desire, neither of which were going to help clarify present matters.
“What did Ellen want from you?” Ambrose asked directly, refilling their glasses from the decanter left at their table.
“You make me blush, Westall!” Colin protested, although with humor. “Really, a gentleman should keep the confidence of the bedroom, I believe. She wanted nothing that I did not also want, or that was in any way remarkable in a healthy young woman.”
“I did not mean that,” Ambrose laughed, brushing this away. “Spare me the gruesome details. I am more interested in what you talked of, and particularly Ellen’s side of the conversation. It may throw some light on her mistress, a lady whom I wish would leave me severely alone.”
“We barely spoke of her mistress,” answered Colin, shaking his head. “Ellen said only that they were presently at Delingford House. That is where I sent the champagne, under the pseudonym of generous old relatives. To ask anything more might seem as though I was trying to elicit gossip or blackmail material. No, we spoke more of you than of Annabelle Sinclair.”
“You spoke of me?” queried the Duke of Westall, his skin tingling as though sensing some impending danger. “In what way?”
“Well, Ellen had read of your wedding in the society pages of a newspaper that she showed me. That was where she saw me mentioned too apparently.”
“Apparently indeed,” said Ambrose with undisguised cynicism. “How very convenient. What did she say?”
The Duke of Redfern scrunched up his handsome face, evidently trying hard to recall what had, at the time, likely been inconsequential details.
“Well, it was really only your wedding that Ellen asked about, I suppose. It seemed natural enough at the time, considering the coincidence with the newspaper article and meeting me.”
“What exactly did she want to know?” Ambrose inquired.
“Why you married again, having previously foresworn to do so. I do remember wondering how she knew that, but given Annabelle Sinclair’s interest in you, it makes more sense.”
“Did you tell her?”
“Tell her? Tell her what?” Colin asked blankly.
“Did you tell her of the terms of my father’s will that forced me to marry again or lose my mother’s fortune rather than see it go to Winifred?”
“I did,” admitted Colin, his expression now grown serious. “Was I wrong to do so? It seemed a trivial detail at the time.”
“Do you still think that your meeting or Ellen’s interest in you was accidental?”
The Duke of Redford shook his head slowly.
