“A few clues, but nothing I feel comfortable bringing to the duchess. Tell me what Her Grace mentioned.”
“About your wife, her sister? Her Grace told me that part too.”
“Yes. I didn’t want to say anything unless I found her again. I don’t want to cause more pain.”
Lady Ashbrook’s shoulders eased. “That her younger sisters are sweet girls. The middle sister, your wife Cecilia, worked the hardest to keep the family close. And an odd things about her disquiet when things were noisy.”
Felton had met her, walking. Didn’t Cecilia complain about the noise of balls? Was there another reason to avoid Jane’s recitals?
The countess stopped again and asked a vendor to dish out green beans. “My daughter loves these. Lord Gantry, your new interest in art, your almost worship of the painting, Port Royal—has your heart moved forward? Our are you preparing to confront the past?”
Both would be the right answer. “I don’t want to draw you any further into my difficulties. I only want to do the right thing, though I’m not sure what that is.”
It seemed like an eternity passed before she moved them to another table. “It’s hard, but there’s always a light when you look for it.”
A light?
Why couldn’t happy talk be true? He scratched his head, attempting to smile as Lady Ashbrook purchased the last of the red pomegranates.
She grew quiet as he signaled for a jarvey, then gripped his arm. “You need to figure out what it is you can live with. Chaos wouldn’t be good for any artist. This one especially, I suspected her to be with child. She needs stability and care. I hope she finds it. You too.”
Lady Ashbrook picked up her skirts and dashed up into the carriage.
Felton assisted her but he was numb. The artist was pregnant? Cecilia was pregnant when she left him? Would she knowingly take such risk traveling to Demerara with a babe?
Worse. Would she deny him access to their child?
What was the more unforgivable sin? Not making her truly welcome in his family or denying him his rights?
His pulse exploded like gunfire. The friend Cecilia talked with on Brydges Street, holding the babe, was she holding Felton’s son or daughter in her arms?
He turned back, heading to Brydges Street. He needed to seek an audience with his wife . . . the woman who might be the mother of his child . . . the mother hiding his child.
CHAPTER30
CECILIA—SCAFFOLDWORK
With his greatcoat fluttering behind him, the lean form of my estranged husband paced to my stage.
Up on the scaffold tying off the drop, the final panel of the scenery that Drury Lane had commissioned, I watched him pace, circling like a jaguarete.
Then I laughed.
He craned his neck. “Will you come down now?”
“When I’m done.”
He went to the other side of the large hanging canvas and poked at my buckets of paints, my jars of pigments. “I don’t see the torch or the knife. No toga either.”
“My lord, I had little notice of your arrival. I would’ve been more prepared.”
“The note I sent to you two weeks ago, that was not sufficient to expect me?”
“Maybe for the woman waiting for you in a tiny closet. This is a large theatre. The manager needs me to finish ahead of schedule. Imagine waiting on me.”
Felton looked angry and conflicted, his smile nonexistent, very different than a few hours ago when I saw him on the street.
Something upset him, more than me, his runaway bride. I wondered what had. My heart went to his girls, but something affecting them would lead him away—not to—me.
