Page 70 of The Bridal Quest

If their reception at Owenby's cottage had been cool, it was more than made up for by the rush of pleasure that appeared on the face of his mother's maid when they arrived at her cottage and she saw Gideon.

"My lord! Oh, my!" She reached out to touch his arm, then remembered herself, blushed, and curtsied instead.

"Lord Radbourne, it's so wonderful to see you! Please, come in, come in."

The maid, whose name was Nancy Bonham, whisked them into the single large room of her tiny row cottage, quickly picking up a basket of sewing and stowing it behind a sofa and in the same motion directing Gideon toward the comfortable-looking chair beside the fireplace.

"Please, sit down. Could I get you a cup of tea? I'm so happy, so happy, you came," she chattered, beaming and wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. "You must excuse me. I'm not usually so easily overcome, but to see my lady's boy ..." She stopped, choking up.

"No, don't apologize," Gideon told her, smiling back at her. "I should have come to see you earlier. I am afraid I did not realize—I have no memory of my life here before."

"You do not remember your mother?" Nancy exclaimed in a shocked tone. "Oh, my, how terrible for you. She was such a sweet, kind woman. A fine lady, so good to me. And she loved you so very much. You were the light of her life, you know. There are some ladies as don't pay much mind to their children, leaving them to the nurse or governess, but not her ladyship. Whenever you were sick, she was right there at your bedside. And she would tuck you into bed each night and read you a little story. You loved that, you did."

"Tell me about my mother," Gideon said.

The woman needed no urging. She launched into a long paean to the Lady Selene's temperament, looks and character. "Her eyes were much like yours, you know. That same clear green. People always said you favored Lord Radbourne, but I thought you had more the look of Lady Selene. Her hair was dark, too, and she was tall. So refined she was, a true lady in every sense of the word. His lordship was lucky to have married her, I'll tell you that, though he never would have admitted it. The Bankeses were always a proud lot. And, of course, his mother was a Lilles, and we all know how they are. But your mother was a Walbridge, and her line went back as far in Norfolk as ever the Bankeses were here."

She went on at some length about Lady Selene's family and her own family's long tradition of serving them, from there launching into a description of her ladyship's many kindnesses, not only to Nancy herself, but to the poor of the village.

Finally, when she paused, Gideon said quickly, "Nancy, can you tell me about that day she left. What happened?"

"Oh, that horrid, horrid day!" She teared up again, bringing her handkerchief back out of her pocket and dabbing at her eyes. "I never dreamed ... I saw she wasn't in her bed, of course, as soon as I went into her room. The bed was turned down, just as I'd left it the evening before. She hadn't slept in it at all. I didn't know what to do. I—" Nancy looked down at her hands "—I didn't want to tell Lord Radbourne. I didn't want to ... get her in trouble with him. He—" She glanced up at Gideon a little uncertainly.

"Go ahead," he said calmly. "It does not matter what you say about him or my mother. They are ... I have no attachment to them. I did not know either of them, so I do not feel as one would normally feel about a parent. You will neither please nor offend me with what you say. I simply want to know the truth."

"Your father was a man with a quick temper. He was not always kind. And she— She was not happy." Again she looked away.

Irene leaned toward the woman. "You said you did not want her to get in trouble with him. Why did you think that she would? Why would he have been angry? Why wouldn't he simply have been worried because she had gone missing?"

The older woman shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and this time her eyes went to Irene. "She was a good woman. You have to understand that."

Irene nodded. "I am sure that she was. Was— Had there been other mornings when she was not there?"

"No," Nancy replied slowly, shaking her head. "But sometimes, well, there was a time or two when, earlier in the night, she was not in her bed. She was always there the next morning, though."

Irene kept her gaze on the woman so reluctantly answering her question. She knew that the maid would be more willing to communicate what she knew about Lady Selene to another woman, and she wanted her to forget as much as possible that Lady Selene's son was sitting right there.

"Was she meeting a lover?"

Nancy's chewed at her lip nervously, and her hands twisted in her lap. "Yes. I mean—I think she was. I fell asleep sitting in her room one time, waiting for her so I could help her undress. I woke up when she came in. It must have been four o'clock in the morning. Why would she have been up that late? And there was something about her face—so flushed and happy. And there were other times when—she would just seem so much happier for a bit. She would come in from the garden, her arms full of flowers, and she would be humming and smiling. There were periods when she was happier for weeks at a time. And then she would be sad—I would catch her sitting, looking out a window, and there would be tears in her eyes."

"Do you know who the man was?"

Nancy shook her head. "No. She never talked to me about him. She wouldn't have wanted to burden me with it, for fear his lordship might question me. But she needn't have worried." The woman set her jaw defiantly. "I would never have told him anything."

"Of course you wouldn't," Irene agreed. "So that morning, you thought that perhaps she had just been out late with someone."

Nancy nodded. "I couldn't think of any other reason for her not to have gone to bed—though I thought she had stopped seeing him. It had been a long time since she had ... acted so happy."

This time Irene could not help breaking contact with the woman to glance at Gideon. It seemed likely that the signs Nancy had seen had been when Lady Selene was having an affair with Jasper.

"So I was a little surprised and worried," Nancy went on. "But I didn't dare tell his lordship." She let out a little moan of regret. "Oh, I wish I'd gone straight to him! Maybe if I had he could have tracked those terrible men down." She turned toward Gideon. "He could have found you and your lady mother safe and sound."

"You must not blame yourself," Irene soothed her. "It was not your fault. You did the only thing you could do. And even if you had gone straight to him, obviously she had been gone for some time, since the bed had not been slept in. They would have been far away by then."

"That's right," Gideon agreed, his voice kind. "You could have done nothing else."

"Thank you, my lord," Nancy sniffed, giving him a grateful smile. She cleared her throat and wiped at her eyes again, then went on with her story. "But then the governess came running down, babbling about the young master. She said he was gone when she got up, and she'd looked all over for him. And then Lord Radbourne came to me, and I had to tell him that my lady was gone, too. I thought he would be furious with me for not telling him sooner, but he wasn't. He didn't even ask why I hadn't said anything earlier. He was—he was scared."