She sighed, reached into her satchel, and pulled forth the painting, slapped it onto the paper. “’Tis nothing valuable.”
He pulled the paper over to him and seemed to stop moving, stop breathing. “Jove, Gwendolyn, it’s perfection.”
It was Seastorm. She’d drawn it yesterday as the sun had set. Used the colors of the sun bleeding across the sky to paint it that night in her room.
“It looks like a fairy castle.”
She peered at it. “Hm. Too much pink, perhaps.”
He snapped it away from her critical gaze. “Just enough pink.”
“But it doesn’t really look like that.”
“You’ve captured its essence. It’s perfection, and I’ll not hear another ill word against it.”
She rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t make you feel uneasy? Because you wish to extend your holiday?”
A knock on the door.
Blast it. She’d not get her answer.
“Come in,” Jackson called out. “Oh, good day, Mrs. Whitlock. I was not expecting you.”
The older woman swept into the room. “I had a moment free, and I thought to answer your questions.”
Jackson gestured to the chair across from him and sat straighter in his own. “It is much appreciated.”
“Is this about the management of the house and grounds? Are you displeased with something?” Her gaze flicked from Jackson to Gwendolyn and back, a bit of hesitation evident in her voice.
“Not at all. I do apologize if you were nervous. I am impressed. The house is impeccable. I wish, merely, to inquire as to what you might know about my father’s research.”
Jackson asked the same questions he’d asked the footman and learned the same information. Gwendolyn added little else to her notes, and good thing. She could not focus on the task at hand because the housekeeper kept… looking at her, her glance settling more and more often on Gwendolyn’s face only to snap away when Gwendolyn met the woman’s eyes.
Was she being recognized now?Trulyrecognized? As the woman with a bigamous husband? Nothusband. Confound it. Not in the eyes of the law or church. The confusion of the terminology yet another reason to avoid his existence entirely. If only she’d avoided that man before she’d married him. Sort-of married him? Though she couldn’t have avoided it because her parents had demanded it. And by Jove, the man had charmed her, made the arranged marriage feel more like a real one. Until he’d started disappearing for long stretches at a time.
She almost hissed, spit, feeling like the cat who likely waited for her in the hall.
The housekeeper still looked at her, and Gwendolyn met the woman’s gaze and refused to give it back, dared her to make an accusation.
Mrs. Whitlock did not seem to realize the dare was one that came with risk. She smiled and said, “Miss Smith?”
Gwendolyn arched a brow, challenging, cold. “Yes?”
Jackson regarded the two of them with a curious gaze. “We have no more questions, Mrs. Whitlock. Thank you.”
Mrs. Whitlock stood but did not leave. “You look so familiar, Miss Smith. Have you ever visited Seastorm before? With Lord Eaden?”
Gwendolyn shook her head. “I have not.”
“Brighton, then?” the woman pressed.
“No. Never.” She smiled, a hollow expression, cold and hard to hide the trembling inside. “I have a face and figure like many others, I’m afraid. I’m always being mistaken for someone else.” Her palms sweated, though she kept her face serene. Serene? No. It was implacable, hard and unmoving.
“Hm,” Mrs. Whitlock said. “As you say. I usually have a keen memory for faces.”
Why wouldn’t the woman just leave? “You are wrong, Mrs. Whitlock.” A winter frost in her tone. If the woman knew, she could connect Lady Mary to the Cavendishes, then the marquess’s runner could find her. Them, too. No.
Mrs. Whitlock’s eyes narrowed. She sniffed. “IsupposeI can be mistaken.” Then she snapped a curtsy and sailed from the room.
