"I am more and more impressed with you, missy. Might even leave you something in my will."
Lord, not the weapons collection, Kenyon prayed. Heaven alone knew what mayhem Aurora could create with an arsenal.
Fearfully eyeing the stuffed black leopard who was not at Lady Anstruther-Jones's side but was lapping at the ornamental fountain, Aurora hastily disclaimed any need for such a bequest. "Sweety is more than enough, my lady. We are quite enjoying his antics, aren't we, Kenyon?"
"Oh, quite, my dear. I can't recall when I've been half so amused." Waking up to find Sweety on his chest, with his shaving razor in one hairy paw, had been absolutely hilarious. Much more such jollity and he'd laugh himself to death.
"Hah! You've got no time for watching a monkey's antics, from what I hear. Up to your own, everyone says. Well, Windham, the gel is a goer, but I am not impressed with you, sirrah, not at all."
Aurora leaped to his defense. She stayed on the pillow, of course, but she hotly protested Lady Anstruther-Jones's criticism of the earl. "But Chubb was enormous. The biggest man I've ever seen. That's why no one else would help poor Lola. Windham was magnificent, like a knight on a charger, not hesitating an instant to assist the lady. And he would have won the day, I am sure. Eventually."
"I'm not talking about any brawl, missy. Win or lose, Windham had no business taking his bride to meet his cheri-amour ." She thumped her cane on the floor for emphasis, which sent a flock of tiny, colorful birds winging from the trees. Aurora wished she had Aunt Thisbe's books with her to identify the species.
"She was not my cheri-amour ," Kenyon protested, when it seemed that his wife's defense had taken a detour.
"Oh, she was perhaps a patroness of Almack's whom I hadn't heard about previously? Or a lady-in-waiting at court? The woman was someone you should have been introducing your bride to, I'm sure, to see her established in the beau monde, yes?"
There was, of course, no answer. Kenyon sighed, almost wishing Sweety had gone ahead and slit his throat.
"Furthermore, young man, you were not forthcoming with me on your previous visit. Didn't mention your bride's full name, as a matter of fact. I had to read it myself, or have one of my secretaries do it, which is one and the same. Aurora Halle McPhee, the on dits columns say, which you forgot to mention."
"I did say we were looking for information about her relations, Elizabeth and Avisson Halle. I saw no reason to be more specific."
"Like saying they were her parents. But were they?"
"That is the question, ma'am. You are the one who said the Halle daughter was dead. Is she, or did you discover other information?"
Lady Anstruther-Jones fussed with her pipe, then wound the butterfly music box while Kenyon waited on tenterhooks, or on a sore posterior from landing so hard last night. "Ma'am?"
"I think I am not in the mood to answer any more questions."
It was a dismissal, after she'd dragged him here, and out of his boots, and kept him from Bath where he might have found some answers, by George. Kenyon was ready to tell the wizened old viscountess what he thought of her and her homicidal ape. His wife had other ideas.
"Rather than answer questions, my lady, perhaps you'd rather open the gift we brought. We are enjoying the monkey so much we wished to repay you for the pleasure."
Kenyon had forgotten the wicker basket she'd carried in the curricle. Too concerned with his own doubts, he'd neglected to ask about the gift Needles had procured. Jupiter, let it be something exotic and expensive. Otherwise, they'd be out on the street, and so would the uncertainties concerning Aurora's birth.
Aurora brought the basket over to Lady Anstruther-Jones and raised its hinged lid. "Hold your hands out, my lady," she said.
"Eh? Feels like a pricker bush or something. You haven't brought me a cactus, have you, missy?"
"No, my lady. It's Erinaceus europaeus , a hedgehog Ned found at the market. Some boys were selling it, for stew if you can imagine such a thing! If you give it some seeds or an apple slice, it will uncurl and walk around your lap."
"Why yes, I believe it's licking me! You mean to say that someone was going to eat this charming little creature?"
"I'm afraid so. But now I am more afraid the leopard might. I hadn't thought of that at the time, only how happy the little fellow might be in your indoor garden."
"Oh, Baku is so ancient he has hardly any teeth left. That's why I never sent the old boy back to his jungle after the emir brought him to me. He wouldn't have survived a week. Baku, that is, not the emir. I don't suppose you two would want"
Two voices answered as one. "No!"
The old woman shrugged her thin shoulders and kept running her fingers over the hedgehog's spines. "And you say that boy Ned rescued this darling from a cook pot? What an intrepid lad he is, to be sure. I don't suppose I could hire him away from you, could I? With a sharp boy like that, there's no telling what I could do."
"Oh, no, I could never part with our Ned, especially not after last night. But I do know of a one-eyed veteran who is in need of a position. He's willing to do anything."
"If the rest of him's intact," she said with a cackle, "send him over. I've never turned down a willing man yet. Which reminds me, I have a gift for you, tooa wedding gift."
At her gesture, one of the maids brought out a parcel wrapped in a square of silk, tied with a gold cord.
"But you should not have, my lady. Truly, Sweety was generous enough."
"Nonsense. Besides, I can't enjoy the thing since my eyes went bad anyway."
Aurora was carefully unfolding the fabric, which was beautiful on its own, all hand-painted flowers and birds, to reveal a book with carved wooden covers. When she reverently turned the first page, she saw that the richly colored illustrations and the chapter capitals were limned in gold, like a cloister's book of days. "It is exquisite, ma'am. I will treasure it forever. I only wish I could read the text."
"Well, it's Sanskrit, so I'm not surprised you can't. No matter, there are pictures enough."
Aurora was turning the pages. "So there are, and lovely ones at that. Look, Kenyon, people play leapfrog in India, too."
Kenyon had been watching her as she opened the gift, studying the innocent delight, the gentle curve of her mouth in an oh of appreciation. Deuce take it, he still hadn't bought her a bridal gift, nothing but some additions to her wardrobe that were his rightful expense anyway. He wanted to bring that pleasure to her, and more. Blast the old besom for putting the seeds of doubt in his mind in the first place. And leap frog? He grabbed the book, eliciting a squawk of protest, and gave it a quick glancehis spectacles were good for somethingthen slammed the covers shut. "My word, ma'am," he said, "you have given my wife a pillow book!"
"And what has you in a fidge over that, Windham? It ain't as if she's some milk-and-water maiden. The gel's a married woman now. And you'll be happy she has it. English gels aren't taught how to please a man, or to be pleased. That's why so many men stray from their wives' beds. You won't have to."
"Good grief, you meddlesome old"
"Thank you, Lady Anstruther-Jones. It was lovely of you to worry about the success of our marriage. Perhaps if you told us what you discovered in my mother's letter, we would have a better chance."
"Aye, I can see where making love to a dead woman could dampen your husband's enthusiasm."
She couldn't see anything, the harpy, but, with or without his spectacles, Kenyon could see her scrawny neck under all those necklaces. He wanted to wring it. No man wanted a practiced courtesan for a wife, by all that was holy, and if he did, he wanted to be the one to teach her, not some book! Hell, the monkey was a better gift. At least the monkey didn't think he needed instructions on pleasing his wife. He would have left then and there, but Aurora was finally getting the septuagenarian strumpet to speak.
"As I told you, I had my assistant find your mother's letter. Elizabeth Halle's letter, that is, that she wrote to me after I expressed my sympathy for the loss of her daughter. She was everything polite, but one sentence struck me as odd. That's why I invited you back."
"And we do appreciate it, my lady," Aurora said, poking Kenyon in one of his sore ribs until he murmured his agreement.
"Hmpf. Well, the odd thing was, I had offered to pay for a marker for the child's grave. Everyone knew the Halles didn't have a shilling to spare. Elizabeth wrote back that a headstone wouldn't be necessary, thank you. Not that she already had one, or that the infant was cremated, or they were sending her back to England for burial, just that one was not needed."
"Because the infant was not dead!" Aurora crowed in triumph. "I knew it!"
"I'm sorry, child, but I know there was a funeral."
"But you can't know if the casket was empty. I believe my mother wanted to send me back to England before she died herself, and her husband would not agree."
Kenyon noted that she no longer referred to the scapegrace Halle as her father, only as her mother's husband. He couldn't blame her. If he were related to such a loose screw, he'd try to distance himself, too. "What do you think, ma'am? Could Mrs. Halle have feigned the child's death and smuggled her out of the country?"
"I think I love a mystery more than anything!"