She stood back from the door to admit him, and he gestured toward the kitchen. She scurried ahead of him.
He noticed in passing that there was a distinctive gilt-edged card propped against a vase on the hall table, with Lady Paget's name written on it in an elegant hand. It was an invitation to Lady Compton-Haig's ball the following evening. He had a duplicate addressed to him on the desk in his study.
It was beginning to happen for her, then? She was beginning to be accepted into society?
The child was sitting on the floor beneath the kitchen table, the dog stretched out at her feet. He raised his eye to Stephen and thumped his tail lazily on the floor but did not otherwise move. The child was singing softly to her doll, which was wrapped in its white blanket. She was rocking it.
Mary turned to face Stephen, and it occurred to him that she really was rather pretty in a thin, pale sort of way. She had fine eyes, and the color his presence had put in her cheeks became her.
'Mary,' he said, and realized he could not ask what he most wanted to know. She probably did not have the answer, anyway. He felt suddenly foolish. 'What happened to the dog?'
She looked down and twisted her apron.
'Someone,' she said, 'a-a /stranger/, was trying to beat Lady Paget out in the stables, and Roger tried to defend her. He did too – she was not near so badly beat up as she usually – As might have been expected. But Lord – But the strange man caught hold of a whip and whipped the dog so vicious that he lost the sight of his eye and lost the tip of his ear, and his leg was crushed so bad that part of it had to be cut off.'
'Crushed with a whip?' Stephen asked.
'With a – a shovel, I think,' Mary said.
'And did this stranger – or Lord Paget – get hurt too?' Stephen asked.
She darted him a glance before returning her attention to her apron.
'He got bit something fierce, my lord,' she said. 'In his arms and legs and on the side of his face. He took to his bed for a whole week before he could get up and go about his business. Lord Paget, I mean. When he went rushing to her rescue, that was. I don't know what happened to the strange man. He must of escaped.'
Stephen wondered if she would think back and wince at the gaping holes in her story.
'The head groom wanted to put Roger down,' Mary said. 'He said it was the kindest thing to do. But Lady Paget had the crushed part of his leg took off and then carried him to her own room, and she kept him there until he was better, though none of us but her thought it would happen.
Lord Paget never said he was to be put down though we was all expecting it. Roger must not of recognized him when he came to the rescue and attacked him too.'
Stephen set a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
'It is all right, Mary,' he said. 'I know. Lady Paget told me herself.
Not about Roger, but about the rest of it. She did /not/ tell me about Lord Paget's death, but I will not try to squeeze that story out of you.'
Yet it was what he had come inside to ask, he realized.
'I am sorry if I have caused you distress,' he added.
'She didn't do it,' she whispered, her eyes like saucers again, her cheeks suddenly pale.
He squeezed a little harder before releasing her.
'I know,' he said.
'I worship her,' she said stoutly. 'Did I do wrong coming here with her?
I cook and clean for her and do everything I can, but did I bring shame on her by coming? And did I add a burden on her because she has to feed me and Belinda? I know she feels obliged to pay me. I know she don't have no money – or didn't until – ' She stopped abruptly and bit her lip.
'You did right, Mary,' he said. 'Lady Paget needs someone to look after her, and it appears to me as if you do that very well indeed. And she needs friends. She needs love.'
'/I/ love her,' she said. 'But I am the one who caused her all the trouble in the end. It was all my fault.'
She threw her apron over her face, and Belinda stopped rocking her doll and looked up.
'No, this has been my fault,' he said. 'I ought not to have come in to pester you with questions. How is Beth today, Belinda? Is she sleeping?'
'She is being naughty,' she said. 'She wants to play.'
'Does she?' he said. 'Perhaps you ought to play with her for a little while, then, or tell her a story. Stories often put babies to sleep.'
'I'll tell her one, then,' she said. 'I know one. She has just eaten, and if I play with her she may be sick.'
'I can see,' he said, 'that you are a very good and wise mother. She is fortunate.'
He turned his attention back to Mary, who was smoothing her apron down over her skirt again.
'I have kept you long enough from your work – or perhaps from your leisure hour,' he said. 'And I am sorry about the questions I asked. I am not usually so inquisitive about other people's business.'
'Do you care for her?' she asked.
'Yes.' He raised his eyebrows. 'I am afraid I do.'
'Then I forgive you,' she said, and blushed hotly. 'Will you be offended,' he asked her, 'if I leave you money to take Belinda to Gunter's for an ice when you have free time one afternoon? No child should go through life without that experience. No adult either.'
'I got money,' she said.
'I know.' He smiled. 'But it would give me pleasure to treat Belinda – and you.'
'Very well, then,' she said. 'Thank you, my lord.'
He took his leave after setting down some coins on the table – just enough for two ices – and hurried from the house. He made his way homeward even though there was still plenty of the afternoon left. He was in no mood for any of his usual pursuits. He did not even consider going to the races after all, though he would not have missed very much.
He tried to think of all the young ladies with whom he usually liked to dance and converse, even flirt in a mild sort of way.
He could scarcely bring one face to mind.
If memory served him correctly, he had not yet reserved even one set with anyone for tomorrow's ball. /She/ had been to blame for what had happened at the end, Mary had just said. For Paget's death, he had taken her to mean. And she had been quite adamant that Cassandra had not done it.
Immediately after saying so, of course, she had said she worshipped Cassandra. It was easy to lie for a loved one.
The dog had been maimed while taking a whipping intended for his mistress. His leg had been crushed with a shovel – also intended for Cassandra? Would she be dead now instead of her husband if Roger had not intervened on that occasion? And would the official story have been that she was another victim of a fall from horseback?
He had a headache, Stephen discovered when he arrived home.
He /never/ suffered from headaches.
'Go away, Philbin,' he told his man when he found him in his dressing room, putting away some freshly ironed shirts. 'I'll just be barking at you if you open your mouth, and I'll be damned before I'll be apologizing to you every second day of my life.'
'The new boots pinching, are they, m'lord?' Philbin asked cheerfully. 'I told you when you got them that – '
'Philbin,' Stephen said, grasping his temples with the thumb and middle finger of one hand, 'go. Now.'
Philbin went.
Cassandra had looked through the paper Alice had bought a few days ago and had written down the names and addresses of three lawyers she hoped might be able to help her. Alice, when she knew what Cassandra was going to do, advised that she talk with Mr. Golding or even the Earl of Merton. Both would surely know the best lawyers for such a case.
But Cassandra was tired of leaning upon men. They were rarely reliable, and even if that was probably an unfair judgment of Mr. Golding and undoubtedly of Stephen, then she was tired of having no real control over her
