Elizabeth wasn’t the best of mothers—she was rather poorer at it than I am, and God knows I’m no prize—but she was always very proud of how close her two sons were.”
“No doubt.” Charles sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “It eased her conscience for not being close to us herself.”
Edgar shot him a glance. “It’s true,” Charles said.
Lady Frances surveyed them like a governess searching for the right way to drive home the point of a lesson. “It’s never easy to lose a parent, and it must have been particularly beastly for you to lose her as you did. But it’s foolish and self-indulgent to let it govern your lives over a decade later. It isn’t as though you saw her that much when she was alive, after all.”
“Very true,” Charles said.
Lady Frances was treading on ground that Melanie had not dared explore in seven years of marriage. Melanie studied her husband. His face was closed, but the tension about his mouth was one step short of an explosion.
“And it’s sheer folly,” Lady Frances continued, “to let Elizabeth’s death interfere with what you have between you.”
“Who says it did?” Edgar demanded.
“No one,” said their aunt. “But I can’t think what else went wrong between the pair of you. And it’s plain something did.”
Charles said nothing, a trick of his when he couldn’t think of an appropriate retort.
Edgar rose to the bait. “Who says it’s plain?”
Lady Frances lifted her brows. “Anyone with eyes in her head, boy.” She gripped the strap as they rounded a corner. “At the risk of sounding appallingly sentimental, surely if a crisis such as this teaches us anything, it is that we cannot afford to waste time on petty quarrels.”
Charles smiled into her eyes with a sweetness that was as deadly as absinthe. “Or on idle speculation.”
That silenced even Lady Frances. But she had forced the Fraser brothers into presenting a more unified front than Melanie had seen in seven years.
Which, Melanie thought, might have been Lady Frances’s intention from the first.
A ferocious bark sounded. A streak of black and white came hurtling out of the mist, resolved itself into a border collie, and put its muddy paws up on Lady Frances’s pelisse.
“Down, Jasper.” Lady Frances patted the dog’s head. The dog subsided, danced round her in a circle, and went over to sniff Charles’s boots.
A towheaded young man of about twenty followed the border collie through the mist. “Your ladyship. I didn’t realize you were coming to the stables today. Is Mr. Hopkins expecting you?”
“Hullo, Giles.” Lady Frances gave him the same smile she would give to a young diplomat in her drawing room. “No, this is an unexpected visit. Is Mr. Hopkins in?”
“Out on a training gallop, but he should be back any minute now.”
As if on cue, the thud of horses’ hooves on damp ground echoed through the mist. Two men galloped into the yard, sending up a spray of muddy water.
“Fanny.” A lean, bearded man with silvery hair swung down off a sleek chestnut mare. A piercing smile crossed his face. Then he took in the others standing round her. His shoulders straightened, as though he had shrugged into a formal coat instead of his tweed riding jacket. “Lady Frances.”
“Hullo, Billy.” Lady Frances gave him an answering smile that spoke volumes about their intimacy, then introduced her nephews and Melanie. “We’re in rather desperate need of information.”
Billy Hopkins’s bushy steel-gray brows rose, but he asked no questions, an action that went a long way toward winning Melanie’s heart. “Best come in out of the damp, then.” He patted the chestnut mare’s neck and glanced up at the dark-haired young man who rode the other horse. “See them stabled and then take out Lightning. But be sure to lock Jasper up first.
“New horse,” he explained as he led them across the mud and straw of the yard. “Magnificent animal, speed like I’ve never seen. But he must have had a bad experience with a dog. He goes berserk round poor Jasper. Danger to himself, and not exactly safe for anyone else who happens to be in the area.”
He opened a door onto a stone-floored kitchen with gleaming copper pans on the wall and the smell of bacon and coffee lingering in the air. He waved them to seats at the long deal table, tossed his damp coat over a chair back, and went to the range. “Something to drive out the chill.” He lifted the lid from an iron pot, releasing the pungent, winey scent of spiced cider. “Have to admit I feel the damp more than I used to.”
Melanie willed herself to more time spent sitting with what grace she could muster, drawing out information, nursing a cup of whatever hot beverage was served, clutching the remnants of her sanity.
Lady Frances sank into one of the ladderback deal chairs as though it were gilded brocade and began to unbutton her gloves. “We’re looking for a woman who used to frequent the races. Dark-haired, striking. Her name, at least at one time, was Helen Trevennen.”
“Trevennen? Never heard of it.” Hopkins took a mug from a hook on the wall.
Melanie opened her reticule. “She almost certainly used another name here. Mr. Hopkins, have you ever seen this lady?” She held out the sketch as he set a mug of cider in front of her.
Hopkins held the sketch to the circle of light cast by the tin lamp on the table. His blue eyes crinkled up at the corners. “Good lord. Elinor Somersby.”
A name. An innocuous name that washed over Melanie in a deluge of relief that left her trembling like a spent racehorse.
Hopkins smoothed the curling edges of the picture. “She was a war widow, or so she said. Lived quietly but loved the races.” He turned back to the counter and picked up the remaining mugs of cider. “Bet lavishly and with fair success. Used to stop by the stables every now and again to see the horses put through their paces. A good judge of horseflesh. Haven’t thought of her in years.”
“How many years?” Charles asked.
Hopkins hooked his foot round a chair leg, pulled the chair over, and sank down on it. “She was here the season Equinox won at Newmarket. And when Fenton’s Pride won at York. But not when Bellevigne pulled off the upset at Pontefract. So that would be—” He paused, doing sums in his head. “Three years ago.”
Charles leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingers clenched beneath his chin. “Do you have any idea why she left Brighton? Or where she went?”
“Always fancied her leaving had something to do with a man.”
Lady Frances gave a most unladylike snort. “Just because a woman is attractive and cares for her appearance, men think her life revolves round them.”
Hopkins’s gaze slid to her. “I’d never assume something so cork-brained, Fanny. But Elinor Somersby was the sort who finds men useful to get her what she wants.” He pushed himself to his feet and flung open the door on the chill air of the yard. “Giles!” He looked back at the group at the table. “Giles has a memory like an encyclopedia. And he was more than a bit fond of Mrs. Somersby. All the lads were.”
Melanie met Charles’s gaze for a moment. So close. Somehow that made the waiting worse.
A few moments later the towheaded young man scraped his boots on the rush mat and stepped into the kitchen. “You remember Mrs. Somersby,” Hopkins said without preamble, waving the picture at him. “Why the devil did she leave Brighton?”
Giles blinked, surveyed the picture, and let out a low whistle. “Sorry. But she was a stunner.” He looked up at Charles and Melanie. “Is she a friend of yours?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Charles said. “We’re trying to find her. Do you have any idea why she left Brighton?”
Giles hitched himself up on the edge of the table, all the chairs being taken. “She got married again.”
And acquired another name, damn it all to hell. “To whom?” Melanie asked in an even voice.
“Hmm?” Giles was looking at the sketch. “Oh, one of those respectable-looking chaps who hang about the track. Can’t remember his name. Fred might. He was quite taken with Mrs. Somersby. Well, we all were, but she
