Page 66 of Murder at Hambledon Hall
The stream of tea missed the second cup and spilled onto the saucer. She lowered the teapot to the tray. “So that’s how it is.”
I waited silently.
“Who told you?”
“I can’t tell you that. The affair, Mrs. Browning…when did it begin?”
“It wasn’t an affair. That implies one of us broke marriage vows. It happened before I married Mr. Browning.”
Mrs. Smith from the Morcombe teashop claimed Lady Cicely Wentworth, as Mrs. Browning was called then, married at seventeen. “You were very young,” I said.
“But not naïve. I knew what men were like, that they coveted young women. I just didn’t realize Esmond was like that. Not then. He was only four years older than me, so it seemed perfectly all right. To me, at least.”
“You thought he loved you.”
“Yes, and I loved him, at the time.”
“You say you knew what men were like, despite your tender age. Is that because Mr. Browning pursued you from the age of fourteen?”
I’d managed to surprise her again, but she quickly schooled her features. She finished pouring the tea and handed me a cup. “It wasn’t as debauched as you make it sound. It’s true that Gordon was keen on me from the moment he saw me, and that I was only fourteen, but he didn’t act on his desire. Others must have noticed, however, so when my relationship with Esmond was discovered, I was married off to Gordon before anyone else found out. I had to be urgently removed from Hambledon.”
That explained why she’d married a commoner, and not waited for a titled nobleman.
“Is Janet the daughter of Esmond Shepherd?” I asked.
“No. She was born in my third year of marriage to Gordon. Esmond and I didn’t continue our secret liaisons after my wedding day. I simply meant the urgency was because no one wanted me to run off with Esmond. Could you imagine the scandal if I had? My family would have been humiliated.”
“You continued to love him, though.”
She nodded. “I loved him for years. I looked forward to visiting Hambledon, just so I could catch a glimpse of him. We never renewed our relationship, despite a few attempts on my part. I would wait for him in my room, or his cottage, hoping he would stumble upon me and…” Her cheeks flamed and she took a large gulp of tea. “Call me a fool, but I thought he never married because he was heartsick over losing me. I didn’t realize he’d lost interest a long time ago. Looking back, it was probably around the time I got pregnant.”
It seemed like another good opening to mention Janet, but I hesitated. Asking a woman if her daughter was having a relationship with her former lover seemed like a step too far.
Mrs. Browning noticed my hesitation. “Get it over with quickly, Miss Fox. It will hurt, but only for a moment.”
I drew in a deep breath. “Did Esmond Shepherd and Janet…?”
“No! Lord, no. I told him I’d shoot him if he went anywhere near her.” She huffed out a humorless laugh. “That’s not an admission of guilt. I merely threatened him, I didn’t kill him.”
“When did you threaten him?”
“It was around three months ago, just before the last nanny left.”
That matched Miss Crippen’s account of overhearing them in the gamekeeper’s cottage.
“Is that all, Miss Fox? Or do you have more muck to rake?”
“Something has bothered me ever since learning that Esmond Shepherd is a cad who seduces the young female staff. Why has he never been dismissed when everyone seems to know what he’s like, including your brother?”
“Not just my brother. Our father, too. He was furious when he caught us. Apoplectic. Yet he didn’t dismiss Esmond. As far as I’m aware, he didn’t even scold him. I took the full force of his anger.” She watched me over the rim of her teacup as she sipped. “I presume it’s because there’s truth to the rumor that my grandfather was Susannah Shepherd’s father, and that connection meant each successive earl was reluctant to dismiss her little brother, since old William Shepherd had been dreadfully wronged.” She pulled a face. “It’s all so murky. It happened so many years ago, that I doubt anyone knows the particulars, even Aunt Elizabeth.”
“What year was Susannah born?”
She lifted her gaze to the ceiling as she calculated. “She was a lot older than me and died aged twenty-one in fifty-five, so that means she was born in 1834, two years after my father was born.”
I frowned. “Your father was born in ’32? Then he would only have been sixty-eight if he were alive today.”
“Yes. He died five years ago. So?”
