Page 34 of The Lyon Returns
She placed her teacup and saucer on the tray. “What has the Crown ever done for me? On the other hand, you have been a good friend to me over the years, Devereux. I’d rather not see you hang.”
Her words touched him, but he knew her well enough to say with absolute certainty she would not thank him for expressing the sentiment overtly. “Why, Bessie, you flummox me.”
She snorted.
“I suppose I must take your name off the list of suspects,” he added. “At the very least, I can move it to the bottom.”
She huffed with laughter, then her expression sobered. “I would think the one who betrayed you obvious.”
Dirk Kennedy, no doubt. Gideon made no reply.
She nodded. “I see. You do not wish to believe it.”
He cleared his throat and, once again, changed the subject. “I assume you checked out my bluestocking wife before saddling me with her.”
She chuckled. “Of course. What can I tell you that you have not uncovered on your own? She is a widow, twenty-nine years of age, boasting a substantial inheritance. She hails from a remote, well-to-do village in Northumberland. She has a passion for scribbling in books and promoting unknown and controversial authors.”
Controversial? He had not known that, although, he couldn’t saythe idea particularly surprised him.
“What of her late husband? What do know about him?”
She seemed intrigued by the question, and by the angle of her head, appeared to gaze at him through the netting of her cap.
He shifted in his seat, picked up the now-cold coffee, thought better of it, and set it back down.
“One Mr. Reginald Barnes, local gentry. Father was a nobleman’s spare. Family wealth, passed down. By all accounts, well-liked and quite dashingly handsome. She intimated they were promised from childhood.”
“Oh, yes, the beautiful bluestocking and her perfect husband.”
Her lips curved. “You find Mrs. Barnes pleasing?”
He scowled at the widow. “Of course. I’m not blind. She’s…” He broke off. He was hardly going to list the woman’s attributes. “Never mind that. She seems to have taken the notion of mourning her husband to the extreme. I simply wished to know why—to avoid any awkward situation, you understand.”
“Of course,” she said, far too smoothly.
Gideon slid her a suspicious look.
“I assume you refer to her atrocious gowns. I’m not sure her choice of clothing means what you think it does.”
“What in hell are you saying, Bessie? Speak plainly.”
“Are the frumpy gowns a show of mourning, or do they signify something else entirely?”
Gideon was losing patience. He had not come here to discuss the woman’s lack of fashion sense. “How did Mr. Barnes die?”
“A hunting accident, I believe. Died of a bullet wound, to be sure.”
As he could think of no further questions to ask, he rose to take his leave.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon rose as well and preceded him to the door. “Well, sir, what do you intend to do now?”
“I intend to discover who set me up.” He had not told her of thenote he’d received, advising him of the date the cargo would arrive in Spain and warning him of possible subterfuge. Whoever sent it had to know him well enough to predict he would make haste to try and avert any foul play. Whoever sent it meant for him to die at sea, or at the very least, be branded a traitor. “And see my name cleared, of course.”
A sardonic smile played at her mouth. “That goes without saying, Devereux. I was asking about your wife.”
He thought of lithe woman with fae-blonde hair, imagined her intelligent, oft-laughing blue eyes and fine-boned face. The brazen woman who saw fit to help herself to everything he owned, while wearing dresses the lowliest of servants would spurn.
He also recalled with stunning clarity the awareness that sparked through him at the sight of her standing before his hearth.
