Page 66 of Too Sinful to Deny
“Where it’s from,” Mr. Bothwick repeated. For a moment, they walked in silence. Then he said, “Why, I remember now! As it happens,Iknow where it’s from.”
For the second time in as many days, Susan had the discomfiting impression that a man was inventing the “truth” with each word he spoke.
“You do?” was all she said aloud, however. “How serendipitous.”
“Yes,” he said, this time more firmly. “I’ve just recalled.”
Definitelylying.
“Where might that be, if I could be so bold as to inquire?” she asked politely.
He nodded slowly, eyes narrowed at the horizon. “As it happens, Miss Devonshire has a French aunt, who is a famous modiste in Burgundy. I am certain the silk comes from there.”
A conveniently French aunt. Who also happened to be a modiste.
Right.
“There you have it,” he finished, as if she now had anything at all. “Simple as that.”
Utter balderdash.
“No intrigue whatsoever,” Susan agreed aloud—and, for the first time, became truly interested in the fabric’s origin.
There was definitely more to the story. If thatwasthe story. But whom could she ask for the truth? Miss Devonshire herself? Hardly. Not only would that tip her hand—if Mr. Bothwick didn’t warn her before Susan had an opportunity to speak to her alone—but what were the chances Miss Devonshire would actually tell Susan the truth? Whateverthatwas?
Mr. Bothwick drew to a halt before a warped old rowboat someone had left to rot amongst the weeds and the sand. What drove Bournemouth folk to leave things—and people—forgotten for years at a stretch?
She didn’t realize she’d asked the question aloud until Mr. Bothwick shot her a quizzical glance over his shoulder.
“People?” He bent to pick at a section of peeling paint. “Like who?”
“Like Lady Emeline.” She shivered at the thought of that dank cellar. Susanhadto get her out of there. “And her mother. The town abandoned both of them.”
Her parents had ignored them as well. Probably because they had the ill taste to live outside Town borders. She hadn’t known about either cousin until she’d been ousted from her home and sent to live with “Aunt Beaune.” But now that Susan did know, she couldn’t help but feel strongly for both women.
“Superstition and fear, I suppose.” Mr. Bothwick began to flip the ancient rowboat back upright. “There’s those who believed her disease was contagious. Nobody wished to risk catching it. Plus I suppose a bit of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ was at play, too.”
“For thirty years? Shameful, is what that is. Criminal apathy.” Susan crossed her arms and glared at him. “And what of Lady Emeline? Why does no one call on her from time to time to see if she’s all right? For all they know, she could be dead.”
She’d been murderously angry at her parents when they’d confined her to Stanton House after Susan nearly destroyed a marriage by spreading rumors of an illicit tryst she’d had the (mis)fortune of witnessing firsthand. When her mother had tried and failed to pawn her off on the most ineligible bachelor she could find, it was back to the bedchamber for Susan until she’d managed her great escape to the Frost Fair. The friendless weeks of confinement while the bones of her broken arm knitted back together had been an additional torture.
Yet her troubles were nothing compared to what her cousins had been through. What Lady Emeline wasstillgoing through.
“She’s not dead. She’s sick.” Mr. Bothwick grabbed the pointed front of the boat with both hands and began to move backward, tugging the reluctant rowboat toward the sea. “Folks around here try not to nose about in other people’s business. In case you’ve forgotten, that’s why they don’t likeyou.”
Susan’s mouth dropped open. Of all the rude, hypocritical—
“But we’re talking about another human being!” She gestured up at the cliffs behind them. “That’s horrible.”
“No,” he corrected, grunting a little. “That’s life.”
“How could being deaf-mute possibly be contagious?” she demanded. “That’signorant.”
Mr. Bothwick glanced up from the boat. “Her daughter caught it, didn’t she?”
Susan gritted her teeth. “Lady Emeline ‘caught’ being deaf-mute from her mother? How the bloody hell did she do that?”
He frowned. “I wasn’t there. Supposedly it happened on her wedding night. Shortly after her mother threw herself from a second-floor window.”
