Chapter Eight
Despite Lady Luxton’s rudeness, Bridget was secretly pleased that little Henry had taken a liking to Bijou. The child was stuck in a house with grown-ups, and Bijou would make a delightful playmate for him. She knew that Lady Luxton’s comments were only said to injure her.
The truth was, Bridget knew, she resented her relationship with Nate.
They had developed a solid friendship built on mutual respect, and perhaps Lady Luxton sensed there was something more between them.
There was a strong attraction, at least on Bridget’s part, but she’d pushed it aside.
Her grief for her papa and the horrors that had taken place over the summer had stretched her emotions to the limit, and now she was just beginning to process George’s murder.
As for Nate, he’d suffered some enormous changes himself.
The most important one was discovering that he was a father.
As if that wasn’t enough, he had Lady Luxton to contend with.
Bridget heard Bijou’s bark behind her, and then her terrier tore into the drawing room, wagging his tail and jumping excitedly upon seeing Bridget. She picked up her wriggling pup and kissed him.
Henry entered the drawing room accompanied by his nanny.
He wore the same blue linen skeleton suit she’d seen him in earlier.
His nanny had attempted to tame his black curls by flattening some of the more stubborn ringlets with water, but she’d had little success.
Though a disaster, it made him look even more adorable.
“Henry, darling. You remember Mr. Squires, don’t you?” Lady Luxton stood up and took hold of her son’s hand.
The boy looked up at Nate, who gazed down at him and smiled. They were quite the spitting image of one another.
“How do you do, Henry?” Nate said.
“What do you say?” The child’s nanny prompted.
“Well, thank you, sir,” the child said in an obviously rehearsed line and gave a little bow. Bridget could not stop herself from smiling. In spite of his mother, the child was precious.
“Do you remember when we sailed a boat on the lake?” Nate asked, and Henry nodded. “Would you like to do that again?”
Once again, he nodded.
Bridget swallowed the rising lump in her throat.
When Lady Luxton had last departed Villa De Lacey with Henry, vowing never to return, the little boats Nate had fashioned out of paper for his son were all he had left of their time together.
He kept a row of them on the window ledge in the office, where Lake Windermere glistened behind the paper vessels.
“Shall we go and find a new boat?” Nate addressed the question to Henry but looked at Lady Luxton as he spoke. Henry nodded but, following Nate’s gaze, glanced up at his mother.
“What a marvelous idea,” Lady Luxton said, her voice unnaturally cheerful. “Go with Mr. Squires and find your boat, dear. Then we’ll all take a walk to the lake together.” She gently directed the child toward Nate and briefly closed her hand around his as he took hold of Henry.
Bridget’s stomach tensed as she watched the scene. Lady Luxton was a master manipulator. She wanted to gain Nate’s trust again only so that she could hurt him later. The woman was like a vampire, gaining her energy by draining it from others.
Bridget turned her attention away from Lady Luxton and back to Nate and his son.
Her heart blossomed as she watched Nate leave the room hand-in-hand with Henry.
She felt a tear coming, but immediately stiffened when she saw Lady Luxton watching out of the corner of her eye.
Against her better judgment, Bridget turned to face the woman.
The corners of Lady Luxton’s mouth turned up in a smug smile before she returned to her seat and picked up her hand of cards.
“Shall we continue, gentlemen?”
Rupert and Charlie had been sitting in silence, and Bridget had almost forgotten they were there. Charlie, she noticed, seemed fixated on Lady Matheson, who still stood by the window staring at what Bridget knew were the daffodils, which had become terrible to look at but too difficult to ignore.
“Are we going to continue to play, gentlemen?” Lady Luxton asked.
“Certainly,” Rupert said and picked up his cards. Charlie turned his head slowly away from Lady Matheson and followed suit.
“Lady Matheson, will you be rejoining the game?” Lady Luxton said.
Lady Matheson blinked and turned away from the window. “I…” She put her hand to her forehead. “I don’t think so. My mind feels quite overcrowded now.”
“Perhaps you’d care to take a walk outside, my lady?” Bridget said.
“Yes, I think I would like that,” she said.
*
“We can avoid the daffodils if you like,” Bridget said as they stepped outside. She shielded her forehead with her hand as she tried to keep track of Bijou, who’d scampered ahead.
“Thank you,” Lady Matheson said. “I’ve tried not to act the fool about it all. I mean, I only knew the man for a fortnight. It seems silly that I should mourn a penniless poet far below my station. I know everyone is gossiping about it. They think I am some lonely widow desperate for attention.”
That was exactly right, though nothing that Bridget would admit to the lady. She veered toward the outer edges of the garden, where the thicket lay, and Bijou raced toward her. He loved the thicket, which was alive with rabbits, squirrels, and voles.
Thoughts gathered, she said, “I don’t believe anyone thinks that.
And it doesn’t matter how long you knew Mr. Otis.
You did know him, as did I, and he was your friend.
” Bridget paused, glancing at the woman beside her.
Lady Matheson’s face had a pained look. She truly was suffering.
“I feel his loss, too,” Bridget said. “Mr. Otis had a way of making people like him. He was such a charming young man—so talented and enigmatic.”
“If you cared so much about Mr. Otis, why are you trying so hard to free that butcher who killed him? What he did to George was… barbaric.”
“I agree,” Bridget said. “And I’m not—would never—defend a person who was guilty of such a heinous act. But the rush to judgment and finger-pointing at Mr. Groby seems all too convenient. I’ve known the man since I was a little girl, and he has always been a decent member of this community.”
“Decent? The man publicly declared that he wanted to butcher George. He was jealous of him because his young wife was enamored with George. And why wouldn’t she be? He was, as you said, charming and enigmatic.” Lady Matheson wiped away a tear from the corner of her eye.
“His loss is a crushing blow for all of us.” Guilt gnawed at Bridget’s insides.
Perhaps she was doing the wrong thing. What if Mr. Groby was guilty?
Then she’d have been defending the indefensible—a man who took another man’s heart.
She’d be defending the likes of those who desecrated her father’s body.
“They should hang him, and they should do it soon!” Lady Matheson said, and her vehemence brought Bridget back to her senses.
Lady Matheson’s emotions were running high.
She understood the feeling very well. But that was also something of which she was afraid.
She’d learned from past mistakes that things aren’t always as they seem.
And a rush to judgment could lead to the death of an innocent man.
She had to stay strong and keep fighting for Mr. Groby.
His emotions had been spiked the night of the murder, and while that could make one say things out of turn, it did not necessarily make one a murderer.
But she knew it was useless to try and explain as much to Lady Matheson.
Neither she nor any of George’s friends were able to listen to reason.
Bridget could only hope that the magistrate would give them a little more time.
They reached the end of the thicket and exited the gates of Villa De Lacey.
Lake Windermere’s beauty never failed to take Bridget’s breath away.
In all her two-and-twenty years, she’d never grown complacent to its splendor, for each day the lake looked different.
The seasons and the weather changed its mood.
Today, the sky was a bright blue, and the sprawling lake sparkled beneath the spring sunshine.
The fells surrounding it were as green as emeralds.
Bridget inhaled. Here was a sight to soothe the soul.
She glanced at Lady Matheson, hoping the widow was experiencing the same tranquility she was feeling.
But Lady Matheson gazed at the lake with furrowed brows as if she wasn’t seeing it at all.
She was somewhere else—someplace dark—in her mind.
Bridget could tell because she’d been to such a place herself after she’d learned how her papa had died.
Even the majestic Lake Windermere could not calm her soul then.
She’d needed to purge the rage herself—that terrible black anger she’d never known could exist. It had come from a pain so deep that she’d felt helpless.
All she could do at the time was scream and rage at the sky, and so that’s what she’d done until she’d exhausted her body.
And then, it would start all over again.
And so it went, until bit by bit, the pain lessened, but it never disappeared.
That type of pain came from a deep loss.
That’s what she was seeing here, and it told her that there was something more to Lady Matheson and George Otis’s relationship.
“I had a child once,” Lady Matheson said quietly, as if sensing that Bridget was ready to hear her story.
“Once?” Bridget echoed just as quietly.
“He was only a babe when he died.”
“Oh, my lady. I am so sorry.”
She smiled sadly. “He was a lot like George. Their coloring was the same. Moses was born with wisps of yellow hair and wonderful blue eyes. Even as a babe, he was full of life and love. I could tell he had a poetic heart, even at an early age.”