“Ah, now we are coming to the truth of what has set you off. You didn’t like looking bad in front of Vanessa.”
“What? That’s ridiculous.” It wasn’t the least true. Couldn’t be. He didn’t care that much about Vanessa. Did he?
Gwyn tried to rise from the settee but fell back onto it.
“Careful,” Sheridan said with concern, holding out his hand to help her up. Damn, but at seven months along Gwyn was heavy now. That child of hers must be quite a bruiser.
Then again, Gwyn’s new husband had the shoulders of an ox.
Once she was on her feet, she said, “I’m hungry. Are you hungry? I shall call for some tea and cakes. And perhaps an apple. Wait, does Cook still make those heavenly apple tarts? That’s what I want: tea and cake and apple tarts . . . and maybe a bit of cheese. Oh, and pickles! Yes, I shall definitely want some pickles with it.”
“Eating for seven, are we?” he said dryly.
“You have no idea. I think I single-handedly devoured half of the supper Olivia laid out last night.” She leveled her inquisitive gaze on him. “And speaking of last night, you and Vanessa seemed very chummy.”
“I have no intention of discussing last night. You and Mother are intent on marrying me off, and I won’t have it.”
“Why not?” When he didn’t answer right away, Gwyn searched his face. “Wait a minute. Surely you’re not still mourning Helene. It’s been five years now.”
He stiffened. “Six. And it feels as if it were only yesterday.” Or it should feel that way. One should not get over loving somebody so easily or quickly just because that person had died. It seemed wrong somehow. “I don’t want to talk about Helene.”
“Well, then.” She rang for a servant and gave the footman her lengthy list of food and drink demands.
Sheridan couldn’t believe it. Were women in her condition always filled with a ravenous hunger? Or was it just the ones like his sister, who presently looked as if she’d swallowed a whole ham?
Unbidden, an image of Vanessa in Gwyn’s situation assailed him—of Vanessa rosy and glowing, Vanessa carrying their child in her belly, Vanessa dandling their son or daughter on her knee.
Blast it! What was wrong with him? It felt disloyal to Helene to imagine such a thing, especially since he’d never conjured up such an image with her. So why was he doing so with Vanessa?
As the servant marched off to do Gwyn’s bidding, she waved her hand at him. “Since you won’t let me talk about Helene, continue with your tirade against Lady Eustace, that ‘rude, pushy gossip.’ I begin to be rather glad I never met her.”
“Trust me, you should be.” But oddly, the heat of his anger had cooled. “I just wish I knew what her game was. She doesn’t seem to like me, yet she insisted on quizzing me about the state of the dukedom’s finances.”
“And Vanessa didn’t join in.”
“No. If anything, she was horrified by her mother’s line of questioning.”
Deep in thought, Gwyn lowered herself carefully onto the settee. “And you’re sure Vanessa knew nothing incriminating about her mother?”
“If she did, she hid it amazingly well.” He shrugged. “I have to go back tomorrow. I need to find out if her mother had been hinting at the truth or was just an awful creature in general.”
“You should bring Mama with you.”
“For God’s sake, why?”
“They were friends once, weren’t they? Or at least relations. Lady Eustace was Mama’s sister-in-law for the year Mama was married to Grey’s father. And Mama will have the perfect reason for going—because she wants to get to know Vanessa after meeting her at Thorn and Olivia’s party.”
Just what he needed—his mother and Vanessa putting their heads together about anything.
Gwyn shifted on the settee. “And what does Mama have to say about Lady Eustace’s whereabouts at the two house parties, anyway? Have you asked her?”
“Of course I asked her.” Sheridan sighed. “For the first party, as you know, Mother was dealing with a sick infant and husband, so she barely got to see her guests. For the second party, she was in labor. So she was not in a position to know where everyone was.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Gwyn muttered.
“What?”
“Not in a position . . . Never mind.” She cocked her head. “I still say if you bring Mama, she can get Lady Eustace to reminisce with her about those house parties more naturally than if it’s you trying to elicit information.”
“I suppose.” He would never admit it to Gwyn, but he disliked the idea of chatting with Vanessa with his mother anywhere nearby. Bad enough he had to do it with her mother monitoring the conversation.
But Gwyn did have a point. He wasn’t supposed to be there for Vanessa. He was supposed to be chatting with her mother. If he could call whatever that woman did “chatting.”
Perhaps he should turn this on Gwyn. She had a part to play in these investigations, too.
“So,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant, “have you spoken to Lady Hornsby yet?”
Gwyn scowled. “No. But not for lack of trying. She hasn’t been ‘at home’ a single day since we started this.”
“That in itself is interesting.”
“I think so, too. I was planning to try again tomorrow.”
Before he could comment on that, the servants came in with a feast worthy of a king. Or rather, a very enceinte queen. Gwyn’s face lit up, and she barely waited until they left before she began loading a plate with the oddest combination of ingredients he could imagine.
He dropped into the chair opposite her and took an apple tart. “Do you think I’m overreacting with this investigation?” He took a bite of tart. They really were very good. “Is it possible all the deaths were exactly what they seemed for so many years—borne of accidents or illnesses? That they have no connection to each other beyond the weird coincidence that they all involved someone close to Mother?”
“You are not overreacting in the least.” Gwyn had a bite of cake, then a bite of pickle. “We already have proof that Grey’s father was poisoned. For all we know, the villainess poisoned Grey, too, but he survived it. We also know that the note supposedly written by Joshua to Father, which lured Father to his death, wasn’t actually in Joshua’s hand. And we know that Elias, who might very well have written those notes, was hired to do all kinds of mischief that nearly got a number of us killed. Then he was poisoned in prison. That is clearly a pattern of villainy and not mere coincidence.”
“Well, when you put it that way . . .”
She nodded sagely at him as she cut two thin slices of cake and one of pickle, then made a sort of sandwich of them.
“That looks vile,” he said.
“It does, doesn’t it?” She cut a bit of her “sandwich” and ate it. “But it’s surprisingly delicious.” She licked some crumbs from her lips. “Is Mama right? Do you really like Vanessa?”
He tensed. “Of course I like her. I always have. She’s a perfectly amiable woman.” Who kissed like a seductress.
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”