“Need I remind you that you work forme, Miss Jenkins? I am the one who pays your wages, and in return, you keep my household and ensure everything runs smoothly. Allowing my wife to flee without alerting me is certainlynotrunning my household smoothly. Therefore, telling me what happened here is the least you can do.”
“Your uncle came this morning,” she said finally, and his eyes narrowed in confusion.
“He was informed that I was not at home?”
“He was, Your Grace. But… he was not here to see you.”
“What business had he here that did not pertain to me?”
“He wished to see Her Grace.”
“And what business would he have with her?” His voice was sharp, and again she hesitated, but he knew that she knew far more than she was letting on. “Tell me everything that you know.”
“I do not know that it is my place to relate private conversations?—”
“It is your place to answer my questions. Everything that happens in this house is my business, therefore I must be privy to it.”
“He specifically requested to speak with Her Grace. And when he did… he told her that she was to leave at once.”
“What authority did he have to banish my wife from her own home?” Matthew asked indignantly.
“He said that it was your wish that she be gone, Your Grace.”
“What?” He stared at the housekeeper in shock, attempting to reconcile what she was saying to everything his uncle had done for him in the past.
Why would his uncle send his wife away? And why would he lie and say that Matthew was the one who wanted her gone?
“He told her that you did not wish to see her again or to speak to her. He quite insisted, Your Grace. Even when she begged to be allowed to see you again.”
“She wanted to see me?”
Matthew took solace in that. The fact that Diana wanted to see him indicated that perhaps all had not been lost.
“Indeed, Your Grace. She protested most stringently that she be allowed to see you, to speak to you. She requested his help in convincing you to give her just a few moments of your time.”
“And what did he say to that?”
“He said that he had already tried. That John and Isabelle had tried. And that there was nothing any of them could do to convince you.”
“He lied to her. I had not spoken to him about this at all. In fact, I had no reason to believe that he knew anything about our disagreement. He was away when I arrived at the manor last night, and I did not see him this morning when I spoke with John.” He spoke mostly to himself, but Miss. Jenkins responded even still.
“I did not know that he lied, Your Grace. He said that it was your wish that she be gone, so I believed—weall believed that was what you wanted.”
“What else did he tell her?” he asked, ignoring the surprise on her face.
“They spoke about children, Your Grace. And he affirmed everything she said about the difficulty of childbirth and the pain of it. In fact, …” she hesitated but then continued without urging this time. “it sounded as though he were attempting to scare her off the idea of having children.”
“The very thing she was most concerned about. The very reason for our disagreement, and he chose to focus on the worst of it.” Mathew frowned.
He was still shocked that his uncle had done such a thing. And for what reason?
What reason could he possibly have for sending Diana away?
The Marquess had been unhappy to learn that Matthew married Diana instead of Marigold, but he could not have been so angry as to sabotage Matthew’s marriage… Could he? And to what end?
“What else did he say to her?”
“Not much,” Miss Jenkins replied. “Simply that you wanted her gone and that you did not wish to see her. ” She hesitated then and looked at him more closely. “Is that not what you wanted?”
