Page 67 of The Duke’s Hidden Duchess

“For answering the question Giles would not.”

She stepped half a pace away.

Rowland’s gaze sharpened.

He caught her meaning too late.

Lady Marwood’s voice came from the adjoining recess.

“I believe that will do, Duchess.”

Rowland went still.

For the first time since approaching Selina, he appeared to forget the glass in his hand.

A faint movement came from behind the roses. Lady Marwood appeared around the trellis with Lady Carbery beside her. Neither looked triumphant. Lady Carbery’s expression was particularly grave, as though she would much rather not have heard what she had heard and intended nevertheless to remember it accurately.

Rowland’s face emptied.

“My lady.”

“Mr Rowland.”

Lady Marwood stopped beside Selina. Lady Carbery remained a pace behind her.

Rowland looked from one woman to the other and then to Selina.

“This was arranged.”

“Yes,” Selina said.

He looked towards the trellis, taking in at last the two recesses, the climbing rose and the short distance between the place where he had been standing and the place from which the women had emerged.

Lady Marwood regarded him with the detached displeasure of a woman considering something that had been brought into her house by mistake.

“I have heard enough to know that you have threatened a young woman’s private correspondence and suggested that further accusations may be suppressed in exchange for money. Lady Carbery has heard the same.”

“You misunderstand.”

“Then you have been remarkably unfortunate in your choice of words.”

Rowland recovered a little of himself. Selina watched the effort take place: the shoulders easing, the glass settling in his hand, the familiar civility being put back over his face.

“You intend to repeat a private conversation?”

“No,” Lady Marwood said. “I intend, for the present, to remember it.”

That unsettled him more effectively than any threat.

For a moment nobody spoke.

From the lawn came the scrape of a chair being moved and the ordinary murmur of the party. Whatever had happened beside the fountain had not yet disturbed the afternoon beyond it.

“You will leave my house, Mr Rowland. Mrs Ottley may remain. I shall speak to her myself.”

His colour rose.

“You cannot suppose…”