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“Are you sure it is not Mr. Clive he wishes to see?”
“Yes, ma’am. He seemed quite clear,” the butler replied. “Shall I show him to the morning room, ma’am? I am afraid the fire has rather died in there and it is a little chill.”
Miriam hesitated, turning it over in her mind.
Beata stood up. “Please excuse me for a few minutes, and see Mr. McNab in here. I’m afraid we seem to have eaten most of the chocolate! I shall return when he has left.” She moved toward the door without waiting for Miriam to answer.
The butler opened it for her and she went out into the hall. She was not quite sure what she was going to do after visiting the cloakroom, but the hall was pleasant, and the pictures and artifacts were full of memories for her.
She passed the man she took to be McNab with no more than an inclination of her head in acknowledgment.
A few moments later, she returned to the hall and was admiring some intricate silver in a niche. Then she moved to another, close to the withdrawing room door, which was very slightly ajar. She heard the voices inside and stopped, motionless. It was the name of Monk that arrested her attention and made her listen shamelessly.
“I need more information!” McNab said clearly. It had to be McNab. Beata had never heard his voice, but she knew he was the only man in there with Miriam. He sounded both angry and urgent.
“Why?” Miriam asked. Her tone was calm but there was an edge of impatience in it. Beata knew even from that short word that Miriam did not like the man. There was politeness in her, but no warmth. And she was a woman who could charm with a glance, and, if she wished to, melt hearts with laughter. “Surely that is enough for your purposes?”
“Just answer me what I ask,” McNab said levelly.
“I don’t know what else you want,” she replied. “I already told you, above average height, lean as a whip, straight, dark hair, and gray eyes so dark they looked black at times.”
“His name, woman!” McNab said sharply. “That description could fit a score of men, half the Spaniards or Italians in the world!”
“I already told you,” she replied with thinly held patience. “I think the name was Monk, but I’m not sure. It could have been something else like it. I didn’t know him. For heaven’s sake, he was a sailor, one of the small schooner captains, a chancer out to make his fortune.”
“But you saw him with your first husband, Astley?” McNab insisted.
“Yes, briefly, and at a distance,” she replied.
“How many times?”
“You exceed your manners, Mr. McNab!” Now her voice was tight and hard. If he had thought she would be intimidated he was no judge of character. Beata had seen Miriam face down bigger men than this McNab.
“Are you not forgetting your own needs, Mrs. Clive?” McNab retorted, but there was less menace in his voice, as if he had taken a step back both literally and also metaphorically. “If he was there, then he serves your needs as well as mine.”
“And was he?” she asked instantly. “Are you certain?”
“Not yet,” he admitted. “But I will be. Believe me, Mrs. Clive, I will be. Who is the woman in mourning? What part has she in this?”
“Lady York is a friend of mine who has just lost her husband,” Miriam answered. “She has no part in this at all. And if you have any sense, you will pass her politely and make no remark beyond wishing her a pleasant evening, and beg her pardon for interrupting. I have already told you what she said. If I learn more, I will tell you. Now leave!”
There was a moment’s silence. Beata moved quickly and, she hoped, silently as far away from the withdrawing room door as she could. When she heard his footsteps on the hall floor, she was several yards away, staring at a painting of a woman carrying a basket of flowers, bright blossoms lying casually on the woven straw.
She turned as she heard his footsteps, as one naturally would.
He stopped, and then walked over toward her.
She gulped, waiting. He must not catch even a breath of the notion that she had been listening.
“Good evening, Lady York,” he said a little stiffly. “My name is McNab. I apologize for interrupting your evening. It was a matter of some urgency, or I would not have done so.”
She smiled at him as if she had overheard nothing.
“Of course,” she agreed. “It is of no consequence. I assure you.”
“May I offer you my condolences on the death of your husband,” he added quietly. “There is nothing harder in life than the loss of someone you love.” Now there was emotion in his voice and pain in his face. It robbed her of the chill with which she would have replied to him.
“Indeed there isn’t, Mr. McNab,” she said gently. “I can see that your sympathy is genuine, and I thank you for it.”
