Mistress by Amanda Quick Page B

Fortunately, no one appeared to have overheard Zoe's lament. "I cannot say, but it's an encouraging development, don't you think?"
    "It confuses the issue, if you ask me," Zoe declared.
    Amelia, dressed in one of the dull bombazine gowns she favored, nodded in agreement. "Your aunt is quite right. This whole thing is a great tangle. I do not like it."
    "Please keep your voices down, both of you. Someone will hear you." Iphiginia glanced anxiously around the showroom again.
    The proprietors hovered behind a counter at the rear of the shop. Mr. Smith was a broad, plump man garbed in a shocking pink waistcoat and the latest style of pleated trousers. Hornby, gaunt, stooped, and balding, was wearing a paisley printed waistcoat. It contrasted sharply with his purple coat.
    Hornby gazed longingly down the length of the shop at where Iphiginia, Zoe, and Amelia stood together around a pattern book. He was clearly waiting for an opportunity to pounce. He had been rebuffed twice already, but Iphiginia knew that he was on the verge of making another attempt to offer his assistance.
    The walls of the long room were lined with drawings and designs that purported to offer suggestions for decorating one's residence in the latest fashion. Samples of the newest styles in chairs and tables were arranged in a row down the center of the room.
    Pattern books containing drawings of lavishly decorated interiors for every room in the home were set out on several tables.
    Iphiginia, Zoe, and Amelia were making a show of studying a design for a combined library and statuary hall. But the real reason they had all met at Hornby and Smith's this morning was to discuss the latest developments in the crisis.
    "Obviously the blackmailer was lying about having murdered Masters," Iphiginia said. "He was attempting to frighten you, Aunt Zoe, so that you would meet his demands."
    "He succeeded. To the tune of five thousand pounds," Zoe muttered. "It is really too much. I finally regain control of my own money after all these years of watching Guthrie fritter it away on horses and women, and what happens? Some nasty blackmailer happens along and tries to take it away from me again."
    "I understand, Aunt Zoe. We shall identify him and put a stop to this, I promise you," Iphiginia murmured sympathetically.
    She was very fond of her aunt and had every intention of doing her best to free Zoe from the blackmailer's clutches.
    At forty-five, Zoe was an energetic, vivacious woman with a flair for the dramatic. Her hair, once the same tawny shade as Iphiginia's, was attractively streaked with silver. She had the cleanly etched profile that characterized all the women on the Bright side of the family.
    Twenty-five years earlier Zoe had not only been quite striking, she had also been an heiress. The handsome portion her doting parents had settled on their only daughter had attracted the eye of Lord Guthrie. No one had discovered until too late that Guthrie was nearly penniless. By then Zoe was married and her husband had gained legal control of her portion.
    Having secured the money he had coveted, Guthrie promptly lost interest in his new bride. Fortunately, he had not been a complete idiot. He had managed to avoid squandering all of Zoe's inheritance. He had, however, gone through the income and had started to make serious inroads on the capital before conveniently suffering a stroke.
    As Zoe had once said to Iphiginia, it was typical of Guthrie that, even in the act of departing this mortal plane, he had managed to humiliate her. He had died in a brothel.
    Zoe let it be known far and wide that the only benefit she had ever received from marriage was her lovely daughter, Maryanne. She was thrilled with Maryanne's recent betrothal to the handsome and, as Zoe had taken care to ascertain, wealthy Sheffield.
    During the long years of her unhappy marriage to the obnoxious Guthrie, Zoe had taken comfort in her liaison with Lord Otis. Otis had been devoted to her from the