When It's Perfect by Adele Ashworth Page B

accept it. But she wasn’t. She sent me numerous notes in which she sounded frightened. Something was wrong, and Miss Marsh was the closest intimate to her at the time. If she can help me discover what scared my sister so much, then I will accept that help, no matter how unseemly that might look to those who think about that kind of thing regularly.”
    Gwyneth sat absolutely still, watching her son’s face line with anger, knowing hers paled. Her fingers felt numb and she squeezed them together in her lap. “What matters is that you keep your wits about you.
    I want to know the details of her fear as well, but we must be mindful of scandal. You cannot just expect answers from an employee. They lie—”

    “Are you saying Miss Marsh has lied, Mother?”
    She scoffed, her back molding rigidly to the chair. “Of course not.
    She’s a lovely girl.”
    “She’s not a girl,” he countered prosaically, sipping his coffee at last.
    Gwyneth regarded her son, tipping her head to one side. “She is not of our class, Marcus. Getting involved with her in any way would be ruinous to our good name.”
    “Oh, hell.” Marcus placed his cup and saucer on the tea table and stood abruptly, turning his back to her as he strode to the window again. “I’m not here for that.”
    But he didn’t deny it, she noted.
    Gwyneth watched the sunlight reflect off her son’s dark, shiny hair.
    He had always been so handsome, so reserved. It made her irritable that he’d never married, but then, she couldn’t discuss it with him. He was simply not interested in marriage. At least, not now.
    “What did you learn?”
    He shoved his hands in his pockets again, but didn’t look at her.
    “That she’s smart; she thinks before she speaks, which I find refreshing in a woman. She’s witty, I suppose, though too independent for my tastes. I also think she may know more than she’s admitting about Christine’s final days, but regardless of that, I still find her decent company.”
    Gwyneth gaped at him, too dumbfounded to speak. She hadn’t been referring to Mary at all, but of what she and her son had learned from Vicar Coswell. Suddenly it occurred to her that Marcus was thinking far too much about the spinster, and yet in a moment of sheer enlightenment, she decided not to mention that to him. It would only make him think of her more, and Mary, as lovely as she was, wasn’t right for him as a marriageable prize. Maybe for George, as a second son, but not Marcus, the earl who’d inherited a large, wealthy estate.
    She raised her chin a fraction. “Was she able to help you at all with your inquiries, then?”
    He rubbed his forehead with the fingers of one hand. “I’m not sure.
    She was certainly helpful in her questioning, and of course she and Claudette had things to say to each other, some of which went beyond my understanding as a man. I expect to see her this morning and we’ll discuss it then, to share our combined thoughts.” He pressed his lips together. “One can only hope she doesn’t sleep till noon.”
    Mary tended to be an early riser, Gwyneth knew, so she would no doubt be here for tea soon. But she didn’t think to offer that information

    to Marcus.
    “What do you know of her?” he asked softly.
    “Of Miss Marsh?” She knew that was what he meant, yet questioned him anyway.
    “Yes. What of her family? Why didn’t she marry?”
    Gwyneth straightened her palms down her crêpe skirt, hating the color, which made her look ghastly. “I have no idea why she didn’t marry, as it’s none of my business.”
    “But you had to have asked when you hired her,” he returned quickly.
    “Actually, I didn’t ask. I knew her mother when Mary was a child. We were fairly close friends. Miss Marsh’s father is Sir Harold, the dinosaur sculptor for Richard Owen. I believe Mary has spent the last few years tending to him as a good daughter should.”
    She had to throw that in.
    Marcus cocked his head, gazing at her from