Page 72 of The Bridal Quest

Irene sighed. "It seems unlikely." She paused thoughtfully, then went on. "On the other hand, if your father killed her, what happened to you? How did you end up in London by yourself? It makes no sense. You were his only child, his heir. He would not have taken you to London and abandoned you there."

He shrugged. "That is odd. Nothing seems to concern the aristocracy more than the succession of their title. The same is true if Owenby killed her. He would not have taken me away to London. But who else could it have been? Who would want my mother dead and me gone?"

"Well, the likeliest candidate would have been your uncle," Irene pointed out. "He is the only one who would have benefited by your no longer being here. He was, after all, your father's heir after you. And if your father was grief-stricken enough, perhaps Jasper could have thought that Lord Cecil would not marry again."

"Yes, except for a couple of minor points—the first being that Uncle Jasper loved my mother."

"According to him," Irene countered.

Gideon raised his eyebrows at her. "My, you are a suspicious one. All right, we have only his word for that. But the second objection is that he was in India at the time it all took place. And my grandmother confirms that."

"He could have hired someone," Irene argued. "He might have sent a man to get rid of both of you, but the fellow wasn't able to bring himself to kill a child, so he simply abandoned you somewhere."

Gideon gave her a long look. "You have a frighteningly vivid imagination."

She grimaced at him. "Or—and this one sounds like an excellent candidate to me—Lady Teresa. Did you know that she and her family actually lived in this area?"

"No." He looked surprised. "But wouldn't she have been a child then?"

"She isn't that young. I think she said she was fifteen at the time." At his look, she went on. "Well, yes, it is a trifle young, but she could have had her sights set on being the Countess of Radbourne and eliminated the obstacles in her way—you and your mother."

"If I were murdered now, I think she would be an excellent candidate for the crime. But it's a bit far-fetched that at fifteen she even hatched such a plot, let alone carried it out. And how would she have gotten me to London?"

"All right. It was not a very viable idea," she conceded.

"And don't forget the letter. Whoever killed her would have had to get my mother to write that letter beforehand."

He was silent for a moment, then said, "Or maybe it simply was just as my father and Owenby said. My mother fled with a lover and took me with her. Perhaps Uncle Jasper simply cannot bear to believe that the woman he loved would have left with another man. She was unfaithful to my father with his brother. Why would she be so unlikely to be unfaithful again with someone else? And who is to say she did not want to be with the other man more than she had wanted to be with my uncle?"

"Or she reached a point where she could not bear to be with Lord Cecil any longer," Irene added. "There is another possibility that I have thought of. She was very sad, her maid said. It might be possible that she would have ..."

Gideon's eyes narrowed. "Taken her own life?"

Irene nodded.

"Then why all the secrecy? Why make up such a tale?"

"There is a great deal of stigma attached to suicide," Irene pointed out. "The church ..."

"You think the local church would not have bent to my family's influence? For that matter, that the coroner would not have conveniently found her death an accident?"

"There is still the scandal."

"Yes. But I cannot imagine it would outweigh what they would have had to do. What about her corpse?" he pointed out bluntly. "If she did not leave of her own free will, if she was murdered or took her own life, then they would have had to do something with her body. Hidden her somewhere."

The thought made Irene feel a trifle queasy. "Yes. It seems unlikely that they would have done so because of a suicide."

"And what else is there? That she went mad and was locked for years in the attic?"

"I know. It is all rather ... unrealistic," she agreed.

"I think perhaps my uncle's belief is based more on what he wants to believe than what was true," Gideon said.

"But both Nancy and your uncle agree that you were the center of Lady Selene's life," Irene pointed out. "Whatever happened to her, I do not think she would have abandoned you. At least you have that."

"True—if you accept Nancy's and Uncle Jasper's accounts of what Lady Selene was like. What about Owenby's? According to him, it was my father who was good and she was wicked. I suppose it does not matter, really, either way. Clearly my parentage was deficient. An unfaithful wife for a mother, one who conceivably would have taken her child away from his home, his heritage. And a father who did not care enough to try to get his own child back."

"Or maybe it is simply that both your parents were human. A little wrong, a little weak. Perhaps your mother was guilty only of loving someone to the detriment of everything else."