Read Online A Suspicious Affair by Bárbara Metzger - Free Book Online Page A

so desperate to get to Berkshire in the first place. Then it took less than half an hour of raw, cold rain, winter-barren landscapes, and the drafty old barn of a relic, for reality to return with a thud. The thud of the dowager’s cane, to be exact.
    Arvid’s mother had not moved to the Dower House on Marisol’s marriage. There was no need, the older Duchess Denning had decided, since Arvid intended to spend as little time away from London as possible, and his mother was such an admirable manager of the estate and the household. She managed Arvid, didn’t she?
    The dowager obviously intended to keep on managing: assigning bedchambers, announcing dinner hours, selecting the hymns for Arvid’s service and new curtains for the nursery. She punctuated each of her pronouncements with raps of her ebony cane on the marble floors that sent tremors through Marisol’s aching head. The noise also set Max into a frenzy of yipping and lunging, so the dowager ordered the little dog banished to Aunt Tess’s room, which offended that lady so much she chose to take her dinner upstairs on a tray. Marisol was too spent to argue.
    At least there was no confrontation over the bedchambers. The dowager had moved to the recently renovated east wing when Arvid brought home his bride, so Marisol still occupied the duchess’s suite, with its ill-fitted casement windows, antiquated furnishings, and resident pigeons outside in the battlements.
    Dinner was another matter. The first night Marisol walked into the dining room on her brother’s arm to see that Boynton sat at the head of the table and the dowager at the foot.
    “Boynton is head of the family now, Marisol,” the dowager declared, ignoring Marisol’s own seniority, of however short duration. Marisol decided she was not as well recovered from the journey as she thought. She’d do better with dinner on a tray in her room also.
    The next morning Marisol ordered a round table. She was willing to compromise, not buckle under to her mother-in-law’s dictatorship. When the butler and housekeeper looked toward each other, and then allowed as how they’d best consult with Her Grace, Marisol reminded them that
she
was also Her Grace, for now, and possibly for years into the future. A round table it would be. Not for the state dining room, of course, but for the smaller room where the family ate. That night the dowager took dinner in
her
rooms. Unfortunately for Marisol’s appetite, this left the younger widow alone with her brother and brother-in-law, who sniped at each other throughout. The funeral tomorrow would be a relief.
    *
    The man from Bow Street was finding his stay in Berkshire a real treat. He’d decided to put up at the inn in Pennington after being consigned to the stables by that nasty piece of work at the Castle, once Her Grace, Lady Marisol, that is, took to her bed. He hired himself a gig and called in at the pubs and farmsteads. Over hearty ales and fresh-baked breads, the locals were happy enough to talk about the gentry. Their “betters,” they said with smiles and raised mugs.
    No one had a good word to say about the late duke and less to say about the next, should it turn out to be that coxcomb Boynton. No one could think of anyone nearby with a reason to kill Duke Arvid, though, excepting that he was a miser, a lecher, and a snob. As far as absentee landlords went, that was the finest kind. He never came near Pennington much, so he never bothered them much.
    Boynton scared the locals worse. Where Arvid had tried to make the most profit off his lands, Boynton could just wager the Pendenning holdings away, and with them the future of everyone in the little community of Pennington. The villagers were mostly agreed that if they had to have their lives in the hands of a gambler and they had their druthers, they’d pick a winner over a loser every time.
    The young duchess and her babe were unknown factors to the country folk, and much would depend on who got named