Lady Anne and the Howl in the Dark by Donna Lea Simpson Page B

and masculine, hardier by far than his pallid younger brother. “That interests me. I will have to engage him on the topic.”
    They spoke for a while longer, and Lydia told her all that had occurred in the last two months, the gutted sheep, the frightened village girls who had been chased by the animal back to Hornethwaite, the market town nearby.
    “And does this latest attack upon poor Cecilia not prove the presence of a werewolf?” Lydia asked with a shudder. “No human would kill a simple maidservant!”
    “There is no such thing as werewolves. The agent of that girl’s destruction must have been either animal or human, not some frantic amalgam of the two.” Anne paused but then approached a delicate topic. “I’m interested in Lord Darkefell’s secretary, Mr. Boatin. Where is he from?”
    “Don’t be afraid of him, Anne. I was at first, you know—afraid of him, that is, because he’s so dark and different—but he’s very genteel and speaks just like any normal person.”
    Anne restrained a sigh. Sometimes she thought that Lydia needed to be shaken, with the hope that her brains would settle in a more sensible pattern than the one with which God had seen fit to gift her. “I have observed him and heard him speak and don’t expect any wild behavior from him.” She calmed the sarcastic edge to her voice—sarcasm was too sharp a weapon to wield against silly Lydia, like picking up a carving knife to cut butter—and went on with a gentler humor: “The marquess, I think, is much more likely to alarm me with wild fits, for he seems… hmm, hotheaded. But have you ever observed Mr. Boatin with Cecilia?”
    Lydia shook her head.
    “Did Cecilia have any beaux among the footmen or grooms?”
    “Maids are not allowed flirtations!” Lydia said, eyes wide. “You should know better than that, Anne. Mother says in any well-regulated household, the behavior of the maidservants is a reflection on the propriety of the ladies of the house.”
    “I have always thought it unfair that maids, being young women, are not allowed their share of flirtations, for how can a female sustain life without them?” Anne smiled at Lydia, whose eyes were widening again. How could the girl continue to be so naïve, even after marriage? And given that Cecilia was with child, how could Lydia continue in the blithe assumption that the girl had no flirtations? It was not immaculate conception, and the alternative was that Cecilia became pregnant from a liaison with the marquess or Lord John. “The plain reality is, there would not be so many former maidservants hastily married to publicans and grooms, and bearing robust seven-month babies, if they did not engage in flirtation and something beyond.”
    Lydia blushed; Anne watched her with interest. Judging from the conversation between the marquess and his brother at the breakfast table, Lydia knew about Cecilia’s state. She must have some notion with whom her maid was intimate.
    Lydia, putting her hands to her flaming cheeks, asked, “Do you think she and Mr. Boatin… is that why you ask about him?”
    “Please don’t assume or insinuate until we know more, and do not share my speculation with anyone. I just don’t know, but the young man was deeply distraught at her death. Perhaps they had merely established a particularly close friendship.” Anne paused then said slowly, watching her younger friend’s face, “My dear, I know that you’re aware of Cecilia’s pregnancy.”
    Her lower lip trembled, and tears welled in her eyes. She turned her face away.
    Anne sighed. “Do you know who the father was?”
    “How can you ask me such a vulgar question?”
    “It would help the magistrate if you did know and could tell.”
    “The magistrate?”
    “Well, yes. Whoever the father is, if he had reason not to let anyone know, he could have killed her to keep her silent. After all, her condition would have soon become obvious.”
    Lydia paled and grasped the covers to her bosom.