To Kiss A Spy by Jane Feather

of his thoughts. He believed he had found the key to this seduction. This was not a woman to be swept off her feet with flattery and passion. But if he once gained her friendship and confidence, then she would be open to temptation. She was a woman in whom emotions ran deep, he decided, and she was holding something close to herself, a sadness and an anger that he must understand before he could approach her.
    “There was a child?” he prompted softly when it seemed she would not continue.
    Pen raised her eyes from the fire and he almost flinched at the blaze of fury in the look she gave him. It was so fierce as to be almost mad, he thought.
    “I had a son,” she stated, turning her gaze back to the fire. “Six months after Philip’s death. Philip was well and happy one day and then suddenly he was sick. He died in three days, no one could do anything for him.” Her voice was now cold but the fury was still there. The white bandage around her throat accentuated her pallor and the flaring mélange of color in her eyes.
    She looked up at him again and spoke clearly, articulating every word. “And then I was told that my son died, that he was dead before he was born. But I heard him cry.”
    She stared at him fixedly and he read the challenge she was throwing. “No one will believe me. But I
know
my son was born alive. They wouldn’t show me the body. It was as if they wanted me to believe that he had never existed, that I had not carried him for eight months.”
    No little brown mouse this!
Owen leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his cup held loosely between his hands.
This was a woman capable of deep and abiding passions.
    “So what were you looking for in the Bryanstons’ library?” he asked, looking intently into her eyes.
    “I don’t know. Something . . . anything . . . that would tell me what happened the night my child was born.” She lifted her embroidered purse and unfastened the little gold clasp. “I tore this page from the accounts ledger for that day. There are names and payments; I thought maybe I’d be able to track down someone who was there. One of the midwives, perhaps.”
    She looked at the paper that she held between her hands. Now that she’d started on this tale it seemed she couldn’t stop, although why it would interest the calm, attentive man sitting opposite her she couldn’t imagine. “Towards the end I was barely conscious. It was a long and difficult labor, brought on early by something . . . I don’t know. These things happen. . . .”
    She shrugged as if trying to dispel the intense concentration in the chamber. “He was born before my mother could arrive from Derbyshire. Only my mother-in-law was in attendance, and some women she hired.”
    She looked across at him. “Of course everyone says grief and exhaustion played tricks on my mind; that I couldn’t have heard my son’s cry because he was born dead. But I
did
!”
    Owen nodded. He spoke with softly melodic sympathy. “To be disbelieved on such a matter must have made your loss unendurable.”
    “Yes,” she agreed, her hand passing restlessly over the paper on her lap, smoothing out the creases where it had been folded. “Even my mother . . . my sister . . . Robin even, think that I was unhinged by grief. But it was not so.”
    “Robin?” he queried. He knew perfectly well, of course, but it wouldn’t be wise to reveal the depths of his knowledge about her family.
    “My stepbrother. Robin of Beaucaire. When his father was created Earl of Kendal, Robin took Lord Hugh’s previous title. His father and my mother have been married for fifteen years. Or is it sixteen? I can’t remember exactly.”
    Owen nodded again. “I see.” Then he frowned. “Do you believe your child is still alive?”
    “I don’t know.” She shook her head wearily. “My goal is very simple at this point. I would like to talk to someone who was there.”
    “Your mother-in-law is no help?”
    Pen gave a short bitter