Frances shook her head. “Darling, you aren’t another woman, or you’d know. Females like Matilda are deadly. The kind who can drip venom with such graciousness you’d never scotch the rumors she’s set about.” Mimicking, her normally very attractive contralto became light and very innocent. “’My dear, I’ve been told the most dreadful thing about someone, and I can’t bear to believe it could be true! If you swear not to repeat a word, I’ll confide in you—I haven’t been able to sleep a wink since I learned that—’” She returned to her natural voice. “And by the time she’s finished, reputations are in ruins.”

“Is there any likelihood that Thomas Napier might consider marrying Mrs. Clairmont? I’m told there was some hint of it in the newspapers in the spring.”

Her eyebrows rose in interested speculation. “Now that’s a rumor that Matilda herself probably started. I haven’t heard it from a reliable source. And if you want my honest opinion, I’d say he’s very likely got a mistress tucked away. He doesn’t strike me as a man on the loose. One can always tell, you know.”

“Could his mistress be his daughter’s secretary?”

She considered that. “She might be. But she isn’t. I only know Margaret Tarlton to speak to, but she’s not one to waste herself in a boudoir. She’s ambitious, Ian. There’s not a breath of scandal about her, which is the surest proof.”

“Who bought the house in Chelsea she lives in?”

“That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? The money, I’m told, came from a trust fund her father had set up. But somehow I doubt it. He was a very junior civil servant in Delhi, and her mother was a Saddler, from Norfolk. No money there either! Whoever her sponsor is, he’s been very careful.”

“Could it be Napier?” he asked a second time.

She tilted her head to one side, considering. The lamplight caught her dark blue eyes, and they sparkled like sapphires. “Ian, are you sure about this?”

“No. It’s supposition, based on bits of conjecture, not solid fact.”

“Thomas Napier is a very fine man. Highly regarded in London, and of course with a political following that makes a false step dangerous. For you—and for him. Why this sudden interest in the Napiers and Margaret?”

“I think she’s dead. Murdered, very likely, but whether by the man we have in custody in Dorset or by someone else, I’m not sure.”

“But that’s horrible! In Dorset, you say? I don’t understand!”