Page 47 of Secrets of the Heart

Mrs. Neeley looked shocked. “Oh, no, my lady, I couldn’t!”

“Please? As a favor to me? I feel most dreadfully out of place, you see, with you using my title all the time. Here I am, imposing on your hospitality, and you are calling me ‘my lady this’ and ‘my lady that.’ It makes me feel even worse.”

Lilith smiled. “All right…Rachel. You are very nice.” She hesitated for a moment, then said, “I, um, are you here to see, um…”

“Mr. Hobson? Yes. I am sorry to intrude, but I had something I wanted to tell him.”

“I’m afraid that he is out right now. He has been all afternoon. If you want to wait for him, you are welcome, but I don’t know when he will return.”

“If it would not be a bother to you,” Rachel said tentatively. “I would like to speak with him, but I don’t wish to impose on you.”

Lilith smiled. “It is no bother, I assure you. But, if you don’t mind, there are some things I have to attend to, um, next door. So if you are all right just sitting here…I will tell the maid to bring you some tea.”

“That is most kind of you,” Rachel assured her. “I shall be perfectly fine here.”

“Very well, then.” Lilith started toward the door, then turned and said to her, a little wonderingly, “You are not what I expected, my—I mean, Rachel.”

Rachel grinned, saying, “Did you expect me to be another Araminta?”

“Ara—oh! Michael’s sister! I have never met her, either.”

“She is your sister, too, is she not?” Rachel pointed out.

“Yes, I suppose so, but I, well, I do not really think of her—of either of them, really—as my siblings.”

“I can tell you without fear of contradiction that you would prefer not to make Araminta’s acquaintance,” Rachel assured her. “I often wish I had not.”

A laugh escaped Lilith at Rachel’s words. “I will not pine over it, then,” she replied gaily and left the room.

Rachel did not have to wait long. The maid had just brought her tea and she had barely begun to sip it when the front door closed and there came the sound of someone striding down the hall. Michael glanced into the drawing room and stopped abruptly, seeing Rachel sitting there.

“Rachel!” His eyebrows went up, and he hurried into the room. “Is something the matter? Where is Lilith?”

He did not even seem to notice, Rachel thought, that he had addressed her by her given name. For some reason, the sound of her name on his tongue warmed her. She stood up, aware that the world seemed suddenly brighter, warmer, more exciting. She smiled because she could not keep herself from doing so.

“Hello. Lilith is next door. She had something to do there. There is nothing the matter. I just came to tell you what I found out from Mrs. Birkshaw’s maid.”

“Oh! Oh, yes. I suppose I did not expect you to come up with anything so soon.”

“I was lucky,” Rachel admitted. “I was able to arrange a ‘chance’ meeting today.”

“Mmm. Sounds less like luck than good planning,” he replied.

“Perhaps a little of both.” Rachel was aware, with a combination of embarrassment and astonishment, that she wished very much at the moment that James would take her hand. Or kiss her again.

She turned aside, gesturing in the general direction of the teapot sitting on the tray. “Would you care for a cup of tea? The maid brought two cups.”

“Yes, that would be very pleasant, thank you.”

Rachel sat back down on the sofa and busied herself with the ritual of pouring tea. She could see the faint trembling of her hand as she handed him his cup. She hoped he did not notice it.

“What did you find out?” he asked, taking a sip of tea.

“That the maid saw nothing out of the ordinary in her death. She seemed to think it was an intestinal disorder. She said Mrs. Birkshaw was very sick, could keep nothing down.”

“Could be almost anything.”

“Yes. The girl seemed quite fond of her mistress. I think she would have been more outspoken about it if she had had any doubt that Mrs. Birkshaw’s death was natural. She said, as Mr. Birkshaw had told me, that he was not there when Mrs. Birkshaw first became ill but came home as soon as he learned of it. She seemed to hold him in the highest regard, too. She believed that they loved one another devotedly.”