The Mayfair Affair (21 page)

Colonel Hampson stared at Malcolm and Suzanne. He was a tall man with sandy hair fading to gray and piercing blue eyes. Those eyes were now wide with a shock that has not yet sunk in. "We didn't hear about Trenchard unti late yesterday. I can still scarcely credit it. You're here because you're involved in the investigation?"

"We're assisting Inspector Roth of Bow Street. He's a friend. Naturally, as connections of the duke, we felt you should be informed."

Hampson touched his wife's hand. Sarah Hampson looked to be in her mid-thirties, a quietly pretty woman with delicate features and dusty blonde hair drawn back into a simple knot. She must be his second wife, Suzanne realized. She'd only have been a few years older than her stepdaughter. The Hampsons were seated side by side on a sofa covered in blue horse-cloth. The sort of sturdy fabric that stood up well to pet hair and jammy little fingers. Their drawing room was a sunny apartment filled with solid English oak furniture and a handsome Indian rug, but you could have tucked it into Mary Trenchard's salon without even scraping the paint.

"We've had little enough contact with Trenchard since my daughter died," Hampson said. "Even then, we only met Trenchard when he came out to India. By the time Sarah and I came back to England, my daughter was dead. And we hardy moved in the same circles."

Sarah Hampson put a hand to the cameo at her throat. "The duke and duchess had us to dinner when we first settled in London. They were very"—she hesitated for a fraction of a second that carried a weight of social niceties—"kind. But there was little reason for us to socialize."

It was almost precisely the same story Mary Trenchard had given them.

Malcolm met the colonel's gaze. "And yet you called on the duke a month since."

Something shifted in Hampson's seemingly mild blue gaze, though he scarcely moved a muscle. "You're as good as your reputation, Rannoch."

"I hardly think I warrant a reputation."

"I still have friends in military intelligence. I've heard about your work in the Peninsula and on the Continent."

Beside her husband, Sarah Hampson had tensed, Suzanne saw, but the colonel squeezed his wife's hand and said, "Yes, I called at Trenchard House a month or so ago, to speak with His Grace. If you've heard that, you must also have heard that the duke and I quarreled. I fear I raised my voice as I seldom do. But then I'm seldom so provoked."

"What was the provocation?" Malcolm asked in an even voice.

Hampson cast a glance at the polished pianoforte that stood by the windows, as though it stirred memories. A muscle twitched beside his mouth. "The day before, a fellow officer I'd served with in India called on me. Pickering. A good man. Solid type. Not given to fancies." Hampson swung his gaze back to meet Malcolm's own. "He told me he'd seen my daughter Jane on a London street."

"When?" Suzanne asked.

"Two days before."

Suzanne flicked a glance at Malcolm.

"Yes," Hampson said. "Four years after my daughter was reported to have died in a carriage accident in India."

"Reported?" Malcolm asked.

"Until now I saw no reason to doubt it," Hampson said. "I saw the wreckage of their carriage." He passed a hand over his face. Suzanne flinched involuntarily at the grief of a parent who has lost a child, a reflection of any parent's deepest fears. Four years on, Hampson's grief was obviously still raw. "The carriage had gone into a river," Hampson continued. "It was clear from the condition of the wreckage that it had been a serious accident. And it didn't seem surprising that the bodies were never found. But Pickering was very definite that the woman he'd seen looked just like Jane. And, as I said, he isn't given to fancies."

"Did your daughter have a cousin who resembles her?" Suzanne asked.

"No. I only have one sister, who has three sons, and my late wife was an only child. And if you will forgive my plain speaking, Mrs. Rannoch, I was a faithful husband to my first wife, as I am to Sarah. So the woman Pickering saw couldn't have been a by-blow. Naturally, at first I told Pickering he must have been mistaken. He insisted the woman had been the image of Jane. I ran through all the possibilities you mentioned. It was only then, in the face of Pickering's continued insistence, that I began to question if it was possible Jane had survived the accident." He flashed a look at his wife. "Sarah thought I was mad."

"Not that, dearest." Sarah Hampson squeezed her husband's fingers. "I was afraid you'd get your hopes up, only to be disappointed."

"My hopes were hardly high." Hampson's mouth tightened. "I thought ten to one there was some simple explanation I wasn't seeing. But if it was even remotely possible, I felt the least I owed Jane was to pursue it." He passed a hand over his face. "God knows I failed her in enough other ways."

"Darling—" Sarah Hampson said.

Hampson tightened his fingers round her own. "In any case, I called at Trenchard House. The duke received me courteously enough. But when I told him Pickering's story, he as good as called Pickering a doddering fool and me a deluded father. When I countered that, whatever my own state, Pickering was one of the sanest men I knew, Trenchard told me it was impossible. That he'd caught a glimpse of Jane's body in the water, though it was never recovered." Hampson's brows drew together. "If he hadn't said that, I might well have let the whole thing go." He met Malcolm's gaze. "I wasn't in military intelligence, but I dealt with enough deception in the Peninsula to be a fair judge of when a man is lying."

"You think Trenchard was lying?" Malcolm asked.

"At the very least about seeing Jane's body. And I couldn't think why he'd be so determined to prove to me that Jane was dead if he didn't have information to the contrary. In that moment, for the first time, I believed my daughter might still be alive." Anger and a cautious hope, still banked, shot through Hampson's voice. "I said as much, which wasn't prudent. His Grace took strong exception. I might have found the spectacle of two middle-aged men coming to blows amusing, were the circumstances not so serious. I failed my daughter in life. I was determined not to do so any longer."

Sarah Hampson gripped her husband's hand. "
We
failed her."

The colonel met his wife's gaze. "It wasn't your—"

"Yes, it was, to a degree." Sarah looked down at her wedding band. "I didn't have the least appreciation of how difficult it was for her when we married." She looked up and met Suzanne's gaze. "She was only a couple of years younger than I was, and used to running her father's household. Suddenly, there I was, supposed to be her chaperone."

"Not an easy situation for either of you," Suzanne said.

"I was her father's wife. The parent, if in name only. Too conscious of the fact that everyone looked at me as a governess who had snared the colonel."

"Sarah!" Hampson said.

"It's true, dearest, you know it is."

"I was damned fortunate to have won you."

"That's not how I saw it, my love. Or how the world saw it." Sarah Hampson shook her head. Her pearl earrings swung beside her face. "I fear I was a bit of a puritan in those days."

"Being a governess would tend to encourage that," Suzanne said, thinking of Laura's careful demeanor.

Sarah met her gaze. "Yes, quite. One has to be so much on one's guard as a governess. After I married Frederick I was considered responsible for Jane's behavior, and I knew it reflected on me. I was dreadfully inclined to deliver strictures. I worried more about how we were both perceived than about what was going on with her."

"She was my daughter," Hampson said in a low voice. "I'm the one who was responsible."

"We never should have let her marry Jack Tarrington," Sarah said. "Anyone with a scrap of knowledge of him could see it was doomed to disaster."

"There I must disagree with you," Hampson said. "Not about it being doomed to disaster. But long before she turned eighteen, no one could stop Jane from doing what she put her mind to. Besides—" He coughed. "It had reached the point where marriage was the only option."

"Sometimes scandal is preferable to marriage." Sarah drew a breath. "Jane put herself in an unfortunate situation with Jack. But I've often feared that she did it because she felt she needed to have her own establishment." She looked down at her hands, then met Malcolm and Suzanne's gazes. "Because I'd made her feel that way."

"God knows Jack Tarrington isn't the man I'd have chosen for my daughter," Hampson said. "But they both had a wild streak. I hoped they'd settle each other. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but once marriage was inevitable I hoped for the best."

"You didn't want your daughter to be Duchess of Trenchard?" Suzanne asked.

"The Hampsons go back to the Conquest," Hampson said, shoulders straightening with a touch of the military. "Nothing wrong with our name. Older than the Fitzwalters, I believe. But no, it's nothing I aspired to for Jane."

"If you knew the people who congratulated me on having married my stepdaughter off so well—" Sarah shuddered. "As if I'd arranged it."

"I've seen enough of wealth and power to know it doesn't always bring happiness," Hampson said. "Sometimes it brings quite the opposite."

Sarah smoothed her hands over the twilled blue sarcenet of her skirt. "Jane had the strength of will to be a duchess. But I should think the protocol would have driven her mad."

"Was it a happy marriage?" Suzanne asked.

Hampson grimaced. "They never even made a pretense of being in love. I think Jane tried. But she lost patience when Jack started chasing after a junior lieutenant's wife before they were a fortnight back from the wedding journey." His hand curled into a fist against the sofa cushions.

"Forgive my plain speaking," Malcolm said. "But delicacy is sadly incompatible with the needs of an investigation. You said circumstances compelled your daughter and Tarrington to marry. Was she with child at the time of the marriage?"

Hampson's gaze clashed with Malcolm's. "Is that important?"

"If there's a mystery surrounding the accident that befell your daughter and son-in-law, it could be. Your daughter was carrying the possible heir to the dukedom."

Hampson released his breath and forced his fingers to unclench. "They were caught in a compromising situation at a regimental ball, but Jane wasn't with child at the time of the wedding. It was almost three years before she became pregnant."

"Good heavens." Sarah Hampson stared across the room at a framed cross-stitch sampler, a heart surrounded by moss roses. "If Jane's still alive, what happened to the baby?"

Hampson drew a harsh breath. "Even if Jane survived, we don't know that the baby did."

"She was eight months pregnant. We've assumed she drowned, but if she survived, even if she went into premature labor, it's quite likely the baby survived as well." Sarah shook her head, dislodging a strand of pale hair. "I know we didn't do what we should have for her, but if she survived, why on earth would she not have sought us out?"

Hampson met her gaze, his own showing the same questions.

"Did Jane say anything to either of you in the days before the accident to indicate she was worried?" Suzanne asked. "Or afraid?"

Hampson shook his head. "I was busy with the East Adilabad/West Basmat business. After the loss of our men, it looked as though we might be drawn into a full-scale war. I'm afraid I didn't talk to my daughter enough."

"I didn't talk to her enough, either," Sarah said. "We were never very comfortable with each other, and I'm afraid I took the easy route and told myself she preferred not to see me. But just before the accident—about a week—I went to call on her and brought some of Ricky's things for the baby. She seemed quite genuine in her thanks. But she also seemed distracted. She kept plucking at her skirt, which was quite unlike her. When I said it was natural to be nervous about the birth, she laughed sharply and said 'If only that were all.' Naturally I asked her what she meant. Jane met my gaze." Sarah's own gaze darkened at the memory. "I'll never forget the look in her eyes. As though cutting her soul in two. She said I was fortunate never to have done anything unforgivable. Of course I told her not to be so foolish. That she couldn't possibly have done anything unforgivable, and she must learn to forgive herself for the baby's sake. At that she looked away, as though she couldn't bear to meet my gaze anymore."