“My ruby and garnet set is missing,” she said bleakly.
“I know, my love. Agnes made an inventory and your wedding diamonds have gone, too.”
“What does this mean, Lennox?” Mary asked although an impression was forming in her mind. An impression of a woman’s voice, cracked with tension, with temper and, she thought deeply, with pain formed into wraiths of misty memory. Lady Grizel had not only been at her side through her weeks of illness, but she’d been there in the beginning.
“I remember a smell. I was desperate to tell you this afternoon and then when…” she tailed off and waved a hand around the vestibule. The pale blue walls and the gleaming mahogany furniture seemed to mock the injured: Lennox whose face was now scarred for life, Duff who panted and squirmed and herself, weak from days of unnecessary medicines and lack of food. Red Will came diffidently through the main door with Alfie urging him on. The man in his rough stable clothes lowered his glance and studied the tiles.
“See to Duff, Red Will,” Lennox said.
“It was Lady Grizel’s smell I remembered,” Mary said. and she heard the growing confidence in her voice. “She favours that soap scented with brier rose.”
“Malcolm,” Lennox said, “Fetch my duelling pistols.”
“Lennox?” Mary rose then. If Lennox was going out into the old city after his mama, she would accompany him.
BELLA’S BETROTHAL an entertaining romance with humour and a touch of thematic mystery.
Novels Now 