Chapter Four

Approximately twenty laps around the billiard room later, Graham and Aaron determined that Oliver really didn’t know anything. He had, however, managed to make his hair stick up in so many directions that it looked almost blond in the morning light streaming through the window.

He’d stopped even acknowledging that Graham and Aaron were in the room, instead mumbling to himself. “I didn’t think much of it when she got quiet and stopped going out. It was February. No one socializes in February. But I should have known something was wrong. Priscilla was never quiet. She never particularly cared for London, you know, so I thought that was it. I thought she was bored.”

And on he went, alternating between declaring Priscilla unfathomable and chastising himself for not knowing something was apparently wrong.

Aaron sighed. “We need to go to his house.”

“And question his father?” Graham asked.

“I was more thinking the man needs a good dousing of cold water, and he might as well be near a dry change of clothes when we do it.” Aaron grinned. “But we could talk to the earl while we’re there.”

Graham nodded and caught Oliver on his next trip around the billiard table, throwing an arm around his shoulders and redirecting him toward the door. “Let’s get you home, shall we?”

Oliver, Graham, and Aaron were always a rather odd combination of looks and reputations, but Oliver’s state of dishevelment wasn’t helping matters this morning. Fortunately, most of the people who cared were still inside, if not still in bed.

“Is it possible she was worried about the upcoming Season?” Graham asked as they walked down the street.

“Why?” Oliver’s eyebrows drew together.

Graham winced. “Those months leading up to Christmas had been rather disastrous. I know you couldn’t be here for most of it, but trust me when I say she has reason to be concerned. She went to a musicale and tried to convince the hostess to let her rearrange the room to achieve better acoustics.”

Aaron coughed, but he was grinning too hard to convince anyone it was natural.

Oliver didn’t seem to notice, though. He just let his shoulders slump farther. “I know. She wrote me about it. Perhaps we kept her home too long, but we thought an extra year or two would make it easier. She reached the age of two and twenty months ago. Shouldn’t she know how to simply smile and nod and get through a social engagement by now?”

She should. Whereas Oliver always struggled a bit when it came to thinking through overly complex ideas, Priscilla’s mind was faster than the racehorses her family raised. Graham cleared his throat. “Maybe she doesn’t want to.”

“She should know she has to. How else would she find a husband? Send one of her crawling vines after him?” Oliver shook his head vehemently and started walking faster. “No, she’s been excited about being out in society for years, couldn’t say enough about it in her letters last December. Then this year, the invitations finally started coming and she simply chucked them in the rubbish bin.”

Aaron stumbled. “And your father let her?”

“I should have known something was wrong when he sent me back to Winterberry so soon after my arrival in London. He needed me out of the way while he . . . did whatever he did. When I came back, Prissy was gone.”

Graham had to admit it sounded suspicious. For all of Lady Priscilla’s oddities, timidity had never been one of them. A strange fascination with very obscure sciences, yes, but never a sign of bashfulness. And while Oliver’s father had never been a particularly warm fellow, he’d never struck Graham as violent. The man was an earl, after all; he’d been raised a complete gentleman. “Where do you think she went?”

“I don’t know.” Oliver stopped on the pavement, looking up at his house. “Father must, though. He’s been acting strange almost as long as Priscilla has.”

“And since she left?” Aaron asked.

Oliver shrugged. “Almost normal.”

Graham placed his hand between Oliver’s shoulder blades and gave a push. “Let’s get you cleaned up and see what we can find out, then.”

With Oliver once again looking like a polished and distinguished future earl, the three men walked toward the current earl’s study. It was going to be difficult for this to look like anything but an interrogation, but Graham wasn’t about to leave Oliver to do this alone. Aaron apparently felt the same way.

The study door was open, so the trio strolled in, Oliver leading the way.

Only the earl wasn’t there.

Oliver dropped into a chair in front of the cold fireplace and ran his hands through his recently styled hair. “What do I do now?”

Graham sat next to him. “You said he’d been acting strange. What exactly has he done?”

“He bought a chess piece.”

Aaron and Graham looked at each other, equally unsure what they were supposed to do with that information. Who bought a chess piece?

Graham cleared his throat. “You mean a chess set?”

“No, a piece.” Oliver gestured to a bookshelf behind the desk. There, beside a decanter of brandy, sat a lone chess pawn, beautifully carved in a simple but unique shape and polished until it was as smooth as glass. “It was delivered three days ago, the day after I returned to London. It was in a velvet pouch with a few papers. I thought Father was going to chuck the thing in the fire, which is ridiculous considering how much he paid for it.”

Another curious look passed between Aaron and Graham. This time it was Aaron who asked the obvious question. “How much did he pay?”

Oliver stated a sum that sent Graham groping for a chair so that he, too, could sit down. The elaborate ivory chess set Graham’s father had commissioned last year only cost three times the price of that small wooden pawn. And that had included a custom table with elaborate inlaid board. There was certainly something suspicious.

Graham crossed the room to pick up the chess piece. It was remarkable craftsmanship, but nothing worth what the earl had apparently paid. “And you think this has something to do with Priscilla?”

“It’s all I’ve got.” Oliver dropped his head into his hands.

“What about the papers that came with the piece? What did they say?” Graham asked, running a thumb along the smooth surface of the pawn.

Oliver lifted his head, eyes wide. He blinked a few times, glancing from Aaron to Graham and back again before a slight flush crept up his neck. “It was a contract.”

“For what?” Graham asked.

“More chess pieces. One delivered every six months as long as he keeps making the payments.”

The smooth pawn nearly slipped from Graham’s suddenly limp fingers. The man was going to buy more ridiculously expensive chess pieces? Every six months? Who would agree to such a thing? “Why . . .” Graham swallowed. Oliver wouldn’t know why. Even if he’d thought to ask, the earl wouldn’t have told him. “Who is the contract with?”

“I don’t know.” Oliver dropped his gaze to the carpet. “I only had a chance to glance at the contract before I heard a noise and threw it back in the drawer.”

Aaron strode to the desk, opening the first drawer on the right. “Let’s figure it out, then.”

While Graham had to admit he was impressed Oliver had found the gumption to pry into his father’s business, he wasn’t sure it was something they should all do. “We can’t go through the earl’s desk.”

“Why not?” Aaron paused, one hand already riffling through the drawer’s contents. “Even if that pawn has nothing to do with Priscilla, this is Oliver’s future the man is signing away on mysterious contracts. What if he’s lost his mind? What if he’s making other business deals like this one? He’ll sink the earldom before Oliver even buys his court robes.”

Aaron had a point. Still, it made Graham feel better when Oliver crossed the room to do the actual searching. In moments he was pulling out a small sheaf of papers. “Here it is.”

The three men leaned over the desk, heads almost touching as they looked through the document. It was a well-written contract, covering all the details and leaving no one in question of the agreement. The earl would make payments twice a year in return for a single chess piece each time. The agreement was to continue until he received the chessboard.

“That’s oddly worded,” Graham muttered. Why not say until the completion of the set? Considering the tight but straightforward language in the rest of the document, there had to be a reason it was written that way.

“His connection is a solicitor in Marlborough,” Oliver said, running a finger along the names at the bottom of the final page.

A glimmer of excitement sparked in Graham’s middle. After they’d all finished school, the three of them had set off to see the world, traveling with little baggage and no servants, hiring people along the way when needed, and absorbing everything they could. Their last adventure had been nearly five years ago, before wars and maturity had driven them home and they’d all grown up and taken on a bit more responsibility in their lives.

Marlborough wasn’t as exotic as the Caribbean, but the idea of the three of them setting off once more melted a bit of the frustrating boredom he’d been battling.

“I know that look,” Aaron said with a sigh, “but you’re going to have to do this one without me.”

Graham frowned as his excitement inside fizzled like a Chinese firecracker. “Why?”

Aaron stood and adjusted the sleeves of his coat. “Because unlike you two titled gentlemen with nothing to do but wait for your fathers to pop off, I have a job.”

As the acknowledged illegitimate son of the Marquis of Lindbury, Aaron dwelled on the edges of polite society and knew that his future was his own to carve out. Oliver and Graham knew what lay ahead for them with their estates and titles. It was a good thing that the three of them had met as boys who cared more about who was growing out of their boots the fastest than inheritances and allowances, because as men they’d probably have barely crossed paths.

By choice, though, they’d made sure their adult lives stayed intertwined.

“Don’t you work for Oliver? I think he’d approve your absence,” Graham said with a grin.

“Technically,” Aaron said, crossing his arms over his chest, “I work for Oliver’s father through his solicitor, but regardless of who oversees my work, if Oliver wants his horses ready for this year’s races, I have to go see to a problem at the stable in Sussex. My bags are already packed and ready for me to leave on tonight’s stage.”

And it would seem that once more, being adults was going to inhibit the gallivanting of the traveling trio. It was only fitting, Graham supposed, seeing as how their problems weren’t as simple as they’d been when they were youths.

Graham sighed. “I suppose it’s you and me then, Oliver. Pack your bags. We’re going to the fascinating location of Marlborough.”

The ragged and overgrown trees lining the rutted drive would have made most people cringe and turn back, but they brought nothing but a sigh to Kit because they meant she was almost home.

Nash Banfield chuckled as he shifted the reins in his hand, directing the plain, sturdy wagon through the woods. “You haven’t been gone long enough to miss the place.”

“A single day in London feels like an eternity,” Kit muttered. And she’d been gone for two. The truth was, even a quick visit to the city left her head swimming with what if questions inspired by all the smells, sounds, and sights of her old life. No matter how easy the visit—and this one had been anything but easy—the peace she’d fought long and hard to find became riddled with holes.

This trip had left a ragged gash running through her, nearly as painful as the first time she’d left London, when a single decision had ripped her future from her hands.

Patching herself up wasn’t going to be simple.

But now she was home. As the donkey pulling the wagon plodded out of the tree line, the morning sun danced across the Palladian-style manor house, lighting the columned portico and heavy roof balustrade in a happy greeting.

The simple, strong façade never ceased to encourage her. It was like a reminder from God that she could atone for the mistakes of her past, even if it took her a lifetime.

The rutted, overgrown path turned into a pressed-gravel drive that curved gracefully across the sprawling front lawn of the house.

The first time Nash had brought Kit and Daphne to the house, they’d stopped at the front steps and walked up them in awe, nothing but dreams and conviction motivating them to attempt the impossible. But now, Nash didn’t even pause the wagon, simply kept driving until he could turn off on the path that led around to the servants’ entrance on the lower level.

Children’s laughter drifted out of the open barn door to frolic with the sounds of birds in the morning air. A small smile touched Kit’s lips as she heard it. What had once seemed impossible had become a reality. This home was a safe haven for the innocent children created by the indulgences of the aristocracy. It was a way to save the futures of women who would otherwise be trampled under the feet of the greedy.

A burning sensation crept up Kit’s chest at the reminder of the man she’d gone to visit in London. His disdain for the consequences of his actions made her want to—

“You’ll find a few bolts of fabric in the back.” Nash’s voice cut through the steam building up in Kit’s throat.

She looked over at the solicitor and had to blink a few times to bring herself back into the moment. “Fabric?”

Excitement and trepidation collided, leaving her dizzy at the whirl of emotions the last five minutes had thrown at her. While some of the children were in rather desperate need of new clothing, their finances were strained due to the amount of coal they’d had to purchase this year as the temperature remained cold far longer than anyone could have expected. “Nash, we can’t—”

“It wasn’t me.” He held the reins in one hand and lifted the other in a vow of innocence. “It was Mrs. Lancaster.”

Kit bit her cheek to keep from smiling. The old shopkeeper from town was the sweetest lady Kit had ever met. Without her, she and Daphne would never have come through that trying period more than a dozen years ago as well as they had. “Let me guess, she’s tired of dusting it?”

With a smirk, Nash pulled the wagon to a halt. “No. Her customers are complaining it’s too ugly for her to keep.”

Laughter sputtered through her lips, despite Kit’s trying to keep them pressed together. No matter what she did, Mrs. Lancaster always found a way to add one or two items to their monthly supply order. Each excuse was more creative than the last as to why they absolutely had to take something or another off the shopkeeper’s hands.

Fabric being too ugly to keep on the shelf was quite a new one, though.

“I suppose if we’re doing her a favor . . .” Kit said with a smile and a sigh.

The truth was, they needed the fabric. Kit and Daphne had run out of dresses from their old lives that could be remade as the oldest girls grew. Finding clothes for the boys was even more difficult. Besides, it would let the girls learn another skill. Sewing from clean fabric was a bit different than remaking an already-cut garment.

“If it helps,” Nash said as he jumped down and offered a hand to help Kit climb to the ground, “the fabric actually is rather ugly.”

Kit laughed and pulled a small crate draped in linen from the back of the wagon. She couldn’t help but notice that the rough linen had been cut a great deal larger than was needed to protect the contents of the crate. Probably large enough to cut out half the pieces needed for a little boy’s shirt. She shook her head. “It helps.”

The door to the kitchen area opened, and three children spilled out, fighting to be the first to feed Nash’s donkey a piece of carrot or apple.

“Hands flat,” Kit called as she hauled her crate to the kitchen. “We don’t want Balaam to get a finger along with his treat.”

The children giggled as the donkey snuffled at the treats, standing obediently still while little hands patted wherever they could reach.

Inside, Kit blinked to adjust to the dimmer basement kitchen. Small square windows high in the ceiling let in some light, but it never quite seemed to reach down far enough. She plunked the crate onto the thick wooden worktable.

A woman knelt near the fireplace, using a poker to reposition a pot hanging from one of the high hooks. She glanced at Kit over her shoulder, her porcelain complexion tinted with red from the heat of the fire. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Kit’s face, and she replaced the poker on the rack without shifting her gaze.

Straightening to her slight but still somehow intimidating height, Jess crossed her arms over her chest. “How was your trip?”

Disturbing, frustrating, and more than a little terrifying, but none of that mattered. She reached into her cloak pocket and pulled out a thin set of papers, careful to leave the thicker set tied with a piece of string nestled in the cloak’s large pocket. Holding the first set of papers aloft, Kit made herself wear a carefree smile. “Successful, if a bit longer than anticipated.”

Nash set a crate on the table beside Kit’s and reached for the papers. As the solicitor in charge of their contracts and financials, he knew everything there was to know about the contract, but he still looked it over closely, checking for the proper signatures.

Jess narrowed her sharp gaze in Kit’s direction, not even sparing a glance at the contract.

Kit fought the urge to squirm. How did Jess always seem to know when something was wrong? Did Kit walk differently? Frown even though she tried not to?

“What happened?” Jess asked.

With a shrug, Kit busied herself removing the linen from the crate and folding it. “He signed the papers.”

Of course he’d signed the papers. Kit had twelve years experience getting men like him to sign the papers. Greedy men who thought nothing of letting a young girl suffer the consequences of a mutual decision alone as long as his reputation remained untarnished. Insufferable men who turned their backs on daughters who had made a mistake that money and lies couldn’t cover up. Dishonorable men who thought nothing of bending and discarding the laws of society and country if it was to their benefit.

Jess cleared her throat, and Kit looked up from the cloth she’d been folding. Or rather thought she’d been folding. A pointed look from Jess and Nash’s wide-eyed wonderment made Kit look down and realize she’d been grinding the poor linen into the table with angry twists.

She cleared her throat and gently smoothed the fabric before folding it with care. Then she grabbed the uncovered crate of dry goods and hauled it into the storage room.

Jess followed right behind her.

Kit was going to have to tell her something, but what? She certainly wasn’t about to say anything about the charming man with the lemonade. Jess would assume the man had nefarious intentions, and Daphne would dream up ten romantic scenarios before she could even blink.

The threatening footmen should probably be mentioned, though. They’d been a first. Had Lord Charles known she was coming? The same murky reputation that had the blackguards of London trembling when The Governess announced she was there to make them pay for their sins—quite literally—may have grown to the point that her arrival was anticipated.

But to be prepared enough to send miscreants after her before she’d even gotten around the corner? It wasn’t as if Kit was descending upon negligent fathers and vile philanderers every other night. They took in a woman to help once, maybe twice a year.

Yes, Jess and Daphne needed to know about the prepared attack, but how to tell the story without including Lord Wharton?

“Kit?” Jess lifted the lid on the flour box and began refilling it.

“What else do you want to know?” Kit kept her back turned, busying herself with placing items on the shelves with care. “Nash should have the first payment by next week, and Priscilla is safely tucked away with a wonderful family in Yatesbury where no one will ever think to look.”

Though how sweet, strange Priscilla had ever ended up in the arms of a cad like Lord Charles, Kit would never understand.

Jess coughed. “That’s because no one goes to Yatesbury. I’m not even certain the people who live there know it’s a village.”

“Which makes it the perfect place for a young woman who doesn’t want to be found.”

The lid to the flour box shut with a clang, but Jess didn’t move. Finally Kit had nothing left to unpack and was forced to turn around.

“What was he like?” Jess asked.

An image of Lord Wharton’s grin as he handed her a glass of lemonade flashed through Kit’s mind. She shook her head to clear it. “Lord Charles Tromboll?”

One thin golden eyebrow rose slightly above Jess’s shrewd gaze. “Is there another he involved in this scenario?”

Kit tried to pass it off with a shrug. “Priscilla’s father. But he signed his contract weeks ago.”

That actually had been one of the easiest negotiations Kit had ever done. He’d been almost happy to have a solution that allowed Priscilla to safely have the baby but still have some way of creating a future for herself.

“Then obviously I’m not talking about him,” Jess said.

“Lord Charles was reluctant, of course,” Kit said. The putative fathers were always reluctant. It was so easy for them to walk away, to retain their prospects and reputations. “I was able to persuade him, though.”

“With logic and compassion?” Jess’s voice dripped with disbelief.

“No.” Kit drew her shoulders back and turned toward the door. “The law plainly states that men have to provide for their offspring, legitimate or not. Reminding them that they can quietly support the child and save the reputations of both parents instead of forcing the desperate mother to drag his name down along with her own is all it takes.”

Well, that and Kit’s threatening to expose whatever other ugly secrets she’d dug up about them. Yes, she’d been yelled at, spit on, and called a blackmailer, and she hadn’t even been able to argue that point, since she was, in effect, blackmailing them. But she was blackmailing them into doing what was right, so it wasn’t really a bad thing.

She just didn’t want Jess and Daphne to know about that part of it.

Jess placed an arm on Kit’s shoulder, keeping her from retreating back to the kitchen. “I know I’ve only been here two and a half years, but I’ve seen you return from these trips enough to know there’s something you aren’t telling me.”

Kit tightened her grip on the empty crate. “I suppose I could mention that the mail stage I took last night had a wobbly wheel and I spent the entire ride terrified we’d end up in a ditch.”

One side of Jess’s mouth kicked up in a knowing grin. “You could mention that. But I don’t think it’s worth it. Obviously you made it home in one piece.”

“I’m sure anything you’re noticing is simply the remains of my fear on my ride home.” Never mind that she’d been so consumed with memories of the strange man and the hired thugs that she’d only noticed the wobbly wheel in the vaguest of ways.

Jess pushed past Kit to exit the storage room. “I’ll just tell Daphne that you can’t make these trips anymore. They’re obviously wearing on you.”

Kit chased Jess into the kitchen, dropped the crate onto the table, and braced herself on it as she leaned over the table, staring Jess down with the sort of bravery only friendship could allow. “You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t I?” Jess placed a hand on the table and leaned in as well, lifting her other hand to point a finger in Kit’s direction. “You’re as pale as that linen, doing your best not to look me in the eye, and you’ve licked your lips twenty-three times since you came in the door. You can’t tell me that something didn’t happen.”

“Twenty-three times?” Kit asked with a bit of awe in her voice, her hand flying up to see if she had indeed been licking her lips without noticing. “You actually counted?”

Jess didn’t answer, just stared at Kit. It was times like this when Kit was forced to remember that Jess hadn’t been with them forever, that her past was a large block of unknown, but at some point she’d been a spy. Fortunately she’d been on England’s side, despite the lilt of a French accent that occasionally flitted through her words when she was especially tired.

Kit swallowed hard and licked her lips and then had to restrain the urge to again give in to what was, apparently, a nervous habit of hers. She’d never be a match for Jess, but that wasn’t going to stop her from trying.

The deep sound of a throat clearing broke the stalemate first, and both women swung around to see Nash standing in the doorway with a paper-wrapped bundle. “Should I come back later?”