As soon as Bella stepped through the door at Chatham House, her grandmother’s earbobs safely hidden in her reticule, she was brought up short by a most unusual sound. Grandfather was actually laughing in his study. That was more than a rarity. She couldn’t imagine what could possibly put the old man in such a jovial mood. Heaven help them all if he found out Elliott had been stealing the family’s jewelry. His laughter would turn to rage in the blink of an eye.

She winced at the thought. None of their lives would be worth living if he ever found out about that. But at the same time, she didn’t know how he wouldn’t notice eventually that things were missing, especially if Elliott had taken more than just Grandmama’s earbobs, and the odds were that he had.

“Oh, Bella!” Prissa appeared in the corridor from the front parlor. She looked quite unhappy with a furrowed brow and worried eyes. She gestured toward the room behind her. “Come quickly.”

An unease washed over Bella. Goodness, what was it now? Had Elliott done something else while she was gone? She quickly followed her sister back over the threshold and said, “What’s the matter? You look worried.”

“Johann,” Prissa said softly. “He arrived not long ago.”

Johann? But he wasn’t due in London for a sennight. Her unease quickly turned to panic, but Bella took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. Everyone thought she was betrothed to Greg. Johann being in Town meant nothing to her freedom at the end of the day. And though she knew that truth in her head, her heart still twisted more than a bit at what her future could so easily have been if Greg hadn’t come to her rescue and agreed to play the role of her fiancé. She never would have been able to bring anyone else up to scratch before her horrid cousin had arrived. “Why is he early?”

“You certainly don’t think he would lower himself to tell me anything, do you?” Prissa heaved out a sigh.

There was something to be said about the fact that even Prissa couldn’t abide Johann, as she found something to like about nearly everyone she encountered. And then the levity Bella had first heard upon entering Chatham House made complete sense. “Grandpapa is laughing because Johann is with him.”

Her sister nodded. “Papa’s gone off to the library and Elliott…well, I’m not sure where he went.”

Elliott. Bella felt like crying all over again. Something had to be done about their brother. “Prissa, I am terribly worried about Elliott.”

“More so than normal?”

So much more. She grasped her sister’s hand and towed her toward the gold brocade settee. “I discovered him selling Grandmama’s yellow diamond earbobs.”

Strangely, her sister didn’t appear at all surprised by that. “Where?”

“Garrard in Town,” Bella replied. Though the where wasn’t nearly the most important part of the story. “And when I tried to talk to him…” She shook her head. “He said the dukedom would be his someday and so it didn’t matter.”

“Oh, Bella. Grandmama meant for you to have them.”

And Greg had made certain she would. Bella tightened her hold on the strings to her reticule. “That aside, I have to believe it wasn’t the first time he’s done such an awful thing. He’s asked us both for our pin money and—”

“He has a byblow,” Prissa blurted out. And then she cringed as though she’d done something wrong. “I told him I wouldn’t tell anyone else.”

Bella’s mouth fell open. “I beg your pardon?”

“A daughter with an Irish girl. The mother—” Prissa winced again “—she’s Catholic. He said Papa would never approve.”

Papa would never approve of Elliott having sired a byblow whether the child’s mother was Catholic or not. “Who is she? Where is she?”

Prissa shook her head. “He said Seven Dials.”

“Elliott sired a daughter with an Irish Catholic girl who lives in a rookery?” Even as the words came out of Bella’s mouth they sounded false to her ears. Elliott was no stranger to landing himself in trouble, but she doubted even he had ever stepped foot in Seven Dials.

Prissa nodded. “And his daughter is sick. He said he needs money—”

“I would imagine anyone living in Seven Dials is disease ridden.”

Her sister frowned once more. “You don’t believe me. I can hear it in your voice.”

Bella shook her head. “I believe he told you that, Prissa. I’m just not sure I believe him.” Then she sighed. “Have you ever, in the history of knowing our brother, ever witnessed him caring about anyone other than himself?”

Prissa rubbed her brow as though she had a headache. “No,” she finally admitted. “Not really, not since we were children.”

“If he had a sick daughter, what is the likelihood that he would steal for her care?”

Prissa seemed to think about the question and then she bit her bottom lip in worry. “Perhaps having a child changed him?”

“Does he seem changed to you?” Bella took her dear sister’s hand in hers and squeezed. Prissa really was the sweetest girl alive. “He knows you have the kindest heart and that if he spun you the perfect the story, he could count on you to give him every last farthing you had and not to question any awful thing he might do.”

Prissa shook her head. “He seemed so sincere, Bella.”

Well, Elliott was a practiced liar. “What did you give him?”

“Mama’s pearls and the sapphire hair comb Papa gave me for my birthday.”

So Grandmama’s earbobs weren’t the first things. Bella hadn’t thought they were. At least Prissa had freely given him the other pieces, if being lied to could be considered freely. “We’ll find out if his Catholic girl really exists. If she does, we’ll help her and the babe. If she does not, Elliott will have to answer to Papa.”

After a moment, Prissa nodded in agreement. “But how will we find out for sure? I wouldn’t know the first thing about Seven Dials”

Neither did Bella, but she didn’t think it would come to investigating the rookery. There had to be a better way than that. Elliott might be a practiced liar, but he wasn’t very good at it a lot of the time. “We’ll—”

A grunt came from the threshold and Bella stopped mid-word to find her abhorrent cousin Johann von Guttstadt, the Count of Hellsburg, looking her over, and it appeared that he found her wanting. He was as austere as ever with his blond hair and cold blue eyes. “Arabella,” he said, his Prussian accent echoing around the room.

A cold shiver raced down Bella’s spine. She didn’t have to marry him. She wasn’t going to marry him. She had to keep reminding herself that she was free of Grandfather’s plot. “My lord, I didn’t know you’d arrived.”

His gaze flicked briefly toward Prissa as though he was annoyed they had a witness to this encounter. He grunted again. So eloquent, her cousin. Barbarian blood, indeed.

“Well,” Bella began, “I was just headed to my chambers to change for dinner.” And she did start toward the threshold, as escaping Johann’s presence was most definitely called for.

But he grasped her arm when she started to brush past him. “You are passable enough.”

So charming, her cousin. Passable enough. He wasn’t passable at all, saying something so contemptuous for no reason. “I beg your pardon?”

His frown deepened and the look from his icy eyes nearly chilled her to the bone. “I would prefer a more appealing wife, but I can make do with you.”

Before Bella could even reply to that comment, Prissa said quite loudly from the middle of the parlor. “Bella is betrothed to Lord Avery. So perhaps you’ll have luck in finding a wife who would suit you better.”

“One whom you’ll find more than passable,” Bella added, yanking her arm from Johann’s grasp and slipping past him into the corridor, her heart in her throat the entire time.

Goodness, if Greg hadn’t come to her rescue when he did, her barbarian cousin would be the only future she had.