Chapter 30

When a man wanted information that he didn’t already have, he had to go to sources he had as of yet not visited. The problem was, when it came to learning more about Isabella, the only people Griffith hadn’t yet asked were her collection of doting suitors. To this point, he’d done everything he could to pretend the group of unattached, powerful young men hadn’t existed.

But seeing as how that hadn’t aided his cause any, it was time to try a different strategy.

“Tell me again what I’m doing here?” Colin McCrae, Georgina’s husband and a man who somehow seemed to know nearly everything about everyone in London, adjusted the sleeve of his jacket and looked around the edges of the ballroom. “I could be dancing with my wife.”

“If you’d known the information I need, I’d have been happy to let you dance with your wife.” Griffith rubbed his forefinger against his thumb and angled his shoulders to avoid brushing into too many people as they made their way to their target.

“My apologies for not seeing anything strange about a bunch of powerful men swarming around the most popular woman of the Season. It happens every year, you know.” Colin put a hand on Griffith’s arm and brought them to a halt. “Seriously, Griffith, what do you expect me to do?”

Griffith lifted an eyebrow and tried not to look upset. When he’d realized that he had no way of finding out what he wanted to know without somehow becoming someone he’d never been, or at least hadn’t been in so many years that it no longer mattered, frustration like he’d never known had eaten away at his composure. Colin’s striding in the door with Georgina on his arm had been a godsend. “You’re going to gossip.”

“Gossip.”

“Yes.”

The two men stared at each other, Colin’s blue eyes boring into Griffith’s, unintimidated despite the vast disparity in social class.

Griffith sighed. “That is what you do, isn’t it? Gossip and listen and get people to tell you things they had no intention of telling you?”

“While your confidence in my abilities is rather flattering, I hate to tell you that my vast knowledge is more the result of observation and patience than any actual ferreting out of information.” Colin ran a hand behind his neck. “What exactly are you wanting me to find out?”

“Something or someone was encouraging these men to keep pursuing Isabella.”

Colin coughed. “Are you sure it wasn’t Isab . . . er, Miss Breckenridge herself? Women have been known to simply enjoy a great swarm of admirers.”

“No.”

Neither spoke for a few moments, and only the swell of orchestra music and the occasionally overloud comment from someone nearby broke the silence.

Colin coughed. “No, you aren’t sure, or no, it wasn’t her?”

“Colin, nearly every single man of any significance has spent time paying court to the woman I love.”

Colin choked on air and went wide-eyed.

Griffith didn’t stop to let his shocking announcement sink in. “They’re a competitive lot, but they wouldn’t all have stayed in the game unless they thought they had some sort of advantage. I want to know what it was.”

“Was?”

He wasn’t even going to dignify that comment with an answer. Right now Griffith was expending a great deal of time and energy to figure out what, exactly, was going on with Isabella. Everything he knew about her family situation in Northumberland would have pointed to her acting in a different manner than she was. Something was going on in her uncle’s house to change that. He had to focus on that part of the problem. Because if he actually began to consider the fact that he might not eventually be the one to win her hand, his brain would become overrun by the ensuing emotional panic.

“May we keep walking now?”

Colin inclined his head and took a large leading step toward a group of three young lords. “To gossip we go.” He stopped again. “And why can’t you go gossip without me?”

“Because I’m not any good at it,” Griffith growled between gritted teeth, knowing what was coming next.

Colin grinned. “I know. I just wanted to hear you say it.”

A moment later Colin stopped again. This time within an arm’s breadth of the first man Griffith had wanted to talk to.

“Why are we stopping now?” Griffith whispered.

“Because I’m not a septuagenarian matron with a cane who can bust in and take over any conversation she wishes.”

Griffith had to concede that point and was gratified to know he’d made the right decision bringing Colin in on this fact-finding mission. Griffith dealt very well with people as long as honesty was the most essential element in the communication. Unfortunately he was as awkward with social dances as he was with real ones.

“We should talk about something,” Colin murmured.

“Like what?”

“Anything.”

“I assume you mean we should talk about anything besides the need to be talking about something.”

Colin rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “What would you normally be talking about at a thing like this?”

He’d normally be holing up in a corner until he’d made enough of a presence to get out of a place so full and confining that he could barely breathe without having to apologize for bumping into someone. Which, come to think of it, was a rather brilliant way to start a conversation.

A grin touched his lips as he shifted sideways. “We don’t need a conversation. We need his attention.” A slight angling on his feet and half a step to the left and Griffith was bumping his shoulder into the other man’s back the way he had done to countless other people in countless other ballrooms.

“I beg your pardon, Lord Ivonbrook. I’m afraid I misstepped in the crush.”

The younger man clapped Griffith on the back and made him wince. Not from any sort of pain but from the sheer discomfort of the conversation he was about to enter. “Do you intend to step out onto the dance floor with those moves tonight?”

As the other man laughed at his own joke, Griffith tried to muster a self-deprecating smile. He must have been fairly successful, because the man didn’t turn and walk awkwardly away.

“Have you met my sister’s husband, Mr. Colin McCrae?” Griffith gestured toward Colin, and the two men inclined heads in acknowledging bows.

“Ah, yes, Mr. McCrae. You married Lady Georgina two years ago?”

Colin sighed and smoothed a hand over his waistcoat. “Indeed I did.”

Lord Ivonbrook smirked. “She’s a very beautiful woman.”

“That she is. A beautiful wife is quite a prize for a man.”

If Griffith didn’t know that Colin was hopelessly in love with his sister, he would have been tempted to deck the man right there in the ballroom. Without actually saying anything insulting, he’d reduced Georgina to little more than a pretty vase to be displayed in the front hall to impress visitors.

“A prize such as any man can hope to gain.” Lord Ivonbrook lifted his glass of punch in a toast to the sentiment.

“Oh?” Colin rocked back on his heels. “You have plans of joining the privileged set anytime soon?”

“I do. Though my path just got a bit more difficult.” Lord Ivonbrook turned to Griffith. “Did you torture him with preconditions and stipulations before he married Lady Georgina? The hassle of marrying off such a popular woman must have had some gains.”

Griffith tried to take Colin’s lead and smile at the barb, but he didn’t know what to say.

Colin saved him with a groan. “You’ve no idea what I went through. Is the lady’s father putting you through your paces?”

“Uncle.” The man shrugged. “He’s a bit out of his tree about it, but it’s a simple thing to do, or at least it should have been. Politics can be a brutal mistress.”

“I’ve often thought it would be so,” Colin replied.

“Are you into politics, Mr. McCrae?” Lord Ivonbrook inclined his head in Griffith’s direction. “You’ve a good chance at the House of Commons if you choose to make a run for it.”

“That would certainly be something to consider. Those green benches are a far cry from the red ones in the House of Lords, though.” Colin gave a self-deprecating laugh.

“Indeed.” Lord Ivonbrook leaned in. “We recently abandoned a bill they’d passed up to us. All sorts of holes and problems with it. Nearly half the peers had a change to make to the bill before we tabled it. Shame.”

“Were you in great favor of it, then?”

The man shrugged, and his gaze began to wander away from Colin to drift over the heads of the rest of the room. “It had some merit. Mostly, its passing would have been convenient.”

“I have to know,” Colin dropped his voice, as if he were the one imparting a secret, “are you saying there was an additional perk attached to this bill?”

“Only favor with a certain lady’s family.” Lord Ivonbrook laughed. “Nothing more. I’ve still got my eye on the prize. I just have to find another way to get there.”

Griffith’s hands curled into fists at the leer that crossed Lord Ivonbrook’s face, but he forced himself to stay silent. Watching Colin was like watching a master artist sculpt clay. A little nudge here, a trim or a cut there, and then you were getting exactly what you wanted.

Colin shook his head, eyes wide in awe as he turned a bit to the side, angling his shoulder so the three of them weren’t as closed off as they had been before. “That’s a lot to keep track of.”

Lord Ivonbrook stiffened his shoulders. “That’s why we were born to it.”

“God knows what He’s doing,” Colin murmured.

“Indeed He does.” Lord Ivonbrook’s attention was caught by something beyond Colin’s shoulder. “Mr. Harrop, how did your horse do at the race last weekend?”

Griffith and Colin stepped slowly from the new conversation before setting off in search of the next man Griffith had seen being rather persistent about clinging to Isabella’s skirts.

“What bill was he referring to?” Colin whispered.

“We’ve tabled a few recently, but only one with that much discussion. The Apothecary Act was abandoned not too long ago.” Griffith knew Lord Pontebrook had been a very vocal proponent of the act. But would he have actually made it a condition of Ivonbrook’s suit?

They approached the next man and Colin worked his charms all over again. And with two men after that. The answers they got were forming a disturbing pattern.

The Apothecary Act had been a hotly contested bill for many years, going back and forth between all the parties involved. For the most part the lords had stayed out of it, waiting on the physicians, druggists, and apothecaries to come to their own agreement. The number of men showing a vested interest in it over the past two and a half months had been rather surprising.

Griffith looked at the men grouped around Isabella.

Most of them were young. Nearly all of them were peers.

Practically the entirety of the unmarried portion of the House of Lords, save himself, was plying her with punch and begging to take her onto the dance floor.

Colin, who had approached the most recent target on his own, sidled up to Griffith’s side. “That makes five men who’ve hinted that a political loss has made their pursuit of a particular woman more difficult.”

Griffith didn’t like the idea that was forming in his head. But as he worked every encounter, every conversation, every piece of gossip through the filter of this new information, one conclusion seemed to rise up above all the others. And it nearly made him ill.