A man manacled to your bed is nothing to be ashamed of.
Advice to Felicity Langley from her Nanny Tasha
“This is no time to play the pious widow!” Aunt Bedelia told her niece in no uncertain terms. “You must take that man to your bed.”
Actually, Minerva thought it a perfect time to play the pious widow and run for the nearest nunnery.
“And why wouldn’t you want to have Langley close?” Nanny Helga asked in that coy manner of hers. “You are, after all, madly in love with him, are you not?”
With all eyes on her, waiting for her to either declare her love or her engagement a hoax, as most of them suspected it to be, Minerva instead bolted to her feet, filled with a sudden urge to flee.
And as it was, Providence concurred with her sudden spate of cowardice, offering her the perfect excuse to do just that. For there, out the window, she spied the retreating figure of Lord Langley, along with Thomas-William and a young lad, ambling down the garden path toward the mews, where, much to her chagrin, a carriage awaited them.
Oh, damn that man! she silently cursed. He truly thought he could slip away and leave her to all this scandal? Not to mention, they hadn’t finished their conversation about the duel or that “robbery” last night.
Robbery, indeed. She’d wager the Sterling diamonds that it hadn’t been a mere robbery. But she’d get no answers to any of it if she let him slip away.
“Excuse me, Auntie,” she said. “I just remembered I promised Lord Langley I would accompany him on an errand.” She nodded politely to the others. “Ladies, if you will excuse me.” Pleasantries aside, she dashed from the room, ignoring the round of questions and complaints that followed her.
Up the stairs she went to catch up her bonnet, pelisse, and gloves, and then raced down the back stairs to avoid a second chorus of queries from the dining room. At the back door, she nearly collided with Mrs. Hutchinson, who was coming up from the kitchen lugging a basket.
“Oh, my lady! Are you going as well?” the housekeeper huffed. “For I would have packed more if I’d known you were off to the country with himself.”
Off to the country? Damn that Langley! Jaunting off and leaving her behind to deal with . . . well, everything.
“It is no matter, Mrs. Hutchinson,” Minerva said, catching up the handle and going out the door. “I’m quite sure Lord Langley won’t mind sharing with me. Not in the least.”
The lady answered as honestly as she always did. She snorted loudly and then chuckled her way back down to her kitchen lair as if she knew Lord Langley wouldn’t like Minerva’s arrival into his plans.
Not in the least.
Minerva smiled to herself, but didn’t waste another moment, hurrying out the back door and down the garden path. Langley was just settling into the seat of a plain curricle when she caught hold of the railing and pulled herself up and in beside him. “What a pleasant surprise, my lord. Mrs. Hutchinson says we are off for a ride in the country.” She smiled at him and settled her hand on his sleeve. “How odd I didn’t get the news until it was nearly too late to join you. But here I am. Happily, we are in this adventure together. Isn’t that so?”
Langley glanced up at Thomas-William, who sat in the driver’s seat. The older man offered no help, just a shrug that tossed this problem back into Langley’s lap.
“Lady Standon, get out of the carriage,” he ordered.
Thomas-William winced.
“No,” the lady said, in a tone that suggested she wasn’t about to brook any objections.
In the tiger’s seat, Grady, one of Andrew’s lads, cheeky little fellow that he was, let out a low whistle, like a warning.
Beside him, Langley found Lady Standon not only settled in but, having tied her bonnet on, was even now inspecting the basket she’d brought, no doubt packed by Mrs. Hutchinson. When she plucked out a scone, she turned to Grady. “Have you had anything to eat this morning, child?”
“No, milady,” the boy whispered, awed to be so addressed.
She handed over the tasty morsel and smiled at the lad, conquering his stomach and heart in one fell swoop. “Scone, my lord?” she offered him.
“I will not be bribed with scones. Not even Mrs. Hutchinson’s. Now get out.”
“No, thank you.” She settled deeper into the seat. “Where are we off to this morning? Mrs. Hutchinson said something about the country.”
Before he could reply—which he wasn’t going to—Grady piped up from the back, “To Langley House, ma’am.”
This time, Thomas-William let out a loud guffaw, for the man knew, as did Langley, that now there would be no stopping Lady Standon from coming along. For if they did toss her out, she’d just follow.
Langley shot a black glare over his shoulder at Grady, but the boy was too happily eating his treat to notice. Instead, he made a note to himself to speak to Lord Andrew about feeding his brats more so they weren’t susceptible to bribes with scones . . . or a pretty face.
“Lovely day to show me my new home,” Minerva was saying. “You do delight in surprising me, Lord Langley, don’t you?”
“Your new wha-a-a-t?” He tried to make sense of what was happening, but even as he stammered out his dismay, she waved her hand toward Thomas-William, a sort of by-your-leave gesture. One the other man wasn’t going to argue about, for much to Langley’s dismay, the man picked up the reins and had the horses off and down the mews, driving with a steady, capable hand.
Oh, it wasn’t as simple as that, Langley vowed. Reaching forward, he caught the reins and pulled the horses to a stop. “You are not going, Lady Standon.”
“Langley, like it or not, I can be of use to you. You determined that when you proposed this engagement of ours. You wouldn’t have offered it if it didn’t help whatever cause it is you have embroiled yourself in.”
“Lady Standon, this is hardly the time or the place—”
She wasn’t done yet. “I can be of use to you. I proved that last night. If I hadn’t seen that child’s warning, you would be lying in the parlor with candles around your body and that circus of doxies you’ve got installed in my house wailing in mourning.”
“I don’t think they’d be wailing—” he began to point out. He doubted the margravine could even work up a plausible case of tears.
“Last night aside, if you think you can leave me home in that house—having to face callers and listen to the advice of those nannies—I will shoot you myself and save Chudley the trouble.” She folded her arms over her chest and stared at him, as if daring him to contradict her. “I still have Thomas-William’s pistol.”
“Aye, she does,” Thomas-William concurred. Well, he needn’t grin when he did.
“Please, Langley, let me be of some use,” she pleaded. “Even if I am naught but an outward distraction as to the true purpose of this outing.”
Langley set his teeth together. She was right on all counts. And he could see now why she had never remarried—she was probably sharper and more astute than half the bachelors in London put together.
Still, he shook his head, but before he could explain his reasons, or more to the point, think of some reasonable ones, she continued blithely on. “If anything, my presence gives this jaunt a far more respectable air than the three of you sneaking off on whatever nefarious business you have up your sleeves. So if anything, I would say my addition to your party is fortuitous. Especially if you plan on being shot at again. I daresay I will make every attempt to save your life again, but please, my lord, don’t expect me to make it a habit. I quite ruined my gown last night.”
There was another whistle from the tiger’s seat, and this time Langley turned and glared at Grady. “Listen well, you little kinchin cove,” he said, “I can put you out as well.”
The boy gave him the same sort of look Minerva had. The one that said, You can try.
For she had him dead to rights. Having her in the carriage iced their journey with a sweet coating of innocence.
That, and he wouldn’t put it past her to go fetch the pistol, if only to further her point.
“Oh, demmit,” Langley muttered, letting go of the reins and throwing himself back in his seat. “I am getting too old for all this,” he muttered, but said nothing further, realizing that setting them both out would cause more gossip than leaving them in. As it was, it was exactly as Minerva had said, that it would appear to anyone watching him—and he was positive someone was—he was out for an early morning carriage ride with his betrothed.
Taking this as a sign of defeat, Thomas-William clicked his tongue at the horses and they once again began to trot down the empty street.
“You are getting too old for all this,” Minerva agreed as they came up to Grosvenor Square and she said to Thomas-William, “You will want to turn on Oxford Street.” So she even knew the way. Why was he surprised? “Now Langley, at your age—”
“At my age?” He straightened up. “How old do you think I am?”
Lady Standon shook her head and glanced down at the buttons on her gloves. “I know how old you are.”
“Been checking up on me?”
To this she sent him a scathing glance. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Perhaps I should do the same with you, Lady Standon.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Do some checking up on you,” he said. “And the company you keep.”
She flinched a bit before she bluffed and said, “Be my guest.”
Oh, he would, once he got done with his own troubles, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. Instead, he wrapped his coat up around his neck and leaned against the wall, closing his eyes.
“Langley, what are you doing?” she asked, nudging him.
He opened one eye and looked at her. “Trying to get some rest.” With that said, he closed it and nestled deeper into the corner.
“Has Thomas-William been to your house before?”
“No.” He didn’t bother to open an eye this time.
“Does he know the way?”
He could hear the rising annoyance in her voice and didn’t feel like abating it. “No.”
“Then how are we supposed to get there?”
This time he opened both eyes. “You seem to be quite informed as to my business—you direct him, my lady.”
Instead of an argument, she nodded and leaned forward to give the man directions. “Take the Blackfriars Bridge, then make your way to the Kent Road—”
“Westminster is closer,” he offered without thinking.
“I thought you were sleeping,” she said, arms crossing over her chest. “Certainly, Blackfriars is a more direct—”
“Westminster, Lady Standon, or you can get out.”
“Well, then,” she huffed, “Westminster it is, Thomas-William. But if Lord Langley gets us lost, he’s the one getting out to ask for directions.”
“Lord Langley,” came a soft voice, nudging him out of a deep sleep. After a night spent searching for Nottage, he was exhausted and still too tired to be roused quickly—not that he could avoid it. Lady Standon finished her task with a heavier jab to his ribs and a stern order, “Wake up. We’ve come to a village, and I don’t think you want me to call a lot of attention to our arrival by announcing ourselves at the local inn.”
Langley opened his eyes and straightened, glancing around to get his bearings. For indeed they were in the village near his ancestral home, at the crossroads that would lead one on to Croydon or across the green hills to Langley House.
And she certainly had the right of it. He didn’t want to call attention to his arrival. The prodigal son as it were.
“Lady Standon, are you always so astute?”
“I’ve learned to be,” she replied.
Once again there was that mysterious, wistful note to her words, the one that said there was more behind her confession, but just as he wasn’t quite willing to reveal his true intentions, he didn’t think he had the right to press her.
He stretched again, this time coming fully awake, and found the carriage sitting atop the hill that looked down on the pretty little green valley where his family had lived for generations. In the middle sat a familiar, good-sized manor house, done in brick with three great chimneys rising from a steep gabled roof.
“Is that Langley House?” she asked.
“Aye,” he said, feeling a bit of awe and trepidation. Home. He’d traveled halfway round the world and back only to stand here and feel as awed as he had in the Sultan’s palace. No glittering gold, no towering minarets, just the green grass and tall oaks that called to his very roots.
“It’s a lovely place,” she mused.
“It is,” he said, shaking his head for a moment, as if he didn’t quite recognize it. Behind them, Grady slept, curled up in the tiger’s seat, Minerva having at some point put the lap robe over him.
At least he assumed it was Minerva.
She turned in her seat and smiled. “How long has it been since you were here?” she said in a soft voice, so as not to wake the boy.
Langley sighed. “Since I joined the Foreign Office.”
Minerva’s mouth fell open. “So long?”
“Yes, so long,” he said, nodding to Thomas-William, who turned the carriage down the drive. “My father and I quarreled and . . . well . . .”
“I take it he didn’t approve of your choice of professions,” she said, her gaze scanning the well-manicured lawns and the line of pretty trees coming into view.
“My father rarely approved of anything I did,” he told her. Farther along, the pond sparkled with dappled sunlight, and there were children by its edge, fishing poles in hand and their laughter a sweet greeting.
The pond! Good God, he had all but forgotten about the pond. It had been one of his favorite places as a child. One of many, he now recalled. How ever could he have forgotten it?
“My father loved this place, and all I could ever see was the horizon beyond it.”
“That isn’t all that unusual,” she said, her gaze sweeping over the meadows and the graceful trees.
“He said someday I would come home and regret ever leaving.”
She murmured something, perhaps her own remembrance of a place lost. “Do you?” she said after some time.
“Yes . . . I mean to say, no,” he corrected. “Oh, bother, I don’t know.”
“Don’t fret over it. You can’t get back the time you’ve lived, and all you have is what is before you,” she said sagely.
“Egads, I find myself betrothed to a bluestocking,” he teased. “Who was that, Aristotle?”
She laughed. “No, Aunt Bedelia.”
Then they both laughed, as did Thomas-William.
Now they had dropped down from the hill and were coming up the main drive where it curved through the lawn. Minerva was leaning over the edge and smiling.
When the lady did, her entire face lit up from its usually staid expression. There was something almost magical about seeing her so.
“What is making you grin?”
“The snowdrops—such pretty little things.” She waved at the white blossoms blooming in happy clumps throughout the lawn. “It is so odd, because just this morning I was thinking of just these flowers.”
“And now you find them,” he said, glancing over them, but not feeling the same joy, rather a sort of melancholy.
“Have they always been here?”
“Yes. At least as long as I can remember. My mother loved them. She paid the local children to dig them and divide them and then let them plant them wherever their fancy took them.” He tapped Thomas-William on the shoulder and the man stopped the carriage. Langley climbed down and held out his hand to Minerva.
She hesitated for a moment, but then slipped her fingers into his and came with him. He waved at Thomas-William to drive on, and they set off along an ambling path that cut across the lawn. He reached down and plucked a handful of the flowers for her, and like the orange blossoms last night, she accepted them with a bit of a blush on her cheeks.
“She liked to scatter hope,” Minerva said, taking his offering.
“Pardon?”
“Snowdrops. They represent hope. The first flowers in the spring. Hope for a new beginning.” She took a sniff of the delicate blossoms and then shyly glanced over at him. “Perhaps you were meant to be here today. To find your hope.”
He arched one brow. “Lady Standon, you harbor an Eastern philosopher beneath that very English exterior of yours.”
Minerva laughed. “Don’t let Aunt Bedelia hear you say that. She’ll accuse you of corrupting me utterly.”
It was almost on the tip of his tongue to ask who was the worse corrupter, he with his high praise, or her aunt urging her to take him to his bed.
But then he’d have to confess to eavesdropping, which he suspected she certainly wouldn’t approve of.
“Langley, why are we really here?” she mused, having taken a deep sniff of her flowers.
“My dear Lady Standon, we are here to visit with my tenants, the Harrows, nothing more.” He glanced ahead at the house as it came fully into view.
“Minerva,” she said, also looking straight ahead at the house, still blushing from his offering or at her own boldness.
“Pardon?”
“Minerva. I would rather you call me Minerva. Lady Standon sounds so terribly formal.”
“If that is what you wish,” he said, bowing his head in acquiescence.
After a rather too long moment of silence, she glanced over at him.
“Yes? Is there something more?” he asked.
“Aren’t you going to offer me the same courtesy?”
“What courtesy?
“To call you by your given name, Ellis.”
“Absolutely not,” he avowed, shaking his head. He’d never liked his name, the moniker of some great uncle who’d been a renowned scholar and theologian.
“Whyever not?” she persisted.
He pulled to a stop, for not far ahead came a man carrying a handful of fishing poles.
“Langley! Whyever won’t you let me call you by your given name?”
He turned and faced her, his hand coming to cup her chin. “Because my dear, lovely Minvera, I prefer it when you call me Langley, as you just did. It sounds as if you can’t decide whether you want to box my ears or kiss me.” He leaned closer, right up to her ear, so close that his breath whispered over her, “And because I like seeing you puzzle out which desire will win.”
Then he had the audacity to give her a cheeky wink, and before she could utter another exasperated “Langley,” he turned to the man approaching them.
“Hello, there. It has been a long time, Mr. Harrow!” He extended his hand and shook Harrow’s with vigor. “And most excellent to see you in such good health. I hope you don’t mind my intrusion, but I was in the neighborhood—”
“Mind? But of course not! This is your home,” Mr. Harrow said, nodding toward the house. “And you look in good health as well, my lord. All those rumors about your demise. Me and Mrs. Harrow never believed a word of them!”
Langley glanced over at him as they crossed the yard and headed toward the stairs. “You didn’t?”
The man waved a hand at the notion. “No! Why would I when your boxes kept coming just as regular as ever?”
It was only after an hour or more of pleasantries, a round of visits and happy greetings from the servants—for word of Lord Langley’s return ran through the house and out into the gardens like wild fire. Then there was tea and refreshments served by Mrs. Harrow, dozens of questions posed by the younger Harrows—who had heard of the legendary Baron Langley and his travels from grand tales told by the servants—and a full report by Mr. Harrow as to the well-being of the tenants and the estate, before Langley finally got to the point of his visit.
For ever since Harrow said that Langley’s boxes had never stopped arriving, he’d been in an impatient state of nerves.
They’d kept coming? How could that have been when he’d been in Abbaye Prison all that time?
“As you mentioned, I’ve had regular shipments of crates sent here—” Langley began.
“Yes, of course,” Harrow said eagerly. “And as you instructed, we’ve stored them in the attic. Save the boxes you asked I send on to your friend in Hampstead.”
“Aye, about those—” Langley began.
“Poor Mr. Ellyson,” Mrs. Harrow said, passing a plate of biscuits to Minerva. “I am sure you heard of his passing.”
Langley paused. “Yes, I did. And I had hoped—”
Mr. Harrow nodded. “I was just about to send off some of your collections to him when Mrs. Harrow noticed a line in the paper about his passing.”
“My sister sends me the papers from Town,” she explained to Minerva.
“So we kept it safe for you—”
“It’s here?” Langley blurted out, losing his characteristic debonair manner of cool disdain.
Even Minerva gaped at him.
But how could she know what this might mean? His last box to George? All his hopes.
Langley tried to tamp down his rising cheer. This was better than he could have imagined. Still, he reined in his passions and said with a more detached air, “Would you mind if I were to look through it . . . and the others as well?” He paused for a second. “There is a particular piece I would like to retrieve as a wedding present for my bride. And then we will bother you no further and be on our way.”
At this point he reached over and caught Minerva’s hand, and to his amazement, she played her part of surprised and grateful fiancée with amazing believability, by smiling graciously at him.
Mr. Harrow glanced over at his wife and then back at the baron. “You aren’t here to inspect the house?”
“Well, if you would like me to—”
“You aren’t here to show Lady Standon the residence?” Mrs. Harrow asked.
“You haven’t come to put us out?” one of the younger lads ventured.
Langley glanced at Mrs. Harrow’s strained face and realized that for all their happy manners, beneath their hospitality was a greater worry.
That they were, as the younger Harrow had said, about to be put out of the house.
It was, to his amazement, Minerva who put the lady at ease.
“Mrs. Harrow, you haven’t anything to worry about on that account. Langley and I wouldn’t think of asking you and your happy family to leave Langley Hall. You have a good lease, and from every indication, you are excellent tenants of the estate.” She leaned toward the woman and whispered loudly. “Men! They just bluster in and don’t understand our fears, do they?”
Both the older Harrows sighed and then Mrs. Harrow smiled warmly. “Oh, but I must warn, my lord,” she said. “Your boxes are not all that organized. It is rather a tumble up there.”
“Does he mean to go up and look at those shameful paintings and sinful pieces of pottery?” one of the lads piped up.
“Joshua!” Mrs. Harrow scolded, blushing a deep pink.
“But Maman, that is what you called them,” he protested. “Before you forbid us from looking at them.” The irrepressible boy wasn’t done yet. “Lord Langley, did you really steal all those things from ol’ Boney?”
Langley wanted to laugh at the curious light in the boy’s eyes, for he well remembered when an uncle of his—his mother’s brother who’d gone to sea—would come to visit with tales of exploring with Cook. Well-embellished and lacking all the realities of a long sea voyage—the dreadful food, the boredom, the wretched conditions—he’d lived to hear about the odd native customs, the exotic creatures and the strange markings, the sort of tales he could regale his friends with for weeks to come.
“Aye, lad. And if you can find me a bar to open up the boxes with, I’ll tell you about the night I snuck into Versailles and snatched them right off ol’ Boney’s walls.”
“Gar!” the boy whispered, wide-eyed and thunderstruck with awe. “Will you also tell me about when you were captured by the sultan and locked in his palace?”
“Oh, aye,” he agreed, his arm over the boy’s shoulder as they walked out of the room, Minerva and Mrs. Harrow in their wake. “But he didn’t lock me in just his palace, but in his harem.”
“Langley!” Minerva protested.
And when he turned around to gauge her expression, he found her eyes alight and her lips pressed tightly together—to keep from laughing aloud.
Oh, yes, she’d come to her decision on which she desired more.
And it had nothing to do with boxing his ears.
Minerva looked around the attic space at the line of paintings stacked against the wall, alongside vases and statues lined up all in a row. They were as Mrs. Harrow had told her son, a shameful lot.
Truly, here she had always heard Lord Langley described as a connoisseur, but there was only one word to describe his art collection.
Dreadful.
Langley stood studying his collection, a metal bar in his hand. They were all alone, for though he’d promised to regal the Harrow children with tales, Mrs. Harrow had announced that despite Lord Langley’s generous offer—or because of it, Minerva suspected—the children needed to rejoin their nanny in the nursery.
“You won’t need that,” she told Langley, nodding at the pry bar in his hand. “Apparently young Joshua has made it a habit to enjoy your collection.” She nodded at the open boxes and the scattered pieces sitting atop the crates and chests that made up the attic storage.
“Oh, I need it,” he said, walking up to a statue of a shepherdess. The painting beneath the glaze was shoddy, leaving the poor miss cross-eyed as she searched for her lost lambs.
But she wasn’t so for long.
Suddenly, Langley raised his arm and swung the bar atop the girl’s head, shattering the pottery.
“Langley? Are you mad?” Minerva gasped.
Ignoring her, he picked through the shards as if searching for something, and when he found nothing, turned to the nymph beside her and smashed her to smithereens.
Minerva caught his arm. “What are you doing?”
“If you must know,” he said as he picked though the pieces, “occasionally, I would send home sensitive information inside pieces of art.”
“So you weren’t just a diplomat,” she said, nudging him for information.
“No, not always,” he confessed, already eyeing another statue.
Minerva took another glance around the attic, with a new understanding of what she was looking at. They hadn’t been chosen for their beauty or their rarity, and certainly not for their value, rather quite the opposite. “Oh, thank God.”
“For what?” he asked as he broke apart a pair of lovers.
“I thought I was marrying a mushroom,” she said with a giggle.
“Had visions of the morning room decorated with that lot?” he asked, waving his hand at a line of cross-eyed milkmaids.
“Yes, or worse.” She shuddered, picking up one of the paintings. “Dear heavens, this is as bad as the painting hanging in my room.”
“Next time I am in your bedchamber, Minerva, I shall have to be the judge of that. I took great pains in choosing pieces no one would covet.”
He handed her the bar. “Go ahead. I know you want nothing more than to consign that sea nymph to an untimely end.”
“Gads, is every one of these pieces cross-eyed?”
“I fear the man I bought these from used his daughter as his model.”
“She wasn’t one of your conquests, was she?” Minerva teased, just before she took up the bar and smashed the little piece into bits. She glanced over at the wreckage. “Oh, you are perfectly correct! That is most satisfying. But what am I to look for?”
“In the potteries, it would be a slim piece of paper that was inserted through the potter’s slit in the bottom.”
“A piece of curled paper, I imagine,” she said as she picked up one of the pieces and peered inside the hole. “For it would unwind along the sides and remain unseen.”
Langley paused. “Minerva, you continue to surprise me! I avow you would make a most excellent agent. I would not want to cross paths with you.”
“Then keep that in mind when you are tempted to vex me,” she teased back. Then she turned serious. “Langley?”
“Um, yes?”
“What do you hope to find?”
“Answers,” he replied.
“Nothing more you’d like to share?” she prodded. “It might help me to know what I am searching for.”
“Your reputation,” he told her with a grin.
“My reputation? Sir, if this collection was to see the light of day, what little standing I have left in society would be in tatters.”
“Better that than engaged to a traitor,” he said.
“As important as that?” she whispered.
“Aye.”
Turning to the rest of the collection, Minerva’s determination to help only grew more resolute. “And the paintings? I don’t believe smashing them is in order—though probably most satisfying.”
“No, we cannot damage them—no more than necessary,” he said, reaching into the bag he’d brought up. “We’ll need to cut the canvas out of the frames. Some of them have an extra canvas beneath, and others might have a note or writings on the interior of the frames. We’ll have to take extra care with those.”
“Too bad,” she mused as she held up a poorly composed pair of lovers. “Good heavens, is that a third arm on that poor woman?”
He glanced at the painting. “If that fellow is lucky.”
Langley’s optimism evaporated over the next few hours, as they discovered their search was in vain.
While he found the box that had been intended for George Ellyson, it also appeared that someone had beaten him to the contents, for there wasn’t a note to be had, not a single clue inside.
Only more questions.
And the boxes, the ones that arrived after he’d been confined in Abbaye Prison, held nothing but more conundrums.
“It appears that this crate had a rather rough voyage,” Minerva speculated as they gazed in at the ruined contents. She pulled one of the paintings out, a small landscape of a ruined castle. When she turned it over, her brow wrinkled and she handed it to him.
The frame had been oddly hollowed out, a narrow trough inside the sturdy wood.
“What is that?” Minerva reached inside and pulled out a bit of black velvet. She studied the frame closer. “It looks like there was velvet all along that groove. There are bits of it stuck in the wood.”
He shook his head and put it back down in the crate. None of it made sense, and worse, it appeared he wasn’t going to find any answers here.
So they made their way downstairs, thanked the Harrows for their hospitality, and returned to the carriage.
“Langley, what does this mean?” Minerva asked after they climbed in, having finally gained some distance from the Harrows.
Thomas-William glanced over his shoulder, most likely about to ask the same thing.
Langley shook his head at his old friend and then turned to Minerva. “It means I have to go back to the beginning.”
Thomas-William muttered a curse and started the horses toward London.
“Is it as bad as all that?” she asked.
He tried to smile for her sake. “It means you are most likely engaged to a traitor.”
To his surprise, she scoffed at such a thing. “Really, Langley. It hardly concerned me before, what makes you think I would change my mind now?”