Choose a lover husband carefully. Do not dally with any man who cannot love you senseless.
Advice to Felicity Langley from her Nanny Tasha
Minerva awoke to the clamor of the bell over the front door and the strident cries of a lady ringing her own peel through the house.
Good heavens, whatever was the matter now?
She blinked her eyes and gazed at the hint of dawn peeking through the windows.
Then in a flash, the events of the last few days sparked through her thoughts.
The kiss in the carriage . . . The report of the pistol as it fired . . . The kitchen shrouded in the light of a single candle . . . Langley naked and over her . . . the hint of dawn peeking through the curtains . . .
Langley! The duel!
She bolted upright, even as Aunt Bedelia burst into her bedchamber. “Where is he?” she thundered.
Minerva looked with some shock at the empty spot beside her, and instinctively her hand went to the curve in the mattress.
The sheets were cold. He’d been gone for some time.
“He was here . . .”
“Dear God, gel! You had him in your bed and couldn’t manage to keep him there?”
Minerva shook her head, running her fingers through her thoroughly tousled hair. “I had no idea he’d left.”
“Harrumph!” Aunt Bedelia sputtered. “But I must admit, Chudley did the same thing to me.” She crossed the room to the corner closet and flung the door open. Almost immediately she began tossing clothing over her shoulder at Minerva—a chemise, stockings, a gown. “Don’t just sit there gaping, gel, get dressed! And don’t forget to take off those diamonds.” The old girl paused for a moment and then asked, “Whatever were you doing with them on in the first place?” Then she shook her head. “No, don’t tell me!”
Minerva did as ordered and scrambled out of bed, pulling on her clothes as quickly as she could. Then she removed the Sterling diamonds and settled them in their case, and as her fingers ran over the velvet lined box, she trembled. “Oh, Aunt Bedelia, I tried to divert him, it was just that . . .” The night had been everything and more than she could have imagined, but still he’d left.
And now . . . and now . . . Her vision clouded with tears as all she could see was a green meadow with Langley lying atop the thick grass in a pool of his own blood.
Like the worst sort of simpleton, a regular watering pot, she burst into tears.
This gave Aunt Bedelia pause. The lady who never stopped for anything, the veritable whirlwind of activity, actually stilled and stared at her niece.
“I think I love him,” Minerva confessed between gulping sobs. “However did this happen?”
And then Aunt Bedelia did the unthinkable. The old girl wrapped Minerva in her arms and held her like a mother might.
“There there, child. I should have known that rogue would love you until you were insensible. He has that look about him.” She smiled at her niece and brushed her rumpled hair out of her face. “Just like my Chudley.”
“I am not worthy of Lord Langley. I am not even—”
Aunt Bedelia pushed her out to arm’s length. “Sssh,” she chided. “You are the woman you were meant to be, and that is all that matters to a man. How you got to be Lady Standon is of no consequence.”
Now it was Minerva’s turn to still. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean,” Aunt Bedelia whispered, “that you are as much or more of a marchioness as that featherbrained sister of yours ever would have been.”
Chills ran down Minerva’s spine, and they had nothing to do with the drafts running in from the cracks in the window frames. “You know?”
The lady huffed with impatience. “Of course I know who you are, Maggie. Known since the day that bosky fool of a brother of mine married you off in Minerva’s stead. Oh, you two gels always bore a startling resemblance to each other, so I can see why he thought it would work, but I knew. How could I not?” She nodded toward the bed where Minerva’s stockings still lay, while she returned to the closet, bending over to hunt around for a pair boots. “Tell Agnes to have more care with the state of this closet. Why, it’s a disgrace.”
Minerva sat down on the bed, albeit to put on her stockings, but quite honestly she didn’t think she could stand. Aunt Bedelia knew the truth? “You knew and you never said a word?”
Truly, given that this was Aunt Bedelia, it was rather hard to believe.
But she was underestimating Bedelia’s loyalties.
The lady glanced over her shoulder. “And what was to be said?” She went back to hunting around for shoes and plucked free one boot, then another. “Good heavens, the scandal would have ruined us all. And heaven knows, the Sterlings would not have taken the deception lightly. The weight of their wrath would have fallen not only on your shoulders—but your father’s and mine as well—if they’d ever learned the truth.”
“But you’ve said nothing! Not once in all these years.”
“Oh, I had my say when I realized what your father had done. Confronted him right after the ceremony—told him exactly what I thought of the entire debacle! Utterly unfair to you. Not that he saw it that way—thought you were landing in the clover. Married to an aging sot twice your years! Rotten clover that, not that he would listen to me.”
“No more than he’d listened to me,” Minerva said softly.
Bedelia laughed. “Yes, he mentioned you weren’t all that cooperative. And what he threatened you with if you didn’t follow through.”
“My mother,” she whispered.
Her aunt shook her head. “Threatening to put her out. He’d never have done it. But how were you to know that?”
“Not that it would have mattered,” Minerva said. “She was gone before I could ever—”
“There there,” the older lady said, setting the boots at Minerva’s feet and sitting down beside her. “You carry her nerve and wits with you, and thankfully not the Hartley nose!” She tapped her own hawkish beak and smiled. “But you definitely have her way of seeing things, of being able to make sense of the oddest connections.”
“You knew my mother?”
Aunt Bedelia laughed. “But of course I knew her. She and I grew up together. She was like a sister to me. Oh, how I loved your grandmother’s cottage, though I wasn’t supposed to go there or even know the trade she practiced or that some called her a witch.” The lady paused for a moment, smiling at the memories. “So I’ve kept your secret, not so much for your father’s sake, but for hers. I failed her when I didn’t stop the wedding, but I’ve done my best for you since, as well as I could.” Her eyes glistened with tears and she wrapped Minerva in another hug. But the rare show of affection didn’t last long, for Aunt Bedelia was soon on her feet, pulling her composure together. “Now now, this isn’t doing either of us any favors nor stopping that foolish pair of devils we love from shooting each other.”
Minerva nodded and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Aunt Bedelia, what if . . . what if we don’t make it in time?”
“Chudley doesn’t dare die. I told him quite roundly I would use my widow’s portion to buy a brand new wardrobe—no widow’s weeds for him—and have a new husband before the month was out. Some spendthrift pup who would run through Chudley’s fortune in a fortnight and leave me with naught but my garters.”
And knowing Aunt Bedelia, Minerva mused as they hurried out to her waiting carriage, she would do just that.
Primrose Hill, where once Henry Tudor hunted and his daughter Elizabeth rode with abandon, was a popular spot for the aggrieved of London. Cuckold husbands, cheated gamesters, and insulted rivals came to settle their differences with honor across the grassy knoll rising at the far end of Regent’s Park.
Aunt Bedelia’s driver had been ordered, threatened, and harangued not to let anything get in his way—so the good man gave the horses their heads and the usually staid beasts raced through the empty streets, the carriage rocking and tossing the occupants back and forth in their seats. Minerva clung to the strap on the wall and prayed they would make it in time.
How could a few hours change one so? she wondered. For now she understood what it meant to love another, and this wretched duel could end it all in a single shot.
“Oh, I do wish he would hurry,” Bedelia complained as the carriage rattled and screeched around another corner and began to climb the hill. “We will be too late and they shall both be dead.”
Minerva glanced over at her aunt. “I daresay we may be joining Chudley and Langley in the afterworld if your driver hurries much more.”
As it was, a few minutes later the careening carriage came to a plunging stop and both ladies tumbled out on wavering legs. The hillside swirled in an early morning mist, and it took Minerva a few moments to get her bearings.
Not so for her aunt. “Oooh!” Bedelia gasped, pointing the way.
Minerva turned to find the two men about fifty yards away. As the wisps of fog began to curl away on a hint of a morning breeze, it revealed Chudley and Langley, having marked off their paces, turning to aim and fire. On either side of the field stood the witnesses—their seconds and a black-clad surgeon, none of whom paid the newly arrived ladies any heed.
Besides, it was too late.
Even before Minerva could protest, both pistols barked to life, the sharp retorts and the puffs of smoke tearing through her heart as if she’d been struck. She sank to her knees.
Langley’s bullet neatly trimmed a small branch over Chudley’s head, dropping the leaves like a May Day crown atop the viscount’s dignified beaver hat.
She would have smiled at such a roguish feat if it hadn’t been for the sight that caught her eye as the last of the mist cleared from atop the hill.
There, just beyond the opponents, sat a man atop his horse, his hand outstretched with a smoking pistol aimed directly at Langley.
For Langley and Chudley’s shots hadn’t been the only ones fired at that moment. And while Langley purposely fired honorably up into the tree above his opponent, this man had fired with deadly intent.
Minerva tried to shout, tried to warn the seconds, anyone, but the only thing she saw was Langley wavering, his hand on his chest.
Oh, heavens! He’s been shot! She hauled herself up and ran headlong toward him, stumbling twice, yet before she reached his side, he dropped like a stone to the ground. Throwing herself beside him, she heaved him over, and to her horror a great stain of blood spilled across his chest.
Bedelia, who had hurried after her, arrived just then and screamed, a piercing, keening wail that might well have been heard across the distant Thames.
Minerva glanced up at the rider in the distance, even as the surgeon and Lord Chudley came striding over. Bedelia’s cacophony seemed enough confirmation for the assassin, for he saluted Minerva with his pistol and rode off.
Chudley arrived at his wife’s side and gave her a companionable pat on the arm. “There there, my dear, no need for hysterics.”
Bedelia pointed at Langley’s bloodied chest. “Oh, Chudley, what have you done?”
“I only meant to nick him,” he said, taking another bored glance down at the baron.
“It wasn’t you, my lord,” Minerva said, looking up. “There was another man, over there.” She pointed at the now distant figure riding off at a furious pace. “He fired as well. It wasn’t the viscount’s bullet that struck Langley, but that man’s.” The seconds and surgeon gaped at her, and she continued, “I will testify to it. This isn’t Chudley’s doing.”
“Fine way to ruin my reputation, you madcap girl,” Lord Chudley scolded, nudging his toe into Langley’s side. “Of course it was my bullet that hit this good-for-nothing devil. I’ve as good as killed him.”
Minerva staggered to her feet. “My lord, this is nothing to take credit for! There is a killer who is getting away!” She looked from the seconds to the surgeon and then back to Lord Chudley. “Aren’t any of you going to stop him?”
“Good God, Minerva!” Langley muttered from his spot on the ground. “Do you have to be so demmed observant?”
Langley warily opened his eyes and gazed up at her. He refrained from laughing as her face went from shock to relief and then a sort of white fury that had him wondering if he wasn’t going to be truly dead in a few moments, instead of only feigning dead.
“You . . . you . . . you . . .” she stammered.
The light in her eyes said she’d settled on relief, but this was Minerva, his Minerva, and he knew she could be a prickly, mercurial sort.
’Twas why he loved her. Furious one moment, just as passionate the next. Steady and calm in a crisis, ready to do battle when necessary.
Langley grinned. Yes, he loved her. It was a staggering notion.
Even as he started to get up, if only to gather her into his arms and kiss away her now murderous gaze—for truly, he still wasn’t completely sure she wasn’t going to take up one of the second’s pistols and finish him off—Chudley planted his booted foot atop his chest, pinning him down. “Not so fast, Langley. He’s not quite out of sight yet. You need to remain mortally wounded a few moments more.”
“Needn’t sound so pleased with the notion, my good man,” Langley said, winking at Minerva.
“Was a rather galling notion to have to miss you when I shot, but duty first, I’ve always said,” Lord Chudley replied.
“Andrew, will they be able to keep track of him?” Langley asked, nodding toward the road that led down the backside of the hill.
Lord Andrew, dressed as a somber London surgeon, pulled his wide-brimmed hat from his head. “They’ll keep him in their sights. He won’t get away. Not this time.”
“Excellent plan, if I do say so,” Chudley said.
“Thank you, Uncle Chudley,” the young man said, grinning. “I knew you would be perfect for the task.”
Minerva glanced over her shoulder at the viscount and then back down at Langley. “This was all a ruse? You wretched beasts! You could have told us.”
Aunt Bedelia added her dismay by hitting her husband squarely in the shoulder with her reticule. “Chudley! You had me believing I was about to spend the remainder of my days hiding on the Continent surrounded by naught but low, horrid company. How could you?”
The viscount rubbed his shoulder. “Completely necessary, my dear. Why, you and Lady Standon added just the necessary drama to our little scenario. I daresay, your excellent shrieking will have all of London thinking that Lord Langley is dead, or at the very least, mortally wounded.”
“And you, Lord Andrew!” Aunt Bedelia added, rounding on her husband’s nephew. “I shall have some sharp words for your mother about your part in all this!”
Lord Andrew groaned, and Langley felt a moment of pity for the young man.
“Is he gone?” Langley asked, changing the subject.
Lord Andrew glanced around. “Yes. You can sit up.”
Langley did so, plucking a silver salver out of the front of his shirt.
“My salver!” Minerva gasped as she retrieved it. “Whatever were you doing with my salver . . .” He didn’t want to tell her, but of course the lady put the pieces together quickly. “You came here knowing you might be shot at.” She shook the dented thick metal at him as if she meant to finish the fate that the salver had saved him from.
“Not ‘might be,’ for indeed, I was shot at,” he corrected. Langley shook out his shirt, and the spent lump of lead dropped to the grass. “Though I knew it wasn’t going to be Chudley’s bullet that I had to be concerned with.” He turned to the viscount. “But you might have pulled your shot a little more to the right. I demmed well felt your lead go whistling past my shoulder.”
Chudley guffawed a bit. “Had to make it look good.”
“But the blood,” Lady Chudley said, with a shudder. “Good heavens how could that be?”
Lord Langley held up a small bladder. “Pig’s blood. An old Foreign Office trick. When I fell over, I nicked it and . . .” He waved at the mess on his shirt.
Minerva took a step back. “So this was all a farce?”
Langley nodded. “No, not all of it. Lord Chudley’s challenge was real—though twenty some years in the making.” He glanced over at Lord Andrew. “Why don’t you do the honors?”
The young man shot a wary glance at Bedelia and then took up the story. “I meant no distress to you, Aunt,” he began. “It was only done to keep Langley alive.”
“Harrumph!” the old girl sputtered, as if she thought that a foolhardy notion in itself.
Langley picked up the story. “Lord Andrew and Chudley thought it would work to our advantage if everyone believed I’d cocked up my toes and died for real. If only to lure our enemies into a sense of complacency.”
“That man,” Minerva said, pointing to the empty spot on the hill where the rider had been, “was here to ensure that no matter what, you didn’t come down from this hill alive.” Her brow furrowed, and Langley could only guess at the conjecture going on inside her head. “Was that Nottage?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look.”
Aunt Bedelia stepped forward. “Whyever would someone want you dead, Lord Langley? Beyond the obvious reasons.”
Lord Throssell, who had stood as a second, let out a bark of a laugh.
“Because of what I know,” Langley told her. “Or rather, what I knew.”
“What you knew? Are you addled, sir? Because I am starting to think you are all ’round the bend,” Aunt Bedelia prodded, as only she could.
“There was a time when I would have agreed with you,” he told her. “You see, about three years ago I was attacked in Paris—struck from behind. When I woke up, in Abbaye prison, I barely knew who I was, let alone where I was. It was nearly a year before I began to remember anything.” He glanced over at Minerva. “Like who I was or why I was in Paris.” He shook his head. “But the events beforehand, why someone wanted me killed—try as I might, I can only remember shadowy bits and pieces.”
“So your lack of memory isn’t enough for your enemies,” Minerva pointed out, hands fisted to her hips. “They still want you finished off.”
“That’s the rub, my lady,” Lord Andrew chimed in. “No one but those of us here know that Lord Langley can’t recall the necessary evidence needed to bring down Sir Basil, and from the looks of it, Neville Nottage. For this much we suspect: Sir Basil Browning is the mastermind behind a series of crimes that could disgrace England, and worst of all, put the shaky peace on the Continent into chaos. Anger many of our allies.”
“Allies we will need in the coming months,” Chudley added. “Especially now that there are rumors Napoleon has escaped and is raising his army anew.”
“Sir Basil? Do you mean to say you think Brownie is behind some grand scheme?” Aunt Bedelia scoffed, brushing aside the shocking news about that horrid Corsican. “Lord Andrew, it’s no wonder your mother won’t speak of you. You make it sound as if he’d gone and stole all the crown jewels of Europe!”
All the crown jewels. . .
Those words, spoken in haste, lit something in his memories. And from the way Minerva’s eyes widened, it seemed they sparked something in her mind as well.
“Langley, think of it,” she said. “The arrival of the nannies. The grooves in the picture frames. Lady Brownett at the theatre.” She ticked off the evidence like an excited child. “The velvet we found at Langley House. The case that holds the Sterling diamonds is lined like that as well.”
“Yes, by God, you have it!” he said. “Jewels. They were stealing jewels and then shipping them home in my art collections.”
Everyone gaped at them.
He grinned at her. “My lady, you are too smart by half.”
“I am just pleased I could help,” she said, smiling back at him.
Then Lord Throssell piped up. “Jewels, you say? Why the contessa was going on and on last night about her missing pearls and the duchessa’s lost rubies.” He glanced at the others. “I fear she’d had a bit too much to drink.” Then he rubbed his head. “I think I had as well, for I daresay I promised to replace those demmed pearls.”
“There you have it,” Aunt Bedelia said proudly, beaming at her niece. “Now go arrest the lot of them and we can all go home and put an end to this nonsense.”
“Unfortunately, my dear,” Chudley said, “we haven’t enough evidence, save our suspicions, and Lady Standon’s excellent theories.”
“Break into the Foreign Office!” Bedelia declared. “Find it.”
“It isn’t there,” Langley told her.
“Ooh! You foolhardy man!” Minerva gasped, shaking a finger at him. “That is where you went last night, isn’t it? You broke into the—” She stopped herself and sucked in a deep breath, as if she didn’t want to finish the sentence.
“Minerva, we are going to have to work on your discretion,” Langley said.
“Yes, I suppose,” she demurred. “I should learn not to speak out of turn.” Then she grinned and said, “Though not just yet.” Turning to Lord Andrew and Lord Chudley, she asked, “What do we do next?”
Not really asked, more like prodded. Demanded. Ordered.
“Lord Andrew’s crew is following our assassin—”
“Nottage,” Minerva corrected.
“Yes, yes, if you insist. Nottage,” Chudley said, his whiskers bristling to be so corrected. “Then once he’s reported in to Sir Basil, which I have no doubt he will, we’ll nab him and have him held on charges of murder.”
She didn’t look all that convinced. “How will you hold a man for murder charges when the victim was shot at a duel with another man?”
Lord Chudley huffed again. “I have a friend at Bow Street who owes me a favor. He’ll keep that fellow locked up where no one will find him. In the meantime . . .” The viscount took his wife’s hand and brought it to his lips. “This is where you come in, my dear. You need to return to Town—”
Aunt Bedelia beamed with delight. “And do what I do best?”
“Yes, precisely,” Chudley told her. “Recount this morning’s events high and low. Lament to anyone who will listen that I am off to the Continent, and that Lord Langley is . . .”
“Lost. Gone. Dearly departed,” Langley instructed. “And do make my stance in the face of your husband’s noted marksmanship a brave and valiant one.”
“Turn you into a hero?” she scoffed. “As if you deserve such an honor, you rakish devil!”
“Because I have an offer to make,” he told her, “a private one.”
“Careful there, Lord Langley, or I will shoot you,” Chudley said.
Bedelia rapped her husband on his shoulder. “I am no light-skirt, sir. You should have known better than to marry the likes of Susannah Sullivan all those years ago.”
“I thought we agreed never to discuss our previous spouses,” Chudley said.
Aunt Bedelia’s brow furrowed, but so reminded said nothing more. Rather she knelt beside Langley and he whispered his offer into her ear. She paused for a moment, then her mouth spread in a wide smile. As she got up, with Chudley’s help, she said to Langley, “There won’t be a dry eye in London, my lord. When I get done, they will wonder why you haven’t been elevated to a saint.”
True to their deception, the seconds carried Lord Langley to the carriage as if he were in mortal danger.
Chudley kissed his wife good-bye and rode off toward the Dover road.
But Minerva lingered for a moment, gathering her thoughts, trying to pull together the details. As she glanced over at the spot where the man had shot from, she tried to reconcile her nagging doubts.
What was it Chudley had said? A demmed fine shot.
And was it by a Foreign Office agent? Or perhaps a hired assassin?
Mayhap . . .
For she couldn’t help shake another suspicion. That the man who fired that shot had been someone else.
Like a former army officer.
But what would Gerald Adlington have to gain by killing Lord Langley? She bit her lips together and stole a glance back at Langley as one then another possibility raged through her thoughts.
To force her hand, perhaps? For the Sterling diamonds? Definitely. Then he wouldn’t have to wait for her supposed nuptials to get his money; rather, he could just make good his threat to take the Sterling diamonds and be gone.
Could it have been Gerald the other night, beneath that greatcoat and low-slung hat? He was certainly the right height and build as Gerald . . .
And he’d been at the theatre . . . threatened her . . . Oh, why hadn’t she considered this before now?
And if it was true, that this Lord Andrew was going to capture him, and it was Gerald, then she had no doubt Adlington would sell her out if he thought it would gain him his freedom.
Minerva shivered. She could only hope it had been someone other than her devilish foe.
“Is something wrong?” Langley asked from inside the carriage. “You looked demmed pale out there in the cold.”
She shook her head. “No. ’Tis nothing,” she said, climbing inside the carriage and sitting down next to him.
At least she hoped it wasn’t.
When they arrived at the house at Brook Street, it seemed that news of the duel had preceded them.
A crowd was gathered outside, while inside the house the nannies lined the foyer. Tasha’s footman, as well as a couple of servants from across the street, were called to help carry the wounded baron up to Minerva’s room.
How he did it, Minerva didn’t know, but Langley nearly had her believing he was on his deathbed. In addition to his bloodied shirt, he groaned and moaned with each jostle, hanging onto her hand as if it were his last lifeline to this world.
When the duchessa saw him, in true Italian fashion she dropped to her knees wailing and crying. Tasha patted her shoulder and stood as straight and upright as a solitary pine, tears glistening on her cheeks.
Brigid clung to Knuddles, while beside her, Lord Throssell had his arm around her shoulders.
“Not good,” the man muttered. “Not good at all. Won’t last the night, I daresay. Shame that. Demmed shame.”
Jamilla surveyed the proceedings with a handkerchief stuffed to her lips, her kohled eyes revealing nothing.
Minerva followed the litter up the stairs, and when she came to the landing, she glanced back and found that only the margravine seemed unmoved, as if she wouldn’t believe any of it—at least not until she saw Langley breathe his last.
“Do you need anything, dear Lady Standon?” Nanny Helga asked, almost sounding sincere. “We could take turns sitting vigil with you.”
Minerva tapped down the shiver running down her spine at the woman’s offer and instead shook her head. “I think it best if he has naught but peace and quiet until . . . until . . .”
This implication made the contessa sob even harder, and the lady’s wails prodded Aunt Bedelia into the next act of their plan.
“Come now, all of you, the man needs peace and quiet. I think it is best if you all take refuge at Hollindrake House—it’s just on the next block over. If only to give Lady Standon these last few hours—”
“Yes, yes,” Jamilla readily agreed. “There is nothing more for us here.”
Tasha nodded as well and helped Lucia to her feet, while Throssell guided Brigid out the door. Only the margravine lingered, waiting for Tasha’s footman to come down.
“How bad is he?” she asked.
“The lead is still inside him. Even if they could get it out, the surgeon will only finish him off in the trying.”
The margravine put her handkerchief to her lips and nodded, looking as aggrieved as Lucia.
Or was she smiling? Minerva wondered as she took one last furtive glance over the railing.
“Are they all gone?” Langley asked.
“Yes,” Minerva said, glancing back over her shoulder as she pressed the door closed. “Apparently with you on your last breath, that lessens their chances of finding their missing jewels.”
“Don’t rule out their determination just yet,” he told her. “Gemstones have a powerful hold over their owners.”
“They do indeed,” she agreed, opening the case that held the Sterling diamonds and dangling them in front of her.
“And we are all alone?” Langley asked, a wicked smile on his lips.
“Yes.”
He waggled his brows at her and patted the spot next to him on the bed.
Minerva stifled a laugh. “Aren’t you afraid the exertion will kill you in your state?”
“Only if you keep me waiting,” he teased back.
“I may finish you off myself. You had me worried sick.”
“Truly?”
“Yes.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.
“Why?”
“Langley, do I have to answer that?”
“Yes,” he said. “But if you would rather, you can show me how worried you were.” Again he patted the spot on the bed beside him.
“I am still in a pique. Haven’t you the least concern I might finish you off?” she asked, sauntering over to the bed, then falling into his open arms.
“That is what makes it so much more fun,” he whispered before his lips claimed hers.