The gentlemen’s knees knocked into the table’s edge, and Reina insisted on remaining in Mr Everly’s lap and helping herself to bits of food from his plate, as she used to do with Graciela’s father. No one quite lost their good manners entirely, but it was clear right away, the men were ravenous. All that was needed was to have the room sway to one side and a large splash of seawater arrive through the window, and it would feel much like a meal on her father’s ship.

The scandal sheet lay next to her own still almost full plate, and her eyes kept coming back to it.

Her eyes watered reading it. She’d been tossing back and forth between waves of anger and moments of relief at her rescue, and her hand trembled around the fork she was clutching. If Lord Kingsley were here, she would stab him with it.

Put as it was in the news sheet, it was astonishing she’d braved all the peril. Her body had heated and chilled with anger and fear so many times in the last few days she felt like a brittle blade, ready to break.

Mr. Everly’s gaze rested upon her, and for that moment, they were the only two people in the room. The concern in his eyes settled over her, as comforting as the strong arm that held Reina in place on his lap.

“Have you had a reply from Lord Shaldon?” Penderbrook asked, bringing her up from her mood.

“Not as yet. That isn’t surprising,” Lady Perry said.

Mr. Gibson grunted. “Be assured, Shaldon will know exactly what’s happening.”

Graciela studied the oldest Everly son. He might not carry their name, he might have the exotically fiery hair of the northmen, yet one could not miss his resemblance to the strong-jawed, straight-nosed, firm-lipped siblings. This must be the look of the father. She wondered if there was a portrait of the man somewhere in this great house.

“But Bakeley sent an express,” Lady Perry said. “He and Sirena are on their way.”

Bakeley was the second son and heir. The Viscount Bakeley whose bed she had napped in early that morning, the rescuer of Lady Sirena.

How wonderful to have brothers and sisters to come to one’s aid. She had none of those. She had only her two servants and Reina. She was not part of this house or this great family. When they were finished rescuing her, they would try to begin their own arranging of her life.

She did not belong here. She must not forget that.

Lady Perry reached across Graciela to catch the biscuit sliding from Reina’s hand. “You have put her to sleep again, Charley.” She laughed.

“I’ll take her.” Graciela leaned in close. The hand that slid under the child’s bottom collided with the solid muscle of Mr. Everly’s chest. The other met his wide shoulder. Both collisions induced a riot and leaping of nerves within her. Her cheeks warmed again, but she kept her lashes lowered, her gaze on the sleeping child as she sat back down.

Around her, the others went very still. She blinked hard. I will not cry.

“How beautiful she is,” Mr. Everly breathed out. When she looked, his gaze was on her, not Reina.

Her heart stuttered and she found herself short of breath.

Yet, she had things she must say. “We have spoken—” She cleared her throat and sipped some more air. “Of the scandal sheet piece and the solicitor’s office. What is next in your devious plan for my future?”

Penderbrook chuckled, and Charley made himself grin.

She didn’t trust him. Of course she didn’t. And he needed her to.

“What do you want to do next, Graciela?” Perry asked.

The lovely lips clamped together, her face crumpling over the child in her lap, like a Madonna thinking ahead to her savior child’s fate.

As soon as she’d tamed her emotions, she’d ask for transport to Falmouth. And he wasn’t having that.

Charley cleared his throat. “There’s the matter of your trust.”

Her head shot up.

“The bank,” he said. “The bank where the funds are being held. You’ll not want to leave all your money here.”

With her next breath, her emotions cleared. “Yes.”

She had been pondering running. It was good she had him to think this through logically.

“Do you know which bank your father was using, Miss Everly?” Bink asked.

“He did tell me. It was a Scottish name.” She pursed her lips. “Mack…Mack…” She shook her head. “Mack-something.”

“McLintoch,” Penderbrook said. “Or, MacIntosh is Bank of Scotland, is he not? Oh, but I believe he’s in Edinburgh. As well as…might you be mistaken? Kinnear and Sons—”

“You’ve done a study of Scottish banks, have you, Pender?” Charley asked.

Pender was looking for a position, any position. And the lady was frowning prodigiously at his friend’s doubting.

“I am not mistaken.” She waved a hand, juggling the sleeping child. “I will visit them all. McLintock, MacIntosh, Mac—”

“McCollum’s,” Bink said.

Gracie blinked and nodded. “It might be.”

Bink drummed his fingers on the table. “It might well be.” Plates and utensils rattled as he lumbered to his feet. “There’ll be no need to visit them all. We’ll go there first thing tomorrow morning.” He excused himself and left.

Charley stood also and signaled to Penderbrook. “I must go change my coat and cravat.” He flicked a spot of dried gruel from his shoulder and bowed to Graciela. “Ladies.”

Penderbrook hurried out behind him.

“Where are we going?” Penderbrook asked.

“We are not going anywhere. I am going to change coats, as I said. You may proceed to the next bank on your list of prospective employers.”

His friend’s cheeks reddened, and Charley laughed, slapping him on the shoulder. “I’m roasting you. Of course, you must have a position like a regular gentleman, somewhere in the government. We’ll both talk to my father when he returns. Meet me at White’s later tonight.”

Penderbrook hesitated and nodded. “You’re a friend indeed, Everly. I’ll keep my ear to the ground. Until later.”

Charley hurried to his room, changed, and left the house, before either of the ladies could track him down and demand to come with him.

The approaching hackney squeezed down the mews and stopped at the door where Charley waited. He pulled his cap low and put down the steps, dipping his head like a faithful retainer. Swathed in a gauzy mantilla, the lady stepping down gripped his fingers and tugged him inside the dark stable.

She glanced around the empty stable and pulled his head down and kissed him, a long press of her mobile lips on his, totally without passion on her part, stirring none on his. When she squeezed his arm and stepped away, she glanced over her shoulder at her coach and shut the stable door.

“That was convincing, Duquesa,” he said.

The mantilla slipped back to reveal a tiny bonnet perching atop her golden coiffure. Blue eyes dancing, she smiled. “Perhaps someday, Charles Everly, it may be a real kiss.”

His thoughts flew to Gracie’s petulant mouth, and he reeled them back, forcing a grin. “You must take care. You’re playing a dangerous game. And what would your father say if he knew how you were carrying out his mission?”

“He will not care. He knows I will not allow that pig into my bed. As long as I am discreet…” She shrugged.

“Your men are outside?”

“At either end of this street. We may take our time. He will think, when he learns of it, that you have tupped me here. I shall attach a few pieces of straw.”

“I fear we don’t have that much time. You are blocking the mews at a busy of time of the day.”

She slid a hand up his arm and smiled. “It would not take long.” With a quick squeeze, her demeanor changed. “But now, we must get to our business.” She withdrew a paper from under her redingote.

Charley turned the letter over and studied the plain seal.

“From my father to yours.”

“If it came by pouch, The Duque will have read it,” he said.

“No. A friend has brought it.”

“Is it urgent? Father is in Bath.”

She cocked her head and studied him. “You have called him back, no?”

“One of our servants is talking.” Bakeley would want to know about that.

A wide smile displayed gleaming white teeth. “It is only a leap of logic from the reports in the scandal sheets.” She tapped his arm. “You have dallied with some other young woman. I, perhaps, must have a fit of jealousy.”

Voices outside drew their attention, and they waited until they had passed.

“I will save that for our next public meeting. For now, give that letter to him, and for your other request, I’ve learned that he was held in a farmhouse north of Pamplona, where the exchange was to be. He walked into a trap. The hostage was already dead of a fever. The money went to the French but…he was taken. It was a chance to obtain another ransom. A painting.”

His mind flew back to Perry’s accusation of theft after their mother’s passing.

“What painting?” he asked.

She tapped him again. “You know.”

He held her gaze.

Around the same time, Saints Felicity and Perpetua had disappeared from the wall in his mother’s bedchamber, replaced by a painting of her three children. Mother never said where the painting had gone.

“That’s madness,” he said.

“It was Lopez de Arteaga’s work, painted in Mexico City and lost with a Spanish ship full of treasure, that is, until your father obtained it.”

“A ship belonging to your husband?”

She shrugged again.

“And he has the painting now?”

A knock rattled the door. Charley stepped over to it. A dark-clad man who he recognized as one of the Duquesa’s guards whispered that they must leave, that a cart wanted to pass through the mews.

Charley shut the door and turned on her. “Well?”

“No. That is, I do not know where the painting is. But I know that, weeks later, when the painting was delivered, both the messenger and your father ended up in the hands of a French commander, and your father was never released. He escaped.”

“You know this how?”

“A peasant boy who worked at the estate.”

The door rattled; the Duquesa’s guard again. Charley quickly bundled her into the hackney along with her man, closed and locked the mews door, and climbed out through a window. He made his way to the street, whistling and pondering the story the lady had told him.

Later that evening, he caught up with Penderbrook at White’s and ordered both of them drinks.

“No family dinner for you tonight?” Penderbrook asked.

“I’ll join them in a bit. For now, what have you found?”

“No other McBankers than the one your brother lit upon. Shall I accompany you?”

While the waiter poured their wine, he sat back, thinking. McCollum’s was tied in with merchant shipping, that much he’d learned in his afternoon travels. He might as well make quick work of this conversation and go talk to Bink, who he suspected knew something more of this bank than he was mentioning. Perhaps from the Parliamentary work that Charley had been shirking.

“I think not,” he said.

A member he didn’t know seated himself at the next table, twitching his chair so that one ear was turned their way. Dark hair and a well-tailored dark coat.

He was obviously preparing to eavesdrop.

“I say, Pender,” Charley said, too loudly, “will you still insist that Cribb was a better pugilist than Spring?”

The fellow turned full around. “Penderbrook, is it you?” He stood.

A tall athletic body stretched under a lean face with a hawk nose planted between two small dark eyes. A flamboyant gold waistcoat caught the light from the nearest sconce, a contrast to the rest of his darkness.

Penderbrook nodded cordially, his jaw tightening. “Payne-Elsdon,” he said.

“Fancy seeing you so soon after that card game at—”

“Yes, yes,” Charley interrupted, tossing back some wine and signaling the waiter. “Let’s make short work of the introductions and I’ll get on to my third drink. I’m Charles Everly.”

“Pleased to meet you. I have heard you are blessed with the attentions of a golden-haired angel.”

Indeed.

The fellow put his hand on a back of a chair preparing to draw it out and join them.

“This is Major Payne-Elsdon,” Penderbrook said. Then he put his attention to gulping the rest of his wine. Though as pale as his face was, it might come back up.

“Major.” Charley beamed a smile. “We’d invite you to join us but I’m delving into Penderbrook’s expertise for an upcoming wager. Height of secrecy, and all that.”

Penderbrook failed to smile. Instead his face paled even more.

Payne-Elsdon’s lip curled up. “Maybe you’ll have better luck with your boxing bet than cards.”

“I say, Payne-Elsdon,” Charley said affably, “on active duty, are you?”

He shook his head. “I’ve sold out my commission.”

“Weren’t in the Peninsula, were you? Might have run into my brother.”

He blinked. “I don’t believe I had the pleasure.” He flashed a toothy smile. “Though I was there during the war, and more recently.”

Charley grinned back while the waiter poured a fresh glass and he mentally connected the dots. He’d heard of a sold-out major, recently returned from some scandal in Spain, a card shark and swordsman who’d maimed a man, all of it hushed up by the victim’s family. Pender was swimming in dark waters. “Not likely you’d have met my brother. He was a lowly sergeant then, but Shaldon has lured him into the Everly fold and he’s a Member of Parliament now.” He raised his glass. “Cheers.”

Penderbrook pushed back his chair and stood. His face had recovered some of its color. “I see Gilbert over there and I promised to meet him. Many thanks for the drink, Everly. Do send a note if I’m needed. I am at your service.”

The abrupt departure brought a smirk and a raised eyebrow. Charley stood also and leveled a gaze at the man. His appearance at their table tonight—and for that matter at Penderbrook’s card table sometime in the recent past—was one more sudden appearance to delve into.

“I suppose I’ll have to manage this wager with my own wits,” Charley said.

Payne-Elsdon dipped his head, but there was no apology in his expression. “I’d be happy to offer counsel.”

He drummed up a grin. “No thanks. I’ll ponder out the odds myself.”

He waved to Pender as he passed. The bloody fool was playing cards again trying to raise some capital. In spite of his joking, he was too proud to take a loan, preferring to issue vowels to the likes of a shady major, who’d work for the likes of the Duque and who probably marked his cards.

He’d send Pender some work on the morrow, and scrape his own allowance to pay for it.