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Despite his dismissal of her she made no move to leave, which intrigued him all the more.

Frederick remained where he stood for a moment longer, feeling a lingering sense of unfinished business. He had thought she would be like the rest—easy to read, easy to predict—but Gemma Bradford was anything but. That, he realized, made her far more dangerous than he had originally anticipated.

“What is it?” Frederick finally replied, glancing at the butler standing across the room.

“Your Grace, you have a visitor who insists upon seeing you.”

“Who is it?”

“A nun from St. Catherine’s, Your Grace,” he said. “She said her name was Sister Agnes.”

Fredrick saw Gamma’s reaction immediately. The panic in her face indicated that Gemma’s first instinct was to turn tail and run, but she was frozen in place with fear. Her wide, terrified eyes flicked to the door and she looked like she was about to be devoured.

Frederick’s eyes latched onto hers as she stood deathly still, his gaze sharp like a physician’s scalpel.

When he spoke to the butler the command in his voice brooked no argument. “Simmonds, take Miss Bradford to her room.Now.”

The butler gently but firmly guided Gemma out of the study, her feet moving as though they had been fashioned from lead.

She shot Frederick a deeply worried look over her shoulder one second before she vanished around the corner.

CHAPTER 8

“Ma’am?” Frederick greeted. “You asked to see me?”

Tugging down his jacket, Frederick strode into the sitting room and watched the nun pacing and fingering her rosary. Her face was placid under her wimple and as she moved her head, he spotted a grey curl.

She curtsied, then tucked her hands into the opposite sleeves of her habit and spoke. “You may call me Sister Agnes, Your Grace. I am sorry to brother you, but I have a particularly important matter which I must share with you.”

She wants to know if Miss Bradford is here.

“Please come with me to my study,” he offered. “Such important matters should not be discussed here.”

She nodded. “Indeed. Please, lead the way.”

He led her into his study, then gestured to a chair across from his desk. “Would you like some tea or a refreshing glass of lemonade?”

“Thank you but no, I am comfortable,” Sister Agnes replied as she sat down, looking around the room.

He wondered if she judged the clean grandeur of his Hellenistic-themed private sanctuary as vain because, surely, wealth and influence saturated every bit of gilt and stone in the antique furnishing.

“How may I be of service?” he asked, sitting on his chair across from her.

“Recently there was a girl, Gemma Bradford, who cunningly escaped our priory school and is somewhere in these parts, as far as we can discern. I need to make you aware that this girl is trouble. She will lie, deceive and try to trick you, if she comes across you, that is, into believing the manytribulationsandtrialsshe endured at our convent.”

They are far from lies. I have seen and recorded the suffering she has endured at your hands.

“Is that so?” he asked while wondering if this nun also had a hand in his sister’s death. “Is there a reason she would state such a thing? Do these girls indeed suffer there?”

“No,” the nun said, her face straight while she lied.

“Then why would you state your words in that way?” he pressed.

“We are strict on policy and ensuring these girls lean the demure and humble way of life though prayer and penitence?—”

“Penitence for what?” Frederick asked with one brow raised. “These girls are orphans and cast-offs of peasants, poor farmers and outcasted mistresses, are they not? For what are they atoning? The sins of their birth?”

“Well, no,” Sister Agnes flattened her lips. “Some of these girls come to us after a rather squalid life on the streets. They are pickpockets, mud larks, and some of the older ones have dabbled in…the oldest profession in the world, if you understand my meaning. They have carried such worldly traits with them and are bad influences on the others.”