Page 27

“I have not changed my mind.” He stared down at her hand, idly rubbing his thumb back and forth across her bare knuckles in a most intimate manner.

“I fear you think me a much better man than what I am, my lady. I had planned on allowing my solicitor to handle everything, since the engagement was forged by such persons when I was but Connor’s age. ”

“It might go better than anticipated if you granted Lady Margaret the courtesy of telling her yourself.” While Grace had noticed the woman was an unpleasant sort, that in no way meant Wolfe should be unpleasant as well.

“Be as curt as you wish to her mother. I imagine she is the one behind the plot to rid you of your siblings.”

“I’m not so certain about that,” Joy said. “From our brief visit with Lady Margaret the other evening, I drew a few conclusions about her. Do not underestimate her, sister. She learned much at her mother’s knee. They possess identical streaks of cruelty.”

“Joy is an excellent judge of character,” Felicity said as she offered Wolfe a cup of tea and a shy smile. She leaned in with a confidential tip of her head. “Never play Commerce with her. She rarely loses.”

Grace gave in to a heavy sigh and looked up at him. “What happened to keeping our intentions a secret?”

“Honor and respect for you demanded that I speak with your brother.” He kissed her hand, then turned to her sisters. “But we should keep this as quiet as possible. I do not wish the Broadmere name sullied because I did not see fit to handle the unpleasantness of my situation before now.”

A conversation from a few days ago came back to Grace with surprising clarity. “Seri?”

“Yes?”

“Did you not say you heard Lady Margaret favored another?”

The way Serendipity’s smile started out faint, then slowly grew, lifted Grace’s heart.

“Why, yes, I did hear that.” Serendipity delicately balanced her saucer in her palm while lifting her teacup for a sip. She aimed the slightest nod at Wolfe. “Were you aware of that rumor, Your Grace?”

Wolfe’s interest immediately perked. “I was not. Whom does she favor? That could simplify things immensely.”

“I have yet to discover the identity of her secret admirer, but I’ve also heard her mother expressly forbids it.

She wishes her daughter to become a duchess.

” Serendipity narrowed her eyes, her smile turning wicked as she shifted her attention to Joy.

“Lady Margaret seemed most interested in your techniques for winning at games of chance. If she grew to trust you…”

Joy proudly tossed her head, making her blonde locks bounce as she preened like the proudest of peahens. “You would owe me so very much for this favor,” she told Grace, her grin as impertinent as usual.

Grace gave her sister an impertinent grin of her own. “I will proudly dance at your wedding, since you will be next on the chopping block. You do realize Chance will now aim the Earl of Middlebie and Viscount Blytheston at you?”

Joy’s saucy smile disappeared.

“Chopping block?” Wolfe asked, looking from sister to sister to brother.

“Family jest,” Chance said, with a pointed glare at Grace. “And a poor one at that.”

“Are we in agreement, then?” Grace asked Wolfe. “Connor and Sissy will stay here until after the picnic, and perhaps longer, if the situation warrants it?”

“Connor and Sissy may stay here until I have interrogated my household and adjusted it where necessary. I expected more loyalty from well-treated servants. If I can’t trust them to come to me when those I care about are endangered, I do not want them anywhere around me or mine.”

“The children will be safe here,” Grace promised.

“And we shall try our best not to teach them too many bad habits,” Joy said.

“Do they enjoy cooking?” Felicity asked.

“Lawn games will be just the thing,” Serendipity said. “And I’m certain we have several horses docile enough for Connor and Sissy to enjoy a few riding lessons.”

Wolfe edged a step away from the sisters, taking refuge beside Grace. “Your hospitality is overwhelming, ladies.” He bowed. “And much appreciated.”

“Wait until you meet my other two sisters,” Chance warned. “You have no idea the comfort I find in another male joining the ranks.”

“We are not so bad,” Grace told her brother. “We’ve allowed you to live this long.”

Chance motioned for Wolfe to join him. “Come. To the library for something stronger than tea. Trust me. You will need it.” He cast a sweeping glance around the room at his sisters. “That will give these four time to plan their attack of Lady Margaret at the picnic.”

Wolfe turned back to Grace. “Attack?”

“Subtle attack.” She offered a reassuring smile to her poor, reserved husband-to-be.

Husband-to-be . Really and truly? Yes. This gorgeous, grumpy, aloof man was perfectly hers. At least, once he was free he would be.

Her spirits dipped the slightest bit. Was she utterly reprehensible for being so bold, for going against Society’s measure of what was proper and telling a man who was promised to another that she would gladly be his?

She hoped Mama in heaven had briefly looked away and wasn’t watching—at least until everything was sorted and proper.

*

Hands clasped to the small of his back, Wolfe slowly walked back and forth in front of the servants he’d summoned to the wide entry hall, studying each of them closely. How could they turn a blind eye to alarming threats against his young brother and sister? Why had they not come to him?

Some of them nervously shifted in place. All of them stared straight ahead as if waiting to be shot. The thought had occurred to him.

“I wish to speak with each of you,” he said after tormenting them with a long, purposeful silence. “Privately. In the library. I shall start with you, Miss Hannah. The rest of you shall remain here and wait your turn.”

He gave them a curt nod, then strode down the hallway, not bothering to wait for the young maid he had assigned to watch over his precious brother and sister.

She would follow or find herself unemployed without benefit of a recommendation letter.

Once seated behind his desk, he allowed her to stand in front of it for another uncomfortably long pause before nodding at the chair beside her. “Be seated.”

Hands clasped in her lap and her head bowed, the girl hesitantly perched on the edge of the cushion.

“When you leave this room, you will not speak of anything said in here or you will be immediately dismissed without reference. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Grace.” She added an almost imperceptible nod.

“Tell me what you know about the plans Lady Margaret and Lady Longmorten had for Master Connor and Miss Susannah.”

The maid raised her head and blinked at him as if stricken with something in her eyes. “Plans, Your Grace?”

He nodded, refusing to speak in order to give the girl enough rope to hang herself.

She gave a cowering shrug. “I know they wished Master Connor sent to boarding school and Miss Susannah sent to travel with Lady Longmorten’s cousin, but I fear I can’t remember that cousin’s name.”

“And what else?”

She angled an ear toward him. “What else, Your Grace?”

“Yes.”

The maid’s befuddlement worked in her favor, granting her an air of innocence.

“Forgive me, Your Grace, but I’m not certain of anything else you might be asking about.

Lady Margaret did tell me once to make sure I never brought the children around her.

” She cowered lower, adding a respectful nod.

“I tried my best to keep them out of the same room or the same garden as her. The only time I know they got into the same room with her was at meals. Was I supposed to keep them in the nursery? It was my understanding you wished them to join you at mealtimes. Was I wrong, Your Grace?”

“I did wish them to join me at mealtimes, Miss Hannah.” Wolfe leaned back in his chair, propping his elbows on the leather armrests and steepling his fingers in front of him. “What if harm were to come to Master Connor and Miss Susannah?”

The girl looked satisfactorily horrified. “Oh, Your Grace—” She choked on the words and clutched a fist to her chest. “Are they…are they gone?”

“You may go, Miss Hannah. Return to whatever duties Mrs. Havarerry has assigned to you, since the children are no longer here. Send in Feebson.”

The maid rose and managed a quick curtsy, then ran from the room, swiping at the tears spilling down her cheeks.

At least she appeared to be innocent and would have had the closest access to the twins. And neither Connor nor Sissy had ever complained about the maid’s behavior toward them. She might have been firm and lacked emotion, but they never mentioned her being mean-spirited or cruel.

A soft tapping pulled him from his internal assessment of Miss Hannah. “Your Grace?” Feebson quietly said through the partially opened door.

“Come in, Feebson.” Wolfe very much doubted the butler to be the culprit but didn’t wish to be careless and fail to identify the traitor who believed wrongdoing toward his brother and sister could be ignored.

In fact, it bore remembering that Feebson was the one who had reported their last governess for disparaging Sissy.

The tiny old man had appeared quite incensed when the woman told the child she would be nothing more than a lightskirt, just like her mother.

Wolfe nodded at the same chair he’d had Miss Hannah use.

“Forgive me, Your Grace, but I would rather stand if you can see to allow it.” Feebson stood ramrod straight, unsmiling as always, but a shimmer of emotion, a sadness, filled his eyes.

“Mrs. Havarerry excused Miss Hannah for the next hour or so, what with her being so overwrought. The girl refused to speak of what you told her, though. She said she wasn’t allowed.

” The stoic little man bowed his head. “Aught it be something to do with Lord Connor and Lady Susannah?”

“I am afraid so, Feebson.” Wolfe studied the butler who had served his father for many years before serving him. He took note of his raspy, sorrowful tone.

The older man nodded while keeping his gaze locked on the floor. “I feared as much, Your Grace. When you came home without the children, I knew it had to be something terrible.”

“There are those who would celebrate something terrible happening to my brother and sister,” Wolfe said, baiting the servant to gauge his reaction.

“Then a pox on them for their cruel hearts!” Feebson clamped his mouth shut and shook his head. “Forgive me, Your Grace, but I can’t abide anyone wishing something bad on those two. Those children have not had an easy way of it.” He gave a more formal bow. “Begging your pardon again, Your Grace.”

Feebson was not the traitor, and Wolfe was glad of it. “Repeat nothing said in this room, Feebson. You may go and send in Mrs. Havarerry.”

The butler nodded and shuffled out, carrying himself as if the weight of the world rested on his thin shoulders.

The longer it took Mrs. Havarerry to respond to her summons, the more Wolfe methodically reviewed the housekeeper he had never quite liked.

Her only redeeming feature, other than running the household with the efficiency of a combat veteran, was her ability to make soothing poultices for his bad knee.

He recalled she was also the one who had refused to allow Sissy and Connor to speak with him on the night of Lady Longmorten’s London party, when that insufferable woman had informed Sissy that the twins were disposable.

He tightened his fists so hard, every knuckle popped.

Granted, he had been very busy that evening, but he had always made it quite clear that the twins had access to him no matter the circumstances or the hour.

Perhaps Mrs. Havarerry was the betrayer he sought.

After another few, very long moments, he pushed up from his chair and went to the door. How dare the woman make him wait? “Mrs. Havarerry!” he bellowed down the hallway. “Report to the library at once.”

Instead, Feebson appeared at the end of the hall, hurrying his way. “Mrs. Havarerry is gone, Your Grace.”

“What the devil do you mean, gone ?”

“Left the premises, Your Grace. Sam and Mathias said she lit out of here as if her petticoat was on fire.” The butler tipped a nod.

“Begging your pardon. The maids said the same. Said she left without taking a thing with her. Soon as I went into the library to talk with you, out the door she went. Headed toward the village.”

“To the Longmortens at the inn, no doubt. I imagine she assumes they will ensure her of employment when she conveys to them that the children did not return home when I did.”

Feebson slowly shook his head. “I must be getting old, Your Grace, seeing as how I don’t understand how one has anything to do with the other.”

“It has come to my attention that the Longmortens wanted the children gone by any means necessary—be it legal or nefarious.”

The butler’s jaw dropped. “Hurt the children?”

“That is not to leave this room. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Your Grace.” Feebson drew a shaking hand across his eyes. “Those poor mites. And Mrs. Havarerry was part of it?”

“By not informing me of the Longmortens’ inclinations? Yes. I demand loyalty from my household. Anyone not reporting threats or dangers to those I care about might as well strike the killing blow themselves, for I consider their hands just as bloody.”

His entire person trembling, Feebson bowed his head and whispered, “Would I have known, Your Grace, I swear I would have done whatever it took to save them. I am so very sorry.”

Still leery about his siblings’ safety, Wolfe chose not to come forth and actually tell the man that Connor and Sissy were safe and well.

Mrs. Havarerry might not have been the only member of the household who had drawn closer to the potential mistresses of Wolfebourne Lodge by assisting them with whatever they wished.

“Your loyalty is duly noted and appreciated, Feebson. Thank you.”

“Will there be anything else, Your Grace?” the butler asked, his manner dejected and his voice cracking with emotion. “Shall I send for the constable?”

“Not yet, and do be good enough to send in the footmen one at a time, thank you.”

Wolfe watched the man go, wrestling with his conscience about allowing the faithful servant to believe Connor and Sissy were gone forever.

It couldn’t be helped. Until he had spoken with every individual who had ever come into contact with his little brother and sister and felt certain they were loyal and trustworthy, the twins’ whereabouts and the condition of their health could not be shared.

He had but a short time to complete this investigation, seeing as how the infamous Broadmere picnic was in a few days.

Then all would see Connor and Sissy and know them to be hale and hearty—and the fun and games would truly begin.