Page 15 of My Disastrous Duchess (The Untamed Ladies #2)

THREE HOURS EARLIER...

R ipley’s office was an unassuming flat in Blackfriars, a twenty-minute drive from Alexander’s London townhouse.

He had dismissed the hackney cab driver half a mile away, not wanting to leave a direct trail between him and Ripley.

Alexander paused outside the building, looking up at the two-tiered stone house, remnants of its medieval past decorating its facade.

The smell from the nearby wharfs and the sounds of the dockworkers carried on the air toward him, hastening his knocking as he made himself known to the investigator that morning, well before normal calling hours.

Once inside, Ripley welcomed Alexander into his flat.

It was an adequate abode for a man of Ripley’s station, large enough for a man or maybe two to live.

A green-grey wallpaper curled at the edges, damp to the touch from the nearby waterways.

Alexander withdrew his hand, looking out of the small foggy window in the main room.

He turned when Ripley drew out a chair for him, begging him to sit.

“You have asked too much of me, coming here,” Alexander began, extracting Ripley’s last note from his pocket.

He walked over to the chair but didn’t sit.

“Our communications have been distant but effective so far. Why was it necessary for you to deliver the full extent of this newest information to me in person?”

“I would not have risked you unduly, Your Grace,” Ripley replied, taking a bottle of amber liquid from the nearby press. He tilted it toward Alexander, who refused, then poured himself a drink.

Alexander folded his arms across his chest, waiting for him to imbibe his drink.

Ripley was a man in his forties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a thick, curled mustache.

An ordinary fellow on the surface, he had a lean but well-maintained body and a sharp eye.

His apartment bore the evidence of his profession: stacks of parchment decorated his desk and littered the cupboard behind him.

Alexander wondered how many secrets Ripley possessed – how many aristocrats could be ruined if his apartment were raided.

Ripley wiped his mouth and set down his tumbler, calling Alexander’s attention to him. “Things being as they are, I could not risk delivering such sensitive information on paper. But you read what it said?”

“Evidently, or I would not be here.” Alexander looked at the note in his hand, then cast it into the fire burning in the hearth beside them, where it curled and crackled until it disappeared. “You who said there is hope. That my sister not only existed, but that she yet lives.”

The words formed oddly in his mouth. It had felt like too much to hope for in the beginning – not only to be in possession of a sister, but to find her still alive.

The truth about the painting had revealed itself over time.

The woman featured within had been Celeste, and the child she had borne in her arms had been Alexander’s sibling, born years before him to his father and his father’s mistress.

It was still unclear what had become of the child after her birth.

Alexander had no memories of her, indicating that she must have been raised somewhere else.

But Ripley had been following the trail of her ever since, following word of mouth until a halfway sensible story manifested itself with proof.

The affair was delicate. Another man might have ignored the existence of his sibling altogether.

Bringing her into the fold would only attach further scandal to the Somerton name.

But Alexander understood enough about scandals to know that they all passed with time.

Family was an eternal and sacred thing. Locating his sister, elevating her to her rightful station, would never be something he would regret, no matter what Carlisle or anyone else believed once the truth was revealed.

A piece of his mother yet remained on this earth outside of him.

He would pay any price to see it preserved and restored, to give this long-lost sister the same chance and privileges that he had received decades earlier.

“Last you wrote to me, you believed she was in France,” Alexander continued. “Does she remain there?”

Ripley pursed his lips, thinking. He walked over to his desk and sat down.

“I was mistaken. She is not in France – only stayed there a few years as a child. It seems she was born in England, then your mother sent her to live with a relation abroad. The reasons for this...” He shrugged.

“I could not say.” He rifled through a stack of papers before extending a document to Alexander.

“She was removed from a backwater near Caen at the age of ten. According to my research, she was taken to London, where she still lives to this day.”

“What?” Alexander stared down at the document. It was a transcript of a birth announcement, taken from a parish register in Southern Wiltshire. He read her name aloud. “Born in Lover, Isadore Bell...”

This must be from the little chapel where I thought my mother had been buried. That was where Isadore had been christened. The evidence had been there all along, just within my reach, and I never even knew it. But the facts are wrong. She is not Isadore Bell. She is Isadore Somerton.

Alexander scowled and raised his head. “Why Bell?”

“Who can say, Your Grace, but the mother and father who named her? Neither of them still lives.” Ripley leaned over and pointed at a line of the transcript.

“But the mother’s name... You see the initials, C.

R.? Her full name may have been concealed for her protection, but the dates coincide.

The mother was Celeste Rousseau. This can reference no other child but your sister. ”

“It seems that way, yes.” Alexander swallowed hard, finally taking the chair Ripley had set out for him. His chest heaved with a sigh as he considered the implications of this discovery. “What next do you suggest? Have you discovered her place of residence?”

Ripley licked his thumb and began searching through a drawer. He extracted a small note, upon which he had written an address.

“She works as a charwoman in a public house down in Bromley. I have seen her with my own eyes, Your Grace. She is every bit as beautiful as they claimed your mother was, tall with dark hair and blue eyes.”

Alexander recalled all the other women they had interviewed at the London house. A series of dark-haired women he and Ripley had vainly hoped would be her – Isadore. But their efforts hadn’t been in vain. She was real, and alive, and only a few hours’ travel away.

“I see the look in your eye,” Ripley said. “You want to go there immediately and meet her.”

“And why shouldn’t I?” Alexander rose out of his seat. “I have waited two years for answers, and I should not wait a second more. You would counsel patience at a time like this?”

“This moment, once it passes, will never come again. My research suggests that Isadore Bell works in Bromley, yes, but who is to say whether she will believe you once you present her with the facts? Allow me a few days to construct a body of evidence that cannot be questioned. You should not hurry to her directly, Your Grace. I have served as the intermediary between you and all the other Isadore Bells we have looked for. Allow me to contact your real sister with the delicate touch required in a situation such as this.”

Considering Ripley’s offer, Alexander calmed himself and nodded. “If you request more time, then I will allow it,” he said. “This moment must be faultless, and discreet, and you are correct. We should strike when the time is right.”

Unfortunately, time was not working in Alexander’s favor.

The moment he stepped out into Richmond, he could feel the eyes of all passersby fix on him with intent.

This was not an unusual occurrence. The return of the young Duke of Langley to London often attracted the attention of anxious ton mothers.

But Alexander had been back in London for a week, and the surprise of his arrival had already come and gone.

Something else had happened to provoke such fervent stares. And it didn’t take long before Alexander was apprised of the situation in full.

Returning home, he took coffee in his study while reading the day’s mail – and not five minutes later, he discovered the story in The Morning Post . There had been no missing his own name, printed in bold, beside that of Miss Margaret Pembroke.

He leaned back in his chair, slamming the broadsheet down on the desk in front of him. An angry sigh shot out of him as he slammed the desk with his fist.

“I take it this is a bad time?”

Alexander froze, having been absorbed by his anger that he hadn’t heard Bastian enter beside the butler. They appeared in the doorway to the study, and the sheepish look Bastian sported told Alexander that he had read The Morning Post too and had likely come to discuss it.

“Why are you in London?” Alexander asked, rising from his seat. He dismissed the butler with a wave. “You made no mention of coming down to London while we were in Salisbury last.”

“I did not come to bother you, despite appearances.” Bastian took off his hat and shrugged, interrupting himself to say goodbye to the butler.

“No, Father has asked a favor of me, you see. One of his friends has a daughter who is seeking a husband, and he has sent me to meet her at their home in Whitechapel. I heard from Stockton you were in town when we met at White’s yesterday evening, and then this morning I read – as I assume you did – the story of your most stormy night. ”

Bastian nodded to the crumpled broadsheet on Alexander’s desk.