Page 29 of The Honorable Rogue (The Notorious Nightingales #5)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“ I ’m not sure how you are still here?” Ambrose said to Tilly.

“I told Mother I needed to stay with Vi, as she was in a lot of pain. She was happy for me to return home in the morning, as there is nothing I need to attend this evening.”

They were in the carriage heading to Crabbett Close, and Ambrose was not happy Tilly was still with them.

“Excellent, now I am stuck with both of you to watch when I could even now be at my club enjoying some peace,” Ambrose muttered.

“I’m going to join a club,” Tilly said. “There are some that have been formed by ladies for ladies.”

Ambrose visibly shuddered.

“Ooh, I like the idea of that,” Violet said to annoy him further.

“No,” he said. “Never. Now shut up, we are here.”

“What is going on?” Violet said when the carriage stopped just inside the entrance to Crabbett Close.

Ambrose opened the hatch. “What’s going on, Gavin?” he asked his driver .

“Someone seems to have set up tables in the street, my lord. I can’t go on, I’m afraid.”

Ambrose opened the door and jumped down. Tilly and Violet followed.

“I did not tell you to step down,” he snapped.

Tilly poked out her tongue.

“It is not safe for you to be out and about,” he added, glaring at her.

“We are safe here, Rosie, relax,” Violet said.

“Take the carriage home, Gavin. I will have the Nightingale carriage bring us back,” Ambrose said.

It was early evening, but there was still enough light to see Crabbett Close seemed to be preparing for something. Tables were in the middle of the street set quite a distance apart from one another.

“Good day to you,” Mr. Greedy said when they reached him. He was lowering mugs to the table outside his house.

“What is happening, Mr. Greedy?” Violet asked.

“The Crabbett Close games, of course. You’ll remember we spoke on it.”

Violet didn’t remember at all but nodded anyway.

“Get along with you now to number 11 while we finish setting up.” He made a shooing motion with his hands. “Do what you’ve come for. You’ll be safe here. No one gets in or out without our notice, and even more so now Mr. Nightingale asked us to be aware of any comings and goings.”

“Wonderful. Good evening, Mr. Greedy,” Violet said, still none the wiser as to what was happening.

“Do you think the madness in this street is catching?” Ambrose asked.

“I think it’s wonderful. A small street of happy and odd—what could be better than that?” Violet said.

“I agree. There is enough grumpy and sad in this world. Some happy and odd is just what we need,” Tilly said .

“Hello, Miss Althorp.” Mavis was gripping the fence outside her house. One leg was back, and the other forward in a lunge.

“Hello, Mavis, it is good to see you again. May I ask what it is you are doing?”

“Limbering up for the games,” Mavis said.

“Ah, well then,” Violet said when Tilly and Ambrose remained mute. “I hope that goes well for you.”

“You’re safe here, so you can enjoy the games. No one will harm you,” Mavis added, lunging with the other leg now.

She was the largest woman Violet had ever met and, according to Mr. Alvin, had the strength of at least three men.

“Thank you, Mavis, that makes us feel a great deal better,” Violet said. She then dragged Ambrose and Tilly along the street.

“Who is Mavis, and how do you know her?” Tilly asked, her eyes moving fast in several directions.

“That was my question, Sister, to which I want an answer at once.”

“I learn to knit in the park with these people, and usually the residents come at different times,” Violet told her brother.

He made a strangled sound in his throat. “You’ve been fooling us all with your activities, haven’t you?”

“I’m still unhappy you did not invite me,” Tilly said.

“You are an only child and have to do as you are told,” Violet said, giving up any pretense of hiding what she did from her brother. The gloves were now off. “And your mother would notice if you weren’t where you said you should be. Me, however?—”

“Uses her siblings as evasive maneuvers and then does exactly as she wishes. But that is changing,” Ambrose said darkly. “If I have to move home to watch you, I bloody will. ”

“Your sister is one of the most sensible people I know, Lord Talbot?—”

“Oh really, and what you both did in the park, meeting Thomas, was sensible, was it?”

Tilly and Ambrose were now toe to toe, so Violet walked on until she reached the gate to number 11 Crabbett Close. The door opened before she knocked.

“Hello.”

Violet’s heart gave a hard thud as she looked at Charles.

“Hello. Mr. Greedy is setting up for the Crabbett Close games, and Mavis is limbering up,” she blurted out. Violet clamped her teeth around her top lip to stop talking.

“Ah, so that’s her secret to always winning. I will have to try it,” he said, smiling down at her.

After her talk with Ambrose and the burgeoning knowledge that she did indeed feel something for this man, Violet felt ridiculously nervous in his company.

“Yes, the games have been called. Bad timing, but there you have it, and escape is impossible, I’m afraid. But we have time before to discuss what we have learned. Are you all right, Violet?”

She nodded.

“Then perhaps you could look at me?”

She did and saw something in his gaze that made her heart flutter.

“Would you like to come inside? I see your brother and Tilly are engaged in a heated debate, so shall we leave them out here to finish that?”

She nodded again, and he stood back and motioned her inside. When she’d stepped through the door, he took her shoulders and backed her into the wall beside the door and kissed her hard.

“Charles,” she whispered when he pulled back.

“I care about you, Violet. I needed you to know that. ”

“Right now?”

“Yes, I did not want to wait to tell you because the time for hiding is over. Come along now, we have work to do.”

What did he mean that the time for hiding was over?

Charles untied the ribbons on her bonnet, as she seemed incapable in that moment, and hung it on a peg. Violet then watched as he straightened the hat to the right of her bonnet and a coat that was all bunched up. He then straightened the cane that stood leaning on the wall. He then walked to a painting that hung slightly off-center and righted that.

Suddenly, everything fell into place. Charles hated illness, and he knew she liked things straight.

“It was you that day,” Violet whispered.

He just smiled at her, but before she could speak, Ambrose and Tilly had arrived.

“The problem with men like you is that they can never admit when they’re wrong.”

Violet turned her head to watch Tilly and Ambrose enter the house, still arguing. She then turned back to stare at Charles, who was still smiling.

“Excellent, we are all here,” Lord Seddon said, running down the stairs. “Come along, we have much to discuss.”

In a daze, Violet followed everyone into the parlor except Charles, who walked at her back. He was the man in the bookshop that day. The man who had sat and listened as she’d poured out her heart to him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She turned to look at him when the others had entered the parlor.

“Because I did not want to embarrass you,” he whispered in her ear. “But I now wish for there to be no secrets between us.”

“Why?”

“Because I think you are very special, and I hope one day soon you feel the same about me. ”

“Charles, I?—”

“I also need to tell you I am the one who wrote The Adventures of Mr. Salvador, Violet.”

“No,” she whispered.

He nodded. “And now there are no secrets between us, unless you have anything you want to tell me?” He had that wicked glint in his eyes again.

“What are you whispering to my sister about, Thomas?” Ambrose demanded.

“If I’d wanted you to know, Talbot, I would have spoken in a louder voice,” Charles said.

“If you think?—”

“For pity’s sake, Ambrose, stop yelling,” Violet interrupted him, her head still reeling from what she’d just discovered. “No one wishes to listen to your raised voice. I, for one, hear enough of it at home.”

Charles cares about me. The thought made her chest feel warm.

Ambrose bared his teeth at her.

“As you all know,” Bram said, “the games have been called, and we cannot escape, so let us get on with things.”

“This is a very odd street,” Ambrose said.

“You have no idea just how odd, Talbot,” Alex drawled.

“Find a seat if you can,” Charles said, pushing her forward.

People sat on chairs and the sofa, with some sitting on the arms of furniture.

“Come, Violet, you can wedge between us,” Ellen Nightingale said, waving to the space between her and Tilly, who had already found a seat.

Charles remained standing, and it was he who spoke first, which meant she could look at him.

When had he known I was the woman he’d spoken to that day in the bookshop ?

“We met with one of Pavlov’s lawyers today,” Charles said.

“Excellent work!” Tilly clapped loudly.

“Thank you.” He smiled at her, and it lit all the corners of his handsome face.

She’d spent so long honoring Tobias and the belief she never wanted to love another, she’d fought what was growing inside her for Charles. But after what he had just said and knowing he’d been the man that day in the bookshop—a day when she was at her lowest and had needed a stranger to just sit and talk to her—she could no longer deny what was inside her.

She was in love with Charles Thomas. Just thinking the words released a tightness in her chest. For now, that was enough. Later, they would talk, but now they had to find who was after them.

“Before Pavlov died, the lawyer confirmed he had sent his collection to shops throughout England with clues hidden inside the covers of five books; however, no one realized this until the will was read and the advertisement appeared in the London Gazette .”

“What did it say?” Ambrose asked.

“Allow me,” Gray said, picking up the page of newsprint from the table. “ Russian books lead to riches, but first five clues must be found and solved. Good luck and good fortune, Alexey Pavlov.”

“He also said the mistress was angry she and her son did not receive his fortune,” Charles added.

“The man clearly had an odd sense of humor,” Harriet said.

“So it wasn’t the manservant like Wolf said that day in the park,” Ram added. “None of his servants knew what was going on by the sounds of things.”

“My grandfather was an acquaintance of Mr. Pavlov’s,” Tilly said. She then went on to explain everything her father told her.

“It has to be the mistress,” Charles said. “Mr. Timothy said her name was Miss Bamber. She’d have the most to lose.”

“I have made a list of all the women who I did not speak to last season but have made a point of approaching me this year,” Violet said.

“Good Lord, how did you remember all of them?” Leo asked.

“Well, not all, but the ones I spoke to often and remember,” Violet said.

“None of this brings us closer to the fortune or ensuring the safety of my sister,” Ambrose said.

“It is a process of elimination, Lord Talbot,” Harriet said.

“Ambrose, please,” her brother said with a gentle smile.

Violet knew he could be sweet upon occasion, just not when he was angry with her, which was often these days.

“I agree that the mistress is the key, and I think if we can find where the property he left her was, we could go and speak with her,” Alex said.

“It’s time!” Fred burst into the room. “Come along, the games are about to start.”

Ambrose looked a little panicked; however, Tilly was excited.

“We will stay and work through more of the papers, and you all?—”

“I’m afraid escape is not an option, sir,” Frederica Nightingale said to Ambrose. “All who are in Crabbett Close at the time of the games must take part,” the girl said in a solemn voice.

“Unless you are ill or with child, then of course you need not participate,” Theodore Nightingale added.

“Well,” Bramstone said, climbing to his feet. “That is that. Come along, everyone, we have games to take part in. ”

“But what are they?” Ambrose asked when Frederica took his hand and tugged him out the door.

“Tremendous fun,” she said.

The other Nightingale children were in the hall waiting for them and chattering excitedly.

“We will look after Lottie and Alice,” Cyn said. “You all go on and have fun, and we will watch.”

“I could stay,” Gray added. Everyone ignored him.

“Now, Violet and Tilly, you will be surrounded by people. It could not be safer were you locked up in Bedlam,” Alex said.

“Charming,” Ambrose muttered. He then let Fred and Anna lead him from the house.