Page 19

Eighteen

HART AND SUMMERS, SOLICITORS, LONDON - JUNE 30, 1816

TOM

Half of “Hart and Summers, Solicitors” was a charred-out husk. The other half was untouched.

Clearly Kit had been hard at work. I knew Will’s injuries had prevented him from providing much assistance. All the paperwork from Will’s old office was stacked precariously along the far wall of Kit’s.

The walk over had been quiet, punctuated only by a stop at Hudson’s for a tart for me and a “little cake thing” for Kit. Both of which had been consumed in the few steps between the bakery and the law offices.

Kit quietly directed me to sort the paperwork in one stack by client in alphabetical piles. He set about doing something with a stack of ledgers and a pile of paperwork at the desk, leaving me with only the floor as a workspace.

The slight didn’t particularly bother me—it was, after all, more practical for my task—but I was constitutionally incapable of allowing it to pass without comment. “Earls can’t sit on the floor?”

Kit glared at me before returning to the documents before him. “Not an earl.”

“I’m not sure that’s how that works.”

“I’m a solicitor. I’ve worked my entire life to be a solicitor—and a damn good one. People died—people I love—and now everyone thinks I’m an earl. ‘M still just a solicitor.”

It was quite possibly the longest speech I’d ever heard from him—and clearly a sore subject.

I turned back to the paperwork, abandoning my teasing in favor of actually sorting. If I had to be awake, vertical, and tragically sober, I might as well make myself useful. The work was slow. Some of the documents had been burned in the fire, soaked in the efforts to put it out, and then dried in wrinkled clumps. For five minutes, we worked in companionable silence before I could stand it no longer.

“Why, precisely, am I doing this? There is no possible way these documents could still be considered legal.”

“I need an inventory of which accounts were burned. And you agreed to do it because Katie pestered me and I pestered you to make her stop and agreeing was the only way to make me stop.”

“I sincerely doubt this is what Kate meant when she asked you to check on me.”

“She was nonspecific as to how. And she forgets that some of us are employed. Besides, I’ve managed to coerce you into bathing and sitting upright. I’m certain Katie would consider it progress.”

I honestly couldn’t deny the truth of it. No sooner had I turned back to my crumpling, ashen stack than Kit’s grumbly tenor washed over me. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Absolutely not.”

“All right then—back to your paperwork. And, if anyone asks, you were never here—confidentiality.”

I bit back a smile and set to work. The next several minutes were spent attempting to separate two pieces of parchment that were so fused together they may as well have been glued.

With a quick glance at Kit to confirm he was otherwise occupied, I crumpled them into a ball and tossed them toward the rubbish bin with a flourish.

“I didn’t bring you here to throw away my work.” I shot around, pinching my neck in the process. He hadn’t even looked up from his desk.

“Whatever it was, it was lost to the fire.”

“Already, I regret helping you,” he muttered.

“Then perhaps I should return home and get on with my day.”

“You haven’t worked off your tart just yet.”

With a grumble, I turned back to the fragile stack. My hands were long blackened with soot, and each touch left fingerprints lining the legible areas of the parchment. A piece disintegrated in my hand, giving way to a document relating to Michael’s gaming hell. The astonishing number of zeros was yet more evidence that my eldest brother made far too much off men with infinitely more money than sense.

But God, that night at his club. An hour, perhaps a few minutes more. One hour hidden away in Michael’s office—away from the glamour and drama of the masquerade ball. One hour in delicious, brave flirtation with Alexander Hasket. One hour where—behind the anonymity of a mask—I could be exactly like every other gentleman at a ball, flirting with the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.

And now he was gone—off to some estate in Scotland—never to return.

“Would you stop sighing?” Kit mumbled, then flicked a page in irritation.

“I offered to leave, you’re the one who insisted on dragging me here. I was perfectly fine.”

“You were still soused from last night.”

“As I said, perfectly fine.”

“Just sort the documents—quietly.”

I created a pile for the club, and the next several documents were all associated with Wayland’s.

After throwing a few more into the bin under the watchful glare of Kit, the next document, with another familiar name, had my heart stopping for the space of a breath.

There was a flourish on the R in Rosehill. Alexander Hasket’s name and title in perfectly legible glory. Of their own volition, my fingers brushed around the script pathetically, smearing a loop of soot around the letters. I was a milksop, through and through.

Shaking away the instinctive longing, I began a new pile. It quickly became apparent that there were a great number of documents pertaining to Xander in my stack. His estate, his sister, his mother, his—now former—sister-in-law. Every facet of his life was reflected in these pages.

The man had money that nearly put Michael to shame—that much was clear. And he’d meticulously managed the funds to ensure that every single person in his life was cared for. Including his sister, who was apparently determined to see herself ruined if even half of these exploits were truthful.

“What?” Kit asked.

I turned to meet his gaze, his head cocked to the side in curiosity.

“Pardon?”

“You hummed. Did you have a question?”

“No… Yes—no.”

“Which is it?” he demanded.

“I have an… inappropriate question.”

“Yes?”

“Did Lady Davina truly invest in a whiskey company founded by pirates?”

His lip quirked in the corner in what I was coming to understand was his version of a smile. More than two years I’d known the man, and I couldn’t recall a single genuine, teeth-baring smile. This expression might have been the closest to one though—there was a crinkle in the corner of his dark eyes.

“Still does—though she thinks no one knows. And when I first learned of it, she insisted that it be known—they’re lady pirates. I’m not entirely certain why the distinction matters but who am I to question a lady?”

A fond note tinged his voice that had me biting back a smile.

“And the rest of these?” I asked, lifting up the stack in reference.

“All true, every last one.” He said it with a hint of pride in the curl of his lip.

“She’s a bit of a hellion then. The night at the club was nothing, it seems.”

“An absolute menace,” he agreed before turning back to his paperwork.

Dismissed, I returned to my own. Page after page, I unraveled a tiny bit of the mystery that was Alexander Hasket. Charitable landlord, deliberate landowner, caring brother, and doting son—his heedfulness was written in these pages.

And then I found it. On a page buried near the bottom of my original stack was an address. An address in Scotland. My heart tripped before rushing to catch up for the misstep.

It was wrong. It was entirely inappropriate. Kit would be furious. But God himself couldn’t have stopped me from carefully folding the parchment into fourths—quiet as a mouse—and slipping it into my pocket.

Trembling, I returned to my sorting with a renewed vigor it didn’t warrant, soot fingerprints littering the pages.

At last, around the time my back began to make a serious protest, Kit suggested we clean up and dine at a nearby pub.

Hours that felt like weeks later, I returned to my apartments with a pleasantly full belly and a promise to limit myself to no more than three glasses of scotch and assist at the offices again tomorrow.

I had no intention of keeping either promise, of course, and once I locked the door behind me, I slid down to the floor and pulled the parchment from my pocket—thankfully unharmed for my efforts.

Several glasses of scotch later, I fell into bed, entirely forgetting about the letter I’d written and addressed—abandoned atop my writing desk.