Lord Carfield sat down slowly, continuing to stare at the letter, thinking hard. If this wasn’t a forgery, then that meant it was the original. And if it was the original, then his daughter had nothing to threaten him with. It was as he had expected. She had been…
“Lying,” he murmured out loud to the room. “But then, what is she playing at? Why lie about having the original, when she knows I would be able to tell if it was a fake?”
It wouldn’t be right to say that Lord Carfield was scared of his daughter, but she had certainly proved to be more serious a foe than he had anticipated. Her marriage to the Duke of Eavestone had made her more willful than he had realized it would. The Duke’s arrogance had rubbed off on her, undoubtedly. And he didn’t like not knowing why she had lied to him. Lord Carfield couldn’t see what her endgame was, and that unnerved him.He had never suspected his daughter of being able to outwit someone, let alone himself.
“It must be one of Eavestone’s plots,” he muttered. “But what is he trying to do?”
No one answered him. He was speaking out loud to himself, after all, and he was alone in the room.
Or so he thought.
As he carefully folded up the papers and locked them securely back in the safe, he didn’t notice the slight sway of the long, velvet curtains that he always kept closed over the windows. Even if he had, he would have thought nothing of it.
And he never would have suspected that peeking out from a small crack in the curtains was his middle daughter, Violet, who had been informed by Anna of Iris’s plan and had just had time to hide away in her father’s study and discover exactly where he kept the key to his safe.
Chapter Eighteen
“It shouldn’t be long until Father reaches out to you to find out exactly what’s going on,” Iris said in the carriage ride back to Eavestone House. “He has to be suspicious.”
“But what if he asks me in a letter to tell him what you’re conspiring to do?” Anna fretted, pulling at the strings of her bonnet as she spoke.
She was pale from nerves, and truthfully, Iris was nervous as well. As they spoke, Violet was risking possibly her life by spying on their father. And it all might be for naught if Lord Carfield didn’t lead her to the key to the safe. But Iris was sure he would. Her claim that the letter had been a fake would surely push her father to check the document, and Iris was sure it was in his safe.
If it wasn’t there, well then… things might get harder. But Iris had a feeling that he would keep the letter as close as possible. Especially now. She had changed sides, many of his allies had fallen by the wayside, and she was sure he no longer knew whomto trust. The only person he would truly trust—the only person he’d ever cared about or protected—was himself.
But if her father discovered Violet, or if Violet stole the letter and he suspected her, it could risk her very life. It hadn’t been easy to ask her to take such a risk. Iris would have preferred to do it herself. But there was no one else in the house to do it. And she knew that after the failed engagement to Lord Redfield, Violet would want to take action. She wouldn’t want to sit passively by and wait for their father to torment her further—she would want to fight back.
“I still don’t understand why we couldn’t have just explained everything to Miss Violet in a letter,” Anna said, wringing her hands in her lap.
“Because,” Iris explained for what felt like the hundredth time, “I am sure that Father is watching all of the mail in and out of the house. That must be how he knew what time Mother and I would be gone to meet Violet and Rose. I can’t imagine why else he would have allowed them out of the house without chaperones. And it’s too perfect, the timing with the thieves. They surely had an approximate time of our departure ahead of time.”
Anna looked confused, and Iris shook her head.
“I just hope it worked,” she muttered, more to herself than to Anna. “We need you back in the house to pick up the letter from Violet…”
And sure enough, when they arrived at the house, there was a letter waiting for Anna. With trembling fingers, she took it from the butler and broke the seal.
“It’s from His Lordship,” she whispered, looking up at Iris with a fearful expression on her face. “He wants to see me at once.”
“Then you must go,” Iris urged as she removed her gloves and handed them to the butler.
“Did he take the bait?” Lady Carfield asked as she came into the hall. She looked about as nervous as Anna.
Iris gave her a reassuring smile. “We think so. He’s asked to see Anna.”
“That’s good.” Her mother put a hand to her forehead as if overcome with a dizzy spell. “And Violet? Did she agree to help?”
“She said she would wait in Father’s study, see what she could discover.”
“I don’t like to think of her putting herself at risk like that.”
“We all have to do our part,” Iris said determinedly, squashing the small jolt of fear in her stomach. “And Violet is brave and smart. She can do this.”
“Should I go, then?” Anna asked, looking between them.
“Not yet,” Lady Carfield said. “It would be unusual for you to leave Her Grace right after returning to the house. It might arouse Carfield’s suspicion if you were to do something so out-of-character. Wait until the afternoon, when Her Grace is supposed to be out calling.”
“That’s wise,” Iris agreed. “After all, he can’t suspect that I know anything.”
