“I will bid you good night, then, Lady Adele. Sleep well.”
“Good night.” She lifted up onto her toes and kissed his cheek.
When he slipped back into his room a moment later, he tried to tell himself that he was in no position to plan his future, but he wanted Adele to be a part of it in some way.
Chapter Seven
Adele alighted fromthe Sweeney carriage and gave instructions for where the driver should meet her in an hour, figuring that was how long it would take to buy a few things for the countess and walk to the bookseller to hunt throughDebrett’sfor the right family name.
She took care of the countess’s tasks first. Then, on the walk to the bookshop, something in the window of a newspaper office caught her eye.
She paused to look at a newspaper headline, which said,Swynford Missing, Presumed Dead. Around the newspaper were a series of drawings of a man who looked very much like her house guest. She read the first few lines of the story and saw that Hugh Baxter, the Duke of Swynford, had disappeared on the same evening a mysterious man had turned up on her street.
She raced to the bookshop and found Mr. Ross, who owned the shop. She was out of breath.
“Are you having some kind of literary emergency?” Mr. Ross asked.
“I need your help.” She was reluctant to tell the whole story because she did not want it to become widely known that the Duke of Swynford was likely in her house at that moment, so she paused to consider how to phrase it. “I found an object with this coat of arms imprinted on it, and I need to know the family it signifies.” She handed Mr. Ross the sketch Smith had made.
Mr. Ross squinted at the sketch and then led Adele to a corner of the store. He opened a large book that clearly had all of the coats of arms of the families in England, listed in alphabetical order.
“There was also anSimprinted on the object,” Adele said. “If that helps narrow it down.”
“It does. I thought it looked like the Swynford crest, but I wanted to be certain.”
He opened the book to a page that showed a drawing that showed a coat of arms very similar to the one Smith had drawn. “Swynford” was written across the bottom of the page.
“Does this answer your question?” Mr. Ross asked.
Adele nodded. “I believe I have something that belongs to the Duke of Swynford. Could you tell me where he lives so that I can return it to him?”
Mr. Ross raised an eyebrow. “Have you not heard that he is missing?”
“Oh dear. Missing?” That sounded like a poor stage performance, so she added, “That is, I saw something in a newspaper in passing, but I did not make the connection.”
“I believe your best course of action is to call on Larkin Woodville, Lord Waring. He is a friend of the duke’s and has been doing a poor job of being discreet while making inquiries about the location of His Grace.”
Adele recognized that Mr. Ross had made a joke, so she smiled and said, “This Lord Waring would not be a good hero for the mystery stores the countess likes, then.”
Mr. Ross laughed. “Indeed, no. He thinks he is the soul of discretion, but there has been gossip around town for a few days that His Grace never made it home after the Rutherford ball last week.”
“Does anyone have an idea for what became of him?”
Mr. Ross shrugged. “I’ve heard he ran off with some woman he was sweet on, that perhaps they have gone to Scotland to elope, but I do not know if I give credence to such rumors. His Grace is a regular customer here and has always struck me as a thoughtful man not prone to acting rashly. He has the weight of responsibility on his shoulders, and he takes his family duties very seriously.”
Adele nodded, feeling somewhat validated in her opinion of Smith. Or Swynford, she supposed.
“Oh the other hand,” said Mr. Ross. “He is a rather large man. He would be difficult to abduct.”
“Perhaps not if he were hit on the head.”
“There is that.” Mr. Ross barked out a laugh. “Have you ever met the duke?”
“I can’t say that I have,” she said, which was true enough.
“Perhaps Lord Waring will know what to do with the object you found. What was the object?”
Searching her mind, she said, “A handkerchief.”
