“Can you not? You were careful to mention your cousin left home looking like an ordinary young man. Did he often dress like a woman?”
She blinked at him. “What?”
“If your cousin usually lives as a different sex, or might have gone into hiding because he fell in love with another man and feared your disapproval—”
“For heaven’s sake, the last thing on my mind is who or how Quentin loves. He can wear my best dresses any time he wishes, for his own wedding or otherwise. But no, I’ve never seen him do so. Though…”
He raised his brows. “Yes?”
“Well, you’ve interviewed his friends, so you know what they’re like. Like you all, they’re ‘better than Bow Street Runners’ according to Quentin, thoughthat’snot much of a challenge. I’m sure the boys bragged about every detail, though they might not have mentioned they call themselves a”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“secret society.”
These last two words were spoken with portent.
“You think this club has something to do with wherever Quentin is?” Jacob guessed.
“Don’t you?” she asked. “Those meetings, and them running around trying to be Good Samaritans like the wonderful Wynchesters, and—of course—the mysterious Newt. Have you found Newt?”
“Not yet,” he was forced to admit, and made a mental note to double-check that they’d sent someone to find him.
“I’ve told Quentin time and again not to use that phrase,” she muttered.
Jacob stared at her. “‘Newt’?”
“Secret society,” she whispered again. “Quentin would never involve himself in anything illegal, but the fact is that the Seditious Meetings Act made all secret clubs illegal. I warned him that using the wrong phrase could lead to disastrous consequences…”
Jacob nearly laughed out loud. She thought her adolescent cousin would be arrested because he and a few other lads claimed they were a secret club? If the authorities couldn’t be bothered to search for a missing person, they certainly weren’t going to waste time listening at the keyholes of random adolescent boys to see if they used the words “secret club.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said with a comforting smile. “The possibility of legal ramifications for playing pretend is so remote as to be nonexistent. Nothing has happened to my family. And as my sister says, we do seditious acts every morning before breakfast.”
Miss Henry’s expression was flat. “I’m sure that’s very gratifying, foryouall. Unfortunately, people like us don’t share your luxuries.”
He winced. Once again, he’d managed to say the wrong thing, when all he wanted to do was to help.
Notebook in hand, Jacob approached the kitchen table. From this angle, he could see what she was working on. It was not a manuscript anymore, but correspondence. He could not help but note the curious way every single one of the missives appeared to be addressed. In fact—
“You’re‘Ask Vivian’?” he blurted out in disbelief. This was the very definition of public adulation and interaction!
“I’m Vivian,” she replied. “My readers do the asking.”
“I thought that name was a pseudonym,” he stammered, realizing he’d walked back into hazardous territory. He’d allowed himself to forget she was a human hedgehog.
Miss Henry pushed the stack of letters away, one black eyebrow cocked higher than the other. “Why would it be a pseudonym?”
“Well… Vivian is a unisex name, is it not? Rather, England has significantly more male Vivians than female ones. It would be the perfect way to disguise the gender of—”
“I don’t want to hide that I’m a woman.”
“Even from…” Jacob trailed off.
His first concern with Miss Henry using her real name was safety. The Ask Vivian column was infamous for its brutal honesty and searing advice. The clever author was rational and insightful, but also direct to the point of rudeness. One could practically feel the disdain behind every sneered word of her replies.
Indeed, it seemed more logical for Ask Vivian to be the one in danger of some violence being perpetrated against her, rather than any trouble her young cousin might have got himself into.
“What if an unhappy reader shows up at your door?”
“You think I should fear an attack from a disgruntled admirer?”
Jacob didn’t wish to alarm her, but the possibility couldn’t go unaddressed. “Strangers can be surprisingly possessive.”
