“—or stabbed someone—”
Elizabeth whistled innocently.
Viv couldn’t believe them. “How can you believe yourselves ethically superior to anyone? Do you even register the hypocrisy of your actions?”
“Listen,” said Elizabeth. “Do you want to find your cousin or not?”
Viv clicked her teeth together and crossed her arms. She needed the Wynchesters’ help to find and exonerate Quentin. And she’d be damned if she let them bollocks that up without her oversight.
Besides, Quentin wasn’t the only one who enjoyed a goodI told you so. He’d begged her to spend time with the Wynchesters, believing she’d come to love them in the process. If they proved themselvesto be even worse role models than she’d feared, he would have to admit she was right about them all along.
Vivian: All right, Quentin. You win. Until I find you and exonerate your name, I will spend every waking moment with your Wynchesters and do my best to take their measure with an open mind. You have my word.
Quentin: Huzzah! If I’d known this would work, I would’ve disappeared ages ago!
Vivian: Addendum. If you’ve put me through this panic on purpose, in some harebrained scheme to soften me toward this family, then when I lay eyes on you, so help me God…
“Very well. I’ll help you,” she forced herself to say aloud. “Solving the robbery will clear Quentin’s name, and then we must find him posthaste.”
“We could follow your script,” Tommy suggested. “It worked before. No one would be expecting asecondwhooper swan invasion.”
Jacob shook his head. “The Olivebury household is unlikely to be fooled by the same thing twice.”
“If you two sneak in through a window on a moonless night—” began Elizabeth.
“I shall not participate in breaking the law,” Viv interrupted.
The Wynchesters might take for granted that their deep pocketbooks and aristocratic connections providedthemwith impenetrable armor, but Viv’s reinforced sleeves could barely protect her from a disgruntled badger.
She straightened her spine. “However, I do have an idea on how we might be invited inside…”
13
In less than three short hours, Viv found herself living her cousin’s wildest dream.
She was in costume. Accompanying theWynchesters. About to enter an upper-class town home on false pretenses.
And she’d helped plan the whole thing.
She tried to steady her trembling hands by pretending she was a character in one of her plays. “You’re sure his wife is at home?”
“Graham’s sure,” Jacob confirmed.
Viv’s strategy hinged on Mrs. Olivebury’s presence. Her husband’s influence was in the House of Commons, but a woman’s power depended on her place in society. As wife of the Duke of Faircliffe, Chloe Wynchester would be a valuable connection for both political and aristocratic aspirations. With luck, the wife would confide to the duchess everything they needed to know.
And without luck… the team had Viv’s contingency plan.
“Ready?” Jacob asked her quietly.
“She’s ready,” Tommy interjected. “I dressed her myself.”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Viv touched her reticule lightly. She hoped not to have to use her secret weapon, but she hadn’t come this far to give up now.
The Wynchester carriage slowed to a stop in front of the long brick terrace where the shepherd’s-pie-and-whooper-swan incident had taken place. Er, one of the Wynchesters’multiplecarriages. Vivsuspected they lived out in Islington rather than fashionable Mayfair by choice, not because their coffers wouldn’t cover the high rents.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t money that kept them on the fringes of society. More than half of the Wynchesters were white as a lord, but almost all had been born poor, or on the wrong side of the blanket, or other such unforgivable offenses amongst the beau monde.
“So far, so good,” said Jacob. “It looks like Faircliffe’s ducal coach-and-four arrived seconds before us. He’s helping Chloe down now.”
