Wes was frowning darkly when Justin strode into the stable yard. Captain was sitting beside him, panting in ecstasy. “Good God, Juss,” Wes said. “You didn’t say anything about living in a palace. And just look at those clothes you are wearing. And all those fobs and watches and whatnot. And that quizzing glass. Good God!”
Justin grinned and reached out his hand. “And good day to you too, Wes,” he said. “Ricky found his way here two days ago, hungry, tired, unshaven, and dirty, but unharmed and undaunted. He came to help me find my sister, who, according to his interpretation of my letter, was lost.”
Wes stared at him. “I didn’t even notice that,” he said. “But you ought to know, Juss, not even to whisper the wordlostto Ricky. He thinks of himself as some sort of superfinder of the missing. But I knew he was here. A tavern keeper about twenty miles away told me. I loosened a few of his teeth after he told me the raving lunatic was safely confined at Everleigh and everyone could sleep safe in their beds again.”
“Did you?” Justin grinned again. “I wrote to Hildy, Wes. Or at least, one of my guests wrote and I signed my name and sent it with one of my grooms so that she would not worry longer than necessary.”
Wes set a hand in his at last and shook it with what might have been a hearty grip if he had not looked so uncomfortable. “This is all deuced embarrassing, you know, Juss,” he said. “Good God! You live in a palace! And Ricky walked into it, I daresay, as though he belonged here. Where is he? I’ll take him and get going. You’re a real nob, aren’t you, Juss? Mr.La-di-da.”
“He is having a sleep after spending the morning with the blacksmith,” Justin explained. “And you will stay here tonight, Wes. I daresay your borrowed horse needs a good, long rest even if you do not. And I have a proposition to make to you.”
“What?” Wes asked warily.
“A job,” Justin told him. “Something you once told me would be your dream come true. And a home to go with it. For you and Hildy and Ricky.”
Wes’s eyes narrowed on him. “A dream come true,” he said. “What do you think I am, Juss? A wide-eyed girl waiting for her prince like in that one story you used to tell that so thrilled Ricky and Hildy?”
“The story you never listened to?” Justin said, grinning once more. “I value my personal safety too much ever to call you Cinderella, Wes.”
“Ricky isn’t sleeping in that palace, is he?” Wes asked.
“In the room adjoining my own,” Justin told him. “Like old times.”
“Oh, God in his heaven,” Wes said in disgust while Captain got to his feet and licked his hand. “Sometimes, Juss, I wish you had another nose to bust.”
Twenty
Most of the family and guests were gathered in the drawing room again that evening, though Bertrand and Mr.Sharpe had wandered off to the library, and Nigel Dickson and Angela Ormsbury had followed them. There was a group of people clustered about the pianoforte, though they were doing more talking and laughing than actual playing. A few of the men were playing cards. Mrs.Dickson, Mrs.Chandler, and Mrs.Sharpe were sitting with Lady Maple. Maria and Estelle were listening to Lady Crowther and her sister reminiscing about their courtship by brothers and the early days of their marriages. The Earl of Brandon was standing behind Maria’s chair, listening too.
He looked tired, Estelle thought. He had had a busy couple of hours before dinner. His friend Wesley Mort had been persuaded to stay for at least one night before taking Ricky home, but it had not been easy, apparently. He had been quite adamant about not staying anywhere in thehouse—and upon Ricky’s not staying here for another night either. The blacksmith had offered them a room in his cottage up in the laborers’ village on the other side of the hill behind the house. That was where they both were now. Estelle had the feeling there had been an argument. They were best friends, the earl had once said. They also butted heads now and then, she believed. She also suspected they were similar sorts of men, both very proud.
The sisters’ memories had turned to their mother, Lord Brandon’s grandmother. They were laughing over how she had loved the slightest excuse to dress in all her best finery and deck herself out with as many of the family jewels as she could comfortably drape about her.
“Or uncomfortably, for that matter. If she had had more than ten fingers,” Lady Felicity Ormsbury said, “she would have worn more than ten rings.”
“But shedid,” Lady Crowther said. “She always wore her wedding ring and her diamond on the same finger.”
“But no rings, surely, on her thumbs,” Maria said.
Her aunts looked at each other.
“Well, perhaps not on her thumbs,” Lady Crowther conceded. “But there were all the other pieces too, most of them heirlooms. Papa used to threaten sometimes to call out the militia to guard her because she was carrying around a fortune on her person.”
“Mrs.Sharpe reminds me of Mama a little, Augusta,” her sister said. “Always jingling and jangling with necklaces and bracelets and bangles. We would stay awake in the nursery despite all of Nurse’s threats and scolding on evenings when Mama was going somewhere or expecting guests here. She would always come to say good night, sometimes long after our bedtime, and we would gaze at her, speechless with awe.”
“You might have been speechless, Felicity,” Lady Crowther said. “I always used to jump up and down on my bed with excitement until Mama threatened that if I fell off and broke a leg, she would positively not come up and see me ever again.”
“She wassucha liar,” Lady Felicity said, and they both laughed.
“I have not seen the family heirlooms for years,” Lady Crowther said. “Of course I have not. I have notbeenhere for years. Neither have you, Felicity. And we will be leaving here the day after tomorrow. Justin, may we see them before we go? Where do you keep them?”
All eyes turned his way. Maria looked over her shoulder at him.
“That is a good question,” he said. “I have no idea.”
“What?” Lady Crowther half shrieked.
“Where were they usually kept?” he asked.
