He smiled a crooked smile at her as he reached into a pocket in his waistcoat and pulled out a leather pouch. From inside, he extracted a small screwdriver. “Let’s see if I can’t get this fixed right now. Having his silver box back—and working—should make Christopher happy.”
They watched Soothcoor delicately remove the tiny screws from the bottom of the box. He removed the plate the screws held in place. He stared down at the mechanism.
“What is it, Alastair?” Lady Soothcoor asked.
He set the screwdriver and plate down on the table next to him, then reached into the box. He pulled out a tightly folded piece of paper.
James laughed. “I think I know what that paper is.”
Soothcoor nodded. He unfolded the paper and held it up.
It was the marriage certificate of Owen Sedgewick and Sushmita Dhar.
Lady Soothcoor gasped.
He leaned back in his chair. “Owen put this in the music box to make sure I got it. He knew I would fix a broken music box. He must have suspected someone would try to destroy evidence of his marriage.”
“When Miss Rangaswamy told us Christopher’s broken music box was missing from the luggage, she did say Owen told Christopher that his uncle would fix it,” Cecilia said. “I didn’t realize she meant that literally.” She looked over at Lady Soothcoor. The woman had tears in her eyes.
“My lady, I’d like you to return to London with us. You cannot want to stay here alone tonight.”
Lady Soothcoor looked down at her hands, then back up at Cecilia. “Yes, I think I should like that. I should like to meet my new step-grandson.”
Lord Soothcoor rose from his chair and went to Lady Soothcoor. She stood up and Soothcoor enfolded her in a hug. “Thank you,” he whispered.
James passed Cecilia his handkerchief. Cecilia gave a watery laugh as she blotted her eyes.
EPILOGUE
MARCH 1816, SUMMERWORTH PARK, KENT
Cecilia stared at the knotted mess she had made. She was sitting in their morning parlor, enjoying the sunshine streaming through the window. Outside, a hint of green tinged the trees and peeped up through the dirt, promising spring. She was looking forward to late spring, with everything in bloom.
Her neighbor and friend, Lady Elinor Aldrich, had been teaching her to tat. As Cecilia stared at her wayward knots that did not follow the prescribed pattern, she feared tatting would be another of the female skills that would elude her. She should stick with embroidery. At least when she made a mistake in her embroidery, she could carefully pick the threads out. It wasn’t so easy to do so with tatted knots. But the tatted end result was so pretty—if one knew what they were doing. Since there were paper patterns, Cecilia thought it would be easy to learn. It had not turned out to be so! She wondered if that was because her mind slipped its leash and wandered too much when she sat still in one place. She had to pay close attention to what she was doing with tatting—more than she was wont to give.
Perhaps she could get the bad knots out—but on another day when her frustration was not already high.
“Cecilia!” She heard James call for her. “Cecilia! We have received the most amazing communication from Soothcoor,” he said, as he walked into the morning room, laughing.
Cecilia set her sewing basket on the floor beside her as James crossed the room to sit beside her. He drew her into the circle of his arms, giving her a squeeze and a kiss on her brow.
She snuggled against him. “Don’t keep me in suspense. What is happening in London?”
“Do you remember the climbing boy, Billy?”
“Yes. I remember two things best. He had a delightful cheeky smile when he was happy, and then, the horror of his relating Mr. Peasey’s death.”
“Mr. Martin got him into a school for boys.”
“A school we pay for,” Cecilia said.
James inclined his head. “However, he is not there now.”
“Oh, please don’t tell me he has run away!” Cecilia said.
“On the contrary. He was a model student.”
“Then what happened? Where is he?”
