Berkeley picked up one of the newspapers from the table there and gave it to him.
“Lord Lexham Welcomes Harem Girl,” the headline proclaimed.
Marchmont’s usually unexcitable—some said nonexistent—heart began to pound in a very strange manner. Not that anyone could tell. His drowsy expression never wavered while he scanned the lengthy article in theMorning Post.
“‘Mysterious young woman,’” he read aloud. “‘Arrived in London on Monday night with Lord Winterton…. Family forewarned, gathered at Lexham House, prepared to confront and oust yet another imposter…’ and so on and so forth.” He shook his head as he skimmed the columns. “‘The reader will imagine the tears shed upon the joyful discovery—’” He looked up. “I believe I shall be sick. Who writes this drivel?”
He read on dramatically, “‘But indeed it was she, restored at last to the bosom of her family, after twelve long years as a captive in the palace of Yusri Pasha.’” He skipped a few more paragraphs. “‘Shocking crime…Lexham…ancient barony…youngest daughter kidnapped and sold in the slave market of Cairo…’”
With a laugh, he dropped the newspaper onto the table. “Vastly amusing. You didn’t happen to notice the date, perchance?”
“I didn’t need to notice,” said Adderwood. “On the way here, any number of urchins told me my handkerchief was hanging out of my pocket. Does there exist an April Fool jest older than that one? I vow, boys must have tried it on Socrates. April Fool was the first thing I thought when I saw the paper. But what, exactly, is the joke?”
“Everyone’s forgotten about her,” said Alvanley. “Why make her a joke? Why not choose a more timely topic?”
“You saw who brought her home,” said Berkeley.
“Winterton.” England’s second most cynical cynic. The Duke of Marchmont came first. “Even had I failed to observe the date, that name would have aroused my suspicions.” Cold-blooded and single-minded, Winterton was not the sort of man who rescued damsels in distress.
“Still, the fact remains, a girl has turned up at Lexham’s, claiming to be Lexham’s youngest,” said Worcester. “That part isn’t an April Fool joke.”
“Have you seen her?” said Marchmont. He took up the paper again. It made no sense—unless Winterton had suffered a concussion in the course of his travels in the East.
“No one’s seen her, except those she claims are her nearest kin,” said Alvanley. “And they’re keeping mum. Last I heard, they’d cloistered themselves at Lexham House and were not at home to visitors.”
In spite of his determined efforts to suffocate it, the Duke of Marchmont’s interest was well and truly piqued. His expression remained sleepily amused.
“I begin to understand why Adderwood was about to stir himself to hunt me down,” he said.
“You’re family to the Lexhams,” Adderwood said.
That was no joke. Marchmont knew his former guardian better than Lexham’s own children did. The man was no fool.
Yet this young woman had bamboozled him—as well as Winterton, apparently.
It made no sense.
The Duke of Marchmont, however, was never at a loss. If he felt uneasy or doubtful or confused or—as was the case at present—utterly confounded, he ignored it. He certainly didn’t show it.
“As a member of the family, I declare that this girl, whoever she is, cannot be Lexham’s youngest,” Marchmont said. “Zoe in a harem for twelve years? If they chained her to a very thick wall, perhaps.”
“She was a hoyden, as I recall,” said Adderwood. More than once he’d joined Marchmont during those long-ago summer holidays with the Lexhams.
“A bolter,” said Marchmont.
He saw her too clearly in his mind’s eye.
I want to play,Lucien. Tell them to let me.
Girls don’t play cricket. Go back to your dolls and nursemaids,brat.
He shoved the memory back into the mental cupboard it had escaped from and slammed the door shut.
“I hope for Lexham’s sake the woman isn’t his daughter,” Alvanley said. “‘Bolter’ would be the kindest of epithets Society will bestow upon her.”
“Twelve years in a harem,” said Berkeley. “Might as well say twelve years in a brothel.”
“It isn’t the same thing,” said Adderwood. “Quite the opposite, actually.”
