My household had been gossiping together. “Tomorrow,” I snapped.
“He can help.” Jane stretched out her legs, pointing her toes toward the heat of the fire.
“He has his own troubles to sort.” Jane and I had never spoken of it, but she must know a bit of the secret life my nephew lived. She’d been around me too long not to. And while Marcus’shistory of assisting the Crown with delicate problems most likely did mean he would be an asset to my investigation, I was loath to include him.
He had his own life.
He had two young children and a wife he wanted to spend every free moment with.
I wanted to do this myself.
The truth of that hooked beneath my ribcage. I’d been a daughter, a wife, an aunt. Always an accessory of a man. It made no matter that I loved all those men in my life. In this society, they were the ones who made the decisions. Who were useful. It wasn’t until I’d created my club that I’d ever created something that was just mine.
And it was pure selfishness that made me want to keep it, and even its problems, my own. Mr. Rollins’s involvement didn’t count. We didn’t have a history, and he was merely doing his job. Frankly, I couldn’t believe it had been as easy as it had been to convince him to accept my and Eleanor’s involvement. But if Marcus became involved, then his friends would become involved, too, and I would be on the outside looking in on my own life.
No, when I went to see him to discover the identity of my accuser, I would need to convince the boy to stay out of it.
Except when I needed him to provide me with information about anonymous authors.
Or lend me his name on my invitation.
I blew out a breath. I was a hypocrite of the worst kind. I did want his help, but only on my terms.
“If you won’t let him investigate, then you should have more protection when you do so,” Jane said stoutly. “I can go around with you until the matter is resolved.”
Jane was twenty years older than me if she was a day, and the drink she’d poured herself wasn’t just to be companionable.Her bones ached, especially in the cold, and a nip now and then eased the pain. Making Jane trail after me all day, out in the elements, would be cruel. “Ernest is with me when I ‘go around’, as you say, and otherwise I’m at the club with several burly footmen.”
“Ernest stays with the carriage when he drives you, and most of your footmen are no longer strapping young bucks.” Jane patted the white lace cap over her hair.
“Do you make a habit of checking the physique of the men who work for me?” I couldn’t hide my amusement. I suppose I also noticed when a young man was of good form, even though I was no longer attracted to men so much my junior. Aging didn’t make one blind to male beauty.
Jane huffed, then lapsed into silence. We sat sipping our brandies, relaxing our bones.
“That poor man,” Jane finally said. “Can you imagine losing both your wife and only child? To murder? How can he ever recover?”
I didn’t think Lord Richford would recover. I hoped I was wrong. That his friends and faith would bear him through, or that in a couple of years he might meet someone who would revive the life in him. But his wife’s death had nearly broken him, and the news of his son was most likely the quelling blow.
I ran my thumb along the rim of my glass. “Do you ever regret it?” I asked softly. “Staying with me all these years instead of making a family of your own?” Jane had been with me ever since I was a child. She’d helped me arrange my hair to the latest fashions the day Cavindish had asked for my hand. She’d moved to Cavindish House when I’d married, then come here when I’d become a widow. I’d never known her to show an interest in a man, not even a casual flirtation.
Shame burned in my chest. I knew what it was like to live with regrets, to feel the pain of never creating a family of my own. Had my narcissism sentenced my friend to the same pain?
Jane dipped her chin, the firelight shimmering through the lace of her cap. “You are quite dear to me, madam, but if I had met a man to love, I would have left you in an instant.”
I grimaced. Well, there was me put in my place.
“I would have been at Gretna Green before you’d even had your first cup of tea, without one thought as to who would help you dress or style your hair.”
I held up a hand. “All right, I understand your point. No need to relish just how little your service to me means.”
Jane smirked, pulling a shawl from the ottoman near her and draping it over her lap.
A log popped in the fireplace, drawing our gazes. The mood turned somber once more as we stared into the flames.
“No one gets everything they want in this life,” Jane said, “but we can’t survive with regrets.”
I swallowed. She wasn’t just talking about herself. She knew the struggles Cavindish and I had to have children. Knew the emptiness I’d felt.
“It’s best we focus on the gifts we did receive.” She raised her half-empty glass to me as though in a toast. “And there are many.”
