“I wasn’t sure if we would see her at all this month. Her mother must be feeling better.” Lucy waved as their good friend, Adeline, walked by with her parents and older brother.
Adeline whispered in her mother’s ear, and her mother glanced their way. With a pat on Addie’s arm, she released her into the crowd. Adeline hurried over.
Lucy gave her a swift hug. “Addie, we are so happy to see you out.”
“Mother is having a good week. I’m so excited to be out of the house. Tell me everything that is happening!” Addie pushed her spectacles up her nose.
Violet leaned in to kiss Adeline’s cheek. “Lucy has an imaginary fiancé.”
Adeline’s eyes widened. “What?!”
“That’s what I said,” Violet leaned toward Adeline. “And the duke is back in town.”
“Really?” Adeline turned to Lucy. “Have you seen him?”
Lucy huffed and opened her own fan to help block her comments from being overheard. “Yes, I have. I needed his help with discouraging Lord Fitzwilliam. I’m sure the innuendo that was printed in thePiccadilly Presswas planted by him.”
Both her friends nodded in tandem.
“Not that Hart would have come to see Lady Weatherby or me if I hadn’t gone to see him first.” She was still hurt by his indifference.
Her best friends knew better than anyone how infatuated with Hart she had been. Hart had always been so charming, always easy to talk with. When she was young, Hart and his brother Robert had seemed larger than life. Both had been kind to the lonely orphan their father had taken in, but Hart had stolen her heart with his irresistible grin. But now she was an adult, and Hart was changed. She needed to put aside her old infatuations. She briefly closed her eyes. Why oh, why had she told him she had a secret fiancée?
“And how is he? Has he recovered from his accident?” Violet asked.
Lucy grimaced. She knew her friend meant well, but the ballroom was no place to discuss Hart’s injuries. “Well enough,” she answered vaguely.
Addie looked back and forth between Lucy and Violet. “But what does this have to do with the faux fiancé?”
Lucy felt her cheeks heat. “Well, Hart… the duke, I mean, was asking about whether I was planning on settling down. He had this terrible look of pity on his face like he didn’t think I ever would. And I don’t know, I just said it. I told him that I had a beau who was a solicitor but that he didn’t have enough money saved for us to marry so we weren’t telling anyone our intentions yet.” She shrugged. “When he demanded to know who, the first name that popped into my head was the solicitor that Violet is always mooning over, Mr. Gregory Murdoch,” she whispered.
Adeline covered her mouth with a gloved hand and giggled. “Mr. Murdoch is handsome. He works for my father as well.”
Lucy’s stomach flip-flopped. She placed a hand to her belly. “You don’t suppose his firm works for Hartwick?”
“Highly unlikely.” Violet shook her head. “The duke’s holdings are vast. He probably has a firm that works exclusively for him.”
Lucy relaxed. Vi was right. There was no way that Hart would ever meet Mr. Murdoch.
*
Hart offered Mr.Langford the list of men that Trudy had given him with one addition, Gregory Murdoch. “I need to know the finances, vices, and rumors about these men.”
Mr. Langford folded the paper and slid it into his pocket. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“Did you bring the ledgers I asked for?”
“Yes, Your Grace.” His man of business reached down for his briefcase. “Is there a particular question I can answer for you?” He pulled out three ledgers and placed them on Hart’s desk.
“No, I don’t even know exactly what I am looking for. I will know it when I see it.”
“Very well, sir.” Langford pulled at one end of his long, wiry mustache.
“That will be all, Langford.” Hart scowled as the squirrely little man hurried to the door.
Langford’s nervous energy put him on edge. This was exactly why he had spent the last year cocooned at Belstoke. Having to endure people’s reactions to his scarred face was demoralizing.
Hart turned to the ledgers sitting on the desk. He should sit and start looking through them, but he was far too restless. He crossed to the window and flipped back the curtain. The gas lamps on the front gate illuminated the street in front of his Mayfair mansion. Not a soul stirred in the square. His neighbors, no doubt, were already out for the evening. It seemed like another lifetime when he would have been dressing in his evening clothes and heading out for a night of revelry with his friends.
