Winston let the silence stand between them a beat too long. Oswald’s mouth changed, wariness, then understanding.
“God’s breath,” Oswald said softly. “You do.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to. I’ve known you since we were boys. You’ve got that look you had the first time you broke a colt, stubborn and calm as if you were standing on the edge of a river you meant to cross, whether it flooded or not.”
Winston’s temper came up fast, and he reined it in. “Your task was to find facts..”
I know she lied. It should be no surprise that she sought to protect the lie by destroying the evidence, here at least. Is it proof of the rest?
“My task was to keep you from walking into a noose with your eyes open,” Oswald said, not unkindly. “If there’s a scheme, step out of it. If there isn’t, better men than us will try to tell you there is, because it’s easier to distrust a woman than to admit a father can be a villain.”
Winston moved to the fire. He felt the heat on his shins and the cold along his back and thought, absurdly, of the hill where the spring ran and the way Adeline had looked when she’d said London felt like a fever dream. His knee ached. His ribs nagged. He didn’t sit.
“Give me the rest,” he said.
“Fraser atDebrett’sconfirmed what you already know,” Oswald said. “There’s no daughter for Clifford-Edge. There is an AdelineWarren for Harston. He’s had letters from three people in the last fortnight asking whetherDebrett’serred, because they’ve met a Miss Wilkinson of Clifford-Edge at a certain Duke’s house. He’s squashed it. He’s a decent man. But gossip moves faster than ink.”
“Who wrote him?”
“A club bore with a taste for scandal, a lieutenant of Pike’s, and a lady who enjoys telling the truth when it hurts. I won’t give you the names until I must.”
“Thank you,” Winston said, bone-dry.
Oswald lifted a hand, a small apology. “I spoke to a runner I trust. He’s not been hired. If he is, he’ll tell me. He doesn’t like Harston’s smell.”
They stood in the room with its old books and the smell of smoke from a hundred winters. Winston placed each piece where it belonged. Harston was in debt. A pattern of approaches. Pike at the edge of it. Debrett’s receiving whispers. Bow Street sniffing. And Adeline, her hand on Louisa’s hair in the middle of a night that had pulled the color from Cordelia’s face. Her steady voice cut through his pain in a carriage. Her breath at his throat when the rain drowned the world.
A thought lodged where he couldn’t ignore it. If Harston were drowning, any boat would look like salvation. Even a boat he hated. Even a Duke.
“What if it’s both?” Winston said, mostly to himself. “What if he thinks to use her without her knowing it? Dangle his daughter’s ruin to line his pockets. Let the world believe she’s baiting traps when she’s only trying to live.”
Oswald’s face eased a fraction. “That I can believe. I don’t like to believe the other.”
“Nor do I,” Winston muttered thickly. “Allegations are smoke until they’re not. I’ve seen more men ruined by rumor than by cannon.”
“And some by their own kindness,” Oswald said.
Winston looked up sharply. “I’m not kind.”
“You are, and you hate to be,” Oswald said. “It muddles the accounts. Listen, Harston’s desperate. Desperate men sell what they can. He has a daughter and a name. If he can turn one into money by dragging the other through a hedge, he will. If she runs from him, he’ll make her pay for running by calling it theft and fraud and anything that looks like a word the law can wear. That doesn’t make her guilty. But it makes you a target.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Winston said, quieter than the anger deserved. “I’ve felt it since London. He stood in a room with me and didn’t blink at lying to my face. He’d lie to a court without needing a drink to light the spark.”
Oswald leaned his hip against the table. “Then don’t give him a court. Keep it out of the papers. Keep it in rooms you choose. Use men who can ask without braying. You wrote to me because you wanted to see it before it hit you. You’ve seen it.”
Winston nodded once. “I’ll speak to the runner you trust. Quietly. I’ll take statements here. I’ll have Hartley tell me exactly who asked questions at the gate and when. If Grebe’s been within a mile of this house, someone has seen the grease on his sleeve.”
Oswald’s mouth twitched. “That’s better. You’re a bastard when you’re thorough.”
Winston didn’t smile. “And Adeline?”
Oswald was careful. “Do you want my counsel as your friend or as the only man in the county who will tell you a hard thing to your face?”
“Both.”
“As your friend. Ask her again for the truth. Not under a vicar’s roof in a thunderstorm. Here. In your house. Make it clear you’d rather be hurt by the truth than comforted by a lie. Then give her the room to answer. As the hard thing, do not, under any circumstances, let her see your hand before you’ve played it. If she is blameless, you protect her. If she is not, you protect Louisa.”
