WILLIAM
The strangest thingabout the sun was that it kept rising. It gave not a fig whether a man’s entire life was torn asunder mere hours before dawn. The sun still rose and contracts still needed to be reviewed.
A quick glance in the glass told me what I ought to have guessed. My curls were loose and tousled in the way Mother scolded me over before she passed.
My lips were a bit redder than usual as well.
Carding my fingers through my hair solved the first problem. Time would manage the second. I strongly suspected no one would notice anyway. For all that the little slip of a marchioness had ruined me, physically I was unchanged.
Though Kit had promised to take yesterday’s stack for me, I was in need of the distraction that only the examination of property records and financial transactions could provide.
After trudging down the stairs and out to the street, I unlocked the glass door below the weather-beaten wooden sign reading, “Hart and Summers, Solicitors.” It needed to bereplaced, but I had a strong suspicion that in a few months’ time, I would need a version that read, “Hart, Solicitor.”
Kit may pout and stamp his feet now, but he was a good lad and would step up to the earldom eventually. Much as he did not want it, it had its advantages.
I was making progress with the stack when Kit arrived, the bell above the door signaling his entry. His frown was even more prominent than usual.
“Kate couldn’t find a woman willing to put up with your sullen face?” I asked.
“How would you know? I never saw you after ten.” His scowl deepened with disapproval. “If you think I’m taking your entire stack for an hour of hiding upstairs, you’ve another thing coming.”
“It was an educated guess.”
“She paraded me about like a prized pig at the fair. And I mingled with clients, unlike some people.”
“Right, sorry. Would you double-check those?” I gestured toward the stack I had reviewed yesterday. I was not prepared to field questions about my whereabouts, but I was more than prepared to hand him work until he moved on.
“All right. But I’m still cross.”
“You’re always cross about something. Your displeasure is noted for the record and overruled.”
And so passed a relatively quiet morning. Mornings typically went that way with patrons generally arriving after tea and social calls. There was an occasional ding of the bell as the clerks we employed arrived—Matthews, Bates, and Williams. The repetitive scratches of quills on parchments, the taps on inkwells. Rarely, a cough from one of the men. But all was as usual.
So it was something of a surprise when the little bell chimed again, signaling a new arrival only a few hours after we opened.
I glanced up through my office door as one of the clerks greeted the unusually tall gentleman. I recognized him as one of Kit’s brothers-in-law. Not Wayland, the youngest one.
“Tom, good to see you. What can I do for you? You didn’t mention anything last night,” Kit called from his office as he stood and went to meet the lad in the main room. Kit directed him back into his own office and shut the door, leaving behind only the scribbles of the clerks.
I was even more startled when the bell rang a second time not even a quarter hour later, signaling the arrival of yet another visitor.
What is Rosehill doing here?
Immediately, all my efforts to forget the woman with hair of spun gold and lips of sin were abandoned at the sight of her late husband’s brother. There were only two possibilities: Lady Davina was in trouble again, or he had talked to Lady Rycliffe. The odds were a coin toss from where I sat.
In spite of his relations, I liked the man a great deal. He had still been in school when I left Yorkshire. After his father’s death, he generously moved his accounts to my fledgling practice, proving to be one of our most loyal—and profitable—clients.
He often required our assistance to rescue his sister from whatever absurd misadventure she’d found this week. Kit usually handled those. He was more willing to work with foreign governments than me.
But Rosehill didn’t spare a glance toward Kit’s closed door. He was here to deal with me then. There was every possibility he was Lady Rycliffe’s closest male relation.
Rising, I gestured him into my office and moved to the door while greeting him. I didn’t need the staff overhearing my dressing down, or worse, a challenge issued.
“Morning, Will. Oh, there’s no need to close the door. It’s a bit warm today. I could use the airflow. In fact, would you mindopening that window?” He gestured in that exaggerated way of his, toward the large window on the side wall of my office.
He was acting strangely, but I had no reasonable excuse to refuse, so I made the effort. I returned to my seat across from him just as Kit’s door opened. Tom peered his head around the corner, hand raised in a wave.
“Sorry, Will. Didn’t realize you had a client. Oh, Rosehill! Repurchasing your sister from the pirates?”
