Celine’s tale wasn’t that far-fetched—a man who fancied himself in love would seek vengeance for the lady’s ruined life.
“Wouldn’t you?” Celine insisted. “If someone hurt someone you loved? Not just hurt but destroyed. Imagine if it were Davina.”
She needn’t have twisted the knife; she knew without a doubt that I would do anything for Dav. I had, on more than one occasion, endured great expense and humiliation in an effort to spare her the same.
“All right, say I believe the motive. You have no evidence.”
She handed me a simple scrap of parchment, yellowed at the edges with smeared ink, but the words were still legible.
Hyde Park, 6:30
-W
I should have been grateful that she didn’t want to immediately hand Will over to the authorities with her “evidence.” But her plan to investigate the man was utterly absurd, and, in the very unlikely event that she was right, incredibly dangerous.
With a sigh, I reluctantly agreed to assist her, if only to prevent bloodshed. Christ, I hoped this wouldn’t end in Will and Mr. Summers refusing to help me with Davina’s nonsense in the future. It really was damned hard to find a competent and discrete solicitor able to keep my sister from ruin.
There wasa little alley beside the offices of Hart and Summers, Solicitors. Three windows lined the wall on the first floor.
“Which one is his?” Celine demanded. I tried to picture the interior of the office. Will and Mr. Summers each had their own room at the back with lines of clerks up front. There was a room on one side that I’d never been in. Typically, I spent more time in Mr. Summers’s office, and I couldn’t recall a window there at all.
I pointed to the farthest window. “That one, I believe.”
She stepped across the gutter stinking of something I didn’t wish to consider. She then snatched an empty milk crate from nearby and upended it beneath the window I had indicated. When she rose to stand on it, I could only stare.
To think, I’d once thought her my most sensible relation.
“Remember, enunciate,” she ordered in a harsh whisper.
“I cannot believe I am doing this…” I muttered, mostly to myself, as I slipped out of the alley to approach the offices.
There was a little bell atop the door. I was so familiar with its distinctive clang that my eye twitched instinctively at thesound. The majority of my visits were to enlist one of the men in rescuing Dav from some scandal or other—never pleasant.
Mr. Summers’s door was closed, but Will’s was wide open. He was visible from the entry, behind the row of clerks. He gestured me into his office with a greeting and rose to close the door behind us.
My heart fluttered in distress. If Celine couldn’t hear—that would be the end of it. She would insist on “investigating” on her own if she couldn’t overhear our conversation and she’d get herself or someone else killed. “Morning, Will. Oh, there’s no need to close the door,” I blurted. “It’s a bit warm today. I could use the airflow. In fact, would you mind opening that window?” I gestured toward the one beside him.
His bright eyes narrowed suspiciously, but he performed the task without comment.
Every time I saw him, I was reminded again how striking he was. In fact, his eyes and impossibly sharp cheeks had featured in a number of youthful fantasies. It would be an absolute travesty if Celine were right. Handsome men ought not to be murderers.
As he turned back to the desk, something behind me caught Will’s attention. Cee wouldn’t… would she? I spun only to be faced with the sight of a gentleman peering around the corner from Mr. Summers’s office.
It took a moment to place him, the youngest Grayson brother. Tim? His hand was raised in an awkward wave. “Sorry, Will. Didn’t realize you had a client—Oh, Your Grace!” He broke off, wide-eyed, his cheeks flushing. The hand, frozen in a wave, remembered itself and crept behind his head to rub at the back of his neck as he straightened in the doorway. There was something expectant, wary perhaps, in his expression. “Repurchasing your sister from the pirates?” he asked.
Terror shot through my spine. “What? She’s been consorting with pirates again? Which ones?” I demanded, my tone too shrill.
He chuckled as he stepped back and rested his backside against the nearest clerk’s desk. The man offered him a disgruntled glare that—Tim? Tom?—failed to notice. “That was a joke. She’s been kidnapped before?”
“Why would you jest about something like that?” I snapped, still on edge as my pounding heart refused to slow. He truly was a gangly thing, wrapped in an absolutely atrocious waistcoat—had he purchased it in the dark? Citrine, juniper, and apricot swirled through the fabric in abstract lines. Hideous.
“Well, I thought it was too absurd to have happened before. What are you doing then?”
Panic surged back through me. Celine and I hadn’t considered that part of the “plan” before sending me into a murderer’s office. My mouth answered before my head had a chance to agree. “Oh, I was planning to do a bit of traveling and I wanted Will’s advice first.”
Perhaps I should consider speaking first and thinking later more often; it was as good an excuse as any I would have thought out.
“Where are you going?” Mr. Grayson asked. He leaned forward with interest, bracing his palms behind him against the edge of the desk. His legs were absurdly long; they half spilled into the doorway—though, his thighs, those were quite muscular, even underneath the revolting reddish umber of his trousers.
