He made a face. “I always thought that horses were his passion in life—they seemed to bring him great pleasure. However, when Tommy and I were at university, we began to suspect that he might have a mistress. Several of our friends mentioned seeing him at the Newmarket races accompanied by a very attractive lady.”
A sigh. “But when Tommy ventured to mention it, my father said it was merely an old acquaintance he had encountered. We both accepted that, for there seemed no reason not to.”
“Of course not,” agreed Charlotte. She fell silent, but only for a moment. “Could ‘A’ have been a neighbor?”
“It seems unlikely. Like my father’s estate, the neighboring ones were used mainly as hunting retreats. There was little in the way of social entertainments in the area. I can’t imagine a widow or any unattached lady taking up residence in such isolation,” replied Wrexford.
“And yet it’s hard to interpret this as anything other than an exchange between two intimately acquainted people.” Charlotte cleared her throat and began reading it aloud.
My Dear A,
Much as I long for your presence, I understand your continued absence—God knows, you are right to chastise me. I should have reached out to Alexander long ago. It is a sad state of affairs when a father is too cowardly to contact his son . . .
Wrexford looked away, throwing his face in shadow, as Charlotte continued.
I shall do so later this afternoon, as I have promised Needham to ride out with him and give my opinion on his newly purchased stallion.
As for our other concern, I promise that I—
Blast it all, Needham is here early! I will finish this later as well.
The ensuing silence seemed to thunder in his ears, a painful reminder of all the precious moments he had let slip by.
“I wish I could make sense of what you have just read,” he finally said. “I wish . . . Damnation, I wish a great many things . . .”
“Sweeting, you don’t think that I regret not making peace with my father?” asked Charlotte softly. “These tug-of-heart conflicts that occur in all families are impossibly hard. The hubris of youth allows for little nuance—things are either black or white. While we’re now wise enough to realize the most of Life is actually colored in a subtle range of greys.”
He let out a pent-up breath that ended in a rueful smile. “How would I live without you and your wisdom?”
“Quite peacefully,” she quipped, “and free from chaos and crime.”
Wrexford laughed, and all at once the shadows seemed to lighten.
“I can’t make things right with my father,” he mused. “However, I can make an attempt to find ‘A’ and perhaps understand a part of his life that he felt compelled to hide from me.”
“The unknown ‘A’ is a mystery for now,” said Charlotte. “But we’re very good at unraveling mysteries. Once we’ve solved this current murder, we can turn our attention to the task. Griffin has an excellent nose for sniffing out old clues and following them wherever they lead.”
Their good friend Griffin was Bow Street’s best Runner and had helped them in a number of previous investigations.
After folding the late earl’s letter and placing it on the side table, she took his hand. “Come, let us retire for the night and leave any further thinking until the morning.”
“Yet another wise suggestion, my love. Lead the way.”
* * *
“Why is Wrex upset?” asked Hawk.
“Because his father had a secret mistress—” began Raven.
“We don’t know that,” interjected Peregrine.
“Oiy. But it certainly sounded like something niffy-naffy was going on.”
“Wrex looked more sad than angry,” mused Hawk. “What can we do to help?”
“Nuffink!” said his brother with a wry smile. Hawk tended to mispronounce certain words when he was agitated.Nothingwas one of them.
“If this was a question of ferreting out information in the slums or pilfering papers from some Mayfair mansion, we would have a good argument for being included in any plans,” said Raven. “But m’lady has explained to us that the heart is a devilishly complex organ and that until we are older, we can’t comprehend all the variations of Love.”
