“Well, I’ll have to ask him,” Asher said, getting to his feet rather unsteadily. This information unsettled him and suddenly the tavern felt too close and hot.
Hendrix stood, as well. “It was good to see you, Asher.”
“And you. I look forward to speaking again.” He tossed some money on the table to pay for the drinks and then waved to Hendrix as he left.
But as he moved for his horse, he couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that his father had worked for Fitzgilbert. And wondering if that fact would have any importance to the case.
Asher was still unsteady as he entered Stenfax’s study an hour later. Gray and John were there, looking over paperwork. Stenfax was nowhere to be found.
“Is that new evidence?” Asher asked, his voice sounding very far away to his own ears.
Gray looked up from the papers with a smile. “No. Dane and I were just going over some things for our canal project while Stenfax is spending time with Elise.” His brow wrinkled. “What’s wrong?”
Asher almost laughed as he sank into a chair at the desk. Almost. He didn’t because his stomach still felt sick at what he’d learned.
“Do you still know me so well?” he asked, stalling for time, though why he didn’t know.
Gray shrugged. “You have the same wrinkle to your brow you always did when you were troubled as a child.”
“Some things never change,” Asher mused. “Other things change drastically.”
John tilted his head. “What is it? You had your meeting with the servant, did you? Did something happen?”
Asher took a deep breath. “It went as planned. Hendrix will help. And I’d like to find him a new position if we can work on that. Fitzgilbert’s home is hellish, I hear.”
Gray pursed his lips hard. “No doubt that is true. Certainly, we can find the man a better situation. But if you got what you wanted, why look so…sick?”
Asher rubbed suddenly sweaty palms on his thighs before he said, “Hendrix told me that my father once worked for Fitzgilbert.”
Both Gray and John froze and stared at him. It was Gray who spoke at last. “When?”
“About twenty-five years ago,” Asher said. “I remember it. My father had to take work with a man who wouldn’t allow for servants with children in his employ. I was sent to my aunt and uncle in the country. My father wrote regularly, of course, but I missed him terribly. I was only five or six at the time.”
“But you didn’t reunite with him until you were…you were older, yes?” Gray asked, clearly searching for information shared decades ago when they were children.
Asher nodded. “Yes. He left this man…Fitzgilbert’s…employ fairly quickly. He wrote to me and told me that we couldn’t be together yet. He was very odd about it and I once heard my aunt and uncle whispering about safety. I thought he didn’t want me, truth be told. That he had started a new, better life.”
Dane was watching him closely. “When did he return?”
“I was eight. He showed up, thinner and gaunt, and said he’d lost everything. He was so hollow. And then we went and worked for your father, Gray. After a while, he got better, though I’d never say he ever returned to the man I knew before.”
Gray and John were staring at each other now and there was a world of communication flowing between them that Asher didn’t understand. But he could see it was serious.
“What is it?” he asked, his stomach flipping.
John shook his head. “It’s nothing…nothing yet.” His tone was distant. “I’ll—I’ll investigate it.”
“Investigate what?” Asher asked, looking at Gray again.
Gray forced a smile and shrugged. “Just investigate. Fitzgilbert is a never-ending source of information, it seems. And this connection with your father could turn out to be…” He trailed off, that troubled expression on his face again. “Important.”
Asher opened his mouth to ask more, but John cut him off. “So this Hendrix will contact you once there’s to be an exchange.”
Asher looked between the men, wanting to press more about their interest in his father’s relationship to Fitzgilbert, but it was clear they weren’t going to tell him more. Not yet.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “I told him to send his message here. I assumed I’d be here more than at home while we work on it. And you and I will be following the money together, John.”
Dane nodded. “A good notion. So now we wait.”
