“I cannot. It seems impenetrable! Thank you, Lord Swinthorpe. The ideal solution,” Georgia agreed.
“If it pleases, Your Grace, I would deem it a great honor if you addressed me as my nephew does.Edricis the name I was given, and it is a good one, I think.”
“An excellent name, Edric,” Amelia enthused, “if I also have leave to use it?”
Edric bowed in an old-fashioned, courtly way. It enhanced the air of grandfatherly kindness that emanated from him.
“Of course, Miss Vexley,” he said, graciously.
“Amelia, please, Edric,” Amelia offered.
Edric smiled warmly. “I would recommend departing at once. If you would like to pack some small items of luggage, I will inform Rutherford.”
He turned to go, then paused.
“On second thoughts. Let us not give any of the staff reason to gossip about your departure or the manner of it,” he said, tapping his lips thoughtfully with a finger, “we shall slip out by the servant's door. Your Grace, perhaps a note in your own fair hand will be sufficient to inform Rutherford.”
“Of course. Come, Amelia, we will pack a bag each, and I will write the note,” Georgia said, linking arms with her cousin.
She was happy to see the fear and anxiety leave her cousin’s shining face.
Now all we need to do is engineer a two-year visit to the country until Amelia turns twenty-one. Simple!
As they returned to their rooms to pack, Georgia found herself smiling. It was a ludicrous thought, but she suddenly had such confidence in Keaton and, yes, in Edric too, that she felt nothing could go wrong!
CHAPTER 30
“Yes, that's the ring. I've seen it many evenings here in the club and heard the story behind it.”
The speaker was Sir Fletcher Melville, a middle-aged gentleman with a voice that spoke of salt air and orders roared on deck to be heard over the shriek of a gale.
“It belonged to Elias Roseton, the Viscount Branberry,” Keaton said, hands folded over the head of his cane.
Thorne sat next to him, having arranged this meeting with a member of the club who he had found that recognized the description Thorne had been circulating of the ring. A gentleman who had only recently returned to England after several years abroad.
“Aye, that was his name. A true Englishman, at home on the sea and wherever he was in the world. A truePalin.”
Keaton smiled thinly. “The question is, what became of him?”
“Well, as to that, Your Grace. I couldn't tell you. I saw it one evening on his finger. We were in the maproom looking at routes to India. He was planning on setting out the next day. I assume he did just that.”
Keaton nodded, disguising his disappointment.
“May I ask, why did it take you so long to respond to Thorne's description of the ring? It has been circulating for years.”
“I've been abroad, Your Grace,” the man said, “India, Africa, South Pacific. This is the first I've been ashore in England for... more years than I can count. As soon as I saw the leaflet Thorne had pinned up on the notice board, old and faded though it was, I said to myself, that's Roseton's ring or I'm a Dutchman.”
“I've checked with Lloyds,” Thorne put in. “There is no record of the ship that Lord Roseton planned to sail on being wrecked. They reached the Cape in good time. Another vessel sailed from there to Zanzibar, which was part of his itinerary. A third was to sail across the Indian Ocean to Bombay. All reached their destinations.”
“Aye, well, Zanzibar. Not the safest of ports,” Melville shrugged, “a man can be lost there and no one to tell of it. That's assuming he didn't fall ill en route. Something catching, and the captain would throw him over the side even if he were the King of England. Better that than lose the crew.”
Keaton ground his teeth. He had been sure this would lead to the solution to Georgia's mystery. He had been desperate to give her the answers she wanted, to let her know that she could trust him implicitly, that his interest was seeing hers served.
“Now, the doctor on my ship, he knew something more, I think,” Melville continued. “Mr. Jacob Harrison is his name. Employed as a steward here in fact.”
“A doctor?” Thorne said in a tone of disbelief.
“Aboard, the cook is often referred to as the doctor. Because he was handy with a cleaver,” Keaton explained, “and a man who was good with a cleaver could be trusted with...” He made a chopping gesture at his wrist as though to sever it.
