“I have tried. Aunt Charlotte says she does not know and I believe her. Uncle George does and keeps his secrets close. But I believe I have a right to know this one. Yet he evades telling me. So, I must take steps to discover the information myself.”
“I see.” Gellert rubbed his fingers across his mouth, sitting back in his chair, which creaked. He gazed into the middle distancefor a moment, fingers of his other hand drumming on the polished but scarred and scratched wood of his desk. “I’m afraid I cannot help you.”
Violet looked at him for a moment, not quite sure what she was hearing.
“Youcannot?” she asked.
“I will not.” Gellert corrected. “Let us not beat about the bush. I find it best to be direct.”
“Will not.”
“That is correct.”
“May I ask why?” Violet asked quietly. “You are retained in the service of the Ravendel family. I am a member of that family.”
“Yes, and in almost any other matter I would obey without question. But, I am instructed not to aid in this particular question. I am very sorry.” Gellert’s grandfatherly smile did not change but Violet thought she detected a hardening around his eyes.
“On whose orders?” she asked, though the question was redundant.
Gellert simply spread his hands helplessly.
“Then I can see I am wasting my time. I shall have to seek the services of another solicitor,” Violet said, standing.
“That is of course, your privilege,” Gellert said, rising also. “And should you require it, I will be happy to provide a list of the recommendations.”
Violet made a cursory farewell and left the office, mind reeling.
Uncle George has given orders that his solicitor not help me find the information I am looking for. And I do not have the funds to employ a solicitor of my own. My allowance from Uncle George will not stretch that far.
She hurried out of the Lincoln’s Inn building and across the park before it.
I will not allow Uncle George to block me. It is my right to know. I will find a way. Somehow.
Chapter 8
Alexander threw the morning’s post away from himself, scattering it across the bare wooden floorboards of his library. He slammed a hand down onto the table before him, causing it to shake. Glaring towards the window, beyond which he could see the row of houses opposite and the top of the steeple of the Brompton Chapel behind. That tiny tip of a steeple drew his ire, reminding him of the priests who had run the Gorbals orphanage and who had turned him into a slave, selling his labor as a chimney sweep with no thought to his health or wellbeing.
Then his attention came back to the post and the real source of his anger.
She ignores me. After refusing to help with no explanation other than my reputation, whatever that bloody means, she now ignores me. I request an audience, a chaperoned audience at that. And she does not even do me the courtesy of replying. What is the point of being one of the highest-ranking noblemenin the land if I cannot even make the blasted, bloody woman talk to me!
He stood, kicking over the chair in which he had been sitting, and stalked across the room. It was bare of furniture except for a chair and desk, and the shelves of books that he had rapidly acquired after taking the house. The sight of the books comforted him while the feel of a cluttered room made him uncomfortable. The house he had leased in the extreme west of London was deliberately kept with a minimum of furniture for that reason.
I am running out of time. The amendments will be read in two days’ time and Sebastian is being hampered in his alliance building by me. My voice. My accent. My previous behavior and my demeanor. Damn these English and their rules!
Pacing the room he felt the anger rising at the injustice of it all. The urge to escape filled him and he left the library, slamming doors as he strode through the house and out of its rear doors, into the garden. Compared to the Ravendel’s garden it was basic, a rectangle of grass with a shaded pond at one end and flower beds around the edges. But it was ringed by trees, hiding it from the view of other houses. Kicking off his boots and pulling off his stockings, abandoning both, he walked barefoot out across the lawn.
It brought him immediate comfort, a feeling of being connected to the earth through the feel of the grass on the soles of his feet and between his toes. He took a breath, looking up at the blue sky, studded with clouds. Birdsong reached him, twitterspassing back and forth, trills and whistles. As calm descended on him, the answer came.
If she will not allow me to come to her, then I must go to her without her consent. I cannot force my way into her house. But, I know that she has a habit of reading in that little hut in her garden in the evening. And such places have walls which can be climbed.
A thoroughly roguish and un-English plan. Or at least ungentlemanly. As a boy, he had scaled many walls in search of things to steal.
All I wish to steal this time is a little of her time. She can refuse me and probably will but it is my last roll of the dice. If she will not help me then I will leave London for Lorchester and leave the Bill in Sebastian’s hands. It will rankle not to be part of it after I have put in so much work but there is nothing else for it.
Having reached his decision, he walked back across the lawn, regretting the return to his stockings, boots, and the trappings of civilization. There was much to do. He would need to go to Great Russell Street and discover the geography of the Ravendel’s property, and find the best way in before nightfall robbed him of visibility. Having discovered his way in, he would go back after nightfall in the hope of finding Violet in the garden.
The rear wall of the Ravendel garden faced a narrow, cobbled alleyway. A row of terraced houses stood opposite, facing towards Bedford Square, which lay beyond. The alley was, therefore, not overlooked by the houses on Great Russell Street or those facing the Square. It was unlit and as clouds obscured the moon, as close to complete darkness as could be hoped for in such a metropolis.
