The duke stepped inside and closed the door. “It is just you and I, Houghton,” he said. “And I have enough of charades during the evenings. Well?”
“The lady in question is Miss Isabella Fleur Bradshaw, your grace,” his secretary said, “daughter of a former Lord Brocklehurst, now deceased, along with his wife, Miss Bradshaw’s mother.”
“He was succeeded by the present Lord Brocklehurst?” his grace asked.
“By his father, your grace. His lordship died five years ago, leaving a wife, a son, and a daughter to mourn him.”
“And their relationship to Miss Ham…to Miss Bradshaw’s father?”
“The late baron was his first cousin, your grace,” Houghton said.
“The late and the present Lords Brocklehurst were and are her guardians?” his grace asked with narrowed eyes. “What are the terms of guardianship? She must be past her twenty-first birthday.”
“Such information is not easy to come by when one is pretending to just idle curiosity, your grace,” his secretary said stiffly.
“But I am quite sure you came by it anyway,” his grace said. “Yes, I know it must have been difficult, Houghton. I fully appreciate your talents without your drawing my attention to them. Why do you think I employ you? Because I like your looks?”
Peter Houghton coughed. “She will come into her dowry and her mother’s fortune when she is twenty-five, your grace,” he said, “or when she marries, provided her guardian approves her choice. If he does not, then she must wait until her thirtieth birthday before inheriting.”
“And her present age?” the duke asked.
“Twenty-three, your grace.”
The duke looked at his secretary consideringly. “All right, Houghton,” he said, “those are the facts, and you must be commended for discovering them. Now tell me all the rest. All of it. I can tell from the look on your face that you are fair to bursting with it. Out with it, without waiting to be prompted.”
“You may not like it, your grace,” Houghton said.
“I will be the judge of that.”
“And it may reflect on my judgment in hiring her,” Houghton said. “Though,” he added with a cough, “we are talking about Miss Bradshaw, are we not, your grace, and not about Miss Hamilton.”
“Houghton.” His grace’s eyes had narrowed dangerously.“If you would prefer to tell your story with my hand at your windpipe, it is all the same to me. But you might be more comfortable as you are.”
“Yes, your grace,” Houghton said, coughing again. But hands at windpipes would be mild in comparison with what might happen after the duke had heard all about his ladybird, he reflected, beginning to speak.
There was only one particular thought in the duke’s mind. He was glad her name really was Fleur, he thought. It would be difficult to have to start thinking of her as Isabella. She did not look like an Isabella.
He stood at the window, his back to the room, listening. He did not interrupt often.
“Do you have a single source for all these details?” he asked at one point.
“A servant from Heron House, your grace,” Houghton said, “a gentleman who liked to frequent the taproom at the inn where I put up, and the curate and his sister. Particularly the sister. I gather she was a friend of Miss Bradshaw’s. The brother was more reticent.”
“She had a friend, then,” the duke said more to himself than to his secretary.
“The gentleman’s name?” he asked later. “The taproom gentleman, that is?”
“Mr. Tweedsmuir, your grace.”
“First name?”
“Horace, your grace.”
“Ah,” the duke said. “Did you encounter any gentleman whose first name was Daniel?”
“Yes, your grace.”
“Well?” His grace turned impatiently to look at his secretary.
