“That is your French half talking,” Brentworth said.
“If it is French to believe a man has certain obligations to his lover, so be it,” Stratton said. “A gentleman—”
“Whether I intend to apologize is not your concern,” Gabriel interrupted. “I do, however, intend to see her again.”
“Not to apologize,” Brentworth said to Stratton. “He has unfinished business, doesn’t he? A score to settle now.”
These were his closest and oldest friends, but sometimes Gabriel did not like how well they knew him.
“How will you do that, if you do not know who she is?” Stratton asked.
Damned if he knew.
Approaching footsteps interrupted his consideration of the conundrum. The door to the library opened, and Harry’s sweet Emilia, the young, blond, and angelic sister to the Duchess of Stratton, appeared. She noticed Gabriel and her big smile dimmed a bit, but she recovered and walked over to the man she had come to see.
“It is done and all is well,” she said. “You can go up now and see your son.”
The chamber erupted with cheers and well wishes; then Stratton ran from the chamber. Before Emilia followed, she sidled nearer to Gabriel.
“I am told your brother has left town,” she said.
“He went away to rusticate and work on his book.”
She had the decency to look sad. “I will miss him.”
Not enough. “He should return in a month or so.”
He excused himself then, and sought his horse. He parted from Brentworth on Oxford Street and rode on. He had figured out how he might see his mystery woman again.
Chapter Six
“I will leave you now,” Lady Farnsworth intoned. “Miss Waverly, make use of the club when you are finished. I need to visit my solicitor and may not be back until after you are done.”
The lady sailed out, leaving Amanda alone with Mrs. Galbreath in the house’s little office on the first story. Mrs. Galbreath moved a chair to join the one already at the desk. “You sit here, and I will show you the accounts.”
Lady Farnsworth had announced this visit to Bedford Square when Amanda arrived in her home in the morning. Amanda had been grateful for something novel to fill the day. When she sat at her desk in Lady Farnsworth’s library, too much distracted her mind.
Her daring adventure increasingly struck her as foolhardy. She could have died. She could have been caught by a servant. Fine thing to go to all that trouble only to be apprehended as soon as she dropped into Sir Malcolm Nutley’s dressing room.
That was where she had landed, which meant she had to go below to the gallery and public rooms to look for that stupid buckle. Every minute in the house increased her danger.
And if she had been caught? She shivered whenever she considered that possibility.
What really preyed on her mind, however, was how in a few weeks she had seen her life retreat into something she had determined to avoid.
She took her seat beside Mrs. Galbreath. A criminal. That was what she was now, and she had no business taking care of anyone’s finances. She no longer had youth and imposing parents to excuse what she did. No judge would care that she only sought to save her mother, especially since her mother was a criminal too.
“These are the printing accounts.” Mrs. Galbreath opened the account book to a tabbed page. “Each page is for a different printer, or for another tradesman who supports the printing. This one, for example, is for an engraver we employ on occasion for fashion plates.”
Amanda paged through the accounts, fascinated.
Mrs. Galbreath explained the other accounts in that book, then opened another. “These are the booksellers with whom we consign the copies. See how each issue lists the number received, then the receipts of the ones that sell as those sales took place.”
She allowed Amanda to examine the book before she pulled out yet one more. “And this one you will recognize. It holds the accounts for this house.”
Amanda noticed pages for grocers and fishmongers. “Does someone live here?”
“The duchess invited me to do so. She did not want the house unsupervised at night, she said. She really wanted to spare me the indignity of living with my brother and his wife.”
