“Have Gareth and Eva arrived yet?” he asked Lance.
“Tomorrow. He wrote with their plans two daysago. They made a stop at Langdon’s End first, then at Birmingham.”
“I trust that means Eva is in good health.”
“He did not say she wasn’t.”
Ives threw himself into a chair. “Did you just get back from riding?”
Lance shook his head. “I returned at least an hour ago. It was a most peculiar ride.”
“How so?”
“I came upon Radley riding too. He joined me. I spent the next two hours in his company.”
Sir Horace Radley was a magistrate. He had occupied himself for half a year now trying to prove Lance had murdered their eldest brother, Percy.
“Did he question you yet again? I will lodge the strongest objection. Enough is enough.”
“I said it was peculiar, not typical. He might have been my best friend, he proved so jovial. His only comment about my unfortunate dark cloud was to say, and I am quoting him now,I’ve cause to think an error has been made, and I shall address that soon.”
“Odd.”
“Isn’t it. I have spent the last hour contemplating how odd. He did not say, for example,I have concluded you are innocent and much maligned, did he? It was more ambiguous than that.”
“Yet his friendliness would imply—”
“Nothing at all, perhaps.”
Ives wished a more optimistic reason were at work.He hoped this peculiar conversation heralded the end of the matter.
“I should probably tell you that I did not come alone. I brought a guest,” he said.
“So the footman whispered when he hurried in here to inform me of your arrival. A woman, he said. A Miss Padua Belvoir.”
“I am sure you will like her.”
“Do you? Like her, that is? You must, if you brought her here. You have never done that with your actresses and opera singers before. Nor do your mistresses usually call themselves Miss anything.”
“It is not like that. It is not what you think.”
Lance stood and ambled over to the brandy. “What do I think?”
“She is not my mistress, or an opera singer, or an actress.”
Lance took that in with a vague smile. He returned to his chair, stretched out his legs, and gave Ives the kind of focused attention that he rarely showed these days. “Then what is she instead? If I am to be her host, I should probably know.”
“She is—was—a schoolteacher. She got sacked, and needs a bit of help until she decides her future course of action.”
“Is this the same woman who was my guest at Langley House the last few days? The butler does write to me when interesting things happen. Perhaps you did not know that.”
So much for simple explanations. Ives cleared his throat. “I came to know her because of a case I am involved in. Upon learning of her dire straits, I could not just leave her destitute and homeless.”
“Of course not. That would not be chivalrous. However, you could have left her in London, at Langley House, rather than journey several days in her company, and bring her here. You could have found her other lodging, at an inn for example.”
He cursed Lance under his breath. He had grown accustomed to his brother lacking interest in anything, and had counted on that. Instead, for some reason, Lance kept digging. The hole was getting very large.
“I did not think it wise to leave her in London.”
