“You are not.”
“I think I am. I have not thought about Mrs. Lavender in a long time. Years. I always liked her. She reminded me of a mother.”
“Not our mother, I hope.”
“Of course not our mother. A real mother. Warm and concerned. Don’t you agree, Gareth?”
“I never visited her.”
“No? I thought everyone did, at first.”
“Take him to his club,” Ives said to Gareth. “He will have to be Aylesbury there. That should make him manageable.”
“I am not a member of his club,” Gareth reminded.
Damn. He kept forgetting. “Then take him home.”
“I’d rather go to Mrs. Lavender’s,” Lance said.
Ives glared at him. “Don’t you dare show up there. I mean it, Lance. You have all of London to distract you. Do not go to that house.”
He threw off his vest and turned to go.
“You heard him,” he heard Lance say to Gareth. “We have all of London, with the vicar’s blessing.”
***
Ives did not know what he expected to find at Mrs. Lavender’s. Nothing good, that was certain. He imagined the various ways Padua might have caused enough trouble to cause Mrs. Lavender to send Hector to find him.
Hector let him into the house. The night was far enough along that Mrs. Lavender had taken her position in the office. He had to wait while some business occurred behind its closed door. Eventually it opened, and a young man who looked all of eighteen came out. Mrs. Lavender escorted him away, to make the introduction to the woman she had just sold him.
She returned, gave Ives a stern frown, and entered her office. He followed, closed the door, and sat in the patron’s chair much as he had when he was as green as its last occupant.
“Miss Belvoir is not keeping to herself, as I was led to think she would.”
“Why don’t you tell me what she has done to distress you.”
She treated him to a long description of Padua joining the household for dinner, making a speech, andthreatening Mrs. Lavender with the loss of her lease. “She intends to look after her father’s interests, she says. She intends to watch the accounts most closely, she says. She intends to involve herself in the running of things, she says.”
“I will talk to her.”
“I’ll not be tolerating such cheek. She thinks she can threaten me about the lease? Well, I have a few aces in my pocket, too, if need be.”
He took his leave and walked to the stairs. Above one level he heard laughter coming from the drawing room. He kept climbing, past the chambers, up to the servant quarters.
Padua opened her door a crack when he rapped. She peered out, startled.
“Let me in, Padua.”
“I don’t think I should.”
“Open it, or I will kick it in.”
“I don’t like your tone.”
“What you hear is as restrained as I am likely to be, and I grow less restrained by the moment. Open the door. Now.”
She did, but gave him a pinched, low-lidded look he suspected she used on students who challenged her authority.
