As it did now.
Annoyingly.
Inconveniently.
One day before they were meant to launch the plan from conjecture to real life.
“I wish you would look again,” Lady Willow said to her friends, swallowing a sigh. She felt the tips of her ears burn red. “I’ve not changed a word since breakfast.” The brightness in her voice was forced. She jabbed her pen in the ink pot. “It’s nearly there.”
“Nearlywhere?” asked Sabine Noble, squinting down at the large expanse of yellow parchment sprawled across the desk.
“Nearly perfect,” said Willow, carefully carrying the parchment to a low table near the window. They’d met in her father’s library, a room she’d redesigned two years ago in stately mahogany and masculine blue. It had seemed dignified and scholarly at the time, but now the room felt foreboding. Too dim to properly read the advertisement, too hushed and shrouded to allow for open points of view. Lantern light only revealed so much; for this, they required sunshine.
Willow smoothed the parchment and stepped back, allowing the window to illuminate her carefully scripted words.
“Read the whole of it before you make any remark,” she instructed. “Pretend you’ve stumbled upon it on the docks in London, completely unaware.”
“Which docks?” asked Tessa. She had not moved from the desk across the room.
Willow narrowed her eyes. “It makes no differencewhichdocks. First we’ll compose the advertisement.Thenwe’ll determine where to post it. Mr. Fisk is a native of South London. He will help us.”
She stepped away and gestured the two women closer. “Come and have a better look. I am prepared for your reactions, good or ill.”
“This, I doubt,” said Sabine, crossing with marked reluctance to the window. Tessa trailed tentatively behind.
“Go on,” prompted Willow.
Sabine sighed and read aloud from the parchment:
WANTED
PROFESSIONAL TRAVELERS
GENTLEMAN SAILORS
ENTREPRENEURS WITH FOREIGN INTERESTS.
INVESTOR SEEKS SUITABLE CANDIDATE FOR
DISBURSEMENT OF MODEST FORTUNE.
FUNDS MUST BE APPLIED TOINTERNATIONALENDEAVOR.
CHOSEN MAN MUST PERSONALLY MANAGE
VENTURE ABROAD.
SLOW-YIELD INDUSTRIES PREFERRED.
PROGRESSIVE-MINDED, UNMARRIED MEN
WITHNO DEPENDENTSONLY.
APPLY BYINTRODUCTORY LETTERTO
W. J. HUNNICUT, LELAND PARK,
PIXHAM, SURREY.
