Chapter Ten
By breakfast thenext morning, Jackson had received word from Roberts that he had verified the movements of Lord Brixby in the days leading up to his disappearance, including a promising tidbit that William had visited a local brothel in a rougher part of St. Giles that was known to house a weekly high-stakes game of poker.
There’d been no need for Jackson to send a reply; Roberts would know to run down the lead with all haste. Many of the bawdy houses in the rookeries had ties to local gangs, people who wouldn’t hesitate to pluck a viscount off the streets for walking out on his debts. The news wasn’t great, but it was news.
The investigation into the Lyon’s Den, on the other hand, had halted to a standstill. Roberts’s men had the gaming hell under watch night and day, but there was yet no suspicious movement, no bank notes collected by their undercover agents that didn’t pass muster.
All was quiet.
And it made Jackson long to put his fist through a wall.
A violent undertone his brother must have picked up, because Figaro slapped the breakfast table and said withindecorous gusto, “Tomorrow, I wish for tarts. Large ones smothered in clotted cream.”
“Are the eggs, fruit, and kippers not to your liking?” Jackson asked, finding new ways to appreciate his younger brother’s need to stir up the household.
“It is not about liking,” Figaro said. “It is about eating an entire dish without any benefit to my health.”
“Sarcasm is the Devil’s humor, and a horrible affliction,” their mother complained, for once not rising to the challenge to scold further. “You get it from your father.”
“Father had a sense of humor?” Figaro threw Jackson a comedic expression. “Look at that, brother. Wedidinherit more than chiseled cheekbones from our patriarch.”
The dowager duchess scoffed, the bait too tempting to pass up a second time around. “As if your dear brother would enjoy such tactless remarks. Do not lower His Grace’s character to suit your own common interests.”
“No, of course not.” Figaro’s lips quirked. “Pray, do you wish to know where I learned to enjoy such vulgar attentions, Mother?”
“I most certainly do not!”
Jackson coughed into his hand. His brother was in fine form. Figaro always excelled with an audience.
Said audience sat, unperturbed, eating her eggs without sparing the rest of the table a glance and showing uncharacteristic restraint.
Jackson grinned. “And are the eggs to your liking, Miss Greene?”
“Yes, Miss Greene,” Figaro carried on. “Are the yolks to your consistency preference?”
“Don’t be droll,” their mother chided. “A lady does not remark on the food unless it is to compliment her host.”
“I prefer my eggs runny, Lord Figaro,” Anna said, her gaze on the plate in front of her. “I also enjoy my bread untoasted and my pudding underbaked.”
All reasonable ways to take the dishes. And all contrary to popular opinion.
Figaro was, naturally, intrigued. “I see I shall need to steel myself for a more rebellious menu in the near future.”
“Or for endless visits from the physician.” The dowager duchess’s expression pinched, her irritation over Anna’s easy acceptance by the Widows clear. “Do not think your unrefined palate will be a source of interest for the rest of the beau monde. It would do you well to keep yourpreferencesto yourself.”
Anna raised a brow, a slight arch with a steep curve of impertinence behind it. “Even when I am asked directly?”
The dowager duchess ignored her and demanded, “Why on earth would you wish to consume underbaked pudding?”
“Because she’s too impatient to wait.”
Three sets of eyes fixed on Jackson... because he’d spoken out loud. And his brother was beaming.
Damn!
“You are quite familiar with Miss Greene’s character to speak with such authority,” Figaro said.
Double damn!
