“Please be careful,” she said, her voice frayed. And what she meant was, “I love you.”
“I will,” he said. And he meant, “I love you, too.”
And she turned swiftly to go down the stairs.
Captain Hardy put Hawkes in the picture straightaway.
“I met with Valkirk, who now has possession of the account books you left with me. You should have seen his face when he looked through them, Hawkes. He understood at once. He spoke with the Alien Office, and they’ve quietly taken possessionof the books at Guthrie’s Antiquities. They’re now surreptitiously watching the premises, along with Berwick, prepared to apprehend Vasseur when he appears. Brundage, for his matter, has put it about that you confronted him at his home, assaulted him, kidnapped his fiancée, stole a necklace, and that he believes you intend to go back to kill him as soon as you can. I’m not certain they believe him at this point. You can thank me later for that,” he said ironically. Hardy had already told him how he’d sent the soldiers with a warrant away instilled with shame and filled with doubts about not only Brundage’s veracity.
Hawkes told Hardy about the soldiers they’d encountered on the road, and Hardy’s face went grim.
“Well, they aren’t precisely guarding Brundage round the clock, but a few soldiers have been rotating in and out of St. James Square for the past several days. I suppose just so they can say they’re attending to the earl’s adamant concerns, even if those concerns are mad.”
Hawkes took all of this in with cool equanimity. Not much of it was a surprise, but there was a good deal here for him to work with.
“They probably don’t yet have in possession enough information to arrest Brundage. But they will. I have a plan.”
“Valkirk has asked me to send word to him at once when you return,” Hardy said.
Hawkes nodded shortly. “I in fact need to get a message somehow to Valkirk for my plan to work. I’m going to Brundage’s townhouse now.” He paused. “Has The Grand Palace on the Thames considered hiring a footman?”
Captain Hardy gave a short, dark laugh that tapered into a sigh.
“Welcome back, Lady Aurelie. We’re so glad to know you are sound,” Delilah told her.
Hawkes had departed again through the tunnel, which was still currently the only safe way for him to leave. And Captain Hardy had taken a message from Hawkes to the Duke of Valkirk.
“Thank you very much for your kindness,” she said haltingly. Her cheeks ablaze. “I am terribly abashed to have left so abruptly and so mysteriously.”
“Please do not apologize. Mr. Hawkes described for us a general sense of your circumstances before he departed to find you. And we are so sorry for your troubles.”
“I am sorry to be a bother.” Aurelie twisted her hands together. “I am so embarrassed to have caused an uproar after all, when I promised I would not.”
Delilah gave a short laugh. “Well, I suppose we are even, Lady Aurelie, since we refrained from telling you that we actually have a good deal of experience with uproar. And we manage just fine.”
All the other guests were listening to this with absorption, eyes bright and wide, as if this was a thrilling new story being read aloud in the sitting room.
Aurelie cleared her throat.
“I have heard that soldiers intruded upon the premises. I should like to tell you that I know definitively that Brundage is not a good man. I was once engaged to him, and I was compelled to leave very quickly. Mr. Hawkes was hired to find me. And so he did. I am now... with Mr. Hawkes willingly.”
And she blushed hotly.
Still, she found she did not care what they surmised about her use of the word “with.” Regardless, no eyebrows so much as twitched.
Conclusions had already been drawn, and the proprietresses of The Grand Palace on the Thames did not appear inclined to be shocked, and the guests took their cues from them. Mr. Bellingham, who was never to learn that she’d made wild love in his inherited cottage, looked fascinated and gently sympathetic. He was probably a very good and beloved vicar.
“Thank you for telling us, Lady Aurelie,” Delilah said very gently. “We believe you, and we are terribly sorry for your trouble. It is our hope that all will be put to rights for you and for Mr. Hawkes soon.”
“Thank you,” Aurelie said. Her eyes began to well up. “I should be pleased if you would simply call me Aurelie. I am so terribly sorry to have... to have... deceived you all before. It just... it just seemed necessary.”
Dot handed her a handkerchief embroidered with the initials TGPOTT, and Aurelie dabbed her eyes with it.
“Most of us have known a moment or two in our lives when we’ve needed to pretend we are something we are not,” Angelique said gently. “Is there anything we can do for you now?”
“You have already done so much, and I am forever grateful. I want to sit here, and listen to the click of knitting needles, and the turning of pages. I should like to knit a coverlet.”
Angelique found a ball of wool dyed blue; Delilah found a pair of knitting needles for her.
