“That’s because the man I fell in love with just proposed to someone else.”
“Oh.” Desperately, she searched for the right words to bring a glimmer of light to a situation that seemed as dark as it could possibly get. “That’s…”
“Not good.”
“No.” Sometimes, Joanna supposed, there weren’t any right words. There was just pain. To be felt, and absorbed, and reckoned with. “That’s not good at all. I’m sorry, Evie.”
“The worst part is that I didn’tplanto fall in love with him.” She gave a bewildered shake of her head. “It just…happened. And I thought it had happened to him, too, but it must not have, or else he wouldn’t have asked Lady Martha Smethwick to marry him. Do you know that she is a diamond? I was a diamond, in Somerville. But here…here I’m just stupid quartz.”
Joanna had absolutely no idea what Evie was talking about.
“Quartz is pretty,” she said tentatively. “I love quartz.”
“No onelovesquartz.”
“Well I do. And if this man you’ve fallen in love with had an ounce of sense in his head, he would love it, too.” Joanna paused. “Whoishe, by the way? A guest at the house party, I presume.”
Evie pursed her lips. “Weston. I’ve fallen in love with Weston. Whom I hate. And don’t look surprised. I told you I wanted to marry him.”
“Wanting to marry someone for their fortune and falling in love with them are two very different things. If I recall, the last time we spoke about Weston, you referred to him as a ‘selfish, domineering, arrogant lout’.”
“He’s all that and more.”
“And yet you love him?”
“I didn’t say I washappyabout it.”
Joanna sighed. “Thorncroft womenreallydon’t do anything the easy way, do they?”
Joanna had justgotten Evie settled in the guest bedroom with a cup of hot tea and a slab of chocolate when someone knocked on the door again.
“Who is itthistime,” she muttered under her breath as she hurried back down the stairs and through the narrow foyer, James trailing after her like a silent black shadow. Kincaid had stepped out shortly after Evie arrived; as much to give the sisters privacy as to follow a new lead on the Duke of Hanover’s case.
It appeared there’d been a sighting of Hannah, the lady’s maid who had worked for the duke’s mistress…and had disappeared, somewhat suspiciously, a few days before Eloise’s untimely death.
If Kincaid could find Hannah, and question her, it might prove to be the break in the case they desperately needed. For thus far, despite their best efforts, Kincaid and Joanna had been unable to unearth any evidence that pointed at anyoneotherthan Sterling as the murderer. Which was particularly vexing, given that he was innocent.
Someone very clever had gone out of their way to frame the duke…and they’d done an excellent job at covering their tracks.
“I’m almost there!” she called out irritably when the knocking grew louder and more insistent. Despite her earlier insistence that Kincaid answer the door, she was of half a mind to let whoever this was come back at a later time so that she could focus all of her attention on Evie.
She’d never seen her sister in such a state.
Then again, she’d never seen her sister in love. And having just gone through the process herself, Joanna could attest to how painful it could be when things did not turn out how you expected them. Thankfully, she and Kincaid had worked through their differences and she had never been happier. She only hoped that, soon, the same might be said of Evie.
When whoever was on the other side of the door struck it hard enough to rattle the brass knob, Joanna flicked a glance at James. “If it’s someone come to rob us, I’ll grab Kincaid’s pistol from the office and you scratch his eyes out. Deal?”
James gave a loud meow, which she took as a resounding yes.
“Do you know,” she said as she opened the door, “it’s appallingly rude to–you.”
The man on the other side of the threshold frowned at her. “Do I…Joanna. I mean to say, Miss Thorncroft.” Visibly taken aback, he removed his hat and raked a hand through his hair, shoving a wave of inky black off his temple. “I…I…”
“Actually, it’s Mrs. Kincaid now.” Joanna’s smile could have been carved from the edge of a razor blade. “Won’t you come in…brother?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Looking at itnow, Weston supposed that he should have expected to see his half-sister at the residence of the man she was romantically involved with.Make that the man she was married to, he corrected himself silently. But from the moment he’d reached London, his only concern had been finding Evie.
