"What is it?" he asked. "Is there something I should know?" The silence that followed was damning. Kit looked to his aunt. "Aunt Philippa."
She looked at Blackwood, who gave her a small nod.
"What I tell you now must never leave this room," the duchess said. "I need your word. All of you."
She looked to Kit and Thea, and they both nodded quickly.
Kit sat very still as he listened to the tragic tale. Aunt Philippa explained how her sister Lydia hadn't actually died in the fire two years prior. She was alive, hiding with her son—Barrington's son.
Barrington, who they suspected set the blaze to kill her.
When she finished, the table fell silent for a long moment. Finally, Kit looked up. "What does this have to do with these rumors?"
The duchess sighed. "Barrington has a vendetta against me. He doesn't know Lydia survived, but he does know that I ruined his chance at marrying an heiress he'd sought out. I told enough influential members of the ton about his true character that he was forced to leave England."
"But he's back," Blackwood growled. His hand was clenched in a fist, and he saw Estella place a calming hand on his arm.
"You think he's trying to discredit your family?" Kit hedged.
To be honest, it seemed like a stretch. But then again, Kit was still trying to reconcile the fact that his aunt's dead sister wasn't actually dead at all.
"We know he's been investigating your aunt," Blackwood said. "He's been watching her movements and digging into her affairs. We don't know his purpose, but I would not put it past him to use rumors about you to hurt your aunt."
Aunt Philippa stared down at the table, her expression shuttered.
Thea had been silent, but she spoke up now. "If Barrington is investigating your finances…" She frowned, looking at each of them in turn. "Your Grace, if he's traced the payments you've made to Kit and has been spying on your personal affairs…"
Kit's mind leapt ahead to the conclusion she was drawing and his whole body went cold with horror. "Then he knows about my arrangement with Clarissa."
The duchess inhaled sharply, her eyes flashing with fire.
"He may have been behind the mistress rumor," Blackwood said. "And if his spies have been digging into your protege and followed the financial trail?—"
"He could have figured out that Kit was paid to court Clarissa." Thea finished when Blackwood stopped. "And he'll make certain everyone else knows too."
Kit was on his feet before he'd fully processed the thought. The chair scraped against the floor.
"The musicale," he said. "When did it start?"
"An hour ago." Estella looked alarmed. "But do you really think?—"
He was already heading for the door.
"Kit!" his aunt called after him.
He didn't stop.
They could be wrong. He hoped they were wrong.
And hopefully he was just being paranoid.
But his gut churned and his pulse raced, because some part of him knew it to be true. His aunt's enemy had ammunition to ruin him and his aunt's new protege with one nasty whisper.
And Clarissa could be walking straight into an ambush.
20
The harpist was talented. Clarissa was certain of this, because Lord Hartley had said so twice. And Lord Hartley was not the sort of man to exaggerate.
