Page 44 of The Duke’s Rejected Mate

Birchleigh gives a loud, dramatic sniff and dabs at his eyes. “It’s as if you see into my very soul.”

“You, Blackport,” I say to Robert Dowding, “are steadfast in all you do. Everything is just so. Fastidious to a fault. A place for everything and for everything a place.”

“Let me guess,” he grumbles. “Is it the way the T dominates the other letters?”

“Quite wrong, my good duke. It is because they are all precise in how you write them. Crisp, clean, and without fault.”

“As they should be,” he chuckles under his breath.

“As they should be,” I repeat. “On to Portswell. Each stroke is sharp, pointed, jagged. I would surmise from this that you are a man quite at the edge of his rope. Very frayed it is. Perhaps there’s some vexation in your life? An annoyance you must put into its place?”

He groans and rolls his eyes. “You know of my tales of woe. ‘Tis a delight to see my harried scrawl matches my internal confliction.”

As the laughter dies down, I turn to the last man. “Let’s see. Redleigh.” The duke in question merely raises an eyebrow and leans back in his seat, saying nothing but daring everything. “It appears that your writing is so discordant that I cannot glean anything more than that you must write and perform music. For only one skilled in such arts could make heads or tails of these dramatic scribbles.”

“Well then, the man must be correct,” he barks out in a rare laugh. “He has described each of us as we are. Mere mortals who are doomed to be ferreted out by such lowly letters.”

Lewis jerks his head, gesturing to the man I know is coming up behind me. “I’d love to hear your thoughts on Henhaven.”

“His thoughts about what?” he asks as he stands next to us.

“It’s a simple lark,” I say, reeling him in. “A child’s game. I’m sure one as serious as you wouldn’t care to partake.”

He plants his hands on his hips and cocks his head. “I’ve been known to partake in some merriment or two. If playing such a game endears me further to the family who are dear friends to my intended, who am I to say no?”

Who indeed.

But now he’s trapped. Concealing my smile, I hand him a fresh sheet of paper and a pencil. “The game is simple. You write a word, and I examine it to learn your deepest, darkest secrets.”

I study his face, using my training in the military to detect any shift, any hiding of guilt. Unfortunately, the viscount doesn’t change. There is no guile in his gaze, nothing hidden that I can see.

“And the word?”

“Thorn.”

“Easy enough.” He leans down to write the word and hands it to me.

My hands nearly tremble as I take it from him, hoping to finally put this horrid mystery behind me. Only… it’s not even close to the letters I’ve destroyed in my anguish and anger.

“Well then,” Foxford goads. “What do the letters say of the mighty Henhaven?”

“Mighty,” he chuckles. “I find myself most esteemed if you all think me mighty. I am just a humble viscount and nothing more.”

“Humble, you may be,” I say as I squint at the letters, looking now for the pressure points of the strokes but still coming up with nothing. “But based on how spread out the letters are, I believe you to be in possession of a great many stones.”

“More than just the standard two?” Birchleigh laughs.

Henhaven chuckles and shakes his head. “Fear not, men. I do not possess any bits of anatomy so strange as to make that boast. If I did, I’m sure it would have been told far and wide, and the ladies would either swoon from delight or horror.”

“That’s not what they say at the Rose and Thorne,” I hedge, keeping my tone light and jovial.

“Then the occupants must be spinning tales, seeing as I have never stepped foot in a whipping or bawdy house here in London.”

Then that explains why Madame Douleur had no further information on him.

“What do you mean then, Norhaven?” Foxford asks. “If not the abnormality of his… purse… then what stones are you speaking of?”

“He must mean my massive collection of rocks and specimens I keep at home,” Henhaven says. “Quite astute. It’s as if you had not overheard a conversation and used that knowledge to your benefit.”