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“Unquestionably, and they should let him get on with it.” Gray picked up a fossil from the table, the one object that seemed out of place among Winter’s piles and rolls of paper. It fit in the palm of his hand, an ammonite, the coiled spiral shell of an ancient sea creature. His mind immediately returned to the puzzle of Cordelia Staveley. Sea-bathing, as she did it, suggested a contradiction in her nature. It required soldierly hardiness to rise early and plunge into chill waters. He knew the rewards of such discipline. One plunged in, and then the world went away, and there was only the slide of water along skin, the pumping of one’s heart and the pulling in and release of salty air from one’s lungs, and the work of one’s arms and legs, and the buoyant exhilaration of being alive in every sense.
“Winter, do you believe in Sirens?”
“Mythological singers who seduce sailors to destruction?” Winter shook his head. “You’ve seen more coastlines than I have.”
Gray ran his thumb over the swirls of the ammonite. “Is there any news from the auction house?”
“Yes. The Staveley goods reached Dalton & Danville. The first lot should be offered by end of week, and they expect it will do well.”
“You’ll let me know.” He would tell Cordelia Staveley that news himself, just to judge her reaction. It would be easy to catch her as she came up from the beach in the morning.
She appeared sure of herself, but she must be worried about paying the family’s bills. Their father had only avoided Marshalsea debtor’s prison by becoming one of the king’s ushers. That she had not married was part of the puzzle. Before her father’s disgrace, she must have been on the marriage mart. Their paths had never crossed, probably because Gray, himself, made a habit of avoiding debutantes. His late mother’s attempt to bring him to the point years earlier with an ill-chosen heiress had set him off on his travels. He had returned to his father’s favorite places in Italy, had crisscrossed the Mediterranean, and had adventures from Cairo to Constantinople until his mother died.
Now, he had only vague recollections of ballrooms filled with rustling silks and plumed headdresses. He was sure he would have remembered Cordelia Staveley’s vivid looks had they met. Her looks were not the fair sort that passed for ordinary beauty in London, but that hair and those eyes must have had their share of admirers at some time. Even now, whatever her age, most women in her circumstances would look for a wealthy suitor to alleviate their financial distress.
She was apparently unused to making a wager. He knew women who ran gaming establishments with calculating hospitality, and women who lost their pin money almost before they could spend it. If he were a true gentleman, he would not take advantage of Miss Staveley’s unfamiliarity with wagers, but he was enjoying his position. At the proper time, he would reveal what he expected from her when she lost their bet.
Winter cleared his throat. “Did you need something else, sir?”
Gray hadn’t gone five minutes without thinking about Miss Staveley. He returned the fossil to the desk. “Where did you find this, by the way?”
Winter’s gaze dropped. He shuffled a stack of papers on the table with an uncharacteristic confusion. “They sell them at the circulating library.”
Gray lifted a brow. “Do we have business with the circulating library? Isn’t that a place for the ladies?”
“Not entirely for ladies. I was just … curious. There’s a fossil display in the window.” Winter didn’t meet his employer’s gaze. He pushed another envelope toward Gray. “You have a note from Finch. He’s available if you wish to consult him. He says he’ll bring the gloves.”
Gray laughed. A piece of good news. He took up Finch’s letter and opened it. Two succinct lines explained Finch’s availability for a visit to Delamere.
Gray and Finch sparred at Moody’s Fives Corner, a boxing salon in Soho. Punching wiry Finch was like punching a wall. Finch had lifted the level of Moody’s clientele by talking up the salon to all his fellows among the Duke of Wenlocke’s close circle of friends, the men who had been boys once with the duke on the streets—or more accurately, the rooftops—of London during the time when Wenlocke’s grandfather had wished his heir dead. The rest of that circle of friends were now men of consideration in London. Edward Larkin ran a bank. Sir Adrian Cole ran his grandfather’s many enterprises and was a colleague of James Braidwood, London’s chief firefighter. And Jones, though his friends still called him Jones, was now St. Albans, Baron Somerton, in spite of his position with Scotland Yard.
Finch, on the other hand, stayed in the shadows, making inquiries for Wenlocke. There was little that he could not find out, and Gray had turned to him for information about the Staveley property and deed. Finch would know further details about the family.
Gray put aside the letter. “I suppose you’ve already set aside a room for Finch.”
“I have.” Winter grinned. “And I think you’d best read what your sister has to say. You don’t want her turning up unexpectedly.”
Gray shuddered. “She wouldn’t, would she?” He took Bernice’s fat letter and headed for his own quarters.
*
In his upper room with its view of the sea, Gray opened Bernice’s letter. An added piece of paper explained the thickness of the missive. Within the outer page was a print from a popular satirist. A pair of frames depicted with some accuracy Sir Humphrey Staveley’s loss of his castle. In the second frame, Gray, at the entrance to Delamere, shook a rolled-up deed in his fist at four tearful girls stumbling out into a rainy night. He was familiar with the narrative that made him the villain of the piece. The world thought him lacking in familial affection. He tossed the print and turned to the letter.
Sydling House
Fitzroy Square
London
Graymont,
It has come to my attention that you have left London in a manner that once again sullies our family name. Thus, it is my duty, as the eldest of the family, to remind you of what you owe to your name and ours.
Even for you, card playing with dissolute characters and rendering homeless an entire family of gently bred maidens is excessively unfeeling. Your scandalous appearance in print cannot weigh with you as it does with your brother and myself. We must go about in Society. We must endure looks and slights and veiled comments, while you, with continued cruel indifference, injure your brother’s prospects. Lionel may never find a bride or secure a patron.
Lionel, who has a claim on you for a brother’s affection and support and who has never caused our family a moment’s unease, receives neither your support nor encouragement. You lack a brother’s proper affection for your own nearest relation and instead lavish your support on some nobody with a pen who does your bidding.
Do not imagine that I, your nearest relation, am ignorant of the further extravagance you indulge in pursuing a building project likely to bankrupt our father’s estate. You may think that your selfishness and profligacy will go unmarked in the wilds of Dorset, but I see what you are about.
