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How to explain the twisted logic that pertained in his family?

“We have a family propensity to scandal,” he said. “Breaking a church window—even a Jones-Burne—pales in comparison.”

Her response was automatic.

“Burne-Jones,” she muttered. “A Burne-Jones window is incomparable.”

“I don’t exonerate myself. I only contextualize. I’m sure you know—my brother liberated one of the commodore’s racing boats from the Royal Thames Yacht Club. He managed to drown both himself and an unfortunate young woman.”

George had been a fine sailor, sober. According to the Newcastle-bound steam collier he’d struck, he’d veered sharply into the collision.

Miss Coover averted her eyes, opened her mouth, then closed it. So she had heard a worse version. Why not confirm it?

“The young woman was a demimondaine.”

She gave a short nod.

“And my mother—” He broke off, began again. “Well, of course, it began with my mother. After her suicide in the asylum, the reporting was . . . colorful.”

Her face had gone pale. She hadn’t known about his mother. He looked away from the warmth in her eyes, a trick of golden-brown irises in lamplight.

“I was only a child.” His muscles had tensed. It was so easy to return to that day. He fought the memories.

“My father suffered great embarrassment on my mother’s account. And later, on account of his heir. Prospective prime ministers don’t typically owe members of the royal family hundreds of thousands of pounds for stolen property.”

The press had made more of the debt than His Royal Highness, the commodore, who had reacted to the fiasco by tactfully ignoring it. Money mattered little between men with so much at their disposal.

“He took pains to keep Effie out of the papers. As far as the world knows, he sent her to France to recuperate from the awful shock of losing her brother.”

And then she stayed on, after the second blow, the death of her beloved father. Yardley had maneuvered delicately to maintain this fiction.

“Why tell me?”

Their gazes brushed, held. He had a reason to give. There were more, none he should be indulging.

“My sister may be acting—singing—in Shoreditch.”

“Not bloody likely.” She clapped a hand over her mouth, blush rising. She didn’t have much practice in checking her thoughts before she spoke. Well, he could appreciate bluntness.

“Oh?” he said.

“What I meant is the music halls in Shoreditch aren’t the West End establishments. You know that, I’m sure. If you remember.”

He did remember blurred nights spent careening in and out of smoke-filled dens and filthy galleries, a serving girl with a tray of drinks at every elbow. He’d repeated Effie’s name like a chant to blank looks.

“A duke’s daughter singing bawdy ditties about how I sits among the cabbages and peas while coster lads hurl beer mugs at drunk magicians . . .” Miss Coover trailed off, shaking her head. “She wouldn’t last a minute.”

“She’s stubborn as a mule.” Like someone else he could name.

But he could supply at least a little more of the story.

“Her theatrical connections are in Shoreditch. She met her husband there, at the circus.”

She whistled. “Crikey.”

The whistle, and her mild oath, made him smile despite himself.

“George, my brother, took her. There was an equestrian—a trick rider—that caught her eye.”