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Geoffrey’s cheeks hollowed.

“Without notice,” he added crisply. “Don’t think of asking for my reference.”

“Discharged on the spot.” Alan drew up beside him and clapped him hard on the shoulder with his uninjured hand. Next time he was deciding between striking his brother and striking solid rock, he’d decide differently. “Bold move, old boy. Now you have to ferry your own tray. Go on, then.”

He gave Geoffrey an encouraging push. Miss Finch’s eyes met Alan’s. Large, round eyes. But her gaze was narrow, knife-edge sharp.

“That’s quite all right,” she said. “I’m content to drop it.” And drop it she did. The tray crashed down.

Geoffrey flinched, then went rigid, white to the lips with wrath. “Perhaps I won’t speak with Mrs. Fletcher. I’ll speak with the authorities.”

At the mention of authorities, a shadow flitted across Miss Finch’s face. She blinked it away and steeled her spine, standing taller. “Is it a hanging offense, dropping a duke’s tea tray?” She flicked the carpet with her gaze, now a midden for silver, porcelain, sugar, and pastry. “They’ll have to hang me twice, then.”

“Mark my words, this is your last situation.” For a moment, Geoffrey watched the tea lap his boot. Then he showed Miss Finch his tight, ugly grin. Teeth tinged pink. “I guarantee that no respectable household in England will have you.”

“Capital.” No more humility, not even a semblance. Miss Finch put her hands on her hips. “I won’t have another respectable household, if it’s anything like this one.”

Geoffrey stepped toward her, cracking a saucer beneath his sole. “This household is one of the finest in the realm.”

“Watch yourself, brother.” This time, Alan caught him around the shoulder and gripped.

“It’s fine as you please, your great big house.” Miss Finch stared at Geoffrey. “And about as cheery as a grave, with everyone fretting about getting the sack, and you and the mistress stalking the halls with faces that could curdle milk.”

Alan laughed aloud and she looked at him, a line between her brows.

“Don’t stop on my account,” he said, as Geoffrey gave a violent shrug, elbow connecting with Alan’s ribs. Miss Finch backed away slowly, edging around the debris.

“Your servants eat crusts I wouldn’t feed my marmoset.” She nearly spat the words. “If I were you, I’d be ashamed of myself. You’re the richest, stingiest crosspatch I’ve ever met in my life.”

“Get out,” bellowed Geoffrey, ripping free of Alan’s grasp.

She whirled and threw open the door, exiting with a touch more haste than Alan supposed her pride might have preferred.

“Both of you.” Geoffrey brushed at the garnet crust of dried blood on his left nostril and grimaced. “Out,” he repeated, but he didn’t wait for Alan to move. He was the one who left first, striding from the room.

By the time Alan had picked his way to the settee, retrieved his cane, and followed, the hall was empty. Which suited his purposes. He headed not for the front door but deeper into the house.

—

Alan opened the door to Claud’s bedchamber without knocking. He knew from experience that nurses grew dull on their vigils and dozed. If he were lucky, he might discover Miss Milford slumped in her chair, lulled to sleep by the warm, eventless afternoon.

He wasn’t so lucky. The nurse’s chair faced the bed, but he could hear the grim, godly cadence of her voice, a rhythm he associated with Anglican funerals.

She was reading aloud from the Bible.

The familiar sickroom smell made his muscles tense as he shut the door silently behind him. The same odor had permeated his own boyhood bedchamber, the strong blend of the medicaments combined with something sour and disquieting. That bedchamber lay at the end of the hall, by the nursery. Alan had stepped foot in it only once since he’d moved to Oxford at seventeen, and only then because he’d felt compelled to search every room, the whole house from top to bottom.

Geoffrey had provided him with the opportunity, two and a half years ago now. Of course, he hadn’t understood it in those terms. He’d had his own reasons for begging Alan to tenant Umfreville House while the family wintered in Italy.

Fanny wants her parents to take up residence in our absence. He’d explained the predicament with a look of horror. The Smiths’ money—which he spent freely enough—could never, in his eyes, absolve the Smiths of their original sin. Namely, that of being Smiths. A generation removed from coal heavers.

You have the clear precedence, Alan. Say yes. If it’s you, she can’t insist.

Alan had said yes. He’d hoped to uncover something, anything, to corroborate his understanding of the first half of his life, years blurred by drugs, by pain, by fear.

As the Italian stay extended at Claud’s doctor’s behest, Alan’s three-month tenancy had transformed into six. He’d dredged secrets from the depths of locked drawers. But not the answers he needed. He hadn’t turned up a shred of evidence to prove he wasn’t what Geoffrey had said he was. Delusional. A thankless wretch.

Claud saw him and gave a happy cry. “Uncle Alan!”