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“I can take my leave also, if you wish,” Miss Trent offered, but Julian shook his head as Lady Manion stepped out.

“No.” He rose and came to sit directly beside her, catching the scent of something orange and sweet. “There is no need. Please — if you would?” His shoulder brushed hers, and she widened her eyes a moment, surprised he would ask her to read it aloud. He held her gaze, finding it hard to look at the paper at all, almost afraid of what it held.

With a quiet nod, Miss Trent turned to the page. “‘Carrington came to call again this afternoon,’” she read. “‘He remains a selfish, arrogant gentleman who speaks of duty whilst shirking its burdens. He believes the world bends of its own accord to his wishes, and refuses aid wherever it is needed. Friendship is a mere word to him. He sees no call to generosity, no need to weigh kindness against greed. In my anger, I dismissed him from my house. I pray with all my heart that his sons do not inherit this pride and selfishness, and I shall do all I can to keep such a fault from taking root in them.’”

Miss Trent set the paper atop the others and waited, saying nothing, the words hanging in the air between them. Julian closed his eyes, his heart beating painfully as he thought of his late father.

“I have never spoken to you of my father, Miss Trent,” he said, on a long exhale. “He was as she describes. He rarely offered affection, and took little interest in anyone’s accomplishments — his own sons’ least of all.” His mouth curved in a sad smile. “He was not a cruel man. Only, as she says, arrogant and selfish.”

“Traits which are not in you.”

Her hand reached out and her fingers came to rest, light, upon his. Both the touch and the words struck him like a blow — hard, and yet welcome, rocking him back. Looking into her eyes, he saw the corner of her mouth lift, the warmth in her face unmistakable. All at once he forgot what the letter said, forgot the pain of it. There was only Miss Trent — only her nearness, only the touch of her hand on his.

He swallowed. “Miss Trent,” he said, leaning a little closer, daring to wonder what might happen if he let himself speak the truth of what he felt. “I wonder if — ”

The door opened. Julian snatched his hand from hers and rose as Brookmire appeared, his gaze going from the papers to Miss Trent and then, with a lift of his brows, to Julian.

“I see I have called at an inconvenient moment,” he said, and Julian scowled at the suggestion in his voice. “Might I ask — ”

“We are looking for anything that mentions Miss Trent’s family or our own,” Julian cut in. “We have just found something.” He took up the paper and handed it across.

Brookmire read, and the smile tore from his face. His shoulders dropped, the same heaviness settling into him that Julian felt.

“Well. She had the measure of our father.” His voice came low as he handed it back. “I can see why she would wish neither of us to grow as he did. Everyone knew he thought only of himself.”

“Indeed.”

Brookmire rubbed his chin. “And there is nothing else? Nothing in these to suggest a reason for her generosity, no marks of money here and there?”

“None,” Julian confirmed, and Miss Trent shook her head. “I wonder if her kindness to Miss Trent grew from knowing how ungenerous men of our sort can be. Perhaps she felt it the more keenly, having known our father’s nature.”

Brookmire considered it, sitting opposite Miss Trent. “That would be like her,” he allowed, doubt in his voice. “But why such generosity to one young lady in particular? In what way does it touch you, Miss Trent?”

She spread her hands and did not answer, and Julian could find no reply that made anything clearer. They had found something, yes. But it left them, to his mind, with more questions than before — not the answers they had been seeking.

CHAPTER 12

The search at Lord Carrington’s had given Viola no peace. It had given her the opposite: a name she did not know, recurring where she could not account for it, sums that would not sit quiet however she turned them, and a great many questions that fit together no better for her turning them over half the night.

It was Mrs. Hartley she went to in the morning.

She found her in the small parlor off the side hall, the one Lady Warrington was said to have favored, going through linens with the care she gave to everything. Viola had meant to ask her question plainly and found, when it came to it, that she did not quite know how to frame it.

“Mrs. Hartley. Did Lady Warrington — ” She stopped. “Was she in the habit of keeping papers? Private ones, I mean. Letters, and the like. Apart from what her solicitor would have held.”

Mrs. Hartley set down the linen. “She was,” she said. “She kept a box. A writing-box, walnut, with a brass lock. She had it always by her, these last years, and would not have it put away with the rest.” Something gathered in her face, slow and careful. “Mrs. Roberts will know where it was set. After — after, we did not like to disturb it.”

“Might I see it?”

“It is yours, Miss Trent. It is all yours.” But Mrs. Hartley did not move at once to fetch it. She stood a moment, her hands folded, and when she spoke again it was with the air of a woman setting down something she had carried a while without quite knowing she carried it. “She was very particular about that box, at the end. More than she had been. There was a gentleman who came about her affairs in those last months, when she was too unwell to see to things herself, you understand. Business matters. I thought nothing of it; a lady in her position has a great deal of business, and someone must see to it when she cannot.” A small pause. “Only she did not care to have him near her things. I remember that. She would have the box brought up to her room before he came, and kept by her until he had gone. I took it for an old woman’s fancy. She had a great many, towards the end, and I did not like to cross them.” She looked at Viola. “I do not know that it signifies. But you asked, and it came to me.”

Viola’s mouth had gone dry. “Do you recall his name? The gentleman?”

“I never had it. He came to her rooms, not to the hall, and the staff were not introduced.” Mrs. Hartley shook her head slowly. “A quiet man. Soft-spoken. I should not know him again, I think, save that he had a way of — ” she searched for it — “of seeming sorry to trouble anyone, even as he troubled them. I could not have told you why it sat ill with me. It was not my place to wonder.”

It was not a great deal. And yet it sat in Viola’s chest like a stone going down through water, slow and cold, settling somewhere she could not reach.

Mrs. Roberts brought the box within the hour, set it upon the parlor table, and withdrew. It was as Mrs. Hartley had said: walnut, worn smooth at the edges where a hand had rested on it for years, the brass lock long since unfastened. Viola did not open it at once. She sent, instead, for Lord Carrington.