like Macklin, don’t you?” asked Miss Moran.
Teresa stood. Part of her yearned to be one of their carefree group and exchange girlish confidences. Another knew she never would be. “We are pretending to be friends while we search for the missing girls. Nothing more.”
“Pretending?” repeated Miss Moran. The ladies all looked puzzled. They glanced at each other and then back at Teresa.
“But…why should it be a pretense?” asked Miss Deeping.
“That makes no sense,” said Miss Grandison.
She couldn’t have stated it better, Teresa thought. Senseless was just the word to describe many recent occurrences. Her careful plan for her new life had not included an earl or any of these ladies—not even Tom, who had never been so quiet through a conversation in all the time she’d known him. As she had understood life, these young ladies should not be interested in the fate of a few poor dancers. They should ignore their existence. And hers. They should look through her, turn away as if she was invisible. All of this had happened to her not so very long ago. Yet now, here, it was not. No sense indeed. A quiver of emotion ran through Teresa. She turned away to hide her expression, and discovered the subject of their conversation standing in the doorway to the warehouse. How long had Lord Macklin been there? What had he heard?
Arthur moved, shaking off his surprise at finding five ladies where he expected only one. They sat in the corner of the courtyard almost as if they’d set up headquarters here. Señora Alvarez looked unsettled. Did she think he’d invited them? Her reactions were so often a mystery to him. Until he met her, he’d thought he was rather good at understanding people. He went over to join the group.
Tom extended a laden plate. “Sandwich?” he asked.
Not for the first time, Arthur envied the lad’s easygoing temperament. The young ladies looked brightly inquisitive. Very brightly. It was one of their skills as investigators, he thought. They could make one feel unprepared for an important examination. Did they think he had some news?
“We were talking of our progress,” said Miss Ada Grandison. “And the fact that we’ve made very little.”
“I spoke to the head of the Four-Horse Club. At great and boring length,” Arthur replied. He liked driving and riding, but he wasn’t obsessed with the minutiae of these activities. Or with the clothing he wore while engaged in them. “He was no help.”
“I’m going to hang about the dancers and keep watch,” said Tom. “The señora will talk with each of them again. She thinks they may know things they don’t realize they noticed.”
Señora Alvarez looked startled, then impressed.
The other ladies continued to eye Arthur with a marked degree of attention. As if they were waiting for him to reveal secrets. Except Señora Alvarez, who was not looking at him. He was suddenly certain they’d been discussing more than the opera dancers.
There was a stir from the workshop behind him. A voice boomed out an inquiry. Everyone turned, and in the next moment Miss Julia Grandison appeared in the doorway. Her formidable figure filled it completely, the feathers in her bonnet brushing the upper jamb.
She scanned the courtyard and then descended on them like a striking bird of prey. “Ada, your maid said you were coming here.” She looked around as if mystified by the locale. “I must speak to you at once.” She loomed over the group. Miss Moran visibly winced. “Do you know what has been going on?” the newcomer added.
“In what sense, Aunt?”
“What sense! There seems to be very little sense involved.” She scanned the circle of faces. “You’ve been snooping around the opera dancers. Very much against my advice and inclination.” They sat with the silence and stillness of rabbits under the eye of a hawk. Miss Grandison’s glare settled on her niece, and bored in. “Are you aware that your father—” She hesitated.
Miss Ada Grandison sat straighter. She managed to look innocently inquisitive. “Yes? Papa?”
“Has been showing far too much interest in these very same opera dancers,” Miss Julia Grandison replied.
“Is that not an improper topic for me to discuss, Aunt?”
“Don’t speak to me of improper! As if you cared anything about that. I have gone to great lengths for you, Ada. I said nothing to your parents about your ridiculous ‘investigations.’ I think I am owed a debt of gratitude. You should be only too glad to help me.”
“Help how?”
“By telling me the truth!”
“I don’t understand what you