I found in the attic store. I think it will look very well in here.”
“I’m sure it will. Come and change and have tea.”
She glanced at him uncertainly. “Did you quarrel further with your grandfather?”
“I didn’t need to. Your dignified exit seemed to make more impression on him than the rest of us telling him off.”
She hesitated, then. “What of Rupert. Do you believe him? Do you think Dudley deliberately kept this quiet?”
“Possibly,” Christopher said with reluctance. “Their rivalry for Georgianna was fierce. She never needed to care for money or position, so Rupert won from sheer charm. But Dudley was there very quickly to fill the breach.”
“He took advantage.” Deborah glanced up at him. “Would he do more?”
Christopher frowned. “You mean kill Harlow just to have it blamed on Rupert? No, of course not! No way he could have, in any case. He wasn’t a second and wasn’t there.”
“Then how did he get Rupert out of the country so quickly?”
Christopher stared at her.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m only thinking aloud.
“Maybe you should be,” he said slowly. “One can be too close to family to see clearly.”
“I don’t believe for a moment that Dudley is a bad man,” she said anxiously.
“But, we all do bad things occasionally.” His gaze came back into focus on her face. His lips twitched into a faint, rueful smile. “I know I do.”
Throughout the remaining day, those words kept coming back to her. She gathered he had a reputation for behaving badly and recklessly, that there were incidents with women and with dangerous wagers. But mostly, she thought his reputation came merely from a failure to conform. Apart from quickly controlled flare-ups against his grandfather, she had seen no further signs of the temper that had endangered her and Lizzie on their first encounter. In fact, she had found only kindness in him, to her and his household, and in his ambitions to better the lives of others. There was no wickedness in him.
And yet, he confessed to doing bad things. Did he mean marrying her? It hurt that he might regret doing so, but she had seen no other signs of this. In fact, she thought he was pleasantly surprised by the friendship growing between them. A friendship that made her heart ache for something more.
After his outburst in Rupert’s sick room, Lord Hawfield seemed to have subsided into courtesy toward her. He watched her a good deal, which was not comfortable, but at least she sensed no outright hostility. In fact, she hoped he was readjusting his view of her, though that was probably over-optimistic.
They had just gathered in the drawing room for dinner when letters were brought in on a silvery tray by George, the new footman. He presented them to Christopher, who immediately passed one to Deborah and one to Dudley, before breaking the seal on the first of the others.
Surprised, Deborah unfolded her missive. She did not recognize the writing and glanced first at the signature. Your friend, Hazel Curwen.
“Hazel,” she said, startled. She had barely known her fellow woman of the bedchamber to the Princess of Wales, until the night they had hidden together in the tiny sitting room from the party—orgy—raging below. By the morning, the four of them had parted as friends sharing the one trouble.
And Hazel had not forgotten. She wrote from Brightoaks in Sussex, where she was the guest of Sir Joseph Sayle’s family. That in itself was odd, for Hazel had been going to her old governess in Essex, and she had always seemed to disapprove of Sir Joseph. However, while her hastily scribbled letter did not explain such matters, it did go straight to the point.
“Bad news?” Christopher asked, and she realized her expression must be betraying her.
“No,” she said, lowering the letter to meet his gaze. “It’s from one of the princess’s other ladies. She has discovered who tricked us, for he is trying to use that night against her. She is warning us against him.”
Lord Hawfield appeared to be listening with interest. At the other side of the room, Dudley was absorbed in his own letter, plucking agitatedly at his lower lip.
Christopher scowled. “Who?”
“Lord Barden.”
“The Regent’s snake,” Christopher said disgustedly. “I should have known.”
“Barden,” Hawfield repeated. “Why does his name keep cropping up?”
“Why, what else do you know about him?” Christopher asked at once.
Hawfield’s eyebrows flew up. “Don’t you remember? He was Rupert’s second in that damned duel.”
Christopher stared, pushing his letters aside. “No. I don’t think I ever knew that. I