usually carried her knitting. They would have to smuggle the dress into the house, then back to Madame Noir, the brothel owner who had lent it to Amelia. For a hefty price, of course. Madame was nothing if not mercenary. “Seems to me that you’re awfully upset just to have run into your brother.”
“Doesn’t Freddie upset everyone he runs into?” Amelia muttered.
The woman shot her a chastising look.
With a long sigh, Amelia admitted, “I saw someone else there…an old friend.”
“Oh?” Maggie arched a curious brow.
“Not that kind of old friend,” she corrected. Heavens! The last thing she needed was Maggie thinking of love matches for her. No, those kinds of hopes had been dashed long ago. “A childhood friend from Birmingham. I hadn’t seen him since I was sixteen. It was a bit of a shock.”
“I can imagine.” Maggie pursed her lips together suspiciously. “What kind of friend of yours would attend a masquerade like that?”
A brigadier. That’s what Pearce would have answered, what he was certainly most proud of. Not some silly title that was handed down like old linen, but something he had to work to earn. Something that proved his worth.
“A very successful one,” she answered sincerely.
The carriage turned onto Hill Street, and her brother’s town house came into view. The three-bay terrace house perfectly symbolized her brother—aristocratic tastes on a tradesman’s allowance. She’d always wondered how he’d managed to afford the house, belong to so many clubs, frequent the best tailors, and spend nearly every evening at cards, drink, and women on the meager income their father had left him. She’d never dared to question him, knowing that she should be the last person to question how he managed his money, given how foolishly she’d lost hers.
But since finding the blackmail note, she’d begun to wonder… Had he been taking bribes? Was that why his friends had worked so hard to place him into the Minehead seat when he didn’t have the money to buy it himself? Had that been how he funded his lifestyle? Or was he involved with something even worse, like smuggling?
Certainly, there were gambling debts and prostitutes. He’d never cared about hiding evidence of those, despite how he kept all of his other papers under lock and key in his study. Yet there had to have been so much more that he’d been doing that she didn’t know about.
But the blackmailer knew, and whatever Freddie had done now threatened to come crashing down on both their heads if she couldn’t find a way to stop it.
Amelia rapped at the roof of the carriage to signal for the jarvey to stop. “Ready?”
Maggie gave a conspiratorial nod and recited, “It was an evening of spirited bluestocking discussion among the London Ladies regarding Voltaire. And tea. Lots of tea, although I suspect that Lady Agnes Sinclair slipped whiskey into hers.”
Amelia laughed. A perfect alibi!
She squeezed the woman’s hand in gratitude, then opened the door and descended to the footpath. If the hackney driver noticed that she’d changed clothes en route, he made no comment, only tugging at the brim of his tall hat when she indicated that someone from inside the house would pay the fare. Linking arms with Maggie, Amelia walked to the front door, rapped the brass knocker, and waited.
The door opened, and the man who served as butler, valet, and footman all rolled into one nodded at her. Another servant whom she now didn’t trust. “Good evening, miss.”
“Drummond.” She smiled. “Would you please pay the jarvey?”
The butler swung his gaze to Maggie, who nervously clutched at her knitting bag so tightly that her fingertips almost glowed white. Under his suspicious frown, the maid began to shake.
But Amelia gave the woman no time to panic as she tightened her hold on her arm and whisked her past Drummond and into the house. She hurried Maggie up the stairs to her room, grabbing a candle from the wall sconce on the first landing to light their way. With a deep sigh of relief, Amelia handed over the candle and sagged back against the closed door.
Thank God this horrible evening was finally over.
Her breathing returned to normal as Maggie moved around the room, lighting another candle on the bedside stand and bending down to stir up the banked fire in the small fireplace. The coals flamed, a soft glow lighting the room.
“You’ll have to keep the gown with you tonight,” Amelia instructed, pushing herself away from the door. She couldn’t risk that the maid-of-all-work might