predicament.”
“Ah yes. Naturally. Your brother. I have already made arrangements. You need not worry. I shall take care of everything.”
Miranda, watching him, could well believe it. The man who sat before her was not the same boy she had loved so long ago, in what felt like another lifetime. This was not the boy who had taught her how to fish, how to skip stones across water, how to climb trees, the boy who’d had little understanding and even less interest in wealth, power or the nobility.
This was not the boy who had loved her. The man sitting before her, with his expensive clothes and his saturnine features, was hard and dangerous. This man, with his vitality, his indomitable will, his sheer gall, was the man who had beggared half the aristocracy of England while forcing them to accept him as one of their own.
He was not the boy she had known, but she had to believe that somewhere, buried deep behind this facade of a stranger, that boy still existed. That hope had carried her to London, and it was to him she now appealed.
“Thank you,” she said at last, her voice quiet. “I realize my presence here is not particularly convenient for you. Nevertheless, I wish to be kept apprised of your plans to help William. He is my brother and therefore my responsibility.”
Jason leaned back into his chair and raised a mocking brow.
“I am devastated, Miss Thornwood,” he murmured. “You do not trust me to take care of the matter?”
She met his gaze very steadily.
“I trust you, Jason,” she said. “I have always trusted you.”
For the first time since her arrival at Blakewell’s the night before, a look of uncertainty crossed his face. It was quickly gone, but it had been unmistakable.
She drew a quiet breath.
“Give me Hannah’s address in Middlesex,” said Jason abruptly. He no longer looked at her. “I am sending out several of my men today to make inquiries in Hertfordshire. When they are finished, they’ll go to Middlesex and escort Hannah and William to my estate in Buckinghamshire.”
Miranda blinked and looked up at him. It was her turn to be surprised.
“You have an estate in Buckinghamshire?”
“Yes.” He hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and said, “It was formerly Wycombe Manor, but Lord Wycombe elected to give me the deed in lieu of paying debts he owed to the club.”
“I see,” said Miranda. “And what is it you hope to discover in Hertfordshire?”
“I believe it would be interesting to see what has happened at Thornwood Hall since your uncle’s death,” said Jason.
Miranda frowned. “Why?” she asked. “No doubt they are planning his funeral and scouring the countryside for William.”
“Perhaps,” said Jason, “and perhaps not. Either way, I think it would be beneficial to discover what your aunt is about. In the meanwhile, if you’d like to write a note to your brother to reassure him, I’ll see that it is delivered.”
“I see,” said Miranda. “And yes, thank you.”
He removed a few sheets of foolscap from his desk and handed her a pen and inkwell. Miranda scribbled out a quick note, reassuring William of her safety and instructing him to go with Jason’s men to Buckinghamshire.
That Jason’s men would take William to Buckinghamshire and therefore place her brother out of her aunt’s reach filled her with a quiet sense of relief. Though Aunt Beatrice was unlikely to track William to Hannah’s village in Middlesex, someone might think to look for him there.
When Miranda finished writing and the ink had dried, she folded the foolscap very carefully. Jason slid the letter into an envelope, then scrawled something across the front in a bold, sprawling hand. An image of Jason sitting beside her in the woods behind Thornwood, scowling at her as she forced him to practice his penmanship, rose in her mind. She banished it.
“After William is safely removed to my estate,” Jason said, setting aside the envelope, “I’ll be able to conduct any investigation at a more leisurely pace. I’ve already written to my lawyers regarding the matter, and there are a few other lines of inquiry I wish to pursue.”
“What other lines of inquiry?” Miranda asked sharply.
“I wish to speak with your Uncle Clarence’s son, Laurence, for one.”
She gave an involuntary start. “Laurence? Why? Is he even still in town? I’d have thought he already removed to Hertfordshire to be with his mother.”
“Even after the night you say William killed your uncle, he has continued to gamble rather heavily here at Blakewell’s,” said Jason.