"Thank you," she answered. "I have everything I need."
He bowed slightly, and seemed about to leave when he hesitated. "Oh. His grace asked if I would return this to you."
He came back across the room and walked around behind the Duke's desk, where he drew an envelope from the cubbyhole secretary against the wall behind it. The niches were filled with paper, paperclips, three colors of ink, fountain pens and quills, lint-padded packets, tape, sealing wax, a rolling blotter, a stub of candle and some lucifers, a tin of candies, and the odds and ends of correspondence, but Seamus unerringly found the right one, and handed it to Garrett with a bow. "His grace said, "A foolish jewel, to desert so beautiful a lady."
Garrett tore the padded envelope open, mindful of scattering lint, and shook a sapphire earring into her palm. She had been missing it.
She didn't need to ask where the Duke had found it, and neither did Seamus. But the butler was in Richard's employ, not the Duchess', and they had relied on his discretion before.
"Thank you," she said, and returned the earring to the packet—her name written on it in Seamus' hand—before tucking it into her carpetbag.
Seamus winked and left her.
The study was cluttered despite its size. The Duke's desk was as big as Garrett's lab table, though not as tall, and the other furniture—bookcases, a reading table, a couch, the chairs—were all to the same heavy standard. Garrett took a position on the edge of a carved maple armchair, beside the Duke's desk and within reach of the afternoon's newspaper, and settled down.
Richard arrived within the half-hour, slightly disheveled and pink-cheeked, still wearing his boots. In the interval, it had begun to rain. Garrett now stood before the window, wondering if the overcast seemed likely enough to hold that Sebastien might venture out by daylight. Maybe he and Mr. Priest would have discovered something useful, on their own or by way of the questioning of the Goodwood's servants, if so. The Colonial Register hung by her lilac silk taffeta skirts, the cheap folio sheets folded open to page three. Her sorcerer's tools were sealed in their bag beside the chair she'd been sitting in.
The Duke shut the door behind himself and shot the bolt unsubtly. He came to Garrett, but when he reached to rest a hand on her shoulder and pull her close, she snapped the paper into his palm. He took it, reflexively, and stepped back. "The Lord Mayor has begun a proxy fight, with the intention of assuming control of Goodwood patent shoes," she said. "What does that suggest to you?"
"That he has something to hide," Richard said, scanning columns of print. "I'll have their financial records pulled."
"I've seen a letter that would tend to clear the Lord Mayor of culpability in either the death or any Fenian money-laundering operation," she said. "Do you care?"
He must have finally read the challenge in her voice. He squared his shoulders, dropped the newspaper on the end table, and fisted his hands inside his pockets. "Does it implicate anyone else?"
"Goodwood—Sheridan—was working for the Fenians," she said. "He wanted out. He wrote to the Lord Mayor to ask for assistance and protection, if Sheridan would testify. The letter"—she hesitated—"is confirmed."
"It sounds," he admitted softly, "the twin of one I received. Do you have it with you?"
One you received, Richard my love, and did not trouble yourself to inform me of? It was his privilege as her lord and master, of course.
She was sure there were a thousand things about Richard, Duke of New Amsterdam, that she had not an inkling of.
"No," she lied, without looking down. Her heart beat so hard she felt it in her fingertips. She couldn't imagine how he didn't see it pounding in her throat.
He didn't drop his gaze either. "Did he name the Fenians he was working with?"
"Also no." And that was truth. "We're working on those names. If I can recover a certain piece of evidence, I'll be closer to an answer. Unless it was burned, somewhere exists the envelope in which the rosary bead was posted. If I can find it, I will know who mailed the thing. Then we have a subject for interrogation."
"Or I could arrest the Lord Mayor," Richard said. He took her hand between his own and pressed his lips to it. She suffered the touch, and permitted him to kiss her cheek. "Abby Irene, I have skirmishing on the borders. I