as naturally as… in his house, with his sisters sleeping upstairs, he’d almost swept her up and carried her to his bed. Unthinkable. He wished her gone, or better yet, never met. He wanted so much to see her that he had to resist going to her chamber. When Edward had snatched her away at the evening party, he’d been enraged. He didn’t know what to do. He knew only that this felt dangerous, and he hated it.
Alec forced himself to work, and as he read tale after tale of distress in the letters on his desk, his own problems began to recede. Whole families were starving; he couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to watch one’s children wasting away from hunger. Or, perhaps he could, just a bit. Anne’s illness had driven him nearly mad with helplessness. If it hadn’t been conquered finally, thanks to Charlotte… He was thinking of her again.
He gritted his teeth and opened a report from his steward, Hobbs, who administered a relief fund Alec had established for tenants on his estates. That idea had worked well. The only difficulty was that they were receiving appeals from more and more people who were not tenants. Alec had agreed to respond to those in neighboring villages, but word of the fund had spread further. Requests were coming from all over the county and beyond, far more than Alec could fulfill even if he bankrupted himself. Frustrated, angry, he sat amid the piles of paper and nearly despaired. He would force himself to make another round of visits, urging fellow landholders to help their own people. Some treated him like a beggar, some like a fool for “wasting” his income. Some actually laughed at him. Not that he went to see those sorts more than once.
There was a soft knock, and the door opened to reveal Frances, crisp in a blue morning gown. “May I interrupt you a moment, Alec?”
He remembered that he had meant to speak to her. Another thing swept from his mind by his enchanting houseguest. “Is anything wrong?” he asked, hoping that she knew the question covered past circumstances as well as present.
“Not wrong, really. It is just that Charlotte has given me a great deal to think about.” Her tone was distracted, as if she were only half here.
“Charlotte?” Could he never escape the girl? He met her at every turn.
“Yes. She’s a very thoughtful girl.”
Alec compared this judgment with the twirling siren he’d encountered last night and found no connection.
“Is that house you own near Butterley still vacant? The little manor with the fine gardens?”
“The…?” Alec gathered his wits. “I believe so. I’ve heard nothing of a tenant from Hobbs.”
“Ah. What would you think if I should want it?” Frances cocked her head and smiled at him.
“Want what? The house? What for?”
“Well, to live in. Not at once of course, but eventually. When I leave.”
“Leave?” Alec felt as if he’d gotten so far behind in this conversation that he would never catch up. “Leave… us?”
Frances looked at him with benevolent impatience. “Children do grow up, Alec. You will not need me forever.”
“But… you… we…”
A tap on the door announced Ethan. “That Mr. Hanks is here again, sir,” said the footman.
Frances turned with an airy wave. “This can wait. There’s no hurry, obviously.” She went out in a rustle of cambric. Alec sat at his desk, stunned by the revolution in his household arrangements that she had implied.
“Sir?” said Ethan after a while.
“What? Oh, the Runner. Send him in, I suppose.” The man looked just the same—gray and forgettable with the shaded eyes of a hawk. “You have something to report?”
“Not exactly a report. I wanted to talk to you, like.”
“You have more questions for Mrs. Wylde?”
“In a manner of speaking. After a bit, mebbe.”
Something about the way he said those words puzzled Alec. “Sit down. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Yes, sir.” Hanks took one of the chairs on the other side of the desk, brooded briefly, then spoke. “Here it ’tis. I en’t much of a believer in coincidence. So it’s always stuck in my craw, so to speak, that this Henry Wylde is killed, and then his house is robbed, if you take my meaning?”
“You think these things are connected.” It seemed obvious once he said it.
“Well, here’s a man with mighty regular habits, no incidents reported. And then, of a sudden, two crimes committed.”
“So you think someone killed him because of his collections?” Alec paused. “You