mean to make excuses for your father,” he said, sounding like he was about to do precisely that. “We both know he’s despicable. But when he married this Elsie Terry, he was twenty. It’s possible he never thought it was a binding marriage—it took place in a foreign country and in a Catholic church, and neither of them would have been of age in England. It may have been a poor choice, but it’s not an inherently evil one.”
“Not inherently—” Percy broke off, sputtering.
“My only point is that revenge has never done anyone a bit of good.”
Well, of course it wasn’t going to do him any good. Percy wasn’t fool enough to believe that punishing his father would make him happy. The problem was that letting his father go unpunished would make it impossible for Percy to have any peace. But there was no use explaining that to Marcus. “If it makes you feel better, I fully intend to sell off everything I can in the next month or two.”
“Marian is engaged in a similar project,” Marcus said.
“I have one more lead,” Percy said. “My father’s former valet has an inn near Tavistock. His name was Denny.”
“Percy,” Marcus said gently. “There’s no doubt but that your father married this woman. There are people in Boulogne who remember her, and who remember where she came from. And when I visited the village where she was born, there were half a dozen Terrys still living there, including an old woman who says Elsie was her granddaughter. Elsie pays her a visit once a quarter.”
“I know that,” Percy snapped. “I know, Marcus. The woman’s alive, the marriage was valid, and Marian and I are well and truly fucked. What I care about now is Cheveril. Would you please visit Mr. Denny and see if he recalls whether there was a child. I need to know what will happen to Cheveril.”
“All right,” Marcus said. “I know this all feels impossibly dreadful right now, but there are certain advantages to being a commoner. You won’t have to worry about marriage or heirs, and with any luck you could perhaps form a lasting attachment with a person of your own choosing. I know that seems like a small compensation, but—”
Percy laughed bitterly. “Marcus, lasting attachments are the furthest thing from my mind.”
Chapter 29
Long after closing, Kit sat in the empty shop, using the broad expanse of the table to spread out maps of the road from London to Oxfordshire and the country surrounding Cheveril Castle. In the margins, he marked information that he still needed. He would have to hire someone to scout out that length of road in advance. In the past, he would have gone himself and committed every farmhouse and hedgerow to memory, but it turned out he could do most of the planning right from his shop.
His work was interrupted by a rap at the door. “Come in,” he called, wondering when it happened that people had started to drop in on him at odd hours. His hand went to his knife, more out of habit than out of any actual belief that he was in danger. People who meant harm seldom knocked.
He hoped that it might be Percy at the door. Percy had, after all, left without a word despite the fact that earlier they had more or less made plans to spend the night together. Or at least that was how Kit had interpreted it at the time, but the more he thought about it the more doubtful he became.
But the person who walked in wasn’t Percy. It was a woman, wrapped head to toe in a dark, hooded cloak. Only after the door was shut and bolted behind her did she slide the hood off her head.
“Scarlett?” Kit asked, rising to his feet. He could count on one hand the number of times he had ever seen her outside her establishment. “What’s the matter?”
“You didn’t send word that Flora had arrived safely at her aunt’s house.”
“It slipped my mind. I apologize. I wouldn’t have thought that would merit a clandestine trip across town, though,” he said, gesturing at her cloak.
“It’s cold,” she sniffed. “Nothing clandestine about it. And you’re hardly across town.” She glanced around the shop, not bothering to conceal her interest, and Kit realized she had never set foot inside the place before.
“Sit,” he said. “I’ll get you something to drink.”
“Tea, please,” she asked, sitting primly on the edge of one of the benches that lined the