with him in my parlor. Naturally, I agreed. Though I was not party to whatever was said.”
But that didn’t mean he hadn’t heard it. In my experience, servants often listened at doors, and many times those of the highest ranks were the worst eavesdroppers. To have a tasty morsel of gossip to share around the dinner table was currency almost better than gold. Of course, the senior staff stooped to share only with other senior staff where they dined in the housekeepers’ rooms, while the lower shared with their fellow lower ranks in the servants’ hall, but at some point the chatter would inevitably breach the divide to spread among the others.
In this case, I wondered if the butler might be telling the truth. For otherwise, I expected Bree would have caught some whiff before now of this mysterious man’s visit and the conversation held in the butler’s parlor.
Gage propped a hand on his hip, his own expression thoughtful as he examined the butler. “When their conversation ended, was he escorted off the premises?”
“Indeed he was. And that was the last I saw of him.”
That the reserved butler felt the need to add this last statement, unprompted, seemed out of character. However, he continued to stand unmoved by either my or Gage’s regard.
My husband thanked him for his assistance and then asked where we might locate Lord John.
“I believe you shall find him in the library. That’s usually where he can be found at this hour of the day.”
True to Tait’s word, Lord John was seated in a deep wingback chair before one of the windows overlooking the courtyard below. Sunlight streamed through the glass, bleaching his blond hair almost white and casting a latticed shadow over the pages of the book he held open in his lap. But rather than reading, his dark gaze was trained on the floor before him, his thoughts far away, and not in a happy place. He did not look up until we stood before him, and even then he had to blink several times before he registered our presence.
“Lord John, might we have a moment of your time?” Gage asked politely.
He hesitated, the pupils of his eyes dilating, but then he seemed to shake himself. “Yes.” He glanced down at the open book. “Yes, of course.” Closing it with a snap, he set it on the table at his elbow. “What can I do for you?”
Gage handed me to the jonquil wingback chair opposite Lord John before drawing a ladder-back chair from a nearby table for himself, forming a triangle. “We understand you spoke with a man in the butler’s parlor some three or four weeks ago who was demanding to speak with Lord and Lady Helmswick.”
His eyes widened and he turned his head to the side as he gasped, “Oh heavens. Yes, I’d forgotten about that. I should have recalled him immediately.”
But for all his show of surprise, somehow it appeared too practiced, as if he had been expecting just such a question to arise at some point. If that were the case, why hadn’t he told us earlier?
Gage crossed one leg over the opposite knee at ease. “Who was he?”
“He said his name was Patrick Renton.” He tapped the arm of his chair. “Though I have wondered if that was really his name, or if he was using an alias.” He shrugged. “Whatever the case, he was barely clinging to civility, let alone the status of a gentleman.”
“Tait indicated he was intoxicated.”
He tipped his head to the side in consideration. “More tipsy than fully disguised. But yes, most definitely in his cups.”
“And what did he want with Helmswick?”
He folded his hands over his abdomen. “He said Helmswick owed him money.”
Gage and I shared a speaking glance. And yet Lord John hadn’t thought to mention this before?
“How much?”
Lord John named an amount that sent my eyebrows shooting toward my hairline. While not ruining, it was undoubtedly a staggering amount.
My husband frowned. “Did he explain how the earl had come to owe him such a large sum?”
His mouth was tight with disapproval. “As I imagine you suspect. On a game of chance.”
I turned my head toward the window, watching the dust motes dance in the beams of the sun. Helmswick wouldn’t be the first nobleman to win and lose large sums of money gambling. It was almost modus operandi for some members of that class. Yet, thus far, no one had mentioned the earl being enamored by such play, or even a regular