“Like a fairy tale.”
Messalina felt a guilty wave of relief. She’d have to wait, then, until Gideon handed her the money.
She glanced at Freya. “And Caitriona? Did she stay behind?”
Caitriona was the middle de Moray sister.
Freya frowned in what looked like frustration. “Caitriona had already left when Kester and I got there. I don’t know where she is. We even stopped by Ayr Castle, but Lachlan swore he hadn’t seen her.”
Lachlan was the second brother in the de Moray family. Messalina vaguely remembered that he managed his brother’s estates.
“Caitriona makes her own way,” Elspeth said calmly. “There’s no point in chasing after her.”
The door to the sitting room opened. Sam came in, carefully holding a tray. Daisy was trotting by his side, his eyes firmly fixed on the tray. “’Icks said as ’e thought you might want more ’freshments, ma’am.”
Lucretia gasped, “Why didn’t you tell me there was a puppy in the house?”
She made kissing noises at Daisy, who happily gamboled over. Lucretia scooped him up, and the puppy responded by attempting to lick her face. “Oh, what’s his name?”
Sam said shyly, “’Is name is Daisy.”
“What a lovely name.” Freya smiled at the boy. “Is he yours?”
“No, ma’am,” Sam said as he set the tea tray on the table.
“He’s mine,” Messalina cut in. “But Sam is Daisy’s keeper and takes care of him for me.”
“Is he?” Elspeth fed the puppy a piece of her bread. “What a smart boy.”
“He is indeed,” Messalina replied, thoughtfully.
Sam was smart. He ought to have an education.
She realized suddenly that the boy was looking at her expectantly. She smiled. “Would you like to go to the kitchens for tea and some bread and butter while we watch Daisy?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sam said at once, and spun on his heel to hurry out.
“Where did you get him?” Freya asked when the door had shut.
Messalina arched an eyebrow. “The boy or the dog?”
Freya shook her head at her jest. “Daisy of course.”
The puppy scrambled over Lucretia’s arm to get to Elspeth and her bread.
“Gideon gave him to me.”
Messalina suddenly found herself at the target of three sets of eyes.
“Did he?” Freya asked thoughtfully.
“I think I should do anything for a puppy,” Elspeth remarked, letting Daisy down.
And Lucretia said with alarming approval, “How Machiavellian.”
The puppy had wandered over to sniff at Messalina’s skirts.
She bent and lifted him to her lap, where he greeted her with a wet nose.
“I don’t know why everyone should find that so surprising,” Messalina said in what even to her sounded like a defensive voice.
Freya was still eyeing her. “Perhaps you should tell me what has happened since your marriage?”
“You really, really should,” Lucretia muttered.
Traitor.
Elspeth put down her tea and reached into the pocket of her gown. She produced a small notebook and a tiny pencil, then looked earnestly at Freya. “Might I take notes?”
Oh, Good Lord.
* * *
By the time Gideon returned to Whispers House that night he was dead tired.
Exhausted in both body and something deeper. Perhaps his soul. He’d realized as he’d set out that morning that he’d never cold-bloodedly planned to murder a man. He didn’t like Greycourt—far from it. Had anyone asked him a month ago if Gideon would hesitate to kill Greycourt, he would’ve laughed in their face.
It was thinking about the man and how to murder him that made the deed so ghastly.
He’d spent the day shadowing Julian Greycourt—or attempting to. It had taken him until well after noon to find Greycourt drinking coffee in a crowded coffeehouse. Greycourt had been all alone; not even the younger brother was about, which seemed…odd.
After that Gideon had followed the man to his tailor, to a dueling club, and finally back to the inn where Julian was staying with his brother.
It was as Gideon had been lounging across the street from the dueling club, waiting for Greycourt to emerge again, that he asked himself what exactly he was doing. He already had a list of Greycourt’s usual places from Pea. If he wanted to kill Greycourt, why didn’t Gideon simply choose a place and wait until the man arrived? Come to that, couldn’t he have shot the man in the London crowd? Or if that was too loud, he could get close enough and stab him.
In the back.
Aristocrats considered stabbing a man in the back ungentlemanly. And while Gideon made a point of hating nearly everything the toffs did, he reluctantly had to agree with them in this case. He wasn’t sure he could sneak up on a man—on Greycourt—and kill