“Just as well you’re here,” Toby said. “We’ve had to take the first steps without you, and we’ll need your input over how to go on.”
“Indeed.” Louisa looked from Ellen to Toby and Christopher. “We’re here to work on this business at Goffard Hall.” She returned her gaze to Ellen. “Have you been assisting, too?”
Drake’s expression stated that he wanted to know the answer to that question as much as his wife did.
Christopher replied, “Ellen has been an active party in our investigations.”
“Excellent!” Louisa looped her arm in Ellen’s and turned toward the drawing room. “So we can all go into the drawing room—and to please my husband, I’ll put my feet up—and you three can tell us what’s been going on down here, and then we can decide what we, as a group, need to do next.”
Louisa was poised to sweep an unresisting Ellen through the open drawing room door when Pendleby cleared his throat and shifted as if to intercept them.
“My lady.” He bowed, then cast a look at Drake. “My lord. If I might suggest, the hour is somewhat advanced, and you might wish to retire to your room and refresh yourselves before dinner.”
“Good gracious!” Louisa swung around to regard her menfolk. “Is it really that late?”
“Country hours, my dear,” Drake smoothly said. “So yes, it truly is time we went up.”
Pendleby bowed again. “Mrs. Marsh”—he indicated the housekeeper—“and I will be happy to escort you to your room.”
Their luggage had already vanished up the stairs.
“Yes, of course.” Louisa sounded deflated, but she knew the ropes of a household such as this.
“Perhaps”—Drake looked at Christopher, then transferred his dark gaze to Ellen and arched a brow—“Miss Martingale—”
“Ellen, please, my lord.”
Drake smiled, “Only if you call me Drake.”
Ellen smiled back. “If you wish.”
“I was going to suggest,” Drake continued, including Louisa, Toby, and Christopher with his gaze, “that if Ellen would remain for dinner, Louisa and I could hear all your reports at once.”
Brightening again, Louisa took her husband’s arm. “And afterward, we could make the necessary plans all together.”
Ellen felt her spirits rise; Louisa’s inclusive attitude was heartening. “As Christopher mentioned, I live across the lane. I can easily send a message that I’ll be dining here.”
Drake smiled. “Good—so that’s settled.” He looked at his wife. “Come, my dear, and let’s dispense with the dust of the journey.”
Louisa smiled benevolently at Christopher, Toby, and Ellen and announced, “For the record, I am not dressing for dinner.”
Christopher tipped his head in acknowledgment, while Toby muttered, “Thank God.”
Louisa briefly arched her brows at Toby, then allowed her husband to lead her up the stairs in Pendleby’s wake, with Mrs. Marsh bringing up the rear.
Christopher glanced at Toby, then looked at Ellen. “We may as well take refuge in the library. You can write your note, and I’ll get a groom to run it across to Bigfield House.”
Ellen smiled and acquiesced with an inclination of her head. As she walked with the men to the library, she considered her initial assessment of the newcomers. Drake was tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and much like Toby in build, projecting a sense of steely, whiplike strength, all under perfect control. In contrast, Christopher was more the strong, solid sort—more rocklike than whiplike. Yet Drake possessed an aura of power beyond what either of the other men wielded; Ellen found such overt political and social pre-eminence a touch unnerving.
She wasn’t surprised that Louisa, for her part, patently took all that Drake was in her stride. Indeed, she matched him, for Louisa—also dark-haired yet with unusual pale-green eyes and what must, initially, have been a neat, petite figure—possessed a similar, perhaps complementary inner strength and assurance. Indeed, assurance, confidence, and certainty in her ability to achieve whatever she set her mind to…that, for Ellen’s money, described Louisa’s character to a T.
They reached the library, and Ellen preceded the men into the room. Christopher waved her to his desk and settled her behind it with paper and pen. She drew the paper to her, dipped the sharpened nib into the inkwell, and started to craft a short note for her aunt.
That endeavor didn’t take long. While she waited for the ink to dry, her mind returned to the recently arrived couple. Both Drake and Louisa hailed from the very highest echelons of the ton, which emphasized the fact that Christopher and Toby did, too. Yet all four were quite unlike any of the nobility she’d previously met, not that she’d rubbed shoulders with dukes and duchesses, yet she’d observed and met many who inhabited such circles during her years in London society.
The Cynsters—and apparently those they associated with, like Drake—were…
As she glanced at her note and realized the ink was dry, it struck her what the difference was. Christopher, Toby, Louisa, and Drake didn’t care what circle of the ton she, or anyone else, inhabited; they knew she was of “good family,” and that was enough. They didn’t need to bolster their own standing with that of their friends.
Or their connections?
She was careful not to frown as she folded her note and inscribed her aunt’s name on the front. In following the path she had, hand in hand with Christopher, she hadn’t really thought of where, exactly, that path led—was leading, if where she thought they stood at the moment was in any way accurate. Yet there was no denying that Louisa’s and Drake’s acceptance of her presence and her continuing inclusion in their group was…
At the very least, it was encouraging rather than discouraging.
Christopher had been seated in an armchair chatting with Toby about the woods to the west of the lychgate; on seeing Ellen set down the pen, he rose and went to her side. “Let me have that.” He held out a hand for her note. “I’ll send a groom to deliver it.”
She looked up, smiled, and surrendered the note. “Thank you.”
While he tugged the bellpull, then went to the door, she rose and claimed the armchair beside his. He intercepted Pendleby and consigned the note to his care.
Christopher had only just resumed his seat when the door opened and Louisa looked in. Seeing them, she smiled and walked in, Drake at her heels. “I thought you’d be here.” She sank onto the sofa facing the armchairs. She waited until Drake subsided onto the leather beside her, then fixed her pale-green gaze on Christopher. “You said in your message that the mastermind’s pawns were moving—in what way?”
“At that point,” Christopher said, “we’d learned that the latest batch of counterfeit notes had been brought into the country last Saturday night, and we’d guessed the notes were secreted in packets of contraband lace, which had been hidden in tombs in Lydd churchyard. Subsequently, two nights ago, on Tuesday night, the packets were moved to somewhere near here.”
“Lace!” Louisa’s eyes widened, then she tipped her head. “I suppose there might be profit to be made by smuggling the high-quality stuff.”