“He’s a villain,” Anne countered. “He stole her from her sickbed. Did you know that? Quite literally carried her away from her parents’ house in Belgrave Square and conveyed her to his haunted estate in the wilds of Yorkshire, just like some rogue in a penny novel.”
“Miss Wychwood’s circumstances were far from ideal. And she had no objection to Blunt, not on the few occasions I saw them together. Given that, your conclusions are hasty at best.”
“I don’t require you to validate them. Miss Wychwood is my friend, not yours. It’s my duty to see that she’s all right. I won’t rest until I can assure myself of the fact.”
A shadow of irritation ghosted over his usually humorous countenance.
Anne had observed the expression before. “You don’t approve of my friends.”
“As ever, you presume to read my mind.”
“I’m not reading your mind. I’m reading your face. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care what you think of my friends.”
Hartford’s jaw tightened imperceptibly. “Shall I tell you what I think?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “You use your friends as a shield.”
She scoffed. “I most certainly don’t.”
“You travel with them in a pack—a pack that grows with every passing season.”
She opened her mouth to object, but Hartford ploughed on, unconcerned with her protestations.
“First there was only Miss Wychwood,” he said. “Then there was Miss Hobhouse. And now Miss Maltravers.” His smile turned wry. “The Four Horsewomen.”
“Yes, yes, it’s quite diverting, I’m sure.” To someone with a pea brain, she added silently.
Four Horsewomen indeed.
Though Anne supposed it was preferable to the tired epithet he’d previously used. Until Miss Maltravers had arrived in London, Hartford had been calling Anne and her friends the three Furies.
“Not diverting,” he said. “Merely interesting. I wonder why you need their protection.”
Her chin ticked up another notch. “I’m here, aren’t I? Unescorted. Unprotected.”
She hadn’t had much choice in the matter.
Julia was somewhere in Yorkshire, a prisoner of the evil Captain Blunt. Evelyn Maltravers was in Sussex awaiting the arrival of her beau, Mr. Malik. And Stella Hobhouse—dear Stella!—was presently cloistered with her dour clergyman brother in George’s Street. Newly returned from accompanying him to an ecumenical conference in Exeter, she’d been tasked with transcribing his mountain of notes.
Not that Stella would have understood Anne’s reasons for calling at the Earl of March’s residence. When it came to Felix Hartford, Anne preferred to hold her secrets close. Nothing good could come of sharing them, not even with her dearest friends.
“Unwise of you,” Hartford said. “You should have at least brought a maid.”
“To visit an aged family friend? Your grandfather is no threat to my reputation. That’s why I asked for him.”
“In hopes that I’d show up eventually?”
“You always do where I’m concerned.” The words were tantamount to an accusation. Anne’s stomach trembled a little to say them aloud.
His smile faded. “What do you want of me, my lady?”
“What I want,” she said, “is for you to write something very particular in the next column you publish in the Spiritualist Herald.”
He stilled. A look of uncommon alertness flickered at the back of his eyes. “I don’t have a column in the Spiritualist Herald.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “Of course, you do. You have columns in several publications. The Spiritualist Herald, the Weekly Heliosphere, Glendale’s Botanical Bi-Monthly. I could go on.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“I’m not. You’re Mr. Drinkwater, aren’t you? And Mr. Bilgewater, and Mr. Tidewater. You know, you really should diversify your pseudonyms—and your turn of phrase. It’s recognizable to anyone who knows you.”
His gaze sharpened, holding hers with an air of unmistakable challenge. “And you know me, do you?”
“Regrettably,” she said, “I do.”
* * *
It took a great deal to shake Felix Hartford’s good-humored equanimity. He prided himself on his ability to see the absurd in every situation. No matter if it hurt him. No matter if it broke his heart.
But today was no ordinary day.
He’d been up since before dawn broke, attending to yet another remnant of his late father’s distasteful legacy. An unknown legacy as far as society was aware. Hartford wished he might have been spared the knowledge of it as well.
There had been no chance of that.
His own mother had unloaded the burden onto his shoulders, confessing every sordid detail from her deathbed nine years ago. Hartford had been only twenty at the time, little equipped to face the reality his mother’s dying words had wrought.
Lack of readiness hadn’t alleviated his responsibilities.
He’d begun to view his father’s secret life as the many-headed Hydra of mythology. Nothing was ever fully resolved. Just when he’d lopped off one of the sea serpent’s poisonous heads, two more grew in its place. He was tired of it and, after this morning’s events, quite tempted to wash his hands of the business once and for all.
And now this.
Her.
Lady Anne Deveril was the last person he wanted to see at the moment. And, rather paradoxically, the person his heart most yearned to speak with.
But not about his family’s past.
And not about her family’s either. It was a past her mother seemed to cling to with increasing determination. Anne clung to it, too, in her way; a willing victim to Lady Arundell’s obsession with the dead.
Per usual, she was clad in lusterless black bombazine. An aggravating sight, though her mourning gown was one of impeccable cut. It molded to her delicate frame; the tightly fitted bodice, with its long row of dainty jet buttons, emphasizing her narrow waist and the lush curve of her magnificent bosom. Full skirts swelled over her hips in a voluminous sweep of fabric that made the most sensuous sound, rustling over her layers of petticoats and crinoline, when she moved.
He felt it as much as heard it, tickling his senses and thrumming in his blood.
Thank heaven she’d agreed to sit.
A seated Lady Anne was far easier to deal with than an Anne in motion. And she was almost always in motion, whether striding about in her mother’s wake or galloping down Rotten Row in company with her bluestocking friends. Mounted Amazons, all—and just as formidable.