“The person insisted on waiting, sir.”
Strange how the world turned on a moment. She was here in his father’s house. Come to deliver a verdict. Her answer would change everything, one way or another. Alex deposited the hat onto the nearest surface. “Where is she?”
A slight pause was the footman’s only betrayal of surprise. “In the main entry, sir.”
Alex dismissed the servants and strode briskly to the top of the stairs. There he stopped and took a deep breath. Anticipation knotted his stomach. He couldn’t predict what she would say, but his heart lifted because she was here. The very air felt different, crackling with delicious tension.
He was halfway down the grand staircase when he saw her, a small black-clad figure standing amid all the austere grandeur of Harcastle House, dwarfed by the vast expanse of black and white marble flooring, the statue of Aries, and the Doric columns. She looked impossibly vulnerable with her head down, but then as he neared the bottom step, she glanced up and he saw those duelist’s eyes.
“Your Grace.”
He bowed. “Miss Jones.”
“Might we talk?”
“Please.” He gestured in the direction of the study. “Allow me.” He picked up the small carpetbag at her feet, trying not to think about what its presence might signify, and held the door open for her. She strode inside without looking at him.
Instead of waiting to be offered a seat, she sat before the desk, obviously expecting him to sit in his father’s chair. He did so and found that he minded less now that the portrait had been taken down. It stood with its face to the wall, and soon it would be sold.
“I’d like to concede our wager,” she said.
He felt his eyebrows inch upward. For once, he hadn’t been able to school his features in time. “Unexpected,” he said. “I confess, I didn’t think you capable of it.”
“And ordinarily you’d be right, but these are special circumstances. The fact is, I need your help.”
For the second time in as many minutes, she’d surprised him. “Go on.”
“I don’t like my work. I never have, though I do take pride in being good at what I do. Giving it up has never been an option. Even if my finances weren’t entangled with Mr. Nightingale’s, I felt bound to him by gratitude.”
Alex nodded noncommittally but inwardly he seethed. He didn’t like the idea of her bound to anyone but himself. Then, too, the nature of her relationship with Nightingale was nebulous. But he had no right to question her. Not yet anyway.
“In recent weeks, my feelings on this matter have changed.” She rose and began to pace. “You’ve investigated a great many mediums, but what made you take such particular notice of me?”
He shrugged. “You started to become popular. I make it my business to stay informed.”
“But you went far beyond that.” She stilled in front of him and pinned him with a look. “Be honest. Was it the photograph?”
He held her gaze. “Yes.”
“You told me your agents located it for you in Holywell Street. Led there by an anonymous source, I suppose?”
He began to see what she was suggesting. “You think it was Nightingale?”
“I know so. I confronted him this morning.”
He retrieved an envelope from the drawer and placed it on the desk before her. “I’ve been meaning to show you this.”
She slid the contents—a single photograph—free of the envelope and studied it in silence for a few minutes. “At least I have most of my clothes on in this one.”
“It arrived a few days ago along with the photograph I posed for. I wasn’t sure if you knew.”
“I didn’t.” She continued to gaze at the image, her brow furrowed.
“He couldn’t have known how I would react to the first photograph. Not the extent of it anyway.”
“No, but he’s adaptable. He hoped it would distract you but I think this particular ploy worked beyond his wildest dreams. Had you seen Captain—Mr. Nightingale, I mean—before I introduced you?”
“No. What makes you ask?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” She frowned in confusion. “He’s fixated on you.”
“You said yourself he’s adaptable. Scams like this are commonplace, though I’ll grant you’ve been ambitious in your choice of target.”
“I’ve been ambitious? No. I knew nothing of this until that day in the carriage.”
Her words jibed so perfectly with his wishes that he immediately became suspicious. The fact that he wanted to believe her—longed to believe her, actually—meant he shouldn’t trust his own judgment. All along he’d been absorbed by her, so obsessed that he failed to notice he was being manipulated by Nightingale. She claimed she was only a pawn but he couldn’t be sure. Instinct urged him to trust her but he’d be a fool to heed it.
“Anyway, that doesn’t matter.” She waved away his distrust as if it were nothing. “The point is that it’s you in particular he wishes to hurt. He even said so. ‘He’s got to pay.’ That’s what he told me this morning.”
“Pay for what? I tell you, I’d never seen the man before you introduced us. And pay how?”
“He wants me to become your mistress so I can spy for him. He plans to use what I find out to bleed you dry.”
A shrug was all he could muster. The anger he ought to feel was truant. In its place, he found only emptiness.
Evie must have sensed it because she snapped at him. “For goodness sake, Harcastle!”
He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had scolded him the way she did. He suspected his sister was often exasperated by him but she rarely allowed it to show. He tried and failed to repress a smile.
Evie rolled her eyes inelegantly and took a deep breath. “Well, I’ve told you. It’s up to you what you do with the information. Forewarned is forearmed and now there’s no way he can force me to help him.”
“Force you?” Ah, there it was. Anger breaking through the emptiness. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
Her eyes widened. “That’s not important.”
“Like hell it isn’t.” He didn’t care that she was a deceitful baggage who might or might not be aiding Nightingale even now. If that bastard laid a hand on her in any way, Alex was going to tear his throat out.
“Look, I want to get as far away from Captain as I can, but he thinks he owns me. I can’t take five hundred pounds from you, even if you’re still willing to give it to me, because he won’t accept that. I need to become useless to him, which means you need to win our wager. Publicly. Where Captain can witness it. If you help me, you could keep the money—”