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  Lavinia wrote down the word fashionable. “Surely you do not intend to marry a farmer. Neither of us was excessively fond of rusticating, as I recall.”

  “I have no intention of wedding a farmer. I have decided that I would like to become your associate.”

  “What do you mean? You already are my associate. Indeed, we associate daily. What do you think about the phrase effective devices for gentlemen of intrigue, offered in a confidential and discreet manner? That has an interesting ring to it, don’t you agree?”

  “Yes.” Emeline frowned delicately. “But I have no notion of what it means.”

  “Neither do I.” Lavinia pursed her lips. “That is a bit of a problem, is it not? Perhaps if I altered the vocabulary somewhat—” She broke off at the muffled sound of the front door opening. “It appears we have a visitor. It is much too early for a social call. Perhaps it is a new client.”

  “More likely it is Mr. March.” Emeline helped herself to another warm biscuit. “I have noticed that he no longer stands on formality when he calls upon you.”

  “He never did stand on it,” Lavinia muttered. “If you will recall, he was busily smashing the statuary in our little shop in Rome the first time he introduced himself. His social graces have not improved a great deal since that first meeting, in my opinion.”

  Emeline smiled and took a dainty bite of her biscuit.

  Lavinia listened warily to the sound of bootsteps coming down the hall. “You may be right in that he seems to be getting worse, however. This is the second time this week that he has paid a call at breakfast.”

  Emeline’s eyes brightened. “Mayhap Anthony will have accompanied him.”

  “Do not go to any trouble, Mrs. Chilton.” Tobias’s voice reverberated through the paneling of the breakfast room. “Some of the eggs and your excellent potatoes will do nicely.”

  In spite of her irritation, Lavinia found herself listening intently, as she always did, to the slight hitch in his stride as he approached. Some part of her relaxed when she noted that he did not appear to be favoring his left leg unduly today. That was no doubt because the morning had dawned clear. She knew that the wound bothered him most when it rained or when a damp fog clung to the city.

  Tobias appeared in the doorway and came to a halt. “Good day to you, ladies.”

  “Mr. March.” Emeline beamed. “How lovely to see you. Is Mr. Sinclair with you?”

  “No. He wanted to accompany me, but I dispatched him on some business.” Tobias looked at Lavinia, a determined glint in his eyes. “I vow, you are looking lovely today, madam. The very incarnation of Venus rising from the sea. Indeed, the sight of you aglow in the morning light elevates my spirits, clarifies my thoughts, and inspires me to metaphysical contemplation.”

  “Incarnation of Venus?” Lavinia paused, her cup halfway to her mouth, and frowned in concern. “Are you feeling ill, Tobias? You do not sound yourself.”

  “I am in excellent health, thank you.” He glanced expectantly at the enameled pot. “Any coffee left?”

  Emeline responded before Lavinia could question his uncharacteristic greeting further.

  “Of course.” Emeline picked up the pot. “Please sit down. I shall be delighted to pour some for you. Perhaps Mr. Sinclair will pay us a call after he has finished with his business affairs?”

  “I doubt it. He will be occupied for most of the day.” Tobias took a chair without further ado and helped himself to the last biscuit.

  Emeline poured coffee. “Mr. Sinclair did not mention that he had plans for today.”

  “Very likely because he did not have any plans until he took a notion to engage himself as my assistant.”

  Emeline looked up sharply and set down the pot with a small thud. “Assistant?”

  Tobias shrugged and reached for the butter and the jam pot. “He tells me that he wishes to embark upon a career as an investigator. Says he wants me to teach him the business.”

  Emeline was riveted. “Indeed. That is amazing.”

  “Personally, I found it decidedly depressing.” Tobias finished spreading butter and jam on his biscuit and took a large bite out of it. “As you know, I have been urging him toward a more stable profession. I envisioned him becoming a man of business. But according to Anthony, the only other career that interests him is that of professional gamester.”

  “What a coincidence,” Emeline said.

  Tobias regarded her with dry disbelief. “I hope you are not going to say that you are also inclined in that direction, Miss Emeline.”

  “I have no interest in becoming a gamester, of course.” Emeline cast a quick look at Lavinia and delicately cleared her throat. “But I was just explaining to Aunt Lavinia that I have decided to embark upon a career myself. I would like to begin training for my new profession immediately.”

  “And I was just telling Emeline that she need not even consider such a course of action.” Lavinia refolded her newspaper. “Her social calendar is quite full these days. She has no time to study a profession.”

  “That is not true,” Emeline said. “I intend to follow in your footsteps, Lavinia.”

  There was a short, extremely heavy silence.

  Lavinia finally realized that her mouth had fallen open in a most unattractive fashion. She managed to get it closed.

  “Ridiculous,” she said.

  “I want to become your assistant, just as Anthony is doing with Mr. March.”

  Lavinia stared at her, frozen in her chair by the sheer horror of it all.

  “Ridiculous,” she said again. “Your parents would be shocked at the very notion of their dear daughter going into trade.”

  “My parents are dead, Aunt Lavinia. Their feelings need not be considered in this matter.”

  “But you know perfectly well how they would feel about it. When you came into my care I assumed a certain responsibility to establish you in the world as they would have wished. A lady does not go into this sort of business.”

  Emeline smiled. “You are in the business and I consider you a lady.” She looked at Tobias. “Don’t you consider Aunt Lavinia a lady, sir?”

  “Absolutely,” Tobias said easily. “I will call out any man who says otherwise.”

  Lavinia rounded on him. “This is your doing, sir. You have put this crazed notion into Emeline’s head as well as Anthony’s.”

  “I fear you cannot blame Mr. March,” Emeline said.

  Tobias swallowed some of the biscuit and held up both hands, palms out. “I assure you, I gave neither of them any encouragement.”

  Emeline smiled across the rim of her coffee cup. “If you must blame someone, blame yourself, Aunt Lavinia. You have been my greatest inspiration since the day I came to live with you.”

  “Me?” Lavinia was stunned into momentary speechlessness a second time. She wondered if she was on the verge of swooning. She had never actually experienced a fainting spell, but surely this sensation of breathless dread was a prelude to such an event.

  “Indeed,” Emeline continued firmly. “You have impressed me greatly with your astonishing ability to come about after the most devastating reversals of fortune. Reversals that would have crushed most people, male or female. I do so admire your extraordinary resilience and cleverness.”

  Tobias’s mouth twitched. “Not to mention your ingenious ability to garner invitations to some of the most important and exclusive social affairs of the Season, Lavinia. No one else of my acquaintance could have managed to combine an investigation into murder with the successful launch of a young lady into Society as you did a few weeks ago, madam. It was a truly astonishing feat.”

  Lavinia propped her elbows on the table and dropped her face into her hands. “This is a disaster.”

  “Emeline is quite right to hold you up as a paragon and model of female behavior.” Tobias picked up his coffee cup. “Indeed, I do not see how she could do better than to look to you for inspiration.”

  Lavinia raised her head and glared at him. “Kindly cease
your teasing, sir. I am not in the mood for it.”

  Before Tobias could respond, Mrs. Chilton walked into the breakfast room bearing a heavily laden dish. “Here ye are, sir. Eggs and potatoes.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Chilton. Your talents in the kitchen are really quite remarkable. If you ever take a notion to leave your present employer, I hope you will apply for a position in my household.”

  Mrs. Chilton chuckled. “Doubt that’ll happen, sir. But I thank you for the offer. Will there be anything else?”

  Tobias tilted the small jam pot to examine the interior. “I believe that we are out of your excellent currant jam, Mrs. Chilton. I vow, it is far and away the best I have ever tasted.”

  “I’ll fetch some more.”

  Mrs. Chilton vanished back through the door that led to the kitchen.

  Lavinia gave Tobias a repressive look. He gave no indication that he noticed. He was too busy with his eggs and potatoes.

  “I’ll thank you not to try to steal my staff, sir,” she said.

  Emeline uttered a tiny, dramatic little exclamation and made a show of glancing at the watch pinned to her bodice. “Oh, dear, you will have to excuse me.” She folded her napkin and rose lightly to her feet. “I must go and dress. Priscilla and her mama will be here shortly. I promised that I would accompany them on a shopping expedition this morning.”

  “Emeline, wait,” Lavinia said quickly. “About this notion of a career—”

  “I will discuss it with you later.” Emeline gave her a jaunty wave from the doorway. “I must hurry. Wouldn’t want to keep Lady Wortham waiting.”

  She disappeared down the hall before Lavinia could argue the matter.

  Silence descended on the breakfast room.

  Left with no other target, Lavinia turned back to Tobias. She pushed aside her plate and folded her arms on the table.

  “This business of Anthony wanting to follow in your footsteps has obviously put some extremely misguided notions into Emeline’s head.”

  Tobias set down his knife and fork and looked at her. The amusement was gone from his eyes, she noticed. It had been replaced by a far more serious expression, one that was not devoid of sympathy and understanding.

  “Believe it or not, Lavinia, I comprehend your concerns more deeply than you can imagine. I am no more eager for Anthony to pursue a career as an investigator than you are for Emeline to do so.”

  “What are we to do to change their minds?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest notion.” Tobias swallowed some coffee. “And I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the matter is out of our hands, in any event. We can guide but we cannot control them.”

  “This is dreadful. Just dreadful. She will ruin herself if she is not careful.”

  “Come now, Lavinia. You overstate the case. This situation may not be to your liking, but there is no need to resort to theatrics. It is hardly a tragedy.”

  “Perhaps not in your opinion, but it certainly is in mine. I had so hoped to see Emeline safely established in a home of her own with a husband who cared for her, one who could support her in a suitable fashion. No gentleman of the ton will even consider marrying a lady who works at this investigation business.”

  Tobias watched her with enigmatic eyes. “Do you dream of such a fine marriage for yourself also, madam?”

  She was utterly floored by that wholly unexpected question. For a second or two, she could not think of what to say.

  “Of course not,” she finally got out quite brusquely. “I have no interest whatsoever in marrying again.”

  “Is it because you loved your first husband so deeply that you cannot bring yourself to even consider a second marriage?”

  An odd panic assailed her. This was a truly dangerous topic of discussion. She did not want to even start down this road, she thought, because it would inevitably lead to painful speculation on the depth of Tobias’s love for the wife he had lost in childbirth. She doubted very much that she would ever be able to compete with Ann’s beautiful, gentle ghost. Anthony had described his sister as an angel.

  Whatever else I am, Lavinia thought, including a so-called paragon of the sort of female who can live by her wits, I am no angel.

  “Really, sir,” she said briskly, “it is not my opinions of marriage that we are discussing. This is about Emeline’s future.”

  “And Anthony’s as well.”

  She sighed. “I know. They have developed a tendre for each other, haven’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “Emeline is so young.”

  “So is Anthony.”

  “I fear neither of them can possibly know their own heart at such a tender age.”

  “You could not have been any older than Emeline when you married. Did you know your own heart?”

  She straightened in her chair. “Of course I did. I wouldn’t have married John if I had been the least uncertain of my feelings on the matter.”

  She had, indeed, been sure of herself, but looking back she knew that her feelings for John had been the sweet, pale sentiments of an innocent and very romantic young woman. If John had lived, no doubt their love would have matured into something stronger and deeper and more substantial. But as it was, her memories of her gentle husband were wispy, thin mementos that she kept tucked away in a pink-and-white keepsake box somewhere near her heart.

  Tobias’s mouth curved in a wry smile. “You are nothing if not strong-minded and extremely certain of all your opinions, regardless of the subject, are you not?”

  “Mine is a decisive and forceful personality, sir. Perhaps that is due to my early training as a mesmerist.”

  “More likely you were born with a strong will, madam.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I suspect the same could be said of you, sir.”

  “Isn’t it interesting to discover how much we have in common?” he asked pleasantly.

  Six

  THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, TOBIAS EMERGED from his club and pulled his watch out of his pocket to check the time. It was only just going on two. He was in no hurry and it was a fine day to walk.

  He ignored a passing hackney, and with the ease of long familiarity, he made his way through a maze of lanes and streets. His goal was the bookshop where he had made arrangements to meet Lavinia. He planned to treat her to a dish of ice cream and then, if luck was with him, to persuade her to retreat to the crumbling ruin in the park for some extended lovemaking in the spring sunshine.

  With that last thought in mind, he cast a wary eye on the heavens. The sun was indeed shining, but there was a nip in the air and he sensed clouds gathering in the distance. He could only hope that the rain would hold off until he could complete the interlude with Lavinia in the park. A fortnight ago they had been interrupted at the crucial moment by a cold shower from the heavens that had done nothing to enhance the romantic ambience.

  The business of having to search out suitable locations for their trysts was fast becoming a nuisance, he reflected. A man of his years was not supposed to have to steal away to remote sections of the park or fumble in a closed carriage in order to enjoy his lady’s affections. He ought to be able to enjoy said affections in a proper bed.

  But beds were extremely hard to come by when one was engaged in an affair.

  He was a block away from the bookshop, toying with the notion of taking Lavinia off to a country inn for a day or two, when a vision in spring pink stepped out of a milliner’s shop and nearly collided with him.

  “Mr. March.” Celeste Hudson smiled brilliantly at him from beneath the brim of a charming confection fashioned of palest pink straw and intricately laced ribbons. “How delightful to see you again so soon.”

  “Mrs. Hudson.” He grasped her elbow to steady her. “A pleasure. Is your husband about?”

  “Heavens, no. Howard has no patience with a lady’s shopping.”

  Her laughter was light, almost bubbling. Damned near a rippling brook, he thought. But it had a brittle, false quality that made him think of b
rightly colored artificial flowers and the pleasure-garden mirrors that reflected distorted images. He was profoundly grateful that Lavinia never laughed like that.

  “I cannot say that shopping is one of my favorite sports,” he said.

  Celeste opened her little fan and looked at him over the edge in a flirtatious manner that he knew she must have practiced.

  The leaf of the fan, Tobias noticed, was exquisitely painted in an unusual and quite dazzling pattern. There were a number of bright, shiny beads attached to it. The sparkling bits and bobs were arranged in an intriguing pattern that caught the light and attracted his eye. The thing appeared more suited to the ballroom than the street, he thought. But, then, he was hardly an expert on matters of female style.

  “Where is Mrs. Lake?” Celeste asked in throaty tones. “Or are you alone this afternoon?”

  “I’m on my way to meet Lavinia, as it happens.” The manner in which Celeste manipulated the fan annoyed him. He looked away from it. “She is picking up a new volume of poetry at a bookshop not far from here.”

  “Poetry. How nice. I am rather fond of that sort of literature myself.” Celeste twirled the fan in a clever movement that made the sunlight bounce on the glittering ornaments. “I have been meaning to pay a visit to a bookshop. Do you mind if I walk with you, Mr. March?”

  “Of course not.”

  She slipped her gloved fingers under his arm with a graceful expertise that he could only admire, and continued to make the light dance on her fan.

  “A lovely day, is it not?” she murmured.

  “The good weather won’t last long.”

  “Come now, don’t be so pessimistic, Mr. March.”

  “It’s not pessimism.” It was difficult to avoid the damned fan, he discovered. Celeste managed to angle the thing in such a way that it kept snagging his gaze. He had a sudden urge to snatch the thing out of her hand and toss it into the gutter. “It’s a statement of fact.”

  She tilted her head so that the pink straw bonnet framed her pretty features to excellent advantage. “I collect that you are a man who prefers to deal with the hard realities of life. Not one who allows himself to enjoy fantasies and dreams.”