Page 52 of A Virgin to Tempt the Duke

“Rachel is upstairs,” he said. “She is with Anna.”

“Good,” Lady Oldbarrow said.

He looked at them. “Thank you. For bringing her home.”

“It was no hardship,” Thomas said. “She was ready to leave when I found her. I think she knew something was wrong before I said anything. A remarkable faculty for reading a room, your sister.”

“She comes by it honestly.” Frederick crossed to the side table and poured two fingers of brandy, then stopped and looked at his godmother.

She shook her head. He poured Thomas a glass and carried both across the room and sat.

“People noticed you left,” Thomas said. He took the glass and settled into the chair across from Frederick. “Selbourne’s wife asked me about it. I told her you had been called back on a household matter. A gas fitting concern. Something unverifiable and mundane.”

“And she accepted that.”

“She accepted it with great enthusiasm, which means she does not believe it at all and intends to make up something more interesting. However, what she makes up will be about the house and not about—” He paused. “Anything else.”

“That will do.”

“It will do,” Thomas agreed. “For now.”

Lady Oldbarrow had been watching Frederick throughout this exchange with the expression she wore when she was seeing something she had not yet decided to name. She did not press. She looked at the fire and then at her hands and then at him, briefly, and then she stood.

“I am going to go,” she said.

Frederick rose with her. “Godmother?—”

“Don’t.” She waved a hand. “I am not going because I am dismissed, I am going because I am sixty-three years old and the evening has been longer than I intended and you do not need me in this room.” She reached up and put her hand against his jaw, the way she had since he was seventeen, palm briefly warm against his cheek. “Anna is upstairs and she has Rachel, and that is what she needs right now.” A pause. Her eyes were very clear and entirely steady. “You are all right.”

It was not a question. But it was not quite a statement either.

“Yes,” he said.

She looked at him for one moment longer, and whatever she saw in his face she chose to leave where it was, which was one of the things he had always loved most about her. She smoothed her wrap and turned.

“Tell Anna I shall call on her tomorrow afternoon,” she said. “Only briefly.”

“I’ll tell her.”

“Good.” She let him walk her out to the hall, accepted her coat from the footman, and went. He stood at the top of the stepsuntil her carriage had rounded the corner and the sound of it had faded into the ordinary noise of the London night.

He went back inside. Thomas had not moved from his chair. He had finished his brandy and was looking at the fire.

“Study,” Frederick said, and Thomas stood without comment.

The study was cold. Frederick put a log on the fire and did not wait for it to catch before he crossed to the decanter. He poured two glasses and handed one to Thomas and sat in the chair behind the desk, which was where he sat when he needed to think clearly and wanted the desk’s architecture of order between himself and whatever was happening.

Thomas sat across from him. He looked at his glass, not at Frederick, which was his way of indicating that he was going to wait.

Frederick drank. Then he set the glass down and told him. He kept it brief, as he always kept things, and in order. Birchall in the entrance hall. Simmons on the floor. Anna was standing in the middle of it when he came through the door. Thomas said nothing until he had finished.

Then he said, with a quietness that was more serious than his usual register by considerable distance, “The bastard.”

“Yes,” Frederick said.

“He struck your butler and walked into your house?—”

“Yes.”