Page 24 of A Bride for the Ruthless Duke

“The regiment is in its autumn quarters near Wrenford. In Hertfordshire.”

Pearce allowed the place name to sit in the air between them. He knew the map as well as Theodore did and had too much sense to explain it too quickly.

Theodore’s fingers stilled. “Go on.”

“Your own house at Wrenfield is some seven miles distant.”

“I am aware of where my own house is situated.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” Pearce’s tone remained carefully blank. “The Earl of Greaves holds Greaves Court six miles north of Wrenfield, across the river.”

The fire shifted in the grate.

Pearce lowered the report a fraction. “The lieutenant’s regiment and the earl’s country seat lie in the one parish.”

Theodore did not move.

Greaves, in the same parish as the officer who had been attached to the woman Theodore was about to enter into matrimony with. It might be nothing. Regiments quartered themselves near somebody’s grand house every autumn, and the world was too crowded with houses, officers, and enemies for every arrangement to be sinister. A coincidence remained harmless until another arrived to keep it company.

“Do you suggest action?” Theodore asked.

“I suggest notice, Your Grace.”

“That is why you are alive and several other useful men are tiresome.”

Pearce inclined his head, revealing nothing. “I shall endeavor to remain useful.”

“Greaves has been patient for nine years.”

“He has, Your Grace.”

“A man learns patience from his enemies as readily as from his friends.”

“More reliably, in some cases.”

Theodore looked toward the fire, then back to the report. “File it.”

“Under Lieutenant Vance?”

“Under the parish.”

Pearce’s quill appeared in his hand. “Watch Wrenford and the surrounding roads.”

“Watch the parish, not the man. Quietly.”

“Quietly,” Pearce said, making the note. “And without exciting remark.”

“If I discover remark has been excited, I shall know whom to blame.”

“Then I shall make certain Your Grace is deprived of the pleasure.”

Theodore approved of the answer, against his will. “That will be all.”

Pearce closed the report, bowed, and left the room with the same measured discretion with which he had entered it.

Theodore drew the report toward himself and read it twice more. The rest of it was unremarkable, which was often the most useful kind of report. She was twenty years old. Both parents were in the ground, the mother since Miss Middleton was eight and the father two years past. She had been presented last Season under a cousin who took her up while the Middleton name still meant something and dropped her as soon as it ceased to be useful.

He ran one finger down the page.