than last we met. It must be all of that churlish indignation.”
“Constance said Gray sent you off for a horse over a month ago.” A hint of Scots colored his voice, marking his temper. “A damned horse?”
“Really, Leam, must you?” Kitty slipped her hand through her husband’s arm. “But truly, Wyn, I am as curious as a cat. Leam is too, or else he would not be here. You said so little in your note, which we received by the way the moment we opened the house in town. We only arrived there Wednesday.”
“Thank you for coming in such haste, my lady.” He glanced at Leam. “My lord.”
“Don’t you be giving me that arched brow—”
“If you call me ‘lad,’ I will draw on you, Leam.”
“You’re not carrying, Wyn.”
“Concealed. All about me. Knives. Pistols. What have you.”
“It is the what-have-you’s I am most concerned about.” Kitty’s eyes gleamed. “Of course we came in haste for Diantha’s sake, as you wished. Now do take us inside this lovely place. Fall blooming roses! Positively delightful. Why have you never invited us here before?”
Because since he’d known Kitty he hadn’t been here. And before that, during the years he worked with Leam for the Falcon Club, the house belonged to his great-aunt, the woman who had saved him, gave him a haven, a home, and taught him everything he cherished and valued. The woman who had taught him how to be the opposite of that which he despised in his father and brothers.
Mrs. Polley met them in the foyer.
“Lord and Lady Blackwood, may I introduce you to Mrs. Polley, currently in Miss Lucas’s service. She bakes an excellent oat biscuit. Mrs. Polley, would you be so kind as to bring refreshments to the parlor for his lord and ladyship?”
Mrs. Polley’s eyes bulged, but she curtsied and bustled away.
Leam glanced about as he entered the parlor. “I don’t think Mrs. Polley cares for you, Yale.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“I suspected as much.” The Scots burr was gone now, the Cambridge-and Edinburgh-educated lord again at the fore.
“What is the half of it, Wyn?” Kitty crossed to the window and glanced out.
Leam settled in a chair. “How long shall I wait before I must go searching out whiskey myself?”
“Indefinitely,” Wyn said. “I’m afraid there is none about the place. And, by the by, it’s only nine o’clock in the morning. Joints troubling you, old man?”
“Drink it all before I got here, Yale?”
Wyn turned to Kitty. “Couldn’t you have left him in London?”
She laughed. “He refused. He said that a maiden and a matron mustn’t be left to travel with only a Welsh spy all the way from the wilds of the west to London.”
“Many thanks for the vote of confidence, old friend.”
A gleam lit Leam’s eye. “No whiskey, hm?”
Kitty tilted her head. “Is she still a maiden, Wyn? Is it that sort of trouble from which you are wresting her, the sort that impetuous girls get themselves into upon occasion?”
Leam tapped his fingertips on the arm of his chair, his dark gaze thoughtful upon his wife.
“No,” Diantha said from the doorway. “It was not that sort of trouble.” She entered the room, went to Kitty and curtsied. “Good day, Lady Blackwood. My lord.”
“How many times must I entreat you to call me Kitty?” Kitty grasped Diantha’s hand. “We are family. But of course that is why Mr. Yale called on us for assistance.”
“I am sorry you have had to come all this distance on my account.” She spoke to Kitty, her shoulder to Wyn. The color had gone from her cheeks. “I have little luggage and am prepared to depart at any moment you wish, although I suppose you may like to rest from your journey.”
“In fact last night we stopped at an inn not three miles down the road and I slept wonderfully well.” Kitty’s gaze shifted to Wyn, then back to Diantha. “Why don’t we take some tea first?”
“As you wish, Kitty.” Her voice was subdued, but with a flicker of her lashes she darted him the swiftest glance then again lowered her eyes.
The countess took Diantha’s hand and slipped it through her arm. “But before that, you know, I would very much enjoy a stroll, if you will accompany me.”
“I will be happy to. The gardens have not been tended lately, but the path is largely free of debris.” She had entirely disappeared, the girl who had sat on her traveling trunk on the side of the road in the rain and defied him. In her place was a proper, ghostly lady.
“Gentlemen,” Kitty said, “we will return shortly.” They departed.
Leam scrubbed a hand across his jaw. “You’ve done it again, haven’t you?”
Wyn stared at the doorway. “Done what again?”
“Taken a girl’s heart and twined it around your little finger to achieve your goal.”
Slowly Wyn pivoted to him. “It astounds me that a man who spent years pretending to be a tragic widower—when he was nothing of the sort—in order to cozen females into trusting him, now seeks to criticize my actions with regard to the fairer sex.”
Leam’s brow creased, the white streak through his auburn hair more pronounced in the sunlight filtering through the windows.
“Wyn—”
“Leam, call me by my Christian name again and I will force-feed to you Mrs. Polley’s oats and buttermilk stew.”
The earl grinned but his dark eyes studied, years of companionship and familiarity behind the regard. “Did you mislay your razor somewhere along the road?”
“Did you mislay your wisdom to ask me such a question?”
“A stranger stands before me, unshaven, without a neck cloth in sight or a bottle of whiskey in the house, and he speaks of wisdom.” His brow sat high. “What have you done?”
Wyn folded his hands behind his back. “Wish me happy, Blackwood.”
Leam’s gaze arrested. He did not immediately respond. “Interesting that she does not look happy about it.”
“She did not expect you here today, of course. She is disappointed in her plans.” He went toward the door. “Thank you for coming. She won’t evade Kitty.”
“Remarkable that she evaded you. Unprecedented, rather.”
“Isn’t it? She is resourceful and I was not at my best.” Now he could see this quite clearly. His friends had been right to worry; drink had gotten the best of him. That he had gone as long as he did without making more mistakes like Chloe Martin was a miracle. “I would not have sent for you otherwise.”
“How are you so certain she won’t evade us?”
It had been Wyn’s expertise to study others for years in order to anticipate their actions. He’d made mistakes with Diantha he had never made with a quarry before. But the bottle had muddled his reason, and he knew her now. She cared too much for the welfare of her family to distress them in the manner she would if she resisted.
He went to the window and looked out onto the garden. “I suspect you devised a story to explain to Lord Carlyle why you and Kitty will arrive in town with his stepdaughter?”
“Before we left town, Kitty sent a note to Lady Savege. Serena will tell Carlyle that she requested we make a detour on our journey to London to gather Miss Lucas at Brennon Manor and convey her with us, to save her father’s servants the journey.”
“Ah.”
“Kitty thought it best to tell Serena about her stepsister’s escapade, although apparently not her purpose for it. Serena’s history with Lady Carlyle is an unhappy one.”
“And the baron?” he asked.
“Carlyle is unlikely to notice anything odd,” Leam replied. “He is a negligent parent.”
“As soon as I have seen to matters here I will follow you to town.” Wyn left the house and went to the garden, where the ladies walked amid wandering vines, arms linked.
