Grace nodded.
“And . . . ?” he prompted.
“I know Charlotte Harpenden,” Grace said. “But she’s not in London. She hasn’t come out yet.”
“Was she at school with you in Bath?”
Grace nodded.
Adam was conscious of a surge of excitement. The person who’d started the rumors about Miss Wootton—and perhaps about Grace—was quite possibly Mrs. Harpenden.
“Why?” Grace asked.
“Oh . . .” Adam said. “I’m just curious. It’s not important.”
Grace accepted this with a nod.
When she was gone, Adam walked over to the sideboard. He poured himself a glass of brandy and sipped thoughtfully.
How much would Charlotte Harpenden have known about Grace’s planned elopement with Mr. Plunkett?
As much as any of the pupils at Miss Widdecombe’s Select Seminary for Girls: that Mr. Plunkett had been dismissed from his position and Grace removed from the school—two events that may or may not have been connected. Enough to speculate about, enough to conjecture on.
Speculation and conjecture—the foundations from which gossip and rumors were born.
Adam grimaced. I should have left Grace at the school. That was easy to see in hindsight. At the time . . . Grace had been so distressed he’d thought it best to take her home.
Adam walked back to his desk. He uncovered the lists, dipped his quill in ink, and wrote: Mrs. Harpenden, May 1818. For starting rumors.
He read what he’d written and frowned. How had Tom known Mrs. Harpenden was the culprit?
The same way as Arabella Knightley had known: by overhearing the woman.
Adam rolled the quill between his fingers. Who else, other than Miss Knightley, had heard Mrs. Harpenden start the rumor about Miss Wootton?
ADAM ESCORTED HIS aunt and his sister to the theater that evening. At Grace’s request, an invitation had been extended to Hetty Wootton and her parents. As host, Adam’s attention was on his guests; it wasn’t until the curtain rose that he was at leisure to scan the boxes.
His gaze flicked from face to face—and then paused. Miss fforbes-Brown was attending the performance, along with her parents and . . .
Adam’s eyes narrowed. He leaned slightly forward in his seat.
Miss fforbes-Brown was attending the performance along with her parents and Sir Humphrey Holbrook.
Adam sat back, conscious of a feeling of extreme disquiet. I should have called on her father today.
In the first interval talk turned to Tom’s latest theft. “Why did he choose Mrs. Harpenden?” Hetty Wootton asked, wide-eyed. “What can she have done?”
“It’s unlikely she’ll tell anyone,” her father said dryly.
“No,” Hetty said. “But one can’t help but wonder. I’d like to know what she did!”
“I’d like to know who he is,” Mr. Wootton said.
So should I, Adam thought.
When the curtain lifted for the second act, he turned his attention to the audience. It took him several minutes to find Miss Knightley. She wore a dress of deep, rich red with a square neckline. Her hair was dressed in a coronet of braids. She looked . . . he searched for a word, rejected severe, and settled on regal. Quite a feat for a girl who’d lived in the slums.
He wished he could interview her tonight. Impatience ate at him. He had to stop himself from fidgeting while the play progressed through several acts towards its end. He watched Miss Knightley surreptitiously, anticipating the questions he’d ask. She rarely spoke to her grandmother. Her demeanor, when she did, was courteous and respectful, but not warm.
Adam turned this over in his mind while the play reached its climax. The fifth Earl of Westwick had been a proud man, very high in the instep. What had he thought of Arabella? The granddaughter he could hardly have wanted—and yet, his only direct descendant.
An awkward relationship at best, Adam decided, glancing at Miss Knightley again. And yet, awkward or not, the earl had bequeathed his wealth to her. The title and estates had gone to a distant cousin—a cousin the late earl had stigmatized as an ill-bred buffoon.
The audience broke into applause. Belatedly Adam started clapping.
“Wasn’t that marvelous!” Grace said.
“Er, yes,” he said.
Miss Knightley and her grandmother left before the farce. Adam watched as they gathered their wraps and reticules.
Lady Westwick was a bird-like woman, her stature as diminutive as Miss Knightley’s, her posture erect. She wasn’t the dowager countess; none of her sons had lived to be Earl of Westwick. The youngest had died in the Peninsular War, the eldest on the hunting field, and her middle son—Miss Knightley’s father—had succumbed to a fever.
Adam grimaced. Three sons dead. A terrible thing for a mother to bear.
He turned his attention to the stage, frowning at the antics of the actors and trying to imagine what it had been like for Arabella Knightley—arriving as an orphan at Westwick Hall, being clothed, fed, educated, launched into Society. Would she have loved her grandparents—or resented them? Seen them as her saviors—or laid the death of her mother at their feet?
Unarguably, Arabella Knightley’s childhood would have been very different if the late Earl of Westwick had accepted his son’s bride. There would have been no descent into the slums. Her mother would still be alive, her reputation unsullied. Quite possibly her father would be alive, too.
Adam glanced at the vacated box. Did Arabella Knightley blame her grandparents for what had happened?
He thought the answer was probably Yes.
THE NEXT MORNING Adam timed his ride in Hyde Park to coincide with Miss Knightley’s. She was cantering along the strip of tan when he arrived. The high-spirited black mare was as easy to recognize as her rider.
Adam touched his heels lightly to Goliath’s flanks. “Come on, boy. Let’s find out what she knows.”
They completed one circuit of the park some distance behind Miss Knightley, then Adam urged the big gray to come up alongside her.
She glanced at him. Her eyebrows arched in surprise. “Mr. St. Just.”
“Good morning, Miss Knightley.” Adam dipped his head to her. “May I have a word?”
The mare slowed to a walk.
Miss Knightley’s hat was tilted at a jaunty angle. Beneath the brim, her dark eyes already seemed to hold a glint of mocking amusement. “Mr. St. Just?”
Now that the moment had
