When he finally looked up, his features hardened. “Christopher,” he said, apparently noticing Kit for the first time. “It’s been years.”
Kit nodded an acknowledgment. “Since Rand left for Oxford.”
“What brings you here now?” the marquess asked rather suspiciously.
Before Kit or Rand could answer, Lily spoke up from where she knelt on the floor. “We’ve come to find Alban’s diary,” she said clearly, although they had all agreed they would claim they’d come to discuss Rand’s marriage and then perform their search on the sly. “Rand is of the opinion that it could clear Lord Armstrong’s name.”
To Rand’s surprise, the man didn’t respond with one of his characteristic explosions. “My son hadn’t kept a diary in years.”
Rand’s heart dropped to somewhere in the vicinity of his knees, but Lily seemed undaunted. “Are you certain, my lord?”
“I knew my son,” he said shortly.
Rubbing his dog’s back, she gave a graceful shrug. “Well, it couldn’t hurt for us to look, could it? You wouldn’t mind, would you?”
Her tone could melt butter in a snowstorm, not to mention a man’s heart. In his current mood, Rand’s father was no exception. “Go ahead,” he said. “But it’s a waste of time. Even should you find my son’s writings, I’m certain there will be nothing in them that would exonerate Margery’s lover.” His gaze on Lily was almost apologetic. “My lady, I appreciate your care for my dog, but you cannot marry my heir.”
“I understand, my lord,” she said softly. But as she rose to join Rand and Kit near the door, her eyes looked as determined as ever.
Rand appreciated that determination more than words could say. As they turned to leave, he took her arm. “We’ll get Margery to help, too.”
“She’s not here,” came his father’s voice behind him.
More than a little concerned, Rand swung back. “Where is she?”
The marquess waved a hand, apparently unaware that his son had assumed the worst. “In Windsor, with Etta. They went to choose fabric for her wedding gown.”
As the vision faded of Margery locked in a dank dungeon somewhere—not that Hawkridge Hall had one—Rand’s shoulders slumped with relief. “They’ll return soon, then?”
“First thing tomorrow morning.”
“They’re staying overnight to choose fabric?”
“And fittings or some such. They were to visit a seamstress. I gave them leave to stay the night at an inn, since they seemed to think it would be dark by the time they finished. I know nothing of these womanly things.”
The man knew nothing of Margery at all, Rand thought incredulously. His foster daughter wouldn’t care what she wore to be wed against her will. Rand would lay odds Margery was spending the night with Bennett Armstrong—and he wasn’t surprised her old nurse had conspired to arrange it. The two had always been thick as thieves, females in a household run by men. In fact, Margery was likely the reason Etta had decided to stay after her nursemaid days were finished.
The men standing guard over Bennett had all been at Hawkridge for years, and Rand imagined they were as loyal to Margery as Etta. While they wouldn’t go so far as to allow an escape—they’d doubtless face death for a betrayal of that magnitude—he suspected they’d turn a blind eye to an overnight visit.
By all appearances blissfully unaware, his father stroked the dog’s head. “Now be about your business. The sooner you give up on finding this diary, the better. You need to prepare for your wedding. To Margery,” he added with a glare.
Refusing to rise to that bait, Rand turned and walked away. There was no point in arguing now.
When he’d found what he was looking for, it would be a different story.
SIXTY-ONE
THE MOST logical place to start, of course, was Alban’s suite.
Unlike the single small chamber that had been Rand’s refuge during his childhood, the marquess’s heir had had three rooms to call his own. They began in his bedchamber proper, a darkly paneled room that sat between the other two and provided entrance to them all.
“Cluttered as ever,” Kit remarked when they walked in.
“Nothing’s been touched.” Rand paused on the threshold. “It’s as though he still lives here.”
“He hasn’t been gone that long,” Lily said gently. She skimmed a hand thoughtfully over the unmade bed. “Perhaps his death is still too fresh for the housekeeper to deal with.”
“I doubt that.” Rand crossed to his brother’s dressing table and opened a drawer. “I cannot believe Alban changed enough to ingratiate himself with the staff, even in fourteen years. He was ruthless in both his expectations and treatment of them. I suspect they’re as relieved to have him gone as I.” Finding nothing but a neatly folded stack of cravats in the drawer, he slid it closed and opened another. “If this room is undisturbed, it’s my father’s doing.”
Ignoring a frisson of unease, Lily inspected a pile of books on Alban’s night table. “What did his diaries look like?”
“Nothing in particular, at least back in the day. Whatever blank books he could find.”
All the books on the table had titles on their spines, so Lily assumed they weren’t journals. Just to make sure, she began opening them.
“I remember this,” Rand breathed, pulling something sparkly from a drawer full of stockings. “My mother wore it all the time.”
Lily moved closer to see. It was a beautiful oval pendant made of white gold, with many small diamonds set into a delicate filigree design accented with black enamel. “Goodness, it’s really quite lovely. Do you think your father gave it to her?”
“Maybe,” Rand said as he slipped it into a pocket. “I wonder if he knows Alban had it.”
Rather than checking the obvious places, Kit lay down on the floor and stuck his head beneath the red brocade bed skirt.
