Selina walked toward him, stopping a couple of feet away, her mouth set in determination. “I do too.”
Of course she did. She remembered almost nothing of their parents—just that coral necklace, which he noted she was wearing again. She’d worn it every time he’d seen her since receiving it from Beatrix.
It couldn’t be their mother’s actual necklace. But they had no way of knowing since Beatrix had purchased it from a receiver shop that Rafe had only recently sold as he’d worked to divest himself of the businesses he’d owned as the Vicar. Rafe had gone back to ask, but they’d only said it had come from Petticoat Lane. Since that was the center of stolen goods in London, the necklace could have come from anywhere.
“Then it seems at the very least, we must be introduced to Stone.” Rafe planned to visit Colton as soon as they left. “I’ll take care of that.”
“How?” Selina asked, her blue eyes narrowing slightly.
“Trust me.”
Selina snorted, and Rafe smiled. He’d given her no reason to trust him and was trying to make amends. However, he knew how hard it was for her to trust anyone beyond Beatrix. Letting her guard down with her new husband had been almost too much for her. Luckily, she’d managed to open herself to him, and for that Rafe was both relieved and delighted. No one deserved happiness more than she.
He took his hand from the back of the chair and stepped around it toward his sister. “Lina, you can trust me in this. I promise I will keep you involved every step of the way.”
“They were my parents too,” she said softly.
“I know.”
“Do you really think we’re going to find out who they were? Who we are?”
That he didn’t know. But he hoped. “I’m going to do everything in my power to make that happen.”
Anger flared in Selina’s eyes. “Why didn’t Edgar tell us more before he died?”
Their “Uncle” Edgar had expired from excessive drink when Rafe was thirteen and Selina was ten. He’d sold them to Samuel Partridge, a criminal who controlled an army of young thieves among other enterprises, such as flash-houses and receiver shops, two years prior but had stayed nearby and kept in occasional contact.
“Because he didn’t care about anyone but himself, and it didn’t serve his purposes to reveal any more than he did.” Which was almost nothing. He had said one thing that had clung to a part of Rafe’s mind and resurfaced from time to time.
Thinking, Rafe moved toward the window and looked out at the walled garden. With its manicured shrubbery and colorful flowers, it looked like a miniature park, complete with a path, statuary, and a few benches. It was about as far removed from the memories currently clouding his brain as one could imagine.
Rafe turned from the window to face Selina and Beatrix. “The last time I saw Edgar was the day before he died.” The man had been a yellowed, shrunken version of himself. “He asked to be buried at the Croydon Parish Church. That didn’t make sense to me, and I didn’t care to honor any of his wishes, so I ignored him.”
The purpose of Rafe’s visit had been to gloat about his recent promotion in Partridge’s organization. He’d wanted Edgar to know how much better off he and Selina were without him. At thirteen, Rafe had been full of arrogance and bluster. He’d long ago lost the bluster, but some would say he was still arrogant. He preferred confident.
Beatrix rose from the settee. She was petite—a good six inches shorter than Selina’s five feet nine. “We drove through Croydon on our way to Sutton Park. Which means it’s also on the way to Ivy Grove.”
What the hell did that signify?
Selina smoothed her hand down the side of her face. “Why would Edgar want to be buried in a town we never visited—or at least don’t remember visiting—which happens to be near a place you recall from our childhood?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” Rafe’s mind was already working. He wanted to meet Stone, and he wanted to visit this parish church in Croydon. The latter was probably pointless, but Rafe would investigate every clue.
Selina’s gaze crackled with resolve. “I’m going to Croydon with you.”
“I don’t think I could stop you,” he said wryly. “Nor do I want to.”
“Good. Let me know when you arrange to meet Stone. And make it soon.”
“It will be.” Rafe would make it a priority. The priority. He looked to Beatrix. “Thank you.”
“For what? Having the luck to picnic near that folly?” She waved her hand. “Perhaps this was the way it was supposed to happen.”
Fate? Rafe didn’t believe in such things. Yet, it was some sort of providence. Perhaps it was simply time that the puzzle of his life—and Selina’s—came together. He’d lost hope that their past would ever be revealed.
“I don’t know if I believe that,” Selina said. “But I’m glad you were there—and that you were observant.” She tossed Beatrix a knowing smile that provoked a flash of envy in Rafe. They had a true sisterly bond. He’d abdicated that sibling closeness when he’d left Selina to fend for herself. She said she forgave him, but he wasn’t sure he could ever forgive himself.
Perhaps, if he could find the truth about their past, he could start.
Setting the book down in her lap, Anne shoved an errant lock of hair into the band tied around her head. A streak of striped fur leapt into the open book but didn’t linger, and in her escape sent the tome tumbling to the floor.
Anne exhaled. “It’s a good thing I wasn’t particularly interested in that.” A second blur of tawny, striped fur blazed past her chair, clearly in pursuit of the first one. Given the sizes of them, she guessed the first had been Daffodil, who was the smaller of the two kittens, and the second was her sister, Fern.
Jane, Anne’s older sister by
