Page 10 of Forgery, Love, and Other Lies
“I know. I wish you’d told me so I could have convinced you not to do it,” Posey said. “At the same time, thank you. I did not know how to survive once everyone ran away to that old fraud Foggy.”
Fraud. Fiona’s steps hitched.
Posey helped steady her, squeezed her hand. “Is that a sensitive word? Should I refrain from using it?”
“No. I am a fraud. Why aren’t you mad at me?”
Posey shrugged. “Papa is mad enough at you for an entire church choir’s worth of people. You need someone to lean on. And my shoulder is quite broad.”
Fiona laughed.Imagine that. Laughter on a day like today.
“I am scared, though,” Posey admitted, her fingers threading with Fiona’s, squeezing.
All laughter gone, victim of a quick death to Posey’s guillotine admission. “I’m scared too.”
“The duke will help.”
Fiona could not find the strength to answer, and Posey’s statement needed no response, so she simply quickened her steps, and soon they found themselves knocking on the duke’s front door. They were likely the only ladies without titles who were allowed to do so. But if Archer Halston, Duke of Crestmore heard they’d entered through the servant’s entrance, the responsible party in his household would lose their employment. It had happened before. Poor Harold the footman.
The door swung open, revealing the butler, Mr. Quill. “Good morning, girls. Come in, come in. What an unexpected surprise.”
“Are your joints any better today, Quill?” Posey asked. “And is His Grace at home?”
“No and yes, Miss Frampton.”
“I am sorry, Quill.” Posey patted the butler’s shoulder. “I wish it were the other way around.”
“May we speak with him, Quill?” Fiona peeked up the stairs she knew led to his study.
The relationship between the Framptons and the Duke of Crestmore, as well as his widowed mother, was an odd one by the ton’s standards, a scandalous one, even, not to be borne. A duke and his duchess mother close as family with jewelers? Unpardonable. Except everyone seemed to have pardoned them. Mostly. The Framptons never thought themselves above their station because of it, and that seemed to appease most. Besides, no one liked to anger a duchess and a duke, and suggesting her favorite conversational partner was unsuitable would have angered her indeed. There were no two women as mad about and as knowledgeable about gems as the duchess and Mama. A perfect friendship but for station, one that had flourished despite differences of class.
So much so that Quill led them upstairs and right into the duke’s study.
The duke lifted his head at the intrusion, his frown exploding into a grin. “Thank God you’re both here. I’m drowning in numbers and need a break. Catch.” He tossed something into the air. Posey snatched it without blinking, gave it one glance, found it to be a now-mangled scone, and took a bite. “Well done, you,” the duke said, his grin going quite lopsided.
Posey finished off the scone then frowned at her soiled gloves. “You’ve ruined them.”
“Me?” The duke scoffed.
“You threw the pastry.”
“You could have let it hit the floor.”
“Its trajectory was perfectly arched toward my head.” She cut him a look his cook would likely find useful in the kitchen, so sharp it was. Then she sauntered farther into the room and leaned the side of her hip against his desk. She picked at her gloves, removing them, instead of looking at him. “We’re not here for games, Crestmore. Fiona has a question to ask you.”
The unusual ice in Posey’s voice told Fiona how to move forward. Carefully and with secrecy they did not usually follow around this man. Was her anger really so piqued over a pastry?
Fiona swallowed hard and hovered in the doorway.
Archer steepled his fingers and braced his elbows on the top of his desk. “What is it, Fiona?” They’d grown up together during their mother’s weekly chats and had not bothered with formal names in some years. As they never met in public—except sometimes at the shop where heMiss Frampton’dthem and theyYour Grace’dhim—it did not matter.
“Do you know a Lord Lysander?” Fiona asked. “Mr. Lysander Bromley?”
Archer leaned into his chair, closing his eyes and folding his arms over his taut abdomen. “Hmm. Bromley. There’s a family with that surname I know of. A marquess who died this year. I remember because his son took his place in the house this season.” He opened his eyes. “The man, the new marquess, has four brothers. So Lord Lysander is logically one of those.”
A marquess’s son. She had no trouble believing that. “And do you know a Mrs. Blake?”
Archer quirked his lips to one side and then to the other, lifting his gaze to the ceiling and tapping one finger on his waistcoat. He lowered his gaze to Fiona. “No. I am sorry. I do not know that name. Though…”
