Page 23 of An Honorable Deception
Lavinia, on the other hand, simply muttered names under her breath now and then before speaking one more loudlyand lifting a hand for the paper she expected to magically appear.
He played magician, but he was about to call it quits. He wasn’t honestly certain if he was too curious to know what she was doing or too tired of the game when she finally cried out, “Ha!” and shook the sheet of paper in her hands. “Got them.”
Hoping that meant a break from the dossier-pulling, he leaned against the cupboard. “Who? The twelve board members of the Ayahs’ Home?”
“Hm?” Lavinia looked up at him as if he’d grown a second nose. “No, don’t be silly. Rheams and Vernon have very little to do with the other members—not ofthatcharity. But look at this.” She placed the paper in her hands at the end of an arch of them she’d arranged around her.
“Help us out here, Lavinia,” Marigold bade, bless her.
Lavinia pointed at places on each of the dossiers. “There’s a pattern of associates and charities, though no overlap in cases mentioned. Look. These six men are on the boards of four different charities that help foreign women and children in London—at least two of them on each one, but rotating.”
That was hardly uncommon. He’d inherited a few board positions himself after Father died, and there were familiar faces on them. “And? Why is that important?”
The question made her frown. “Well, I don’t know. I simply noticed the pattern. And look.” She tapped another name. “They’re all members at Brooks’s.”
Marigold tapped a finger to the desk. “I think she’s on to something, Yates. The Ayahs’ Home is the only real clue we have, and those men are the only ones Lady Alethia remembers seeing that she could name. They could have something to do with ... whatever this is. And their associates could as well.”
But two respectable gentlemen, one of whom was a lord, walking into a church in broad daylight and shooting the daughter of another respected lord? It made no sense.
It could lead them to something that did, though. He turned to Merritt, brows lifted. “Don’t suppose you have a membership at Brooks’s?”
His brother-in-law grimaced. “You know very well that I prefer the Guards’. I’m only even a member at the Marlborough because Uncle Preston insisted.”
Lionfeathers. Yates wasn’t either. He tapped a hand to his leg, considering. Then smiled. “What about Xavier?”
At the mention of his best friend, Merritt sighed. “Do you even need to ask?”
He pushed off from the cabinet. “Brilliant. I’ll return to London with you tomorrow, Merritt. We can do a bit of surveillance as X’s guests.”
EIGHT
Lavinia trudged along the path from the gymnasium, feeling as though every muscle in her body were made of lead. She’d spent only half an hour in there doing the exercises that Yates had assigned to her, but she was short of breath, sweating like she was in the tropics, and fairly certain she could curl up here on the path and sleep for the rest of the day.
It was made all the worse by the fact that the so-very-pregnant Marigold was humming as she practically skipped beside her, a healthy flush in her cheeks. She stretched like Leonidas in the sun, smiling. “Oh, I do miss the gymnasium when we’re in London. The one we have there isn’t the same.”
Lavinia wrinkled her nose. She was glad Marigold looked so well—even if she would take a nap after luncheon—but it had been more than a little humiliating to realize that even six months pregnant, Marigold could out-perform Lavinia in every single exercise. Well, she hadn’t tried the jumping ones. But given that Lavinia had managed to tangle herself up in the skipping rope,thatwas certainly no victory. “I think I’m allergic to exercise. Look. I’m flushed—and are these hives?”
Marigold laughed and batted away the arm Lavinia raised. “You’ll begin to see improvement soon. The first week or two may feel as though it’s about to kill you, but I promise you the strength will come.”
“Tell Papa to engrave that on my tombstone after I’ve been felled by that evil skipping rope. ‘The Strength Will Come.’” She traced a hand through the air as if reading the epithet, but Marigold didn’t laugh.
In fact, when Lavinia looked over, she looked downright worried. Drat. When would her friend be able to joke about this? Yates would have barked out a laugh and edited it for her.
“Vinia...” Marigold reached over for her arm. “Youwilltell us if you feel anything beyond the normal tiredness and muscle pain, won’t you? My instincts say that Yates is right about this helping your heart, but neither of us are physicians. What if we’re wrong?”
They had bypassed the path toward the house, which must mean that Marigold meant to pay a visit to the stables again. They’d done that yesterday after their time in the gymnasium too. “I am perfectly well,” she said, despite the screaming of every single muscle she never knew she had.
Thatwas what they said was normal. She at once trusted them and had the urge to curse them every time she tried to sit down and her hamstrings protested. The part they were worried about was no worry at all, so far as she could tell.
Yes, her pulse vaulted up rather quickly when she was skipping rope or running on the suspended track—for half a circuit. But she’d reported her heart rate to Yates the first two mornings, and he’d nodded his approval, insisting it was within a normal range.
Had she truly wanted to escape the torture, she might have argued or claimed she didn’t feel so well. But the truth wasthat the pounding of her blood through her veins feltgood. Heady. Like she was alive again.
Marigold’s face didn’t ease out of its expression of concern. “Well then, while I’m nagging ... I’ll caution you to have a care in other ways too.”
Something about her tone drew Lavinia up short. She stopped on the path and turned to face her. Marigold looked soserious. The circles had lightened a bit from under her eyes, and her cheeks had that healthy flush, but her mouth was set in a downturned line, and her eyes practically shouted.
Lavinia wasn’t certain what they were shouting, but she knew she was about to find out, and she felt like she’d been called into the headmistress’s office at Ravenscleft Academy for Young Ladies. “What have I done, madam? I wasn’t running in the corridors again, I swear it. And Georgette Hamiltondeservedto have her hair pulled.”
