Page 73 of An Honorable Deception
I saw your limp last night—what, pray tell, happened? Did someone hurt my darling girl? Tell me who, and I’ll address it.
I have found your lost lotus bloom, as sweet as ever. Would you like it back? If so, you know I am always willing to trade. One flower for another.
Do let me know soon, darling. Flowers only last so long before they wither and die. ~R
Yates read it three times while Marigold read it out loud, trying to pick apart the meaning of each line. The lotus bloom must mean Samira, and the trade would be for Alethia. But the bit about someone hurting her ... it wasn’t a question. It was a threat, as surely as the last line. It washim saying he knew she was injured and he knew how, and he meant to “address” it permanently.
Though when he opened his mouth, the first question to come out was, “Why were you limping, Lavinia?” Perhaps he would have chalked it up to good playacting—Alethia was certainly still limping on her injured leg—but now that it was pointed out, he realized she’d been doing it still when she walked inside.
Her eyes flicked up, flickered like they always seemed to do lately, and fell again. “It’s nothing. I landed wrong when I was skipping rope yesterday. Just a twinge.”
Still a twinge even now? How exactly had she landed wrong? And why hadn’t she said anything before she went gallivanting off to London, where she’d no doubt been promenading along the Strand on Xavier’s arm and dancing at his parents’ party?
Questions he wanted to ask—but Merritt spoke before he could, which was probably for the best, given that he was discussing the actual threat to a life rather than what was most likely a mild muscle strain.
“This is what we’d hoped, I suppose. He wants her to contact him. And he gave an address for it. He didn’t have a time and place already set out, which ought to work for our purposes.”
“Except that we know he doesn’t mean to let her out alive—and that could mean that even if we set the place, he’ll have his men there, waiting. And we already know they have guns.” Marigold handed the letter to her husband.
He took it, brows lifted. “We’ll know it better. We’ll be there first. That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? Everything we’ve been planning for the last two weeks? We control the stage, the props, the lighting. We pull the cable to the trapdoor.”
Marigold nodded, but it didn’t erase the lines of worry on her forehead. “There are so many moving parts. So many players. It makes me nervous.”
They’d be fools if itdidn’tmake them nervous. But in a way, this was what they’d been training for all their lives. A well-stocked set. A perfectly ordered stage. They would know their lines and when to hit their marks. A few well-timed flashes, some theater tricks, a few acrobatics, and the show would go off according to plan.
Probably.
TWENTY-ONE
“Absolutely not. I won’t hear of it. I would sooner take her off to the Continent somewhere and put her in a nunnery for protection than let you put her even for a moment in the crosshairs of these madmen.”
Alethia blinked at her mother, not entirely convinced she’d heard her correctly. Had she truly threatened her with anunnery? “Mama. Calm down, please.” They were seated around the Fairfaxes’ dining room table, a magnificent dinner behind them, the pudding being placed before each plate. Alethia had thought everyone was a bit muted in their conversation tonight ... but she hadn’t known why until Marigold had cleared her throat toward the end of the meal.
“Mr. A reports that he has a plan in place to rescue Samira, bring the Empire House crashing down, and stop Lord Babcock once and for all. There is only one catch—you would have to act as bait, Lady Alethia.”
Mama set her spoon down with a clink, outrage visible in every line of her face. “I won’t be told to calm down. Nor will I sit by and allow you to be hurt again.”
“I’m not going to be hurt.” She was careful to keep her eyes on her mother and no one else as she said, “I trust theImposters. Mr. A would not suggest this plan if it were not the best way forward, and if he did not have safeguards in place.”
Her mother’s lips thinned. “He may be the best investigator in London. But he is ultimately a hireling, dearest. He oughtn’t to be trusted to have your best interest at heart. Not like I do.”
A “hireling” had been theonlyone she could trust. The reminder of that was on the tip of her tongue, but seeing the ache in her mother’s eyes, she bit it back.
Mama knew that she’d failed her. She knew, even if neither of them had ever put words to it, that Alethia loved Samira more because Samira had been the one to act as a true mother should. But as Fairfax had reminded her when he brought Mama here, shedidlove her. Imperfectly, from behind her biases and blinders. But when wasn’t that true? And Alethia loved her too. Imperfectly, from behindherown biases and blinders.
She wanted to love hermore. She didn’t want to hurt her.
She didn’t want to let her unwittingly insult their hosts either, but Lord Fairfax smirked at the bit about hirelings.
“I don’t know, Lady Barremore,” he chimed in. “It seems to me that Mr. A would be quite keen to keep her alive. He’ll be wanting the other half of his fee, won’t he?”
Mama didn’t seem to find the joke amusing. “My daughter’s life is worth more than forty-five pounds, my lord.”
“Of course it is.” Fairfax sobered, and the sincerity that filled his expression would surely accomplish what the jest hadn’t. “And as most of us sitting around this table no longer have a mother to watch out for us, I can assure you that we very much appreciate your stance—and envy your daughter your presence in her life.”
Her mother relaxed—but she didn’t relent. “Let us hopethis Mr. A understands as well when he hears he must develop another plan.”
Fairfax smiled gently. Graciously. “I daresay a man in his line of work has learned to be both flexible and accommodating.” He either meant it, or she had no skill at detecting an act.
