Percy held out the invitation Leo had handed him earlier. “I regret I cannot attend.”
Leo accepted the envelope and flipped it over in his hand. He brushed his thumb over the unbroken wax seal. “A pen, please, Percy.”
As Saffron shuffled by the door, he took a seat and drew a line through Percy’s name, then wrote in “Summersby.” With that complete, he stood and held out an open hand to Saffron. Shenarrowed her eyes, then placed the tips of her fingers against his palm. He folded his fingers over hers and kissed her knuckles.
Her hand trembled. “Lord Briarwood, that is not—”
“Appropriate? I so rarely am these days.” He released her and she whipped her hand back to her chest. A minute later, she left with the envelope clutched in her hands.
Chapter Five
Two sleepless nightslater, Saffron admitted defeat. No matter how much she tried to think about anything else, her mind returned to Lord Briarwood and their moment at the fountain. In her dreams, he didn’t run away. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, stealing her lips.
He was just being a gentleman, Saffron thought as she lifted a water-stained box from the set of wooden shelves against the wall.It meant nothing.
A cloud of coal dust drifted up and made her cough. The only light in the windowless basement came from a small candle she’d carried down with her. The floor beneath her was beaten earth, and there was coal piled up against the stone walls. Black soot covered her dress, and the ashy smell of coal clogged her nose.
She was sure she wouldn’t smell anything else for days.
She tilted the lid of the box on its side so that the remaining dust slid into a pile. After hours of searching the windowless basement, she was no closer to her goal. She set the lid aside and sorted through the contents.
Before her brother had vanished from their lives, there had been paintings of him all around the house. After he’d left, Rosemary had ordered the staff to put every painting that included his face into storage. Which made it difficult to prove toanyone that her brother was the man in the painting she’d seen at Lady Jarvis’s house.
She vividly recalled his mop of unruly curls, and the way his green eyes had glinted when he’d laughed, the dimples in his cheeks when he smiled at her. Despite his many flaws, Basil was still her brother, and she would not give up on him while there remained the smallest chance that he lived. Whatever he’d done, whatever trouble he’d gotten himself into, she would find him and put things to rights.
Saffron shifted her stance, sore from slouching. Gravel crunched beneath her soft slippers, cutting into her feet. She replaced the lid on the box and placed it back on the shelf. Something moved in the corner of her eye, but she refused to look, fearing it was rats or worse. She could hear them moving around her, squeaking and scuttling through the earth.
In the next box, she found a painting of her parents.
As she touched her fingers to their faces, she remembered how her father had allowed her to watch him auditing the estate accounts when she’d been young. She’d marveled at the way he’d balanced the columns of numbers, which had seemed like magic to her. But as she’d grown up, her father had pushed her into embroidery and music, activities he’d considered more suitable for a young woman.
That rejection had hurt more than anything that had followed.
She pulled a clean square of linen from her pocket, covered the painting to keep away the dust, then replaced the lid on the box and moved on to the next.
Finally, after what seemed long enough that she would become part of the clutter herself, Saffron found a portrait the size of her hand. It was something a parent commissioned for a child, a wooden frame with scalloped edges and an oval of canvas in the center.
Saffron’s brother looked to be in his early twenties, and the painter had been talented enough to capture the boyish charm in Basil’s eyes.
“Perfect,” Saffron said, rubbing some coal dust from the frame. It would serve as a comparison when she confronted Ravenmore. She reached through a slit in her gown and stored the painting in a pocket she’d sewn into her chemise.
One never knew when a pocket would be useful.
The floorboards above her creaked, sending a spray of dust onto her head. She placed the boxes back where they had been, shook as much of the dust from her skirts as she could, then padded up the stairs to the main floor.
The ever-present clatter of wheels filtered in through the window, a consequence of their townhouse being located on the fringes of the fashionable Mayfair district. The proximity to the Thames also meant it was impossible to avoid the stench, a rotten egg smell that seeped in through the heavily scented curtains.
Saffron held her breath and scurried up the steps to her bedroom.
Angelica was lying on her stomach on the narrow bed with her legs in the air. Saffron clenched her fingers on the doorknob, scanning her room for changes.
Three logs were missing from the grate near the fireplace. The wool blanket that she kept folded in the trunk in the corner lay in a pile at the side of the bed. The chair tucked beneath her dressing table was pulled out, and the lid on the metal box that contained Saffron’s few pieces of jewelry was askew.
“What took you so long?” Angelica asked, rising on her elbows. “I was falling asleep.”
Saffron pulled her eyes away from her dressing table. “She hid them in the storage hutch below the dining room.”
Angelica patted her palms on the bed. “Of course.”
