The reassuring words she knew she should say remained trapped in her mind. She shook her head so quickly that the jet beads hanging from her hat smacked her on the cheek.
He brushed his knuckles against her chin. “What happened to you?”
A knock at the door had them flying apart, like lovers caught in a shadowy alcove at a ball. She had not felt so skittish since she was a young girl.
The door opened and Mrs. Quill peered in, her shoulders slumped. “The twins knocked over two of your great-grandmother’s vases, my lord.”
He straightened, all traces of the soft-spoken man who had caressed her cheek gone. “Are they well?”
Mrs. Quill winced. “The vases are beyond repair, I’m afraid.”
Olivia tensed, remembering how she had once dropped a plate in front of her husband. He had sulked for days, showing her through his neglect that he disapproved of her clumsiness. She had never handled any dishes in front of him again without suffering significant anxiety.
“Damn the vases,” he said. “Where are the twins? I’ll see to them myself and ensure they know there are no bad feelings.”
With those words, the last remaining threads of Olivia’s suspicion slipped away. Lord Lowell did not have an ounce of cruelty in him. Regardless of what Constance had done, he was not her nemesis.
“Perhaps later,” Mrs. Quill said. “A woman has arrived, my lord. She, ah, did not give her name, but she was quite insistent that she speak to you both at once regarding Lady Constance.”
“Direct her to my daughter’s room,” he said. “We will see what she has to say.”
Chapter 8
As Lady Allen placed her trembling fingers on Thel’s sleeve, he wished he could draw her close and whisper soft words in her ear. He might have done so, except that he feared she might bolt. He’d never had a woman recoil from him before. Instead of thinking about how he was going to deal with his daughter’s unknown paramour, he was preoccupied with how he might put Lady Allen’s mind at ease.
The way she’d covered her face with her arms spoke of a history of violence. Someone, likely the deceased earl, had mistreated her. Anger smoldered in his gut as he imagined the innocent girl Lady Allen had once been. Cruelty had stripped that from her. It was no wonder she was so determined to help Constance. He wasn’t sure he believed her claims that someone other than his daughter had written the letters, but he could not risk ignoring her. If a man had inserted himself into Constance’s life, Thel wanted to know who it was.
They walked to Constance’s room behind Mrs. Quill, then stepped inside as he opened the door. Constance sat before her dressing mirror, running a brush through her hair. The faraway look in her eyes suggested she hadn’t even noticed them entering.
His heart gave a painful lurch as he imagined her gathering her pin money to send to the newspaper. The articles had started weeks ago, before they had ever come to London. How had he overlooked that she’d been hiding something so important? She had never kept secrets from him.
Lady Allen had told him to place the envelopes back where he had found them, but as a father, he wanted to throw them onto Constance’s desk and demand answers.
He was slipping his hand in his pocket when Lady Allen grabbed his sleeve and whispered, “While she is distracted.”
He retrieved the envelopes but held firm when she tried to tug them out of his grasp. It felt wrong to be sneakily returning items he had taken from Constance’s room. She might have hidden things from him, but he did not want to do the same. Admitting what he had done might cause a rift to form between them, but it would show her he valued honesty.
He cleared his throat.
Constance caught his gaze in the mirror and shot upright. The brush fell out of her hand and clattered onto the floor. “Yes, Father?”
He held out the ribbon-wrapped bundle. “I found these in your room.”
“What are you—” Olivia started, but he spoke over her.
“I removed these because I was concerned that… you…” His impromptu lecture faded as Constance tilted her head and frowned.
He waggled the envelopes. “Have you seen these before?”
She shook her head. “You found those in my room? What are they?” She stepped forward and reached for the bundle, but he moved his hand out of reach.
She did not know what he was talking about.
The room spun as he was overcome with relief. He’d been wrong. Constance had had nothing to do with the articles. Except that didn’t quite fit. If they weren’t Constance’s doing, then who had hidden the letters he had found in her room? It had to be someone in his household, as they had not been in London long enough for Constance to have callers.
“Let me see,” his daughter said. She went up on her toes and grabbed for the envelopes. When she was unable to reach, she stomped her foot and pouted. “Why are you hiding things from me?”
Before he could come up with an excuse, a short woman with fiery-red hair shoved past them into the room, hefting bolts of pink-and-white fabric on her shoulders.
