Oscar glanced at the clock. It was indecently early for a visit, but Harvey was not a man given to flights of etiquette.
“Send him in,” Oscar said and moved to the library.
Harvey entered in a blur of black wool and ink-stained fingers. He bowed, but only out of reflex; his eyes were already on Oscar, glittering with urgency.
“My apologies, Your Grace,” Harvey began, “but I thought it best to come at once. It is about Lord Eastmere.”
Oscar went cold. “What about him?”
Harvey set a folder on the desk, spreading it like a general laying out a siege plan. “You requested that I investigate his movements. There was a rumor he left the city, but the truth is otherwise.”
“Go on,” Oscar said.
“He never left London,” Harvey said. “In fact, he has been a fixture at White’s and at the Covent Garden gaming houses for the last week. He is seen almost nightly, usually with a new companion.” He paused. “But it is the daytime that concerns me. He has made frequent visits to a house on Rose Lane, in the company of a woman I believe to be Miss Mercer.”
Oscar absorbed this. “Miss Mercer—the children’s governess?”
“The same. I verified her identity with the agency that placed her. Her references are genuine, but her recent activity is not. She has had contact with Eastmere on at least four occasions in the last fortnight, always in the company of a courier who appears to be in the Duke’s livery—your livery.”
Oscar felt his jaw lock. “You believe she is spying for Eastmere.”
Harvey nodded. “Or at the very least, acting as a conduit for information. I do not wish to alarm you, but several of your servants were recruited in the last month, all by the same agency. It is possible your household has been compromised.”
Oscar’s mind ran through the events of the last weeks—the letters, the gifts, the persistent sense of being watched.
“Why,” he said, “would Eastmere go to such lengths?”
Harvey did not answer at once. He looked away, as if weighing whether to speak the next words.
“Out with it,” Oscar said.
Harvey spread his hands. “There are rumors, Your Grace. Eastmere has been observed boasting of a ‘coup’ against Scarfield, something that would ‘unseat the great man’ and ‘ruin his so-called wife’. He is working with an unknown accomplice, possibly Miss Mercer, but also with someone in Parliament. Theaim seems to be the public humiliation of yourself, and more pointedly, the Duchess.”
Oscar pressed his thumb and forefinger into his brow. “He wants to destroy her.”
“Yes,” Harvey said.
“And he is doing it by making me believe she has a lover, and by making her believe the same of me.”
“It would seem so,” Harvey said. “He is also spreading rumors of your own infidelity—complete with falsified evidence.”
Oscar laughed, but it was not a nice sound. “He always did have a taste for drama.”
Harvey hesitated. “There is more. I had a man follow the courier—your courier. The trail leads to a printing office on Lime Street, where they are preparing a pamphlet detailing your supposed scandal with an actress named S—” he glanced at the folder, “—Sarah Fortenay.”
Oscar shut his eyes. “I’ve never met the woman.”
“I know, Your Grace. But the pamphlet includes forged correspondence, and?—”
“—and a public accusation against the Duchess,” Oscar finished. “Of course it does.”
Harvey nodded. “It is set for distribution within the week. If you wish, I can try to suppress it.”
Oscar shook his head. “No. I want you to gather every scrap of evidence that Eastmere or his agents have planted. Names, dates, deliveries. I want a list of every servant hired in the last two months, and I want you to vet them personally.”
Harvey made notes, quick and sharp. “And the Duchess?”
Oscar’s throat tightened. “She’s gone. She left this morning.”
