When they headed for the stairs, Lawrence narrowed his eyes at the next landing. “Is it art supplies? Has Marjorie fashioned me another studio?”
“No studio.” Jacob’s ferret nibbled his hair. “Just boxes.”
“Shh,” hissed the others. “Spoilsport!”
Elizabeth flung open the door to a small room beyond the landing. “Et voilà!”
Lawrence blinked. It was indeed a closet stuffed with nondescript wooden crates.
“Thank you,” he said politely. “What is it?”
Tommy grinned at him. “Your housekeeper gave us your ledgers. These crates contain all of the books and paintings you’ve had to sell to make ends meet since you started helping Chloe. Your ugly carpets are just behind.”
He started. “Mrs.Roothanded over my private ledgers?”
“Oh, all right, I sneaked in and took them.” Tommy plucked a ring of keys from a hook on the wall and tossed the jangling set to Lawrence. “You can have these back.”
He gaped at her. “You have my housekeeper’skeys?”
“Of course not!” Graham brushed this away with great offense. “We made our own.”
“We also madeyouour own.” Chloe gave him a saucy grin. “Lawrence Gosling, eighth Duke of Faircliffe, seventh Wynchester in Crime.”
He covered his face with his hand. “I cannot believe you incorrigible wretches duplicated Mrs. Root’s keys.”
“No reneging,” Elizabeth informed him cheerfully. “Once a Wynchester, always a Wynchester.”
“In fact”—Graham turned to face him—“now you can join in our adventures!”
Jacob’s face lit up with enthusiasm. “How are you with controlling birds of prey?”
“Do not give our new sibling a pet hawk,” Tommy said firmly.
“Or teach him the call,” Chloe added.
Jacob lifted a hand to his mouth and let out a horrific gurgling noise.
Seconds later a rhythmic tapping rattled the closest window.
“That’s Hippogriff.” Jacob’s chest expanded with pride. “I’ll introduce you in a moment.”
“Tomorrow will be soon enough,” Chloe informed her brother, then turned loving eyes to Lawrence. “Weren’t you about to whisk me off for an evening in your crumbling castle, Handsome Pauper?”
“Why, yes.” He pulled her into his arms at once. “That’s exactly what I want to do.”
And so he did.
Epilogue
14 June, 1817
Faircliffe Town House
Chloe swirled in her husband’s arms in the center of a grand ballroom, filled with lights and people and music. By any standard, the Gosling-Wynchesters’ end-of-season gala was a splendid crush, if perhaps not precisely the sort her husband’s ancestors might have envisioned.
For one thing, the jewel of tonight’s rout was not the orchestra and the dancing but rather the once-private library now open to guests. A hundred people were on the dance floor, but dozens milled about the renovated library, settling into a plush sofa to thumb through the pages of an intriguing book, or admiring the angelic vase on its pedestal of honor or the artwork upon the walls.
Thanks to Marjorie’s tutelage, Lawrence had even hung one of his own paintings: a landscape featuring Elderberry and Mango.
