“But, yes,” Elizabeth piped up, “she’s the leader-est leader.”
Her words enveloped Chloe like a warm embrace. This family was where she belonged.
“Oh, come along, then,” she said with a sigh. “Shall we go inside? Marjorie must be wondering what the fuss is about.”
“If she’s glanced out her studio window,” Jacob said. “I doubt she noticed Graham’s daring descent.”
“‘Daring Descent!’” Graham perked up. “I like it. Someone should inform the scandal columns.”
Lawrence visibly wrapped himself in ducal gentlemanliness and offered Elizabeth his arm. “Would you like help back into the house?”
“No,” she said flatly. “The handle of my cane hides a knife. If you come closer, I’ll use it.”
Chagrined, he turned awkwardly toward Tommy.
“I don’t need you, either.” She ran up to Elizabeth’s side. “If you come closer, I’ll hit you with the book I stole from your library.”
“You stole abook?” He stalked forward. “I need that back!”
“See?” Jacob grinned at Graham. “We still have collateral security.”
“Wynchesters always win,” squawked the parrot.
The Duke of Faircliffe was the last to enter the house.
Chloe led them to the dining room, pausing only to murmur instructions for tea to a passing maid.
Once they were settled, Lawrence looked up and down the long mahogany table, then back to Chloe. “This room could seat two dozen. How many of youarethere, really?”
“Enough,” she replied indifferently, knowing the nonanswer would vex him.
At the moment there were three persons on either edge of the long table: Jacob, Chloe, and Lawrence to one side, and Tommy, Elizabeth, and Graham on the other.
“Explain yourselves,” the duke commanded. “Start at the beginning.”
Chloe would definitely not be doing that. “You’ll call off the Runners?”
Jacob startled. “Runners?”
“Bow StreetRunners?” squawked his parrot.
“Faircliffe believed his missing vase to be stolen,” Chloe explained. “It is not. It’s upstairs. Call off the Runners and we’ll negotiate an exchange. Do we have an agreement?”
Lawrence studied her as though he were just now seeing her properly.
“No Runners,” he agreed slowly. “But no truce until I have all of the factsandthe vase.”
“No truce until you return our painting,” Jacob added.
The duke inclined his head.
Graham leaned back. “Your father sold us our painting nineteen years ago, a few weeks after Bean fostered us. They’d met in some gentlemen’s club with low enough standards to welcome a minor baron from a small foreign principality…as well as dissolute gamblers like your father, who was always on the hunt for a new wager to repay the last one he’d lost.”
Lawrence’s jaw flexed, but he did not argue. The picture Graham painted wasn’t pretty, but it was accurate.
“From time to time, when the duke’s pockets were to let, he’d try to sell us another painting, but we weren’t interested.”
“We had no need to purchase art,” Elizabeth added. “By then, Marjorie was producing works worthy of a museum, and her tutors claimed there was little more they could teach her.”
