He was still frowning, his eyes searching her face.
“I will go tell them myself,” he decided, after a moment. “I owe that much, after all this. No waiting for the hammer to fall.”
“Is that wise?” Malcolm said, frowning. “How the Devil do you tell someone you did that, anyhow?”
Jasper glanced up and gave a sigh and a shrug. “You just spit the truth out, I suppose. God knows I should do that more often. I should have done it with you, Mal.”
“With me?” Mal repeated, giving a dry laugh. “I don’t think you can compare—”
“I’m in love with your sister,” Jasper said, frowning. “You are my best mate. I should have told you before. I’ve been in love with her for a long time, I think.”
There was a long, yawning beat of dead air. Everyone in the room was still, as if momentarily suspended, just above the ground.
Malcolm took a slow, steady breath through his nose, his nostrils flaring as his eyes flickered shut, his head shaking. “Jasper,” he said finally, his breath blowing out around the word, “then you court her. You marry her. You donotdo whatever the hellthis is!”
Jasper gave a weak, wobbling half-smile. “I’ll remember that for next time.”
“And you,” Mal said, his eyes flicking back open and focusing on Libba. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
She grimaced, the clock giving an ominous chime on the hour from farther down the street. “Then perhaps don’t say anything at all?”
“Oh, you’d love that, wouldn’t you?” he replied, giving a dry chuckle. “I don’t think so.”
“Liberty,” Lem said, softly enough to be polite but firmly enough to be heard. “I really must go.”
She sighed and nodded, pushing her fingers into her temples. “Yes, all right,” she said. “But we’re coming with you.”
“We are?” Mal repeated, his voice rising in pitch.
She was already moving to grab her coat from the hook on the far wall. “We are,” she confirmed. “Get up and get moving. Today is Lemuel Harcourt’s birthday.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The walk toBrighton’s tiny legal district was a quiet one, but Jasper felt every crunch of gravel and rustle of brittle autumn leaves.
He wasn’t carrying a pie this time. Instead, he got to fill his grip with Libba’s own, and despite the several sidelong glances they got from Lem and Malcolm, she did not falter in providing the tether.
He didn’t even realize until they’d turned onto Church Street that several of the troupe had fallen into step with them.
Had Libba called them along? Had she announced the monumental thing that was about to happen? Or had Lem told them before Jasper had arrived?
He did not know.
But the French nun was there. The dandy was there. And Rhys appeared in his periphery, swaggering in the half-asleep gait of a man who’d been awakened before it was time, and he was eating the damned pie.
“Rhys?” Jasper said, startled, puncturing the silence. “Where did you get a spoon?”
Rhys looked up, a smear of berry compote tinting his lips, and blinked. “My pocket? I’ve another one. Do you want?”
Jasper only shook his head and kept walking.
Harcourt’s office was in a plum position, right where Church Street dissolved into the Lanes, alongside the town hall andthe historic courthouse. Jasper could see it from the approach, and he could see Harcourt too, his silver hair glinting in the afternoon sunlight as he escorted the Templeton-Raths out onto the pavement.
They saw him.
Of course they saw him.
And his full coterie of chaos.
