As she signed her name, however, she felt a pang, thinking of little Iris and her… guardian? She didn’t even know what the duke was to the little girl. Was the poor thing a by-blow? And, if so, was she being raised in the duke’s household?
It was all very strange, but mysteries were impractical things, made for people with too much time on their hands. Letitia was busy, and she needed stable employment, not a dramatic situation with a bizarre man.
She could not trust him. It was as simple as that. And she did not have the luxuries of taking risks.
She blew on the ink to dry it. If she hurried, she could get it in the evening post. And then that would be that. She wouldn’t think about the Duke of Rutley again.
* * *
“Bassett,” Ezra said smoothly, enjoying the jolt of alarm that went through the man.
Goodness, but there reallywassomething delightful about terrorizing people with one’s mere presence. Even if Ezra had not spent years gathering secrets for a specific purpose, all the work would have been worth it for moments like this.
Bassett recovered quickly from finding Ezra—a man he would know only by reputation—sitting in his study. He pasted a friendly smile on his face.
“Your Grace,” he said, nodding his head politely. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
Ezra didn’t have the patience to play games. He had a child in his house who still wouldn’t speak to anyone—except, apparently, Miss Letitia Knightley—a nefarious plot to uncover, and a family to avoid. He already disliked Bassett, who, it was whispered, liked to press his attentions upon his maids, but now that dislike had sharpened into something personal.
It had not taken much more digging to find a weapon he could use.
“You are going to dismiss your new governess,” he said flatly, sneering into Bassett’s stupid, smiling face.
“I beg your finest pardon?” Bassett laughed, surprised. “I certainly am not.”
Ezra smiled his deadliest smile.
“You are,” he said. “You are going to write to her at once and tell her that the offer of employment has been rescinded.”
“No,” Bassett said carefully. The man was brave; Ezra would give him that. It wasn’t going to stop him from destroying the lord, but it was worth noting. “I am not. My wife liked her. Do you have any idea how long she’s been nattering on at me about finding a suitable governess? I am not going to get rid of the first chit who has applied who actually shut her up.”
Ezra relaxed in his seat. It really was so gratifying when an enemy gave you a good reason to hate him.
Bassett mistook Ezra’s comfort as a sign that he was winning.
“Besides,” he added, almost confidingly, as if they were two friends. “The new girl is very comely.” He made a rude gesture with his hands that Ezra took as approximating Miss Knightley’s shape. “The kind of servant you want around to… serve you.”
Ezra stood very slowly. When he had reached his full height, which would have loomed several inches over Bassett even ifthe man had been standing, he took a single, purposeful step forward.
“I understand that your wife’s father still controls the family’s finances,” he said calmly. “That’s part of the problem with marrying an heiress, I suppose—you have to wait for her to actually inherit. But your father by marriage has proven inconveniently long-lived, so you still depend on his good graces.”
This was not common knowledge, but it was not precisely a secret, either. Bassett’s eyes narrowed cautiously.
“I can’t see what that has to do with?—”
“How do you think, then, that the old man would react if he learned that you have been spending his money to keep a mistress over in the theater district? A former opera singer, was she?”
Thiswasa secret.
“How did you—” Bassett sputtered, but Ezra kept talking.
“Very expensive lodgings you have for her, aren’t they? Excessively expensive, one might say. I know men often have their indiscretions, but do you think that your family’s support would continue if they learned that it was funneling not to their own daughter and grandchildren, but to an Italian alto with a taste for fine things?”
Bassett had gone paler and paler with every word. Now, he was white as a ghost.
“What do you even care about some governess?” he asked.
“That,” Ezra said, tapping the desk lightly with his knuckles, “is none of your business. Now.” He smiled at Bassett again, the smile of a shark to a school of fish. “You will terminate Miss Knightley’s employment within the next two days, or I will write to your father-in-law. And then the chips will fall where they may.”
