“You don’t see anything,” Ezra said.
Hugh was undeterred. “It’s thegoverness.”
Ezra scowled his most profound scowl, but Hugh only laughed, visibly delighted.
“You know,” he said, “Persephone told me you would be back. I really need to learn to stop doubting her. I thought you could not possibly. What else could I tell you about some governess I had never met, even if she did work for Helen and Xander? I was certain that you were curious about Xander, and using the girl as a cover, but Persephone told me I was wrong.”
Ezra took another sip of his drink, and Hugh laughed even harder. Seriously, whatwaswrong with him? Had someone taken ink and scrawled all his thoughts on his forehead? His fingers itched to check, but he resisted on the grounds that it was insane.
“Iwasright,” Hugh crowed. “Persephone was, too, but Iwasright. You wanted to know about both of them.”
Ezra didn’t respond. Hugh’s amusement faded as he thought through the implications of this.
“You came here to meet with one of Uncle Ambrose’s old friends,” Hugh said carefully, as though he was putting the pieces together in real time. “As far as I know, that wasbeforethe governess. She was still working for Helen, then.”
“Her name is Letitia,” Ezra said peevishly, not even caring that this revealed more about his emotional state than he might have wished.
“I beg your pardon,” Hugh said, not sounding regretful at all. He sounded as though he was laughing very much at Ezra. The wretch. “Letitia, it is. Nice name.” He went back to his pontificating. “Letitiahad not yet come into your employ when you first came here, so it wasn’t about your little, ah,tendrethen.”
“Oh, go to hell, Hugh,” Ezra complained. “Don’t call it atendre. God.”
Hugh gave him a mocking grin, and even though his cousin seemed determined to torment him, Ezra found that he was enjoying himself.
“I don’t know what else you want me to call it, if you’re coming around here probing for information about a woman that—again, let me remind you of this part—I have never met. That’s desperate, Ez.”
Ezra didn’t even chafe at the sound of the nickname. Maybe someone was poisoning him. That might explain his otherwise inexplicable turn toward appreciating his family.
“I regret coming here,” Ezra told the ceiling. “But I am here, so I am going to drink all of your good liquor. Please be advised.”
Hugh kept ignoring him.Stupid older cousins.
“So.” Hugh tapped at his knee. “Youwereseeking information about the Lightholders—or about Xander, at least. But you have gotten distracted.”
“Is it so strange that I might want to know about the family who all died before I ever got to know them properly?” Ezra asked peevishly. He could not believe he was going to say this, but he did not actually care about what Hugh might reveal about their family history. His mind was all too full of Letitia.
“And forgive me for asking about the woman who is watching over the child in my charge,” he added.
He drank more of the scotch. He had meant what he said about consuming Hugh’s supply. Maybe, if he drank enough, he would erase the memory of Letty’s soft mouth, or the way her breath hitched when he touched his tongue to hers. Maybe he would forget, just for a little while, that she would be leaving him so soon that it felt like a mortal sin that he was spending the time remaining anywhere but with her.
“No,” Hugh said. “It’s not that.”
And Ezra… He could not bring himself to deny her. He could not keep her. He could not be with her for now, not when it would dismiss her wishes.
“No,” he agreed. “It’s not that.”
His tone made it clear that he didn’t wish to discuss it further.
Well, no, that wasn’t quite right either. He did want to talk about it. He wanted to shout from the rooftops that she was incredible. That he had met this woman, and she completely knocked him flat with how amazing she was. That she was funny, clever, and argumentative. That she loved Iris—that it was obvious, even if she had not said it out loud. That she was protective of Sarah, that she was sincere at heart. That she was secretive, and he was painfully eager to know her secrets.
But he could not do that without revealing that their relationship was more than that of employer and servant. And that was the one thing that Letitia wanted the most.
So, he didn’t say anything else.
“Drink as much as you want,” Hugh said, watching Ezra’s face closely. “Stay as long as you need. What is family for, after all?”
CHAPTER 18
When Letitia had arrived at Rutley House, she had given up her previous lease on the rooms where Sarah had been living. She had hesitated, knowing that her job with the duke—then a stranger and an irritant—was not likely to last more than a month. She doubted she would easily find a place that was quite as inexpensive.
