From across the table, Lord Peter looked at her and gave her a rueful shrug and a small smile. She nodded back with a frown.
If he wanted answers to his questions, she would make him ask for himself.
Abruptly, she stood before the sibling conflict between Mrs. Clarke and Mr. Lumley could develop beyond a few glares. “I must beg everyone’s leave. I have some notes to complete before I can retire tonight. Good night.”
She bowed to each of them in turn, her bow to Lord Peter with a deliberate ironic edge. The corner of his full lips twitched up, and he inclined his head with matching irony.
“Good evening, Mr. Morley,” Lord Peter said.
Georgie turned on her heel and left the room, mind racing.Where was that damned letter from Caroline?
She hoped she would not have to decamp before it arrived, because she had no idea of where she might be able to go.
As the doorclosed behind Morley, Peter waited a moment before turning to Mrs. Clarke, who was still having a tense tête-à-tête with her brother.
“I am sorry our scheme did not work out the way we planned, Mrs. Clarke.”
With one last glare at her brother, Mrs. Clarke turned her attention to Peter. “I am sorry as well, Lord Peter. Mr. Morley is quite a slippery young man. He may still have been able to evade my questions.”
“We were questioning Morley?” Lumley said, his voice still a little over-loud. Clearly, he had drunk a bit too much wine with his dinner. “What were we questioning him about?”
“He has been very evasive about his background.” Peter frowned into his own half-empty glass of wine. “Surely he must have a family member or two out there looking for him.”
“Perhaps not,” Lumley said. “Perhaps they were glad to see him go. Not everyone comes from a happy family.”
Peter shot the younger man an ironic look. “And not every unhappy family is willing to let the others go.”
Lumley subsided, perhaps realizing at last that the wine had loosened his tongue too far.
Mrs. Clarke said, “There is something peculiar about Mr. Morley, though.”
Peter was immediately on alert. “Oh?”
But Mrs. Clarke only shook her head. “I think—no, it is too fanciful by far. I must consider what I say before I say it.”
Peter nodded, though he was impatient to know what the older woman had seen or sensed about Morley. “Perhaps you will be of better mind about it tomorrow.”
“Perhaps.” Mrs. Clarke frowned again. “It would be…” Abruptly, she rose to her feet, forcing Peter and Lumley to scramble to theirs.
“Good evening, Lord Peter,” she said. “Come along, Charles.”
Peter sighed as the door closed behind them. A moment later, it opened again, and Annie Martin from the village poked her head in.
“Mrs. Barwick says we’re to clean up now, your lordship.”
“Thank you, Annie.” Peter rose to his feet. “I’ll take myself out of your way, then.”
Annie giggled and curtsied as he brushed past her, but went straight to her work as Peter returned to the now-empty drawing room.
The fireplace was lit against the increasing chilliness of the late summer nights, but Morley’s chair stood empty.
Peter supposed he only had himself to blame. He ought to have been more honest and asked his questions directly rather than using Mrs. Clarke as his stalking-horse. Now he had a dull evening alone ahead of him.
Strange how that had never bothered him before Morley had arrived. It had been far more pleasant to have a friend in residence than Peter had thought it would be. Even the times in London when he had shared rented rooms with his brother Philip had not been as easy and comfortable as his time with Morley.
His eyes strayed to his desk, where the latest missive from his mother still lay unopened. He supposed she was right. He must marry eventually. But the prospect of a fashionable courtship conducted in ballrooms and drawing rooms with only the most superficial of conversations made him cringe.
It was a shame he could not forge the kind of friendship with a prospective bride that he and Morley had formed in only a few weeks, but their connection was of a kind that was born of daily life.
