Page 142 of Courting the Wrong Duke

“Now,” Isabella said, rising, “if we are no longer relying upon the gentlemen, we shall have to solve this ourselves.”

Rosalind nodded. “We know more than we did before.”

“Your father left White’s willingly.”

“In a carriage belonging to Algernon.”

“The duke has lied about his movements.”

“And Augusta attempted to send us searching elsewhere.”

Isabella began pacing now too.

For several minutes they traded possibilities across the room, each theory giving birth to another. Had Algernon sent the carriage himself? Had Papa expected to meet him? Had something happened during the journey? Why conceal it afterward? And where did the auction clerk fit into any of it?

By the time Rosalind had crossed the room often enough to make herself dizzy, Isabella stopped and frowned.

“I cannot think while hungry.”

Rosalind stared at her. “You ate during our lesson.”

“That was hours ago.”

“It was not.”

“Thinking requires nourishment.”

Rosalind surrendered and rang for refreshments.

A footman appeared soon afterward carrying tea, bread, cheese, fruit, and several small cakes. Isabella immediately took possession of a cake and resumed pacing with it, which Rosalind suspected was not behavior encouraged in any respectable drawing room.

Rosalind was halfway through a piece of bread when Isabella suddenly went still, the cake in her hand forgotten.

Rosalind knew that expression. She had seen it often enough when Isabella noticed some flaw in a painting or stumbled upon an idea she could not immediately explain.

“What is it?”

Isabella’s gaze had gone distant. “The letter.”

Rosalind frowned. “Papa’s letter?”

“The one he supposedly left before he disappeared. Where is it?”

Something in Isabella’s tone made Rosalind set aside her plate. “In the escritoire. Why?”

“I want to see it again.”

“You have seen it.”

“I have read it,” Isabella corrected. “I have never properly looked at it.”

Rosalind’s pulse gave an uneasy beat, but she crossed to the escritoire and retrieved the letter from the drawer where it had remained since she found it.

Isabella took it immediately.

For nearly a minute, she said nothing. Her eyes traveled slowly across the page, lingering upon individual words before returning to the beginning. Then she carried it toward the window and angled the paper toward the afternoon light.

Rosalind’s unease deepened. “What are you looking for?”