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“This one was a gift from Lady Luxborough,” she replied, giving a plain answer in spite of the feelings he’d stirred.

She changed the subject. “In the dress shop yesterday did you hear the marchioness and Octavia speaking of Captain Fanshaw?”

“I did.” He turned a troubled gaze to Octavia. “How does she seem to you tonight? To me she seems to be enjoying herself without a care.”

“She does,” Harriet agreed. “But you appear uneasy. Do you have some new cause for concern about her?”

“Only the same one,” he said.

Harriet thought otherwise and wished he would take her into his confidence. “You know, Octavia may not find a husband here among the Luxboroughs, but she will find herself liked without changing her character. It’s the plan of having her go to Lady Hardwicke’s party expressly to meet this Captain Fanshaw that worries me.”

“Then say you’ll accompany her.” The appeal burst from him with an earnestness that startled her. He immediately moderated his tone. “You will be free then, won’t you? The Luxboroughs will have solved the mystery of your ghost before the solstice.”

How neatly she’d been trapped. The favor he’d asked of her days ago continued to grow and to draw her into the London society she’d left before she’d ever come out or been presented. “Yes, the family will have left for Hampshire by then.”

“And you?” he asked, again in that low voice. “Do you go with them?”

Honesty forced her to confess, “I go a few days later with some of the other...” A travel arrangement she had not questioned was now galling to admit. She forced herself to say it. “Staff. Nevertheless, I should apply to Lady Luxborough for permission.”

“By all means, ask Lady Luxborough,” he said.

She looked at him with some suspicion. “You seem sure of Lady Luxborough’s approval.”

“Do I?” He drew himself up. He might be worried and weary, and a wince of pain might cross his face, but his assurance remained undimmed.

“What did you do to your hand?” she asked.

The question surprised him, but he recovered. “A bit of sparring, such as gentlemen do. So the game begins tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll bring Octavia. You can tell me Lady Luxborough’s answer then,” he said. He bowed and strolled over to his sister.

Alone in her room, Harriet took herself to task. She plainly enjoyed talking with Wynford too much, and not because he sought her wise counsel about his sister. She was painfully aware of his unwillingness to share his true worry. She could talk to Lady Luxborough anytime about Pris’s tendency to leave tasks unfinished, or Jasper’s defiance of any rule offered to him, or Anne’s dreaminess, but as much as she enjoyed strategizing about how to guide her charges, she had to admit that the pleasure in talking with Wynford had little to do with Octavia’s husband hunt or the danger of her too-easy acquaintance with the marchioness.

Harriet took the three cards from the velvet drawer and laughed at the odd combination. The randomness of the draw was always a challenge to her invention. She laid the cards on her writing desk and began to prepare for bed, letting her mind wander. A half-dozen plots occurred to her before an image fixed itself in her mind of Lady Luxborough’s Egyptian chair. She tucked the three cards back in their velvet box. She had an idea. The game was a small part of Christmas she could freely enjoy. It belonged to her and to this house. She would not let Wynford’s presence deter her from devising the best game she could. In the morning she would begin leaving clues.

It is a sad truth that the world universally condemns that gentleman or lady who seeks to rise above his or her circumstances by what is called an advantageous marriage. A most difficult position then for the husband hunter is that of governess. The difficulty does not arise from the meagerness of her means, the Spartan nature of her quarters, or the demands on her time, but rather from the limitations to her liberty. To be always in the society of those who are her superiors only in fortune and to deny herself equal intercourse with them, to content herself rather with such condescension and civility as may occasionally come her way, requires extraordinary strength of character.

—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

Chapter 12

The following evening Charles tried to remain as unobtrusive as a man could be in a peony velvet striped waistcoat. Octavia left his side as soon as they entered the Luxboroughs’ second-best drawing room. There was nothing in his sister’s manner that indicated any uneasiness of conscience over writing to a gentleman behind her brother’s back, and he still had not decided how to confront her about the letter mailed by the marchioness. He had shown a sample of his sister’s writing to Wilde, who could not confirm that it was exactly what he’d seen on Fanshaw’s table, but near enough.

Charles had some idea of asking for advice from Harriet Swanley and took advantage of the liveliness of the Luxborough party to observe her sitting once again heedless of the bright green branches hanging over her head. She gave no hint of the answer she had for him about attending Lady Hardwicke’s ball. As the game players fell into conversation, he approached the tea table. Her burgundy shawl was firmly in place around her shoulders over a gown of muted pewter. She had the look of a lone winter bird perched among frosted berries, but the game revealed another side of her.

“I take it that you’ll be seeing the marchioness later,” she said with a glance at his stripes as she poured him a cup of tea.

“You begin to understand me, do you?” he said, suppressing a quick flash of triumph. She had noticed his pattern. That meant she was not as indifferent to him as she pretended.

She gave him a cool look. “Not at all. I’ve never known a man to use excessive bad taste as his principal lure in pursuit of a woman.”

“In pursuit of a woman? Is that...” He glanced away briefly. It was part of his disguise that his attentions to the marchioness appear to be the moves of a man seeking a liaison. He could not at this point in the investigation suggest otherwise. “You’ve not watched male birds display their bright plumage?”

“Oh, is that what it is?” One brow arched upward, but she did not press him. The players then demanded her attention. His five minutes of conversation with her were at an end. She rose from the tea table, and the children made room for her on one of the blue sofas. As they gathered around, the dog found him and inserted his head under Charles’s free hand.

Jasper announced that a broken teacup he’d found at the foot of the servants’ stair had to be a clue, while the others dismissed the cup because the servants’ stair was not where the game was played.