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He looked away, as if uncomfortable meeting Cordelia’s gaze. “She and the duke are … friends of mine from my youth. They are … kind and … wise … and with five children of their own, they are accustomed to … excitement.”

“And they have invited Viola to stay with them?”

He nodded. “You may tell her that she need not fear to meet me at Daventry Hall during her visit.”

Finch, without the “mister,” bowed and took his leave, and Cordelia sat for a time with the invitation for Viola on the bench beside her and Graymont’s note in her lap. In the strange month that had passed, how their fortunes had turned around again. They were to return to their home. She, who had never thought to marry, was betrothed. Roz and Mir had new prospects for happiness. Even Viola would have an opportunity to get out in the world, while still having someone to guide her, as unexpected as that opportunity was.

Her hand rested on Graymont’s note. For the moment it was enough to know that he sent it, that he was thinking of her, as she was thinking of him. A worry she had hardly named became clear to her. She feared Graymont’s meeting his brother, and finding in his connection to Lionel a reason that she and Graymont could not marry. If Graymont thought he must give Cordelia up because of his brother’s hatred, that would be a victory for Lionel, for hatred over love.

She laid her weak hand on top of Graymont’s letter to secure it in place, and with her good hand, she broke the seal and opened the letter. He had sent her a sketch of their beach, both an invitation and a promise, a view from the place where Cordelia left her boots and coverlet. The steep, zigzag path through tufts of grass, the stretch of pebbles, the sloping sand, the huddled gulls, the lines of waves, and the dark curve of the shore to her favorite point. Loose, dense parallel lines became the shade of the trees, tight ovals became pebbles, shallow arcs became the roughness of the sea, and stipple made the sand look just as it felt beneath her feet. Clouds on the horizon had the wispy texture of a breeze at work. Beneath the sketch, he wrote—

Swim with me.

I have severed ties with my sister and brother.

Impatiently yours,

G.

A giddy laugh bubbled up inside her as she stared at the note. It was the laughter of release, of being set free of fear and doubt. Now, she needed to find her swim costume.

*

Graymont returned on a sunny late June afternoon when Winter had taken Cordelia’s sisters to Clifton-on-Sea to make various purchases the girls thought necessary. Cordelia had the Italian garden almost entirely to herself, except for Hector. She could now lift her right arm and hold it out for a few minutes at a time.

Graymont came striding into the garden, a brown paper package under his arm. The dog gave him an enthusiastic welcome, and he set the package next to Cordelia on a bench while he stroked the pup’s silky ears and gave the required belly rub. When at last Hector’s joy at seeing his friend subsided a bit, Gray pulled Cordelia to her feet and kissed her thoroughly.

“You are lucky to find me alone,” she said when he let her go.

He settled on her visitor’s bench. She could see the mirth in his eyes. “Not at all. Winter has your sisters in Clifton, doesn’t he?”

“Oh, you mean you contrived this …”

“I have a very efficient secretary, who knows just how to get his employer time alone with a beautiful woman, and I mean to make the most of it.”

“You have things to tell me?” she asked.

He nodded. His expression grew sober. He explained the help he had received from Scotland Yard through Finch’s connection to one of the new inspectors there and through the influence of the Duke of Wenlocke. Finch’s detective friend, Jones, had found a set of dueling pistols with rifled barrels concealed in one of Bernie’s carriages. As they had suspected, one of the pair had been recently fired. Jones tracked down Lionel in Paris and made him known to an Inspector Girard there. Girard would have his eye on Lionel, who might currently be safe from prosecution in England, but who would be unable to return openly to London.

While some of the details of his account were familiar, Cordelia was struck by the mention of the Duke of Wenlocke and explained that Viola had an invitation from him and his duchess. She wanted to know, “Who is this Duke of Wenlocke? He seems willing to go out of his way to help us, which can’t be the usual practice of dukes.”

Graymont laughed and took her good hand in his. “When you meet him, you can judge for yourself.”

Again, his face took on its grave expression.

Cordelia moved to take his hand in both of hers, and he looked up at once, hope springing into his eyes.

“You are recovering,” he said.

“I am, but you have still more to tell me.” Cordelia thought it a sort of poison he must purge his heart of.

He was silent for a moment. “I think I saw Bernie for the first time for who she really is. She is not my sister in any sense of the word. She is a woman who fed Lionel’s hatred of me for years and encouraged him to feel so wronged that murder would be justified. I told her all ties between us were at an end.”

It was an admission at odds with the warmth and sweetness of a summer’s day. The garden around them hummed with insects going from flower to flower. A light breeze brought the scent of newly cut grass and lavender.

“You have a new family,” she told him. “Probably, we Staveleys are more than you bargained for, but we are yours. We are hardly a perfect family, as you know, but among us, you will be loved.”

“You mean your father, don’t you?”