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He went to Ash’s side and cupped his cheeks. The familiar feel of his lover’s stubble under his palms made him even more determined to fix this. There was no way that he could give up Ash or Elizabeth. “There’s only one way to control what is printed about us. And that’s to find out who is starting those rumors in the first place. I’m going to work.”
“Work?” Ash asked, “How will that help?”
“I’m going to Southart. I’d once heard he had a private investigator on retainer. I’m going to see who this man is and if he can help me.”
Ash’s eyes widened. “I didn’t tell you the best part of last night. Guess who scared Trimble off?”
“Who?” he asked.
“Martin Richmond, the former editor of The Midnight Cryer.”
Winter knocked on the open door of Elizabeth’s study.
“Come in.” She replaced her quill in its stand. Hopefully, it was a visitor who would take her mind off of today’s gossip. She didn’t feel like working today.
“My lady, you have a visitor,” Winter said, then lowered his voice. “It’s Lady Eleanor.”
At the mention of the woman’s name, Elizabeth tightened her stomach, preparing for the proverbial punch. There was only one reason why Aunt Eleanor was at her door. She’d read the article and had come to lecture Elizabeth about it.
“Thank you, Winter.” She stood slowly from her desk. “Where is she?”
“She’s in the blue salon—”
Before the man could finish his sentence, Eleanor barreled in like a carriage careening from the pull of spooked horses. An apt description if she did say so herself. Whenever Eleanor called on Elizabeth alone, she left nothing but chaos in her path.
“Aunt Eleanor, what a surprise to see you this morning.” Elizabeth amazed herself with the calmness in her voice. She didn’t blink when she saw that the woman carried a broadsheet in her hands. Yet, she couldn’t help but regret that she didn’t tell Winter that she wasn’t receiving visitors. Better yet, she should have gone to the foundling home where she preferred to volunteer.
“Is it really such a surprise to see me?” the woman asked with a scowl on her face. She held up the paper and shook it in her hand. “I assume you’ve seen this?”
There was no use acting as if she hadn’t it. By now, all of London had read that she was cuckolding Robert.
“I have read it.” Elizabeth would not allow the woman to upset her today. She gestured to her sitting area in front of the windows that overlooked the flowerbeds that were in full bloom.
When she’d first arrived in London, she’d created the design and worked it herself. It gave her a sense of peace when she’d first moved here. And it still did. Every time she gazed upon her garden, she could pretend she was still in Wickford with Robert and Ash, where their lives had been so simple. She smiled briefly at the row of trees that Robert had planted. It seemed as if he, too, needed a bit of the country in his everyday life.
“You’re smiling? There’s nothing humorous about my visit today.” Eleanor crossed the room and sat in the chair that overlooked the garden.
Elizabeth wanted to sigh aloud, but she kept her tongue. Aunt Eleanor knew that was her favorite chair. “Would you like tea?”
“No,” she scolded, then waved the paper in her hands. “You and Robert are the subject of today’s London-Town Tattler. Have you both thought about how you’re going to refute it?”
“Aunt Eleanor,” she replied in her most patient voice, which was difficult as she always felt on the defensive when Robert’s aunt visited. The woman never thought she did anything correctly. She always thought the worst of her. “My husband assured me that if it amounts to anything, he will take matters into his own hands.”
“Typical,” Aunt Eleanor scoffed. “Men never see the harm until it’s too late. You must do something.”
“And what would that be?” Elizabeth laced her hands together. She would not let the woman upset her further.
“Tell Mr. Hawksworth that he is no longer welcome in the house.” She waved her hand in the air as if batting away an annoying gnat. “It would be best if he returned to Wickford before things become worse. He can live with his brother and sister-in-law. I know Overton allows him to stay in the Dowager House when he visits. But it’s best if he’s with his family.”
Elizabeth’s blood began to boil. Naturally, Aunt Eleanor wanted Ash to leave. She always had ever since they’d arrived in London to live. She squeezed her clasped hands together in an effort to control her ire.
“I fail to see how that would help matters, Aunt Eleanor.”
“Is it true you’re having an affair, then?” Eleanor’s mouth pursed like she’d sucked a lemon.
She caught the woman’s gaze, and for the first time that she could remember, Elizabeth refused to be the first to turn away. She would not answer such a demeaning question.
A sense of triumph flooded Elizabeth when the woman looked away and stared at the sheet. After a moment, she lifted her gaze to Elizabeth and smiled in that sickening sweet way of hers that meant she thought her niece-in-law had the intelligence of a toadstool.
