Oliver nodded and accepted the list from her. His eyes scanned the paper briefly and he had to agree with his sister.
Most of the men on the list were known to be shallow and pompous men in Society, hardly someone that could concoct such an elaborate scheme as the one they were currently embroiled in.
“Lord Guyton hardly seems capable of hatching such a plot,” she remarked with a frown. “Sir Alder, for all his pompous posturing, also seems to hardly be possessed of the cunning and deviousness for such an endeavor.”
Oliver nodded somberly. Half the list could be eliminated merely because most of the men of his acquaintance hardly seemed to be up to the task of masterminding such heinous acts.
“Very well, we shall leave this up to the constable to ferret out our criminal mastermind,” he sighed. He dropped the list into his drawer and turned to his sister. “How have you and Claire been?”
Suzanna let out a sigh as she took her usual seat by the window. “She seems to be well adjusted. Trixie, too, although she has been snapping at the reins lately.”
Oliver nodded in frustration. The city was much too crowded and their target could be hiding just about anywhere, ready to blend into the crowd with none of them the wiser.
“I was thinking that we could go back to the country,” he told her. “Wait for all this to blow over and just let the constable take care of the rest.”
Suzanna smiled. “That is a clever idea.”
A sharp, polite knock interrupted their conversation and Oliver went back to his desk.
“Your Grace,” Smithson addressed him. He turned to Lady Suzanna. “My Lady.”
She raised an eyebrow at them. “Business?”
“Yes, My Lady,” the steward replied. “His Grace has called for me regarding the blueprints of the new ships they are building.”
“In that case, do not mind my presence,” she said airily with a delicate wave of her hand. “I will just read for a few moments before I head for bed.”
Oliver smiled a little and nodded at Smithson, who took his place by his table. The large, wooden surface was littered with business reports, missives, as well as the blueprints in discussion. He frowned as he resolved to put the matters of the attacks behind him for now and focus on the tasks at hand.
Even with nefarious criminals at large, the world will not stop,he thought with a shake of his head.
He glanced up from the papers to find his sister’s green eyes on him, sparkling with laughter.
“I am glad to see you find some sort of amusement in my predicament,” he sighed helplessly, putting the papers aside.
“Not at all, brother dearest,” she demurred. “It is just that I have never before seen you so flustered. It is quite the novel picture.”
“It will take a while for the ships to come in,” he muttered, picking up another sheaf of papers. “I have the blueprints for a new design but it will take quite a sum to be able to replace the old ones.”
Suzanna wrinkled her nose delicately.
“But the old ships are needing more repairs after each voyage,” she pointed out. “The money could be put to better use buying new, stronger, and faster ships.”
“There is that,” he replied offhandedly.
“Perhaps,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “It is not the ships that are bothering you but something else.”
Oliver flushed a little, opening his mouth to shoot back a witty reply when it happened.
The loud sound of breaking glass tore through the otherwise peaceful scene, accompanied by Suzanna’s horrified scream as bits of broken glass rained on her.
“Suzanna!” he yelled, his heart caught in his throat at the sight of his older sister on the floor, surrounded by broken glass and bits of the window. A rock lay a short distance from her.
Somebody has thrown a bloody rock through the window!
* * *
Claire rushed in to the study and knelt before Lady Suzanna, who had already been helped into a chair by the maids, her brown eyes scanning her friend with great worry, but the duke’s sister merely laughed at her weakly.
