“I—I don’t know what this means,” Margaret lied, hands trembling around the broadsheet. There was no hope of reading the article as tears filled her eyes. “The duke and me? But nothing happened between us ever. I barely know the man!”
By that point, Baron Faversham was staring at her furiously. Margaret was mortified, trying vainly to blink away her tears so she could read the article.
“Whatever they have written cannot be true,” she protested, getting up so quickly she rocked the tableware, spilling the contents of her teacup over the table. “Whoever wrote this is justtrying to cause trouble. I don’t know the Duke of Langley. I don’t know him at all!”
“That is not what these sheets suggest,” the baron argued, wrinkling his nose. “An assignation between you and the Duke of Langley? When did this transpire?”
A sob ripped from Margaret's throat, exposing her guilt. But was she guilty? The duke had barely laid a hand on her. And even though she had wished, in that moment, that he had kissed her and more, nothing improper had ever happened. No crime had been committed – nothing worth writing about. An assignation? It was all lies.
Katherine slammed her hand down on the table as Margaret began to cry. “Enough! I won’t stand for such theatrics. What did you do, Margaret? What did you do with the duke?”
Before Katherine could continue her accusation, Mr. Rathbone reappeared at the door. Katherine looked ready to tear the head from his shoulders, but composed herself long enough to allow the man to speak.
“What now?” she shouted.
The butler turned from Katherine and addressed Margaret instead. She wiped her eyes, staring hopelessly toward him.
“My apologies, My Lady. There is a visitor for Miss Pembroke.”
“At this hour?” cried Baron Faversham, having finally found his voice. “Who the devil is it?”
Margaret clutched a hand over her chest.
“He has presented himself as the Duke of Langley, My Lord,” Mr. Rathbone replied. “And he says he has most pressing matters to discuss with Miss Pembroke.”
CHAPTER 8
THREE HOURS EARLIER...
Ripley’s office was an unassuming flat in Blackfriars, a twenty-minute drive from Alexander’s London townhouse. He had dismissed the hackney cab driver half a mile away, not wanting to leave a direct trail between him and Ripley. Alexander paused outside the building, looking up at the two-tiered stone house, remnants of its medieval past decorating its facade. The smell from the nearby wharfs and the sounds of the dockworkers carried on the air toward him, hastening his knocking as he made himself known to the investigator that morning, well before normal calling hours.
Once inside, Ripley welcomed Alexander into his flat. It was an adequate abode for a man of Ripley’s station, large enough for a man or maybe two to live. A green-grey wallpaper curled at the edges, damp to the touch from the nearby waterways. Alexander withdrew his hand, looking out of the small foggy window in the main room. He turned when Ripley drew out a chair for him, begging him to sit.
“You have asked too much of me, coming here,” Alexander began, extracting Ripley’s last note from his pocket. He walked over to the chair but didn’t sit. “Our communications have been distant but effective so far. Why was it necessary for you to deliver the full extent of this newest information to me in person?”
“I would not have risked you unduly, Your Grace,” Ripley replied, taking a bottle of amber liquid from the nearby press. He tilted it toward Alexander, who refused, then poured himself a drink.
Alexander folded his arms across his chest, waiting for him to imbibe his drink. Ripley was a man in his forties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a thick, curled mustache. An ordinary fellow on the surface, he had a lean but well-maintained body and a sharp eye. His apartment bore the evidence of his profession: stacks of parchment decorated his desk and littered the cupboard behind him. Alexander wondered how many secrets Ripley possessed – how many aristocrats could be ruined if his apartment were raided.
Ripley wiped his mouth and set down his tumbler, calling Alexander’s attention to him. “Things being as they are, I could not risk delivering such sensitive information on paper. But you read what it said?”
“Evidently, or I would not be here.” Alexander looked at the note in his hand, then cast it into the fire burning in the hearth beside them, where it curled and crackled until it disappeared. “Youwho said there is hope. That my sister not only existed, but that she yet lives.”
The words formed oddly in his mouth. It had felt like too much to hope for in the beginning – not only to be in possession of a sister, but to find her still alive. The truth about the painting had revealed itself over time. The woman featured within had been Celeste, and the child she had borne in her arms had been Alexander’s sibling, born years before him to his father and his father’s mistress. It was still unclear what had become of the child after her birth. Alexander had no memories of her, indicating that she must have been raised somewhere else. But Ripley had been following the trail of her ever since, following word of mouth until a halfway sensible story manifested itself with proof.
The affair was delicate. Another man might have ignored the existence of his sibling altogether. Bringing her into the fold would only attach further scandal to the Somerton name. But Alexander understood enough about scandals to know that they all passed with time. Family was an eternal and sacred thing. Locating his sister, elevating her to her rightful station, would never be something he would regret, no matter what Carlisle or anyone else believed once the truth was revealed. A piece of his mother yet remained on this earth outside of him. He would pay any price to see it preserved and restored, to give this long-lost sister the same chance and privileges that he had received decades earlier.
“Last you wrote to me, you believed she was in France,” Alexander continued. “Does she remain there?”
Ripley pursed his lips, thinking. He walked over to his desk and sat down. “I was mistaken. She is not in France – only stayed there a few years as a child. It seems she was born in England, then your mother sent her to live with a relation abroad. The reasons for this...” He shrugged. “I could not say.” He rifled through a stack of papers before extending a document to Alexander. “She was removed from a backwater near Caen at the age of ten. According to my research, she was taken to London, where she still lives to this day.”
“What?” Alexander stared down at the document. It was a transcript of a birth announcement, taken from a parish register in Southern Wiltshire. He read her name aloud. “Born in Lover, Isadore Bell...”
This must be from the little chapel where I thought my mother had been buried. That was where Isadore had been christened. The evidence had been there all along, just within my reach, and I never even knew it. But the facts are wrong. She is not Isadore Bell. She is Isadore Somerton.
Alexander scowled and raised his head. “Why Bell?”
“Who can say, Your Grace, but the mother and father who named her? Neither of them still lives.” Ripley leaned over and pointed at a line of the transcript. “But the mother’s name... You see the initials, C. R.? Her full name may have been concealed for her protection, but the dates coincide. The mother was Celeste Rousseau. This can reference no other child but your sister.”
