Finally, she said, “I’ve experience speaking with the workers in my father’s factory. One of our workers accosted a young woman, and my father thought she would open up to me, tell me the name of her attacker.”
Lord Rigsby leaned closer. “Did she?”
Henrietta nodded. “I can help you, Grayson.”
He rocked away from her with a sigh. “All right. Yes, I think you can help.”
His words shot through her like a bolt of joy. Satisfaction. Of a battle well-won, of course. “Tell me. What questions are you asking in your interviews?”
He pulled a piece of parchment from his pocket. Unfolding it, he read, “Were you here last year? Did you clean the guest rooms? Did you find a necklace? Do you know anyone who did?”
“Hm. To the point. Blunt. Typical of you.”
“A compliment, Miss Blake?”
She nodded. “The truth only.” Then, she tapped a finger on her shoulder slowly, one, two, three times. “There must be a better way. Two days into interviews and you’ve talked with how many of the staff?”
“Twenty-six.”
Henrietta whistled. “You’ll never finish in time, at such a rate.”
He chuckled. “In time for what?”
“The end of the party. Why don’t you ask Lady Stonefield which maids and servants would have been assigned to last year’s guest rooms? That will decrease your work.”
The heel of his left boot vibrated up and down. “No. I don’t want anyone to know it’s lost.”
“Stubborn man.”
He grinned. One ear lifted higher than the other and a slight dimple popped out on his right cheek. Those deep-brown eyes warmed her.
Hold steady, Henrietta instructed her knees, whose wobble would find her pooled on the floor if she wasn’t careful. Move brain, she comanded. But only when she tore her gaze away from Lord Rigsby’s smiling face did the gears move again. “I’ll speak with Ada,” she said. “She’s good friends with Lady Stonefield and can find out what we need to know without mentioning you at all.”
“Clever girl.”
“Yes, Ada is rather clever.”
“Not her, you.”
Henrietta cleared her throat. “Yes, well.” She glanced at the waiting maid. “Shall we?”
He gestured her forward with a graceful arch of his arm, and Henrietta marched toward the waiting maid, who twisted her skirts in her lap.
Grayson sat on a chair across from the maid, and Henrietta sat on the couch next to her, offering her a sincere smile, the same she gave the seamstresses in her shop each morning.
“I’m so sorry for keeping you waiting,” she said, “and for giving you a fright earlier …”
“Margaret, ma’am,” the maid supplied.
Henrietta’s smile deepened. “Margaret. A lovely name. Lord Rigsby asked me to help with his inquiries. But I did not know you were arriving so soon.” She opened her palms to the ceiling with a small shrug. “And I’m afraid you frightened me, which caused me to frighten you.” She laughed.
Margaret laughed, too, a nervous titter. Trying to set the girl at ease was not working; she only prolonged the girl’s curiosity and anxiety. “Do you know why the viscount has asked to speak with you?”
Grayson leaned forward. “Have they told you, downstairs, what I’m looking for?”
The maid glanced between the two, her eyes darting from one side of her face to the other.
They’d scared her. Henrietta suppressed a sigh. She did not admire timidity, but she understood why the maid would act so in such a situation. Henrietta placed a hand on Lord Rigsby’s forearm, asking without words for him to lean back and away from the girl. He must have understood, because he immediately made the adjustment.
