“I’m the one in bloody distress,” Blake muttered, sending the man a look that told him the exact source of his distress. “Get on with this last piece of news.”
“Lady Rosilee Fairchild.”
Blake froze, as he always did when that name entered his ears. “Did I not instruct you to end this attention on her?”
“That was two years ago,” Bishop pointed out. “Yet you have listened to all my reports since then, so I thought you didn’t mean it.”
Blake sighed. He could never win against this man’s tongue. “What about her?” He’d been keeping track of her ever since he discovered she was the little girl who had helped him that fateful night eighteen ago. Bishop, however, had discovered this and taken “keeping track” to another level. The man found perverse pleasure in ruffling his feathers.
“She is on her way to London.”
“London?” That brought Blake up short. She and her brother lived in their only family estate in Wiltshire, and she hadn’t been to London in all the years of his observation. “Why?”
“Viscount Fairchild seems to have fallen into a bit of trouble.”
“How?”
“Baston,” Bishop announced.
Blake cursed. “Didn’t you hire Baston to go to Wiltshire and offer secret protection when there were bandits in the area? What the devil did he do?”
“True, yes, but it seemed Baston remained after dealing with them and recently lured the viscount into a bet, which the viscount lost, and he must now hand over his estate. According to my source, Baston offered to wed Lady Rosilee in exchange for allowing them to keep their home. She refused and left for London, presumably in search of a husband.”
“What sort of nonsense is this?” A scene from an Ann Radcliffe novel?
Bishop shrugged. “I believe the viscount was taken advantage of when he was in his cups. Since she refused Baston’s offer, she must be looking for options elsewhere.”
Blake rubbed his temples, an odd throb keeping time with the beat of his heart. At least Lady Rosilee was not wedding Baston, that damn lecher. She was beautiful. An angel. Shewould have no trouble securing a husband who could offer her aid.
“Do you not have anything to say?”
Blake shot Bishop a rotten look. “What would you have me do?”
“Chase after her? Offer heryourhand.” The man’s voice turned flat. “Rescue her from a dastardly situation like she did for you all those years ago.”
Blake scraped a hand down his face. Indeed, he’d begun keeping track of her in the hope that he could one day repay the debt he owed her, but this... He was not a man any woman should wed. He was no good. He could help her with anything else, but not marriage. “If I’d known you’d be such a meddlesome creature—”
“I know, I know, you’d have left me in that ditch. Haven’t you been pining away for her for years and years? This is your chance.”
“I havenotbeen pining.”
“Nevertheless, Lady Rosilee is indeed on her way to London to search for a husband, but not in the way you might be imagining.”
“Is there more than one way?” he drawled, utterly unimpressed.
“Mrs. Bessie Dove-Lyon.”
Blake’s entire body froze, his hands balling into fists as the name hung in the air between them. He had heard of the veiled widow, of course—who hadn’t? The woman was a legend, feared and revered in equal measure, known for making matches of desperation. “I must have heard you wrong.”
“You did not.”
Blake surged to his feet. Sothiswas the part that would annoy him to death. Not only annoy, but certainly drive him to a killing mood. He knew precisely what sort of men frequentedthat place. “Is she damn well crazy?” Damnation. This was not good.
“I’m not sure about that part.”
“Who the hell is your source?”
“I can’t reveal that either.”