Her brows drew together for a moment, and then her face cleared. “Oh! No. It’s not that. Jasper is being rather dramatic—I think Mother will be quite delighted, all in all.”
He paused, somewhat taken aback.Delightedseemed an awfully rosy prediction even under the best of circumstances—and their reality could not, under any rational definition, be termed the best of circumstances.
“No,” she said again, “it’s not what he’s said about our mother.It’s only… did you mention the summer house in Glencoe to him?”
“The summer house in Glencoe?” He glanced down at the note again, relinquishing Lydia’s hand. He felt a prickling sensation along the back of his neck. “Never. It’s nigh on two decades since we owned the house there. I thought you must have said something to him about it.”
“I never mentioned it,” she said.
“Perhaps the de Younges brought it up. They were friends with our parents.”
“Perhaps,” she said, “but if so, why would Jasper be under the mistaken belief that you still owned the property?”
The words on the paper had gone sharper, the black ink crisper, the small splotch near the bottom of the paper resolving into tight focus beneath his gaze. “Davis,” he said. “You told me that Davis wrote to you about Glencoe.”
“Yes.” Her voice was very even as she waited for him to come to the same conclusions she had already drawn.
“Could your brother have been the one who searched your room? Could he have read the letters from Davis?”
Her mouth was tight as she too considered the page, and her eyes were dark when she looked up at him. “I think it possible. But I wonder…” She moistened her lips. “Do you recall when Jasper told the story of the turnip paste in the shape of a cod?”
“Aye.”
“Davis told me that story,” she said. “The exact same way. The exact same words. And Davis wrote to me of the summer house in Glencoe. I begin to suspect… I begin to suspect that Jasper has been reading my correspondence all along.”
His mind reeled at the thought.
She was right—of course she was right. Her careful, precise brain had picked up the clues that Davis and Jasper had left and made sense of the connections that Arthur had not even divined. But—
“Why would your brother do that?” he asked, searching her face. “How would he even have had access to your letters? Did you not say that you picked them up directly from the library?”
His mind spun out further questions that he did not give voice to. Had Jasper known of Davis’s nefarious intentions? If so, why wouldn’t he have warned Lydia?
How could Jasper have let it go this far? And why?
“I don’t know,” she said. Her small gloved hand came out, catching his fingers in a tight grip. Her gaze locked with his, and he could not have pulled himself away even if he’d wished it. “I want to go after him. I want to travel to London and see if he’s gone home as he said he would. And I want to ask him what the devil is going on.”
Every part of him instantly, instinctively rebelled against the idea. He understood why she would want it—she must have a thousand more questions for her brother than he did. But he did not want to let her go—did not want to be parted from her. Not now. Not yet.
She seemed to misunderstand the reason for his hesitation. “I know it may seem like an interruption in our search for Davis. But think—if Jasper has been following my correspondence with Davis, he must have a reason for doing so. He may know more than we do. He may speed us along in our search for Davis and the rifle scope.”
He had to clear his throat before he spoke, like a fool. “You mean… for me to go with you? To London?”
She blinked a few times. He could see the shadows cast by her rosy lashes on her cheeks. “Of course. That is, if you want to.”
“I do,” he said. Relief made his head light, made him tighten his grip on her hand. She did not want to part. There was still time. “I’ll pack. We’ll leave this afternoon. Together.”
It did not take long to discharge themselves from Kilbride House, though their departure so immediately after Mr. Joseph Eagermont sent Lady de Younge into a state of fluttering dismay.
“Fortunately she still has the Valiquettes and Thibodeaux to occupy her,” Arthur murmured to Lydia as Lady de Younge pressed a hamper of food into her arms.
“Fortunate indeed.” Lydia’s voice was a wry whisper, her gaze focused on the pinched face of Madame de Valiquette, whose dismal farewell had been quite French and portentous.
By the late morning, they were resettled into the creaking Strathrannoch coach, with Huw once again at the reins. Arthur hoped the carriage stood a better chance of surviving the trip to London than his arse, which absorbed every jostle and bump through the ancient flattened cushions.
He’d spent probably far too long on a letter to Bertie—the man knew perfectly well how to keep Strathrannoch Castle and its environs running in Arthur’s absence. But the trip to London and back would be at least three weeks, if not longer. Arthur had never left Strathrannoch for so long—had never, in fact, left Scotland. So he wrote pages of idiotic anxious notes, as though Strathrannoch were his own newborn babe, and vowed to write again when they reached Edinburgh in case the first note did not arrive.
In the carriage, Lydia busied herself with papers: Davis’s correspondence, the sheets they had taken from his room in Haddon Grange, and a compendium of notes she had recorded over the last week at Kilbride House. Her face was pink and her eyes were bright, and if Georgiana hadn’t been in the coach with them, Arthur would’ve gotten on his knees before her to beg for her hand.
