Arthur waited. He did not look at the woman’s bosom as she breathed, which was astonishingly difficult, given how she’d felt in his arms. He did not know whether to congratulate himself on his restraint or be alarmed that it was required.
“My name is Lydia Hope-Wallace,” she said finally, “and this is my friend Lady Georgiana Cleeve.” She looked down and gestured at the dog. “And this is Sir Francis Bacon.”
Arthur did not know what to do with that information. He elected to nod.
“My eldest brother, Theodore Hope-Wallace, is an MP in London,” Miss Hope-Wallace went on, “and our father was the third son of the Marquess of Vye.”
She appeared to be waiting for some acknowledgment of thename, but Arthur did not recognize it. His brother, Davis, had all the political ardor in the family—he would have recognized the names of Vye and Hope-Wallace and known straightaway who this woman was.
But thinking about Davis was like pressing his finger against the fine edge of a blade, and so he forced the thought back down.
“Right,” Miss Hope-Wallace said, taking another deep breath. “I am a writer. I write, um—” She looked up at him, then down at the letters her companion had gathered up. She seemed to set her teeth before going on. “I write political pamphlets under the pseudonym H, distributed by Belvoir’s Library in London. They are”—she licked her lips—“radical pamphlets. Hence the pseudonym.”
She looked up at him again, her cheeks going pale once more, but he only nodded at her to go on.
“Nearly three years ago, I received a letter from the Earl of Strathrannoch, inviting me to discuss the role of Scottish soldiers in the fight against Napoleon. We have corresponded regularly since. Our letters passed only through Belvoir’s—I never wrote to Strathrannoch directly, and he never wrote to me. You—” She tightened her hands around the bundle of letters and locked her gaze with Arthur’s. Her eyes were dark blue, a velvety midnight blue, and just now close to spilling over with tears. “Did you truly mean what you said? YouareLord Strathrannoch? And yet you did not write these letters?”
He had the sudden and insane desire to tell her that hehadwritten them, simply so she would stop looking so wounded, but he shook his head. “I’m Strathrannoch. And I’ve never written to a political pamphleteer in my life, I can promise you that.”
She looked down at the letters, her thick rosy lashes—orange, damn it—veiling her eyes. Arthur felt a discomfiting tension rise between his shoulder blades at the sight. She was going to cry,and then he was going to do what he always did when someone dissolved in front of him—act a complete nodcock.
But she didn’t cry. She lifted her lashes and those great dark-blue eyes were hard with outrage.
“Then who,” she said precisely, “has written these letters? Before you answer”—she appeared to notice his mouth opening in refutation—“keep in mind that this individual has been impersonating you, your lordship, for nigh on three years. It may be in your best interest to figure out who would do such a thing.”
Arthur ran a hand through his hair in exasperation before answering her. “I’ve no bloody idea. Probably someone pulled my name out of Debrett’s—Strathrannoch Castle is far away enough from London that you’d never know the difference.”
Miss Hope-Wallace shook her head. “That’s impossible. We spoke of Scotland often—the letters were certainly written by a Scot. And more than that, it’s someone who knew this place intimately. I could tell you the number of windows that need replacing on each floor of the castle.”
Arthur felt heat start in the tops of his ears. He knew well enough how many windows in the damned castle needed replacing, and where each was located, and he didn’t very well require a reminder from—
His thoughts ground suddenly to a halt. “Knew this place?” he repeated. “Knew Strathrannoch Castle?”
“Yes,” she said. “From the gate lodge to the stables to the tops of the ramparts.”
The tension between his shoulder blades redoubled, and he had to force his muscles to unlock so he could stride over to the chaise and pluck the topmost letter from Miss Hope-Wallace’s lap.
She let out an outraged squawk, but Arthur barely heard her.He sank down atop the desk in the corner of the room and stared at the letter.
At the handwriting he knew almost as well as he knew his own.
“Oh Christ,” he said quietly. “Ohfuck.”
There was a squeaking sound from the chaise, and Arthur was abruptly recalled to the present moment.
The friend, Lady Georgiana, seemed to have been the one who’d made the sound. He could not quite discern if her fingers pressed to her mouth were holding back horror or laughter.
Miss Hope-Wallace, on the other hand, was staring at him, her full lips pressed tightly together. “You know,” she said. “You know who authored the letters.”
His voice came out low and furious. “Aye. I know who wrote this.”
It should not have been a surprise. He’d had a lifetime of such surprises, a thousand cuts that were always just a bit too fresh to heal.
What was this new betrayal after the last one, the greatest one?
And yet—stupidly—he was still surprised. It still hurt.
“Who?” Miss Hope-Wallace demanded. Her cheeks were pink again, flushed and rosy, and her chin was set. “Who wrote them?”
