“I had some of them on my person when we were separated, yes. Georgiana has the rest in my trunk. They’re not terribly clear though.”
Selina made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “It doesn’t matter. Meet me at Belvoir’s this afternoon. I’ll get Georgiana. Bring the papers, and we’ll sort this out.”
Lydia trusted Selina’s cleverness enough to do exactly as she said.
And so, roughly six hours later, Arthur and Lydia were ushered by a Belvoir’s staff member into Selina’s top-floor office at the library.
Inside the office sat Selina, flanked by Georgiana and another one of their mutual friends, a dark-haired, curvaceous, perpetually abstracted antiquities scholar named Iris Duggleby.
“Er,” Lydia said, “good afternoon.”
“I know this may seem untoward,” Selina said, “but I would like to bring Iris into our confidence. The five of us together have a far better chance of uncovering Davis Baird’s intentions or whereabouts from his papers.” She turned her gaze to Arthur. “I assure you, Lord Strathrannoch, you can rely upon the sanctity of what is discussed in this room. Lydia, Georgiana, and Iris have trustedme with their secrets for years now. Their cooperation in this endeavor will provide—”
“No,” Arthur said flatly.
There was a brief, shocked silence.
“No,” he said again. “I will not have my family’s transgressions spread around more widely. I should like to avoid placing more innocent people in peril, for God’s sake. ’Tis bad enough that you’re involved already, Lydia.”
Georgiana, seated behind the desk, arched one delicate eyebrow. “I am also involved, for what it’s worth.”
Lydia twisted her fingers together in front of her. “Arthur, I think Selina is right. Finding Davis and Jasper must take precedence over the vague possibility that someone might be endangered.”
“Thevague possibility—have you forgotten your room was ransacked? By people we now believe to be French agents?” Arthur’s throat had gone pink.
“Her Grace is also involved,” Georgiana put in. “One might observe that the majority of the women in this room are in fact already involved.”
Lydia paid no mind to Georgiana’s remarks. She untangled her fingers, gathered her courage, and touched Arthur’s hand. “I know. I know you are concerned—”
“Christ, Lydia,concernedis not the word—”
“But the Thibodeaux could be hunting for Jasper as we speak, and he does not know it. We have to find him. And we have to find Davis. If Selina believes that this is our best hope of doing so, then I trust her judgment.”
Arthur stared down at her. His thumb brushed across the back of her hand. “I don’t like the idea of bringing more peoplealong to help right my family’s wrongs. I… very much misliked asking it of you.”
“For what it’s worth,” put in Iris, “no one has asked us to do anything beyond appear at the appointed hour. I begin to wonder what I am doing here.”
“Don’t worry,” Georgiana said. “Everyone else is invisible to Strathrannoch when Lydia is in the room. One becomes accustomed to it.”
Lydia felt a flutter in her belly at Georgiana’s words and chose to ignore it. Instead, she looked up and met Arthur’s gaze.
“Please,” she said. “I believe this is the right thing to do.”
Arthur passed his free hand along the back of his neck as he stared down at her, his eyes a thousand shades of worried gold and green. “All right,” he said finally. “So be it. You trust them. And I trust you, Lydia.”
She squeezed his fingers, and he squeezed back.
And for the next several minutes, as she explained the situation to Iris while Georgiana produced Davis’s letters and papers, neither of them let go.
“Well,” Selina said when the recital was finished and the notes brought forward, “when you said that the papers were unclear, I did not think you meant that Davis’s writing wasinvisible.”
“It’s not invisible,” Lydia protested. “It’s only… hard to read.” She held one of the papers up to the light and tipped it, angling it so that the shadows fell into the impressions left by Davis’s pen. “You can make it out, if you try.”
“Actually,” said Iris, “this is very exciting. I’ve been wanting to try out the Niebuhr-Savigny method of palimpsestic excavation! But I suppose on paper, not vellum, gallic acid may result in destruction, rather than excavation.” She brushed her thumb across her lips. “Perhaps a wash of iron gall ink.”
There was a small silence.
“Do you—” Arthur began.
