“Someone from Mr. Leake, madam.” Lawrence must have guessed her next furious question, for he put up his hands. “Mr. Leake is a man from London, an investigator of sorts. Mr. St. James hired him some time ago, and has been waiting for his report ever since. He told me I was to notify him immediately if anything came from Leake, no matter the time.”
“A man from London!” Bianca was staggered. “Has this man been working for Mr. St. James since we were in London?” she demanded.
Lawrence’s gaze veered away from her. “Aye, ma’am. Since well before, I think.”
That meant Max had hired him months ago—and to search for what? Even if he’d not had time to explain tonight, he might have mentioned it last night, or the night before, or any of the dozens of other times they’d talked since arriving home. Since consummating their marriage. Since Vauxhall. They had spent hours pleasing each other, whispering to each other, laughing together. They had discussed mundane things, important things, matters dear and sensitive.
But not this.
“He bade me not tell you anything,” Lawrence said in apology. “I understood it was a matter of very personal importance to him.”
And Bianca was left to wonder, in the deepening shadows of twilight, just what her husband had kept from her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“It’s not like St. James,” grumbled Papa. “I can’t believe he’s run off!”
“It’s unpardonable,” said Aunt Frances tartly. “Mark my words, he’s up to no good, see if he isn’t!”
Bianca picked at her plate and said nothing. She had no earthly idea whattosay.
It had been two whole days since Max bolted out of Marslip with nothing but the clothes on his back. She had sat up waiting until the clock striking midnight had startled her awake, and Jennie had come, in her nightdress and yawning, to urge her to go to bed. She assured Bianca that someone would wake her the moment he returned, and Bianca had slept, fitfully, in her own bed for the first time in several days.
The next morning she’d sent Lawrence into Stoke on Trent, intent on getting at least a word of explanation. She told the valet to ask four specific questions, and not to come home until he got answers. She paced Poplar House all morning, unable to concentrate on anything, until Lawrence returned to say that Max was not in Stoke at all.
“He left at dawn with the same bloke who brought the message,” Lawrence had reported. “Mr. Barkley at the Foxes said they asked for their horses to be made ready at first light, and a sack of provisions left waiting. He never saw them go. The stable boy says Mr. St. James gave him a shilling and told him to go back to sleep, but said naught of where they were going.”
Max had left no word, sent no note. And again he didn’t come home.
For the first time in years, Papa had come to Poplar House, when neither she nor Max went to the factory the second day. His concern that there was illness in the house dissolved into amazement and then outrage when Bianca confessed she had no idea where her husband was or why he’d left. Papa told her to come to Perusia Hall for dinner, and, listless, she had agreed.
She had regretted every moment of it, though.
“I don’t know about that,” argued Papa with an uneasy glance at Bianca. “But it’s very strange. Are you certain the valet has no idea?”
Bianca shook her head.
“A man’s valet always knows more than he lets on.” Frances took a bite of roasted goose, and then fed a piece of the same to Trevor, who sat panting beside her chair. “Bring the man in and we’ll demand some sense from him.”
“I am persuaded he does not know,” said Bianca quietly. Lawrence had grown sweet on Jennie; in the course of the last two days, as Max’s absence grew long and strained, he had pleaded not to be turned off, and become a font of information.
Afraid of being dismissed, Lawrence had sworn he had no idea where Max had gone or why, and offered up that Max had indeed led a wild and debauched life in London before proposing to marry a Perusia heiress. He told her all about his previous employer, a friend of Max’s who had lost twenty-eight thousand pounds in a single night at the Vauxhall gaming tables—in company with Max—and been forced to flee London. He confessed that the lease of their house in London had been held by Lord Cathcart, for his mistress, and that the house had required extensive cleaning to be habitable, after the scandalous parties held there—some of which Max had attended. He admitted that Max had sent him to Cheapside when Bianca was measuring the shop there, with a directive to watch out for a man Lawrence knew only as a person from Max’s past who posed a threat.
He admitted he had been told to keep watch for any letters from Reading, which were to be delivered immediately, and he said they had upset Max, though he claimed not to know why. And he confessed that Max had strictly instructed him never to let anyone, most especially Bianca, know about any of it.
That last had cut deeply. Bianca had known her husband had a scandalous past—the women in Vauxhall proved that—and she was not surprised that his friends were scandalous, too. While he might reasonably have kept quiet about it in the early, difficult days of their marriage, she had thought they were honest with each other now.
Yet Max had never said a word.
“He must know something!” Frances refused to let go of her belief that Lawrence was lying. She aimed her fork at Bianca. “You are too soft on your servants, my dear. Question him sternly!”
Bianca, who knew her great-aunt was not harsh at all to her own servants, gave her a jaundiced look. “I did. He knows nothing.”
“I still have confidence there will be a good explanation when St. James returns,” put in Papa. “He’s not been disloyal or untrustworthy before.”
Trust me. Max had asked her to trust him, time and time again. He had never betrayed her before, but she was struggling to continue trusting. Surely there must be a good reason for this; theremustbe. She sipped her wine in silence.
“I’ve had another letter from Cathy,” said Papa in forced good cheer, trying to change the subject. “She is coming home.”
