“I’ll be back within the hour, if you’d like to wait inside the house with my family,” he offered.
She glanced over her shoulder. “I suppose I shouldn’t waste an opportunity to study the character of each of your siblings.”
“Planning a future play?”
She’d already admitted to having penned several anti-Wynchester scripts. He hoped her opinion of them was starting to mellow. Even if it hadn’t, his siblings would still thrill at the notoriety, the rogues.
Miss Henry widened her eyes with exaggerated innocence. “I can only go where my muse leads me.”
He snorted. “You don’t believe in muses.”
“And you have a fox to release. Don’t worry about me. Your family and I cannot get intothatmuch trouble while you’re gone.”
Had a more ominous phrase ever been spoken?
Jacob did his best to hurry. He was back in less than forty minutes and wasted no time dropping off the empty basket and hunting down his family members and client.
He found Miss Henry in the siblings’ sitting room, discussing tenement mismanagement with Philippa in between exchanging insightful commentary with Graham as he read lines aloud from the daily newspapers.
“What did you burn down while I was gone?” Jacob asked suspiciously.
“The patriarchy,” Philippa answered without looking up from her book.
That sounded like a normal afternoon, but Miss Henry looked unusually…bubbly.
“Did yououtlawmen in my brief absence?” he asked.
“No, but we found one,” she replied with a joyous smile. “Or are soon to, anyway. Graham has a lead on—oh, my apologies, I shouldn’t use your Christian names without permission.”
Jacob waved a hand. “By all means, Miss Henry. No one’s ever accused this family of standing on propriety. I beg you to call me Jacob.”
“I… Vivian.” Their gazes locked for a brief moment. She looked flustered, then continued, “Your brother believes he’ll have located and interviewed Newt by this time tomorrow.”
“Then so it shall be. Graham’s network is remarkably industrious.”
She pressed her clasped hands to her chest as if praying. “Hopefully that means Quentin will be home tomorrow, too. Thank God. I can’t decide whether to box his ears, or give him an earful, or both.”
“Possibly why he hasn’t returned home,” Jacob said with a small smile.
She sighed. “I know it’s normal for lads his age to push at boundaries and spread their wings. I’m just not certain Quentin was ready to be released into the wild quite yet.”
“If it helps,” Philippa began. “On average, most adolescents—”
Before she could give whatever insight she’d been about to impart, Mr. Randall strode into the sitting room with a bemused expression. There was no calling card in his hand.
“Pardon the interruption. A ‘Mr. Smith’ urgently requests an audience.” The butler lowered his voice. “Whoever he is, he’s patently not Mr. Smith. He’s a man disguised as… something. His ruse couldn’t be more obvious if he were wearing elephant ears.”
“Quentin!” Vivian exclaimed in delight. Her shoulders relaxed in obvious relief. “Of course he would come here rather than go home first, the scamp. Is our caller tall and lean, with light brown skin and short black hair styled in raffish twists? Possibly covered in chalk?”
The butler blinked at her. “No.”
She visibly deflated, her shoulders sinking and her spine wilting.
“Does your cousin often wear… chalk?” Jacob enquired.
“Didn’t his club provide a full list of their games?” she replied with a roll of her eyes. “Please, show in your guest.”
Jacob inclined his head to Mr. Randall, who returned to the sitting room in short order, this time accompanied by a stocky white man wearing a footman’s white wig pulled low over his eyes, and threadbare coattails at least three sizes too small.
