Page 49 of The Paid Companion

He nodded. “If someone were to contact Ibbitts, I could assume that he is the murderer and that he may be anxious or curious to know what is happening in Rain Street.”

“Presumably no one else would bother to talk to a dismissed butler,” she agreed. “But how will you arrange for Ibbitts to be watched night and day?”

“I have been considering that question. I could use street lads, although they are not always dependable. The alternative is a Runner. But many of them are no more reliable than the street boys. In addition, it is common knowledge that they can be easily bribed.”

She hesitated, recalling her one and only experience with a Runner. “If you elect to go to Bow Street, there is one man there you might find trustworthy. His name is Hitchins.”

Before Arthur could question her about Hitchins, a man mounted on a handsome, prancing bay came alongside the carriage. Elenora glanced at him, absently noting the excellence of the horse and the polish on the rider’s gleaming boots.

She started to look away, and then the shock of recognition slammed through her.

Impossible, she thought. It couldn’t be him. With a gathering sense of dread, she raised her gaze to the gentleman’s handsome features.

She found him staring at her, equally stunned.

“Elenora,”Jeremy Clyde said. His eyes lit up with the smoldering warmth that had once made her pulse race. “Itisyou. I thought I must have been mistaken when I noticed a familiar-looking lady in this carriage. What a pleasure to see you again, my dear.”

“Good day, Mr. Clyde. I understand that you were wed several months ago.” She gave her most wintry smile. “Please accept my congratulations. Is your wife here in town with you?”

Jeremy seemed slightly disconcerted by the direction of her conversation. She got the impression that he had forgotten that he had a wife. She thanked the fates that she had not married this man. If she had, she would no doubt have found herself in the position of being the inconvenient spouse whom Jeremy had trouble recalling to mind.

“Yes, of course, she is here,” Jeremy said, evidently recovering his memory. “We have taken a house for the Season. Elenora, I had no notion that you were in town. How long will you be staying?”

Arthur glanced briefly at him and then looked at Elenora. “An acquaintance of yours, my dear?”

“I beg your pardon.” Flustered at having forgotten her manners, she pulled herself together and quickly made the introductions.

Jeremy inclined his head politely in acknowledgment, but Elenora noticed the flash of astonishment in his eyes when he realized whom he was meeting. He had not recognized Arthur by sight, which was hardly surprising, Elenora thought, since the two men had never moved in the same circles. But Jeremy certainly recognized the name and the title.

Amusement bubbled through her, suppressing her initial dismay. The sight of his discarded fiancée sitting intimately close to one of the most mysterious and most powerful men of the ton had clearly flummoxed Jeremy.

But even as she watched his face, she could see his confusion and surprise transforming into cunning speculation. Jeremy was already trying to think of a way in which he could turn her connection to Arthur to some advantage.

Why had she not noticed this side of him while he had been wooing her? Now that the scales had fallen from her eyes, she could only wonder what it was that had once attracted her to him.

“How do you come to be acquainted with my fiancée, Clyde?” Arthur asked in the dangerously casual manner that Elenora was learning to recognize.

Jeremy’s face went as blank as a sheet of foolscap.

“Fiancée?” he repeated. He sounded as though the word had caused him to choke. “You areengagedto Elenora, sir? But that’s impossible. I don’t understand. It cannot be—”

“You did not answer my question,” Arthur cut in, wheeling the grays around another vehicle. “How do you come to be acquainted with my fiancée?”

“We are, uh, old friends.” Jeremy was obliged to urge his mount to a swifter pace in order to keep up with the carriage.

“I see.” Arthur nodded, as if that explained everything. “You must be the fortune hunter, the one who ended his engagement to Elenora when he discovered that she had lost her inheritance. Ran off with a young heiress instead, I understand. Now that was a piece of very shrewd business on your part.”

Jeremy stiffened. His anger must have transmitted itself directly through the reins, because his high-strung mount reacted with a nervous toss of the head and began to dance anxiously about on the path.

“Obviously Elenora has given you a very distorted version of events,” Jeremy said, yanking fiercely on the reins. “I assure you our relationship did not end because of the disastrous state of her finances.” He paused meaningfully. “Unfortunately, there were other reasons involving Miss Lodge’s privateaffairsthat obliged me to end our connection.”

The dark hints that she had compromised herself with another man left Elenora so furious she could hardly breathe.

“What other reasons?” Arthur asked, for all the world as though he had entirely missed the subtle implications of Jeremy’s words.

“I suggest you ask Miss Lodge.” Jeremy struggled with the reins of his sidestepping, head-tossing mount. “After all, a gentleman does not discuss a lady’sintimateaffairs, does he?”

“Not if he wishes to avoid a dawn appointment,” Arthur agreed.

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