Page 55 of Miss Desirable
But Fournier was something of a puzzle, and Kettering was helpless not to solve a puzzle. “A wealthy émigré who will take up for a disgraced British colonel is his own man. I generally like that quality in a fellow, though Fournier’s situation does pique the curiosity.”
“Goddard is half French,” Casriel said, “and entirely smitten with Sycamore’s cook.”
“Jacaranda says Catherine is smitten with Fournier.”
“My countess concurs. She further relates that Miss Fairchild’s whereabouts at the time when she ought to have been making a come out are something of a mystery.”
The day was beautiful, if one could ignore the pall of smoke hanging over the metropolis across the river.
“Mysteries want solving,” Kettering said. “We need to get to the bottom of it before some jealous tabby does.”
“I am not concerned with jealous tabbies,” Casriel replied. “The Dornings have the standing, connections, and sheer numbers to face down all but the worst scandals.”
Kettering, who prided himself on his quick thinking, took a moment to unravel the earl’s reasoning.
“You are concerned that Catherine will be blackmailed. Everybody already knows she’s a Dorning, so what other secrets could be used to prey on her?”
“Precisely. Everybody will soon know the Dornings are through ignoring our sibling, but what of that extended period when Miss Fairchild and her mother were apparently in neither Rome nor London? Where were they, and who knows why they went there?”
Kettering managed assets, but Casriel managed a family. Different spheres, and yet not that different sometimes.
“It might be nothing. Diplomatic couples often endure separations.”
Casriel, the picture of lordly elegance in his Bond Street riding attire, said nothing.
“It might be a disaster-in-waiting,” Kettering muttered. “Jacaranda will make her inquiries. What else can we do?”
“Oak will raise the topic with his portraiture clients. Sycamore is keeping an ear out at the Coventry. Ash has the fencing and boxing salons covered. I’m more in evidence at my clubs and of course among the parliamentary committees. Willow has put the Haddonfields on alert, and when Their Graces of Quimbey return to Town, Lady Casriel and I will pay the requisite call.”
A formidable army. “What does that leave for me to do?”
“Who do you know in the Foreign Office?”
“An undersecretary or two, a few attachés from among the younger sons. Why?”
“Lord Fairchild was in Rome in no particular official capacity that I can ascertain,” Casriel said. “That in itself is odd, given that Bonaparte was in control of much of Italy at the time. See what you can find out, and, Kettering?”
“Of course I will be discreet. Don’t insult me when we’re getting too old for fisticuffs, Casriel.”
“A Dorning is never too old for fisticuffs, pistols, or swords. I know I can trust your discretion, but given that Fournier and Catherine were brushing hands over the teapot at breakfast as shamelessly as you and my sister ever have—”
“Meaning as shamelessly as you and Lady Casriel still do.”
“—I fear time is of the essence,” Casriel concluded in one of his signature lordly understatements.
“So why are we plodding along at a drunkard’s trot?”
Casriel tugged down his hat brim. “To the bridge, then. On three.”
Unlike most Dornings of his acquaintance, Kettering waited the entire count before cuing Goliath into a glorious, heart-pounding gallop. The earl still beat them to the bridge by a nose—age and guile and all that—but only by a nose.
* * *
Fournier had told no one in London about Mignon. Jacques probably knew, as did a few other émigrés with connections to Bordeaux, but they had done Fournier the courtesy of leaving him to mourn privately.
Why tell Catherine Fairchild of the child? He mused on that question as the coach rolled ever closer to London, and the urban pall robbed the sky of its pristine sparkle. Catherine was a warm weight against his side, but she was not sleeping.
Already, he knew how she breathed in slumber and how she breathed when lost in thought.
