Page 59 of Miss Determined
Miss DeWitt,
Please forgive the presumption of correspondence addressed to you personally. The press of business requires my presence urgently in London. My thanks to your family for their generous hospitality, and I pray our paths will soon cross in Town.
I remain your obed serv,
T.
Well, there was another lie—he’d never been her obedient servant—but their paths would cross in Town. Lissa would make sure of it.
“Not the done thing, to spy on one’s solicitors,” Worth Kettering said, showing Trevor into a room that blended the qualities of an office with those of a genteel parlor. The round Louis Quinze table by the window would serve equally well for a spot of tea or some reading. The elegant desk was discreetly tucked in a corner, and the carpet, curtains, and pillows were coordinated around a cheery theme of irises and restful green foliage.
The purpose of the room, Trevor realized, was to send a message of social welcome that relegated any financial discussion to the status of afterthought and detail. Only clients from the upper reaches of Society would crave that fiction. The rest of the world—the good folk of Crosspatch Corners, for example—dealt pragmatically with commercial realities.
“Not the done thing to spy, period,” Trevor replied as Kettering closed a solid oak door. No eavesdropping through those intricately carved planks, and the mechanism was a latch-and-lock. No listening at keyholes either. “But how does one catch a thief without bending a few rules of etiquette?”
“Valid question. I’ll ring for a tray, shall I?” Kettering’s tone implied that he would enjoy a spot of tea and a biscuit, and if Trevor wouldn’t mind obliging him…?
The trick of a gracious host or a shrewd solicitor.
“Tea would be appreciated.” Trevor had been in Town for more than a week and was still having trouble sleeping. Too damned noisy, and the wrong sorts of noise, the wrong sights, the wrong stinks, the wrong everything.
Kettering tugged a bell-pull twice. He was an impressive figure, tall, lithe, and exquisitely kitted out. Touches of silver at his temples only added to an air of formidable self-possession. He’d married the oldest Dorning daughter—Lady Jacaranda—and was legendarily besotted with her.
“Your wife was at one time your housekeeper, was she not?” Trevor asked as Kettering pushed back curtains to let in what passed for afternoon sun in the metropolis. Dingy, desultory illumination compared to what graced the countryside.
“She was,” Kettering said, “though we rarely refer to the particulars of our courtship outside of family. You qualify—Dorning-by-association.”
“Honored, of course. Why was an earl’s daughter in service?” Why had her ladyship lied about her antecedents, as Trevor had lied about his to the whole village of Crosspatch, save for one exceptional lady?
“Jacaranda was on a sort of holiday from her family. The Dorning brothers have mellowed with time. They aren’t all in Sycamore’s league when it comes to being a pest, but they can be—I know this will surprise you—a lot of overbearing louts.”
Then Lady Jacaranda was well prepared for marriage to an overbearing lout?A real Dorning would have posed that question aloud. “You rescued her from them?”
“More the other way around. She rescued me from my own loutishness, though I’m still a work in progress.” A work in progress who sported a fatuous smile at the mention of his courting days.
The tray arrived, and Kettering poured out. He’d chosen to fulfill his office as host at the table by the window, and Trevor was honestly grateful for the tray of sandwiches and cakes accompanying the service.
“What have you learned of Jerome Vincent’s affairs?” Kettering asked, helping himself to a raspberry cake.
Trevor took two sandwiches. They were minuscule, and Kettering wasn’t having any. “Jerome had apparently grown up after all, in his fashion. He had established a thriving venture that imported and exported bawdy prints across the Channel. The French appreciate our particular brand of political satire, while we English have an eye for the Continent’s more ribald art. Jerome wasn’t wealthy, but he was well on the way to comfortable.”
And that news had been beyond gratifying.
“What will you do with the business?”
“I’ve sent an inquiry to the countess. She could take over the business in partnership with Jerome’s Paris factor. Too soon for a reply yet, but she intended to marry Jerome, and despite dwelling in a castle, she might enjoy the connection to him.”
“Or the income,” Kettering said, dipping his cake into his tea. “Widows are all too often in want of income. Now, about Purvis.”
Trevor swirled his tea, prepared to hear bad news. “Say on.”
“He’s a snake—you are entirely correct about that—but he’s a shrewd snake. I sent a fellow to your larger manor in Kent—Solvang. Odd name, but the place prospers. Excellent land, and the tenant knows how to care for it. His subtenants adore him, and his missus is the neighborhood’s granny-at-large. I gather they intended to live out their years in gracious contentment on your property.”
“But then they got word that the rent was being raised,” Trevor said, “and Lord Tavistock, believing that the rent is quite modest and has been for years, would support that notion if they were so bold as to query him on it. The place is doing well after all. The name means ‘sunny field’ in Danish, and the land is lovely.”
Kettering helped himself to a second raspberry biscuit. “According to my man, who could charm the keys of heaven from Saint Peter’s grasp, the rent on Solvang is nine hundred pounds per annum and has been raised three times in the past twelve years.”
Of course it has.“Your man’s report varies significantly from what Purvis is telling me. The rent is four hundred pounds per annum and hasn’t been raised for the past fifteen years. A sad overindulgence on my part, not to demand the coin I’m due as the owner.”
