An Honorable Deception (The Imposters #3)

Chapter 4

FOUR

Y ates considered himself an expert on going unnoticed when the situation called for it, and he credited his success to the innumerable games of hide-and-seek he’d played as a child. But Lavinia had always been rubbish at the game. How was she managing it so well now?

He huffed his way out of the gymnasium—which of course she hadn’t been in—and poked his head into the kitchen on his way by. “Any reported Lavinia sightings?”

Clementina looked up from the bowl she was stirring, brows immediately drawn. “You still haven’t found her?”

He pursed his lips. “I think we had better face facts—fairies. They’ve stolen her away.”

Clementina laughed and kept on stirring. “Let me get this cake in the oven, and the smell of it will conjure her out of thin air, I don’t doubt it.”

She did have a sweet tooth, more so even than Gemma. “A sound plan, though I expect nothing less from so wise a woman.”

The retired actress sent him a warm, maternal smile. “When will you be back again, my lord?”

He leaned a shoulder into the doorframe. As the doctor had done his work, it took only a quick, whispered conference with Marigold and Merritt to decide that he had better go home again with them, at least for a week. The notes Lady Alethia had left in the confessional were far too sparse. He needed to pump a bit more information out of her if he meant to follow what few leads she had written down.

Because clearly she’d found the right ones for them to have followed her to the church and tried to kill her. Did the answer lie at the Ayahs’ Home? Or perhaps with the lady she’d noted having contacted her but then not showing up? Yates would have to get her full name—the notes only called her Victoria—and call on her to see. Or perhaps Lady Alethia knew more than she’d written down. And he needed to know it, too, if he meant to find her ayah and keep her from getting killed in the process.

With a bit of luck, she’d open up to him or to Marigold. He’d been sidestepping her parents for months already, so he didn’t really expect them to interfere when they realized he and Marigold had whisked her away.

It was blasted awkward, though, accepting introductions to pretty young ladies when he knew very well his estate was in no condition to be considered acceptable to any of their parents. Better by far was simply avoiding them all and sticking close to Marigold and Merritt’s side at social gatherings—when he wasn’t slinking away from them altogether to investigate the very aristocrats laughing and dancing and smoking within.

To Clementina, he gave a shrug. “A week? Perhaps two. I’ll let you and Neville know when I’ve made firm plans. I don’t want to miss the opening of his new play.”

Clementina chuckled. “Let’s hope it has a good long run, so even if you miss the opening, you’ll have plenty of time to see it.”

“To God’s ear.” He straightened and turned away. “On with the hunt for fairy-stolen ladies, I suppose.”

Despite the light words, real concern sparked inside his chest. Lavinia had spoken bravely, yes, and she’d pulled on that mask she always wore in society securely enough. But she ought to have known better than to try that with him. His sister was the queen of masks—which made him the king of seeing through them.

Where in blazes had she gone ?

He made his way back into the main part of the house, glancing once more into the library and then moving to the drawing room. The book she’d taken from the shelves still sat on the end table. He moved over to glance at the title and snorted. A prop, nothing more. Lavinia never read anything but fiction and poetry.

“Did you find her?” Marigold asked as she entered the room, a folded slip of paper in hand.

He shook his head. “If she hasn’t turned up by the time he arrives, we’ll set the Coldstream Guard on the task. I’m convinced he’s half bloodhound.”

Marigold grinned at mention of her husband, but it faded. “He’ll think he’s coming home from the office to hear how your meeting went. I don’t dare to imagine his reaction when he realizes there was a gunfight.”

“Hardly a gun fight . More an attempted assassination.”

His sister blinked. “Oh, that’s certain to make him feel better.”

He chuckled, though there was nothing humorous about the situation. “If he wants to take over the introductory meetings...”

Marigold breathed a laugh too. “He may have submitted to a false beard last December, but he is hardly Mr. A material.”

True. But lionfeathers, he might have to agree to let Merritt train him on some weapons as he’d been threatening to do, if their cases kept veering into the dangerous. Acrobatic skills helped them stay out of most such situations, but leotards were far from bulletproof. “I should have been wearing my costume. Then I could have come out, seen the villains.”

Marigold’s expression went fierce. “And taken a few bullets yourself?”

“I’m far too fast for that.” Did his smile look as weak as it felt? Probably. “And even so—it would be an added layer of protection in case a client manages to catch a glimpse of me.”

“Yates, it takes you an hour to powder your hair and apply the lines to your face. Usually you don’t even have that much warning that a meeting is to be set.”

“I could at least leave the clothes and hat at the church.”

“To be put into the poor bin when some parishioner happens upon them?” She shook her head. “No Imposter props stored out of our own houses. It’s a sound rule, and we’re not going to abandon it now after one near exposure.”

“Imposter— what ?”

Marigold jumped at the unexpected voice. Yates only jerked, spun in search of Lavinia. Where was she, hiding in a wall?

He was willing to grant the possibility. He’d popped out of a hidden corridor in the walls of her family home, after all, in order to save her father from her mother’s schemes last year. He was fairly certain that Fairfax House had nothing so interesting—Graham, architect extraordinaire that he was, would have discovered it long ago, but one never knew.

But no, it was only from behind the chair in the corner that her head emerged.

“Leopard stripes, Lavinia.” He scowled at the traitorous chair, whose skirted legs had hidden hers so well. “Have you been there all along? It’s been hours!”

She didn’t deign to answer that part. Her wide, accusing eyes moved from Yates to Marigold and back again. “No. That’s ... but then, it makes sense. You weren’t helping Sir Merritt in his investigation of my parents as new friends, were you? He’d ... no. He hired you?” Another shift of that accusing glance. “ You are the Imposters?”

“Lionfeathers.” Marigold planted her hands on her hips, which made her stomach look even more pronounced. “Lavinia—”

“Of course.” Lavinia slid around the chair and sat on it, her gaze distant. “Of course . Your father left you in dire straits—I realized that as soon as I saw the Tower last summer. And why does everyone say the Imposters are actors? Only because of the name, but—oh!” She sent that look to them again. “Wasn’t that what you wanted to call your circus? When we were children. How did I not make that connection ages ago?”

Yates sighed and drew a hand out of his pocket so he could pinch the bridge of his nose. “And now we have to kill you.”

She rolled her eyes at the joke. “I believe you mean that now you have to hire me.”

He stared at her. He was fairly certain Marigold must be giving her the exact same look, because Lavinia straightened her shoulders and raised her chin in the way she’d been doing since they were toddlers and she was determined to get her way. “You are weeks away from giving birth, Marigold.”

“Months, thank you.”

“Months are made of weeks. And you’re exhausted .” She waved a hand at Marigold. “Assuming you are a key part of this operation, your absence will be missed when you need to rest and care for your new baby. Who will do your work then?”

Yates sneaked a glance at his sister. Neither her posture nor her countenance granted the point. But it was a valid one. Ordinarily he’d have said that Gemma could pick up the slack, but she was no less indisposed. And the truth was that they needed a lady moving in ladies’ circles to do half their observations, even if that lady wasn’t trained in acrobatics. And often he needed someone there to assist him. Merritt had been coming along when he could, and Graham. But they both had careers that meant they couldn’t drop everything all the time. Lavinia, on the other hand ...

“It’s not a bad idea,” Yates conceded.

Marigold spun on him, utter incredulity on her face. “Have you gone daft?”

Hurt flashed over Lavinia’s face. “Don’t you think you can trust me?”

His sister’s face twisted into swift apology as she turned it back to Lavinia, hands coming up to make a soothing gesture. “It isn’t a matter of trust, Lavinia. You know well that you’re one of my very dearest friends. It’s only that you’ve been through enough difficult things in the last few years. You don’t need the added stress of our work.”

Lavinia looked far from convinced. “No. You really don’t trust me. Otherwise you would have told me about this before now. I’ve heard of the Imposters—this isn’t a new venture of yours, is it? How long have you had this firm?”

Marigold looked over at him.

He shrugged. She’d already learned that —what did the details matter? “Six years, give or take. We knew we had to do something more than stanch the bleeding from the coffers when Father died. We needed a way to refill them. I mean, if we intended to eat. And I am rather fond of food. Growing boy, you know.”

Another glance at his sister, but she didn’t seem inclined to take over the narrative. She was too busy throwing daggers at him with her eyes.

Well then. He’d finish the story himself. “So we talked through our options, and we decided that the rather unique skills we’d learned from the actors and acrobats and circuses and whatnot that Father had wasted our legacy on could be used to redeem it. We can get places others can’t. Remember conversations verbatim and repeat them. We’ve been trained to observe what others don’t see. So instead of a circus, we ran off to join—or create, anyway—a PI firm.”

Lavinia’s gaze skated to Marigold again. “Merritt knows?”

His sister sighed and gave up her defensive posture in favor of moving to a couch—evidence that Lavinia was quite right in her assessment of Marigold’s energy levels. “Yes. He hired us last year to aid in his investigation...” Of your father.

But there was no need to say that out loud. Lavinia already knew that Merritt’s investigation at the newly formed united intelligence agency had uncovered not her father’s guilt of treason, but her mother’s. Marigold cleared her throat. “He saw some of our outgoing mail and made the connection. He insisted on joining us as well.”

“And look what a fine addition he’s proven himself to be.” Yates spread his arms, palms up, and extended them toward Lavinia. “I’ve been telling you we need more help. The Caesars may be invaluable, but none of them are what you’d call young anymore, and they don’t blend into society.”

Hope brightened Lavinia’s eyes. Light he hadn’t seen in them in so long, he’d nearly forgotten what she looked like when she had it. She nodded eagerly, scooting forward on her cushion. “I can be a great help, Marigold. I swear it. I may not bring Merritt’s training to the table, but I am a quick study. I had the highest marks at school.”

Yates’s lips twitched. As it happened, his sister had broken into the files from Lavinia’s finishing school last year to see if she did indeed have a personal connection to the German headmistress, but when Yates had asked her about Lavinia’s marks, she’d insisted she hadn’t looked, as they were irrelevant.

He’d been drattedly curious, though. What had her best subject been? Deportment? Literature? Finding a Wealthy and/or Titled Husband? The catalogues didn’t actually list that last one, but they knew it was the most touted course those schools offered.

“I think you’ll make a grand addition to the team, Vinia.” He offered her a grin, not bothering to tamp down any mischief in it. “At least once you let me get you into prime physical condition.”

At that, her face went blank. “Beg pardon?”

The chuckle that rumbled in his throat might have edged a bit toward the maniacal, but by his estimation, that was only fair. She’d been sneering at his time spent at exercise since they were fourteen, insisting that families like theirs had no need of such sport, and that only those who had to resort to physical labor ought to worry about things like muscle mass. He’d wanted to be able to catch Marigold on the trapeze, though, so he’d bandaged his wounded feelings and kept to his barbell routine.

Barbells. He was going to make her lift barbells , and he was going to laugh through every drop of sweat she suffered.

But he wouldn’t scare her off with that quite yet. “The Imposters stay anonymous because of our ability to get into and out of tight spots,” he said. “Quickly. Stealthily. I don’t expect you to suddenly be a circus-worthy tightrope walker or trapeze artist like Marigold, but you do have to be able to walk the length of the street without gasping for breath.”

Marigold’s lips were twitching too. “He’s quite right, Lavinia. Even Gemma and Graham have submitted themselves to some of our training.”

Not much, granted. But that was because their roles were more the sort that required sitting at a desk with research books, a slide rule, and a typewriter. And they hadn’t spent five years languishing in bed on the constant brink of heart failure. If Lavinia meant to take Marigold’s place, she had to become more than “better.” She had to be truly well again.

Lavinia frowned. “Gemma and Graham are both part of the firm as well?” Accusation—no, hurt again—saturated her tone.

Marigold let out a breath. “You were ill when we launched this, Lavinia, when you’d come down with scarlet fever. And then with the damage it did to your heart...”

Her face went hard. “I’m not questioning why you didn’t recruit me, but you could have told me. You never breathed a word of your troubles, of your financial situation. You never told me you had to resort to work —you never hinted at any of it! Even last year, when I had you helping me discover what my mother was up to. Don’t you think you could have told me then? For that matter, shouldn’t you have invoiced me?”

Marigold winced.

Yates laughed. “Now that you mention it, that will be ninety pounds.”

“Highway robbery!” But her face had relaxed again. A bit. “Only fair, then, that I work off my debt.”

They both looked at Marigold now. Could Lavinia still read her face like he could? He saw the doubts there. The concerns. The worry. But she rubbed a hand over her stomach and acknowledged the necessity. He saw it the moment she capitulated.

Lavinia did too. She leapt to her feet, rushed to Marigold’s side and gave her a hearty embrace. “Thank you! I won’t disappoint you, I swear it. I’ll even submit to...” Grimacing, she looked his way. “Training.”

That chuckle filled his throat again. “Indeed you will.”

Marigold shot him a warning look. “ I will develop a routine for you, not him. You can exercise with me.”

Except that training Lavinia would rather defeat the purpose of going back to the Tower to rest , which his sister so obviously needed. He pasted a wounded expression on his face. “I can be trusted not to either kill her or turn her in a muscle-bound strongman. I am all discernment and care. Lavinia trusts me. Don’t you, Vin?” He loaded his every thought into his gaze.

She read it, nodded, and smiled. “Perfectly.” She reached for Marigold’s hand, but she kept her gaze on him. “Now. What’s the case? Is that the right term? Or do you call it a job? Or...?”

Marigold sighed. “Case, yes. And I’ve yet to get the full story, given the way the introductory meeting went, so Yates can brief us both.”

Lavinia’s eyes went wide again—lionfeathers, she needed to learn to control her expressions if she was going to be any good at this. “Lady Alethia? She is your new client?”

He nodded and sat in the chair at right angles to their shared sofa—the one Lady Alethia had lain on three hours before. Upon the doctor’s suggestion, they’d moved her to the kitchen table while he removed the bullets, and then Yates had carried her up to one of the spare bedrooms.

What an odd feeling it had been. It wasn’t as though he was never so close to a woman—but his sister didn’t really count. And Marigold had never been limp weight against him. It had been disconcerting, and a few other things besides that he didn’t rightly know the names for. Or didn’t care to try to name, at any rate. It didn’t seem quite gentlemanly to notice a woman’s lovely face and figure while she lay passed out and bleeding in one’s arms.

Focus, old boy. “She’s looking for her ayah, who had sent word that she’d reached London again last week. It seems that whenever the nurse comes with a family—she’s made the journey five times now—she and Lady Alethia reunite.”

Both of the girls frowned. “That’s odd, isn’t it?” Lavinia asked, glancing at Marigold as if for assurance that it was a reasonable observation.

Marigold nodded. “From the stories I’ve heard, yes.”

“The nanny is only eight years her senior—twenty-seven years old now.” He filled them in on the rest of the conversation they’d had in the confessional and then moved on to the small amount in the papers she’d had. “She didn’t note with whom she’d spoken at the various Ayahs’ Homes, only which locations she visited today. And she had the note the ayah sent—it’s signed only Samira . She hadn’t written a surname down anywhere. And another note from someone who must be an acquaintance, saying she had information on Samira that would interest Alethia, with an invitation to meet for lunch—but she didn’t show up. That note is only signed Victoria .”

He was going to have to get that missing information somehow. It may require donning his Mr. A costume and saying he’d traveled to the Tower to conduct an interview, should they be unable to convince her to trust them with it as themselves. But that would be fine. He could pull his Scottish burr out again and disguise his face behind the itchy mustache, rice powder, and age lines drawn on with cosmetics.

“Interesting. What did the notes say? Anything useful?” Marigold asked.

“Not at first glance.” He fished the one from the ayah out of his pocket and passed it over. The words had been straightforward.

Back in London again; I expect I’ll be here at least a fortnight, as my initial queries for a return trip aren’t promising and there are no steamers due from Calcutta in that time. Will you be able to get away for tea or a walk? Still praying for you every day, sweetling. Look for me at the Home on Mare Street as usual, whenever you can. Always your sister, Samira.

After they both read it, their heads together, Marigold handed it back. Yates handed her the next, from the mysterious Victoria. It was even shorter.

Sorry I haven’t kept my promise for a luncheon invitation; have you time today? I may have information on your old ayah that you’ll want to know. Eleven? Same place. Victoria

Marigold sighed. “I’m suddenly wishing we’d taken the time to get to know the Barremore family. Lavinia, do you know them? Or Lady Alethia, at least? Who among her friends is called Victoria?”

Lavinia shook her head. “I know only what I’ve read in the papers.”

“Gemma.” Yates stood, tucking the note back into his pocket as he did. “She’s surely gathered more information than what she’s put in her columns. I’ll ring her up. See if perhaps she and Graham want to join us for dinner tonight. We can introduce them to the newest Imposter while we’re at it.”

Lavinia beamed. And even Marigold smiled, leaning back into the cushion. “Well, this certainly simplifies things, at least. We won’t need to watch our conversations around you.”

That part was simpler now, yes. But they were yet again in a position that had proven complicated before, with Merritt—they would be both working a case for Lady Alethia as the Imposters, but also entertaining her as the Fairfaxes.

Although, unlike with Merritt, Lady Alethia was likely to be confined to her bed for weeks. He strode from the room, casting a glance up the stairs as he bypassed it for the study and its telephone. Keeping the lady ignorant of who her hosts really were might not prove the biggest challenge.

Keeping her alive, on the other hand, promised to require all their combined skill.