An Honorable Deception (The Imposters #3)

Chapter 7

SEVEN

Y ates pulled out the envelope he’d sealed that morning with the black wax and the I stamp, offering it to Lady Alethia in case she cared to examine it. Given the pain lurking in her eyes, though, he wasn’t surprised when she smiled and shook her head.

“If you’re willing to read the questions and transcribe my answers, my lord...” She’d leaned back against the cushions during her brief recounting of her missing friend, in which she’d added no more details than she had in the confessional, though no less either. To his mind, that meant she trusted them as much as she did the Imposters ... but that she didn’t know much about what information an investigator actually needed to solve a case.

That was all right. Careful not to glance overlong at either his sister or Lavinia, Yates opened the envelope, pulled out the paper, and unscrewed the cap from the fountain pen he’d brought in with him as well. The side table would have to serve as a desk.

“All right, let’s see.” He made a show of reading the first question he’d scrawled onto the page in his messy Mr. A handwriting. “Our friend asks that you first go through your visit to the Ayahs’ Home in detail, beginning from when you left your home. Did your parents know where you were going? Did anyone accompany you?”

He darted a glance up in time to see the shadows flicker in her eyes. “No, I ... I waited to go until my parents had both left London for a weeklong house party. Neither of them approve of my fondness for Samira.”

He wrote down the bit about deliberately waiting for them to be gone. “No one went with you, then? A lady’s maid? Chaperone?”

She hesitated a moment, glancing at Marigold as if awaiting a scolding. He nearly grinned at that. Their guest was in for a surprise if she expected traditional reactions to expected social practices from his sister.

Marigold offered an encouraging smile. It seemed to bolster Lady Alethia, who admitted, “No. I was alone—but it was a trip I’d made several times before. I took the tube first to the tearoom where I was supposed to meet an acquaintance of mine, but when she failed to show up, I proceeded to Hackney. I had no incidents.”

A lady alone on the tube. He was no overprotective bear, but he had to keep himself from frowning. In a perfect world, that would be perfectly safe. But he was keenly aware of how imperfect their world truly was. Pointing that out was a good way to make her clam up, so instead he said, “This acquaintance . . . Mr. A mentioned that you provided the note she’d sent to you, indicating she had information on Samira?”

The lady nodded. “Victoria Rheams. Her husband is on the board of directors, and she is part of the Ladies Auxiliary, so it made sense to me that she would know something. She’s forever forgetting appointments, though. When she missed our lunch—the third time she’s done that since we met a year ago—I simply continued to the Ayahs’ Home, thinking she may meet me there.”

“And you arrived about what time?”

“Ah.” Her brows creased in a new frown, one born of thought instead of pain. “It was ... around one in the afternoon, I suppose. Give or take a few minutes. Our meeting was to be at noon.”

“Did you note anyone during your walk from the tube station? Or as you approached the house?”

She blinked at him in a way that made him want to smile. “There was no shortage of people, but...”

He tried a soft, encouraging smile of his own. “According to Mr. A, you seemed to recognize the men who attacked you in the church. You shouted ‘You!’ as if you knew exactly who they were. I imagine that’s why he’s wondering if you’d seen someone you recognized at the Ayahs’ Home.”

He could all but see her thoughts ticking backward through her memories, searching them for familiar faces. “No one on the walk, but once I arrived I ... I saw an older woman, an ayah, whom I’d met before—a year or two ago. I paused to greet her. We’d had a conversation that last time, when she’d been humming a lullaby I knew. I asked if she was back again or if she hadn’t yet found a way home to Calcutta. She laughed and said this was the second time she’d been back.”

Yates scribbled that down, careful to keep his hand distinct from the one he’d used earlier for the questions. Just in case she looked at the page at any point. “Do you have this woman’s name?”

“Lakshmi,” she said easily. A few of the shadows left her eyes in favor of a light of hope. “She knows Samira. They’ve been there at the same time. I mentioned I was there to visit her, but she said she hadn’t seen her. She’d only arrived the day before, though, and Samira’s note had come the day before that, so I thought perhaps they simply hadn’t crossed paths. It didn’t alarm me at the time.”

But it gave them a solid window—Samira had vanished from the Ayahs’ Home sometime between August twelfth and thirteenth. A single day. That ought to make it easier to track her movements. “Good. Did you see anyone else you recognized?”

She let out a breath. “Everyone, really. I’m there whenever Samira is in London, and I’ve volunteered a few times as well. I saw a few other familiar ayahs, and the ladies who work there. Several board members were there too—they were leaving as I entered.” Her frown deepened again, so suddenly that Yates paused.

He exchanged a look with Marigold, who had reached for Alethia’s hand. “You look as though you recalled something alarming.”

“Yes, they ... they were escorting a young woman out. Saanvi—she and Samira have managed to travel together several times and are good friends. I’ve met her before. She looked to be ... inebriated, which isn’t tolerated there. I supposed they’d done a surprise inspection, as they do from time to time, and found her in that state. Samira has told me before about how strict they are. She said she’d seen more than one woman tossed to the curb, quite literally, but I hadn’t expected to see such a thing myself at that hour of the day. And certainly not Saanvi! From everything Samira had said about her, she is of the highest moral fiber.”

“A young woman, you say?” Marigold’s frown was as encouraging as her smile had been. “I was under the impression that most ayahs are middle-aged or older.”

“Most, yes.” Alethia’s expression remained taut. “But not all. Samira knew several of the younger ones who frequently made the voyage. I was so alarmed that I marched directly up to the directors and demanded to know what they were doing with Saanvi, where they were taking her.” Her cheeks flushed. “When Mr. Rheams told me they were tossing her out as she deserved, I was furious. She looked more ill than drunk, and what would happen to her if they threw an ill woman to the streets? I ... scolded him. Said something about what his wife would think about it. He didn’t like that.”

Yates frowned and scribbled the information down as quickly as he could. Gentlemen rarely appreciated it when young ladies rebuked them. In public. And implied that they answered to their wives rather than the other way round. “I don’t imagine. This is the husband of the woman you were supposed to meet at the tearoom?”

Alethia nodded, her color fading again. “She’s a great deal younger than he. I scarcely know him at all; he’s closer to my father’s age. But Victoria is only a decade my elder. She spent several years in India as a girl, too, so we had that connection.”

“And who was the other director?” This from Lavinia, who had a keener look in her eye than he was accustomed to seeing. At least in the last year. He couldn’t honestly remember noting such interest in her eyes, other than when she’d come to them last spring for help in finding out about the man her mother had been corresponding with.

“Oh. Ah, I believe it was Lord Vernon with Mr. Rheams.” She thought for a moment and then nodded. “Yes, I think that’s right. I have only met him once or twice, at fundraisers Mama and I were helping with. All the board of directors were there. There are a dozen.”

He wrote the two names down. “Very good. And to whom did you speak within?”

“Julia Swinton.” This name she said with far more confidence, adding a smile. “A lovely woman. She spent several decades in India when she was younger and loves helping the ayahs find their way home again.”

“And when you enquired after Samira?” Marigold leaned closer. “How did she react?”

Lady Alethia pressed a hand to her side, strain on her face. They’d have to finish up soon so she could rest. “She was surprised. She said Samira had been gone when she arrived for her shift, her shelves emptied. Mrs. Swinton assumed she’d simply found an opportunity and had to hurry, but she was as distressed as I was that she’d informed no one of her plans. She always lets Mrs. Swinton know what she’s found—and she certainly wouldn’t send me a note saying to visit her and then leave without another note for me.”

“But her things were gone from her room?”

“Well, from her bed. It’s dormitory housing.” The lady was going a bit green around the gills. “I asked the other ayahs if anyone had seen her leave, but it seems no one was up in the dormitory when she left. Well, other than...”

Yates drew in a breath. “Let me guess. Saanvi?”

Lady Alethia nodded. “It’s so unlike Samira—and that’s why I sent an inquiry to Mr. A immediately, even as I checked with the other ayah homes, especially given the note from Victoria. Samira was there, but she left, and there is apparently information about her that I should know, and I have to think ... there’s something not right about it. She would never leave England without telling me.”

Under normal circumstances, he would have questioned that. Because people were all the time doing things they’d “never” do. But in this particular case, the fact that someone followed Lady Alethia to James’s church and tried to silence her before she could question her friend’s disappearance added quite a bit of credibility to her claim.

Something nefarious was at play. And while it was possible that Samira had vanished for a legitimate reason—or at least willingly—and Alethia had been hunted down for something else altogether, it made more sense to assume they were related.

He capped his pen, even though he had plenty more questions to ask. “Thank you, my lady. Perhaps we can answer the rest of his questions after you’ve had a chance to rest—or tomorrow. Whenever you’re ready.”

Her eyes went wide. “Now is fine.”

“It isn’t. You’re clearly in pain, and a few hours of rest will make little difference to the search for Samira.” He stood, prepared to simply leave to settle the matter, if necessary.

His sister was giving him an approving nod. “Yates is right. We’ll send a dispatch by private courier to Mr. A later if we miss the post. But your health is of the utmost importance.”

He clamped his lips down against a grin. Private courier, indeed. “May I help you up, my lady?” He’d already carried her several times, but she probably didn’t remember that. Which was just as well. “Marigold or Zelda will help you settle, but I’m happy to be a crutch for the walk.”

She still looked ready to protest, but no one gave her any room to do so. Lavinia and Marigold both stood, talking at once, and fluttering about her. Marigold went in search of Zelda, and Yates stepped into the space at Lady Alethia’s side, offering her an arm to hold and slipping a hand behind her back when she scooted to the edge of her cushion. At the perspiration that broke out on her forehead when she gripped his arm and tried to lift herself up, he had to squelch the urge to scoop her into his arms again. It would have been quicker, and less painful.

But a bit of work was necessary for healing too. So he only supported her via arm and back and took as much weight as she granted him.

She was about the same height as Lavinia, with hair nearly the same shade of darkest brown too. Their eyes were different colors, and once upon a time, he would have said that they were different in more ways than that. Lady Alethia had shadows in hers that went far deeper than the three gunshot wounds. They had the look of glossed-over scars, always there but seldom noted.

Lavinia’s eyes had always been bright, light. Unfiltered. Unshadowed. When he glanced at her now, though, he realized that hadn’t been true since she emerged from her illness. When she’d begun to realize that her mother wasn’t who she’d thought. When her world began to crumble around her.

Now, their different-colored eyes looked far too similar.

Later, when they weren’t there to question him, he’d sigh over how it seemed both his guests were haunted by something. Something he knew neither he and his title nor Mr. A and his Imposters could ever hope to fix.

He knew what Lavinia’s ghosts were. He’d discover Alethia’s. And while he didn’t imagine he could fix the root causes, perhaps he could find some way to help. That was what made this work worthwhile. All too often they uncovered ugly truths, secrets that showed humanity for the fallen race they were. But sometimes ... sometimes they helped piece the broken bits back together. Sometimes they could protect people. Equip them with knowledge to allow wiser decisions. Sometimes they could even help restore families.

He helped Alethia as far as the door to her room, at which point Zelda took over. The older woman still trained daily on the trapeze with her husband, Franco, and she was more than strong enough to help the lady from there.

Alethia glanced up at him before he could release her. Those shadowed blue eyes sliced right through him, making his breath catch. He’d seen her across enough ballrooms to know she was beautiful, and he’d carried her up and down stairs three times already in their short acquaintance. But looking down at her now, so close, with her looking back at him, made his breath catch in his chest. Like an absolute idiot.

“Thank you.” The words were little more than a whisper, and they sounded as though they referenced more than his assistance for those few shuffling steps.

Not trusting himself to speak, given the stupid lump in his throat, he simply nodded, smiled, and relinquished her to Zelda. If he strode a little too quickly toward the stairs, who could blame him?

“Predictable.”

Lavinia, apparently. And apparently she was following him, given her quick steps behind his and that mutter under her breath.

That was fine. He was en route to the official Imposters Headquarters—his father’s old study—and she might as well get the introduction to their files. Marigold would no doubt meet them there.

But in response to her observation, he sent an innocent, raised-brow look over his shoulder. “What? The predicament with the ayah? I do confess that I find it appalling how people can vanish in London without a trace.”

Lavinia scoffed and drew even with him. “You were all but stammering like a fool when she looked up at you.”

Because those eyes . What was he supposed to do? “I didn’t stammer a bit.”

“You would have, had you opened your mouth.”

Which made him wise that he hadn’t, not a fool. He sent her his cheekiest grin. “Jealous, Vinny?”

“Dying of it.” She wove their arms together in a way that would have had him stammering like a fool for certain when they were sixteen. But she’d been doing it often enough in the last year that any residual effects had worn off. She leaned into his arm. “In fact, I feel faint. I may need you to carry me.”

His grin no doubt turned a bit impish—but she was asking for it. Without a moment’s hesitation, he scooped her up and hoisted her over his shoulder, like Franco had always done with Zelda during their damsel-in-distress act. Franco, the make-believe villain, would run about the ring with the shrieking Zelda and then Leonidas the Lion would jump from his veiled cage, coming to the rescue.

Leonidas wasn’t inside to rescue Lavinia, though, which meant that her shrieks—which were mostly laughter—simply reverberated down the corridors as he ran. She beat a fist or two against his back, but with no more force than Zelda’s feigned fight, and her continued laughter made her “Put me down, you oaf!” sound more like the expected line than any real insistence.

Though who was he to disobey a lady? He pretended to lose his grip, like Franco always had, so that she slipped a few inches toward the floor.

Did she remember the act? Given her new shriek of laughter, he wasn’t certain at first, but then she called out, “No, not onto the forest floor! The beasts roam here!”

He couldn’t have kept from grinning had he tried. He let loose the exaggerated maniacal laughter that went with Franco’s role and charged into the study.

Marigold stood inside, her hands on her hips—which made her stomach look enormous, though he was too wise to say so—and an amused scowl on her face. “Seriously, Yates. Lady Alethia is going to think you’re torturing poor Lavinia.”

“Poor Lavinia started it.” He gripped her waist and lowered her from his shoulder, though he left her dangling a few inches off the floor. “Didn’t you, poor Lavinia?”

For a moment, with her cheeks flushed from laughter and being upside down and the joy of a silly act in her eyes, she looked like the old Lavinia. The one who had never been ill, who had learned no secrets about her family, who had never faced any pain greater than not getting the role she wanted in their little child-run theater.

Looking back, he could see that she’d been spoiled—they all had been. She’d been selfish and elitist and rude. But she’d also been bright and joyful and selfless, because children were so good at being contradictory things.

He’d loved that Lavinia. But he liked this one far better—the one who smiled at herself and tried to look casual as she dangled there. “I don’t know what in the world you mean, my lord. I made a simple observation of fact and was rewarded with such boorish behavior as I’ve never experienced in my life.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I would invite my lady to remember that I know her ticklish spots.”

Her eyes went wide. “You wouldn’t.”

With his free hand, he made a tickling motion, aimed at her ribs.

“All right!” Laughing again, she squirmed to be put down. “I may have started it.”

He put her down, mostly because of the look Marigold was giving him. It wasn’t scolding, it was ... concerned. Bemused.

Blast. He was in for another probing “Are you certain you’re not still in love with Lavinia?” speech. She meant well—he knew she did. She only wanted to make sure his heart wasn’t smashed to bits when Lavinia rejected him. Again.

With a bit of luck, the roll of his eyes he sent her way would say what he didn’t dare. He wouldn’t behave so, joke so, flirt so if his heart was in any danger. He knew very well that Lavinia wasn’t for him. That didn’t mean he couldn’t do everything in his power to bring a bit of the light back to her eyes. Restore a bit of the old Lavinia to the new.

He wasn’t so sure his sister got the silent message. She kept sending him sideways glances as he moved toward their dossiers. Ignoring her was his only real option, so he hummed the song that had always been played during that particular skit of Franco and Zelda’s and pulled out the drawers for R and V . Did they even have anything on either Rheams or Vernon? He couldn’t recall.

“I haven’t been in here in ... well, I don’t know that I’ve ever been in here. I know I peeked in once or twice when we were children.” Lavinia examined the room. “Your father’s old study?”

“Mm. And now the home of one copy of our files. We have a duplicate at the London house, since so much of our business focuses there.” Marigold moved to the tall cupboard of case files. “These are the cases—filed under the name of the person who hires us, each one compiling data and information that we uncover during our research and surveillance.”

Yates glanced over in time to see Lavinia’s jaw drop as she beheld the collection of thick files. “You have been quite busy, it seems.”

Marigold grinned. “We certainly have. Leonidas can’t survive on table scraps, you know.”

Lavinia smiled, too, and spun to face him, her hands clasped behind her back as if afraid to touch any of the files. “And what are those?”

“Dossiers.” He thumbed his way through the R section until he found the single sheet of paper they had on one Wilbert Rheams. “Here we are.”

Lavinia was frowning. “What is the difference between a dossier and a case file?”

“We often learn more in our surveillance than is relevant for a particular case but could be useful again.” He held out the Rheams dossier as an example. “We create files for people rather than cases, though any cases they come up in are mentioned in that section. It saves us time later—given that, as I imagine you know, society isn’t as large as the uninitiated may think. The same players show up time and again, in many cases.”

Her green eyes alight again, she reached for the page.

F ROM THE D OSSIER OF Mr. Wilbert Rheams

H EIGHT : 5’ 7”

W EIGHT : 14 stone

A GE : 50

H AIR : Very little. What remains is grey and rings the back of his head

E YES : Brown, bespectacled

S TYLE : Rather staid in cut but impeccable in quality and fabric choices, from Davies she the Women ’s Aid and Charing Cross Hospital Auxiliary and Ladies Auxiliary of the Ayahs’ Home, he at Charing Cross Hospital, the Ayahs’ Home, King’s Cross Orphanage, and the Empire House .

C ASES IN WHICH HE HAS BEEN OBSER VED : Brough

I MPRESSIONS : Rheams is a cool, stiff sort—not what we would term pleasant company ^and his wife would agree! Regular church attendance , makes a show of their charitable work. The couple is frequently with Lord and Lady Vernon and Mr. and Mrs . Knight, though the lady is a great deal younger her counterparts there.

M EMBER AT : Brooks’s, Marlborough; the lady at Alexandra

Yates gave the sheet a quick once-over while Lavinia read it, refreshing himself on the notes Marigold had taken. A smile played at his lips at her note about the woman’s outspoken reactions to her husband. He held out his hand, expecting Lavinia to put the paper back into it.

She batted it away. “Is this the sort of thing you always record?”

“Generally speaking.” Marigold pulled out Father’s old desk chair and sat with an uncharacteristic, tired exhale, rubbing a hand over her stomach. This little niece or nephew of his had better be the cutest and sweetest child ever to be born to make up for the discomfort he or she was causing his sister. “I imagine in Lord Vernon’s there’s a similar reference to both Rheams and the Ayahs’ Home.”

“Fascinating. It’ll be like a giant puzzle then, won’t it? These files. References and cross-references, updates and deletions. Connections and curiosity.” Lavinia finally looked up from the paper. “It reminds me a bit of the genealogies of the Hemming family.”

His brow lifted. “When did you study that?”

She blinked. “I was abed for five years, Yates. I read everything in the house. Twice.”

It was his turn to blink. “But you never pick up anything but novels.”

“ Now , yes. When I’m reading only for entertainment rather than lack of any other options, I want fun . But do you think my parents had novels enough in the library to keep me occupied that long?” She shook her head.

He scratched his. It seemed he’d misjudged Lavinia when he spotted the book on medieval cathedral architecture she’d pulled out. He’d simply assumed that what he’d seen her reading before and after her illness was indicative of what she’d read during it too. “All right. So ... genealogies?”

“The connections, you see. Built on nothing but names.” She wiggled her fingers his way.

It took him a moment to realize she was asking for the Vernon dossier he hadn’t yet pulled out. He did so quickly and handed it over as well, reading over her shoulder. “As expected. Mentioned as friends of the Rheamses, also on the board of the Ayahs’ Home. And a few others besides.”

“Interesting.” Rather than explain herself, Lavinia moved to the drawers and pulled open the one for A–F . “You don’t mind, do you?”

“As long as you put things away in their proper order, look at whatever you like.” Marigold leaned an elbow on the desk. “I’m hungry again.”

“Your hero, right on cue.” Merritt’s voice preceded his figure by a beat, but he came in with a smile and a plate of fruit, cheese, and bread, which he slid onto the desk before Marigold. “Drina hailed me on my way inside and sent me up to find you. She said you ought to be peckish about now.”

Marigold smiled. “God bless Drina. And you, my love.”

Merritt perched on the edge of the desk, smoothing a bit of Marigold’s hair away from her face. It was a gesture so sweet and loving that Yates didn’t know whether to make an exaggerated gagging sound or sigh in relief at the happiness they’d found.

He opted for turning back to Lavinia. “What exactly are you looking for, Vin?”

She’d vanished in those few seconds his attention had been on Merritt. Or, no. She’d sunk down to the floor beside the cupboard, which meant the desk hid her. As for why Lady Lavinia Hemming, who had been the mysterious belle of every ball she attended this Season, was sitting cross-legged on the floor in their study ... “Vin?”

“Hush. I’m busy. Marigold, can you reach the Bs? I need a Bellevue. George.”

This time the look his sister sent him was more amused than concerned. “Busy. Eating. But Yates can reach.”

He spent the next twenty minutes pulling whatever dossier Lavinia demanded, trying not to squirm at the way she was papering the floor with them. Merritt and Marigold were talking about the letter he’d received from his uncle, how Lady Alethia had been that morning, and other normal subjects.

Lavinia, on the other hand, simply muttered names under her breath now and then before speaking one more loudly and lifting a hand for the paper she expected to magically appear.

He played magician, but he was about to call it quits. He wasn’t honestly certain if he was too curious to know what she was doing or too tired of the game when she finally cried out, “Ha!” and shook the sheet of paper in her hands. “Got them.”

Hoping that meant a break from the dossier-pulling, he leaned against the cupboard. “Who? The twelve board members of the Ayahs’ Home?”

“Hm?” Lavinia looked up at him as if he’d grown a second nose. “No, don’t be silly. Rheams and Vernon have very little to do with the other members—not of that charity. But look at this.” She placed the paper in her hands at the end of an arch of them she’d arranged around her.

“Help us out here, Lavinia,” Marigold bade, bless her.

Lavinia pointed at places on each of the dossiers. “There’s a pattern of associates and charities, though no overlap in cases mentioned. Look. These six men are on the boards of four different charities that help foreign women and children in London—at least two of them on each one, but rotating.”

That was hardly uncommon. He’d inherited a few board positions himself after Father died, and there were familiar faces on them. “And? Why is that important?”

The question made her frown. “Well, I don’t know. I simply noticed the pattern. And look.” She tapped another name. “They’re all members at Brooks’s.”

Marigold tapped a finger to the desk. “I think she’s on to something, Yates. The Ayahs’ Home is the only real clue we have, and those men are the only ones Lady Alethia remembers seeing that she could name. They could have something to do with ... whatever this is. And their associates could as well.”

But two respectable gentlemen, one of whom was a lord, walking into a church in broad daylight and shooting the daughter of another respected lord? It made no sense.

It could lead them to something that did, though. He turned to Merritt, brows lifted. “Don’t suppose you have a membership at Brooks’s?”

His brother-in-law grimaced. “You know very well that I prefer the Guards’. I’m only even a member at the Marlborough because Uncle Preston insisted.”

Lionfeathers. Yates wasn’t either. He tapped a hand to his leg, considering. Then smiled. “What about Xavier?”

At the mention of his best friend, Merritt sighed. “Do you even need to ask?”

He pushed off from the cabinet. “Brilliant. I’ll return to London with you tomorrow, Merritt. We can do a bit of surveillance as X’s guests.”