An Honorable Deception (The Imposters #3)

Chapter 20

TWENTY

Y ates had already tried pacing, jogging, lifting weights, skipping rope, and a long session on the trapeze. When none of those managed to calm his nerves for more than a second, he gave in. He sat now at the highest point in the Tower—the platform for the highwire—his eyes on the road to Alnwick.

He heard the creaking of the ladder beneath him but didn’t bother looking to see who it was this time. Zelda, to tell him the next packet from Barclay had arrived? Drina, with food? Franco, to tease that the stalls weren’t mucking themselves?

When a golden-brown head cleared the edge instead of a salt-and-pepper one, he frowned. “You shouldn’t be up here. Merritt will have my head.”

His sister said nothing in reply as she took her usual seat. How many times had they sat this way over the years, the two of them? Countless. Plotting out their cases. Thinking through what sort of acrobatics each might require. Budgeting out every shilling they’d earn.

She drew in a long breath, tilted her face to the sun, and sounded rather happy as she sighed. “Leopard stripes, but I’ve missed being up here.” She patted her stomach. “Not to rush you into the world, little one, but the moment you’ve made your appearance, you’ll find your mama out here on the trapeze.”

Yates grinned and shook his head. “The very moment, you say?”

“Well. Perhaps the next day.” She sent him a grin and leaned back on her palms. “I don’t know why you’re so worried. They sent a wire this morning, didn’t they? They’re on their way home.”

Yates clenched his jaw, then pried it open again. “We sent one when last we were there, too, thinking everything was neat and tidy. Then we had the rug pulled out from under us.” He still couldn’t shake the frustration with himself. He’d known that he shouldn’t have left Samira in that place. He ought to have gone back as soon as he had Lucy on the ground. Waited at the window. He should have sent Barclay there straightaway at midnight instead of meeting there at dawn.

He should have saved her when he had the chance.

But she’d been gone. It didn’t help to realize that she’d likely been gone by the time he’d seen Lucy to safety, if she’d been in one of the two automobiles at the Barremore residence. He’d still failed her.

And now Lavinia was there. Deliberately making dangerous men think she was the loose thread they’d been waiting to snip. Because no argument he’d thrown at her yesterday, nor plea he’d made, nor threat to lock her in her room had done so much as delay her by a minute.

Marigold scooted a bit so that she could bump their arms together. “Will it make you feel better if I admit you were right about bringing Lavinia aboard?”

Yates let out a slow breath. “I’m not so sure I was.”

“What?” She laughed, bumped him again. “How can you say that? She’s practically taken over.”

“More like it’s taken over her .” He shook his head, keeping his eyes on the horizon. “I’m worried for her.”

“Because she’s so focused? I know it isn’t quite healthy, but we were like that, too, on our first case—or five. And given the nature of this one? That Alethia is here , that they’ve become such good friends? How could she be anything but determined?”

“It’s not just that. It’s...” The fact that she was avoiding them all—even Marigold. It was that when he’d picked her up from her father’s house in London, she’d looked as though she’d spent the morning crying. It was that every time she laughed, she chased it with a wince, as if she expected to be chided for it.

It was that since that morning in the stables, she’d done her best to melt into the background and disappear. And that wasn’t how Lavinia Hemming was meant to be. “I think it’s my fault.”

Marigold snorted. “Brother mine, you know I am so proud of your sense of responsibility, but you can’t take the blame for every one of Lavinia’s moods. She’s had a horrible year. This is part of her grief.”

“No, it isn’t.” Or was it? Had it been grief that had knocked her off that wall? “Lionfeathers. I don’t know what’s what with her anymore.”

Marigold drew in a breath, let it back out. “Maybe ... you shouldn’t agonize over it. Maybe you should let her be. Let her feel how she feels and stop trying to fix it.”

He wasn’t trying to fix it—he was only trying not to damage it more. He’d barely graced the same room as her in the last two weeks, other than when he had to, to spare her the obvious discomfort she still felt whenever he was nearby. But it didn’t seem to be helping any.

Marigold lifted a hand and rubbed at her temple. “Do you think it’s still my fault? The argument we had? I thought ... I can’t quite believe she’d still be letting it bother her at this point. Usually by now she’d have gone back to ignoring my advice and acting however she pleases.”

Heat crept up his neck. “I don’t think it’s you.”

She turned toward him. “You say that as though you think it’s you .”

Sometimes it was annoying to have a sister who knew him so well. And sometimes, for the exact same reasons, it felt like a gift straight from heaven. Who else could he really talk to? Merritt, who had never looked twice at any woman but Marigold and hadn’t given a thought to settling down until he was thirty? Xavier, who gave a thought to every woman and couldn’t stay focused on one for more than a month?

He tilted his head up to watch the billowy white clouds skuttle across the sky. “She kissed me. The morning we left for London.”

Marigold was so still he would have sworn she wasn’t even breathing. Not blinking. Just staring at him. When finally she spoke a full thirty seconds later, she had to clear her throat first. “I need more information than that. Did she give you a sisterly peck on the cheek that got your heart racing, or...?”

A flare of anger—that was always her first assumption, wasn’t it? That he was the one blowing things out of proportion, that he was the one at risk of being hurt. Then a wash of shame. He would take being hurt over causing it. “No. Not like that. Definitely not like that.”

She pressed her lips together, eyes still on his face. “And you...?”

“Kissed her back.” He didn’t have to say that he’d forgotten himself, that he hadn’t meant to. She would know that part. He squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head. “Then I remembered myself and asked her what in the world she was thinking.”

Marigold swallowed audibly. “You took my line, didn’t you. Accused her of toying with you.”

Not a question. Which meant he could give not-an-answer. He shrugged.

Marigold dragged in another breath. “What did you say?”

Did the details matter? He wanted to brush her question off, shrug again. But talking through everything with her was too much a habit—even if it had taken him weeks to muster the nerve. “I heard the two of you talking last autumn when you were trying to get her to invite Xavier back to the area, to see if his company could help her heal. I heard her tell you that her thoughts on love hadn’t changed—that if ever she felt it stirring, she would run hard and fast the other way. That she couldn’t trust her heart, that she trusted it even less now than she had before.”

“Yates.” She turned to face him, expression serious. “What exactly did you say?”

“I don’t know. Something about how she must think I was no danger to her heart, and how insulting that was.”

His sister’s eyes slid shut for a moment. “And she said?”

“She agreed .” He spread his hands, let them fall. Traced a line of birds with his gaze. “Case closed.”

“You stupid man.”

“What?” His eyes snapped back to her.

She was shaking her head slowly. “When you say you’re no danger to her heart, you mean...?”

He narrowed his eyes. “I mean what it means—that if she’s not running away from me, it’s because she knows she’ll never love me. And that’s not what I want from a relationship, Marigold, you know that. I want what you have—what Mother and Father had. I want—”

“Yates!” Now she looked like the big sister trying to explain why it was a bad idea to try the highwire for the first time without a net below to catch him when he fell. “Lavinia knows very well what you want from a relationship. Do you honestly think she’d have taken what would be a terrifying step for her if she didn’t think she could give you that?”

“She admitted as much. She agreed .”

“No, she agreed that you were no danger to her.” She closed her eyes, gave a small shake of her head. Exactly like she had when he’d tried to insist that a net would make him overconfident and sloppy. “Because she trusts you, Yates. Because of all the men in this world, you are the only one she feels like she knows. The only one she can let herself love, it seems.”

“She did not say that.”

“Probably because you followed your claim of insult with a proud reminder that you weren’t in love with her anymore.”

Annoying. It was completely annoying that she knew him so well. And quite suddenly he had no desire to know when Lavinia and Xavier got back. He swung his legs over to the ladder. “Since when are you on her side in this, anyway? You’re supposed to be defending my fragile heart.”

He put a foot to the ladder, grabbed a rung.

She was right there, on the opposite side. “This is your side! Are you so soft in the head you don’t understand what I’m saying? She. Loves. You. That is the only conclusion that fits the evidence.”

“I’m going to revoke your investigator’s license.” He moved down, knowing once he reached the ground, he could outpace her. Thank you, niece or nephew . “Because that conclusion is absurd.”

“What’s absurd is that you’re running from the thing you always wanted most in the world!”

Who needed a ladder, anyway? He jumped the last six feet, knees bending to cushion his landing. “ Did want. Years ago. Not now.”

“Yates.” She didn’t jump, but she didn’t need to. She was quick as Penelope, even with the baby.

He spun to face her, the fury pounding at him not so different as it had been that morning in the stables. “I did the work, Marigold! Hard work. I got over her. My broken heart healed. I’ve watched a parade of men come through ready to court her, and I didn’t so much as flinch.” Well. Not often, anyway. “I do not love her anymore, not like that.”

She arched a lofty, know-it-all brow. “Even if she loves you?”

She doesn’t . That was what he was ready to claim. Because she couldn’t. She never had. She had spent their childhood taking his preference for granted, their adolescence turning her nose up at him, and then she’d let him kiss her when they were seventeen just so she could walk away and finally drive home the thing she’d been saying all along.

She didn’t want him. He wasn’t good enough for her. He could offer her his heart, and she’d take it from his hands and dash it on the rocks.

He wasn’t arrogant—but he wasn’t self-deprecating either. He knew he could make someone happy, even given the state of his coffers. Someone could love him. Lavinia couldn’t, but that didn’t mean no one would.

Marigold took a step closer, brows even but the challenge still in her eyes. “Look past the scar, Yates. Consider for a moment that she could . That she does. Look at who she is now, not who she once was.”

He didn’t want to, but that would be unfair. He knew very well she wasn’t the same girl she’d been. She was so much more mature, so much deeper. So much more aware of other people and the world, so selfless and humble.

“Consider that I’m right. Then what?”

He tried to swallow, but his throat wouldn’t work. His answer came out as little more than a croak. “I don’t know.”

Because he’d moved on with his life. With his heart. Hadn’t he? He’d finally met someone he thought he might well be able to fall in love with. And that quick punch of jealousy whenever Xavier got that look in his eye meant it was serious, didn’t it? That the feelings for Alethia were real. Or they could be, given time enough to develop.

Though he could admit he’d been none too pleased by the idea of X taking Vin to London either. That hadn’t been jealousy, though, had it? It had been concern for her safety. Because she was his friend. That was how he loved her.

Marigold was watching him, and no doubt reading every thought in his eyes as he thought it, because she was the most annoying sister in the history of humankind. And she didn’t approve of his conclusion, given the way she huffed out a breath and shook her head.

“Idiot,” she muttered, striding past him. “I’m going to revoke your investigator’s license. And then I’m going to march straight up to Lavinia when she returns, promote her, and tell her to kiss you again until you admit you can’t imagine a future with anyone else.”

“Can so.” Did he sound like a pouty ten-year-old? Yes. Because she sounded like a know-it-all thirteen-year-old.

And he could. Couldn’t he? It was easy enough to picture Alethia here, smiling with the Caesars and playing with Pe nelope. It was no hardship to think about kissing her, pulling her into his arms. Maybe the fantasies didn’t plague him, but that was because he’d worked so hard to develop self-control in those matters. A testament to virtue, thank you very much—not proof he was still pining like a fool for Lavinia Hemming.

Though the image inspired by his sister’s words— kiss you again until you admit it —made his neck go hot and his throat dry.

The sound of an engine cut through the air, right on cue. They were back. Good. He could stop worrying. And go ... muck some stalls or something.

“Where do you think you’re going, young man?” Marigold had pointed herself toward the gate that would deliver her to the drive.

He’d aimed for the stables, but even with his back to her, she could probably see him roll his eyes at the motherly tone. “Anywhere else.”

“They could have news. There could be something on Babcock.”

Blast it all. He did an about-face but made no effort to clear the thunder from his face.

Marigold rolled her eyes too. “You’re such a child sometimes.” She took the lead, shifting so that she stayed between him and the car that had come to a halt before the front door. A few steps ahead, always in front of him—effectively blocking the view of his angry face from the occupants of the car.

He had a right to be angry. How could his sister really expect him to toss away six years of work because she decided on some hidden meaning in what Lavinia had decidedly not said after kissing him? Why now did she want him to risk his heart on her again? Better question, still: How was she so sure Lavinia loved him when a few weeks ago she’d been lecturing her on keeping her distance?

Xavier was jogging around the bonnet to open Lavinia’s door. He offered a hand, hers settled on his palm, and a moment later, she was out.

Marigold glanced over her shoulder at him. His face must have relaxed, because hers did. She nodded and shifted to the side.

Lavinia did that thing she’d been doing for the past fortnight. She looked up, around, as anyone would. Her eyes settled on his for a split second—and then she quickly looked away.

This time, he wasn’t doing the same. This time, he didn’t flinch from that brief glance. He watched it. Watched the way her eyes flickered. Hope? Longing? Then, without question, pain.

He saw her again on the floor of the stall, straw settling like snow over her still form. He saw the way she’d looked up at him with an expression so raw he’d thought she must be having some sort of episode. He remembered the fear, the panic that had gripped him.

And the way her gaze had clung to his as she said those words he’d never in a million years expected her to say. Kiss me .

It wasn’t I love you . But why would it have been, even if it were true? He’d asked her what he could do to help. What he should do to make better whatever had gone wrong. And that had been her answer. Kiss me .

Why had that been her answer?

“Please tell me that’s not the look of one chap about to inform another that he got engaged to the girl.”

“Hmm?” He blinked, refocusing. Xavier stood before him, looking, he had to admit, more than a little concerned. And tired.

Alethia—he was talking about Alethia. Marigold and Lavinia had already gone inside, it seemed, leaving him to his musing. Yates mustered a smile. “Not yet. Didn’t seem sporting to make a move when you were off trying to help her.”

Xavier flashed him a smirk. “Your sense of honor’s going to be your downfall this time, old boy. Because I made sure the loudest gossips in London saw me down on one knee before her.”

“You can’t propose to a girl who’s not actually the girl. Doesn’t count.”

“That’s what Lavinia said—and while we’re on the subject, I’d like to lodge a complaint.”

Yates tamped down a grin as he turned to follow Marigold and Lavinia into the house. He really did like Xavier, even if his presence the past two weeks had been far from Yates’s plan. “This ought to be good.”

Xavier paused at the base of the stairs and pointed to the front door—closed again, but only because Marigold had shut it behind them. “It isn’t fair that Lavinia’s on your side in this little competition. I already have the handicap of age, not to mention the fact that you’re so blasted selfless and nice. But to have Lavinia make me take her to London so that you can stay here with Alethia?” He shook his head. “Utterly unsporting.”

“You agreed rather readily, if I recall. Over my objections.”

He looked incredulous. “You think I’d refuse one of the few things I can do, if I thought it could help?” He made a face. “And yet I was rewarded by Lavinia giving me an hour-long lecture on the reasons why you and Alethia are perfect for each other, how the Tower is the perfect home for her, and why I ought to be a gentleman and step aside.”

Well. That sounded exactly like a woman in love. They were all the time trying to arrange a marriage with someone else.

“I’ll note the complaint.” Yates jogged up the steps. “But the establishment would like to point out that no part of that plan was my idea.”

Xavier didn’t move. He stood where he’d been, hands slung in his pockets, face serious. “All joking aside—I know I’m not ... one of you. But what I am is willing to risk my life if it will safeguard hers. And I have resources at my disposal that I’m officially putting at yours.”

See? This was why he liked him. It was a dratted inconvenience to his temper, not being able to stay angry with the people making his life difficult. “You’re a good man, Xavier.”

His lips barely quirked up. “Could you say that a bit louder? In the drawing room? Perhaps followed by the phrase ‘And Lady Alethia would be lucky to have you’?”

He smiled, but it wasn’t any brighter than Xavier’s. “Do you love her?” Was it a fair question to ask a rival? Perhaps not.

And X neither shook it off nor gave a quick, easily dismissed answer. He set his jaw. He looked off into the distance. And he sighed. “I feel as though for the last ten years, I’ve been trying to find someone who made me pause. Does that make sense? Someone who, when they weren’t there, made the world dim. Who brightened it when she appeared. Ten years of searching, and no one has ever done that. Not until her. The thought of someone trying to kill her, to snuff that light from the world for good...” He blinked. Shook his head. “This isn’t a game for me, Yates. This is the only thing in my life that has ever mattered.”

Well, leopard stripes. Now he felt like a cad for interfering when his thoughts were only about could-be and someday-maybe. He sighed, too, and motioned with his head for the door. “Come on, then. You might as well be officially deputized.”

The spark of light that entered his eyes was more than a little gratifying. “It is the Imposters, isn’t it? I wasn’t certain before, but with this case...”

“You’ve guessed it.” He’d known the risk when Xavier came along. But he’d already proven his discretion, as he’d graciously pointed out when he invited himself to the Tower to see Alethia.

“You saved my sister from agreeing to what would have been a disastrous marriage.”

“I know.” He grinned. “I’d say you owe me one, but your father paid us rather handsomely for that.”

Xavier grinned back. “Do I get any of the cards?”

“Don’t press your luck, old boy.” He glanced around the foyer but didn’t see or hear anyone in the ground-floor rooms. “Upstairs, then.”

Marigold’s and Gemma’s voices pulled him in the right direction, and when he stepped inside the drawing room, he saw Lavinia and Merrit were with them too. Neither Alethia nor her mother were, but that was probably for the best, for now. He waved Xavier in and pulled the door closed behind him. “I’ve created a deputy. Hope no one minds. He did offer us full use of his life and resources.”

Merritt grinned from her chair. “Finally. Good to have you aboard, X.”

Marigold gave an exaggerated sigh. “My, how crowded it’s getting. I remember when it was the four of us. We scarcely fit in the room now, and we couldn’t even pry Graham out of the library.”

Yates perked up at that. Graham being so committed to the library usually meant very handy architectural work underway. “Has he found us a location?”

“I think so.” Gemma turned on her desk chair to face the rest of them. “Although this being Graham, all I could get out of him thus far were a few grunts and a vacant expression.”

“That level of focus usually results in a dependable entrance and exit strategy within an hour,” he said for the benefit of their two new members, who hadn’t yet witnessed Graham’s architectural genius firsthand.

He hadn’t really looked Lavinia’s way yet, but she caught his eye when she took a seat. Partially because she had an envelope in her hands.

Marigold noticed it too. “Well, then. Meeting officially called to order, and I elect that we dispense with other niceties and let Lavinia tell us how her plan went. We know, obviously, that Gemma wrote her article and wired it to the London Ladies Journal . Were you able to play it out more or less as she wrote it?”

Lavinia nodded. But she didn’t look victorious—just tired. “Lord X reserved us the perfect table in a tearoom, where plenty of people could see me from behind in the shawl, and the earrings were visible. But no one saw my face.”

“And handily enough, my parents were having a small final rout before they leave Town next week, which was easy for us to stage for an evening appearance. My cousin is the presumed friend she’d been traveling with, and my parents are still, so far as anyone knows, hosting them both at their home.” Xavier chose a chair near to Merritt’s and sat, stretching his legs out in front of him. “By the time we left Town this morning, the gossip had already made the rounds, and Lady A’s reappearance was even noted in one of the dailies. Though,” he said with a grin toward Gemma, “certainly not the detailed scoop G. M. Parker’s article will provide tomorrow.”

“But the most important piece fell into place as we were getting ready to leave.” Lavinia held the envelope up. “Lucy snatched this from the Hastingses’ morning post and ran it over to me.”

“Because apparently I can’t be trusted to go through my own family’s post, but I’m not the sort to be offended.” Xavier folded his hands over his stomach.

Everyone smiled, but then silence fell. All eyes on Lavinia. Her eyes on the rectangle of white in her lap.

She looked like she was only half-present, like the rest of her was somewhere else. When Marigold cleared her throat, Lavinia didn’t so much as look up—she just held out the envelope.

Marigold took it, and no doubt she meant to read it out loud, but Yates wasn’t inclined to wait for that. He moved to stand behind her chair so he could read over her shoulder.

The seal had already been broken—no surprise, if Lavinia knew this was the final piece she’d been hoping for. Marigold pulled out a single sheet of paper and unfolded it.

I saw your limp last night—what, pray tell, happened? Did someone hurt my darling girl? Tell me who, and I’ll address it.

I have found your lost lotus bloom, as sweet as ever. Would you like it back? If so, you know I am always willing to trade. One flower for another.

Do let me know soon, darling. Flowers only last so long before they wither and die. ~R

Yates read it three times while Marigold read it out loud, trying to pick apart the meaning of each line. The lotus bloom must mean Samira, and the trade would be for Alethia. But the bit about someone hurting her ... it wasn’t a question. It was a threat, as surely as the last line. It was him saying he knew she was injured and he knew how, and he meant to “address” it permanently.

Though when he opened his mouth, the first question to come out was, “Why were you limping, Lavinia?” Perhaps he would have chalked it up to good playacting—Alethia was certainly still limping on her injured leg—but now that it was pointed out, he realized she’d been doing it still when she walked inside.

Her eyes flicked up, flickered like they always seemed to do lately, and fell again. “It’s nothing. I landed wrong when I was skipping rope yesterday. Just a twinge.”

Still a twinge even now? How exactly had she landed wrong? And why hadn’t she said anything before she went gallivanting off to London, where she’d no doubt been promenading along the Strand on Xavier’s arm and dancing at his parents’ party?

Questions he wanted to ask—but Merritt spoke before he could, which was probably for the best, given that he was discussing the actual threat to a life rather than what was most likely a mild muscle strain.

“This is what we’d hoped, I suppose. He wants her to contact him. And he gave an address for it. He didn’t have a time and place already set out, which ought to work for our purposes.”

“Except that we know he doesn’t mean to let her out alive—and that could mean that even if we set the place, he’ll have his men there, waiting. And we already know they have guns.” Marigold handed the letter to her husband.

He took it, brows lifted. “We’ll know it better. We’ll be there first. That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? Everything we’ve been planning for the last two weeks? We control the stage, the props, the lighting. We pull the cable to the trapdoor.”

Marigold nodded, but it didn’t erase the lines of worry on her forehead. “There are so many moving parts. So many players. It makes me nervous.”

They’d be fools if it didn’t make them nervous. But in a way, this was what they’d been training for all their lives. A well-stocked set. A perfectly ordered stage. They would know their lines and when to hit their marks. A few well-timed flashes, some theater tricks, a few acrobatics, and the show would go off according to plan.

Probably.