A Gentleman in Possession of Secrets by Grace Burrowes

Author:Grace Burrowes [Burrowes, Grace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781962291316
Publisher: Grace Burrowes

“I should have brought Atticus.” I settled onto the backward-facing seat, entirely unhappy with the day’s events so far. “I hope Lady Dewar had something useful to say?”

Hyperia and Lady Ophelia regarded me with similarly unreadable looks, both hinting at concern, disapproval, and something feminine and knowing.

I did not need a nap—not badly enough to signify—but I was thirsty and hungry. True enough. “Shall we raid the hamper?” I asked.

“Please do,” Lady Ophelia said, untying her bonnet ribbons. “Peckish men can be difficult company.”

“You were right about Lady Standish.” I dragged the hamper from under my seat and hefted it onto the bench beside me. “She is deficient in charm, though she seems to like her son.”

“That one male child, however unprepossessing, allows her to hold up her head,” Lady Ophelia observed. “I gather Hannah was supposed to be a boy as well, which might account for the viscountess’s antipathy toward her youngest daughter.”

Hyperia had already taken off her bonnet, and we spent a moment organizing food, fashion accessories, and drink.

“Her ladyship resents Hannah,” I said, biting into a meat pasty. “I cannot fathom why. At least not why the intensity of the resentment. A bit unnerving, to be honest.” My mother and I had been distant to a degree and for a time, but I could never imagine Her Grace aiming true venom at me, nor I at her.

My mother and I were cut from different cloth, but a family of perfect replicas would have been a boring and unnatural group.

My own children…

I cut the thought off with a mental saber slash. “What did Lady Dewar have to say?”

“She is beside herself with worry.” Hyperia passed me a cool, silver flask. “She tried to tell Lady Standish what she’d seen when Hannah did not come home for supper, but the viscountess would not hear a word. Told Lady Dewar to have a lie-down and then conferred closely with Lady Dewar’s companions.”

Godmama took a nibble of gingerbread. “When Lady Dewar asked for her writing desk, the companion claimed it had been mislaid. Her ladyship wanted to get a note to Captain MacNamara, and she would have written in the Gaelic, but Lady Standish foiled that plot. The woman is obsessed with remaining in charge of her little rural fiefdom.”

“Did you convey to Lady Dewar that we’re searching for Hannah?”

“We did,” Hyperia said, “and we further conveyed that you have a knack for resolving difficulties such as this, and without bringing scandal down on the parties involved. Lady Dewar cares nothing for Society’s opinions. She wants her granddaughter found.”

As did I. “What else did she have to say?” The meat pasty was delectable. I could have eaten six, but that was the hamper’s entire complement. I limited myself to a second. I also drained the flask of cool, sweet meadow tea only to note a smug gleam in Hyperia’s eye when I put the empty vessel back into the hamper.

Hungry and thirsty, guilty as charged. No need to gloat.

“Hannah was reading

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