Page 21 of Better Off Wed

But why had Lord Sterling been speaking to Penhurst’s servants? Was he conducting his own investigation about the watch, perhaps even hired to find it by Penhurst himself?

Then he said, “As a consequence of its disappearance—and, I now understand, what certain revelations about it might mean for the family—Lady Penhurst has put her son on a tight leash, and she’s keeping the female domestics out of his reach, too.”

A flush of heat—warmer than either the brandy or the fire—spread through Laura’s veins, momentarily displacing her concern. Success. Lady Sterling had done it again!

“Tell me,” she said, pride straightening her spine, “do you think my brother will be surprised by what you tell him of his sister’s exploits?”

Lord Sterling cleared his throat, as if the burn of liquor still troubled him. “I cannot say, Miss Hopkins. As I tried to tell you before, it was not he who asked me to find you.”

As quickly as it had come, the warmth fled. “Who, then?” she managed to whisper; her own voice seemed equally inclined to disappear. Surely not Penhurst? Had her pride led her straight into a trap?

Lord Sterling gave a weak smile, which nevertheless had the power to make something in Laura’s insides stir. “Someone who found it amusing to send Lord Sterling in pursuit of Lady Sterling.”

The little joke, if it was a joke, did not amuse her. “Am I meant to be relieved?” she asked drily. “I suppose if this mysterious person had instead sent Captain Addison, I should have to wonder whether the whole British army was soon to follow.”

His answering laugh was hesitant, and his second attempt at an explanation was no more satisfactory than the first. “Let us say, then, that I am here on behalf of someone who wishes to have a better understanding of Lady Sterling and her intentions.”

“Despite what you may believe of me, sir, I do not enjoy riddles,” Laura replied with a frown bordering on sternness, bemused by his sudden reticence.

“I’m afraid, ma’am, I cannot give a more satisfactory reply at present.” He turned away from her in the course of his perambulation before the fire. “For the moment, you will have to content yourself with knowing that it is someone who means you no harm—unless, of course, you mean harm to others.”

“I mean harm only to those who deserve it,” she tossed back, lifting her chin.

At the far end of the hearth now, Lord Sterling paused and shot a look over his shoulder. “Such as Penhurst.”

He shifted the watch to his other hand, then fished into the breast pocket of his coat. Even at this distance, she recognized the calling card he produced. One of her own. The one she had tucked into the fob pocket of Penhurst’s waistcoat. For written on its reverse…

“Betty,” she breathed. The missing piece in the map of this man’s quest to find Lady Sterling.

How could the girl have been so careless, so ungrateful as to have betrayed Laura to a stranger?

“Penhurst denied knowing anything about the maid on whose behalf Lady Sterling claimed to have visited him—rather unconvincingly, I might add, and much to the dismay of a certain footman named Walter, who still nurses tender feelings for the young woman. It was he who took me to find her in Clapham, where I understand she is now in the employ of a Mrs. Hayes.”

Laura gave one sharp nod to hide her distress at having been tracked down so easily. “My aunt.”

“You mustn’t think ill of Betty for telling me where you’d gone,” he insisted. “She was worried about you.” His lips curved as his gaze flickered over Laura. “She seemed to think you might need some looking after, out in the country.”

Feeling utterly exposed, Laura tucked the wool blanket more securely around her. From the beginning, people had speculated about the identity of Lady Sterling. But she had always believed herself clever enough to avoid being caught.

Now, she had to figure out how to manage what distance remained between her and Lord Sterling. Even if doing so required drawing him closer still.

“Perhaps Betty was right.” She glanced toward her ankle, then returned his smile, making sure her own was ever so slightly chagrined, and thoroughly disarming.

Lord Sterling, however, appeared to be oblivious to her charms. Lost in thought, he flicked her calling card against the thumb of the hand holding the watch. “Thornton is equally, er, deserving?”

Resigned, Laura straightened the tilt of her head and flattened her smile. “More so. He forced his attentions on his wife’s maid while Lady Thornton was making calls and was in the habit of summoning his last cook to his chambers to address his…appetites.”

“But I thought—the governess—?”

“Oh, yes. Miss Godfrey is among the recipients of his unwelcome attention, or fears she soon will be.” She patted her reticule where it lay in her lap, making the folded paper inside crinkle. “She wrote to Lady Sterling and asked for help.”

“You have not tried before to—?”

“I have,” she said, the words clipped. “And I have failed.” Once more, she found herself tracing the edges of Emily Godfrey’s letter through the silk purse. “In Lady Sterling’s storied career, Lord Thornton has been the lone adversary who cannot be bested, the villain who reappears just when all seems well.”

“Such characters are usually defeated in the end, are they not?” When she looked up at him sharply, he lifted his shoulders in a sheepish sort of shrug. “My sister has a decided fondness for the theater,” he explained. “Even the melodramas.”

“As does my aunt,” she admitted eventually. She raised her forefinger to her forehead and pressed the space between her eyebrows, realizing she had furrowed her brow in surprise at his confession—and the discovery that they had something in common beyond her assumed title and his real one. “But don’t you often feel that the retributions of the final scene must be small consolation to the victims who were sacrificed in acts one through four?”