Page 27 of A Season for Scandal

I thought I saw a look of vulnerability cross Oliver’s face, but it was gone in a flash.

He cleared his throat. “I asked to meet here because I wasn’t sure if the Aviary would be interested in taking on my case. I know I am not exactly the typical client, and I don’t wish to take advantage of our … connection.” The words were awkward, and he hesitated here, but no one spoke. Whatever the connection was that he was talking about, I assumed it was something to do with his relationship with Max and Izzy who seemed to know him fairly well.

“In fact,” he continued gruffly, “I have done everything in my own power not to involve you in this mess for exactly that reason, but I have run out of places to go … well,peopleto go to who I really trust.” Again, there was the slightest faltering in his rigid posture.

“You’re among friends here,” Mrs Finch said, and I was surprised again by the softening of her voice. There were undercurrents here that I didn’t understand. “You did the right thing by coming to us.”

Oliver sighed, but some of the tightness left his expression. “I suppose I had better tell you the whole story from the beginning.”

Shifting in his seat, his frown deepened for a moment, and he appeared to be choosing his words with care.

“Eleven years ago – when I myself was eleven – my mother and my younger sister died in a carriage accident.” His words were clipped, devoid of emotion, but in his face there was a pain that he couldn’t conceal. “Being a child, I was never privy to the details of this accident and, honestly, I never had any reason to look more closely at it. Why should I? They were gone and my father and I remained.” While his voice was steady, I could see that he was gripping the handle of his tea cup tightly enough that his knuckles whitened.

“My father passed away over three years ago. He and I did not have the best of relationships. He was a wealthy man and I have spent the time since his death trying to untangle much of the mess he left behind. Currently, I am attempting to remedy some of his morequestionablebusiness practices.” Oliver placed his cup back on the table in front of him, flexing his fingers as though he wanted to shake the tension from them.

“Six months ago, I received a letter from one of my father’s lawyers, referencing a trust that had been set up for my sister, one that she would be able to access on her twenty-first birthday – a date that was fast approaching. I was baffled by the existence of such a trust when my sister had been deceased for so long, and so I came to London to meet with him.” Oliver’s frown deepened. “The lawyer whom I met was an unfortunate blowhard with a tendency to waffle, but once he finally got to the point, he revealed that the trust remained in existence because my sister had never been declared legally dead.”

“How can that be?” Izzy murmured.

“A pertinent question, Isobel.” Oliver nodded. “And one that I asked myself.”

“Much less politely, I’ll wager.” The words were out of my mouth before I could think better of it.

“Not a wager anyone would be wise to take,” Mrs Finch said, with a small smile.

Oliver narrowed his eyes at me. “I was perhaps a touch …uncivil, but the man had taken me by surprise.”

“And after your uncivil behaviour, did this lawyer finally get to his point?” Sylla asked, and it was clear Oliver was not the only one feeling impatient.

“Yes. He told me that after the accident only my mother’s body was ever recovered. My sister was assumed to have also perished, but to have been washed away in a nearby river and therefore, without a body, could not be declared legally dead until seven years had passed. My father died just before we reached this deadline and I, of course, had no knowledge of any of this, so had not taken the appropriate steps to declare her dead myself.”

“You had no idea your sister had never been found?” Maud asked.

Oliver shook his head. “We had a funeral for both of them. I did not know that we buried an empty coffin in Ellen’s grave.”

“How awful,” Winnie murmured. “This must all have been such a shock.”

Oliver’s jaw tightened. “It was … unsettling. Rather than sign the papers that the lawyer had waiting for me and closing the door on Ellen’s life, I decided I needed to do some investigating of my own. I was left with too many unanswered questions and naturally the one that haunted me the most was simple: what if my sister was still alive somehow? It seemed strange to me that no sign of her had been found, and I could not discover if my father had organized a thorough search or not.” Oliver’s expression cooled even further. “He was not a careful man where his family was concerned. I went to the library to try to find any news articles relating to the accident. That is when I ran into Miss Bloom. Or rather whensheran into me.”

His eyes flicked briefly to mine. “However, even after I had survived Miss Bloom’s violent onslaught” – he ignored my huff of laughter – “I could find no information in the library records at all, and so I did what I thought at the time was best – I engaged a private investigator.” At this, Oliver grimaced.

“Well, there’s your first mistake.” Sylla crossed her arms, expression smug.

“It seems to me to be a perfectly sensible course of action,” Max said.

Sylla rolled her eyes. “Of course it would.”

“Unfortunately, the investigator turned out to be a blockhead,” Oliver continued, resigned.

Shocking, Sylla mouthed.

“But he did discover one useful piece of information. The accident hadn’t taken place in England at all. It happened outside Paris.”

“Paris?” Several voices piped up at once.

“Which is where I would have travelled next had it not been for the actions of the aforementioned blockhead. It seems the investigator, a Mr Wylie…”

Here, not only Sylla but Mrs Finch, Izzy, Maud and Winnie all let out loud groans.