A Spinster’s Guide to Danger and Dukes (Ladies Most Scandalous Book 3)

Howard,” Langham said, gesturing for the other man to come in and take a seat. “Can I offer you a whisky?”

But the physician shook his head and, perhaps noting Poppy’s agitation as she looked up at him, said, “I’ll get straight to the point, Miss Delamere. Your sister is in fine health. She should suffer no consequences from her time locked away.”

“Oh, thank heavens,” Poppy exhaled in relief. “And her fever?”

“A result of being kept in the cold and damp for too long,” he said with a reassuring smile. “But she is a healthy young woman and should recover from the effects with a few days’ rest.”

Langham felt his shoulders relax at hearing the prognosis. He’d feared that Lord Short might have had Poppy’s sister beaten in order to ensure her compliance, but thankfully it sounded as if he’d been content with simply keeping her away from Poppy.

“She had several cuts and scrapes on her feet and lower legs,” Howard continued, “and I’m afraid she is suffering from weakness due to a lack of water and sustenance while she was locked in the dower house. It would seem that she was given only a few bread crusts a day and her water pitcher was not refilled once it was empty.”

“She didn’t tell me that,” Poppy said lifting a hand to her chest.

“I daresay she didn’t want to worry you.” Langham squeezed her shoulder.

“Quite so,” Howard agreed. “I suspect it is just as His Grace said. She was trying to save you from worrying. We often have a difficult time telling those closest to us about the worst things we’ve endured. As a physician, I am often the recipient of such confidences.”

“Thank you, Dr. Howard,” Poppy said with a smile. “That does give me some comfort.”

Langham was grateful that at least someone had been able to give Poppy good news tonight.

“I dressed the superficial injuries,” Howard continued, “and gave her a sleeping powder to allow her to rest. I expect you’ll see much improvement in her by the morning.”

Waiting for the physician to take his leave, Langham was surprised when the man cleared his throat and addressed Poppy again.

“In the interest of offering you a bit more uplifting news, Miss Delamere,” Dr. Howard said, “I can reassure you that while I can have no notion of who pushed your sister’s husband from the tower, he was very likely stabbed before he fell and whoever landed the fatal blow had far more strength than your sister does.”

Poppy gasped.

“How can you know this?” Langham demanded. “I thought Rhodes called in someone from the neighboring village to examine the fellow’s wounds because he claimed you were too close to Lovell.”

“He did, but Stannings insisted I be there as well.” Howard turned to Poppy to explain. “I was no more familiar with Lovell than anyone else in the village. I simply took the place of old Dr. Matthews, who was very close to Constable Rhodes’s family, and he’s never forgiven me for it.”

“What more can you tell us about Lovell’s injuries?” the duke asked. If it was true that Violet didn’t possess the strength to have stabbed her husband, then perhaps they could have Howard testify on her behalf.

“In addition to the strength needed to stab through the man’s sternum,” Howard said, “the angle of the wound indicated that the blow was dealt by someone as tall or taller than him. There’s also the impossibility of a woman of your sister’s build having the strength to toss a man of Lovell’s size over the tower wall. It is simply not possible.”

“Oh, you cannot know how happy I am to hear you say all of this, Dr. Howard.” Poppy smiled through her tears, and Langham felt his heart lurch at the sight of her relief. If he’d known the physician had the power to put that smile on her face, he’d have sent for the man as soon as they’d arrived in Little Kidding.

There were, he realized suddenly, few things he wouldn’t do in order to make Poppy happy. Oh, he wasn’t fool enough to think she couldn’t take care of herself. She’d proved again and again that despite her desperation when they’d reconnected in the train station, she was more than capable of making her own way in the world. But they’d been good together in the folly. And aside from his ability to bring her physical pleasure, there was also the fact that for all of its drawbacks, life as his duchess would give her a comfortable life. Comfort that he would be happy to extend to her sister and mother.

He watched her expression as she spoke quietly with Dr. Howard, and he was struck by the thought that he’d come to know this woman as well as he knew himself. And ensuring her happiness was becoming essential to his own. She was strong and proud and beautiful, and he wanted more than anything in the world to call her his wife.

The idea that she would agree to make their betrothal a true one was preposterous, he reminded himself. They’d both seemed to pull away after the intensity of their time in the folly. But he’d done so because he knew that all too soon, he’d have to give her up. Perhaps she had done so for similar reasons? If there was even the slightest chance that she’d agree to a real proposal, then he had to try.

Damn it.

As if in a dream Langham said his goodbyes to the doctor and watched as Poppy shut the door behind him.

“Now that my mind has been put at ease,” she said, turning to face him, “I believe I shall go to bed. Thank you again for all of your help. I don’t know what I’d have done tonight if you and your family hadn’t been here to assist Violet in her time of need.”

“It was my pleasure,” he said, and as much as he wished to give them both time to digest the events of the evening, he somehow found himself unable to stop his next words. “Before you go, there is something we should discuss.”

Her blue eyes, luminous in the lamplight, grew round. “Is something wrong?” she asked. For the barest moment he thought about making up something inconsequential to talk with her about instead of forging ahead with his proposal.

But the idea of going to his lonely bed to wonder what her reaction would be to a true accounting of his feelings for her was too much to bear.

“No, not at all.” Langham stepped closer to her and took her left hand, lifting it so that he could examine his family sapphire on her fourth finger. “I wanted to talk about this.”

Her brows knitted. “You wish me to give it back? I had thought to keep it until the end of the week, but—”

“No,” he said hastily, pulling her toward him. “Quite the opposite. I want you to keep it. Until death do us part.”

But she braced her hands against his chest. There was no mistaking the surprise in her blue eyes. “What? I think the events of this evening have affected you more than I realized.”

It wasn’t the ecstatic acceptance he’d hoped for, to say the least. And something told him that revealing that he’d come to have tender feelings for her wasn’t the best way to convince her that his offer was genuine. She was a rational, level-headed woman. So, he would simply have to give her the logical case for why they would be better married than apart.

“That was before we’d spent so much time together,” he said lifting one of the hands she’d pressed against him to kiss its palm. When she didn’t pull her hand away, he counted it a small victory. “I realize we weren’t the best of friends when we embarked on this journey, but as we’ve run into obstacle after obstacle—whether it was a drawing room full of angry candidates for my hand or the nasty insinuations of Constable Rhodes about your sister—I’ve come to value your wit and strength. Your loyalty to Violet is something I can’t help but admire, because it is so similar to my own loyalty to my family.”

He lowered his voice and added, “God knows our time in the folly proved that we have passion between us. With that and friendship we can make a better marriage than most ton unions.”

Poppy’s mouth tightened and her expression turned blank, as if she’d dropped a curtain over her thoughts. She pulled away from him, and he had no choice but to let her go.

He wasn’t sure what he’d said that had annoyed her. Should he have kept silent about the folly? He hadn’t thought she was the sort to be embarrassed about such things. Especially given how frank and open she’d been when they were together.

Before he could try to smooth things over, however, she spoke first.

“You’re saying that we should marry because we’re such good friends?” she asked carefully. Her smile was perfectly pleasant if one didn’t see that the light in her eyes had been snuffed out like a candle at bedtime.

“Friends who enjoy kissing,” he said, trying for a levity that he knew would fall flat even as the words came out of his mouth. This was not going as well as he’d hoped.

“You keep bringing up the time in the folly,” she said aloud. Her arms crossed over her chest in a protective manner. “I realize that you’re likely sincere about friendship and passion being a reason for us to wed, but I wonder if there isn’t another reason why you’re pressing me to accept you tonight of all nights.”

Langham tilted his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Poppy dropped her arms to the side and sighed. “You’re a gentleman. You think that because you compromised me, you are honor bound to offer me marriage. You’ve tried to wrap it up in ribbons of friendship and passion, but that’s really what is behind your proposal.”

It was at that moment that Langham knew he’d well and truly bungled this.

“That’s not it at all. If you’d just let me explai—”

But Poppy would have none of it. “You’re a good man, Langham. And I value the friendship we’ve formed in the past few days. But I don’t mean for either one of us to be trapped in a marriage simply because we succumbed to desire in a moment of weakness.”

Going up on her toes, she kissed his cheek. Then without a backward glance, she opened the study door, stepped into the hall, and shut the door behind her.

Langham stared after her in disbelief.

If this was love, then no wonder poets were always so bloody miserable.

*  *  *

Despite having lain awake long into the night, Poppy awoke the next morning at her usual time, thoughts of Langham’s proposal still weighing heavily on her mind.

Once she’d had time to think about it, she realized that she should have expected his proposal. For all that he had let down his guard with her since they’d arrived from London, he was, nevertheless, a gentleman. He might have decided to hoodwink his grandmother and her guests about their betrothal, but he was hardly going to let something like taking her virginity pass without a proposal of marriage.

Never mind that no one but them knew what had happened between them. He’d compromised her, and his sense of honor dictated that he ask her to marry him. It was as simple as that.

But oh, for a heart stopping few seconds she’d thought he might be about to tell her that he’d come to love her just as much as she did him. Her chest had swelled with hope, and it had taken every iota of self-control she had not to blurt out how much she’d come to trust and admire and, yes, love him.

Thank heavens she’d stopped herself. Because his very next words had been about friendship and passion.

Yes, there was no denying that there was passion there. She had read accounts of such encounters before, and though the descriptions had made her breathless and warm, she’d wondered all the same whether the diarists had exaggerated. Happily, Langham had proved that rather than an exaggeration, the writings she’d pored over had, if anything, underrated the experience.

She closed her eyes and was once more in the folly, with his hard muscles under her hands and his mouth on hers as he thrust into her.

No, she thought, feeling a little flushed, not an exaggeration at all.

But even knowing that they could be so spectacular together in the bedchamber—or anywhere, it would seem—that wasn’t enough to make a marriage between them work.

When she’d first gone to London, she’d thought she’d never want to marry. She’d seen just how awful her mother’s marriage to Lord Short had turned out. And she never wanted to give a man that much power over her.

But then she’d seen first Kate and then Caro marry men whom they truly seemed to be head over ears for. And more importantly, their husbands felt the same about them. And far from controlling Kate or trying to constrain her writing or the way she ran the newspaper, Detective Inspector Eversham seemed proud of his wife’s accomplishments. And Poppy had seen how the Lord Wrackham looked at Caro, and it was that kind of adoration that Poppy had come to desire.

If she was going to marry and trust a man to have legal control over her, then she would only do so if he was just as in love with her as Eversham and Lord Wrackham were with her friends.

Or, a tiny voice whispered, as much in love with her as she was with him.

That wasn’t to say she hadn’t been tempted by Langham’s proposal. While she wasn’t particularly enthralled by the idea of becoming a duchess, she would very much like to be his duchess. But only if he could offer her love.

Because despite the fact that as a duke he was one of the most powerful men in England—or perhaps because of it—if they ever did marry, there would be opposition from all sides. Lady Carlyle and Miss Beaconfield’s revelation of Poppy’s work in London at the dinner table was only a small preview of the kind of public attempts to embarrass both Poppy and Langham that would occur once they were wed. There were those who would accept their marriage as a fait accompli, but many more who would see it as an invitation for them to make an example of Poppy. To serve as a warning to any other woman of lesser birth who considered marrying above her.

If she and Langham were to face that kind of opposition for the rest of their lives, then Poppy would settle for nothing less than a love match.

She sighed.

A glance at the clock reminded her that she needed to get dressed and check on Violet. After she’d bathed, she donned a jonquil silk morning gown with Mary’s help and dressed her hair in a simple chignon. Then she set off down the hall for her sister’s bedchamber.

Her knock was answered by a maid, who informed her that Mrs. Lovell was bathing, but from the adjoining dressing room, Poppy heard her sister call out for her to come in.

In the adjoining dressing room, she found Violet swathed in a robe and brushing through her wet hair.

“I did not realize how grateful I would be for something as simple as a hot bath,” Violet said once Poppy had come into the chamber and taken a seat on a tufted stool near the wardrobe.

This wing, where the family rooms were located, had been outfitted with modern running water and plumbing. Poppy suspected it must have cost Langham a small fortune to do so, but he didn’t seem concerned about the estate’s coffers. If it had been an issue, she had no doubt he’d have taken up one of the heiresses the dowager had been parading before him long before now.

He still might take up with one of them, now that you’ve turned him down.

Poppy chose to ignore the chiding voice in her head that sounded remarkably like one of the more sour-tempered governesses whom Lord Short had employed for her and Poppy when they were girls. She had enough trouble without having an imaginary Miss Renfrow in her head.

Turning her attention back to Violet, she noted that the shadows that had lingered beneath her sister’s eyes last night were gone. And her color seemed healthier now. “You’re looking much better this morning, I’m relieved to see. I don’t mind telling you that you gave me quite a scare last night.”

Violet met her eyes in the mirror and gave a rueful smile. “I’m sorry I worried you. In truth I was a bit worried for myself. But the sleeping powder the doctor left for me worked splendidly. And before I took it, the cook sent up a tonic for the fever. So by the time I awakened this morning, I felt as if I’d never been ill at all.”

Poppy made a mental note to go down later this morning and thank the cook for her assistance. Still, there was no medicine that could help the murder accusation that was still hanging over Violet’s head.

Dr. Howard had said he would inform Sir Geoffrey Stannings and Mr. Rhodes that he didn’t believe Violet could have stabbed her husband, but since he wasn’t the physician Mr. Rhodes had asked to view the body, his words might not matter to the constable. And she knew from her work with Kate and Caro that eyewitness testimony like that of Lord Short against Violet counted more with juries than the sometimes dry words of physicians.

Restless, Poppy rose to her feet and idly examined the various trinkets and bits of jewelry that had been laid out atop the chest as Violet bathed. She recognized a simple silver chain with a topaz pendant that her sister had received as a gift for her sixteenth birthday. And beside it, there was a simple gold wedding band that made Poppy’s stomach turn, as it reminded her that Violet’s union with Alistair Lovell had been all too real.

But to the side of these items was something that turned Poppy’s blood cold.

Lifting the long gold chain with an all too familiar pendant hanging from it, she crossed to Violet and showed it to her. “Where did you get this?”

The round pendant was decorated with a jeweled re-creation of the Lucifer figure from the stained glass window at St. Lucy’s.

Violet had finished brushing her hair and had begun rubbing cream into her hands. But when Poppy showed her the pendant, she closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them, she shook her head. “It’s nothing. Please forget you ever saw it.”

Rising from the padded chair where she’d been seated, Violet crossed to the door leading back into the bedchamber.

But Poppy wasn’t about to let the matter drop. “I can’t forget it, Violet,” she said, following her sister into the bedroom. “This is the symbol of the Lucifer Society. Langham’s great-grandfather founded it here nearly a century ago, and it’s meant to be disbanded. What do you know of it?”

“I don’t know anything about this Lucifer Society you’re talking of. And really, this is just a necklace Papa gave me. I don’t know why you’re so upset by it,” Violet said, going to a pair of chairs arranged near the fire and taking a seat.

“Your husband was wearing just such a necklace when he died,” Poppy said. “A necklace remarkably like those worn by a group of hooded figures Langham and I saw in the supposedly abandoned caves where the Lucifer Society used to meet. Not to mention the fact that a knife with the same symbol engraved on it was found near Lovell’s body and is believed to have caused the wound in his chest.”

Violet gasped. Perhaps not surprisingly it was the news about the stab wound that she remarked upon. “What? I thought my husband died from falling from the top of the tower. Edw— that is, no one told me anything about Alistair being stabbed.”

It was impossible for Poppy to miss the slip Violet had just made. She’d been about to say the name Edward. And as far as she knew the only man with that name in the area was Langham’s cousin Edward Jarvis, who just so happened to be the man who had discovered Lovell’s body.

For the moment she would not mention that she’d noticed Violet’s slip of the tongue. It was clear to her, however, that there must be more to her sister’s relationship with the man than mere friendship. Her sister would not call an unmarried man by his given name unless there was more between them.

Quickly, Poppy gave a brief history of the Lucifer Society and how it had been connected to the chapel on the hill as well as the temple folly. “And last night, Langham and I were walking in the garden after supper and saw lights in the temple folly across the lake. I thought perhaps someone was keeping you there, but when we went to investigate, we instead found a large gathering of people in the caves beneath the folly. They were participating in a ceremony where they were each given a necklace just like this one.”

She didn’t tell her sister about the other part of the ritual, where the group members took bloody bites of what had been purported to be Lovell’s heart. There were some details that were simply too gruesome to share—no matter how much her sister might have disliked the man.

What she had told Violet had been startling enough, if her sister’s reaction was anything to go by. “What? I know nothing about such an odd assembly. Certainly not involving necklaces like mine.” She placed her hand to her chest. Then, her eyes troubled, she asked, “Did you see my father there?”

“No,” Poppy said, “though everyone was wearing a mask. So, I have no way of knowing whether Lord Short was among those gathered. Though the fact that he gave you that necklace seemed to indicate he is involved in some way with the group.”

Violet pursed her lips, thinking.

“Did he say anything when he gave you the necklace?” Poppy asked. Perhaps if she understood the context of the gift, she could better understand her stepfather’s reason for giving Violet a pendant connected with the Lucifer Society, and what reason he might have to be involved with such a group. There would be some sort of rationale for him to do so. Of that she was certain. Lord Short did nothing out of happenstance.

“You know how Papa and Alistair were always meeting with various men from the neighborhood over business dealings and investments?” Violet said. “Even before you left, they did that in whichever city or town we lived in.”

Poppy nodded. As soon as they settled into a new locale, Lord Short would begin seeking out the prominent members of the area so that he and Alistair could lure new prey into whichever scheme they were conducting at the time. She hadn’t realized what it had meant until just before she fled for London. But it was not a surprise to learn her stepfather and his cohort had continued the practice once they moved to Little Kidding.

“One night about a year ago,” Violet explained, “I thought Papa and Mr. Lovell were gone for the evening, and I went into the study to find a book. I walked in, and to my surprise they were seated at one of the library tables with a number of necklaces just like mine spread out over the table. As soon as I walked in and realized they were there, I turned to leave at once.”

Poppy saw the way her sister’s lips tightened at the memory. “What happened?”

“I’d interrupted them when they were working on their business matters before and had been scolded roundly,” Violet explained. “And I had no intention of having it happen again. Only I must have gasped when I saw them because Alistair saw me and grabbed me by the arm and dragged me inside.”

It made Poppy’s blood boil to think of her sister at the mercy of such an awful man. But she held her tongue, knowing that it would do Violet no good to speak of it just now.

“Normally, Papa would have joined in with Alistair’s chastisement,” Violet continued, “but this time, he laughed. ‘Let her come in and see what a celebration we’re planning for our neighbors,’ he said. And plucking one of the necklaces from the table, he stood and came to slip it over my neck. It was clear from Alistair’s expression that he was livid, but he made no protest, only said ‘We’ve already spent far too much on these baubles. We can’t afford to simply give them away.’”

Thinking of the argument she’d overheard between Lovell and her stepfather the night she ran away, when Lovell had warned that Lord Twombley was suspicious of their fraudulent investment scheme in the Amazon, Poppy wondered if the two men had become more hostile to one another in the intervening year.

Violet continued, “But Papa told him to stop being such a pinchpenny. If he couldn’t give his daughter a gift every now and then, why were they working so hard?”

Poppy felt a pang of sympathy as she realized Violet had teared up.

“He’d never really given me a gift before,” she said shaking her head ruefully. “Even knowing it was tied up with one of their illegal schemes, I was touched.”

“Did they say anything else about their plans for the necklaces?” Poppy asked, curious if they’d made mention of the caves or the revival of the Lucifer Society.

“No,” Violet said. “Alistair told me to leave, and for the most part, Papa left it to my husband to be the one to manage me.”

Poppy thought with a sickness in her belly about the ways in which that management might have been meted out by Lovell’s hands. “I’m so sorry for what you must have had to endure from him, Violet,” she said reaching out to squeeze her sister’s hand. “I will never forgive myself for leaving you to that man’s mercy.”

But Violet merely looked at her knowingly. “To my great relief, Alistair didn’t seem to be interested in that side of marriage.”

Poppy was shocked. “But he seemed so intent on—well, there was the time he intruded upon me in the bath. I thought he must want the marriage for carnal reasons.”

Violet shrugged. “I don’t know why he wasn’t interested, but I was grateful. Though I suspect he had his heart set on you. I overheard him complaining to Papa once that he should never have agreed to take me in your stead, that he should have gone through with his plan to expose Papa to the world as soon as it was revealed you’d left.”

“He was blackmailing Lord Short?” Poppy wondered suddenly if Lovell had threatened to expose Lord Short’s crimes. If so, it made sense that her stepfather would agree to dance to the other man’s tune.

Violet nodded. “And though he never insisted on exerting his marital rights, he was very determined that we cut a dash in the neighborhood. He bought me all sorts of gowns and jewels. And made sure we accepted every invitation that came our way. I suspect his true reason for wanting to marry into our family was a desire for the status it would bring him.”

It made some sense. Poppy could recall how much Lovell had loathed being treated like a servant. As Lord Short’s private secretary, he’d occupied an in-between status where he wasn’t the equal of Lord Short and his family, but he wasn’t as low in station as the rest of the staff below stairs, either. As a member of the family, however, he could claim the connection to the baronet—even one whose title Poppy now knew to be fraudulent.

“I suspect one reason for not asserting his rights with me,” Violet said, “was that he had a lover in the neighborhood. Though I don’t know who.”

Poppy’s eyes narrowed. Perhaps Lovell’s murder had nothing to do with his crimes with her stepfather and was instead connected with his mistress, whomever she might be.

Which reminded her of one more unpleasant topic she needed to broach. “Violet, your father said he saw you follow Alistair from the grange on the evening he was killed. He said you were walking in the direction of St. Lucifer’s.”

Violet’s mouth twisted with disgust. “My father would betray anyone in an effort to save his own hide. Even his own daughter.”

She lifted a hand to her forehead. “No, to answer your question, I didn’t follow my husband to the tower and murder him. You know how I feel about heights. I would never have gone up there in the daylight, much less in the evening.”

Poppy related how she and Langham had found her handkerchief atop the chapel’s tower, and Violet looked perplexed. “I don’t know how it got there, but it wasn’t left there by me.”

“Do you think your father could have taken it up there?” Poppy asked, thinking about what her sister had just said about Lord Short’s determination to save himself.

“I think it’s a distinct possibility, just as I think it’s possible he killed Alistair himself.” Violet scowled. “Even before I’d had time to make sense of the news—Papa took me into his study and tried to make me sign over my rights to my inheritance from Alistair. It is quite a sizeable sum, though of course, given how it was acquired, I have little wish for it.”

“He was wealthy?” Poppy asked. Though now that she considered it, Lovell must have made a great deal of money as a result of his schemes with her stepfather.

“I don’t know the true extent of his holdings,” Violet said, “but he was clearly managing well enough. And if he successfully blackmailed Papa to marry one of us, then perhaps he was blackmailing others for money.”

If the note she and Langham had found in Lovell’s bedchamber was any indication, then it was likely he had been blackmailing others besides Lord Short, Poppy thought.

“How did you react to your father’s demand to sign over your inheritance?” Poppy asked.

“I refused, of course.” Violet’s jaw was tight, and Poppy was proud of her sister’s determination. “But he was angrier at my refusal than I’ve ever seen him.”

“What did he do?” Poppy asked, terrified to hear her sister’s answer.

“When I wouldn’t sign the papers,” Violet continued, “Papa locked me in the cellar of the dower house and said that if I didn’t change my mind in a few days he’d have me declared mad and send me to an asylum, and he’d get the money that way.”

Lord Short had long ago proved to Poppy that he was ruthless when he wanted something, but she could never have imagined that he would do such a cruel thing as to send his only daughter to the hell of an asylum.

“How could he?” she asked, her hands clenched with rage. “You must never go back to his household, Violet. I will ask Langham to do what he can to have Mama brought here. But it will be difficult to manage it until we find a way to have Lord Short arrested for his financial misdeeds. Langham has sent for a detective we know from Scotland Yard, but it might take time to find evidence to charge him. And until then, it is illegal to come between a man and his wife. No matter how cruel he is to her.”

“She tried so many times to help me,” Violet said sadly. “But Mama has been under his thumb for so long now that I fear she may never truly be able to escape him. She does love us, though. When you left, she was inconsolable. And so very angry at Papa. I’ve never seen her stand up to him the way she did when she learned you’d gone.”

Poppy had been so caught up in the reality of her flight to London and then trying to get settled there that she hadn’t given much thought to how her mother had reacted to her running away. Hearing that her flight had hurt her made Poppy’s eyes burn. “I will do what I can to get her away from him,” she told her sister now.

“Good,” said Violet. “Because the more I think of it, the more I think that it was Papa who planted my handkerchief in the tower. I remember the last time I had it was in the library at the grange the day before Alistair was killed. I left it behind when I was called away to answer a question from the housekeeper, and when I came back to retrieve it, Papa was there. He denied having seen it.”

“So, he could have taken it,” Poppy said, her mouth tightening.

“I feel certain he must have.”

At the sound of dejection in her sister’s voice, Poppy took her in her arms. “We’re going to see him punished, Violet. I promise.”

But even as she said the words, she wondered whether, even with the evidence mounting against him, Lord Short would find yet another way to escape justice.