“I thought it a splendidly brilliant means of explaining the situation. You very nearly brought the entire scheme crashing down around our heads. If Mr. Jonquil had realized for even one moment that I was not an empty-headed prattle box, he would have dismissed us without a second thought.”
“Could you not have left off the part about me being such a very old lady?” Abuela eyed Mariposa with barely disguised amusement.
Mariposa’s heart lightened at the sight of her grandmother’s cheerful countenance. There had been too much of sorrow in both their lives.
“You repaid my mischief with a good number of kicks, so I feel we are quite reconciled to one another.” After a moment’s silence, Mariposa voiced the thought running through her mind. “I believe we were right to go to Mr. Jonquil. So much depends upon our success, I could not possibly have trusted such a thing to someone unknown.”
“And yet you do not know Mr. Jonquil,” Abuela said.
“I feel as though I do. I feel as though I know all of the Jonquil brothers. The earl who acts the part of a fribble. The widower who has distanced himself from the world. The shy, gentle one. The brother destined to be a painfully respectable vicar. The mischievous youngest brother.”
“And the high and mighty barrister,” Abuela added.
Mariposa nodded. “We could not possibly have had a more vivid picture painted of Jason Jonquil, could we?” They both chuckled. “His professional dignity was every bit as palpable as I anticipated.”
“Why did you not simply tell him who had praised his abilities so highly?” Abuela asked. “Surely he would have taken your case had you explained as much.”
“All I learned of him, including the praise of his capabilities, was imparted during moments of extreme physical distress, at times all but forced out by fever.” Mariposa’s memories of a handsome golden-haired young man suffering so horrifically flooded her anew. Even amongst the myriad remembrances of pain and death that constantly lingered at the back of her thoughts, that young soldier’s agony always pierced her. “I am not entirely certain I have leave to reference such personal confidences.”
Abuela made a small noise of understanding. “Did you, I wonder, lose a little of your heart to that young man?”
“I did,” she confessed, “but not in the way you are imagining.” A sad sort of smile sighed out of her. All of her smiles were sad now, all that weren’t entirely feigned.
The hack came to a stop at the narrow house Mariposa had let for the Season in a respectable but not quite fashionable section of Town. Though she had found work while they had been on the Continent and had saved every bit possible of that unforeseen windfall, the amount was not sufficient for anything truly fashionable. Respectability was their aim for the nonce. Having left behind a life in which survival had proven difficult in the extreme, respectability felt absolutely frivolous.
Mariposa tipped their driver and linked arms with her abuela as they took the steps to the door. Their efficient and not-at-all-commonplace butler anticipated them, opening the door as they stepped inside without so much as a pause.
“Señora Aritza. Señorita Thornton.”
“Your acento is improving,” Abuela told him with a nod of approval. “You will never pasar for a Spaniard, but you would not give us reason to be ashamed.”
“Thank you, Señora,” he answered, his fair English skin showing an immediate blush.
Mariposa particularly liked the fact that a hardened soldier—he must have been hardened to have survived as many battles as his myriad injuries indicated he had—could still do something as eminently uncorrupted as blushing.
“Been workin’ on sayin’ all them Spanish words more proper like,” Black said, his color dropping to normal by degrees.
“Now you ought to put your mind to sayin’ all them English words more proper like,” Mariposa suggested.
Black’s barking laughter filled the small entryway, as Mariposa had known it would. He liked straight talk and found her sometimes scathing wit amusing. She might have held her tongue if he’d been the more sensitive type. “Right ye are, Señorita Thornton,” he said. “A proper butler don’t say things like a deuced street sweep do.”
“Perhaps you could begin by wiping the word deuced from your vocabulary.”
Black looked alarmed at the suggestion. “But deuced is already less of a word than I’d been saying. I’ll start soundin’ like a little girl soon enough.”
Mariposa clarified. “Remove it from your butler vocabulary. Below stairs or away from the house on your days off, you, of course, may speak as crassly and vulgarly as you choose.”
“Wouldn’t do nothin’ to embarrass you,” Black reassured her.
“I know that.” Mariposa gently touched the stump of his right arm. “And I wouldn’t be embarrassed. I would, in fact, be relieved to hear you had thoroughly scandalized the local servants’ tavern with your constant muttering of every lower-class curse known to London.”
His eye opened wide, his mouth dropping open a bit. Abuela, on the other hand, knew Mariposa too well to be shocked by anything she said.
“If you curse to your heart’s content while you are away,” Mariposa said, “I would know your tongue will not be tempted to say such things at less appropriate times simply because it missed doing so.”
Another barking laugh echoed around her as Mariposa followed in her grandmother’s wake. Black had improved by leaps and bounds since first coming to be in her employ. Getting that man to smile and laugh and generally enjoy life again had proven one of her most difficult undertakings.
She had seen far too much sorrow and felt too much of it herself to bear seeing such sadness in others. She had, over the years, teased and jested and reassured a good number of heavy hearts to lightness once more. Her own happiness, however, felt far more elusive.
She had not the slightest doubt that with very little effort, Mr. Jonquil would be able to answer the question she’d posed to him. Truth be told, she knew perfectly well she was entitled to an inheritance from her father’s estate. Furthermore, she knew the exact amount of the bequest. She had read the will herself. A far bigger question lay at the heart of her inquiry, a question she could not risk anyone else discovering.
Somewhere in this vast, unfamiliar country, she had family, and she needed to find them. They did not know it, but their lives depended on her discovering their whereabouts.
She did not like playing the empty-headed fool, but she simply could not risk Mr. Jonquil’s guessing that there was more than met the eye to her simple legal question. Giving the impression of stupidity and ridiculousness was the only way she knew to keep others, especially those as clever as Mr. Jonquil appeared to be, from looking too closely.
He would realize she had an inheritance awaiting her and could, she sincerely hoped, discover the name of the Thornton family’s solicitor, an important piece of information she had been unable to discover on her own. Through their solicitor, she could locate her family without drawing undue attention to her search.
Secrecy was of paramount importance. She was not the only person looking for them.
o
Jason never could manage to summon a great deal of patience when faced with the frivolous dandy his oldest brother, Philip, had become.
“The staff is already here. Save them from the boredom, Jason.” Philip flicked a speck of invisible lint off his cuffs. “Sorrel’s operation requires us to travel all the way to Scotland, and the recovery will be long enough to prevent our return before the end of the Season. This pile of stones will be vacant. You might as well put up here.”
“I have my own place, Philip. My rooms may not be lavish nor extensive, but they are more than sufficient.”
“Do as you wish.” Philip stopped in front of a mirror and straightened his blindingly yellow waistcoat. “But it’s a deuced shame to let the old place
sit empty.”
“My gratitude for the bit of charity,” Jason drawled.
“Charity?” Philip’s mouth quirked up at one corner. “I never knew I was doing good works by simply having brothers and an empty home and the presence of mind to piece together how very fortunate that combination truly is. A regular philanthropist, aren’t I?”
Jason bit back a frustrated retort. Philip dressed ridiculously. He acted like a mindless popinjay. It was not what Father would have wanted from his heir. He’d have expected hard work, the respect of peers, intelligence, and the ability to be solemn for one moment.
“I understand you are bound for Corbin’s estate,” Philip said, apparently done studying his reflection because he turned to face Jason.
Jason nodded silently. He meant to travel to his twin’s home in a few days.
“See if you can’t ferret out this widow with whom he is so enamored, the one Layton told us about,” Philip said. “Seems promising.”
“I don’t care to stick my nose in my brother’s business,” Jason answered with his characteristic forthrightness.
“Implying, then, that I do?” Philip raised an eyebrow but did not show any other sign of offense or irritation.
Jason shrugged his reply. Philip couldn’t seem to stop nosing about in Jason’s concerns.
“Perhaps Sorrel and I will stop by Corbin’s on our way to Scotland.” Philip directed a footman who carried a piece of luggage. “Thus I’ll have ample opportunity to stick my nose in his business. Seems that’s one of my duties as eldest brother.”
“At least you would be seeing to one of your duties,” Jason muttered under his breath.
“Perhaps you’d care to repeat that comment in a more discernible voice.” Philip’s tone grew suddenly so cold and clipped that Jason didn’t doubt his mumbled remark had been heard, understood, and not at all appreciated. “Even a barrister can find himself brought up for libel.”
“Are you threatening me?” Jason asked, his hackles instantly raised.
“I am warning you.” Philip spoke in much the same tone Miss Thornton had used just before she’d asked him if he was “simple.” Jason was utterly tired of being patronized. “I am accustomed to scathing criticisms,” Philip said. “But not everyone is able to overlook baseless accusations. First and foremost, a gentleman must act like a gentleman.” Philip almost looked and sounded like an earl for the most fleeting of moments. In an instant, however, he was back to swinging his quizzing glass on its ribbon and looking as though he hadn’t a single lucid thought rattling around in his brain box.
“Put that thing away before you decapitate someone with it,” Sorrel, Philip’s wife, said as she entered, leaning heavily on her cane.
“Indeed, dear,” Philip answered foppishly. “Imagine if the French had discovered such a use for their quizzing glasses. The aristocracy might have been able to fend off their executioners.”
“You are intolerable at times,” Sorrel said. “But you know that, of course.”
Does he? Does Philip even care that he drives people mad?
“If you had seen me in my dark-blue waistcoat this morning before I changed my mind and donned this one, you would have declared me beyond intolerable,” Philip answered. “’Twas a very plain, ordinary, boring blue, not to mention very unexceptionally cut. To make matters far worse, the color did absolutely nothing for my complexion, not nearly as stunning as the yellow.”
Sorrel shook her head with palpable patience. “I imagine the blue actually looked respectable.”
“Which would be the reason he chose to eschew it,” Jason offered.
“How very right you are, Jason.” Sorrel nodded firmly. She moved with such obvious pain and difficulty. The surgery she was facing would, as far as Jason understood it, alleviate some of that suffering.
Jason liked her. He liked that she didn’t put up with Philip’s nonsense. Perhaps she would prove enough of an influence to turn him back into the Philip Jason still remembered from his childhood: the brother he’d most admired, not this dolt who postured to the world.
“Philip hasn’t been pestering you to look after Lampton House, has he?” Sorrel asked.
“Of course he has.”
“Pay him no mind,” Sorrel said. “He has for some inexplicable reason become convinced that the house will simply crumble into a heap of dust if there is not a Jonquil in residence at all times. I, for one, firmly believe the servants are breathing a collective sigh of relief at the prospect of being left in peace for once.”
“Are you, Jeffers?” Philip asked Lampton House’s long-suffering butler. “Sighing, that is? If so, I should very much like to know. I would be pleased to tutor you in a more effective and dramatic method than is generally employed.”
Jason thought for just a moment that he saw Jeffers smile. Jeffers had been the London residence’s butler since before Jason was in short pants, and he didn’t remember ever seeing him smile.
“I assure you, my lord,” Jeffers said, all pomp and dignity, “any sighs emanating from the servants’ hall shall be executed with utmost drama and effectiveness.”
“Very good, man.” Philip nodded. He turned back to Sorrel. “Shall we, my dear?”
“I think we had better. I, for one, do not wish to experience a dramatic sigh several dozen people strong.”
“Very wise of you, darling,” Philip answered. “And there is the added benefit of seeing all my sartorial splendor during our carriage ride to Nottinghamshire.”
“You should have settled on the blue and left it at that.” Sorrel took Philip’s arm, the look of pain forever etched in her features easing a little as his support lessened the weight on her badly crippled leg.
“Ah, but the yellow doesn’t wrinkle like the blue,” Philip pointed out. “And it is a very long trip to Havenworth. Should I have chosen the blue, I would, perforce, have been required to sit in my own little corner of the carriage rather than being more snugly situated beside my wife.”
A blush crept across Sorrel’s cheeks, surprising Jason quite thoroughly. She didn’t seem the type to color.
“Of course, if you would prefer, I could take a moment and switch back,” Philip offered.
“The yellow will be just fine,” Sorrel said briskly. Then, head held high, she urged Philip forward and down the front steps of Lampton House toward the waiting carriage.
She wasn’t one to suffer fools gladly, and yet she appeared entirely smitten with Jason’s peacock of a brother. Jason watched the Lampton traveling carriage as it trundled up the street. Sorrel apparently saw something in Philip she liked despite the fact that he appeared a babbling fool to the rest of the world.
Whereas Jason, who was liked and respected by his colleagues, appeared to Miss Mariposa Thornton to be . . . well, a babbling fool.
He scolded himself for even thinking about the exasperating female, something he’d been doing more of than was advisable, especially considering he’d been in company with her only once.
Miss Thornton was pretty, yes. Beautiful, if he were being entirely honest—which he always tried to be. She was also frustrating and empty-headed and entirely confusing.
He would do well to answer her very straightforward legal question and be done with the entire thing.
Chapter Three
Very little unnerved Mariposa—she’d seen and experienced far too much in her nearly twenty years to find herself daunted by life—but Mr. Jason Jonquil’s arrival at her doorstep exactly one week after she had underhandedly secured his legal assistance shook her composure more than she would ever have admitted.
Day after day she’d waited for word that he had perused the documents she’d left him. No correspondence had arrived. Part of her had wondered if she’d offended him, if he’d realized she’d been playing a part in order to all but force his hand into agreeing to take her on as a client. Hi
s demeanor upon arriving, however, was one of wary condescension, much as one would assume when dealing with an unpredictable simpleton. Perfect.
“Good morning, Mr. Jonquil.”
Mariposa saw that Black took immediate note of the name. Mariposa nodded subtly and motioned for him to take himself off. One word from him and all her efforts would be for naught. Keen as always to his duties, he left just as she’d hoped he would, though he took the opportunity to study Mr. Jonquil first.
Mariposa took a moment to study Mr. Jonquil as well. He was tall, something that would not necessarily have been readily apparent to her, she being barely over five feet tall in her thickest-soled shoes. Everyone seemed tall to Mariposa. But Mr. Jonquil must have been a foot taller than herself. He was lean but by no means scrawny. His hair was golden enough to have seen a great deal of sunlight but his complexion not nearly tan enough for that to be the case. She could come to no other conclusion than that his hair was naturally light, just as his eyes were almost unnaturally blue. And those eyes were, at that moment, focused directly on her.
Realizing she had been essentially staring the man out of countenance, Mariposa collected herself and covered the tactical error with words. “Have you finished reading the will already, Mr. Jonquil?” She kept her tone and expression light and somewhat vacuous.
“I have, indeed, Miss Thornton.” That same look of exasperated confusion that had taken up permanent residence there during their initial meeting surfaced in his eyes.
“Good for you.” Patting his hand would likely be taking things too far, so she refrained.
“Yes, I’m certain my colleagues are all very proud of this accomplishment.” The dry response spoke of humor, but his austere expression hadn’t changed in the least.
Mr. Jonquil’s air did not ring entirely true. His mouth was continually pressed closed, as if holding back some word or another. He appeared to all the world to be quite calm and collected, yet she sensed a subtle but unmistakable tension.
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