The Watchmaker's Daughter (Glass and Steele #1)(32)

"Miss Glass," I said, gently. "My name is India Steele and I'm pleased to make your acquaintance. Please, come inside out of the rain. We'll have a cup of tea and see if we can sort out this misunderstanding. I give my word that no one will harm you."

She took in my face, my clothes, the reticule dangling from my wrist. "You do seem like a good, respectable English girl." She shot Willie a barbed glance.

Willie opened her mouth to say something, but Mr. Glass shook his head and she shut it again.

Miss Letitia Glass stepped back onto the porch and, after a brief hesitation, took Duke's offered arm.

"No one will harm her?" Mr. Glass murmured in my ear. His hand on my elbow gripped hard. "You think me capable of hurting elderly ladies?"

"Mr. Glass…" I stopped myself from telling him I didn't trust him and instead said, "It reassured her, did it not? Is there anything you can show her to prove who you are?"

"Is that for her benefit or yours?" He let me go and indicated I should step inside ahead of him.

"I never doubted you were Matthew Glass," I said, passing him. "Until now."

Mr. Glass didn't join us, and Duke disappeared after depositing Miss Glass on the drawing room sofa. I sat beside her, hoping my presence would give her some sense of comfort, although she didn't look in need of it. She sat as if she ought to be just there, her black skirts taking up much of the sofa. She touched a polished black stone, set in gold, clasped to her dress at the base of her throat, and wrinkled her nose.

"This room is stale," she announced. "You ought to open it up."

"There ain't no point," Willie said. "We'll be gone soon, and it's always raining here anyways or the air's sooty."

"Miss Glass," I said, "tell me about your nephew, Matthew." I wanted to learn as much about him as possible before he returned. That's if the fellow who'd employed me was in fact her nephew.

"Ask him yourself," Willie cut in.

"Would he answer me?"

She merely shrugged.

"My brother is so dear to me," Miss Glass said wistfully. Her eyes turned cloudy and I doubted whether she saw her surroundings at all. "He's so lively and jolly, and terribly kind. He excels at everything he puts his hand to. So clever and amiable. Everyone adores him and wants to be his friend. Except Papa, of course." Her mouth twisted into a frown. "And Richard."

"Er, Miss Glass." I glanced at Willie. She shrugged back. "I was asking after Matthew Glass, your nephew, not your brother."

"Your brother is dead." Willie raised her voice, as if Miss Glass were deaf.

"Willie!" I hissed.

Miss Glass stirred and shifted on the sofa. "Yes. Of course he is. I know that." She lowered her head but not before I saw tears spring to her eyes.

"What do you know about Matthew?" I tried again.

"Nothing," Miss Glass said. "I've never met him. Harry wrote to me when his wife bore a son. That was thirty years ago, but it feels like yesterday. I was happy for him. For them both, although I never met her, of course. Her people were poor American folk, you see, and not at all suitable for a Glass. But Harry, being Harry, married her anyway. He always was the romantic one." She sighed.

Willie bristled. "Poor American folk?" she echoed.

"Quite the wrong sort," Miss Glass told her. "All very…rough, so one of Harry's early letters said." She sighed again. "He wrote often after he announced Matthew's birth, but Richard hid the letters from me. The housekeeper told me about them, but she didn't dare take them like I asked."

"Who is Richard?" I ventured.

"My brother and the current Baron of Rycroft."

"Baron!" both Willie and I blurted out.

"A proper baron or is that just what folk like to call him?" Willie asked.

"Why would anyone call him a baron if he is not one?" Miss Glass laughed like a young girl. "Silly Americans," she said to me, as if sharing a private joke with another Englishwoman.

I was still too stunned to respond, however. Mr. Glass was the nephew of a baron! But he was far too foreign. And although he could act the gentleman well enough, there was nothing noble about him. Surely there was a mistake and he wasn't the Matthew Glass related to this woman.

That would make him a liar, and a squatter, as she'd called him. It wasn't much of a stretch from there to outlaw. Dread settled into my bones. If this woman could prove he wasn't Matthew Glass then she could be in danger from him.

Duke entered carrying a tray. I poured the tea because Willie was busy telling Duke what Miss Glass had said. I used both hands, the one steadying the other.

"Did you know?" Willie pestered Duke.

He shook his head. "You didn't? But you're his cousin."

"Cousin?" Miss Glass humphed. "What did I tell you, Miss Steele? My brother married into a rough American family, and there's the proof." She accepted the cup and bestowed a genteel smile upon me, as if she hadn't just insulted Willie.

Willie advanced on her, hands on her hips, her nostrils flaring like a raging bull's. She didn't speak for an entire twenty seconds, simply breathed heavily and glared daggers at Miss Glass. "You take that back!" she finally said.