An Affair So Right (Rebel Hearts #4)(53)

“That’s a good idea. He’s become rather maudlin about everyone else getting wed before him.” Calder turned his mount about. “By the way, Templeton, I’m sorry to have missed the dinner for your sister. I don’t recall receiving an invitation in the mail.”

“Invitations were not sent, in the end,” Quinn confessed. “It seemed imprudent timing, given my father’s illness.”

Calder expression softened. “Ghastly business with your father.”

Quinn stiffened. So far, his friends had been kind and not spoken of Father and Adele Blakely being lovers. He did not want to discuss the matter, either. He looked away rather than respond.

“She would understand the need to delay for a happier occasion,” Deacon promised.

“Possibly,” Quinn murmured.

Deacon tapped his boot with his riding crop suddenly, forcing Quinn to spin about. The man stared at him, one eyebrow rising in question. He smiled, and then his expression turned sly. “She always liked Calder, though I don’t see why she should have. Nothing to recommend him but his lofty title.”

“She was a good sport, wasn’t she?” Calder said, but then his grin returned. “Although you might be right about her taste. What she saw in Deacon and that other fellow I’ll never understand.”

“Her choice of friends was occasionally questionable. She should never have befriended me, I know,” Deacon moaned.

Mary had always been a staunch supporter of Lord Deacon, always suggesting Deacon would love this or that entertainment. Inviting him home to the family estate in Essex for a few weeks every summer until her death. Quinn had not thought Mary wrong about Deacon, but he’d not noticed she’d favored anyone else in that way. “What other fellow are you talking about?”

Calder blinked. “You know, the one she was a bit smitten with.”

Quinn’s heart sped up a little. “No, I don’t think so. Do you, Deacon?”

“Name was…” Deacon scratched his head, then shrugged. “Damned if I can remember.”

Quinn clenched his hands around the reins, his pulse racing. “Try very hard to remember. It could be important.”

Deacon’s lips drew into a thin line. “What does it matter?”

“It may seem unimportant to you, but I still want to know who my sister was speaking with back then.”

“Romeo,” Calder exclaimed suddenly. “I remember teasing Mary that we would all have to call her Juliet one day.”

Quinn recalled no one by that name. “Romeo?”

“Romeo…” Calder looked at Deacon. “Come on, man. Surely you remember him better than I? He had a house near yours, didn’t he? He wore a wide-brimmed hat with a ribbon wrapped around and little feathers at the front. We used to laugh about it being rather silly when he strutted off to his employment, as we were only just returning home from the night before’s revels.”

“What did he do?”

“I can’t recall that I ever knew,” Calder said, shaking his head. “We used to make up so much nonsense to tease your sister with that I don’t think I’d trust my memory now.”

Deacon closed his eyes briefly, and then he sighed. “Roman, not Romeo. Roman Gently. A clerk. Are we going to ride?”

“Indeed we are,” Quinn promised, but he was racking his brain trying to place Roman Gently in his sister’s life. Mary had no business being involved with a lowly clerk. He was fairly certain his father and grandfather had never employed anyone by that name in London, either. He would do well to ask Theodora if she recalled reading the name anywhere in his father’s papers.





Chapter 21





“Are you finished for the day?” Theodora glanced at the ornate clock on the mantel, and then at the late Lord Templeton’s two secretaries, who were on the point of leaving the room. Mr. Kemp and Mr. Sever were sticklers for punctuality and routine, which Theodora grudgingly approved of, even if they were leaving too early in her opinion.

Mr. Kemp, the elder of the pair, nodded. “Our workday ended at three o’clock. It is quarter past the hour now.”

“Oh, I see.” Theodora exchanged a glance with her mother, who had kept them all quiet company from her spot by the window all day, leaving only long enough for Soot to be walked when she needed to go out. “Very well. Well, good night, Mr. Kemp and Mr. Sever.”

She reached for another file and flipped open the cover to read the first sheet. It was a contract to purchase a property in St. James and, according to the note, no income was derived from the tenant for the last six months. She frowned at it, wondering who the late earl had liked enough to allow them to live there rent-free. The late Lord Templeton was hardly known for his charity.

Sever turned back at the door. “You’re not done?”

“No, and not for several hours, I expect.” Theodora copied the particulars of the property into a small notebook, ready to pass along to Quinn when he had time to investigate the anomaly. She’d begun keeping records of her own as soon as she’d uncovered a dozen odd things among the late earl’s papers. “I will see you both in the morning.”

There was a lengthy silence after their departure before Mama spoke. “I think you just put two grown men to shame. It is not a good idea to alienate secretaries who would replace you.”