LITMIR.BIZ

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thieving foundling-home brat turned servant at a lunatic asylum. But to have agreed to drag along the insufferable, too insightful Peaches, as well as the sadly confused Miss Leticia Twittingdon and the morose (and quite easily remembered) dwarf, Frederick Haswit, was stretching the boundaries of credulity.

      And yet, it was the only way he could persuade Caroline Monday to leave Woodwere—by agreeing to her demand to be accompanied by her friends and, lest he forget it, by turning over to her the ruby stickpin that had so lately adorned his cravat.

      “Excuse me, my lord, but might I come in for a minute?”

      Morgan, who’d had his back to the door, lifted his booted feet from the wooden table top and turned in his chair to see Caroline Monday standing directly behind him.

      “I’m a quick learner, my lord,” she said, grinning, as his reaction to her quiet breaching of his private domain showed in his eyes before he could hide his surprise. “All it needs is to walk balanced on the balls of one’s feet. That, and to rid myself of my wooden clogs—something I would not do at Woodwere even if it meant risking a wetting from the Leopard Man. I cannot begin to tell you of the filth that is on the floors all over the public side.”

      “Yes, I can imagine—and already have, as a matter of fact. And for the small indulgence of sparing me a cataloging of that assorted filth, Miss Monday, I vow you will have my undying gratitude,” Morgan drawled, moving his hand to indicate that she should sit down in the chair beside his. It did not occur to him to rise, as a gentleman should, until she was seated. “Now, what might I do for you? Are you having trouble sleeping? Shall I ring for our host to bring you some warmed milk, which you surely must be accustomed to having before you are tucked up in your comfortable four-poster bed? Or perhaps, if you merely find yourself at loose ends, you might like to mingle downstairs in the common room for a space, separating some of the local farmers who patronize the place from their purses. Anything I can suggest to ease your way to your rest. In other words, which Caroline Monday are you this evening?”

      He watched as Caroline took her seat, a small smile flitting at the corners of her mouth. “You truly enjoy listening to the sound of your own voice, don’t you, your lordship? I had a terrible time calming Aunt Leticia so that she would agree to go to bed. She believes you are Don Quixote come to life, and we are setting off on a glorious quest. Ferdie is at this very moment composing an ode to your determination. But I believe Peaches has the right of it. She thinks you’re plotting something much deeper than rescuing an earl’s daughter and returning her to her family.”

      Morgan took a sip of his brandy. “You know, Miss Monday, with more teeth and less dirt, Miss O’Hanlan might just consider making her living as a soothsayer. Yes, my motives run deeper than altruism. But they are no concern of yours. You are to be exceptionally well recompensed for being Caroline Wilburton.”

      “But you don’t believe that I really am Lady Caroline.”

      “Do you?”

      Caroline sighed, the sadness in her tone not lost on Morgan. “No. No, I don’t. Lady Caroline Wilburton has to be dead. You said there was a wide search, a search that continued for a long time. They couldn’t have missed me, if I were she, now, could they, considering that these murders you spoke of were committed not twenty miles from the orphanage?”

      “If there really was a thorough search,” Morgan heard himself say, then frowned as he wondered when his mind had given birth to that particular thought. After all, if the murderer had discovered a living Caroline, the child might then have identified him as the man who shot her parents. The idea lent more credence to the murderer’s seeming willingness to be blackmailed—and likewise provided additional weight to Uncle James’s rambling confession. “Miss Monday,” he continued smoothly, relegating that supposition to the more private regions of his brain, “as I’ve told you, you are to be well paid for participating in my plan to present you to the Wilburton family. I have already agreed to ride herd on your coterie of misfits as part of my payment for your cooperation. However, there is a limit to my patience, and your questions are pushing toward it.”

      He watched as Caroline leaned forward and took an apple from the wooden bowl that sat on the table, rubbed it against her thigh, then took a healthy bite of it with her small white teeth. Talking around a mouthful of the juicy—and somewhat loud—fruit, she said, “That’s a pity, because I have several more questions for you to answer. How, for instance, do you explain the fact that my name is Caroline? Peaches told me that I supplied that name myself the same morning she found me sprawled in the mud outside the orphanage kitchens.”

      Morgan lifted a cheroot from his pocket, stuck it in his mouth, and leaned forward, sticking its tip into the candle flame. “That’s simple enough,” he said, exhaling a cloud of blue smoke. “Our dearest Prince Regent married Caroline of Brunswick in 1795, shortly after which this entire island became knee deep in Carolines, with everyone from dukes to chimney sweeps naming their offspring after the new Princess of Wales. Do you have any more questions, or will you leave me in peace to contemplate the absurdity of this day’s events?”

      He had to wait for his answer until Caroline had finished taking another bite of the apple, the sight of her small, well-shaped, yet badly chafed hands against the red skin of the apple and her obvious delight in the taste of the fruit making him believe he might possibly be slightly ashamed of himself.

      Caroline nodded, chewing furiously, then wiped the back of her hand across her lips, where small droplets of juice had made them glisten. “I want you to tell me the story again, please,” she told him, her wide green eyes alive with interest. “I only listened with half an ear earlier at Woodwere. To tell you the God’s truth, for the most part I was lost to anything except the thought of escaping the place, once you said I might leave with you. Please.”

      Morgan inhaled deeply on the cheroot once more, then blew out the smoke with a resigned sigh. “Don’t wheedle, Caroline. The role of supplicant doesn’t suit you.”

      She shrugged her shoulders. “Arrogance suits you,” she said, grinning at him. ‘Peaches says you’re as proud as Paddy’s pig. You’re probably bursting at the seams with pride that Aunt Leticia puts you on a pedestal alongside her hero, Don Quixote. And Ferdie, he—”

      “Oh, very well, brat,” Morgan interrupted wearily, “if it will shut you up and hasten your departure, I will tell you the story again.”

      She stood up, depositing the apple core on the table, then sat down once more, her legs tucked up under her. “Start with the murders. Were they very gory?”

      “The earl was shot in the back, if that makes you happy, brat, and the countess took a bullet in the chest, close by her heart. Oh, yes, the coachman was also killed. Did I neglect to mention that?”

      Caroline leaned forward eagerly. “You did, but never mind. How were the bodies found?”

      “The coach horses bolted, most probably thrown into a frenzy by the bark of the pistols. Also, the coachman seemed to have neglected to put on the brake.”

      “He may have been too busy dying to think of it,” she interrupted, her eyes sparkling with interest and, Morgan decided unhappily, the keen basic intelligence he had already suspected, an unlooked for aptitude for deduction that might hinder as much as help him in the coming months.

      “Possibly. Unless the person or persons who kidnapped young Lady Caroline deliberately set the coach rampaging down the dark road. Whatever, it lurched into the next small village along the roadway, two of the horses so injured by their mad dash that they had to be destroyed while still in the traces, and the villagers rode back down the road to make the grisly discovery.”

      “Poor horses. None of it was their fault,” Caroline said, her small heart-shaped face wearing a woeful expression for a moment before she rallied. “Go on. There was no sign of the child, Lady Caroline?”

      “None,” Morgan agreed, looking at Caroline curiously. She could listen, unmoved, to a description of the terrible murder of three human beings without batting an eye, yet was bothered by the destruction of animals. Was human death so commonplace

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