Chapter 12
“Hello.”
Ezra was just on his way out for the evening when a small voice stopped him as he crossed his entryway, hat and walking stick already in hand.
He looked around, briefly confused. Then, he heard a giggle and looked up. Iris sat up on the landing, crouched low, her face peeking out between two of the banister railings.
Ezra smiled, though there was a part of him that went on alert, all too aware that Iris and her governess were often in close proximity to one another.
And he did not want to see Letitia.
Well, he did.
But that was a problem, so, in another way, he did not. Not at all.
On the other hand, he did want to spend time with Iris.
The little girl had been warming up to him over the past week, even though most of their meetings had been without her governess present.
Usually, this happened when she and Hermes had a new “trick” to show him, a term he used loosely since the dog almost always refused to perform anything he could discern.
But he wasn’t a fool. If Iris came to him to present something—anything—he was going to cheer and applaud and do whatever it took to make her feel that he was someone safe. That he wasn’t frightening.
He backed up a few steps so that he didn’t have to crane his neck quite so dreadfully to look at her.
“Good evening, Miss Iris. Should you not be in your bed?”
He was not an expert in childminding, obviously, but it was half past eleven. That seemed far too late for a four-year-old girl to be up and about. Indeed, the girl was in her nightdress, her bare toes pressing into the plush carpeting.
“Hermes had a question,” Iris said, as though this were both possible and entirely reasonable.
“Hermes did?” he asked wryly.
Iris nodded solemnly.
“And where is Hermes?” he asked.
“In bed,” she said, with no apparent awareness of how this contradicted her story.
Ezra bit back a smile, hiding it behind a nod of understanding. “Of course. And what was Hermes’ question?”
Iris blinked down at him.
“Are you my uncle?” she asked.
Ezra didn’t think he would have been more surprised if she’d pulled out a pistol and shot him. The effect might have been much the same.
“I don’t know,” he said, honestly. Should he have lied? Maybe he should have lied. “I am trying to find out, though.” He paused before he added, “Would you like me to be your uncle?”
Unlike him, Iris didn’t hesitate. “Yes,” she said.
He swallowed against the lump in his throat.
“Well, then,” he said. “If you would like to call me ‘Uncle Ezra,’ that would be all right with me.”
“Yes,” she said again, smiling.
“Well, good,” he said. “That’s good. But for now, Miss Iris, I think you should be getting yourself back to bed. Miss Knightley will fret if she finds that you’ve gone.”
Iris nodded, and her little face disappeared from the slats on the banister. Ezra would have thought this was the end of it, except a tiny voice called down a moment later.
“Good night, Uncle Ezra.”
* * *
Ezra was rubbing his chest as he boarded his waiting carriage, his determination for the night’s mission even more intensified than it had been before speaking with Iris.
Normally, Ezra avoided Society events unless he had a specific reason to attend them.
It wasn’t the dancing he objected to, though he generally found it a great deal more fun to dance at the routs held by the demimonde than the stuffy postures they deployed at ton balls.
He didn’t even mind the debutantes, though God knew the poor dears had not ever been allowed to do or say anything interesting.
Frankly, he didn’t even bear any ill will toward the matchmaking mothers, though they could be deeply annoying.
But they were only playing the role they’d been assigned by the world in which they’d been raised.
What he hated were the crowds.
He understood, conceptually, why a hostess might want her ball to be a crush. It showed that she was popular enough to draw everyone in.
But Lord above, it made it bloody intolerable inside.
Ezra stifled a sigh as he dodged his umpteenth set of swirling silk skirts. He’d come here tonight to track down one more piece of information about Iris, about where she might have come from. This new revelation that she might have been descended from a Lightholder was…
Unsettling. Distressingly plausible.
To find out more, he needed to speak with one of the women in the family.
Information about business, investments, and land holdings—that would have traveled through his uncles and his grandfather. But information about who was unhappy, about which husband might have strayed?
That information would come through the women.
Speaking to one of his aunts would have been ideal, but the ones who survived were far from London.
His cousin Catherine would have been his second choice—Catherine had a disturbing ability to know everything, he’d learned—but she was close with Xander, and the last thing Ezra wanted was the head of the family sticking his nose in.
That left Persephone, Hugh’s wife. She had her husband’s knack for gathering information. She might know something.
“Good evening, Persephone,” he said when he found her, standing in a forest green gown that complemented her eyes, which were just a shade or two lighter than the silk. “You are looking very lovely tonight.”
Her soft face lit up with surprised pleasure. “Ezra! How good to see you! Are you looking for Hugh?”
He shook his head, looking out over the crowd. He very much did not want to see Hugh, who would only get in the way of Ezra’s quest. But he also didn’t want to seem suspiciously uninterested in it, either. He wanted information from Persephone, but he didn’t want her to know he wanted it.
“Just...” He gave a vague wave. “Seeking diversion, I suppose.”
“And you chose this?” she asked. She sounded amused, but not as though she didn’t believe him.
He shrugged. “Why not? I have already found good company.” He smiled down at her as she rolled her eyes fondly.
He did like Persephone enough, honestly.
She was a kind woman and clearly a loving mother and guardian to the endless children she cared for.
She had made the reckless choice of marrying into the Lightholder family when she had not been born into the clan, but other than that, he could not fault her.
“Flatterer,” she accused without heat.
“I shan’t apologize,” he said loftily. He was just thinking about how to gently introduce the topic of family gossip and who might or might not have fathered a child out of wedlock, when Persephone turned boldly to face him.
“So,” she said. “I heard you have hired Letitia Knightley. What business have you with a governess?”
For the second time that night, you could have knocked Ezra over with a feather. He fondly remembered a previous era—had it really only been a few weeks ago?—when he had his life firmly under control.
“How on earth did you even know about that?” he asked, assuming that there was no point in objecting, not when she already knew Letitia’s name. He would likely be fortunate if he got out of here without Persephone suspecting that he had done anything more than employ Letitia.
Persephone gave him a frankly pitying look.
“You would be astonished how many secrets Hugh learns,” she said. “And then you would be astonished how very few of those he does not share with me. I know things that would shock even you, Ezra Swifton.”
His lips twitched. “I sort of doubt that.”
Persephone sighed. “Oh well, maybe not. You are incorrigible.”
He chose to let that comment slide.
“You cannot convince me that Hugh is interested in the comings and goings of governesses,” he said instead.
“That’s true.” Persephone smiled. “Actually, Miss Knightley keeps in touch with Clio,” she explained.
“And, at present, Clio is keeping in touch with everyone. She is not reacting well to her confinement while she awaits the babe’s arrival.
I assume that she has used up half the ink in England, at this point. ”
Ezra took a moment to forget that he’d come here specifically hoping to benefit from gossip among the women of the family so that he could, without irony, curse the gossip among the women in the family.
“She needed a position,” he said vaguely. “I had an opening for a maid.”
He didn’t have a strong moral objection to lying, but this had the added benefit of being true. He didn’t need to mention that the opening for the maid had gone to Sarah, not Letty.
“It seems impossible that she could not find a position in her preferred role,” Persephone muttered, half to herself, “not with Helen’s note of reference. It’s not as though there is a lack of children in this city. Goodness knows that a thousand of them live in my household alone.”
Ezra was saved from having to respond by Hugh’s timely arrival, which was likely the very first time, he thought, that anyone had ever had that thought about Hugh.
“What are you doing here?” he said brusquely, which Ezra felt rather proved his point.
“Hugh!” his wife protested. Hugh’s expression grew tender when he smiled down at Persephone, but the moment that she looked away, mollified, he went back to glowering at Ezra.
“You know,” Ezra commented, “I have always said that it’s your effortless way with people that has made your club such a success.”
Persephone hid a laugh behind her hands, and Ezra could practically see Hugh fantasizing about strangling Ezra.
“First, you show up at my club,” Hugh barreled on, as if Ezra had not spoken, “and now you come to a ton event? Lord only knows you aren’t thinking of getting married—”
“Lower your voice, man. If anyone hears you even hint at the word ‘marriage,’ I shall be mobbed.”
“And it’s not as though you enjoy making nice. You are up to something,” Hugh concluded with satisfaction.
Damn. How do I always forget how irritatingly astute Hugh can be?