Chapter 2
Two
For one suspended instant, no one in the room seemed to breathe.
Genny stood with the torn scrap between her fingers and felt every gaze turn sharp upon her, though only one truly mattered.
Harrison Jones had gone very still. This was not the polite pause of a gentleman unwilling to make a scene, but the contained stillness of a man already thinking several steps ahead.
“Let me see it,” he said.
He did not bark the words. They came low and even, all the more commanding for their restraint.
Genny crossed the space between them and placed the note in his hand.
She did so with what she hoped was dignity, though her nerves hummed beneath her skin.
He stood so close that the edge of his sleeve nearly brushed hers, and the faint clean scent of starch and soap threaded through the roses and sealing wax until she could not pretend she did not notice him.
She was even more aware that everyone in the room was watching them as though the pair of them had abruptly become the center of an altogether different spectacle than flower schedules and lemon cakes.
Woodmere read the words, and something in his expression hardened.
Lord Penworth stepped forward at once. “What is it?”
Woodmere turned the scrap over once before holding it out to him. “A note. Likely torn from one of the altered instructions.”
Lord Penworth read it and went pale all over again. Mrs. Wexley pressed a hand to her bosom with renewed vigor. Louisa’s laughter had vanished completely now, while Alexandra rose from her chair with an expression that was no longer amused in the least. Even Niall, to his credit, stopped grinning.
“This is in abominable taste,” Mrs. Wexley declared.
“Worse than that,” Genny said, because she could hear the thin edge of anger creeping beneath her mortification. “It means the confusion was not merely the work of my own remarkable ingenuity.”
“Your ingenuity still played its part,” Woodmere said.
Genny turned to him at once. “How comforting. I feared we might be in danger of becoming allies before either of us was emotionally prepared.”
His gaze met hers. There was something altered in it now. Not softness, he did not strike her as a man much given to softness, but a sharpening of purpose, as though the day itself had changed shape and he had adjusted with it.
“If someone intended to make you appear responsible,” he said, “we would be wise not to hand them further assistance.”
The words were sensible and insufferable.
Genny folded her arms. “By all means, let us be practical. You may begin by explaining why everyone in the room looks as though I am one impulsive moment away from stealing the family jewels.”
Alexandra came to stand beside her. “Because you were, quite regrettably, at the center of the confusion.”
“Only because I was trying to help.”
“I know,” Alexandra said, and the sympathy in her tone made Genny want to snap even more. “That is why I said regrettably.”
Louisa crossed the room next, her expression part apology, part concern. “No one believes you would do such a thing, Genny.”
Genny lifted a brow. “That is a very sweet lie.”
Niall leaned one shoulder against the mantel and looked far too comfortable for a man standing in the middle of another family’s social catastrophe.
“For my own part, I never thought you would steal the ledger. Hide it somewhere absurd while attempting to improve the room, perhaps. But theft does seem uncharacteristically grim.”
Louisa shot him a look. “Niall.”
“What? I am supporting her in my own way.”
“In your own way,” Genny said, “you are always one sentence from being thrown into the street.”
That won her the smallest easing of the tension in the room, though it did nothing to settle the hollow, unpleasant weight that had taken up residence in her chest. She had spent years being laughed at, indulged, adored for being diverting, and occasionally forgiven for being troublesome.
How swiftly all of that turned brittle when suspicion entered the room.
The terrible part was that she understood why.
A woman who meddled was easily blamed. A woman who smiled through chaos was rarely trusted with order.
Woodmere looked from the note to the table, then to the open doorway, his expression sharpening once more. “No one leaves this room until we know who has handled what.”
Lord Penworth blinked. “Good Lord, Jones, is that necessary?”
“If you wish the subscription book recovered and Miss Moreland’s name cleared before this nonsense spreads to the rest of the house, then yes.”
The words should have pleased her. They did, more than she wished. Yet pride still smarted, because even his defense sounded procedural rather than warm.
Mrs. Wexley sank into the nearest chair. “This is catastrophic.”
“This is containable,” Woodmere corrected.
Genny almost rolled her eyes. It was exactly the sort of thing a man like Harrison Jones would say while disaster dripped from the curtains and society sharpened its teeth just out of sight.
Still, the room steadied around him. The crushed roses and scattered papers no longer seemed like a muddle, but pieces waiting to be fitted together.
He had that effect on a space. He imposed order so forcefully that everyone nearby began behaving as though chaos had merely been a passing inconvenience.
He turned to the butler. “Who has entered and left since the papers were rearranged?”
The butler, clearly relieved to be addressed by someone competent, began listing servants, messengers, and callers with crisp precision.
Woodmere questioned him in that same maddeningly calm tone, extracting details one by one while the room slowly reshaped itself around his authority.
A florist’s boy. Lady Dorring’s maid. Two footmen.
A clerk from Lady Penworth’s secretary’s room.
Mrs. Wexley’s own maid. Lady Penworth’s pug, though that had been offered apologetically and then withdrawn.
Genny, listening, began to pace. It was not a dramatic pace.
Merely a restless circuit near the window, made worse by the awareness that Harrison noticed everything.
She could feel his gaze flick toward her from time to time, cool and assessing, as if he were trying to decide whether she was about to discover a clue or overturn another tray.
Perhaps both.
When the butler at last withdrew in pursuit of additional information, the room loosened by a degree.
Lord Penworth muttered something about checking with his secretary and excused himself.
Mrs. Wexley continued looking unwell. Louisa and Alexandra exchanged a glance Genny knew too well.
The one that meant they were deciding whether to comfort her or command her into silence. Neither option appealed.
Woodmere looked down at the scrap again. “The hand is disguised.”
Genny came to a halt. “That is a very disheartening sentence.”
“It means whoever wrote it wished not to be recognized.”
“Yes, thank you. I had reached that astonishing conclusion myself.”
“Then we are progressing admirably.”
Alexandra made a tiny sound that might have been a laugh if the circumstances were not so vexing.
Genny narrowed her eyes at him. “Is there some reason you become more aggravating when you are useful?”
“I was about to ask you the same.”
The answer rose too quickly, and because she was still wounded, she let it out. “That must be convenient for you, my lord. If everyone you dislike also proves incompetent, the world must arrange itself very neatly indeed.”
Woodmere’s expression did not change at once. Yet something flickered in his eyes, so brief she might have missed it had she not been looking directly at him.
“I do not dislike you, Miss Moreland.”
The answer struck somewhere unexpected inside her. Worse, because she had no intention of letting him see that, she reached for brightness. “How generous. We are progressing by leaps and bounds.”
Louisa stepped in before further damage could be done. “Surely the simplest course is to search the adjoining rooms.”
“Yes,” Woodmere said. “And to identify who gained access to the ledger after Miss Moreland altered the packets.”
Genny bristled. “Must you say it precisely that way?”
“It is the truth.”
“It is a truth arranged to irritate.”
He looked at her for a moment. “That is not my intention.”
“No,” she said. “Your intentions are always maddeningly excellent. That is half the difficulty.”
Niall coughed into his hand, which was a suspiciously convenient disguise for amusement.
Alexandra moved closer to Genny. “Perhaps you ought to sit down for a moment.”
“Perhaps I ought to do nothing of the sort.”
“Genny.”
“No. Absolutely not.” She turned back to Woodmere. “If someone wishes to make me a convenient villain, I have no intention of obligingly waiting here while you discover how very regrettable I am. I shall help.”
Woodmere’s jaw tightened by a fraction. “You have helped quite enough for one morning.”
The words might have sparked another quarrel if hurt had not already lain so raw beneath her skin. Genny drew herself up, suddenly all brightness gone.
“There it is,” she said softly.
The room fell quiet.
Woodmere frowned. “There what is?”
“The thing everyone means but they do not say plainly.” She held his gaze, because if she looked away she might cry, and she would rather perish.
“That I am amusing until the moment I become inconvenient. That I may flutter and chatter and arrange flowers badly if it entertains the room, but heaven forbid anyone trust me when something actually matters.”
“Genny,” Louisa murmured.
But Genny was no longer speaking to Louisa. She was speaking out of some raw place she had kept papered over for years with jokes and brightness and the easy charm expected of a young woman who was never quite taken seriously. Now that the words had begun, they came too swiftly to stop.