Wishing for Rainbows

“Let me guess. There is one woman, about this high and rather round. Sometimes talk with a strange accent and pretends to be posher than she really is.”

“’Aye, that’s her. ‘As a son too. He has squirrelly eyes. He is thin and odd.” She sidled closed. “It’s that damned girl of hers that worries me. Watches too much if you ask me,” she confided and tapped the side of her head. “Not quite right.”

“What name have they given you?”

“Brown,” Mrs Crabtree replied. “It ain’t theirs, is it?”

Trenton shook his head. “No, they aren’t called the Browns. Just make sure they pay you what they owe you and don’t challenge them about anything. They will most likely disappear soon.”

“I hope so,” Mrs Crabtree groused.

Trenton handed her the pennies and added a shilling for good measure. “Thank you, but please don’t mention our conversation to anybody, especially the Browns.”

“Who are you?” Mrs Crabtree demanded suspiciously as she pocketed the coins and suddenly looked happier with her day.

“Nobody important,” Trenton replied and nodded to the coachman. He waited until the woman was out of earshot then gave the man his home address.

“Wait,” he frowned when he notice a carriage turn into the road. “Go to the end of the road and wait there for a minute. Quickly man!”

Thankfully the coachman didn’t wait around. Trenton barely had the time to clamber aboard before the carriage lurched into motion and as instructed, stopped at the end of the road. Trenton watched a dark, nondescript, and very familiar carriage pull to a stop outside of the house, and Alfred Sinnerton step down from the coachman’s seat. He handed his mother down from inside the carriage, and waited for his sister before they all made their way into the house.

Having seen everything he needed to see, Trenton called to the coachman to take him home, and sat back against the seat with a smile of satisfaction. He now knew that the Sinnertons were about as impoverished as anyone could be. They had not just hit upon hard times; they had been rendered nearly destitute, and were living in conditions that were one step up from homelessness. He had no doubt the flat they inhabited was small, cramped, and less than hospitable.

How in the world did they manage to bluff their way into the ton? More importantly, who had introduced them in the first place, and how on earth did they expect to continue to accept invitations and get away without returning any? To move about the rather austere confines of the ton so brazenly, dressed to fit in yet not have their lies discovered was simply astounding.

Did they not realise that at some point someone might want to call upon them? Did they not anticipate that they would be expected to return invitations if they wished to remain part of the ‘inner circle’?

That thought led Trenton to suspect that whatever they were up to would only last one season, at which point Heaven only knows what they had planned.

That being the case, where did Ursula fit into their plans? He was positive now that it was Ursula they were after, but why? Why not Trenton, or Adelaide, who both had far more connections and considerably more wealth? As far as he knew, there wasn’t any possibility that the Sinnertons might know of Ursula’s secret; even Ursula didn’t know because Jeremiah hadn’t told her. That led him to wonder whether Alfred had to find himself a wife for some reason. If so, why?

He shuddered at the thought of Alfred being married to Ursula, and stared blankly out of the window while he considered what to do next. There was only one person who was acquainted with the majority of the ton well enough to know who the Sinnertons closest connections were: Adelaide.

Lurching out of his seat, he thumped on the roof and called out the new address to the coachman. When the carriage turned in the general direction of Adelaide’s house, he settled back to wait.

“We meet again, Trenton,” Adelaide murmured as she waved him toward a seat an hour later. It was clear from the broadsheet scattered around her that she had been in the chair for a while. Unfortunately, there was still no sign of Ursula.

“I apologise for calling again so soon, but I need to speak with you and Ursula on a matter of upmost importance,” Trenton replied. He waved away the offer of tea and cake and settled back to wait.

When Adelaide nodded toward a maid, he sat back with a sigh of relief and waited impatiently for the woman he most wanted to see to make an appearance. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but now wasn’t the time. He just had to redeem himself in whatever way he could, preferably before she did something drastic, like return to Yorkshire.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Adelaide frowned when a discrete knock on the door heralded the arrival of a maid.

“I am afraid Miss Ursula has gone for a walk, ma’am.”

“When?” Adelaide demanded.

“About half an hour ago, ma’am. She has Molly with her. They have gone to walk the Ladies’ Mile,” the maid reported.

“I will go and find her when I leave here,” Trenton said firmly in a tone that warned Adelaide she wasn’t going to stop him.

“All right, Eadie, that will be all.”

Trenton waited for the maid to leave, then turned toward Adelaide. “What can you remember about being introduced to the Sinnertons?”

Adelaide looked at him for a moment. “I was introduced to her at someone’s ball, I think.”

“Whose?”