“Begin with why a woman who professed undying love married someone else.” Bitterness imbued Finlay’s tone, though he wished he’d fought harder to suppress it.
“You know the answer. They told her you’d died in Belgium.”
He had come close to death in Belgium when on reconnaissance near the Sonian Forest with Charles Kenning, Viscount Morley’s youngest son. Within seconds of meeting Renard, he knew their informer had betrayed them. Finlay had dodged the shot fired from the depths of the forest. A lead ball hit Charles in the shoulder. They were captured by a band of mercenaries, held prisoner at a farm near Leuven until they made their escape nine months later.
“Given the option, Lady Adair would have preferred the life of a spinster,” Daventry added as if he enjoyed poking a sleeping snake in a basket.
Lies! All lies!
Sophia was strong-minded. She would never marry a man without feeling some depth of affection.
Finlay had heard enough. “Send Sloane or D’Angelo.” His colleagues were just as competent when it came to solving problems. He would have suggested sending Ashwood had his friend not recently married. “I cannot deal with her dilemma objectively.”
There. How could Daventry argue with his own rubric? A man put lives at risk when he lost focus. And Daventry’s biggest fear was losing another agent.
“It has to be you. The problem relates to a delicate matter that cannot be made public.”
Daventry was determined to tease the serpent until it bared its fangs, lunged and spat venom.
“A delicate matter?” Finlay flexed his jaw. “Must you persist in being vague?”
“It has to do with Jessica Draper.”
“Sophia’s sister?” Finlay wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it was not that. The sweet seventeen-year-old girl he remembered must be five-and-twenty now. “Jessica married Mr Archer while I was in Belgium and now lives in Calcutta. I hear he prospered from the silver trade.”
A heavy silence preceded Daventry saying, “No, she did not marry Mr Archer, nor did she board the ship bound for India, though countless people could testify to seeing her aboard the vessel. There are those in India who believe Mrs Archer is Lady Adair’s sister.”
Disbelief mingled with confusion. “If Archer didn’t marry Jessica Draper, who in blazes did he marry?”
“The maid.”
“Maud?”
Finlay had often joked that the pair looked so alike they could swap places. Once, Jessica had donned Maud’s coarse twill dress, white cap and apron, and rubbed her hands raw doing the laundry.
“Indeed. I shall leave it to Lady Adair to explain why Mr Archer married Maud, despite being betrothed to Miss Draper.”
Why would the son of a gentleman marry a maid?
But it wasn’t curiosity causing the fire in Finlay’s chest. The revelation roused a burning sense of betrayal. Why had Sophia maintained the charade? Once, she had trusted him with every family secret, every intimate desire. Regardless of what had happened between them, could she not trust him with this?
“Where is Jessica Draper?” he said, though that was not the question rebounding in his mind.
“At Blackborne. A house in Windlesham owned by Lady Adair.”
“The house she purchased not long after she married?”
Daventry arched a brow. “I’m told no one knows she owns the property.”
What was he to say? That on one particular day when his craving had overwhelmed him, and before he married Hannah, he had followed Sophia to her solicitor’s office? Should he say he accosted the clerk in the local tavern and bribed him with a meat pie and a tankard of stout beer?
“I knew she’d made the purchase, but my source refused to reveal the location.”
Daventry sighed. “That is a relief. You see, Lady Adair fears someone is corrupting her sister’s mind. She believes someone tried to abduct Miss Draper, though there are but a handful of trusted people who know the woman resides at Blackborne.”
A handful of trusted people—and Finlay wasn’t one of them.