Mary’s eyes had narrowed on her husband. Now, she glanced at Frederick, then at Stacie. “With our combined talents, that shouldn’t be impossible.”
Ryder nodded. “On the way back here, Frederick and I had an idea.”
Stacie held up a staying hand and pushed back her chair. “If we’re to give this endeavor our best, I suggest we repair to the drawing room.”
Readily, indeed eagerly, they all rose and returned to the drawing room.
As Frederick, the last of the group, was about to cross the threshold, Fortingale ventured, “Once you have your plan devised, my lord, rest assured that I and the entire household will stand ready to do whatever is necessary to implement it.”
Frederick smiled. “Thank you, Fortingale. Her ladyship and I will inform you of our requirements as soon as we can.”
Fortingale bowed, and still smiling, Frederick followed the others into the drawing room. The door shut behind him, and they all found seats. Then, between them, he and Ryder outlined the bare bones of the plan they hoped would lure Hadley Barkshaw into revealing his guilt.
An hour later, Stacie led the others into the room on the first floor she’d elected to use as her private parlor. She crossed to the escritoire, set between two long windows, sat on the chair before it, let down the lid, and reached for a pen and her recently delivered new stationery, embossed with her title and the Albury coat of arms.
The others took up positions around the room—Frederick and Ryder lounging against the mantel, while the other ladies settled on the chaise and the delicate chairs.
“Very well.” Stacie dipped her nib into the inkwell. “Tell me how to phrase this.”
Emily—who was a dab hand at wording invitations, having assisted the dowager in that capacity for a decade and more—dutifully recited, “My dearest Carlisle and Aurelia. It is my greatest hope that you will both find yourselves free…”
Emily continued, and Stacie wrote out the two invitations they’d decided to send, one to Carlisle and Aurelia and the other to Hadley, inviting all three to a “family dinner” at Albury House that evening. After apologizing for the short notice, they’d decided to include what Ryder had termed a well-baited hook by declaring that Frederick and Stacie were expecting to return to Brampton Hall again, but wanted to discuss a matter that impacted on the estate prior to leaving London.
Stacie finished the notes and blotted them, and Emily told her the addresses to which to direct them.
Finally, the notes were ready, and Frederick rang and handed them to Fortingale, instructing him to dispatch both notes immediately in the hands of two footmen. “Tell the men that the notes must be delivered as soon as possible—the man you send with the note to Mr. Barkshaw might have to hunt him down—and both men are to wait for a reply and return with it as soon as they’re able. If necessary, they may say the message relates to urgent family business and tell them to take hackneys as much as possible—time is of the essence.”
“Yes, my lord.” Fortingale departed with zeal in his step.
Stacie stretched her arms, then looked at the others. “Tea?”
They could do nothing more until they were assured that Hadley as well as Carlisle and Aurelia would attend their hastily convened dinner party; there was a general consensus that tea would be an excellent way to pass the time.
“In that case”—Stacie rose and motioned the others to their feet—“we’ll be much more comfortable in the drawing room.”
They returned downstairs and settled to wait.
To everyone’s relief, they didn’t have to wait for long. Both footmen returned within the hour.
The first, who reported back while the company in the drawing room was still fortifying themselves with tea and scones, relayed Carlisle’s and Aurelia’s politely worded acceptance. The second, who had set out to find Hadley, eventually arrived as the clock ticked toward the hour.
“I was lucky, my lord,” Thomas reported. “Mr. Barkshaw’s landlady tried to t
ell me he was away in the country, but when I showed her the seal on the letter and explained, like you said, that it was a matter of urgent family business, she ummed and aahed and eventually said he was staying with her sister two streets over, but that I wasn’t to tell him she’d told. So I headed over to her sister’s, but I spotted Mr. Barkshaw walking up the street, so I hailed him and gave him the note—as if I’d just been leaving his old address and happened to see him.” Thomas grinned. “He never thought to ask, and once he read the note, he seemed quite eager and said he would attend as requested.”
“Excellent.” Frederick and Stacie both commended Thomas, then Frederick dismissed him.
Now they knew that their plan could go ahead, the others were already discussing the various steps.
Frederick met Stacie’s eyes and, under cover of the others’ chatter, said, “I’m determined to see an end to this business tonight.” Protecting her and, now, their unborn child had evolved into a compulsion that far exceeded even his previous obsession with the rarest of musical manuscripts.
She smiled and linked her arm in his. “Well, then.” She turned him to face the others and, in a tone as resolute as his own, said, “We’d better get to it.”
They returned to the group, and Frederick took charge, and together, they turned their minds to defining how their denouement would run.
The single, most intractable potential hiccup in their plan was that none of them felt able to definitively absolve Aurelia of complicity in her younger brother’s scheme.
If, as Emily maintained, Aurelia had been actively supporting her brother, very likely without Carlisle’s knowledge given Carlisle’s attitude to gaming, then her involvement, certainly the degree of it, revolved about who sat higher in her loyalties—her husband or her brother, her husband’s family or her own, one known to be overly sensitive regarding any hint of scandal.