She hesitated, then, chin firming, rose and tugged the bellpull.
“Good afternoon. Is Viscount Breckenridge in?”
The butler—she’d never met him before and didn’t know his name—blinked at her. Hesitated. “Ma’am?”
Caro handed over the card she had ready in her hand and walked in; the butler gave ground. “Take that to him immediately—he’ll see me.”
Glancing around, she spied the drawing room through an open door. “I’ll wait in the drawing room, but before you take my card up, please tell my footmen where they may store these boxes.”
“Boxes?” The butler whirled to face the front door; he goggled at the two footmen standing on the threshold, sturdy boxes in their arms.
“The boxes are for Breckenridge—he’ll understand once he’s seen me.” Caro waved the men in. “There are quite a few of them—if he has a study or a library, that might be the best place.”
The butler blinked, then drew himself up, and conceded. “His lordship’s study is this way.”
He went to show the footmen; smiling, Caro strolled into the drawing room. She looked around, then, pulling off her gloves, settled in a wing chair and waited for Timothy to join her.
Five minutes later, the door opened and Timothy Danvers, Viscount Breckenridge, strode in. “Caro? What’s happened?”
He paused, taking in her wide-eyed perusal of his thoroughly disarranged locks and the flamboyant silk dressing robe he’d transparently shrugged over hastily donned breeches.
Caro fought to keep her lips straight as she raised them to his narrowing hazel eyes. “Oh, dear—I seem to have called at an inopportune moment.”
His lips set, she was quite sure over a curse. Turning, he shut the door on his interested butler, then faced her. “What the devil are you doing here?”
She smiled, intending to calm him yet not quite able to keep the twinkle from her eye. He was thirty-one, three years older than she, and an extraordinarily handsome man, tall, broad shouldered, powerful but lean, with a face like a Greek god and grace to match; she’d heard him described as excessively dangerous to any female under the age of seventy. He wasn’t, however, dangerous to her. “I have a favor to ask, if you will.”
He frowned. “What favor?” He stalked forward, then abruptly halted and held up a hand. “First, tell me you arrived cloaked and heavily veiled, and had the sense to use an unmarked carriage.”
Again, she had to battle to keep a straight face. “No cloak or veil, but I did bring two footmen. They were necessary to carry in the boxes.”
“What boxes?”
“Camden’s letters.” She sat back, watching him study her. Then he shook his head as if shaking off a distraction.
“Your carriage?”
“It’s not mine—it’s Magnus Anstruther-Wetherby’s—but it is unmarked.”
“Where is it?”
She raised her brows, surprised. “Waiting in the street, of course.”
Timothy stared at her as if she’d grown two heads, then he cursed and strode to the bellpull. When his butler appeared, he rapped out, “Send Mrs. Sutcliffe’s carriage to await her in the mews.”
The instant the butler had departed, Timothy looked at her straitly. “It’s a damn good thing you never attempted to play Camden false.”
Haughtily she raised her brows; she was tempted to ask him how he knew she hadn’t.
He dropped into the other armchair and fixed her with a steady gaze. “Now cut line. Why have you brought Camden’s letters here?”
She told him; his face grew grimmer with every succeeding sentence.
“There must be someone I can wring information from…”
She didn’t like the look in his eyes, the set of his jaw. “No—you can’t.” The unequivocal statement brought his gaze to her face; she caught it, held it. “I, or Michael, or one of the Anstruther-Wetherbys or Therese Osbaldestone might, but not you. You have no business in and no connection with diplomatic circles. If you stalked in there, everyone would be instantly suspicious.”
She gave him a moment to digest that, then said, “I came to ask for your help, but I need from you something only you can give.” She waited a heartbeat, then went on, “Camden’s papers. The answer has to be in there somewhere, but I can’t—won’t—trust anyone else with them. You more than anyone else know why.”