To Distraction (Bastion Club 5)

He looked up, across the expanse of the desk met Montague’s impassive gaze. “Trace the money.”

Stoic, still under the impression his sole interest stemmed from matrimonial considerations, Montague studied him, then quietly asked, “You’re sure?”

Deverell nodded and tossed the list on the desk. “I appreciate your tact, but of one thing I’m one hundred percent certain—these payments aren’t what they look like. Indeed, if you were a betting man I’d lay you odds that the answer will be something you—or I—would never guess.”

Whatever Phoebe was doing—he was fairly certain secretively—with her funds, it was sure to be out of the ordinary.

Montague pursed his lips and picked up the list. Through his pince-nez, he perused it. “I daresay some will be dressmakers’ bills.”

Deverell had noted the sums drawn in cash, as distinct from the large, regular bank drafts. “I suspect not. Given the amounts and more tellingly the timing of her cash withdrawals, coupled with the state of her wardrobe, I’d hazard she pays her modiste and other such accounts in cash. Consider—she lives with her aunt, doesn’t gamble, has a groom and maid provided by her father. It’s difficult to conjure what other significant calls she would have on her purse.”

His frown deepening, Montague continued to study the figures.

Deverell rose. “It’s the drafts I’m interested in—find out who those were paid to.”

Still scanning, Montague nodded. “I’ll get my people onto it right away.” He looked up.

His hand on the doorknob, Deverell met his gaze. “Let me know the instant you learn anything to the point.”

Montague nodded; returning his attention to his list, he drew a fresh sheet of paper toward him.

Deverell went out. Montague’s head clerk leapt up from his stool and hurried to open the outer door. As he went through, Deverell heard a bell jangling, summoning Montague’s people to their master’s presence.

Pondering what he’d seen of Phoebe’s finances, he stepped down to the street and turned toward the club.

Later that evening, once again assisted by Audrey, clearly relishing her role as matrimonial facilitator, he tracked Phoebe down in Lady Fenshaw’s ballroom. Her ladyship’s ball was the premier entertainment that evening; a few minutes spent charming Edith yielded the information that she and Phoebe were not gallivanting on elsewhere that night.

Perfect. Parting from Edith, Deverell checked Phoebe’s progress down the line of the country dance currently demanding her attention. Physical and conversational, or so it appeared. Halting by the side of the room, he frowned; if Phoebe was so intent on claiming her status as ape-leader, why was she dancing with some eligible sprig?

Eyes narrowing, he studied the glimpses he caught of her face as she and her partner whirled through the figures. She looked animated. His gaze shifted to the gentleman, wondering who it was who was so engaging her interest…then he amended the thought: why was she intent on interrogating the man?

To his immense irritation, before he could better focus on Phoebe and her questioning, Lady Charters swept up, daughter and niece in tow, and claimed his attention.

“Now you simply must tell us if the gossip is correct—is Paignton Hall really a castle?” Lady Charters’s eyes, magnified by her lorgnettes, were fixed, gimletlike, on his face.

“It seems so fanciful,” her daughter Melissa cooed.

“So romantic!” the niece sighed.

He mentally goggled. “The hall itself isn’t a castle but is built within the shell of an earlier struc

ture.”

“Do you mean some of the walls are truly from a castle—the original stones?” Miss Charters clasped her hands to her bosom, as if that were the most romantic notion of all.

“It must be dreadfully cold,” Lady Charters opined. “How do your aunts find it?”

“Actually…” To his horror, he found he’d been trapped, boxed in by a discussion of his new principal residence. Despite his best endeavors, as soon as he civilly answered one question, one of the three ladies hemming him in leapt in with another.

His back was to the wall, literally and figuratively; he was feeling increasingly desperate when, to his utter surprise, Phoebe swept up. He’d been so distracted by Lady Charters’s ambush he hadn’t even noticed the music had ceased.

Phoebe beamed on Lady Charters, greeted her and both young ladies breezily, then brazenly twined her arm with his. “I fear I must drag Deverell away—a summons from his aunt.”

She delivered the words with such deadpan assurance that, with no more than a murmur of regret and a wish that they might continue their fascinating discussion at some later time, Lady Charters and her assistant harpies stood back and let him escape.

The instant they were out of earshot, he exhaled. “That was…appalling.” Puzzled, he looked at Phoebe, realizing she was steering him down the room rather than the other way around.

As if she truly were leading him somewhere.