“Wolford, what brings you here this morning?” Vale asked after Liam cleared his throat from the study doorway. The duke was on his knees, tinkering with the gears and the pendulum. “Ivy was feeling a little peaked, and so I thought I could cheer her by finishing the automatic cradle.”
“Uncle Albert asked me to meet him here this morning to look over his latest acquisitions, but according to your butler, he left a short while ago. So I thought I’d stop in here and tell you my news.” Liam took a deep breath, ignoring the sting of betrayal he now felt. “Miss Pimm and I are to be wed.”
Vale frowned and stood, dusting his hands together. “And yet this announcement comes from a rather severe-looking countenance. Shouldn’t you be elated?”
An hour ago, perhaps. But he’d been proven a fool. “When you first knew you were marrying Ivy, I don’t recall your being happy about it. In fact, you were downright terror-stricken.”
“For good reason. My Marriage Formula was on the line, if you’ll recall.” Vale shrugged and laughed to himself, as if that were his favorite memory. “Everything I’d worked to achieve, all of my longstanding beliefs—they all meant nothing. Not if I couldn’t have Ivy.”
Liam wanted that luxury of having his longstanding beliefs—that no debutante was trustworthy—disproven in the face of an honest love. And for a brief time, he thought he’d had that, so he knew what he was missing.
For now, he’d rather not think about it. Distracting himself, he picked up a figurine on the desk. “What is this?”
“A gift from Albert for allowing him to stay while his own house is unavailable. Apparently, this was found in a tomb of the first pharaoh to build a great pyramid.”
“Khufu’s tomb?” Liam shook his head. Poor Albert. He’d been swindled again. “Did he say from whom he purchased this?”
Vale lifted his brows. “No. He said he unearthed this himself.”
“That isn’t possible,” Liam said, walking over to Vale to show him the reasons. “This pottery is too new, likely forged within the past year. Here, you can see that the patina has been fabricated. And if you draw in the odor, there are remnants of a distinctive mossy creosote, likely used to make it appear ancient.”
Vale took the figure in hand and scratched his thumbnail over the surface to confirm Liam’s suspicions. “Such a pity. I’d actually held out some hope that it was genuine.” He clucked his tongue. “Albert has been obsessed with artifacts for such a long time that one would expect him to know the difference.”
“True,” Liam agreed. “Though it surprised me to learn that he knows of the symposium I’m giving to the Royal Society. He said that Edith had mentioned it to him.”
“That doesn’t sound like Edith. After all, she was the one who asked us to conceal what we could about the bust to keep both Albert and Gemma from embarrassment.”
“Those were my thoughts as well, nonetheless . . .” Liam shrugged.
“Come to think of it,” Vale continued, “he recently asked me if I’d ever seen the head of Aphrodite in your collection. I evaded the question, mentioning something in regard to the head of one goddess being equal another.”
Goddess . . . The mention abruptly brought back the memory of Liam’s dream this morning. Where is the goddess? If you let her go, we could end this.
An inexplicable chill stole over him.
“When Albert visited me last week, he never once mentioned Aphrodite.”
“I’ve often wondered if he ever suspected he was swindled. Perhaps that was the reason he asked about it.”
“We should hope, for his sake. Yet if he suspected as much—especially considering the topic of my lecture—I doubt he would want to draw attention to it. Likely, he would speak to either of us directly, instead of all this skirting around.”
“Not unless . . .” Vale scratched the patina from the figurine again. “Uncle Albert isn’t as naïve as we’d thought.”
They exchanged a look. Liam felt a peculiar tension spread through his shoulders. He didn’t like where his thoughts were taking him.
“If that were true then he wouldn’t have wanted me to lecture on the topic of forgery at the Society. He might have gone to great pains to ensure that I no longer possessed the marble he sold me.” At the mention of pain, his memory took him to the night of his attack and then to the dream that woke him this very morning. What if those men truly were asking for the head of Aphrodite? What if this dream had been some amalgamation of the truth?
Vale began to move about the room, pacing, his brow furrowed. “Considering how odd Albert has been behaving as of late, and how we have witnessed his dishonesty, it is a fair assumption that he would not want his reputation sullied by the exposure. Just think of all the artifacts he has sold.”
“That is how he earns his living,” Liam added.
“To be certain, he would want to know where the goddess was. He might even search your houses.”
“He’s only visited one of which I’m aware. Of late, the only other uninvited guest has been a burglar.” Liam blinked, eyes wide with sudden clarity.
“Normally, I would caution you against such a leap of imagination,” Vale added in understanding. “However, I’m not entirely certain it is too far a leap.”
It did not take long before the pieces began to fall in place.
“The burglaries. The Turkish dagger through the sketch of the Elgin marbles.” Liam went still. “No wonder nothing of great value had ever been stolen. They were only searching for the goddess.”
“He wasn’t in town for those thefts, but it’s possible that he hired some disreputable men to do the work. Others houses were ransacked as well, perhaps in order to keep you from figuring it out.”
“Inspector Hollycott always thought the burglaries were linked to my attack.”
Vale gritted his teeth. “And when those men grew tired of searching, they took a more direct approach.”
“I am ashamed that I missed it all this time—” Liam broke off, remembering Albert reading over the invoice in his study. “Albert knows where the head is.”
“The forgery is in a crate at the Royal Society already.”
“No, the real Aphrodite. He likely thinks that is his copy. In fact, he might have sent his men to Sudgrave Terrace or even has gone there himself. After all, why would he ask me to pay a call—and then not bother to be here—unless he wanted to ensure he knew precisely where I was going to be?”
Liam started toward the door, Vale close behind.
Fortunately, Adeline discovered that the doors between their adjoining houses were still unlocked. Instead of darkness greeting her this morning, sunlight filtered in through the window at the end of the hallway. It made it much easier to locate the letter.
Picking it up, she held it to her bosom. She still felt every tender wish and promise she’d written, but those words were too revealing now. If Liam read this letter after what had transpired between them, then he might even think she was trying to manipulate him into marriage. She couldn’t risk it. Speaking to him was the better option anyway. She needed him to understand that she wasn’t trying to trap him, nor was she going to marry him.
Note in hand, she made her way to the room they’d shared last night, practicing how she would begin their conversation.
“After careful consideration . . .” No, no, that was far too dry and formal. He deserved more tenderness than that, and so did she, for that matter.
Then perhaps a simple, honest “I love you, but I won’t marry you” would be better? She frowned, not liking that at all either. Telling someone you love him should never be followed by but . . .
She hesitated at the door, listening carefully. When she did not hear anything from within, she peered through the opening, but he wasn’t there. She needed him to know that marriage had not been her goal last night. In fact, she hadn’t even had an end in mind. When he’d kissed her, all her thoughts tumbled out of her head. Likely, she should have discussed it with him this morning before he sought out her father. Now everything was in a muddle.
A murmur of voices from below caught her attention. Thinking that he might be in his study with his solicitor—or worse, telling his family—Adeline quietly descended the stairs in search of him.
On the main floor, she heard a noise coming from the study and continued onward. Hesitating only long enough to draw in a fortifying breath, she rapped quietly on the door and nudged it open.
In the same moment, however, she discovered that it was not Liam in the study.
A strange, burly man in a bowler hat and brown coat stood near a crate. Because he held an iron lever bar, she assumed he was a footman sent to unpack Liam’s things, and offered a polite smile. “Pardon me, but I was looking for Lord Wolford. Is he in, by any chance?”
Curious, she glanced down at the contents of the crate and saw the profile of a large, pale marble head.
“Nah,” the man said, taking a step closer and effectively blocking her view. With a grin of his own, his gaze shifted from her to a point over her shoulder.
She looked back, surprised again, but this time to see Liam’s uncle walking steadily toward her. “Oh! Mr. Desmond, how nice to see you again.”
He touched the brim of his hat in greeting. “Miss Pimm, a pleasure indeed. But I’m afraid you’ve caught me at quite an inconvenient time,” he said rather cryptically and offered a nod to the man behind her.
“I’m not certain what you mean, sir. I only came to see if I could find Wolford. Is he about?”
“He is not. In fact, no one was supposed to be here. Which is rather unfortunate for you, now that you’ve seen Aphrodite.”
A terrible icy chill rushed down her limbs at the sight of his peculiar smile and the eerie brightness in his dark brown eyes. Then, without warning, a large hand clamped over her mouth and nose as an arm cinched around her waist, seizing her and trapping one of her arms by her side.
She screamed, panic and terror overtaking her.
What was happening?
She clawed at the hand, trying to pull it away, trying to catch her breath. Her lungs started to burn, her throat raw. She kicked. Punched. Scratched, but to no avail. None of her blows earned even a grunt of pain. Her limbs were starting to feel slow and weighted.
All of her struggling was only making her tired . . . so tired. And all the while, Mr. Desmond just stood and watched.
Her last thought before everything went black was sadness for Liam. He couldn’t even trust his own uncle.