The butler reappeared. “Do come in, Miss Aubrey. His lordship will see you.”
He remembered. Pleased with her triumph, Isabel walked inside. Lancaster House was a grand, silver-and-blue palace, with a shimmering chandelier hanging from a two-story ceiling. So this was where he lived, she gazed about excitedly, where he had been hiding from the world for the past two years. She couldn’t help wondering, though, how one—particularly a man as vigorous as Ashby—occupied his time caged inside a house all by himself. She’d be scaling walls within a week, and she hadn’t spent years charging on horseback beneath an open sky.
Leaving Lucy in the foyer, she followed the butler into a front sitting room. A collection of sculptures set on a glass shelf caught her attention: Little monkeys skillfully whittled of wood. One of them, she noted with amused horror, bore a frightful resemblance to Wellington. Another was the spitting image of Lord Castlereagh. “The Gargoyle is an artist.” She smiled, lifting a plump ape which reminded her of Prince George. “And he has a very wicked sense of humor…”
“The Gargoyle doesn’t appreciate strangers poking at his personal effects.”
Isabel jumped. Prinny was snatched from her hand and put back on the glass shelf.
“You wished to see me?” A gangling, grim, gray-haired man stood before her. He bore no resemblance to the devil-may-care hussar Will had brought to dinner years ago.
Her heart sank. Good God. “What hap—?” Clamping her mouth shut, she curtsied politely. Had the war done this to him? Or had her mind glorified his image over the years? Even his rust coat was too large for his frame. Morosely, she searched his face for a scar. He had none.
The earl regarded her circumspectly. “Is there anything I may do for you, Miss…?”
“Aubrey, my lord. Will’s sister.” He didn’t recognize her. Then what made him open his door for her when he wouldn’t do so for anyone else, not even for his lady friends?
“Aubrey…Major William Aubrey? Oh, yes, of course I remember him. Please accept my deepest condolences for the loss of your excellent brother, Miss Aubrey. He was a fine officer.”
Isabel frowned. Something was terribly amiss. Will had been his best friend for years and this was all he had to say? “Did you…read my card, my lord?” she asked delicately. No one but Ashby would understand what she’d so boldly alluded to in the message on her card.
Her host, however, seemed utterly clueless. “Your card?” He blinked.
The truth hit her as a thunderbolt: This man is an imposter. Why else would he invent an injury which did not exist other than to justify his withdrawal from Society? It meant one thing: Ashby was dead, buried somewhere in a cold field in Belgium alongside her brother, while this villain assumed his identity and lived off his estate! She had to get out of there. Someone needed to be informed of this. “Thank you for seeing me, my lord. Alas, I’ve just remembered I had a previous engagement. It’s been a pleasure.” She hurried to the door.
The double-doors opened to reveal the butler. He read her expression and instantly stepped in, shutting the doors behind him. “Miss Aubrey, we are his lordship’s servants,” he said quietly.
“Oh, Phipps, you bloody idiot,” the imposter ranted at the butler. “We may hang for this, you know. You and your asinine ideas.”
“It would’ve been a brilliant idea, if you hadn’t been an abject imbecile,” Phipps retorted, frothing with exasperation. “All you had to do was discover what she wanted.”
“How was I supposed to find that out? What am I—a bloody Bow Street Runner?”
Isabel’s sharp gaze shifted between the pudgy butler and his lanky accomplice, her mind spinning on course again. A runner—that’s whom she should speak to!
The imposter dabbed a handkerchief at his damp brow. “All she mentioned was her card.”
Phipps plucked her card out of his vest pocket and read the short message. “What does it mean?” he asked her, looking vastly intrigued.
“Why don’t you ask his lordship?” she replied tartly. Glancing at the doors, she called out, “Lucy! Run to Stilgoe! Tell him to return with a Bow Street Runner! This man is an imposter!”
“Yes, Miss Isabel!” Lucy’s muffled reply came from the foyer.
“Do not let her get away!” Phipps ordered his accomplice and ran outside. Detained by the imposter, now manning the doorway, Isabel heard the front door open and close with a bang.
“He’s blockading the front door, Miss Isabel!” Lucy cried. “What should I do now?”
“Quick, Lucy!” Isabel exclaimed. “Thrust the tip of my parasol between his ribs!”
“Ouch!” the butler yelped in the foyer. “You nasty little thing!”
“It didn’t work!” Lucy announced. “What should I try next?”
Isabel glared at the imposter. He shrugged apologetically. Wishing the pox on his head, she peered beyond his shoulder. “Lucy, I see a flower vase in the corner. Smash it across his skull!”
“Dudley, shut her up, will you?” Phipps begged out loud. “I am being murdered out here!”
As Dudley glanced outside, Isabel flung her reticule, bashing his head. “Hateful villains!” she cried, dashing past him. “You’ll rot in Newgate for this!” She saw Phipps cowering at the front door as Lucy took aim with the flower vase. She heard Dudley stumbling behind her. She was almost there when a terrible canine bark froze the lot of them. Lucy dropped the flower vase.
“Down, Hector,” a deep, masculine voice commanded from the gallery. Isabel looked up, her breath coming in short gasps. The chandelier blocked her view, but through the sculpted bars of the banister she saw a black-coated retriever sitting vigilantly next to a pair of polished black Hessians. “Dudley, is that my coat you’re wearing?” Ashby’s voice resonated above them.
Dudley cringed. “Yes, my lord, but I can explain—”
“I should hope so. Phipps, stand aside. Let the women go.”
Phipps hung desolate eyes on the daunting form towering over the foyer. “My lord, I—”
“Now, Phipps!” Leather creaked as Ashby turned on his heel.
Isabel shook herself. This was her chance. “Lord Ashby, may I see you privately for a moment? Merely to ascertain that no trickery is played and that you are indeed—”
He halted. Distant eyes perused her through the dappled shimmer of the chandelier. “Wait in the sitting room,” he said after a long pause. “I’ll be with you shortly.” His boot heels pounded the hardwood as he left the gallery, receding deeper inside the house.
Phipps approached her with a contrite expression. “Miss Aubrey, I beg you, forgive me.”
“Me, too.” Dudley nodded briskly, the overlarge coat hanging neatly on his forearm.
“We had no intention of frightening you—” Phipps continued.
“Or your maid,” Dudley inserted. “He wouldn’t have seen you unless we did something…”
“Drastic. We sincerely apologize.” They stared at her pleadingly, Dudley rubbing the bump on his head, Phipps hugging his tender ribs.
Isabel eyed the two misfits. “I expect you to apologize to Lucy as well,” she bit out crossly.
“We shall do so at once,” they promised in unison, bowing humbly.
Isabel returned to the front sitting room. She paced about, anticipation wreaking