“AND HOW LONG do you expect this endeavor to take?” Uncle Edward studied Derek from behind the massive desk in the library in his London house. Now in his sixty-first year, the Earl of Danby was still a fine figure of a man with graying hair and piercing blue eyes that seemed to notice all sorts of things one wished they wouldn’t. Derek had been the recipient of that look before. He resisted the urge to squirm in his chair like a guilty schoolboy.
“Quite honestly, sir—” Derek braced himself “—I have no idea.”
Derek would have liked nothing better than to have avoided this conversation altogether, but in the months since Uncle Edward’s mandate that he reform his carefree ways, he’d been working with the earl’s estate, property and business managers. No one had been more surprised than Derek to discover he not only had a knack for numbers and business; he enjoyed it. Abandoning his new duties for as long as it took to find Lady Heloise would not sit well with his uncle. At least not without an explanation.
“I see.” Uncle Edward considered him in a noncommittal manner.
“Frankly, sir—” Derek leaned forward and met his uncle’s gaze firmly “—I don’t see that I have a choice. While I did look into hiring private investigators to locate Lady Heloise, such efforts will take funding beyond my resources and a great deal of time.”
“You could have asked me for the money,” Uncle Edward said, his tone deceptively mild.
“I could have, and I did consider it.” Derek chose his words with care. The earl was a clever man, and now was not the time for anything other than complete honesty. “But Lady Blodgett is my mother’s aunt and not a relation of yours.”
“As much as I haven’t seen her in years, I have always been fond of Guinevere. She helped me with an awkward situation once. I wish she had come to me with her financial problems.”
“She would never do that, sir. Indeed, as far as I am aware, she never mentioned any difficulties to my mother.” Without question, Mother would have insisted Aunt Guinevere accept her help. “But as a member of my family she is my responsibility.”
“One does take responsibility for family.”
Derek started to say that was something he’d learned from his uncle but thought better of it. Uncle Edward took a dim view of those who curried favor too overtly, even with the truth. Instead he nodded. “Which is why I did not think it was appropriate to ask for your help in this.”
“So you intend to use your own resources?” The earl’s brow twitched.
“Such as they are.” Derek couldn’t resist a grin. “It seems in recent months, I haven’t been squandering my allowance in the manner I once did.”
Uncle Edward stared at him for an intense moment. “I am aware of that.”
Family money supported Derek, as it had his father before his death and his mother between her first and second husbands. Derek barely remembered his father, but Uncle Edward had said on more than one occasion how reliable and responsible Henry Saunders had been. How his twin brother had taken a significant role in the management of family affairs. As Uncle Edward always made such comments in an especially meaningful manner, the point was not lost on Derek.
“I would have preferred not to have told you about any of this at all.”
The earl nodded. “Understandable.”
Still, Derek hadn’t told his uncle everything. While he had admitted that Aunt Guinevere and her friends had started the Lady Travelers Society and had subsequently misplaced a member, he’d thought it best not to reveal his conviction that the elderly ladies were engaged in fraudulent activities. That would not sit well with the Earl of Danby. Nor would the scandal that would surely erupt if Lady Heloise was not located. He had no doubt Miss Prendergast would make the whole mess horribly public. And there was no reason why she shouldn’t.
“But I did not feel I could shirk the duties you have entrusted to me without telling you why I chose to do so.”
“Prudent of you.” Uncle Edward tapped his pen thoughtfully on his desk. “And you feel the need to take this upon yourself?”
“I’m afraid so. I don’t see any other option. I’m not sure I trust anyone else to do this with the expedience I think it warrants. And I do think time is of the essence.”
“Nor will anyone put the effort into it that you will, am I correct?”
“I believe so, sir.”
“Then you have considered the possibility that something dire might have happened to Lady Heloise.”
“Frankly, that is my greatest fear.” Derek shook his head. “The responsibility would then fall fully on Aunt Guinevere and her friends. It would devastate them, sir, and destroy their organization’s reputation as well as their good names.”
“Without question.” Uncle Edward paused. “Do you think it’s wise to bring Lady Heloise’s niece along with you?”
“I think it’s a disaster in the making.” Derek shuddered. “But I have no choice in the matter. She threatened to follow if I did not permit her to accompany me, and Aunt Guinevere pointed out the blame would then be laid at my feet if anything happened to her.”
“She’s right there.”
“Oh, and it’s not Lady Heloise’s niece but her cousin. Second cousin actually. She is Lady Heloise’s ward.” Derek had thought it wise to check into Miss Prendergast’s background and had called on the services of an old friend, Phineas Chapman, who had turned a brilliant mind to the art of investigation. It seemed there wasn’t much to uncover.
India Prendergast had been orphaned as a young girl when her missionary parents had died of some unknown tropical illness in the South Seas. She’d then made her home with Lady Heloise, apparently her only relative. She had graduated with honors from the prestigious Miss Bicklesham’s Academy for Accomplished Young Ladies. Derek knew quite a few women whose formative years had been spent at Miss Bicklesham’s. Fortunately, the lessons of propriety and decorum taught at the academy did not impress themselves upon those ladies in the way they obviously did Miss Prendergast. She’d been briefly employed as a governess and had an even shorter tenure as a teacher at Miss Bicklesham’s before becoming the secretarial assistant to Sir Martin Luckthorne. Derek had never heard of the man, but apparently he was well regarded in assorted intellectual, scientific and antiquarian circles. While only in his early forties, he was considered somewhat reclusive and a bit eccentric. There was no Lady Luckthorne, which one might think would cast a pall of impropriety over Miss Prendergast’s employment if, of course, one had not made Miss Prendergast’s acquaintance.
According to Chapman, Miss Prendergast had never been engaged, her name had never been linked to any man’s and, at the age of twenty-nine, she was considered a true spinster. Apparently there had been no effort to see her wed, either. Odd, as Chapman said—although Lady Heloise lived frugally—she did seem to have a surprisingly significant fortune. But Miss Prendergast had had no coming-out season, no introduction to society; indeed, society seemed to have no idea of her existence. Odder still, given Lady Heloise’s resources, that Miss Prendergast chose to be employed rather than work at charitable causes or those things with which most ladies occupied their time. Aside from her life with Lady Heloise and her work with Sir Martin, there was little to say about Miss India Prendergast.
“So you intend to wander aimlessly around Paris looking for this woman?”
“Not aimlessly,” Derek said. “I do have something of a plan. I intend to check with hotels and the embassy, make inquiries at the train station and wherever else she might have been and that sort of thing. If necessary,