Ah, well, then. When Matilda took his cloak, she brushed the wool against her cheek and sneaked a little whiff of the lapel. Marcus smiled, winked, and offered his arm.

“To the library with us, before we commit improprieties that would shock Mrs. Winklebleck herself.”

“What a delightful thought.” Matilda returned Marcus’s smile and greeted an ebullient Tommie upon entering the library. She was treated to a detailed description of every article of furniture that had been moved to the lumber room and interrogated regarding the precise offerings on Aunt Portia’s tea tray.

Marcus engaged himself in conversation with Biggs and Bentley, and all the while Matilda was admiring the line of Marcus’s shoulders and listening intently to Tommie’s recitation, she was also plagued with worry.

The key had been moved. Who had moved the key and why? Nothing in the house had been missing, and a thief would have replaced the key where he’d found it. Perhaps Marcus could get an explanation from the men, because Matilda needed that explanation.

Badly.

Chapter Eleven

“When Tilly walks out with her earl,” Harry said, tossing half a scoop of coal onto the hearth before Sparky could waste a whole scoop, “she hangs on his arm. Doesn’t just put a hand on his sleeve and mince along next to him.” As she had with her lawfully wedded husband. “She’s running that soldiers’ home for him, if the talk in the pub can be believed. Has the boy with her.”

“This time of year, the walkways are messy in the Old Smoke,” Sparky rejoined. “She’s yer widda, ’Arry. Ye can’t begrudge her her freedom.”

The fire was slow to catch—did nobody clean the flues in this place?—and Sparky’s comment sat ill.

“I married her when she badly needed marrying. She ought to have a care for my memory.”

Sparky sat forward and held his hands toward the desultory flames. “She probably thanks God nightly for yer demise. Pass a fellow a flask, why don’t ye?”

Harry obliged. Sparky had ceased maundering on about returning to Ireland, and the situation with Tilly still wanted some extra eyes and ears.

“God, ’Arry. This stuff’ll kill ye for sure.” Sparky passed the flask back. “Had a letter from me Mary. She misses me.”

Oh, for pity’s perishing sake. “She’s taken any other handsome lad to her bed she pleases in your absence, and she misses having you to fetch and carry for her.”

The fire ate at the fresh coal, though a reprise of the Great Fire itself wouldn’t warm up Harry’s lodgings.