“First, I should say I didn’t know Fairfax, except to nod to. I don’t spend much time in London as a rule, but as it happens I’m engaged, and we’re doing the formalities.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you. So while I’m here I stay at the Club. The day before yesterday, I was in the morning room, and Fairfax asked me for a private word. And—ugh. Briefly, when I was three years old there was a rather nasty business in my family which didn’t reflect well on my mother. It might have made for an appalling scandal, but the chap at the heart of it did away with himself before it came to court. Mother went to a sanatorium, my grandparents took charge of me and gave me the family name, and it was all brushed under the carpet.” He grimaced. “Fairfax lifted the carpet.”

Will sat forward. Yoxall nodded. “He said he was sorry to rake up old tragedies, but wasn’t I the son of so-and-so who did such-and-such and so on. I was dumbstruck. You’d think if a man said such things to your face you’d knock him down, wouldn’t you? But I just found myself staring at him—stunned, you know. He made it clear he had all the lurid details, and then— Well, as I said, I’m getting married, to a marvellous girl who happens to be extremely well off. We aren’t, as earldoms go, so it’s the sort of thing people call a very desirable match, as if I hadn’t fallen heels over head the moment I set eyes on her. And the blasted man had the nerve to ask me whether she knew, and what her parents might do if the newspapers splashed the story on the front pages.”

“Would they?”

“Maybe. It’s old news, but on the other hand I’m heir to the earldom unless Uncle Jimmy produces a son, which would require him to marry, and he’s showing no sign of that. Lost the girl he loved twenty years ago, he says, though if you ask me he’s just too lazy.” His voice was warm with affectionate amusement. “So the papers might well take a Forgotten Scandal in High Life, dwelling on what happened and my parentage and my mother’s death, and so on. Painful and humiliating for me, Fairfax said, and terrible for the Witton estate if we lost that lucrative settlement. He expected I’d give a great deal to avoid that.”

“What did you say?”