“She did.” Jake peered into the entry mirror, pressing on his eye bone. “My wife isn’t going to be happy with you. You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t take out your spleen with a hatpin once she sees my eye. She wields it like a weapon.”

Giles ignored him.

Yasmin had written to him. Letters, to him. A letter sent by a groom so it didn’t go astray. It made no sense.

“Duckworthy!”

His butler popped from the back like a startled hare.

Giles’s voice emerged in a bellow, rather than a measured query. “Did one of Mr. Addison’s grooms deliver a letter, addressed to me?”

“Why, yes, he did,” Duckworthy said nervously, licking his lips. “Around two weeks ago, I’d say, wouldn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t say because I never saw it,” Giles said. “What in the bloody hell happened to that letter?”

The butler’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Nothing happened to it, my lord. Nothing at all. Why, I put it right here, where all your letters go.” He pointed a shaking hand at the silver salver on the entry table.

“I never saw it.” Giles took a step closer to Duckworthy.

“Not the butler,” Jake said behind his back. “He’s too thin. One blow from those mitts of yours, and the man will land in the next county.”

Duckworthy audibly gulped. “I told the groom that it would be right there when you returned from the House of Lords. That’s what I do with letters that arrive by messenger, my lord.”

Jake Addison strolled forward. “Someone took that letter,” he said, looking interested. “What about the others?” he asked the butler. “Lady Yasmin wrote quite a few letters. I gather that Lilford here didn’t receive them.”

“Any mail that came I . . . I . . .” Duckworthy’s eyes bulged again.

“Yes?” The word snapped from Giles’s throat, gritty and enraged.

He saw it now. He knew—

“I delivered the morning mail to Lady Lydia so that she could remove her own mail before the rest was delivered to His Lordship,” the butler squeaked.

The truth settled in Giles’s gut like burning lava. His sister had taken his letters. Blithely taken his correspondence, not giving a damn that he was—

He turned his head to Jake. “Are you here because my fiancée did not receive any correspondence from me?”

“Yup. No letters for weeks as I understand it. I suppose your sister intercepted yours as well?”

“I frank my correspondence at night to save time and place it here, in the entry,” Giles said dully.

“The mail is picked up the next morning,” Duckworthy agreed, nodding madly.

“I suppose the girl skulked around, made sure that she pinched your letters before the post took them. Rum thing to do, trying to ruin her brother’s engagement.”

Rage slid away, followed by sadness. Giles couldn’t blame this on Lydia’s impulsiveness. Week after week, she had actively tried to destroy the most important relationship of his life. Yet the scenario made sense. Lydia used to sleep late until a few months ago, when she began waking early. When he commented, she said that she was practicing to be a good wife.