“Who are you?”

“Sir Jonah Denby, at your service,” he replied with a bow. “Surely you remember me.”

“I do indeed, but I’ve learned you’re not Denby. Who are you, and why do you care about stolen blueprints?”

He stared at me for a moment, and then the bluster in his tone evaporated. “May I please sit?”

I nodded and he dropped onto the bench. Sweat trickled down his weathered cheeks.

“I’m Lord Porthollow, one of the three bidders to build Gattenger’s ship. Sir Henry seems to be in a state over the theft, and I wanted to find out why.”

I saw his motive in a heartbeat. “You’re hoping he stole the design and will be caught and eliminated as competition in the bidding.”

He nodded. “I’m sure my bid can beat old Fogburn, but Sir Henry is sneaky. I wanted to keep an eye on him, find out what he’s up to, and who better to do that than you.”

I couldn’t risk him giving away my true identity. “First off, you need to know I’m not here as myself.”

“Ho, ho. So I’m not the only one with a nom de guerre.” He tapped his cane twice on the ground.

“I’m Mrs. Monthalf for this investigation. Don’t mess it up for me. Or are you the one who sent me threatening letters?”

“Why would I do that? I need to find out what you’ve learned. Did Sir Henry steal the blueprints?”

“We don’t know. Personally, I favor someone else as the brains behind this.”

“Is it a dastardly plan?”

I thought about what I’d learned. “Yes.”

“That’s Sir Henry all over. Tricked me out of deals a time or two.”

I shook my head. “You seem able to hold your own against Sir Henry. You fooled me. How did you find out I was involved?”

“Inspector Grantham. When he came to see me, he let slip about the Archivist Society involvement. I asked around until I found someone who’d met you on a previous investigation.”

We were hired by word of mouth. It would make sense that we’d be discovered that way. “Thank you for your honesty, Lord Porthollow.”

He rose from the bench. “Thank you, Mrs. Monthalf. I’ll see you at the ball tonight.”

“Where are you staying?”

“At the Teweses’. Attended Oxford with him. This visit would be a pleasure without one of his guests. Name’s Lady Ormond. What a tartar. Avoid her.”

He strolled away, presumably back to the nearby estate, while I was once again amazed at how aristocrats all knew each other.

*   *   *

LATER THAT AFTERNOON, I still hadn’t seen Blackford again. I was resting my foot while reading in Lord Harwin’s library and enjoying a cup of tea. At the sound of voices, I went out to greet Phyllida and the group who’d gone to see the local sights.

They all exclaimed over my recovery and then headed in different directions. I followed Lady Bennett down a hall and saw her enter a doorway. Moving quickly without jarring my foot, I opened the door to find myself in the blue parlor. The dark blue draperies were pulled to block out the sunlight, leaving the blue-patterned rug, blue-upholstered furniture, and light-blue-papered walls in shadow.

If she hadn’t moved, I never would have seen Lady Bennett, since, dressed in a blue gown and hat, she faded into the corner. “What do you want?” she snapped.

I approached until I was within a foot of her. Her eyes were red rimmed. I tried a caring approach. “I saw you were upset. What’s wrong?”

“As if you didn’t know.”

Her snooty tone wiped away any compassion I might have had for her. “Does it have anything to do with Clara Gattenger’s death?”

“Her again? Why should I care about her?”

“You came to her house, spirited her away, and brought her home again only a few hours before she was murdered. When she returned, she demanded a fire in her study on the hottest day of a very hot summer. The only reason would have been to burn something.”

“So?” She yanked off her gloves, one finger at a time.

“Whatever she burned, she received from you. What was it, Lady Bennett? Or should I call you Lark?”

“I hate that name.”

“What did she burn, Lark?”

“It had nothing to do with me.”

“You were the one she was seen with. It had something to do with you.”

She shoved aside the blue draperies and looked out on the lawn. “I wish to heavens I’d never gotten involved.”

“Too late. What are you involved in?”

Whirling around, she faced me. “Baron von Steubfeld asked me to inform Clara about a rumor that circled around the peerage a few years ago. I thought it was a wild guess, a slander. He told me it was fact. I wanted nothing to do with his plan. I thought it was cruel. But he insisted. Said it was the price of attending diplomatic balls.” She dropped her gaze. “He said it was the price I must pay for dancing with the devil.”

I wasn’t going to let her off easily now. “What was the price? Come on. You must own up to it.”

She sat down on a sofa in a dim corner of the room, and I walked over to sit next to her.

“He called on me after luncheon that day and said I must go straight over to Gattenger’s house and take Clara to see Lady Peters. I was to force Rosamond to tell Clara about—about Lord Peters.”

“Her husband?” I was completely confused.

Fortunately, Lark Bennett was too immersed in her misery to notice, or she thought me stupid. “No. Her son.”

After hearing about Clara’s distress at miscarrying and Clara and Ken’s on-again, off-again relationship, I had a terrible idea of what Lady Bennett would say next. “Tell me.”

“Ken Gattenger is Lord Peters’s father, from a time when Ken and Clara had called off their engagement.”

“Dear heavens. How did you find out?”

“Von Steubfeld told me. And Rosamond as much as admitted it when she begged Clara and me not to spread the story for the sake of the child.”

“And the fire in the Gattenger study?”

“Clara asked Rosamond for every letter, every keepsake Ken had given her. It was her price for keeping her silence. Rosamond left the room and returned in a few minutes with a small package. Clara returned home with it, vowing to burn the contents without peeking.”

Her story made tragic sense in light of Clara’s desperate desire for a child by Ken. It also made sense if the baron wanted their evening routine disrupted. Unfortunately, instead of driving the Gattengers to another part of the house while the blueprints sat unprotected in the study, the upheaval meant they arrived in the study sooner than usual. The baron had inadvertently made the burglar’s work more difficult.

“And this is why you came in here crying?”

She looked shocked. “No. The baron told me he’d not be coming to my room tonight. He hinted he was going to yours. Isn’t one man enough for you?”

My jaw dropped. I quickly shut my mouth and, before I thought of a suitable reply, opened it again and snapped, “Yes. No. I should hope he doesn’t show up in my room.”

Her smile brightened any hint of tears from her face. I, on the other hand, probably looked ready to do murder.

My expression changed the moment her words reached my brain. What was von Steubfeld going to do if he was too busy to entertain Lady Bennett in the dark hours of the night? This might be the clue we were waiting for; Snelling told the valet he’d meet the head man tonight.

“You know who he’s going to meet. Tell me. Tell me her name.” Lark Bennett looked ready to torture me for the information.

“I don’t know. Why do you think he’s seeing another woman?”

“I’ve seen him with a young blonde who dances in a London theater. And he’s a man, so there may be more. As long as they’re not women he can take to balls and receptions, I don’t care. But someone here could replace me, and that I won’t allow.”

“I’m not that woman.” I rushed out of the room and upstairs as fast as I could limp. I headed straight to Rosamond Peters’s room.