“Thanks for the warning, old chap, but you are a little late,” Alexander mumbled to himself. He crumpled the note in his hand, standing and thinking for a moment. He finally shrugged and went to the library to read. There was little he could do but wait. It was up to Reddings to carry the day. Alexander would find out soon enough if the masquerade was at an end, and if he went bumbling into the Smithfield’s house with his father sitting in the drawing room, he was liable to do more harm than good. No, he would wait. And if he did not hear anything by nightfall, he would contact Reddings surreptitiously under cover of darkness.

Emily returned to the house, irritated once more by Williams’s cryptic behavior. This was the second time he had disappeared in the middle of a conversation, and she was more determined than ever to find out what reason there was for his bizarre actions. She wanted nothing more than to go to her bedchamber to think, but her mother called out to her from the drawing room as she walked by.

“Emily, come make your curtsy to His Grace, the duke of Alford.”

Emily did not even have time to check a mirror, and hoped the walk had not left her hair in disarray. She patted it nervously, walking into the drawing room. She saw a distinguished-looking man of middle age, above average in height. He was a little thick around the waist, but other than that and the gray mixed in with his dark hair, he looked remarkably well for a man with a thirty-year-old son. He had arisen upon Emily’s entrance, and she sank into a curtsy before him.

“Well, well, Lady Smithfield. You are blessed indeed. Two beautiful daughters. I see now why you choose to rusticate in the country rather than bring them to London. You would be the envy of every mother with a marriageable daughter.” The duke smiled kindly at Emily, and she smiled back. She had expected a male version of Lady Abernathy and was pleased to find that he was not arrogant at all.