He walked out of the breakfast room.
"You wish me to open up your townhouse?" Felix leaned across his desk to pour himself a glass of claret. "Certainly. I shall be happy to see to the matter for you. You'll be requiring staff, of course?"
"Yes." Jared tapped his fingertips together, thinking swiftly. "But you need not bother with a housekeeper. We already have one."
Felix gave him a skeptical glance. "The one you brought with you from Upper Tudway? Doubt she'll know how to run a gentleman's house here in town. She won't have had the experience."
"We shall manage."
Felix shrugged. "Your decision, of course. Claret?"
"No, thank you."
"Very well, then, allow me to toast your impending nuptials." Felix took a long swallow of claret and put down the glass. "I must say, you've gone about this matter in a most unusual fashion. Perhaps you've inherited some of your family's tendency toward eccentricity after all."
"Perhaps."
Felix chuckled. "You can hardly announce the glad tidings to the polite world in the papers because the ton already believes you to be married. May I inquire how you intend to celebrate this momentous occasion?"
"We are taking my fiancée's nephews to Vauxhall tonight to see the fireworks."
"Vauxhall. Good lord." Felix grimaced. "What does your bride think of this plan?"
"She is content to leave that sort of thing to me. On another subject, Felix."
"Yes?"
Jared reached into his pocket and brought out Torbert's handkerchief. "I want you to see that this gets returned to Mr. Roland Torbert. Along with it, you will convey a message."
Felix eyed the handkerchief curiously. "What is the message?"
"You will inform Torbert that if there are any more incidents such as the one which caused this handkerchief to be abandoned in Lady Chillhurst's garden, he will find himself dealing personally with her lord."
Felix took the handkerchief. "Very well, but I doubt that you face much of a threat from that quarter, Chillhurst. Torbert is not the sort to be slipping in and out of ladies' gardens."
"No, I do not think I need worry about him overmuch." Jared stretched out his booted feet and regarded his old friend. "There is one more thing that I wish to discuss. Have you had an opportunity to speak with the insurers?"
"Yes, and the results were no more useful than the results of my other inquiries." Felix got to his feet with a troubled expression and began to pace the room. "You will have to accept that the person behind the embezzlement scheme was Captain Richards. There simply is no other explanation."
"Richards has been with me for a long time. Almost as long as you have, Felix."
"I'm aware of that, sir." Felix shook his head. "I regret to be the bearer of such ill tidings. I know how important loyalty and honesty are to you. I understand how you must feel about being deceived by someone you have trusted for years."
"I told you the other day that I do not care to play the fool."
Half an hour later the hired hackney rattled to a halt in front of the fashionable Beaumont townhouse.
Jared got out. "Wait for me," he called up to the coachman. "I shall not be long."
"Aye, m'lord."
Jared pulled his gold watch out of his pocket and glanced at the face as he went up the steps. He had left the boys at home with Mrs. Bird while he paid this call on Demetria.
He did not have much time to waste before he was due to fetch Olympia from the library, but he told himself that would not be a problem. He did not have a great deal to say to Demetria.
The door was opened by a butler whose disapproving look extended not only to Jared's unfashionable attire but to his equally unfashionable mode of arrival. It was obvious that most callers at the townhouse traveled by private carriage, not hackney coach.
"You will inform Lady Beaumont that Chillhurst wishes to speak with her," Jared said without preamble.
The butler looked down the long length of his nose. "Your card, sir?"
"I do not have a card."
"Lady Beaumont does not receive visitors before three in the afternoon, sir."
"If you do not let her know that I am here," Jared said very politely, "I shall see to the matter, myself."
The butler glowered but wisely withdrew into the hall to carry out the instructions. Jared waited on the steps until the door opened a second time.
"Lady Beaumont will see you in the drawing room."
Jared did not bother to respond. He walked into the hall and allowed himself to be shown into Demetria's presence. She was waiting for him at the far end of the room, her pale blue and white silk skirts artfully arranged on a blue and gilt sofa. She smiled her distant smile at him as he approached. Her eyes were cool and wary.
It occurred to Jared that she had always watched him with that same remote expression. Three years ago he had mistaken the look for an indication of self-control and self-restraint. He had thought at the time that such qualities were precisely what he wanted in a wife.
Later he had learned that what Demetria was controlling and restraining was her distaste of him.
"Good morning, Chillhurst. This is a surprise."
"Is it?" Jared took in the expensively decorated room with a casual glance. The walls were hung with blue silk. The fireplace was trimmed with carved white marble. Heavy, blue velvet draperies framed classically proportioned windows that overlooked a large garden. There was a cool opulence about the whole that underlined Beaumont's great wealth.
"You've done very well for yourself, Demetria."
Demetria inclined her head. "Did you seriously doubt that I would?"
"No. Not for a moment." Jared came to a halt and studied her, aware that she was very much at home in the richly furnished room. No one looking at Demetria now would ever guess that she had once been nearly penniless. "You were always a very determined woman."
"Those of us who were not born into wealth must either learn determination or consign ourselves to a very insecure life. But you would not understand that sort of problem, Jared, would you?"
"Very likely not." There was no point telling her that he had learned that lesson long ago. He did not think Demetria would care to hear of how his own childhood had been fraught with both financial insecurity and the emotional chaos created by his eccentric, passionate family.
It occurred to Jared that he had never gotten around to talking to Demetria about his past. Not that she would have been particularly interested. She was concerned only with her own future and that of her brother.
Demetria rested one arm languidly along the back of the sofa. "I assume you have a particular reason for calling upon me at such an early hour?"
"Of course."
"Of course." Demetria's voice held a bitter edge. "You never do anything without a particular reason, do you, Jared? Your whole life is controlled by reason, your watch, and your damnable appointment journal. Very well, then, tell me why you are here."
"I wish to know why you and your brother and your very good friend, Lady Kirkdale, paid a visit to my wife yesterday."
Demetria's eyes widened guilelessly. "Why, Jared, what a strange question. We merely wished to welcome her to town."
"Save your lies for your husband. At his age he is no doubt content to believe them."
Demetria's mouth tightened. "You are in no position to pass judgment on my marriage, Chillhurst. You know nothing about it."
"I know that it was very probably inspired by greed on your part and desperation for an heir on Beaumont's part."
"Come now, Chillhurst. We both know that greed and the desire for an heir are the two factors which characterize the vast majority of all marriages in the polite world." Demetria's eyes narrowed in speculation. "Surely you do not expect me to believe that your own alliance with that rather odd female you've got hidden away in Ibberton Street is based on more noble sentiments?"