confidential agent could help him with something else. Miss Trim had arrived bearing glowing references. Perhaps it was time someone investigated her background.
From the corridor, Nell watched Leath entering his mother’s rooms. She hadn’t seen his lordship since that nerve-racking interview yesterday when he’d expressed his distrust. His expression this morning portended trouble. She had a premonition that the trouble concerned Lady Leath’s lowborn companion.
Nell slipped into her small office. She set down the ink she’d got from Mr. Crane—who was young and handsome and eager to help, and forgotten the moment she left his company—and crossed to close the door to the marchioness’s sitting room.
“… Miss Trim isn’t suitable.” Leath’s deep voice carried to where she stood.
Nell couldn’t see mother or son, but she guessed that the marchioness was in her accustomed place on the chaise longue and his lordship paced the floor as he did when he was impatient.
“James, we had this argument when you arrived a fortnight ago.” The marchioness’s voice was softer.
“I thought I’d give her the benefit of the doubt before my final decision.”
“Your final decision?” Lady Leath asked sharply.
“Mamma, you know I’m considering your welfare.”
“I know you’ve taken an unreasoning dislike to Miss Trim.”
“She doesn’t deserve your confidence.”
“I grieve to think I raised such a snob. Your father took people on their own merits.”
“Well, my father was clearly a better man in every way.”
Despite everything, Nell felt a twinge of sympathy. Something in his weary tone indicated that he didn’t appreciate the comparison to his brilliant father.
“Nell is from a respectable family. Poverty isn’t a crime.”
“I don’t know anything about her background, and when I ask her, she’s remarkably noncommittal.”
“Only because you bully her. Frightened people always look shifty.”
A contemptuous snort escaped Leath. “She’s not at all frightened of me, Mamma.”
“And is that why you want to dismiss her? Because she doesn’t cower at your merest whisper?”
Brava, your ladyship. The talent for political debate wasn’t confined purely to the male Fairbrothers.
“I want to dismiss her because I don’t trust her.”
“She’s worked as my companion for well over six weeks and the more I see of her, the more I like her.”
“You’re missing Sophie.”
“You’re here now,” the marchioness said with spurious docility. “Still I like Miss Trim. And you forget how long Sophie was in London before she married Harry Thorne.”
“Exactly.”
“James, stop this.” In her mind, Nell saw the marchioness glare at her son. “I mightn’t be able to run from Derby to York, but there’s nothing wrong with my mind.”
“I’m not implying that, Mamma.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m trying to do what’s best. That girl puts herself forward in a most unbecoming manner.”
Dear Lord in heaven, why hadn’t Nell been more careful around Leath? Dismay left a foul taste in her mouth. She’d tried to disappear into the background, but something about his lordship goaded her. Nell swallowed to dislodge what felt like a rock stuck in her throat and leaned forward to hear the rest of the conversation.
“What’s best is that Nell continues to keep me company in her delightful fashion.”
“I insist you dismiss the girl.”
“Why?”
“She’s sly.”
“No, she’s not.”
“And she doesn’t show proper respect.”
“Her manners are excellent. I won’t have you interfering, James.” The marchioness paused and when she resumed, a husky edge indicated that her son had upset her. Of course he had, the insensitive toad. “I’ll pay her from my pin money if you’re unwilling to cover her wages. I’m hardly at your mercy, although you’re acting like I’m a charity case.”
“Mamma,” he protested, “I can’t be easy with that girl in the house.”
“Then that’s your problem.” The husky note persisted. “I can’t be easy if you banish someone who is my friend as much as my employee.”
Nell’s fists closed at her sides, even as her conscience chafed at what her plans meant for the marchioness. Her lifelong loyalty to Dorothy clashed painfully with her newer loyalty to Lady Leath.
“I could arrange for one of Aunt Sylvia’s girls to come.”
The marchioness’s delicate sniff was a feminine version of Leath’s snort of derision. “Not a brain between them. Anyway, it’s cruel to shut a young girl up with only a decrepit old lady for company.”
“You’re not decrepit.”
“I’m too decrepit to put up with those silly chits and their constant chatter.”
“What about Cousin Cynthia?”
Another delicate expression of disdain. “She’s even stupider than Sylvia’s girls. And she’d read me sermons. She’s becoming odiously preachy in her old age. One would think she’d never kissed an undergardener in the maze at Hampton Court.”
“Did she, by God?”
Nell could tell that this glimpse of his staid relative in her salad days had momentarily distracted Leath. Pray God he stayed distracted.
“She was quite the hoyden before she became so holy. Although she wouldn’t thank me for remembering.”
“Speaking of people reading things to you, when did you develop a taste for novels? You’ve never picked up anything frivolous in your life.”
The marchioness laughed. “You can thank Nell for that.”
“I’m sure,” Leath said, and his displeasure oozed down Nell’s backbone like ice.
“Don’t be so stuffy, James. After Sophie married, life became dull until Nell brightened my days. I can’t imagine why you’ve
