They crossed the paved back garden, and he unlocked the kitchen door. It was dark inside and the fires were cold. He’d given the cook-maid a day out because of the wedding celebration.
“Sir?” Ian’s valet emerged from the hall with a lamp. His eyes flicked to Diana momentarily before returning to Ian. “May I be of service?”
“Hepburn,” Ian greeted him. “We could do with some hot water. And light supper provisions.” Neither of them had eaten a thing all day.
“Of course, sir.” Hepburn hesitated. “I was sorry to hear about the wedding being postponed. Mrs. Turner sent a note and advised you shouldn’t return to the house because of the press.”
“If there are any skulking out front, I’ll need to change.” Diana directed her order to Hepburn. “Could you assist me, please?”
“It would be my pleasure, miss. I’m sure we can find something that will suit. If you’d follow me.”
Ian didn’t object. If journalists were circling, Diana needed to shed the gown. And the emeralds.
He couldn’t have dreamed up an easier way to get his hands on them. Given the revelations of the day, and everything he knew Diana to be capable of, he found the happenstance far too convenient. And more than a little alarming.
He trudged up the stairs and into his study, where he poured himself a large draft of whisky. The front bell rang and to his immense displeasure, Hepburn announced, “Mr. Eden to see you, sir.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Ian grumbled.
“Stop telling me that every time I call. One of these days, I’m going to think you mean it.” Henry refused Ian’s gesture of a whisky. “The aborted wedding is all over the evening papers. I thought you might require a hand.”
“Please tell me none of those rags say anything about Polly Wren, the mother of Jared’s son.”
When Ian related what they’d found in Soho, Henry’s jaw dangled open. He agreed to take Polly’s case but cautioned it would be difficult.
“The papers mention nothing about an affair,” Henry said. “They do go into excellent detail on Diana’s bridal gown. And jewelry.”
He paused before adding, “If you’re still determined to leave with the emeralds, all of this will make your departure plans sticky.”
Ian’s stomach clenched. For years, he’d planted false clues and trails to suggest they’d lost the emeralds after his father’s death. It was a delaying tactic, until he knew solidly that he could play the dangerous competition for them and win.
He had to approach the players with the necklace before things escalated. He couldn’t risk them coming anywhere near everything and everyone he’d devoted his life to safeguarding.
Footsteps echoed from above, and Henry peered at the ceiling. “Diana’s here?”
“Momentarily. And before you ask, I don’t need any help getting her out of London.”
“You’re going with her.”
“Of course not.”
Henry tilted his head thoughtfully. “You could.”
His tone implied,You should.
Ian stopped short of reminding Henry that the war he was about to battle to win the necklace meant he could never be with Diana. His role in the scheme she’d designed to avoid marrying Jared was quickly ending. And he needed to make his own fast retreat.
Henry cast his eyes upstairs again. “Every day for the past eight years, I think about what would have happened if, instead of telling Beatrix to leave England, I had offered to go with her.”
“You can’t play that game.” Ian placed a firm hand on Henry’s shoulder. “If you had, you might be at the bottom of the ocean too, old man. And then where would we all be?”
Henry gave a self-deprecating grunt on his way out the door.
Ian forced himself to partake of the tray of light sandwiches, cheese, and fruit Hepburn had left so his thoughts wouldn’t fixate on the ghosts from the past. Or his fears about the future.
“May I have one of those?”
He looked up from brooding over his plate and whisky to find Diana standing by the settee, dressed in his clothes. Hepburn had altered Ian’s shirt and waistcoat to fit her. Beneath the shirt, she wore a pair of fencing breeches.