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one
who wanted your sister to marry a rich man.”
     
    “Only so she’d be properly cared for.
But I’m sure Harrington will take care of her.”
     
    “He’s broke.”
     
    “Only in relative terms, I’m sure.”
     
    “I’m sorry, but my duty is to ensure
both you and your sister marry well. As your legal guardian, I cannot give my
permission to Andrew and Alyssa, as much as I too would be happy to see them
marry.”
     
    “About that…”
     
    “What?”
     
    “This is where we start talking about the
Captain.”
     
    “Blackmail won’t work, Catherine. I’ve
already told you that there’s a young man in London willing to swear we dueled
last night.”
     
    “I’m not trying to blackmail you. I’m
trying to release you from your promise.”
     
    “Explain?” His eyes pierced into her,
but there was something else in them. A wariness. “On second thoughts. Don’t.
There may be some things it’s better I don’t know.”
     
    “I have to tell you. If only because I
misjudged you. I thought you were a dandy. Someone only devoted to pleasure.
And I was wrong.”
     
    “What has this got to do with my being
your guardian?”
     
    “Everything. But I have to go back to
the beginning. To when Jimmy used to get notes from father, excusing him from
lessons at school.”
     
    “There are some things I do not need to
know.” Mr. Oakley spoke sternly. “Go back to bed, Catherine.”
     
    “No. You have to listen to me. When I
told you I didn’t know the false names of the people who killed Jimmy, I lied.”
     
    “What were their names?” His question
was like a pistol shot.
     
    “The names on the forged documents were Annette
and Paulette Du Pont.”
     
    “Women? What type of documents were
they? This is very important.”
     
    “They were letters of introduction.”
     
    “For France?”
     
    She shook her head. “No, for passage to
America. The letters stated that the two women were of impeccable character and
had escaped from the guillotine, and that they were to be given safe passage to
America. It promised that the costs would be met by the writer of the letter.
The signature was that of a French nobleman.” She named the nobleman in
question.
     
    Mr. Oakley stood up and started pacing
the room. “I know the man,” he said. “He’s an exile here in England and he has
done a similar service to those escaping from the revolution in the past so it
wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. He has a very strict procedure for helping people,
which is probably why they needed the forgeries. I imagine that by the time the
accounts are put before him, the women will be well on their way to America, if
not there already. But why would they need false names?”
     
    “I don’t know, but they assured Jimmy it
was for a noble cause,” Catherine said, fearing his anger. “He told me just
before he died, when I was worried about it, that the request for the letters
came from an impeccable source.”
     
    “I can’t understand why Jimmy would be
so trusting. He was always so careful. So it must be someone we know. Someone
who seemed beyond reproach in his eyes. Thank you for telling me. Now I want
you to go to bed and put all this out of your mind.”
     
    “I have not finished yet.”
     
    “You have more information?”
     
    “Not exactly. I just need to tell you
something. Jimmy was not the one who forged the notes.”
     
    Oakley’s voice became wary again. “Think
carefully before you speak, Catherine.”
     
     “I must tell you. It was not Jimmy who
wrote those notes to get out of lessons. It was me. And it wasn’t Jimmy who
forged documents for the Captain, it was me. Jimmy has never been very good at
art. In fact he barely wrote anything unless he had to. He realized when I was
twelve that I had a talent for copying artists, and at first we just did it as
a joke.”
     
    “I don’t want to know any of this.”
Despite his words, Catherine guessed that he had known if not from