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her cup and said, “Oh, my. Where to begin. Dutton-Cox is a stingy soul, the kind who throws large parties and then is miserly with the food. The heir is in the country with his family. There were two daughters. One was supposed to marry Blackford two years ago, until she died just before the wedding. He had a lucky escape. She was a vain thing, just like her sister, who recently wed Viscount Dalrymple. Lady Dutton-Cox is still grieving the daughter who died and has become something of a recluse. Sad, really. I’m fond of Honoria.” She glanced at me. “Lady Dutton-Cox. We’ve been close friends for years and I refuse to believe she or her husband could be involved in an abduction.”
    Lady Westover rose to pinch a dead leaf off one of the many ferns hung or set on stands around the room. While she examined three of the plants, I pulled my notebook out of my pocket and jotted a few notes in pencil.
    She sat down and said, “Where was I? Waxpool is a sharp old man, an older version of the Duke of Blackford. At least five years my senior. His heir, a fat, puffed-up piece of buffoonery, will destroy all Waxpool has built up over the years. The old man prefers his grandchildren, a boy and a girl who take after him. The boy is at Cambridge and doing quite well, from all reports. The girl has been presented to the queen, but doesn’t spend much time at social events. She’s found the men swarm around her money rather than her, and she’s been rather put off by it.
    â€œI don’t know the Merville family at all. By reputation, they are conservative, politically and financially.”
    â€œI met the Duke of Merville today in my shop. He offered more for an antiquarian Bible than I expected to receive after hard bargaining.” I hoped to do more business with him. Much more.
    â€œOdd. I’d heard he was given to underpaying.” She was up again, closely examining a dead frond on a large and ugly fern.
    â€œAnd while I was godmother to the last Lord Hancock’s wife, I don’t know his brother, the current Lord Hancock. I wasn’t asked to sponsor his ward, my goddaughter’s child, when she came out last season.” She made an expression of disgust, which could have been for the leaf or Hancock’s failure to ask for Lady Westover’s help.
    â€œAnd Blackford. Oh, my. Sir Broderick said you’d met him.”
    I’d been enjoying the tea and sandwiches while I wrote. I swallowed and said, “Yes. He seems to have either a strange sense of humor or a kind nature behind his gruff exterior. I expected to get thrown out of his house on my rear, but he was polite enough to tell me his side of the story. He claimed Drake was a thief and they figured it out after the Duke of Merville’s daughter’s engagement party. He wouldn’t tell me who ‘they’ were, but Lord Hancock supplied the names.”
    â€œI’ve never heard the Duke of Blackford described as kind, but I’d believe he has a perverse sense of humor. He hasn’t been rumored attached to anyone since Victoria Dutton-Cox’s death a week before their nuptials. He has a brilliant head for investments and has made an absolute fortune.”
    â€œWhat can you tell me about his sister?”
    â€œHis half sister. Margaret. He raised her after the deaths of both her parents. She was the old duke’s child with his second wife. She was presented to the queen, but by the next season, after Victoria Dutton-Cox’s death, she was up north at their castle and has never returned to London. Can you imagine a young society belle not coming to London for the season?”
    â€œWas her season successful?” Maybe she’d been ignored by the men despite her brother’s fortune. I considered the possibility and discarded it immediately. From the royal family to the poorest in East London, everyone gravitated to money.
    â€œOh, yes. She had her pick of