A concerned friend? She flipped the note over, but finding the other side blank, flipped it back and read again. What sort of concerned friend couldn’t be bothered to speak to her in person?
She didn’t recognize the choppy handwriting, but it was clearly that of an adult, which ruled out the possibility of another of Victor’s pranks. Perhaps it came from Miss Heins—she seemed the sort to leave notes. But she would have had to sneak into this room to do so, and Miss Heins didn’t seem to be that sort at all.
Baffled, curious, Mirabelle tapped the paper against her hand and debated. Crawl into bed and ignore it, or assuage her curiosity and go back downstairs? She stood there for a moment more before setting the paper on her desk and slipping quietly from the room.
What harm could there be in a little eavesdropping?
Unaware that their conversation was no longer private, Whit sat at his desk and waited while William fished something out of his pocket.
“Thought you might have an interest in this, after your help breaking up that counterfeiting operation last year.” William leaned forward in his chair to push a ten-pound bank note across the desk.
Whit took it and frowned. He didn’t need to examine it at all to see the forgery. “Not very good, is it? The print is smeared, and this sort of paper could be bought at any stationery shop in London. Sloppy work.”
William nodded. “The bank spotted it as a forgery before the poor blighter who’d brought it could even ask to cash it.”
“Not his doing, I take it?”
William shook his head. “Got it off Lord Osborn as payment for varied and sundry cooking supplies.”
“Lord Osborn? What the devil was he doing with a counterfeit bill?”
“Buying sugar and lard, apparently. More importantly, he remembers how he acquired it. He recently sold one of his older carriages to a tavern owner by the name of Mr. Maver.”
“A common enough name,” Whit countered even as a sense of foreboding washed over him.
“In Benton,” William added.
“Bloody hell.” He studied the bill. “And he was certain this was the bill used to pay for the purchase?”
“Dead certain. Said he remembered being a bit surprised the man had a ten-pound bank note at the ready.”
“One would think he’d give the note a better look, then.”
“Yes, well, Lord Osborn isn’t the sharpest blade, and I’ve heard his eyesight’s quite poor.”
Whit gave a noncommittal grunt in response to the statement. “You need me to speak with Lord Osborn, I take it?”
“No, I need you to become acquainted with the source. That bill was used to pay for a very large, very old debt of Baron Eppersly’s.” William leaned forward to tap his finger twice on the desk. “That’s where the trail ends, and where I believe it begins.”
Whit brought to mind what little he knew about his neighbor, Mirabelle’s uncle. Lord Eppersly had been a friend of sorts to his father. The closeness of their estates and their mutual love of the hunt had thrown the two together by chance, and their love of drink had made irrelevant the fact that they had very little else in common.
Dashing, charming, and selfish to the core, Whit’s father had been a man to relish the attention of the beau monde and demimonde alike. He’d lived for the next ball, the next house party, the next scandal.
Lord Eppersly, on the other hand, was too noticeably unattractive, too slow of mind and tongue, and too low in title and wealth to be of interest to the ton. The indifference, as far as Whit could tell, was reciprocal. The man’s sole attempt at social interaction these days was centered on a select group of friends who joined him at his estate once or twice a year. If one was to believe the gossip, the men did little but eat, drink, and lie badly about their prowess in the hunt.
Whit knew the staff whispered that Lord Eppersly had become so remarkably fat and lazy in recent years that he no longer truly hunted, preferring instead to sit in a sturdy overstuffed chair on the back lawn and shoot haphazardly at any unfortunate beasts that wandered within range.
He set the note down. “You can’t possibly be serious.”
William frowned at him. “I assure you, I am. I’m told the man’s a living testament to overindulgence.”
“In food and drink,” Whit scoffed. “Not crime.”
“You’ve an explanation for why he should have a counterfeit note, I take it?”
“I suspect he obtained it the same way as Mr. Maver and Lord Osborn.”
“Find the proof. I want you to attend his hunting party—” William held up a hand to forestall an argument. “The baron isn’t a man who puts store in being helpful. Innocent or not, any information we acquire from him will have to be obtained with subtlety.”
“Subterfuge.”
William shrugged. “As you like. Have you developed a sudden aversion for it?”
“No, but I wonder about its necessity in this case. He may not care to be asked the questions, but if it means clearing him of a crime, I can’t imagine he’d refuse to answer.”
“He didn’t. Says he got the note from someone else—”