“But you’re not Adam Pike’s heir. How is it possible that this Henry Pike is you?”
Hiram shrugged and looked away. “I didn’t come up with Henry Pike by myself. It was suggested to me by a man on the ship.” Hiram grunted. “He said it would bring me good fortune.”
Morgan glared. “How likely is it that this man was sent by Wardington?”
I don’t know.” Hiram stood. “Lily will be so happy when she hears this. If this is real…”
“Wardington wouldn’t lie about this,” Morgan said, beginning to smile. “If he’s given you a paper mill, then you own a paper mill.”
Hiram started for the house. “This makes no sense, but I’ll not turn my back on this. With the new baby on the way… We’ll start our journey there first thing in the morning.” He looked at Morgan. “You’ll come as well, won’t you?”
Morgan grinned. “Of course.” Wardington had told him to stay during the winter and return to London in the spring, just in time to court his future wife. He again put thoughts of her away and focused on his brother’s happiness, not even trying to understand Wardington’s motives. The old duke had been called Cupid more than once, but this kindness was unexpected.
Hiram stopped and looked down at the note in Morgan’s other hand. “This letter congratulates me on choosing love over wealth with some advice on the milling business. What do you think that one would have said?”
Morgan put it in his pocket and shrugged. “I suppose we’ll never know. I’m to return it unopened to Wardington.” Though now that he knew the message had been for his brother, it burned a hole in his chest.
Hiram said, “Come inside and see my family. They’ll be glad you’ve arrived.”
Morgan followed his brother in with a feeling of peace. This time with his brother would probably be the last good days of his life, and he intended to enjoy every minute of them before he returned to London.
* * *
1
CHAPTER
ONE
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I will take you anyway I can. …
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Lady Philomena ‘Mena’ Housley slowly edged her parasol to the left. With each inch, the delicious warmth of the day touched her skin like a warm caress, starting from her exposed wrist and spreading up her arm until it reached the corner of her face. She closed her eyes in anticipation of the sun’s rays, shivering as the heat spread through her body. In a flash, the light saturated her, and whether it was an illusion or not, she thought the air that filled her lungs warmer as well, the pungent smell of the park’s grass with hints of earth and bark made the wind’s aromatic scent divine.
Heaven.
A tap on her parasol made her straighten the device, and she didn’t have to look over her shoulder to know who stood behind her, watching her every move. Her chaperone, Mrs. Gale, walked around the blanket that Mena and her friends were sitting on and took to standing by a tree just a few feet away. The position offered her shade but also a fine place to watch Mena’s every move.
As though she would do something like stand, shed herself of her petticoats, and jump in the Serpentine… And turn into a fish. A small blue fish to match her eyes and perhaps golden stripes to go along with her hair. A beautiful fish with the entire ocean before her and the freedom to expose its depths.
But there were dangers in the ocean. What if her path crossed with that of a shark? Surely, the beast of the sea would try and eat her, wouldn’t it? She’d have to run, no swim, and hide. Perhaps she’d find some rocks to slip behind, a place too small for the shark to get her. “That’s a good idea.”
“Do you truly think it a good idea, Mena?” Lady Flora Brooks blinked dark blue eyes at her, her own parasol properly placed over her head. Only the very ends of her lilac hems were granted light. As the daughter of the Marquess of Edgenburg, one of the more powerful houses in London, she was everything Mrs. Gale wished Mena to be, poised and reticent, and though Mena tried, she failed again and again. Although only eighteen, Flora was already engaged, and Mena knew she’d make the perfect wife. The bonnet that covered her blond locks had the perfect bow beneath it. Mena’s, no matter what she did, always eventually became skewed.
“I think it’s a lovely idea,” their other friend Mrs. Grace Dunnington said with a smile. She was nineteen, which made her younger than Mena’s twenty and one by two years. She was the wife of a railroad company owner. Mrs. Gale called her a powerful friend, but Mena only saw a friend. Grace’s eyes were brown with a knowing gleam, and her hair was chestnut. “I’m happy you agree with us, Mena. We all thought surely you’d fight the notion.”
Mena bit her lip and tried to find a way to gather the information she needed out of them without revealing that she’d lost track of the conversation just as she often did.
“But where would we host the party?” their final companion asked. At sixteen, Miss Lydia St. Cloud was the youngest of their quartet, but everyone liked her. At the daughter of a banker, she had a sharp mind and even sharper features. Like her father, she had dark hair and dark alluring eyes that were set in a beautiful face that one would take notice of. “Surely, you wouldn’t want to have your engagement party at your hotel.”
“No!”
“Philomena,” Ms. Gale hissed with a look that begged Mena to remember herself or at least simply disappear altogether.
“No engagement party,” Mena said. “No parties ever again or at least until the gossip dies.”
“The gossip will not die until you make the world forget.” Grace straightened her skirts over her knees. “Only another party will do such a thing.”
“Please.” Mena didn’t want to think about what a disaster her one and only party in London had been.
Last year, after spending nearly four years at an all-girls school in Hanover, Mena had finally had her long overdue debut that had taken place at her family’s hotel, which had formerly been the Housley Mansion until her father had decided to open its doors to the world. The Housley Hotel had been one of the finest inns in the city until her debut.
She still recalled the dreaded noises, the tiny squeaks that had filled the halls before a horde of rats had been let loose in the building. They’d come from nowhere and everywhere, like an army from the underworld sent to announce to the world what Mena had already known.