She considered him, searched his hazel eyes, but couldn’t tell whether there was anything more than the obvious, anything ambiguous, in his smooth words. Slowly, she nodded. “Lady Cowper and Lady Davenport would indeed be useful allies in combating Moira. As for James…”
Jack pulled a face. “My aunts have a close friend, a lady I tend to avoid. She’s terrifying. However, when it comes to wielding influence in the upper echelons of power, I doubt there are many her equal. Chances are, if I send word to my aunts, when we visit, she’ll be there, too.”
She could read his uncertainty over this other lady. “She who?”
“Lady Osbaldestone.”
She sat up. “Therese Osbaldestone?”
He nodded.
She blinked, recalled. “She was a close friend of Mama’s—Papa’s sisters told me that—but I didn’t meet Lady Osbaldestone until the day I was presented. She was there, and spoke kindly to me, but then Moira came up, and Lady Osbaldestone looked down her nose and left us.”
Jack raised his brows. “Sounds as if she might be inclined to assist in lifting Moira’s paw from your brothers’ throats.”
Clarice grinned. “What an image.”
A knock on the door had them both turning. “Come!” Clarice called.
The door opened to admit a footman carrying a silver salver. He crossed and offered the salver to Clarice.
She picked up the three cards lying on it, read them, then smiled a touch ruefully. Over the ivory rectangles, she met Jack’s eyes. “My brothers. All three of them.”
Dropping the cards on the tray, she looked at the footman. “Show the gentlemen up.”
When the door closed behind the footman, she looked at Jack. “I wonder…?”
She didn’t have to wonder for long. Barely a minute passed before her brothers, led by Alton, came striding into the room. Roger and Nigel, beaming in patent delight, dragged her from her chair and hugged her exuberantly, blithely ignoring her warnings not to crush her gown.
For one instant, she could almost believe nothing had changed, that the years had vanished, and they were again the slightly older-in-years brothers she’d forever had to keep
in line, to guide and in some ways protect. But then she saw them glancing at Jack, sensed their reaction, and his, and knew things would never again be as they’d been.
“Lord Warnefleet escorted me to London. He’s a close friend of James.” She made the introductions, deftly steering the conversation away from herself and Jack, sitting so patently at ease in her suite, and doing not one damned thing to look any less predatory than he was. Her brothers’ overt suspicions seemed to evoke a blatantly possessive stance in him, even more possessive than he normally was.
She longed to kick them all. Hard. “Alton, have you done anything yet about influencing the bishop in our favor?”
“Yes.” He grinned at her, suddenly very much the Alton of her memories. “I remembered that old Fotheringham often settles to snooze in White’s library after lunch—a good place to corner him, I thought, and so it proved. He’s always grumbling about his brother the bishop, about the Church getting above itself, and so on. He was very ready to pen a letter to his brother pointing out the, as he put it, advisability of acceding to the Altwoods’ perfectly reasonable request to have a private agent examine the evidence to be presented to the bishop’s court prior to the official hearing.”
Alton glanced at Jack. “I saw the letter off with one of White’s footmen myself. I’d be surprised if the bishop didn’t comply. He’s considered very astute in judging which way the wind’s blowing, and has predictable ambitions. I suspect he’ll grasp the opportunity to…”
“Ingratiate himself?” Jack supplied.
Alton smiled cynically. “Precisely.”
Turning to Clarice, he continued, “But now I’ve done my best for James over that, we”—his gesture included himself, Roger and Nigel—“have come to throw ourselves on your mercy. We’re in over our heads with Moira and her schemes. We’re determined to break free, but we need your help.”
“Before you say yea or nay”—Roger hauled up a straight-backed chair and sat beside Clarice—“we’ve an offer to make in exchange. You want to exonerate James, and for that you’ll need help, help of the sort we can give.” Roger glanced at Jack measuringly, but not antagonistically. “You’ll need foot soldiers, and we’re good at following orders. Whatever you want us to do to help James, we’ll do it and gladly. In return—”
“In return, dear sister”—Nigel curled up at Clarice’s feet and grinned up at her adoringly—“we want you to help us to the altar.”
“Not one altar, mind,” Roger clarified. “Three altars, one for each of us. Different dates, different ladies.”
Clarice sent him a withering look.
Alton moved to stand before the fireplace, drawing her gaze. He met it, held it, simply said, “Please.”
Watching Clarice, Jack sensed something of her inner struggle. She’d fully intended to do what she could to help her brothers, but to commit herself to doing so, to them…that was something else, something she, once the commitment was given, would consider binding.