Page 86 of A Story of Love

“And you wouldn’t tell me if you did,” he said, a wry smirk curving his lips.

“Yes, that is correct.”

“So then who is Plimpton to her?”

“Why do you think he is anything to her?”

“I saw his carriage leaving her house when I called to get your valise.”

“Oh.” Lori studied him for a moment. What could it hurt to tell him that Plimpton was Freddie’s client? It wasn’t a secret. “Freddie will be launching Plimpton’s daughter next Season.”

He nodded slowly, but didn’t look especially surprised.

“You already knew that, didn’t you?” she accused.

He kept nodding.

Lori flung up her hands. “Why are you wasting my time and asking me things if you already know the answer?”

“Do you have something better to do?”

She snorted. “Excellent point. What else do you want to know?”

“What about her marriage to Sedgewick?”

“I already told you I don’t know if it was happy or not.”

“You must know something.”

Lori wracked her brains for some bit of information that would not be a betrayal of her friend.

“Do you want to exchange information, or not?” he asked coolly.

“Would you rather I make something up?” she demanded, goaded less by his picking at her than the realization that her friend’s past was such a mystery to her after so many years.

“How is it that she doesn’t live in the dower house on her dead husband’s estate?”

“Is there a dower house?” Lori retorted, intrigued.

Gregg frowned.

“I don’t know why that is,” she admitted. “I—I just know she is not on easy terms with the man who inherited the earldom. Evidently his is some distant cousin.”

“I find it had to believe this is all you know about your own housemate.”

“She is an exceedingly private person. I doubt she’s told anyone about her marriage,” Lori snapped. “But if she has, it would be Miles Ingram.”

“That’s the Earl of Avington—the bloke who taught dancing at that girl’s school?”

“How do you know all this?” she asked, more than a little worried about how much this man seemed to know about Lori’s friends.

“Why would Avington know? Were they lovers?” he persisted.

“You seem to have lovers on the brain,” she shot back.

“Answer my question or I’m leaving.”

Lori gave an exasperated growl. “I told you already that I don’t know if she has had any lovers. Do you work for the Spanish Inquisition by any chance?”