Page 42 of His Sinful Touch

“’Course not.”

“Anything else of value?”

“I looked up the wife, just to make sure, and she died almost four years back. She, too, left everything to her daughter with this Dearborn as guardian of the estate and the girl. Of course, the life estate in the country house went back to Miss Blair.” He shrugged. “That was all I had time for before the offices closed. I planned to start looking into Niles Dearborn today, see what was what with him.” He looked at Alex. “I’m thinking maybe you still want to do that?”

“I do, indeed. First of all, I want you to see if you can find any record of a marriage, probably within the last few weeks, of Miss Blair and a Peter Dearborn, Niles’s son.”

Tom let out a whistle. “Good way to keep the money in the family.”

“Yes, and time would have been running out for Dearborn, what with her turning twenty-one in three weeks.”

“You think he’s been embezzling from her money?”

“No idea. The will probably left him some recompense for managing the estate.”

“A token sum.” Tom lifted a shoulder. “But he had full authority—no one’s auditing him. And there’s a great deal of leeway in the provision that Miss Blair and her guardian be given ‘ample’ money to keep her and her household in the style to which she is accustomed.”

Alex nodded. “I want to know if they were married. It wouldn’t be here in London. Maybe at this Carmoor place, which I’m guessing is near Wells. Or perhaps where Dearborn lives, if you can find that.”

“I can.”

“If you find that they were indeed married, I want all the details you can get on it, even if you have to travel to the place and question the witnesses.”

“Leave London?”

Alex couldn’t help but smile at the other man’s dismayed expression. “It won’t kill you, Tom, I promise.”

“Maybe.”

“I also want to know everything you can get on Niles Dearborn and his son. What’s their financial status? Do they gamble or did they lose money on investments?”

“Your brother’s better at that sort of thing than I am,” Tom protested. “They hear me talk and servants and workmen’ll open up. Clerks and bankers and moneymen hear me and they freeze up. But Con, now, can charm them into talking like magpies.”

“Be that as it may, Con happens to be in Cornwall.” Alex sighed. “Lord, I wish he’d get back. This is exactly the sort of thing he thrives on.”

“He’ll be sorry he missed the excitement, right enough.”

“That he will.” Alex stood up. “I’ll let you know if I find out anything that will help you. Miss Blair’s friend is slated to call on her today, and she may be able to shed some light on all this, even if unwittingly.”

Tom studied him. “You don’t trust this friend?”

Alex shrugged. “Let’s just say I’m going to make a point of being there when she talks to Sabrina. I don’t know that there’s anything wrong with the woman. She may be exactly what she appears, a close friend of Sabrina’s who is as in the dark about what’s going on as the rest of us. It’s just...”

“Just what?”

“Doesn’t it seem a bit fortuitous that all three of these people happened to be at the same party last night—Miss Holcutt and both the Dearborns?”

“Weren’t you trying to find someone Miss Blair knows?”

“Yes. I realize I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth. It’s just... She seems a mite chummy with the Dearborns. She is the one who told Sabrina that Dearborn was her guardian. I fear that she may press Sabrina to go back to her guardian. Even if she is not in league with them, she may think it’s more appropriate. She seemed a very proper young lady.”

“It’s the proper ones you always have to watch out for,” Tom said, eyes twinkling.

“So Con tells me.” Alex grinned.

He wasn’t sure why he was uneasy regarding Miss Holcutt, a problem he pondered on his way home. There had been something about the look in her eyes when she had at first mistaken him for Con—not dislike, exactly. Dismay, perhaps? Wariness? And that telltale glance at him when she asked Sabrina if the story were a jest, as if she suspected him.

Strangest of all, she had almost immediately realized that he was not Con. He and his twin were so alike in looks that everyone outside the family had trouble telling them apart. That would indicate she knew Con well, yet she had been adamant in denying that she and Con were friends, consigning him to acquaintanceship. The only thing he could draw from this contradiction was that she knew Con but disliked him.