The story sounded like Hart—he had an amazing sensibility about what people were like and who needed a hand up and who needed to be kept in check. That was how he’d risen so far, she thought, from a lad beaten by his father to a man knowing who to be gentle with and when.
“I still haven’t told you all of it,” Joanna said. “The next time I saw His Grace, he was paying a call on Mrs. McGuire, who is a good lady, just as he told me. When I took his coat, I made to say something to him, but he puts his finger to his lips again and tips me a wink. I winked back at him, and he went away. It’s become our signal, like, for me saying thank you, and for him keeping his good deeds secret. No one’s ever caught the signal, except you, tonight. Stands to reason you would, since you’re his wife. I wanted to tell you all about it, in case you misunderstood. And I’m married meself now,” Joanna finished proudly. “I have a son, five years old and he’s such trouble.”
Eleanor sat still after Joanna finished, thinking the story through. “You haven’t explained about the photographs. How did you get them? Did Hart himself give them to you?”
“His Grace? No. He knows nothing about them. They came my way about four months ago, around Christmas.”
“Came your way how?”
“In the post. A little packet of them, and I must tell you, I blushed when I opened them. It came with a note that told me to send them on to you.”
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. “A note from whom?”
“Didn’t say. But I was told to send them to you one or two at a time, starting in February. I knew who you were, everyone does, and I thought it couldn’t do no harm. His Grace always looks sad, and it tickled me to think you’d maybe go and see him, and show him the piccies and make him smile. And you see? You married him.”
“But what about the others?” Eleanor said, her curiosity not abated. “Why were they sold to a shop in the Strand?”
Joanna blinked. “Others? I don’t know about any others. I was sent the eight, which I started sending on to you.”
“I see.” Eleanor thought about the sequence of events. Hart had proclaimed his intention of taking a wife to his family at Ascot last year in June. Joanna was sent the photographs at Christmastime, told to start sending them to Eleanor in February. Eleanor rushes to London to see Hart, Hart begins his game of seduction, and Eleanor now was his wife.
Planned by Hart from beginning to end? He was devious enough to do it.
“How do you know His Grace himself didn’t send you the photographs?”
Joanna shrugged. “Handwriting was different. I’d seen the letter he wrote to Mrs. McGuire.”
Hart might be canny enough to know that, perhaps get someone else to pen the note, not telling that person what it was all about. Eleanor might have to interrogate Wilfred.
“How did you know I’d gone to London?” she asked. “The second photograph reached me there, in his house.”
“Mrs. McGuire,” Joanna said. “She knows everyone. Her friends in London wrote her that you were in London, you and your father guests of His Grace in Grosvenor Square. I was serving tea one afternoon when Mrs. McGuire read the letter out to her husband.”
Whoever had sent Joanna the photographs remained a mystery, though perhaps not such a mystery. Hart might be perfectly innocent of it, but he loved to guide a situation to the conclusion he wanted, so much that Eleanor could not help but suspect him. The man would drive her insane. But then, Hart excelled at driving people insane.
“Thank you, Joanna.” Eleanor got to her feet, took Joanna’s hands, and kissed the startled woman’s cheek. She reached into her reticule and pulled out a few gold coins.
Joanna held up her hands. “No, Your Grace, you don’t need to give me nothing. I was doing it for him. And you. He needs someone to look after him, don’t he?”
“Don’t be silly. You have a little boy now.” Eleanor took the maid’s hand and pressed the coins into it, then she kissed Joanna’s cheek again. “Bless you.”
She hurried away and out of the room, leaving both Maigdlin and Joanna behind as she went in search of her husband.
Hart broke from a clump of men arguing against Irish Home Rule, they saying that the Irish were too stupid to make decisions for themselves, and headed for the card room. His blood was up. The card tables, with their games of numbers and odds would soothe him. He understood why Ian liked to immerse himself in mathematical sequences—there was a purity about numbers that eased the mind.
He heard Eleanor’s light step behind him, then her clear voice.