Page 99 of A Lady’s Guide to Mystery and Mischief

Her scowl melted away, replaced with undisguised affection. “I would wish you luck, but I don’t believe you need it.”

With that, she pulled him down by his sleeve, planted a no-nonsense kiss on his cheek, and disappeared.

Grey turned his attention back to the garden. All that mattered, he thought, was pleasing Farah—and it was this thought that stopped his contemplation short.

He’d forgotten to send her a note.

“Well done,” he grumbled to himself, marching into the house and making a beeline for the staircase. “Clever as alwa—”

His words died in his throat at the sound of the knocker clanging against the entrance. Sighing in frustration, he retreated down the two steps he’d climbed to nearly rip the door off its hinges.

Farah stood on the other side, eyes round in her face.

“It’s you,” he said without thinking.

She lifted a wry eyebrow at him. “It’s me. Are you all right? You seem out of breath.”

“I’m fine,” he said, stepping out of the way to let her in. For a fleeting moment, a somewhat fanciful thought struck him. It was hard not to consider the actual existence of the magic Farah always spoke of given that she’d appeared on his doorstep exactly when he’d needed her. It was either magic, or—

“Francis came to see me,” she said.

Or his bloody cousin.

Grey steeled himself before speaking. “What for?”

Before responding, Farah turned on her heel and made her way to the parlor. Grey trailed after her, waiting for her to sit before following suit.

“I’m getting ahead of myself.” She folded her hands in her lap. “I went to the office to look for you, but Mr. Hawkins told me you were engaged elsewhere all day.”

Grey thought about the scene he’d created in the garden. “He was correct.”

“What were you doing?”

He dodged the question. “I’d like to hear your news first.”

Lucky for him, Farah only shrugged. “If you insist. But prepare yourself to hear something very shocking.”

“I can handle shocking.”

She seemed to lose herself in her thoughts as the conversation came to an abrupt halt. When she finally spoke, it was with a careful, slow cadence. “I found the missing thousand pounds.”

Grey’s mouth fell open. “What?”

“It was Helena,” she whispered, twisting her hands together. “I had recounted our first meeting to her right after it happened because—because, well, it’s what one does, I suppose. I didn’t say a thing about the burglary, but—” She paused to heave a sigh. “It never occurred to me.”

“I don’t understand,” Grey said, more to himself than to her. “Why would she do such a thing?”

“She thought it would help her leave London.”

All at once, it was clear as day. He had, of course, gone to that dinner, had noticed the suffocation in the house, the tension between the unhappy couple. “To help her leave her husband, you mean.”

Farah nodded, her expression grim.

Grey ran his hand over his face. “Christ. That explains her excursion to Gloucestershire, if that’s even where she’d intended to go.”

“She wanted me to tell you that she’d like to return the amount she has left.”

“Never mind that. How did you discover it was her?”