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.Once they got here, she couldn’t very well not invite him to stay for a visit.It wouldn’t have been polite.How was she to know the leech would live here a month?”“A month! He’s been here that long?” Camilla asked, astonished.“Yes.Mama tried to hint to him that he needn’t remain any longer, but he just said that he could not leave her to face this ‘family tragedy’ all alone.”“It’s a wonder you haven’t kicked him out.”“I would have.” Anthony looked grim.“But Mama is too softhearted.She thinks he must be short of funds, that he wanted to escort her because he was fleeing his creditors.So she’s reluctant to toss him out.She says she has been in the same position sometimes when her allowance ran out.I don’t know.Maybe she is hoping he will drive Aunt Beryl away.If he could, even I would be in favor of his staying.”“Have your cousin and his friend been here all that time, too?” Benedict asked.“It seems an awfully full house.”“Too full,” Anthony agreed darkly.“Those two have been here even longer than Mr.Thorne, though, thank God, neither one is as big a gudgeon as he is.Cousin Bertram’s not too bad.At least he’s not prosy like Cousin Harold and Aunt Beryl.But that other one, Oglesby—he’s a strange one.”“Really? In what way?”Anthony, who was not one to analyze his thoughts, wrinkled his brow.“I’m not sure.There’s just something odd about him.Besides his clothes, I mean.I can’t stomach pink waistcoats on a man, can you? Cousin Kitty and Cousin Amanda, of course, think he’s the handsomest thing ever, and the two of them have been flirting like mad with him.” A small grin flitted across his face.“’Course, he merely looks bored by them, so he can’t be entirely lacking in good sense.” He shrugged.“Perhaps it’s merely that he’s quiet.I rarely hear him say anything.But, somehow, I don’t know, he seems…out of place.”“Out of place?” It was Camilla who asked him the question this time, her curiosity aroused by Anthony’s answer.“I can’t explain it, Milla.Spend a little time around him, and you’ll see what I mean.”Benedict said nothing more, deciding that he had asked as many questions as he could without arousing Anthony’s or Camilla’s suspicions.He still wondered what the two of them had been talking about when he opened the door.Camilla’s explanation had been feeble, he thought, and there had been that flash of panic in her eyes when she turned around and saw him standing there.She had specifically said that they must keep something a secret from him, and she had obviously been fearful that he had overheard what they were discussing.He wished that he had opened the door a few moments earlier.He found it difficult to believe that either Camilla or Anthony was the person he was seeking.Anthony, after all, would become an Earl upon his grandfather’s death.Perhaps a hotheaded, adventure-seeking young man might be foolish enough to risk all that for the excitement of smuggling, but his very youth argued against his being the mastermind of the destruction of Gideon.As for Camilla, however odd her actions might be, she was a lady.Moreover, she had only just arrived in Chevington Park after several months away.Their mystery, whatever it was, was probably rather innocuous—some family secret, or the location of something valuable that they did not want known by an outsider.Still, Benedict would have felt better if he had known what it was.There was no use pressing the point, however.He had to pretend that he believed them.“Well, I imagine that luncheon is ready now.Shall we go down, my dear?” He offered Camilla his arm.“Thank you.Coming, Anthony?”Anthony scowled.“With Thorne and Cousin Harold and all of them there? I think not.Mrs.Blakely will send one of the footmen up with my food.”With those words, he left them, heading for the back stairs leading up to the nursery.Benedict watched him go, saying casually, “Your cousin doesn’t have a room on this floor?”It was odd for a family member—the future Earl, no less—not to be staying on the same floor with all the others, where the pleasantest rooms were.“No.He sleeps in his old room upstairs.” Camilla took his arm, and they started strolling toward the stairs.“You mean, in the nursery?”That fact struck him as even odder
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