Most Eagerly Yours Read Online Free Page B

dignity.”
    “Yes, well.” Lewis Wescott released a long-suffering sigh. “You, of course, have my undying gratitude, my dear Lord Barensforth. Be that as it may, it has taken me two full days to track you down. Has it never occurred to you to check in before vanishing on one of your binges?”
    “A binge? Is that what you’d call it?”
    Wescott huffed. “What have you been up to?”
    Aidan peered up at the man and curled his lips into a satisfied smile. “The Anne Dorian , which supposedly sank in the Atlantic last month, taking down with it a fortune in cotton, sugar, and the life savings of several prominent Londoners, didn’t.”
    “Didn’t what ?”
    “Sink. I’ve spent the past fortnight poring over recent commodities figures, staring at ship manifests until my eyes crossed, and questioning every drunken sailor I could find who had lately been to the Americas. There was no storm. From what I’ve been able to piece together, the Anne Dorian was refitted before leaving the West Indies and returned home as the Wild Rose , falsely registered as a Jamaican vessel. She has unfortunately sailed away again, but you’ll find her illicit cargo tucked away in a warehouse on the West India Quay. Ah, and here’s the best part. I’ve uncovered a silent partner who stood to profit enormously from the scheme. One Oscar Littleton.”
    Wescott started as if poked from behind. “The foreign secretary’s private solicitor?”
    “The very same.”
    “Well-done, Barensforth! Well-done, indeed.”
    “Yes, yes.” Aidan cut the man short with a wave, hauled himself semiupright against the pillows, and scrubbed the bleariness from his eyes. “As long as I’m awake, why don’t you tell me what has you as flushed as a maiden on her wedding night?”
    Aidan’s barrel-chested, paunch-bellied contact from the Home Office plunged into a rapid elucidation of the latest matter threatening the financial well-being of the kingdom.
    “There hasn’t been much in the way of new building in Bath in more than a decade, and now suddenly the quality is flocking there to invest in something called the Summit Pavilion,” Wescott explained. “Some kind of spa. We might not have noticed except that there have been multiple delays in breaking ground. . . .”
    As Wescott continued spouting the details, Aidan sighed. The Anne Dorian affair had taken a good deal of energy on his part, not to mention the risk to life and limb, and here Wescott expected him to jump on command—again.
    There were moments when he regretted having ever made Lewis Wescott’s acquaintance.
    Five years ago a lucrative investment opportunity had swept through London’s aristocratic and upper-middle-class drawing rooms. Scores of men, including Lewis Wescott, had scampered to stake their claim in a West African diamond mine whose yield promised to make them overnight millionaires.
    Not long prior, Aidan had discovered he had a proficiency at the gaming tables that allowed him to rebuild the fortune his father had lost before his death. Aidan’s talent with numbers extended to financial speculation as well, and the idea of wealth gleaned from glittering pebbles had appealed to him.
    Upon closer inspection, however, the figures presented to potential investors simply didn’t wash. Work-force, expenses, payload . . . the inconsistencies were subtle, easily missed, but within minutes of perusing the so-called records, his uncanny mind had detected a pattern that shouted fraud.
    Very quietly, he had brought his suspicions to the Home Office, which in turn had contacted the Foreign Office, which had sent its people to investigate. In many instances entire life savings had been spared. And while Aidan had kept his assistance mostly anonymous, he had come away with a lasting if often contentious partnership with the man blustering before him now.
    Wescott paused for breath, then with obvious frustration burst out, “For the love of God, Barensforth, have you heard a