“Oh, Edmond, I am terribly sorry,” Eleanor said with an anxious air. “Ester can be a bit wild, and she has been out of sorts of late. Perhaps she came here as a jest. I will speak with her without delay.”
“Your sister was in this office, and now that I think of it, her outrageous flirtation was a method of distraction. She is rather canny, for it worked, and I am not a man to be easily distracted,” Edmond drawled, pushing aside the interest in his gut.
Eleanor’s eyes rounded. “She flirted with you?Ester? She never flirts!”
“I assure you she did.”
“And you thought she was my wife?” Lucien asked with a dangerous glower. “Did you return her flirtations?”
Edmond scowled, and following his hardened instincts honed over the years of dealing with wily lots, he went over to the drawers they kept their money and IOUs. “Is anything missing, Lucien?”
Eleanor gasped and glared at him. “Whatever are you implying?”
Lucien frowned, but he ambled over and checked their inventories. It only took a few moments for him to lean back with a disbelieving chuckle. “Well…there are a few IOUs missing. Five in total.”
A brief silence fell at that announcement.
“I cannot believe Ester would steal them,” Eleanor said faintly. “I…surely there must be some mistake! Was it a lot of money?”
“More than thirty thousand pounds,” Lucien replied. “Two country homes and a factory.”
“Oh, dear, Colin will be frightfully angry when he hears of this.”
“There is no need to worry about this matter, Eleanor,” Edmond smoothly said, not liking how his brother’s wife had paled. “Ester is…also my sister.”
Hell, it felt as if he had just blasphemed, for he had not missed the wicked anticipation darkening his veins when he realized the attraction was not for his sister-in-law. This Ester Fairbanks was a lady he could see in his bed, underneath him crying out her pleasure…she should never be thought of with the word ‘sister’ again.
“Are you certain?” his sister-in-law said fretfully. “I do not like this, and it is not like Ester to act in such a manner.”
Edmond aimed a reassuring smile at her. “There is nothing that a conversation cannot solve. Lucien, please take care of your wife. I will deal with this matter.”
His brother frowned. “Do not be too harsh on her. I am sure there is a good reason for whatever Ester did.”
His wife nodded her support, appearing too worried over her sister’s misdeed. Edmond said nothing, not even deigning to reply when his brother pinned him with a warning glare. Lucien escorted his wife from the room, and Edmond assessed the inventory his brother had gotten to tick off and reflected on what he hadn’t gotten to as yet. Three properties and more than thirty thousand pounds. The breathtaking nerve of Ester Fairbanks fairly robbed him of speech. Though there was not much evidence, he knew it was her who had stolen them. Only the wife of Lucien would have been allowed to climb the stairs to their private offices.
What had been her plan? Steal the IOUs, and they would simply not have noticed?
Silly chit.
Edmond smiled, almost liking the wash of anticipation felt in confronting the outrageous minx. He had worked so damn hard to ensure his family’s happiness in this life, enduring such back-breaking work and even a few broken bones to ensure their success. A spoiled, willful brat would not be allowed to cheekily waltz in and steal their hard work. Not while he had breath. She would return theIOUs, or by God, he would exact every pound from her flesh.
CHAPTER4
Ester was feeling very much worse the wear. She supposed it did not help matters that she had pilfered some of her brother’s whisky from his private study. She felt decidedly warmed and curiously light-headed as if she floated on a cloud. Unfortunately, neither sensation muted the throbbing pain and uncertain emotions lingering inside her heart.
“Whatever are you so morose about?” her sister Emma asked, coming up on the bed to repose beside Ester. “It is quite unlike you; is everything well?”
Since Lizzy married several months ago, there were enough rooms in their brother’s palatial townhouse for each sibling to have their own private space. Still, there were some nights Emma and Ester shared a bed, chatting and giggling long into the night. A thing they used to also share with Ellie.
A fierce surge of missing went through Ester’s heart for her sister, and she sniffed, hating the miserable feeling stabbing her chest. Still hugging the pillow to her chin, Ester turned her head and peered into a face identical to her own. She was close to all her brothers and sisters, but the bond she shared with her triplet sisters, Ellie and Emma, went deeper than anything she could express.
“I did something naughty about a couple hours ago,” she whispered. “Verynaughty.”
Emma’s dark blue eyes gleamed. “I saw you sneaking inside just now. You are terribly fortunate that Hermina is with child and all of Colin’s attention seems to be centered on making her comfortable. Our brother would not be pleased to see you sneaking home at this hour, Ester!”
She sighed heavily. They had changed, and she couldn’t help thinking the old dragon would soon attain her wish to make the Fairbanks paragons of society. Ester did not like that they had less freedom since moving to town from Penporth, even if she grudgingly understood the reason.
“Is Hermina well?”