Twelfth Night Secrets by Jane Feather Page A

Street in Oxford the following afternoon.
    A slight smile touched his lips as he thought of Harriet and her solicitous information about leaving his mail on the pier table in the hall for the butler. He hadn’t lied when he said he had no need of such a conventional means of transmitting correspondence.
    His pen paused as he looked up from his work, momentarily distracted by the mental image of Lady Harriet Devere. She was certainly very like Nicholas and yet also in very important ways most unlike him. Her eyes were larger, he thought, maybe a deepershade of green, and the reddish glints in her wheat-colored hair were almost an indefinable color, sometimes pink, sometimes almost copper when the light fell upon her head in a certain fashion.
    She had a much fuller mouth than her brother, he remembered, but the straight nose and high cheekbones were the same, definitely a family trait, particularly pronounced in the old Duke. He liked the way she carried herself, with the cool assurance of one confident of who she was and where she fitted in her world. And in that, she most resembled Lord Hesketh.
    Nicholas had borne himself with supreme confidence but never without thought. It was what had made him so valuable at his work. He examined every aspect of a situation, every angle of a plan, an ability that Julius admired and had himself in abundance. It was what made them such a superb partnership, until it had to end in that wretched way. A knife to the throat in a back alley was no way for a man like Nicholas to die. And yet sometimes it was inevitable. It had been inevitable that Nicholas Devere should die like that.
    Julius shook his head briskly, as if to dispel cobwebs, dipped his quill into the ink, and continued with his work.

Chapter Four

    Harriet woke just before Agnes came in with her morning chocolate. She hitched herself up against the pillows as her maid drew back the bedcurtains.
    “It’s stopped snowing, m’lady, just a dusting on the ground,” Agnes informed her, setting the tray on the coverlet before going to draw back the curtains to let in the daylight. Crisp sunlight shone through the frosted windowpanes.
    “It looks like a good day for traveling,” Harriet observed with a degree of relief, drawing a cashmere shawl around her shoulders against the chill air.
    “I’ll have the fire blazin’ quick as a flash, ma’am.” Agnes bent to poke the dying embers before adding fresh kindling and new logs. “Will you be goin’down for breakfast, m’lady, or should I bring up a tray?”
    “No, I’ll breakfast with the Duke in the breakfast parlor.” Harriet poured a fragrant stream of chocolate into her cup from the silver pot. Presumably, the Earl would also be joining them. “I’ll wear the green muslin morning gown, Agnes.” The decision followed her previous thought. People told her she looked particularly fetching in green, and her mission was to charm the Earl, after all, to slip beneath his guard if she could. If it meant she should look her best at all times in his company, and looking her best always made her sparkle, so be it. She sipped her chocolate, the crackle of the logs as they caught in the hearth making the room feel warm and welcoming again.
    Half an hour later, she descended to the breakfast parlor and was surprised and, she had to admit, a little disappointed to find only her grandfather at the table. He looked up from the journal he was reading and nodded at her. “Good morning, Harriet. You slept well, I trust.”
    “As always, sir. I find Charlbury very conducive to a peaceful night.” She glanced at his tankard and without comment refilled it from the jug on the table. “Can I fetch you something from the sideboard?”
    He examined his plate with an air of mild curiosity. “To tell you the truth, I can’t even remember what I was eating. There’s a most interesting article in the journal about this man Jenner. He calls this treatment for smallpox vaccination,