"Peregrine Fenwick," she said. "My brother. He died in March of a fever taken after a winter of debt-chasing and sleepless nights. Before that, he was merely foolish. After that, he was prey. This note was among his papers. The sum is not the largest he owed. It is the one that bears your crest."
She held it out.
Lucien took it as if it might burn. The Ashcombe crest was clear enough even in low light: a thorned wreath, a stag at bay, the ducal coronet stamped above in red wax that had cracked but not crumbled. Beneath, in a clerk's careful hand, terms that made Isolde's stomach turn even now. Interest that climbed. A clause about "assurance of house." Peregrine's signature at the bottom, hurried, almost boyish.
Lucien's throat moved. "This seal—"
"Is yours," Isolde said.
"It is my house's," he corrected, and then seemed to hear how thin the difference sounded. "I have not signed such papers. I do not lend. I play."
"You play with other men's ruin stacked beside the chips," Lady Harriet said. "Do not dress it as sport."
Lucien looked at her, then back at Isolde. Something like shame flickered and was immediately opposed by pride. "If this is forgery, I will find the forger."
"If it is not," Isolde said, "you will find the truth and put it in writing where solicitors can read it. My mother cannot endure another season of whispers that Peregrine died a gamester and a coward. He was both, in small measures. He was also twenty-three, and he believed your crest meant the debt was honorable."
The fire popped. Outside the door, Lady Prudence's skirts whispered.
Lucien folded the note with care that bordered on reverence and then seemed to hate himself for the care. "I will have my man of business in the morning. Benedict Vale has kept our private ledgers since my father's time. If there is a ledger for this, he will produce it."
Isolde's mouth tightened. "Vale's name appears in my brother's letters. Twice. Once as a convenience. Once as a warning Peregrine did not heed."
That landed. Lucien's blue eyes went colder, not with anger at her, but with the first honest chill of suspicion turning inward.
"Then we begin with Vale," he said. "And you will not speak of this again in public until—"