Six Degrees of Scandal by Caroline Linden

than most people recognized.
    As for him, his desire to leap to her aid and spare her any more unpleasantness might feel noble, but he had to remind himself that he had no right to overrule her. Even more, if he wanted to win her trust again, swooping in to order her about was not the way to do it. Olivia hadn’t liked that when she was a child, and he had no doubt she would put him in his place if he tried it now. As little as he liked it, he had to give way.
    â€œIf you prefer,” he said. She darted a wary glance at him, and he nodded in grudging concession. “It might be best to keep our acquaintance quiet. Clary doesn’t know me, which means he won’t be attuned to anything I do.” It also occurred to him that the viscount’s likely reaction to any man helping Olivia would probably be a pistol shot to the back of the head. The more anonymity Jamie had, the more useful he could be.
    But that didn’t leave many options for gettinganything from Armand, so in the end they decided on a bold, simple strike. Olivia put on her cloak and bonnet, looking determined and confident, and set out for town. Jamie followed her from a careful distance until she reached the edge of Gravesend, almost within sight of the solicitor’s office. He might agree that she could face the man alone, but he’d be damned if he’d allow her to walk about unprotected while Clary was free. If anything happened to her, Jamie would never forgive himself.
    She turned the corner, heading up the main thoroughfare into town, and Jamie went the other way, tugging his muffler higher around his face. The first thing he had to do was get Olivia out of that isolated cottage. If he could find her there, so could anyone else. Penelope had given him a little information, when he set out to find Olivia, but the biggest clue by far was that the Townsends had come from Kent, specifically Rochester. That had narrowed his search considerably, but it was hardly a great secret. It was a stroke of luck that Mr. Armand had turned out to be relatively near London, and not in one of the many smuggling villages scattered across the entire Kentish coast. But it was a stroke that could cut both ways, and the sooner Olivia quit Gravesend, the better.
    He headed around town along the coast road, finally stopping at a small house at the end of a row of narrow cottages, cobbled together piecemeal and in various states of shabbiness. Jamie rapped at the door and waited. Smoke puffed from the chimney, but the paint on the door was peeling and the curtains were drawn. After several minutes a woman opened the door. She balanced a drooling toddler on one hip and looked a little frazzled, even though it was still morning.
    â€œIs this the home of Mr. William Hicks?” he asked.
    â€œAye,” said the woman slowly. “Who’s asking?”
    In reply he handed her a folded note. She looked at it sideways, then disappeared into the house. Barely a minute later the door was yanked open, this time by a man about Jamie’s own age. A long scar, badly healed, ran along the side of his face from his chin, past his severed ear, into his hair. “Come in, sir,” he said, opening the door wider and gesturing with a hand missing three fingers.
    James stepped inside the house. It was warm but the air was thick, as if the house had been closed up too long. The woman was bundling the toddler and another small child up the narrow stairs at the rear of the large room, while two girls of about eight or ten stoked the fire and stirred the contents of the kettle hung over that fire. Limping heavily, William Hicks swept aside some schoolbooks on the bench and offered Jamie the chair at the head of the table. He murmured quietly to the two girls, and they moved the pot to a hook outside the hearth before following their mother up the stairs.
    â€œThank you for speaking with me,” James said, taking the chair with a nod.
    â€œAnything