InsaneJournal

Miles really, really hated tax season. Going over the accounts at the end of the day was fine and all that, but going through all of the accounts for the purposes of a bloody new income tax- well, really! Who ever heard of taxing someone on how they made their money instead of how they spent it?

He was eager for any sort of distraction as he closed the ledgers and rubbed his eyes. Miles pulled on his frock-coat with the vague intention of setting off to White's for cards and a brandy when the parlormaid said, "And poor Miss Rochester!"

Miles paused. Normally it was Not Done and Excessively Impolite to eavesdrop on one's servants, but Miles had no clue what his sister had been up to. Thus, bad form that it was, he creaked the door open and listened in on the parlormaid, relating all the particulars of the Rochester household to the new footman.

"She went and lost her fiance- he got murdered, they say- member of the nobility- and you never saw a girl act half so queer. Everyone knew she hated him, but Miss Rochester came back all broken-hearted like from her holiday. Now she's spending all her time at the doctor's. Poor lamb. No idea what to make it, though... now here's Mr. Rochester's library, and you don't go in it when he's working...." The parlormaid walked off and Miles, for lack of anything better to do, opened the door and stared blankly into the hall.

At the doctor's? What the hell? There was a knock on the door before Miles could reflect further on the subject.

"Lady Gwendolyn Linley," the butler announced, and Lady Gwendolyn breezed by him into the library.

"Oh," she said, dipping into a curtsy. "I thought Katherine would be home. I heard the most shocking rumor about Lord Eward and-"

"Lord Eward?" Miles repeated, a little sharply.

Lady Gwendolyn eyed Miles speculatively, an unexpected shrewdness in her light green eyes. "Yes. Lord Eward has been absent from society for weeks now. Lady Melbourne has it from Lady Jersey who had it from Captain Greville, ho had it from his sister who had it from her maid who had it from the cook in the Mountford-Miles house that Lord Eward was beaten within an inch of his life and living at the doc-"

"Ha!" Miles exclaimed. "Got it now!"

Lady Gwendolyn narrowed her eyes. "You certainly rejoice in his downfall." She puzzled something over a moment and brightened. "He really did ruin your cousin?"

"What? Oh yes, he did. She nearly died, ruined our family name, we're all thoroughly disgraced. " He edged out of the library. "Thankyouhaveagooddaygoodbye!" He left Lady Gwendolyn gaping at him in the library and, seizing hat, gloves and walking stick, ran out of the house and all the way to Daniel's.

As soon as he reached the doctor's house, he hammered on the door with his walking stick. "Eward! I know you're here!"