Avoidance and chasing
Apr. 17th, 2026 08:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessMiss Scarlet and the Duke - 3.5 – The Heir
Gripping nearly silent cold open, with Eliza hurriedly searching a room where the furniture was covered with dust-sheets at night, and just as she’d found a birth certificate and letter, a night watchman could be heard approaching. When he entered the room, she’d left by the window.
She did seem to be counting her chickens before they’d hatched a lot this episode: her chickens being a finder’s fee for finding the heir to a £20,000 fortune. She was already spending the money she hadn’t got yet on new signage for the office and so on the morning after, before the heir she’d found could go to a solicitor to apply for it. And then she learned he’d got kidnapped. The ransom note demanded she avoided the police – well, she’d been avoiding Wiliam since finding out about him and Arabella. He was aware that Eliza was acting funnily around him, but hadn’t worked out why, and was called to a murder scene, where a man named Saracen had been stabbed to death.
Eliza decided to investigate the kidnapping, as she didn’t have the money for the ransom. She got Moses to help – he was asking for double his money, she was saying she’d sign a contract if he gave him his full name, he helped her anyway. As did Ivy, while asking pointed questions about Inspector Wellington. Eliza met a posh heir hunter with an unfortunate orange handkerchief, and ended up going to the murder scene that William and Fitzroy were investigating, showing that the two cases were linked.
The Duke made her go to the arranged meet with a carpetbag full of counterfeit money as ransome. She found the heir hunter there, but she was the one targeted by a masked man, who stole the bag. The police took in the rival heir hunter, who turned out to be less posh than he’d seemed and a gambler, like the deceased owner of the fortune, but he had an alibi for Saracen’s murder. The owner of the fortune had also been murdered.
Eliza found out some stuff, as did William, including on the personal front, i.e. Eliza had been avoiding him because she’d found out about Arabella. He felt bad, because he’d deliberately not told Eliza about developments, in part because he knew she didn’t like Arabella because of their past, which was what she was saying out loud. They both knew, at some level, that the things they weren’t saying out loud were bothering them. He confirmed that there were developments between him and Arabella, but when he went to visit Arabella, she learned that he would be always complaining about Eliza and working a lot with her, and what woman likes hearing the man courting her go on about another woman he’s spending a lot of time with?
The kidnapped man returned unharmed, with no real clues as to his kidnappers, while the Duke wound Eliza up by basically arresting him for safety, which meant he couldn’t claim the fortune and she wouldn’t get her finder’s fee in time before the deadline that would mean it reverted to the Government. I’m retelling this wrong, but there were faked alibis, faked kidnappings, too many people after too little money, and Eliza was too hasty in spending the first instalment of her finder’s fee, which led her to finding out that a son had been his father’s murderer. You couldn’t let that pass as you could faking a kidnapping to make some (counterfeit) money, and so having figured it all out, she was left out of pocket.
Seeing she was down, Moses informed her that his surname was Valentine – not sure if he’s been hiding it out of embarrassment or because he’s wanted under the name. Part of the reason she was down was that Arabella had invited her for tea under false pretences – Eliza had been willing to go and try to be cordial, but Arabella had also invited William, who thought it was just them, which should give him pause, because that was sneaky. Not sure if she wanted to test what was going on between William and Eliza, or rub Eliza’s nose in the fact that she and William were an item.
The case was very convoluted with, it turned out, two murders, a fake crime and lots of people pretending to be something they were not. Well, mainly men. (But possibly also Arabella. And William and Eliza pretending not to care as much as they do.)
Gripping nearly silent cold open, with Eliza hurriedly searching a room where the furniture was covered with dust-sheets at night, and just as she’d found a birth certificate and letter, a night watchman could be heard approaching. When he entered the room, she’d left by the window.
She did seem to be counting her chickens before they’d hatched a lot this episode: her chickens being a finder’s fee for finding the heir to a £20,000 fortune. She was already spending the money she hadn’t got yet on new signage for the office and so on the morning after, before the heir she’d found could go to a solicitor to apply for it. And then she learned he’d got kidnapped. The ransom note demanded she avoided the police – well, she’d been avoiding Wiliam since finding out about him and Arabella. He was aware that Eliza was acting funnily around him, but hadn’t worked out why, and was called to a murder scene, where a man named Saracen had been stabbed to death.
Eliza decided to investigate the kidnapping, as she didn’t have the money for the ransom. She got Moses to help – he was asking for double his money, she was saying she’d sign a contract if he gave him his full name, he helped her anyway. As did Ivy, while asking pointed questions about Inspector Wellington. Eliza met a posh heir hunter with an unfortunate orange handkerchief, and ended up going to the murder scene that William and Fitzroy were investigating, showing that the two cases were linked.
The Duke made her go to the arranged meet with a carpetbag full of counterfeit money as ransome. She found the heir hunter there, but she was the one targeted by a masked man, who stole the bag. The police took in the rival heir hunter, who turned out to be less posh than he’d seemed and a gambler, like the deceased owner of the fortune, but he had an alibi for Saracen’s murder. The owner of the fortune had also been murdered.
Eliza found out some stuff, as did William, including on the personal front, i.e. Eliza had been avoiding him because she’d found out about Arabella. He felt bad, because he’d deliberately not told Eliza about developments, in part because he knew she didn’t like Arabella because of their past, which was what she was saying out loud. They both knew, at some level, that the things they weren’t saying out loud were bothering them. He confirmed that there were developments between him and Arabella, but when he went to visit Arabella, she learned that he would be always complaining about Eliza and working a lot with her, and what woman likes hearing the man courting her go on about another woman he’s spending a lot of time with?
The kidnapped man returned unharmed, with no real clues as to his kidnappers, while the Duke wound Eliza up by basically arresting him for safety, which meant he couldn’t claim the fortune and she wouldn’t get her finder’s fee in time before the deadline that would mean it reverted to the Government. I’m retelling this wrong, but there were faked alibis, faked kidnappings, too many people after too little money, and Eliza was too hasty in spending the first instalment of her finder’s fee, which led her to finding out that a son had been his father’s murderer. You couldn’t let that pass as you could faking a kidnapping to make some (counterfeit) money, and so having figured it all out, she was left out of pocket.
Seeing she was down, Moses informed her that his surname was Valentine – not sure if he’s been hiding it out of embarrassment or because he’s wanted under the name. Part of the reason she was down was that Arabella had invited her for tea under false pretences – Eliza had been willing to go and try to be cordial, but Arabella had also invited William, who thought it was just them, which should give him pause, because that was sneaky. Not sure if she wanted to test what was going on between William and Eliza, or rub Eliza’s nose in the fact that she and William were an item.
The case was very convoluted with, it turned out, two murders, a fake crime and lots of people pretending to be something they were not. Well, mainly men. (But possibly also Arabella. And William and Eliza pretending not to care as much as they do.)
