by Clee, Adele
Everyone knew of Miss Steele’s disdain for the widow. So much so, she would be the prime suspect in any murder case. But would that be her alibi? Was that part of the chit’s plan?
Damian refolded the paper and pushed it back across the desk. “Might we speak openly about your friendship with Jack Jewell?” A niggling suspicion told him that the past held the clue to the mystery. “He must have trusted you a great deal.”
Flannery’s green eyes flashed with uncertainty.
“We want the same thing,” Damian continued. “We want to bring an end to Scarlett’s nightmare.”
A resigned sigh breezed from the Irishman’s lips. “Jack’s sister was my— We were— Well, I was married, but my wife remained in Kilkenny.”
“And Jack embraced you as a brother instead of beating you for disrespecting his sister?”
“Oh, it wasn’t pretty. I can tell you that. But we settled our differences in the end. Scarlett was away in Canterbury, and Bernadette was Jack’s only kin.”
“Canterbury? One of the many seminaries hired to keep Scarlett far from home?” Damian’s tone brimmed with contempt.
Flannery nodded. “Bernadette, she didn’t agree with sending the poor lass away. But Jack wouldn’t have her in London.”
Damian’s heart ached for the lonely girl shunned by her father. The marquis was not alone when it came to fathers who lacked compassion.
“Did Jack ever say why?”
“Oh, he loved Scarlett, so he did, called her a gift from heaven and made me swear to protect her until my dying day. But Jack didn’t talk about anything other than money.”
It made little sense.
Why would a man who loved his daughter send her away for the best part of ten years?
“Was money the reason Jack Jewell took his own life?”
Flannery sucked in a sharp breath. “Did Scarlett tell you that?” He didn’t wait for an answer but leant across the table and in a low voice said, “I should have known something was amiss when he gave me a few trinkets for Scarlett and asked me to bring her to the Serpent should anything untoward happen. But a man like Jack Jewell doesn’t put a pistol in his mouth and pull the trigger.”
“Then you suspect foul play?”
Had a lord sought violent means to regain his vowels? It seemed the most likely explanation. But hadn’t Scarlett mentioned an attack in the alley led her to marry Lord Steele? What if the event had nothing to do with Steele and he simply happened to be in the right place at the right time?
“Let’s say I doubt things happened as the coroner said.” Flannery paused but then added, “But I beg you not to tell Scarlett.”
An icy shiver raced across Damian’s shoulders.
What if someone did shoot Jack Jewell?
But what motive would they have for killing his daughter?
Damian tapped his breast pockets looking for his flask but remembered leaving it at home. “And you gave Scarlett these trinkets?” Perhaps there was something valuable amongst the items, an heirloom lost in a game of hazard.
“She has them, just a bible, a shawl and her mother’s ring.”
They didn’t sound like items that might induce a man to murder.
“And Jack gave you nothing else, nothing for safe keeping?” There had to be something else, something of value. The coroner’s verdict meant all property was forfeit, confiscated by the Crown. The more Damian thought of it, the more he believed Scarlett’s problems had to do with her father.
Flannery shook his head. “Nothing.”
Silence descended.
“I mean he left a letter case after his last visit but didn’t live long enough to reclaim it,” Flannery continued. “There’s nothing in it, nothing at all but dockets and receipts.”
Hell’s teeth!
Did the man not think it an important piece of information?
“Where is the case now? Do you still have it?”
Flannery shrugged. “Somewhere. Most likely the attic. Should you like to see it, Mr Wycliff?”
“I think that would be a good idea.” Damian couldn’t suppress the hint of sarcasm in his voice. “After all, it may hold the key to this damnable mystery.”
While Flannery stomped from the room in search of the letter case, Damian’s thoughts turned to Scarlett. Was Lady Rathbone fawning over the widow, trying to establish if she might make a suitable wife for her besotted grandson? Would Lord Rathbone’s constant dribbling spoil his dinner?
He could imagine the pretentious babble.
Scarlett did not belong with them—she belonged with him.
Flannery returned some fifteen minutes later, carrying a black leather case under his arm. “This is the one, so it is.” He shook the case and brushed off the dust. “I’m surprised the rats haven’t nibbled the corners.”
The portfolio looked like it had been abandoned in a loft for thirty years, not a little more than three. “And he said nothing to you about storing it for safekeeping?”
“Jack arrived with the case. When he left, it was under his chair.”
Damian placed it on the desk, flicked the catch and withdrew the pile of musty papers. The dust made him sneeze. “There must be a hundred receipts here.” He snatched the top one and scanned the faded words. “Lord Mulberry’s vowel, though it says repaid.”
Flannery dropped into the seat behind the desk, took a handful of receipts and examined the first one on the pile. “Another vowel repaid. And a bill from that place in Bath.”
And so it went on.
More of the same—papers that meant nothing now.
Flannery’s groans and grumbles mirrored Damian’s frustration. The Irishman slapped another receipt on top of the discarded pile before frowning and snatching it back again. “Who did you say Scarlett was dining with tonight?”
Damian’s head shot up. “Lady Rathbone. Why?”
“This one here bears the same name.” Flannery handed Damian the note. “But it’s an old receipt, twenty years or more.”
The note bore a date, although the last two numerals were hard to decipher. It could be 1801 or 1807. Either way, Christopher Rathbone owed the sum of twenty thousand pounds, and Jack Jewell has signed off the debt as paid. On the reverse, Christopher Rathbone had written a declaration transferring guardianship of his cargo to Jack Jewell.
Cargo? Crates of silk, cotton or tea?
And guardianship, not ownership?
It seemed odd.
“What do you know of Christopher Rathbone?” Damian asked.
“Nothing at all. Twenty years ago, I lived in Kilkenny.”
They continued reading the other receipts and dockets but found nothing of interest. Still, Damian’s thoughts returned to Christopher Rathbone. He could hardly bombard the Rathbones with questions. However, there was one person in the ton who kept abreast of the gossip. Perhaps the marquis knew something about the character who had traded cargo for vowels. An exchange so important Jack Jewell had kept the receipt in a case until the day he died.
“As there is nothing else to be done here, I might pay my father a visit.” The marquis would no doubt hide his shock, for Damian had only ever called on the man once. And that was to hurl vile abuse a mere week after his mother’s death. “The marquis makes it his business to keep abreast of society’s affairs.”
Suspicion flared in Flannery’s green eyes. “So you think this might have something to do with the attacks on Scarlett?”
Damian shrugged. “Who can say? But it is too much of a coincidence to ignore.”
“Take the note with you. Speak to Scarlett. Jack may have mentioned this Rathbone fellow at some time.” Flannery pushed out of the chair. “I’ll send O’Donnell to watch Miss Steele. While the only man who proved a danger is dead, it pays to be cautious, so it does.”
Damian bid Flannery farewell and was about to leave when the Irishman decided he had something else to say.
“Oh, Mr Wycliff.”
“Yes?”
“A
man who kisses a lady in the street might want to think about marriage.”
* * *
If the Marquis of Blackbeck was shocked, offended or delighted to have his only son escorted into his study, Damian could not tell. At no point during the thirty seconds of silence did a muscle move on the marquis’ face.
“Some people believe books contain the devil’s magic.” The marquis leant back in the chair behind his desk and steepled his long, elegant fingers. The diamonds on his onyx ring glittered in the candlelight. “They speak of fictional stories, of course. Then again, all stories are subjective.”
What was it about his obsession with stories? “As always you speak in riddles when a simple greeting would suffice.”
“Life is abound with puzzling conundrums.”
“Yes, like why you are still intent on fathering a child at your age.” Damian dropped into the sofa flanking the fire. He would not sit opposite his father like a young pup awaiting instruction. “Is temperance not said to be the flower of old age?”
While the marquis appeared the epitome of self-control, clearly it was an illusion.
The marquis arched a neat brow. “I may have graced this world for fifty years, but I am as youthful and as virile as you.”
“Has it not occurred to you that these empty liaisons only please on a superficial level?” Damian realised there was something hypocritical in his statement. A point reinforced when his father’s eyes flashed with mockery.
“An insightful notion, though I am yet to see a sinner preaching to the masses on Sundays.”
Damian deserved that. “I’ll not deny I’ve led a less than moral life. Perhaps that’s because the blood of a transgressor flows through my veins.” He recalled a comment made by Joshua Steele regarding the child he’d fathered out of wedlock. “At any point, did you doubt I was your son?”
“Never.”
Sharp and to the point, that one word conveyed many things. Confusing things. It spoke of respect and trust, something Damian never associated with the Marquis of Blackbeck.
The marquis rose gracefully from the chair and moved to the many decanters lining the side table. He did not ask if Damian cared for a drink but poured two glasses of port, regardless. “A rare vintage from Oporto,” he said, offering Damian the dainty crystal flute. “Dated the year you were born. A fitting toast considering you’ve yet to bombard me with the usual string of obscenities.”
The marquis dropped into the sofa opposite and raised his glass in salute. “To stubborn sons.”
“To fathers who shirk responsibility,” Damian countered, raising his glass.
The marquis smirked. “And to men who believe gossip without taking the time to discover the facts.”
They drank in silence while Damian resisted the urge to ask his father what he meant.
“Now,” the marquis began after savouring and swallowing a mouthful of expensive port. “I doubt you came to tell me you plan to become master of Parklands and take a wife.”
“A wife?” Damian should scoff at the notion. But an image of Scarlett entered his mind, and the thought didn’t seem as repulsive. “If I ever marry, it will be for love.”
“Such sentiment is commendable, although one cannot always guarantee one’s affections are returned.”
Suspecting the conversation would turn to Damian’s mother, he chose to ask the question plaguing his mind since leaving Mr Flannery. “What do you know of a gentleman by the name of Christopher Rathbone? While I am aware of Lady Rathbone and the current heir, I presume he is a relation.”
The marquis’ inquisitive gaze drifted over Damian’s face before straying to his injured arm. “Does this have something to do with the reason you stumbled like a drunken sot through Vauxhall? If you needed my assistance, you had only to ask.”
Damian tried to gauge what his father knew of the shooting, but the lord gave nothing away. “I am assisting Lady Steele in a personal matter. As you’re a man with an extensive knowledge of the ton, I merely wish to know if Christopher Rathbone is related to the Rathbones who reside in Portland Place.”
“You enjoy the widow’s company?”
“Immensely.” There was little point lying, though Damian prayed his father kept any derogatory comments to himself.
“Christopher Rathbone was Lady Rathbone’s youngest son. Uncle to the present Lord Rathbone. A reckless fool to most.”
“Was? You mean the man is dead?”
The marquis inclined his head. “He left England some twenty years ago, when you were but a boy, and never returned. I’m told he died in abject poverty in a dingy apartment in Paris. Of course, Lady Rathbone tells a different story, as do most women overly concerned with appearances.”
For once, Damian ignored the veiled swipe at his mother. “Different? How so?”
The weak yet knowing expression on the marquis’ face spoke of a man well-versed in people’s need to manipulate the truth. “To the ton reputation is everything. Consequently, the man was a tortured poet, gifted with words yet plagued by the tragic death of his wife and young child. In reality, Christopher Rathbone was a spoilt prig. Jealousy for his older brother led to crippling debts.”
“Then he must have maintained control of a business. He used cargo from a shipment to repay one particular debt.”
The marquis’ eyes glinted with tepid amusement. “Undoubtedly another fictional story. The man was nowhere near as astute as you when it comes to business acumen.”
There was a hint of pride in the marquis’ tone that proved unsettling. Damian was unaware of his father’s interest in his business dealings. During the minimal time spent in the lord’s company, the only conversation amounted to verbal sparring.
“A true story in this case. I have written proof.”
He would not produce the receipt for that would mean divulging details of Scarlett’s unconventional background. And in truth, he did not trust the marquis not to use the information for his own end.
“Then I highly doubt he obtained the cargo by honest means.”
Silence ensued while the marquis swirled the port in the glass and took another delicate sip.
“When you spoke of Christopher Rathbone’s family, you mentioned a young child. So his wife did not die in childbirth?” Damian wasn’t sure why the question seemed important. Equally, he was aware that he did not feel the same anger towards his father when playing the role of inquisitive enquiry agent.
Was that the reason for his improved mood?
Or was it that his heart sang with a different emotion and there was no room left for hatred?
“His wife died in the birthing bed. Rathbone took the child to Paris when she was but a year or two old, and she perished there a month later.”
“She? Christopher Rathbone had a daughter?” Numerous thoughts bombarded Damian’s mind. When it came to Scarlett, he was a man prone to fantasy, but his current conjecture stretched his imagination to the limit. “You’re certain?”
“Your mother took great pity on the man. Had events taken a different turn, I imagine you might have been betrothed to the chit while she was still in the cradle.” The marquis placed his glass on the side table and adjusted the cuffs on his coat. “This happened over twenty years ago. I cannot imagine why it should concern Lady Steele.”
Damian fell silent.
A warning rang in his head like the clang of a death knell.
Might a human life have been traded as coldly and as dispassionately as a ship’s cargo? Might a childless couple be tempted by an offer to raise a sweet babe? God, if his mother’s cross still hung around his neck, he would take hold of it and pray his suspicions were wrong. Pray that another man had not discarded Scarlett so callously.
“Lady Steele enjoys Lady Rathbone’s company,” Damian said, wondering if the matron had planned it that way. “Though having heard rumours about Christopher Rathbone, I am inclined to believe not all is as it seems.”
The marquis arched a brow. “Like most women, Lady
Rathbone is a chameleon. She may present a sincere and amiable countenance, a beauty of heart and mind that speaks of benevolence, but beneath it all, her skin is an ugly mottled green.”
Damian sighed. He wished his father would be more succinct. “You mean she should not be trusted.”
“Lady Rathbone would sell her soul if she thought it might benefit her family. She is the sort who would smile and hand her companion a drink whilst driving a blade between the ribs.”
Chapter Eighteen
“I cannot tell you how relieved we were to receive word from you.” Lady Rathbone waited for the liveried footman to pull out her chair before taking a seat and continuing. “We were told you left Vauxhall in somewhat of a hurry.”
Scarlett glanced at the multitude of dishes gracing the mahogany table—meat, game, jellies and custards—a feast fit for twenty people, not a guest of one. Aware of Lord Rathbone’s heated gaze upon her, she brushed her skirts and sat demurely in the seat.
Scarlett smiled. “Mr Wycliff is a rather impulsive gentleman.” Impulsive and dangerously appealing. The mere mention of his name sent her heart pounding. “When it comes to entertainment, boredom sets in rather quickly.”
How strange that she feared Wycliff would tire of her more than she feared those threatening her life.
“I understand your need to make a statement to the world, my dear.” Lady Rathbone nodded when the footman came to fill her glass with claret. “But if you persist in keeping company with the likes of Mr Wycliff, no serious gentleman will entertain you. The man is a pariah. An outcast to his own kin.”
The comment caught Scarlett off guard.
Never had the matron spoken so openly about her disdain for the illegitimate son of the Marquis of Blackbeck. Perhaps Wycliff was right? Perhaps the matron did intend for Scarlett to marry her grandson.
“As a widow of some notoriety, one who openly keeps company with scoundrels, am I not considered a pariah, too?”
“Circumstance has led you to behave as you do,” Lord Rathbone interrupted. He seemed most ardent in his opinion. And while the gentleman’s handsome countenance made him appealing, her heart did not ache for his touch. “Given another option, my lady, I am positive your choice of companion would be different.”
