by Olivia Drake
“I daresay you were angry when Guy moved and spoiled your shot.”
His lips curled in distaste. “No matter, I’ve devised another clever ploy that will do quite nicely for my nephew.”
“Ploy?”
“This is the Earl of Haviland’s cellar. It will appear that he abducted you in order to force Guy to exchange you for the treasure map. I’ve already hidden the incriminating diaries in his study.”
Lord Haviland! It was a crumb of luck to know that Banfield hadn’t transported her out of London, that she was still in Mayfair. He’d made up that story about telling Haviland that Guy would be attending the circus. It was all a trick to make the earl look guilty. “So you stole the diaries, too. And you told His Grace that I had done so.”
“Guy was sniffing at your skirts. I couldn’t take a chance that he might get you with child. I hoped he would take a disgust of you, but he didn’t.” His calculating stare seemed aimed at her midsection. Did he think she was expecting? That only confirmed he meant to kill her, too.
Before she could vanquish another surge of panic, he went on, “I daresay it was Marbury who forced him to court you. Dukes don’t willingly wed bastards. Especially one so different from a lady like Annabelle. Guy was madly in love with her, you know.”
Tessa’s heart wrenched. She mustn’t listen to his poison, she must find a way out of this impossible predicament. “Your plan won’t work. Lord Haviland is bound to have an alibi. Someone will surely swear to his whereabouts tonight.”
“He returned this evening from his estate in Dorset. After traveling all day, he won’t be going out again tonight. He’s sent his servants off to bed and is now ensconced upstairs in his library.”
The news riveted Tessa. Once Banfield departed, she would scream herself raw in the hope that Haviland would hear her.
“The earl has become something of a recluse this past year,” Banfield continued. “His father left him quite destitute, and the authorities will be persuaded he had ample motive to have committed murder for that treasure map.” He glanced around. “I daresay these walls are too thick to allow any cries for help to penetrate. But just in case…”
He whipped out a strip of linen, stuffed it between her teeth, and tied it behind her head. Tessa recoiled as much from his loathsome touch as from the pain of him brushing the sore lump he’d inflicted. The whiff of his masculine cologne might have been the foul stench of a demon.
Damn him! She was only sorry she hadn’t cursed him blue when she’d had the opportunity. Though her tongue had been silenced, she let her eyes speak eloquently of her disgust.
Straightening up, he appeared amused by her glower. “I daresay you’re wondering how I can be so certain of Haviland’s doings. These past few days, I’ve been cajoling one of his maidservants, a spotty-faced goosecap whom I made sure to visit each morning while she was polishing the brass on the front door. She was putty in my hands and gladly told me all the household gossip.” He shook his head. “Alas, she isn’t long for this world. She, along with you and Guy, will suffer tragic deaths at Haviland’s hands.”
Tessa controlled a shiver. Though Banfield appeared to be the sober, upright gentleman, he was in truth a raving madman who belonged in Bedlam. He spoke of killing people as calmly as one might mention going to the market.
Then he withdrew a knife from inside his coat. He turned it in his fingers so that the steel blade flashed in the lamplight.
Her body went rigid. He meant to kill her this instant! She would never see Guy again, never know the joy of his embrace. Her desperate cry muffled by the gag, she yanked futilely at her bound hands.
Banfield crouched in front of her. His lips were curled into a caricature of a smile as if he savored her terror. She braced herself as he brought the knife closer. Would he cut her throat or plunge it into her bosom?
Instead, he uttered a nasty chuckle as he caught a lock of her hair and sliced it off. “Never fear, you’ll live until Guy is present to witness your death. This is merely bait to lure him here.”
Arising, he sheathed the knife and then examined the curl of hair in the light of the lantern. “An unusual shade of blond,” he mused, “rather like buttercream. Do you know this color is the signature trait of a certain noble family? Once one considers the possibility of a resemblance, it becomes easier to recognize it.”
Tessa was too shaken by the close call even to make sense of his words. She could only stare at him, willing her heart to slow its frantic beating.
He tucked the little bundle of hair, along with the knife, into an inner pocket of his coat. Then he surveyed the coal cellar with an air of satisfaction. “I must say, this scenario has a certain poetic flair. It will appear as though Guy was killed by his old friend, and you by a man who might be your half brother. Think about that whilst I’m gone. Do excuse me now.”
He took the lantern and ascended a steep flight of wooden stairs. A moment later the room went black and she heard the rattle of a key in the lock.
Tessa huddled cold and alone in a darkness so absolute it might have been the stuff of nightmares. Her situation was utterly hopeless. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t scream. The very walls seemed to close in, threatening to suffocate her. Disjointed phrases kept running through her brain.
I’ve devised another clever ploy … you and Guy will both suffer tragic deaths at Haviland’s hands … a man who may well be your half brother …
Her panicked brain could not sort out the meaning of those last words. He must mean Haviland. But she could not even recall the earl’s hair color. The one time she’d met him, at the lecture, her attention had been on Guy.
What did it matter now, anyway? She mustn’t waste time pondering the lunatic ramblings of a madman.
Banfield had gone to lure the duke into his trap. Guy would come here, prepared to confront Haviland and ready to exchange the treasure map for her release. He would have no inkling that death awaited him at the hands of his secretary, for Banfield was extremely clever at tricking people.
Her anguish deepened. She had never told Guy she loved him and now she would never have the chance. They would both die in this cold, dank cellar.
Then another dreadful realization shook her. If Banfield was determined to eradicate everyone with Carlin blood, that meant he would eventually go after Edgar … and Sophy, too.
A wild fury arose from the depths of her despair. She could not just sit here and wait to die. If there was the slightest chance she could save Guy and Sophy, then she had to try. She wrenched at her bonds again only to find them maddeningly secure. Even if she wriggled loose, how could she escape with the door locked?
Now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she spied a faint oblong outline near the top of one wall. A window? No, that must be the coal chute, where the coalman would dump his cartload into the cellar. Though she couldn’t see it in the gloom, there was an enormous stockpile for the impending winter. If she could climb to the top and squeeze through the narrow chute, perhaps there might be a chance.
With renewed energy, she squirmed and writhed as the twine abraded her wrists. It was impossible! The rope was too tight to work her hands free. She was about to succumb to tears of frustration when, during the course of her struggles, her elbow bumped something hard at one side of her skirt.
Scissors!
Oh, bless Sophy for snipping animal pictures from that book. Ever since, Tessa had made a habit of keeping the shears tucked in the pocket of her gown.
But retrieving them posed another problem. By a series of painstaking wiggling movements of her hips, she managed to twist her skirts around far enough so that her fingers could just reach the scissors. She was panting by the time they dropped out onto the dirt floor. Then it took another few torturous minutes to maneuver one blade in between her wrist and the rope.
At last she began sawing at the strands of hemp. It was a tedious process that forced her to pause now and then to uncramp her fingers from their unnatural
position. All the while she was conscious of time ticking, ticking, ticking.
How long had Banfield been gone? The darkness made it impossible to tell. It could have been an hour or only twenty minutes. She prayed the villain would be delayed long enough for her to escape.
And if she did escape—when she did—it would take all of her courage and ingenuity to thwart the killer and save the man she loved.
Chapter 20
“You needn’t have waited up for me,” Guy said as he handed his greatcoat to Roebuck. “The night footman could have opened the door.”
“I wouldn’t have slept a wink, Your Grace. Not when you are still recovering from that bullet wound. I trust you haven’t done yourself a harm by staying out until nearly midnight.”
Guy bit back a smile. He couldn’t recall a time when the stately butler had fussed over him so much as the last few days. It gave him a curious sense of homecoming, as if this house were truly his own now rather than still his grandfather’s sanctum. “I’m perfectly well. But go on to bed, that’s an order.”
He took a candle from a table, then headed up the grand staircase. Although he hadn’t told the butler, his arm was still sore despite the sling. A glass or two of brandy would work wonders before he hit the feather tick.
However, upon nearing the ducal suite, Guy decided those creature comforts paled beside a greater allure. He continued down the corridor and mounted the stairs to the nursery. He’d been negligent about keeping Tessa informed as promised, and he felt a powerful need to share the details of his long, fruitless day.
The afternoon had begun the same as the past few, with a parade of curiosity seekers arriving on his doorstep. Ever since that blasted article about the Carlin Curse, along with the news of the shooting, a steady stream of the ton had come to gawk at him. Although he had initially forbidden Roebuck to admit any visitors, Aunt Delia had sulked until he’d rescinded the order and allowed a few of her particular friends into the house. That number had grown as Lady Victor reveled in being in the center of such a sensational story.
He himself had escaped the gossips by going out in search of the culprit. Unfortunately, his efforts had yielded no definitive answers. Neither Churchford nor Symonton had an iron-clad alibi for the afternoon of the shooting, which meant they could not be eliminated as suspects. Churchford had gone for a drive in the country, while Symonton had been squirreled away in a deserted room of the museum working on an exhibit. Still, it proved nothing. Either man could have hired a ruffian to take that shot.
Not even a team of Bow Street Runners had succeeded in tracking the gunman. The mask and jester costume had been abandoned in an alley a block away from Astley’s Amphitheatre, and the pony had been recovered wandering a nearby street. Beyond that, there had been confused reports of various strangers walking away from the arena, but all had checked out to be innocent of the crime.
As well, Guy had been unable to locate his cousin. One of Edgar’s friends said that he’d met a woman at the prizefight—a lightskirt, no doubt—and had gone off with her to his hunting box. That sounded just like Edgar. Having recently completed his studies at Oxford, he was enjoying having the freedom to kick up a lark.
He was simply too carefree to be a murderer.
Logic told Guy that the culprit was a man with dark secrets. A man with a grudge powerful enough to induce him to kill multiple times. As much as he’d wanted to believe the shooting had been connected only to the treasure map, he could not discount the unusual number of deaths in his family prior to his return from abroad. Consequently, he had spent a considerable amount of time seeking out his grandfather’s old political cronies.
Guy was by no means finished with the interviews, yet he had the growing suspicion that he was tilting at windmills. There was something else going on, and today he had hit upon a half-formed notion as to who was targeting his family. He had yet to find proof, though, and hoped that talking it out with Tessa would help him to focus his thoughts.
He entered the nursery to find the schoolroom dark save for the glow of banked coals on the grate. The book about Canada lay open on a table as if Tessa had recently been reading it. That she had to contrive a new history for herself was one more negative mark for him, one more mountain he had to climb in order to win her as his wife.
Out of respect for her wishes, he’d avoided her company these past few days. It frustrated him that he couldn’t properly woo her until he solved the mystery. And he couldn’t blame her for being wary of the gulf between them. Theirs would be a mésalliance in the eyes of the world. It was unheard-of for a man of his rank to marry a woman with a sketchy past. With Marbury’s help, though, he intended to wield his power to silence any critics.
Yet he knew that gossip was not the real issue. It was convincing Tessa that marriage to a duke didn’t have to mean changing her true self.
As he headed down a corridor, the first door was his daughter’s. He went inside to see her small form huddled asleep in the canopied bed. Sophy had kicked off her blankets, and as he tucked them back in place, his chest tightened with the fierceness of love. The best decision he’d ever made was to hire Tessa as governess. To think he’d almost turned her out after discovering she’d lied about having a letter of reference.
The intense need to see her burned in him. He wanted them to be a family. Forever and always.
He tiptoed out and proceeded down the passage. Tessa would be asleep at this late hour, and the prospect of waking her appealed immensely to him. How he craved to see her lashes lift, her eyes soft with sleep, her mouth curved into a smile. He would kiss her awake before she had time to remember all the reasons why they didn’t suit.
Much to his surprise, though, he found her door open. Even more troubling, the single bedstead had not been slept in. He held up the candle to see that the coverlet was neatly made, the feather pillow still plumped. Even the curtains were open to the night sky as if she hadn’t been in here since the afternoon.
Alarm gripped him. Had she left his house for good, then? Perhaps she had walked out in order to avoid another quarrel. Perhaps she’d gone away because her feelings for him weren’t strong enough to grant him another chance.
Yet a swift look around revealed that her trunk was still here, her clothing tucked in the drawers, her brush and comb on the dressing table. Even her favorite chip-straw bonnet was hanging from a wall hook.
He steadied his breathing. How foolish of him to think the worst. She might leave him, but she would never abandon Sophy without first badgering him to hire a new governess. Knowing Tessa, she would insist on interviewing the candidates herself.
Then where the devil could she be in the middle of the night?
The library. Yes, that was the one room in the house that held enormous appeal to her. At this very moment, she was likely curled up on the chaise reading something more interesting than a dry tome on Canada.
Guy hastened back down the stairs to the ground floor and went along the marble corridor. Much to his consternation, however, the library was dark and deserted, the ashes cold in the hearth. Could she have gone to his study? Or down to the kitchen? He was heading out the doorway again when Banfield came striding from the direction of the entrance hall.
The secretary bowed. “Your Grace, I wondered where you might be. Jiggs hadn’t seen you.”
“Yes, well, I’m home now. Good night.”
The last thing he wanted was fall into a conversation about some urgent estate business that needed tending. He had a number of vital questions to ask Banfield tomorrow, but not right now, not until Guy had had the chance to discuss his theory with Tessa. As he went past the man, however, Banfield did the unusual act of stepping into his path.
“Do pardon me, but this note was slipped under the front door just now. The directive on the outside said to deliver it to you at once.”
The oddity of that caught Guy’s attention. Letters came by the daily post or by a private courier who would place it directly int
o the hands of a footman. Perhaps one of the Runners wished to inform him of a development in the case.
He seized the note. Even before opening it, though, he knew it hadn’t come from Bow Street. The elegant script bespoke a gentleman’s education. When he broke the seal and unfolded the paper, something fell out onto the marble floor.
He reached down to pick it up. It was a curl of hair, soft and silken, buttercream blond. Tessa’s hair.
Infused by icy horror, he scanned the brief message. If you wish to see Miss James again, bring the pirate’s map to the coal cellar behind my house. Come at once, unarmed, else she will suffer the consequences. —Haviland
Guy stared down at the words. Though it had been a long time since they’d passed notes in school, he recognized that penmanship. The waxen seal had been an H, as well. If this was a trick, it was cunningly done.
Then again, the culprit was diabolically clever.
His fingers clenched into a fist around the note. Fear spawned a rage so powerful that he felt on the verge of explosion. Giving vent to it, however, could hinder Tessa’s rescue.
He forced himself to think. Haviland might be a scoundrel, but he’d never stoop so low as to endanger a woman. Having also uncovered the truth about his friend’s finances, Guy found it dubious to think that the earl would commit such a desperate act.
Of course, people often saw only the face that a man chose to show to the world. And the murderer was adept at hiding the dark secrets in his soul.
“Is something amiss, Your Grace?”
Guy looked into Banfield’s gray eyes. He’d never before noticed how utterly devoid of emotion they were. “Lord Haviland has abducted Miss James. He wants the map in exchange for her. I’m wondering how he ever got his hands on her.”
“Abducted! Perhaps she went out for a walk. Or received a note that lured her away. The bigger question is, what will you do?”
“Go after her, of course.”
Turning on his heel, Guy walked rapidly to his study and tossed the note and the lock of hair onto his desk. If Tessa came to harm, he would never forgive himself, for he had no doubt it was his interest in her that had made her a target. With effort, he kept a tight rein on his seething emotions as he swiftly formulated a plan for her rescue.
