Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Casebook of Barnaby Adair)

by Stephanie Laurens

  There had been no advance on the legal side, either, although Marwell was holding himself ready to act in whatever manner Thomas wished.

  Thomas wished . . . that it hadn’t come to this, but in accepting the need to come to London, he had always suspected that it would.

  Pushing away from the railing, he looked right and left, then strolled across the street. Climbing the steps of Number 24, he halted before the town house’s door, composed his mind, then rang the bell.

  A shortish, slightly rotund—Thomas’s gaze flicked over the man’s attire—not butler but majordomo opened the door. The man looked at him in polite query. “Yes, sir?”

  “Is Mr. Adair at home?”

  The man didn’t miss a beat. “I’m not sure, sir, but I can ask. Who shall I say is calling?”

  Thomas had timed his call for ten o’clock, the earliest possible time for a polite call and sufficiently early that it was unlikely the gentleman of the house had as yet stepped out. Reaching into his pocket, Thomas drew out a calling card. “He’ll know me.”

  The majordomo took the card; he frowned slightly when he noticed the second name Thomas had scrawled across one corner. But then the man stepped back, holding the door wide. “If you would like to wait in the hall, sir, I will inquire.”

  An “Honorable” on a calling card usually sufficed to get one at least into the front hall. With an inclination of his head, Thomas crossed the threshold and stood to one side of the elegant chamber. With a bow, the majordomo went off, disappearing down a corridor that led to the rear of the house.

  Hands clasped over the head of his cane, Thomas glanced idly around, noting not just the elegance of the decor but also the little touches that, no doubt, had been contributed by Adair’s wife. Although unmarried when their paths had crossed five years ago, Adair, the third son of the Earl of Cothelstone, had since married Penelope Ashford, daughter of the previous Viscount Calverton, sister to the present incumbent, and connected via two of her siblings’ marriages to the powerful Cynster clan.

  It wasn’t, however, Adair’s social connections that had brought Thomas to his door but rather Adair’s unusual association with Inspector Basil Stokes of Scotland Yard. Along with keeping up with financial matters, Thomas had also made a point of keeping abreast of developments in the lives of those he’d known in his past life—so he could avoid them, but, as had happened with so much in this case, Fate had turned his intention on its head.

  In order to successfully expose Richard Percival and remove the threat to William, and thus accomplish the task Fate had spared Thomas for—the one only he could fulfill—he needed help of a sort he didn’t have access to, but to which, if the news sheets spoke true, Adair did.

  If Thomas had wondered if Adair would remember him, the sudden thunder of boot heels striding up the corridor was answer enough—but the lighter, tripping footsteps following were a surprise.

  Adair—older, a touch harder, definitely more mature than he had been, but with his hair a golden halo and his frame long and lean, much as Thomas remembered—appeared in the mouth of the corridor, Thomas’s card in one hand.

  Incredulous, Adair’s gaze pinned him.

  Across the hall, Thomas met that challenging gaze calmly, serenely.

  Adair slowed, confusion washing over his features. Halting, he glanced down at the card, then at Thomas. After a stunned moment, he said, “Mr. Thomas Glendower, I presume?”

  He’d known Adair well enough to be certain that the man would recognize him. Thomas half-bowed, the best he could manage without risking overbalancing. “Indeed.”

  A dark-haired lady, the type described as petite, had come up behind Adair. She’d halted alongside him, her hand gripping his sleeve, more to ensure he took her with him, Thomas sensed, than any wish to hold her husband back. Now she looked from Adair, to him, then, releasing Adair, she calmly came forward. “Good morning, Mr. Glendower.” She held out her hand. “I’m Mrs. Adair.”

  Thomas glanced at Adair, but the man was still staring at him, not dumbfounded but rather with his mind whirling at full speed, and with no thought to spare to give him any sign. So Thomas looked into Penelope Adair’s dark eyes, took the small hand offered him, and bowed over it. “A pleasure, Mrs. Adair. But it’s your husband I came to see.”

  Penelope Adair smiled—and Thomas realized he’d misjudged her. There wasn’t just steel but iron behind that smile. “Indeed. I collect that you wish to consult with my husband, in which case, you will need to speak with us both.” Boldly, she took Thomas’s arm and with a wave turned him toward the doorway to his left. “Let’s go into the drawing room and make ourselves comfortable, and you can tell us all. And then we’ll decide whether we can aid you.”

  Thomas accepted the implied rebuke meekly and allowed himself to be steered into the drawing room and installed in an armchair to one side of the hearth.

  Adair dallied in the hall to speak with the majordomo; Thomas didn’t need to hear the words to guess what Adair’s instructions were. Then Adair followed them into the room, a faint frown still hovering in his eyes—as well it might. He’d just had a man he’d thought long dead appear in his hall, damaged, perhaps, but clearly still alive.

  Once his wife had sat with a swish of fashionable skirts on the sofa, Adair sank into the armchair alongside, facing Thomas.

  Adair tapped Thomas’s calling card edge-down on the chair’s arm, then simply asked, “Why are you here?”

  Thomas held Adair’s very blue gaze and simply stated, “I’m here to throw myself on your mercy.”

  Adair’s frown materialized. “Why?”

  “Because I need your help. Not for me, but for three others who . . . are dear to me.” The admission of vulnerability hadn’t come easily, but he sensed he would be ill advised to keep even that back.

  Penelope Adair leaned forward, her dark gaze acute. “Tell us.”

  Thomas considered her for a moment, then he ordered his thoughts and began. “Two months ago, after spending five years in a monastery on the shores of Bridgewater Bay, recovering from my injuries”—with a wave, he indicated his face, weakened side, and leg—“I returned to a house I, as Thomas Glendower, owned, a small manor house at Breage, in Cornwall, a little west of Helston. I had installed an older couple as caretakers long before, but they had retired, and when I reached the manor, I discovered I had a new housekeeper, a widow with two children. Over the course of the next six or so weeks, I learned that the widow was not a widow but a lady by the name of Rosalind Heffernan, stepdaughter of the late Robert Percival, Viscount Seddington, and the children were Percival’s, Rosalind’s half siblings—a nine-year-old boy, William Percival, fourth Viscount Seddington, and his six-year-old sister, Alice.”

  Penelope Adair looked intrigued. “How fascinating. Why were they hiding in Cornwall?”

  Thomas inclined his head to her; that was, indeed, the most pertinent question. “Four years ago, Robert Percival and his wife, Corinne, who had been unwell, set out for a day’s drive from Seddington Grange, which I’m told is near Market Rasen in Lincolnshire. It appears they headed to Grimsby, where Percival, who loved sailing, kept his yacht. The next day, Percival and his wife were discovered drowned, their bodies trapped in the sails of the yacht, which had apparently capsized off Grimsby. The deaths were put down to a tragic accident.” He paused, then went on. “Rose—Rosalind—is twenty years older than William, and as her mother had weakened after William’s birth, and weakened further with Alice’s birth, Rose had largely taken over the day-to-day care of the children. With news of the deaths, quite aside from her own grief, she had to comfort the children. The funeral came and went, and on the evening afterward, Rose by accident overheard Robert Percival’s younger brother, Richard Percival, boasting to one of his friends about how he had arranged Robert’s and Corinne’s deaths, and of his plans to do away with William so that he would inherit the estate.”

  “Well!” Penelope sat back. She flicked a glance at Adair, who had
been listening closely, his expression impassive. “That,” Penelope declared, “is certainly a sound case for investigation.”

  Adair’s gaze remained steady on Thomas. “What did she—Rose—do?”

  “There was no member of the Percival family who lived at the Grange at that time, no one Rose knew enough to trust. As a young lady of twenty-four, as she then was, and not a Percival herself, she had no confidence in her ability to sway the family solicitor, and certainly not to have her word given credence against that of Richard Percival, who in his brother’s will had been named William’s principal guardian. In short, she feared to lose William and Alice—the children she’d vowed to her mother that she would care for and protect—to the man who had killed their parents. And more, Percival’s confession accounted for an inconsistency Rose had seen in the verdict of accidental death by drowning. Her mother, Corinne, suffered from excessively bad mal-de-mer and wouldn’t have been able to so much as set foot on a yacht without becoming wretchedly ill.”

  “So given Corrine was already sickly,” Penelope said, “why on earth would her husband have even suggested going out on his yacht?”

  “Exactly.” Thomas paused, then met Adair’s bright blue gaze. “Rose took the children and fled. That very night. She had enough cash to get by for some time, but she knew Richard would search for them. And he did. However, she avoided the areas in which she knew he would look. In time, she reached Cornwall and, as luck would have it, found a position assisting my then ageing caretakers. After two years, they retired, and she continued as the manor’s housekeeper. The manor was the perfect refuge—it’s isolated, and because the older couple had had all the deliveries arranged, Rose, much less the children, didn’t need to be seen even in the villages. The locals knew she and the children were there, but in that part of the country, everyone minds their own business.”

  “A perfect refuge, until you, the owner, arrived.”

  Thomas met Adair’s gaze, then said, “Even then, the fiction remained and they were safe—until Richard Percival’s men appeared asking questions.”

  Penelope straightened. “He found them?”

  “No, not yet. Apparently, he’s been using inquiry agents to hunt for them.” Thomas glanced at Adair. “You know the sort.” When Adair nodded, Thomas went on, “I’ve used them in the past and recognized the two who turned up at the manor as members of the fraternity. After I sent them on their way with a believable lie, one that would at least buy time . . . after that, Rose confided in me. Subsequently, I used my own contacts here, in London, to verify much of her story. Her parents’ deaths occurred as she’d described. She and the children did indeed disappear on the night of the funeral. Percival is behind the inquiry agents, is William’s principal guardian, co-guardian with William’s great-uncle, a much older and apparently ineffectual man.” Thomas paused. “I started investigating Percival’s finances, looking for the motive behind his need to inherit the estate. But then more inquiry agents arrived in Helston, a dozen or so this time, and they’d brought with them Robert Percival’s valet—according to Rose, the man would recognize both her and William.”

  “Good heavens!” Penelope all but jigged. “How did you escape? I take it you did?”

  Thomas inclined his head. “I’d seen the inquiry agents before they’d seen me, and I’d learned that we had a day’s grace—they were searching in a different area that first day. So Rose and I agreed we had to come to London, face the challenge here, and resolve the issue—that we had to expose Richard Percival’s scheme, his murder of Robert and Corinne Percival, and so remove the threat to William’s life.”

  “Well, well—murder and a threat to someone’s life?”

  Thomas glanced toward the now open doorway and the large, dark-featured man who filled it. Thomas had never met Stokes before; instinctively, he reached for his cane to stand, but Stokes waved at him to remain seated. Thomas watched as slate-gray eyes, wintry, their expression steely, studied him.

  Then, saturnine features entirely impassive, Stokes inclined his head. “Mr. Glendower.” He came forward. “I believe murder and threat is my cue. It seems you have need of my services.”

  Thomas watched as Stokes nodded to Penelope and Adair, and with the ease of long familiarity, sat alongside Penelope on the sofa. Neither Adair nor Stokes had offered to shake Thomas’s hand, but that he’d expected.

  “Before you continue your tale,” Adair said, “allow me to fill Stokes in on the details to this point.”

  Thomas inclined his head and sat back, listening as, briefly and succinctly, Adair recounted all that Thomas had thus far revealed.

  While he did so, Penelope Adair rose and crossed to the bellpull, and when the majordomo responded, she ordered tea to be brought in.

  It had been a very long time since Thomas had last sipped tea in a ton drawing room; accepting a cup from Penelope, he found himself somewhat cynically amused, more with himself than anyone else. But this, indeed, was the way matters were dealt with within the milieu of those of the Adairs’ ilk—with all due civility.

  At the end of his factual recitation, Adair cocked a brow at Thomas, clearly asking if he’d missed anything crucial. Thomas nodded. “Yes, that’s it.” He transferred his gaze to Stokes. “Having made up our minds to come to London and pursue Percival, Rose and I closed up the manor, took the children, and in the small hours of the following morning, we relocated to Falmouth, and from there, I arranged passage on a ship sailing for Southampton on the afternoon tide. We boarded and, after an uneventful voyage and subsequent carriage journey, reached town several days ago.”

  “So Percival has no notion you, Rose, and the children are in town?” Stokes asked.

  Thomas grimaced. “Of that, I can’t be certain, but from the moment we arrived in Falmouth, I took care to project an image entirely inconsistent with the group the inquiry agents are searching for.” He met Stokes’s gaze. “I’m tolerably good at concealing identities—I know what veils to employ.”

  Stokes snorted. He held Thomas’s gaze and after a moment asked, “Why, exactly, did you come here?” He tipped his head. “To Adair.”

  Thomas hesitated, unsure of the ice beneath his feet. But he’d already decided on complete honesty; oddly enough, these days, with most people that seemed to serve him best. “Because I’ve realized that, regardless of what I might uncover about Percival, about his motives, his past actions, and his intentions toward William, courtesy of my past, I will not be in a position to take that information further, to expose Percival and remove him as a threat to Rose and the children.” He kept his gaze steady on Stokes’s steely eyes. “That’s my aim—to ensure Rose and the children are safe. To achieve that . . . I’m willing to surrender myself, as the man I used to be, to you, to the courts.” He paused, then added, “The only thing I ask is that you defer arresting me until after Percival’s threat is negated and Rose and the children are safe.”

  Stokes stared at a man he’d never thought to see. His mind was whirling, juggling, reviewing—very close, at least on one front, to boggling. He glanced sidelong at Adair and found his friend waiting to catch his eye. What a turn-up, indeed!

  It had been Adair and Stokes who had searched for Malcolm Sinclair’s body, they who had found the letter he’d left at the house he’d been living in, they who had followed the trail he’d left to the murderer he had trussed and left waiting for them in the cellar, they who had subsequently followed his directions to the will he’d written and left with the local solicitor in Somerset . . . all those years ago.

  Stokes and Adair knew the contents of that will. Adair had been instrumental in ensuring its provisions were fully enacted. To do so, he’d had to recruit several of his noble connections to the cause—and they, one and all, had helped. Because it had been the right thing to do.

  And Stokes had done his part by assembling evidence to support his formal declaration that no man could have survived the death Sinclair had planned and executed for himself; St
okes’s statement to that effect—that the Honorable Malcolm Sinclair was unquestionably dead—had been crucial in enabling probate of his will to proceed.

  Both Stokes and Adair—and Penelope had later learned the details, too—knew of the extent to which Malcolm Sinclair had gone to make full restitution and more for the sins he’d . . . somewhat unwittingly committed.

  Looking back at the man, if not in perfect health, then hale enough and definitely breathing, sitting in the armchair opposite, Stokes resisted the urge to scrub his hands over his face. The very last thing he needed was to attempt to arrest an already dead man . . . but he saw no reason to explain that to Thomas Glendower just yet.

  Drawing in a deep breath, Stokes nodded to Glendower. “Very well. Let’s leave the question of arresting you for later, and focus on Richard Percival and his doings. The first thing I will need is to interview this Rose—Miss Heffernan. So where have you got her and the children hidden?”

  Thomas didn’t hesitate. “The Pevensey Hotel. We’re in suite number five.”

  Stokes’s brows rose.

  Adair nodded. “Good choice.” When Stokes glanced at him, he added, “They’ll be as safe as they could be there. In this case, discretion equates to protection.”

  “Ah.” With a nod of understanding, Stokes refocused on Thomas. “Once I have Miss Heffernan’s statement confirming the details you’ve related, that will give me a sound basis for an investigation.” Stokes paused, then asked, “I take it you’ve thus far learned nothing that would give us any clue as to why Percival needs to inherit?”

  Thomas shook his head. “That’s at the top of my list to pursue.”

  “We may be able to throw more resources behind that.” Adair exchanged a look with Penelope, then said, “Montague, of Montague and Sons, occasionally works with us on cases that can benefit from his expertise.”

  Thomas arched his brows. “Montague—the Cynsters’ man-of-business?”