FortunesFolly

by Barbara Miller

  She recognized the lack of conviction in his voice. “I’m sure it was not. Why will no one believe me? What would it cost to be more cautious?”

  “Peace of mind. You can’t live your life jumping at shadows.”

  “No one cares that I have no peace.” She turned to the window and looked out on the rain-slicked streets.

  Tanner moved behind her. “When I came yesterday, after I had delivered my news, I had planned to offer you the protection of my name.”

  She managed not to start at this confirmation of her hope and despair. She turned and saw his face through a blur of tears. “I began to suspect that after I had driven you away. I am sorry for all my harsh words but I see now I should never have turned to you, drawn you into this situation.”

  “If I announce our engagement, Vance will not persecute you. I don’t care how long we have to wait.”

  “If you did that, he would come after you as he did tonight; possibly he would do something to Holly. If nothing else, he will start some gossip to destroy her reputation. Now that I think about it, Sir John is not safe either. I must warn him. You and he must back away from this family until Vance is revealed as the villain he is. If Fredrick insists on going to the foundry, I will come with him armed.”

  “But I don’t want you to feel like you have to protect your brother. I want to take care of you.”

  “You can’t take care of my mother. She is Vance’s prisoner. I have not been able to get in to see her since the night of the ball.”

  “Has it not occurred to you she may regret the damage her sudden appearance did to your chances?”

  Roxanne hesitated, replaying the encounter with her mother in her mind. The embrace had been genuine and had wiped out the years of estrangement. “She said that we have to talk. She wants to see me. Coming here at this time was Vance’s idea, not hers.”

  “Roxanne, please. Let me say we are to be married. I can protect Holly.”

  She stared as his impassioned face. The cut on his chin would leave another scar. She reached her hand up and almost touched the wound but she had no right. Tanner was out of her reach for so many reasons. “I love you, Tanner, more than I thought possible for an unromantic sort like me. But I want a partner, not a protector. Besides, I have already said yes to Sir John and probably brought down Vance’s wrath on him.”

  “You accepted Sir John after what I told you?”

  “After what you told me, I could not say no to him.”

  “You will ruin your life.”

  “Look around you, Tanner. It’s too late. My life already stands in ruins.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The next morning after breakfast, Roxanne made an excuse to go to her room. She put on her oldest dress and a poke bonnet to hide her face then slipped down the backstairs and got a basket from the kitchen. She went to the town house with a story about some preserves sent over by Lady Sherbourne. Roxanne went to the backdoor but even there was not admitted. As soon as the butler came to take the present from her, she said she had a note and she must wait for a response.

  The butler, a Frenchman, had been called to take the gift and note but advised her not to wait for a reply. When he left with the basket, she went out the kitchen entrance but ducked back in through the coal-cellar door, which never locked properly, and crept up the backstairs. She followed him, moving like a shadow up two flights to the bedrooms. Once he left, she was free to slip out of a linen closet and into her mother’s room. She was not in the master suite but a guest chamber. What did that mean?

  “Roxanne!” Her mother embraced her.

  She looked paler by daylight than she had in the candlelit ballroom and she had lost weight, her cheekbones more prominent than Roxanne recalled. Her fine brown hair now showed strands of gray. The bronze silk dress was one her father had given her mother. Odd that she could recall such details about their life together. But her mother’s smile made any risk worthwhile.

  “You come against Agatha’s wishes, I assume.”

  Roxanne released her to stare at her mother again. “It is not Agatha who conspires to keep us apart, but Vance.”

  “I was afraid of that. What harm does he think we can do by conversing?”

  “Fredrick was attacked by footpads in St. James last night. I thought I should tell you he’ll be all right.”

  “Footpads?”

  “My question exactly. It’s only one day from his birthday. What if something happens to him before he comes of age?”

  “I’m not sure. I think Vance would keep charge of your portion.”

  “What portion? So far as I know, I am penniless.”

  “I had thought your father put something by for a dowry. Perhaps that is gone as well.” Her mother put her hands to her face. “I feel so powerless.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I have accepted a proposal from Sir John Marbrey. I’m to be married, that is if Vance doesn’t kill the poor man.”

  “I feared our return had ruined your chances. Oh, why did he insist we come?”

  “No such thing.” Roxanne tried to sound bright. “People have forgotten all about the past. I am a rather infamous hit.”

  “Truly? I am happy for you and I did want to see you, but at such a time? Lucius said he had compelling business in London. If I hadn’t come with him, he would have come alone.”

  “Yes, of course. To turn over affairs to Fredrick if Vance is legitimate. If not, then to make sure he does not have to turn things over to him.”

  “This is all my fault. What can I do?”

  “Tell Vance you are going to visit Fredrick now that he’s been injured. Would Vance prevent it?”

  “Lucius thinks I should not go about because of the old gossip.”

  “We’ll discuss it later. Get your things.”

  “Perhaps Agatha would not want me there. She’ll never forgive me for marrying so soon after her brother’s death.”

  “Of course she will.”

  “I was so desperate. I thought that at least if I was off Fredrick’s hands, he could manage on the allowance Lucius sent him.”

  “What—we have managed fine. But Vance sent no allowance.”

  Her mother looked even more stricken. “So that too was a lie.”

  “You are his prisoner. Why did you agree to marry him?”

  “’Tis true there is a footman in the lower hall to prevent my leaving but I saw no point before. You won’t hate me if I tell you the truth?”

  “Of course not. My letters can’t have made much sense to you what with our move and everything.”

  “Letters.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I received no letters.”

  “I see. We leased the main house to Vance for years. Surely he told you. We needed the money to buy things for Fredrick’s work.”

  “No, he never mentioned it. But where do you live. In London?”

  “The gatekeeper’s cottage with Cook.”

  “It’s so small.”

  “It has a workshop nearby. Don’t worry, really. Now are you all right?”

  “Yes, of course.” She blotted her face again and turned away as she said it.

  Roxanne didn’t believe that either. “I can understand you being overwrought but you went away with Vance then married him a year later, almost exactly as though you had to wait. Why did you do it? We would have taken care of you.”

  Her mother turned to her with trembling lips. “To keep him from marrying you.”

  “Ahh!” Roxanne felt the breath wrenched from her body and a chill run through her. All this time she had thought of her mother as being weak, yet she had put herself in the way of a villain to keep her daughter out of his reach. “I should have guessed. Come with me now. I sneaked in. Surely you can sneak out.”

  “That would be unwise. I still stand between you and Vance. I must continue to do so. I shall kill him if I have to in order to keep you safe.”

  Roxanne was mesmerized by her mother’s face, which now had a strength she had
never seen there before. “Don’t go that far. I will find a way to rescue you. Just give me a day. Come to think of it, a day is all I have.” She embraced her mother before creeping out the way she had come.

  “What if this solicitor still refuses to see Rox?” Harding asked. The carriage jerked to a halt in Grey’s Inn Road and he helped Holly and Roxanne out. “You may walk the horses,” he told the driver.

  “That’s what you’re here for, to break down the door,” Holly said.

  Roxanne sighed. “Let’s hope we don’t need anything so drastic as a broken door.” Though she was glad for Harding’s presence, she wished Holly would have agreed to stay home. Still, it was Holly who had convinced the captain to come.

  “Could you break a door if you had to?” Holly asked.

  Harding chuckled. “Depends on the door.”

  They trudged up the stairs to the landing where the clerk held audience.

  “Miss Whitcomb to see Mr. Fenster.”

  “’E’s not in.”

  “I have an appointment.”

  “Things change.”

  “Made a liar out of you, has he?” Roxanne asked. “This time we will wait in his office. He has to come back sooner or later.”

  Harding restrained the clerk as Roxanne advanced on the door and flung it open to discover a spectacled young man sitting at a desk.

  “Sir, if I were a man I would call you coward to your face and challenge you,” she shouted.

  “Who are you?” the man asked.

  “Roxanne Whitcomb. I believe your father was our solicitor and I suspect he made a deal with my guardian to cheat me and my brother out of our inheritance.”

  “Those are serious charges.” He rose and placed his hands on the pile of papers on the desk.

  “It’s a serious matter.”

  “Who are these two?”

  “My dear friend Miss Tanner, and Harding of the Bow Street Runners.”

  Harding rolled his gaze toward Holly and she grinned.

  “’Ere now. Was there a need for all this?” the clerk asked as he came to close the door.

  “Apparently yes, Goff. I have told you not to drive my clients away. Now go get the records for the Whitcomb estate.”

  Goff shut the door behind him and reappeared some minutes later with a portfolio.

  “What is it you wish to know?” Fenster asked.

  “The terms of my father’s will.”

  “Here is the document. You may peruse it at your leisure.”

  Roxanne sat down and read. “But this is not his handwriting and certainly not his signature. Where is his real will?”

  “That is the only one.”

  “So Vance has stolen everything, including my father’s life. But why? If Father was done up, why would Vance seek control of a debt-ridden estate?”

  “Who told you that?” Fenster asked.

  “Everyone. I’m as poor as a church mouse.”

  “No, when you marry you will have an income of five thousand pounds a year.”

  Roxanne sat back, glad she was sitting when she received this news. “How can that be? We were told we could not keep up the estate. We have been living in the carriage house.”

  “Told by whom?”

  “Lucius Vance.”

  “He is your guardian by the terms of this will but was to have paid you an allowance to keep up the estate.”

  “As Mother said, but he didn’t. He paid a small amount of rent on the estate. So to keep his crimes secret, he not only has to kill Fredrick but me and Mother as well.”

  “I am so sorry. I only just took over the whole business from my father. I had no idea. But do you really think he means murder?”

  “How did your father die?” Holly asked.

  Fenster was startled into replying. “It was a carriage accident.”

  Harding and Roxanne exchanged glances.

  “Murdered,” Holly said. “Vance will stop at nothing.”

  “If you all will wait here, I’ll send Goff for the magistrate.”

  “You don’t think Goff could be implicated?”

  “Oh my God.”

  They rushed to the door to find the safe open and Goff gone.

  Fenster shook his head. “I have much to answer for.”

  “Someone does,” Roxanne said, “and it isn’t you.”

  “Lucky you employed a Runner.”

  “That was just a ruse,” Harding replied. “I wish I were from Bow Street. But I will go get the magistrate if you give me his direction. In the meantime, you all can sort out the list of charges. May as well get the wheels of justice rolling.”

  * * * * *

  Tanner started as he entered his salon looking for his sister and found Roxanne there instead. She was wearing a becoming green dimity dress but everything she wore became her. She was the sort of woman who made clothes look good rather than relying on clothes to set off her looks.

  But at the moment, those looks were wan and worried as befit her situation. It was not done, for a young lady without escort to be shown into a gentleman’s drawing room. He knew that much. She glanced at him in abstraction as though she had other things on her mind.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “I came to call on your mother for advice. She and Holly are expected back soon.”

  “I should leave you then. But you will be seeing her tomorrow night when you all go to the Meisners’ ball.”

  “That may be too late.”

  “What is it?” He sat beside her and took her hands. They were cold to the touch as though she’d had some great shock.

  “Are you quite sure you want to hear this?”

  “I would not have asked if I did not care.”

  “I sneaked through the kitchens at our town house and got in to see Mother. She did want to talk to me. She said something about the allowances Lucius sends to Fredrick and me. I spoke to Fredrick and he’s never gotten a penny. And I’ve just been to see our solicitor.”

  “Alone? Do you think that was wise?”

  Rox snatched her hands back. “Yes. It was a good idea when I had it and an even better one now that I know Vance has been cheating us all. There is more to it than that.”

  “You always imagine the worst.” He was beginning to feel queasy about his recent ridicule of her suspicions. If she was right about one thing, possibly she had guessed right on others.

  “Let me spit back at you your recent apology. ‘You were right,’ you said. And now I have more to go on than a hunch. I have a huge discrepancy. Mother was not told the estate was leased.”

  “A wise move. Fredrick can’t afford it yet but when he can it will be waiting for him.”

  “If he’s still alive. I wondered why Vance leased it and never came there once they were married. It’s because he does not want us to talk to her.”

  “Are you sure that is the case? Have you spoken to Vance?”

  “I spoke to my mother and that is quite enough proof of his villainy. Captain Harding went with us today, so we did get to speak to the solicitor.”

  “Us? Did you drag my innocent sister to a solicitor’s office?”

  “I couldn’t very well keep her away, considering she convinced Harding to aid me. Why do you always do that?”

  “What?” Tanner drew back at her attack. Anytime he admonished Rox, she always managed to beat back with some mistake of his own that made him forget what she had done wrong.

  “Disparage her as though she cannot think for herself. She may be innocent but she’s smart and agile enough to have stayed ahead of the pack of hounds you set to hunt her.”

  Tanner felt the blood drain from his face. Rox had spoken to him plainly before about the way he treated his sister but never in these terms.

  “Is that how it seems to you?”He struggled to view the world from his sister’s eyes or Roxanne’s but it was impossible.

  “Yes, to any woman of intelligence. We must step lively to stay away from the worst of men, stay one step a
head of the fortune hunters and try to figure out if there is one good heart among all the men in London.”

  Tanner tried to remember all the things he had said to his sister and decided Roxanne was right. “Very well. I have made mistakes in the past. I will listen to her and won’t patronize her again.”

  “I hope to be around to make sure you keep that vow.”

  “Why wouldn’t you be?”

  “If Vance is trying to kill my brother, how safe do you think my life is, or my mother’s?”

  Roxanne’s words rocked Tanner to his foundations. Was everything he thought he knew about these people a fabrication? He had met Vance twice and though he didn’t like him, could find no fault. Vance had not looked down on him for being in trade, but was that any standard for measuring character?

  Lucius Vance was a soldier, so had killed and possibly was hardened to it. It was no easier to shrug off a threat to Rox than it was to Holly. Yet he knew Rox was not helpless. Still, he must do something to make her believe he wasn’t just one of the well-meaning but impotent men who did much harm by doing nothing.

  “I’m sorry. I had no right to speak so plainly, for I do believe you are a good man, but women have so few rights or choices that I cannot bear to see Holly trying to choose between the lesser of many evils rather than a man who will make her truly happy.”

  “I have always shielded her from the world.”

  “Which makes it doubly hard when you thrust her suddenly into it with the instruction to choose a man, any man with a title, and have done with it. I suppose that’s so you can get on with your affairs. I mean your business affairs. So bloodless compared to real life.”

  “Perhaps you think my life has been easy. Father never wanted me in the business. Not since a casting fell and almost crashed my head. He said it was my fault for being in the way. Even if he walked in here today, he would have nothing to do but criticize.”

  “Much like you criticize Holly or your mother or any of their charitable efforts?”

  “I let them do as they will.”

  “But you get this look on your face. I have seen it.”

  “Work is the thing that makes us all.”