by Claudy Conn
She consented because she loved him, felt for him--wanted him to have what he needed. Besides that, the boxes set before her, for a young woman who had never had much more than uniforms and rags were too great a temptation to ignore.
It wasn’t long before the two were dancing about their wares like children at a festival.
* * *
The duke saw Mandy settled in the library of the viscount’s manor house with a tray of refreshments. She then watched as a set of servants lined up to his command and were sent off on various errands.
One to fetch her dear nanny, for which she was tremendously grateful. Her nanny had retired the year before and lived in a cottage that she and her brother had bestowed upon her. She hadn’t visited with her since Ned’s trouble began and she dearly wanted to dive into her arms.
Another servant, this time a housemaid, was told to fetch a wagon and visit Sherborne with instructions to pack a few pelisses with Miss Sherborne’s clothing, slippers, boots, whatever young women wear and return with them as soon as she could.
She smiled to herself. He was a hero in so many ways. He knew just what to do and how to get it done.
Yet another maid was sent scurrying up the stairs to ready one of the guest rooms for Miss Sherborne and after he watched her rush off, he turned to Mandy, rubbing his hands together with satisfaction and his handsome face was alight with pleasure.
“Now, my gamine, off to your room,” he said jovially.
“What? What do you mean, off to my room?” her hands went to her hips. She reminded herself that he was her hero and tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“It is reasonable, is it not, that you might be fatigued after your experiences today…I thought you might like to rest for a time,” he said.
He had said this casually, far too casually for her liking. Something was toward!
“You are trying to get rid of me. Why?”
He came close and took her shoulders, “Believe me when I say, I never want to be rid of you, never,” he fingered her lips and his lashes shaded his eyes a moment. “Especially now, when your nearness is driving me mad…I want you here, beside me.” He sighed and dropped his hold on her, “However, I must speak with Skip. He needs to be told what you saw. I don’t like that we know of his assignation with a woman in the middle of the night and are keeping it from him.”
“Then I should be here as well when you tell him. After all…I am the one who came across him.”
“No, I don’t think he will be comfortable with that. You are a female…after all.”
“That is most odious of you to say like that,” she snapped.
“Ah, how much better I feel now,” he bantered. “We are back to our former standards of communication.”
She pouted and turned in a huff, but his voice brought her head around, “Mandy,” he said softly, so softly that she felt caressed.
“Yes, Your Grace,” she returned formally, her eyes alight with mischief.
He only smiled at her as though he couldn’t speak, as though the words had caught in his throat and it sent a wondrous sensation through her, because the look in his blue eyes was full with emotion.
Finally, he said, “Rest well.”
She gave him a flick of her shoulder as she turned back to leave and smiled to herself as she scurried up the horseshoe shaped staircase and found the maid waiting to show her to her room.
Chapter Seventeen
HAVING MANDY NEAR, underfoot, so to speak had filled the duke with a sense of accomplishment. She would no longer sleep on straw. She would no longer go for long times without food. She would be catered to and taken care of safely within his protection.
Damn, but she was exquisite in her gown with her golden hair brushed all around her shoulders and cascading down her back.
His mind was filled with her as he poured himself a brandy. She was unlike anyone he had every known and he only knew he had to keep her safe…more; he wanted to make her happy.
No time was afforded to him to think this through as the doors opened wide and Skip came through, spreading his arms wide in a greeting and said, “Brock, thank God, you’ve come to interrupt me from another moment with that dratted dolt of mine. I’ve been near to pulling m’hair out. Lord, he is damn good agent, but the devil of a proser.” He spied the brandy in his friend’s hand and at his elbow and said, “Pour me one while you are at it.”
The duke grinned and handed him a glass and as he raised it he said, “You are going to need this, when I tell you everything that has occurred…”
“Eh? What are you talking about?”
“For starters, ‘ole boy, the twins have had quite a morning.” He put up his hand to stall his friend’s questions and gave him a quick summary of everything he knew up to that moment, including the fact that he had brought Mandy to stay in his home for the time being.
“Good God! Upon my soul! Never say that devil Bevis Speenham allowed his kin to have arms leveled at him?”
“Aye, he did, but Ned being the good lad he is, would not run with his sister exposed thusly.” He eyed his friend. “At any rate, that is all said and done and I do believe we shall have it finished within the next few days…but there is something else…”
“Wait,” stuck in the viscount his eyes suddenly going wide. “You say Mandy is abovestairs… staying… with us… two bachelors?”
“Not to worry. Her nanny will be here shortly. Look Skip, it appears that the twins are not the only ones having an adventure.” His brow went up archly. “I happen to know that you are having one of your own.”
“What are you driving at?”
“I am certainly not interested in names, so I’ll not ask for them, but Mandy was out and about…last evening. Traveled to a place called Witches’ Elbow and took a shortcut through your land on her way back…about midnight it was,” the duke leveled a look at his friend.
“Dash it! Never say so,” exclaimed the viscount running a hand through his silken locks.
“I am afraid I just did and what is more, what she saw, gave credence to Sir Owen’s claim that you wanted Celia out of the way as your interest was elsewhere.”
“Demme, but I am in a tangle, Brock.” He eyed his friend for a long silent moment and released a long heavy breath of air. “Right, I know I can trust you, so I shall. It goes no further, agreed?”
The duke nodded and the viscount threw down the remainder of his glass and sat heavily on a nearby upholstered winged chair. “It was just after I had discovered Celia was, shall we say, not the sort of woman I wanted for a wife, that I met Kathleen. We were at an assembly in Harrowgate. She is Irish and she and her father were on holiday at his sister’s when her father had some sort of attack and fell very ill. The doctor said he should not sustain any shocks of any sort. He can’t be moved, because he is dying.”
He stared at the duke, “I love her…she loves me…but you must know that if Mandy saw us together. Her father forbade the match. She is Catholic, you see and he wouldn’t hear of her taking an English Protestant husband. We continued to meet in secret and as soon as she became of age, last month…I obtained a special license and we were married in secret.”
“Devil you say!” the duke remarked with some surprise.
“We can not announce our union for fear it would send her father off…and she couldn’t bear to have that on her conscience. Her aunt knows and approves of our marriage and has helped us to keep it from him. The doctor says he doesn’t have long…so we have decided to wait.”
“Good Lord, Skip, I suppose I should felicitate you!”
“You should, for she is the world to me,” said the viscount simply.
“Very well, then my man, I do. And I suppose this explains all your strange behavior,” rallied the duke with a shake of his head.
“Yes, but it does rather give me motive…” Skip offered.
“And an alibi as well, as no doubt, you were with your wife when Celia was murdered.”
&nb
sp; The viscount brightened incongruously, “Yes, yes I was.”
“However, Sir Owen means to point a finger in your direction,” the duke said pulling at his lip. “And Skip, this secret must be exposed to Mandy, since she was the one who actually saw you with your wife.”
“By Jove, you are right there…” the viscount put back his head. “This is all beginning to unravel.”
“Never mind that. There is something else,” said the duke. “I met with Fowler last evening and we discussed some very interesting possibilities. By the way, runner he may be, but not here because of Ned.”
“What? Well, how you always happen to be in the know of everything is beyond me. Why is he here, then?”
“Gold, m’bucko, gold. Three chests of the new sovereigns,” the duke replied portentously.
“Where…how…?”
“A shipment of the new coins was scheduled to leave for Barings of York to replace paper currency. A leak that we believe came from Agatha Brinley…” he put up his hand, “Don’t ask…at any rate, through her to someone she obviously meant to impress and the coach holding the gold, its guards and drivers all vanished.”
“Poor fellows—killed do you think?”
“Undoubtedly, Skip. What else. Someone smart enough to arrange this would not leave behind any witnesses. And as their families have not heard a word from them and continue to live in poverty, one must suppose they are dead.”
“Who…?” Skip played with his lower lip and then looked sharply at the duke. “You know, don’t you?”
“I suspect. At the moment, there are but two possible suspects, both in desperate need of cash.”
“By Jove…but ‘tis beyond thinking…”
“Precisely so.”
Chapter Eighteen
THE GUV’ AS Jack Hawkins had learned to refer to the mastermind of the gold theft, was at that particular moment engaged in a grim conversation with someone in York.
There were debts, gaming debts he had accumulated and they were hanging over his head. A gentleman of honor discharged these debts before all others for the code had always been play and pay and he had always counted himself a gentleman when it came to gaming.
Marriage to Amanda Sherborne was a need born of desperation. He wanted to continue to enjoy the lifestyle he cherished. His debts had accumulated to the point where he had gone to a moneylender and now, the interest was suffocating him.
He needed a month before he could put the gold into circulation and restore his credit. It was what he was trying to explain to the small bearded man with the ledger and no heart.
He put down his diamond stick pin and sneered, “There that should keep you for awhile.” He gritted his teeth as he turned and slammed the door as he left.
Crossing the cobbled street, he thought about the stick pin. It had been a gift from his mother, a family heirloom, but it was only an object…he would soon have many more.
As he entered the stables and looked for a livery boy to fetch his horse, he heard the raised voices of two men and curiously stood still to listen.
“Bless me, Mr. Fowler, it weren’t my fault. Didn’t know there was anything wrong with the coin…after all, it was gold…I run a livery here…not a bank.”
“Right, so ye haven’t heard that a coach carrying the new gold coins had been robbed?” Fowler demanded.
“No, there hasn’t been any talk at all,” returned the man in shocked accents.
The guv’ as he was known to Hawkins purposely made a sound and called out, “Hallo…I need my horse, please.”
A livery lad came shuffling from in from the courtyard and grinned, “I’ll fetch him, sir…”
He nodded to the boy and flipped him a coin, his mind reeling with Hawkins’ stupidity. He had taken some of the gold coins and had spent them…right here in Harrowgate! The bloody fool.
He had put up with Jack because he thought he might still need him, and he hoped Jack would lead him to Elly Bonner, but this, this was unforgivable. The man had proved himself a liability and he would deal with him at once!
* * *
Jack had waited for the sun to start its journey into night before he left the quarry cave he and his Elly had been calling home. She hadn’t wanted him to go, but he had told her, he needed to make one last trip.
He had with him two burlap bags and a horsehair blanket. He cut through the Old Track and, heedless of Witch’s Elbow and its demons, though it was still not quite more than dusk, he made his way through the moors and headed for a portion of Wharfe River he knew well.
Some minutes later and on foot, he led his mount through the tangle of trees and brush, along the river bank, up a steep incline until a waterfall some ten feet in width and a hundred feet in height came into sight. The rushing water made enough noise to cover any other sound. Its foaming cascade fell into the semi-enclosed pool at its base before the river current met and swept away what it had to offer.
Here Jack tethered his horse behind some evergreens and climbed down over the boulders to a niche beside the falls. An observer would have been astounded, for at that moment he seemed to vanish. Actually, he had slipped behind the waterfall to a limestone crevice which extended back some fifty yards under the river and behind the falls. It narrowed to a point where only the very thinnest of men could slide through. He saw the three wooden trunks trimmed with metal and bearing some kind of official seals, housed there, untouched by any save himself and the guv’.
Hawkins made his way to one of these and flung open the lid, licking his lips as the coins glittered at him.
He had watched his employer make the blokes guarding this treasure and the drivers carry the trunks here and it had been no easy job. It had taken the coach horses to drag it along the trail, where they had placed each trunk on a length of burlap and dragged it into the waterfall cave.
He had turned and told those men to take some gold and keep mum, but his employer had other notions.
It happened so quickly that all he had done was stand by in shock, as the guv’ had shot them, quickly, one by one. “Are ye that greedy, man? Why…why did ye do that?” He had screamed.
The guv’ had laughed and said it wasn’t greed, but self preservation. In the end, he had helped dump the bodies and the river and set the coach on fire in the woods.
They had taken the horses and set them free far away…
He sighed over it all now.
Killing a man like that didn’t sit well with him, but he hadn’t known, hadn’t expected it. He reached for the gold with a shrug, for he had told Elly the truth when he had told her he had exchanged it with a man willing to hold onto it for a time, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a few on hand as well. After all, in America, they would know nothing about it being new or old… would they?
“Well, well Jack!” said a voice at his back.
Jack straightened and immediately went for the gun tucked into his belt, but a shot rang out at his boots and that voice in the dim light clucked his tongue and said, “Drop it and kick it to me, for I have both my guns out and one of them now pointed at your heart.”
Jack knew better than to try and get off a shot. He was a simple man, he had often swung a pistol when he rode the highway, but he wasn’t skilled. He had seen the guv’ in action and knew that the damned bloke was quite able to shoot him in the heart. He took out his horse pistol dropped and kicked it away, just as he was told.
“There, good man, although…not really. You have been quite boldly spending money you pledged not to touch for a six months, have you not?”
“We couldn’t wait no more…want to leave…sail off and so we will and ye’ll not be bothered with us. I’ve hardly touched it…not m’one third as ye promised, so ye have no cause to be angry…”
“On your knees, Jack…now!”
“But…but…guv’…ye have no cause to…”
“Shut up. There is only one thing that will save your life at this moment. Take me to Elly Bonner and I will spare you.”
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br /> “Go to the devil!” Jack said and closed his eyes as he made peace with his maker. Elly was the only thing he had gotten right in his life.
“Just tell me where the diary is and I swear I’ll let the two of you sail off like you wish if…if she gives me the diary.”
“Elly will never give ye the diary and I ain’t letting ye put a hole in her head the way you did those poor coveys…no, I ain’t.”
“There is no need to hurt your woman providing she gives me what I want.”
“Ye see…I don’t believe ye. I see death in yer eyes…and I won’t let it near m’woman.”
“Then you are right Jack, you see death, because that is what you are, a dead man,” his employer told him grimly.
“Kill me, guv’, and she’ll be after yer hide, she will…” Jack tried one last time. He had wanted the new life with his Elly so badly…so badly.
“Precisely so,” said the man he called guv’. He fired one deadly shot, putting an end to the big man’s dreams. “Precisely so, Jack. She will come in search of you, and then I shall have her…and the diary.”
He left Jack lying there, bleeding out and went to Jack’s horse, took off the tack and threw them into the river. He didn’t wait to watch them sink, as he returned to the horse and slapped its flanks. He watched the horse trot away and then mounted his own, for he was late for his dinner.
* * *
At the viscount’s establishment dinner went quite well, with Mandy constantly proposing different ideas for finding her brother and Chauncey, or finding a way to clear his name.
She slipped a forkful of chocolate cake into her mouth and closed her eyes before saying, “Poor Neddy…I wish he were here enjoying this.”
She looked up and found the duke’s blue eyes and they seemed to caress her face. He said, “Ned will be eating with us soon enough, gamine, don’t fret.”
