“You saw that, didn’t you?” Julia’s languid tones came through to me, making me want to strike her.
“Yes, I did. Twined together like cats in a basket.”
It was Julia’s turn to laugh. “We could perhaps persuade them to perform for us.”
Steven laughed too. I didn’t like the sound of them laughing together. They didn’t sound amused. It spoke of things they had witnessed.
“Some of our members would give a lot to see the Strangs under our…influence.”
“Spite, Julia?” Steven sounded interested now, his voice sharp, no amusement left.
“Others would be interested in the power they hold. We could use that.”
“Do you think they burned Hyvern?”
“Undoubtedly. They arrived on the scene very conveniently, didn’t they?”
“I thought that too. They didn’t want us dead, but they don’t want us in Devonshire.” Steven didn’t sound sure to me.
“If the case were reversed, I’d have left them to burn.”
“And miss your revenge, my pet?”
“Don’t you think letting them die would be revenge enough?”
Steven sounded resigned when he said, “Not for you.”
“How well you know me.” I heard quick footsteps, but not coming to me, more like someone walking up and down. “Carier seems to run Thompson’s, at least that’s what my informers tell me. A shame they found out about your cousin. He could have been feeding information to us still.” Steven’s cousin had been introduced into our household, but we quickly discovered his duplicity. The footsteps stopped. “You should carry on trying for her. It’s early days yet. They’ve only been married a short time.” It seemed like forever to me. “He’s bound to look about him before too long—he can’t stay faithful forever, it’s not in his nature. I’m going to ask around. He might have strayed already.”
A long silence fell until I thought it might be safe for me to leave. Then Steven spoke again. “Don’t you ever tire of it, Julia?”
“Why should I? We’re scorned in society, you know, so why shouldn’t we try for acceptance?”
Steven sighed. “My lineage is good enough for them, as is your money. If we gave it time, you could have everything you wanted. All this plotting—it bores me sometimes. I married you because you attracted me, because I found you amusing—”
“Because I have money, and because Rose Golightly sent you away,” she finished.
He gave a harsh laugh. “If I spent the rest of my life spiting an old lover, I’d be a sad case indeed. They will win, you know. When we bought Hyvern, I thought we could start here, try to find ourselves a place.”
She snorted. “Among the gentry?” Her voice grew more seductive, less harsh, and hearing it without seeing her, I could sense the manipulative tone. “My dear, I didn’t see any reluctance in you at our last meeting. You must have had that girl five—six times?”
I wanted to leave the room, but I couldn’t. They would be bound to hear. He laughed. “Six. And then Lady X.”
Julia laughed. “Just who do they think they’re fooling, using those ridiculous pseudonyms?” She lowered her voice, but I still heard what she said. “We have her—and her husband.”
Steven’s voice lowered too. Perhaps they had moved closer together. “Which do you like best—watching me with all those women or having me afterwards?”
“Both.” I heard the sound of a kiss. “You’re a talented man, Steven.” He chuckled and kissed her again. I so wanted to leave. “What about you? Which do you like best?”
“You.” He was probably lying, telling her what she wanted to hear. “But I like to watch.”
“I know.”
I heard kissing and the rustle of silk, and I wished with all my heart there was some way I could tiptoe away without them hearing, but my skirts would make a noise if I moved.
To my relief she said, “Shall we go upstairs? Carry me, Steven. They think I still can’t walk.”
I let my breath out slowly.
He laughed, and must have picked her up. I heard his grunt of effort when he did so. I closed my eyes quickly, but they didn’t come through to my sitting room, but left by the outer door. I listened carefully as they went down the passage towards the backstairs before I moved.
I told Richard the salient points of the conversation after we retired for the night. His first comment was, “I wish you hadn’t heard that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s ugly.”
“And you’re being protective.” I ran my hand up his arm to his shoulder and looked up at his face. He was serious. “I’ll let Steven court me, shall I?”
I heard him shudder. “I don’t know if I can bear him near you. But you say he showed some reluctance?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Steven only played his games before because he was poverty-stricken.”
He kissed me. “You’re too kind, my love. He’s also unintelligent, driven by his body and he tried to hurt you. I thought about having him quietly removed, and you know how closely we’re watching them…” he paused, “…their dangerous games. I’ve been approached, sweetheart. They asked me just after we got back from Venice. To join their club, to take part in their perverted games.”
I raised myself on one elbow, the better to see his face. “What?”
His gaze darkened when he glanced down, and he lifted a hand to cup one of my breasts. He played with my nipple while he spoke, making my concentration waver, but I needed to know this, so I held on. Barely.
“I’ve set people to watch the Drurys, to monitor them. They’re gathering a dangerous clique around them and the powers-that-be fear that they don’t know what they’re getting themselves into. I was asked to join but I drew the line at that.”
“I could let Steven try to seduce me. It would help us if they didn’t suspect anything.”
“No. I said that to them and I’m saying it to you now. You won’t encourage him?” He stroked my breast, teased the nipple between thumb and forefinger and I bit my lip, nodded. “The thought of him coming anywhere close to you makes me angry,” Richard said. “Promise me.”
I could do nothing else. I closed my eyes, the better to enjoy his caresses.
“If Ian had escorted us on that trip instead of Steven, he might have met Gervase sooner.”
I opened my eyes, gazed at him. “How do you feel about that? Truly?”
“Truly?” He smiled and moved to the other breast. “I’ve never known Gervase so content, so happy. I can see it when I look at him, and I feel it in that bond we have. It can’t be wrong. I know he’ll be more careful this time. I’m sure it will be well.”
“I’m so glad.” I lay back and moved my hand down, felt his hard, erect warmth.
“Do you mind?” he asked me.
“What is there to mind? I love my brother, and I’ve come to love Gervase. If they find happiness together, I’ll be glad for them.”
He tilted my chin up and kissed me. “Let’s think about ourselves for a while. Hmm?”
I chuckled as he raised himself up on one elbow and curled my arm about his back. “Let’s.”
Chapter Nineteen
Fourways was a respectable house, neither as venerable as Peacocks, nor as large as Hareton Hall. It was built around a large, cobbled courtyard, the main part of the house being in front, and the wings either side containing lesser rooms and the service block.
Richard helped me down from Rosebud before we turned to go in. Our cards had been sent in, and we were informed that Sir John was at home. Bennett and Yale accompanied us.
Going into the airy, black and white tiled hall, we gave our hats and gloves to a waiting footman and followed a butler upstairs. Sir John waited for us in the drawing room. It was furnished in a slightly old-fashioned style, but I was probably being too critical, having seen what London and Eyton had to offer. It was comfortable and clean, but a little dark for my taste. Walnut abounded in the solid chairs and the large bureau in the corner,
and there was an Oriental rug on the floor, the only source of bright colour.
Sir John welcomed us warmly and signalled to the maid waiting by the tea table. She poured the tea, and at a sign from Sir John, left the room.
“You seem quite at home here. A charming residence. You’ve bought Fourways?” Richard enquired of him.
“No, I’ve hired it, with a view to buying it if I should like it.” He looked around the room. “I find it very comfortable, and about the right size for my needs and my pocket. I might very well buy it.”
“You’re abandoning Whitby?”
Sir John sighed. “I think so. It is a beautiful part of the country, but I should see more of the world.”
“Why now?” I picked up my tea dish. It was particularly good tea, but then I’d have expected no less from a smuggler.
He gave me his charming smile. I frowned in an effort to remember who that smile reminded me of. “I’m isolated there now, no family, no friends. You should know I have been sickly for most of my life, but I seem to have outgrown most of that. I want to see more of life now.” Sir John picked up a small, pretty trinket box from a table and came over to me. He bowed and presented me with the box. “Yours, I believe, Lady Strang.”
My watch was inside. I took it out and felt its cool smoothness. I’d missed that, the touch of the watch against my fingers when I put my hand in my pocket.
“Please accept the box as some recompense for your inconvenience,” said Sir John.
“Thank you.”
He resumed his seat.
Richard watched him. “I wonder how the watch really came into your possession?”
This was Sir John’s cue to repeat his story of buying it from a dubious shop in Exeter. But he didn’t. “I’m afraid I took it,” he said, and leaned back in his chair.
Richard crossed one leg over the other. “Why?” He was supremely good at getting the truth out of people. He’d learned that if he sat back and waited, many people couldn’t stand the silence and would babble, eventually telling him more than they meant to.
He needed none of his skills now. “I wanted to draw you here, and I wanted you to see something of what I can do,” Sir John said.
“You robbed us yourself?”
“Yes. It was my profession when I was younger.”
If he expected to see us surprised, he was disappointed. Richard called out, not very loudly, “Yale!”
The man opened the door and came in, ostensibly to bring the Thompson’s folder for us, but in reality to identify Sir John. There was a silence. I looked up to see my groom, eyes wide with surprise, holding the folder. He was supposed to give it to Richard, study Sir John and leave, but he stood stock-still and stared. Sir John gazed back at him, grey eyes placid and untroubled.
“You may tell us, Yale,” Richard said.
“This isn’t Sir John, my lord,” the man said.
Richard, at his ease, gave Sir John a cold stare. “I thought as much. Who is he?”
“His secretary, Alan Roughley.”
Richard took an audible breath. “Very well. Thank you, Yale, you may go.” Not until Yale closed the door behind him did Richard speak again. “He’ll be gone in ten minutes.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Sir John said.
“I would.” We’d made arrangements for Yale’s safety in this instance. He’d be in London in a couple of days, in one of Thompson’s safe rooms.
In the silence we heard the sound of hoofbeats galloping away from Fourways.
Sir John shrugged.
Richard steepled his fingers in a familiar gesture. “So what is this? Why were you so eager to bring us here?”
“I wanted you on my territory.”
Richard froze. He had the ability to hide his inner feelings so completely that I knew what he was doing. He was setting his face, deliberately posing himself so nothing could be read, nothing deduced from him. I did my best to emulate him, trying to feel my whole body, right to the tips of my fingers, so that Sir John shouldn’t see anything in me either.
Richard smiled an easy, social smile. “Why? We know you have something to hide. Are you so afraid of us that you have to lure us here?”
Sir John, not as practised as my husband, revealed a sneer. “You? Why should I be afraid of you?” We didn’t tell him. “I merely wished to see a great lord humbled, that’s all.”
“You wouldn’t be the first,” Richard commented lightly. “And why bring my wife here? You stole her watch, not mine—you wanted her here.”
“I want her to see.”
“See what?”
“Your face, when I tell you.”
Richard sighed. “Do tell me. You’re beginning to sound like a rather stubborn schoolboy.”
Sir John got to his feet and stared at us. I read nothing in his face unless it was anger. “I’m not Alan Roughley, either. I’ve been many people, done many things, but nothing as shameful as the thing you did when you sent my mother away.” I felt it like a slap in the face, as he’d meant it. “I’m your son.”
Without pause Richard countered with, “You say you’ve been many people. How do I know you’re telling the truth now?”
For an answer, the man walked forward, bent and thrust his face at Richard’s. My husband didn’t move. Sir John glared at him, his nose nearly touching Richard’s, and then he took a handful of his hair and parted it so Richard could see the roots. I saw them too. Golden. The young man had died his hair that dark shade. “See anything now?”
“I see a certain similarity,” Richard said smoothly. “No proof.”
Sir John stood and strode to the window, staring out. I guessed he was trying to regain his self-control, and when he turned back to us his movements were more fluid, his face smoother. He retook his seat. “I have nothing you would call definite proof. But I know more than I should, more than any normal person.”
Richard made a courtly gesture for him to continue. His eyelids drooped and his chin went up in true aristocratic style. “I’ll listen.”
Sir John looked at him. “I’m only telling you all this so that you know. I want nothing from you. I know what you did to my sister, and I’m going to take her away from that. How could you make your own child, your own flesh and blood, a whore?” He hurled the last world with such venom I flinched.
Richard didn’t move. “If you know so much, you should know that it was her choice. We gave her the choice, and she took what help we offered her.” It sounded reasonable to me. In fact, Richard had felt hurt when his child chose that profession, but he knew he had no jurisdiction over her, and we could only make sure she was well looked after and as safe as she could be.
Sir John threw up a hand in rejection. “You say.”
I’d considered him young-looking for four and twenty, and sometimes some of the expressions I’d caught on his face had reminded me of somebody. Richard, of course, but my mind must have refused to acknowledge the fact, and pushed it away until now.
“My mother, Lucy, was married off and sent to France,” Sir John said. “But when her husband died, she wrote to your parents, asked them for help, and they did nothing.”
“So I understand. Unfortunate, but a done deed.”
“Unfortunate!” he cried. “It drove her into the worst kind of world, the world she introduced her daughter to. I couldn’t bear to see it, so I left.”
“What age would you have been then?”
“Fourteen.”
“The same age I was when I fathered you—if you are indeed he.”
“I made my own way in the world. I was fully responsible for myself at that age.”
“I wasn’t,” Richard said dryly. He’d been distraught when his parents sent Lucy away, had promised her marriage, but he never found her.
“You grow up fast when you have to,” Sir John told him.
Richard vouchsafed no comment this time. I saw the diamond he habitually wore stuck in the folds of his neckcloth glitter when he drew breath.
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“I turned to the road. I held you up that day, or hadn’t you realised that?”
Richard waved a negligent hand. “It couldn’t have been anyone else. You didn’t look very hard for the things you must have known were hidden.”
“I watched you. When you left your other carriage to go ahead, I couldn’t believe my luck. I hurried home, changed and then returned and held you up. I needed something to draw you here, and in any case, there was the fun of the thing. I hadn’t done anything like that for years.”
That sounded like Richard, the recklessness which sometimes led him into situations he shouldn’t be in. “You sound like an old man,” Richard commented. “You can’t be more than—”
“Seventeen,” the youth confirmed. “But sometimes I feel old.”
Richard nodded and I felt the jolt as I recognised the truth of his age. Seventeen, so young for all this.
“I soon discovered that the rewards for highway robbery lay on the other side of the fence—so to speak. I began to deal in stolen goods. I didn’t use Jonathan Wilde’s trick, although I was tempted to. You know of it?”
“He sold the goods back to their original owners,” Richard said. “He claimed to be innocent of the original theft, although he usually paid someone to do it.”
Sir John smiled. “Sweet. I might take it up yet.”
“This discussion on ancient history is all very well,” Richard drawled, “but I don’t intend to miss my dinner talking to you.”
“How do you know I’ll let you go?” Sir John asked.
For the first time a hint of steel entered Richard’s voice. I wondered if his son heard it too. “Do you think I’d have brought my wife here if I thought there’d be any danger to her?” He paused. “Enough people know of our intentions today to make it very foolish were you to try anything. And you aren’t foolish, are you?” His voice regained its smoothness, its society polish.
“No.” Sir John grinned. “Very well. I went to Whitby to see what was there. I found a young man—Sir John Kneller. He was consumptive, but desperate to make the most of his life while he was here. So I helped him. He had the money, I had the contacts. He employed me as his secretary, but I was more than that.”
Hareton Hall: Richard and Rose, Book 6 Page 18
