Aunt Beatrice entered the drawing room with Cupid cradled against her chest and bumped her shoulder into the doorjamb.
Regina hissed in sympathy. “Are you all right, Auntie?”
Her aunt flicked her hand dismissively without acknowledging she had misjudged the location of the doorway. “The good boy came to me just as I predicted.”
Regina flashed a smile from her place behind the settee and held tightly to Lord Geoffrey. Wisely, he remained silent. “And Burgess?”
“He threatened to resign again, but I expect he will come around in a day or two.” Aunt Beatrice frowned and looked around the drawing room. “What happened to Lord Geoffrey? Did he take his leave?”
The settee blocked Aunt Beatrice’s view of him, although Regina’s aunt might not see him even if he were laid out at her feet. “I am afraid so. I don’t expect he will be returning either.”
Aunt Beatrice’s grin was positively wicked. “Excellent news. We have no use for rakes at Wedmore House. Was it a trick of my eyes, or was he the palest lecher you have ever seen?”
Regina glanced at Lord Geoffrey’s crimson face. “Perhaps it was simply the lighting.”
“Yes, that could be.”
Cupid’s curly ears flattened on his head, and a guttural growl rumbled in his small chest. Clearly, he hadn’t missed the strange man lying on the carpet. The little dog scrambled to break free of Aunt Beatrice’s hold.
“No, no!” Aunt Beatrice shook her finger in his face. “You have been a naughty boy today. Let’s see if there is a piece of ham in the kitchen.”
Cupid perked up at the mention of his favorite treat, and Aunt Beatrice carried him from the room without incident.
Regina looked down at Lord Geoffrey with no hint of mirth. “I will release you in a moment, but allow me to reassure you, it is no accident that you are in this position. If you attempt to accost me again, I’m afraid I will be unable to practice the same level of restraint.”
She removed her foot from his neck, released his wrist, and moved to a safe distance. Lord Geoffrey winced as he unwound his body and pushed to his feet. He glowered once more. “If anyone hears about this...”
No doubt, he meant to sound threatening to ensure she kept quiet about their encounter, but his bark lacked bite at this point.
“I, too, know the meaning of discretion, my lord.” She smiled pleasantly. “As long as you keep your distance from my family and me from this day forward, this will be our secret.”
“I want nothing to do with you or your family. Every one of you is insane. And you,” he spat, jabbing a finger in her direction. “Keep your mouth shut about today, or I will ruin you all.”
Lord Geoffrey’s threat diminished the satisfaction associated with bringing him down a peg or two. His father, the Duke of Stanhurst, was an influential man. She might not care about making a marriage match for herself, but her youngest sister had dreamed of her wedding day since she was a girl.
Regina swallowed hard. “I promise to tell no one, my lord. Please offer me the same reassurance.”
He hurled another insult at her and stomped from the drawing room. Regina’s stomach twisted in knots. She hadn’t meant to jeopardize Sophia’s future, but she’d needed to defend herself.
“Ludwig!” Regina collapsed on the settee and sank into the plush cushions. Now that she knew the reason for the rakes dogging her heels, the Season had gone from merely a bother to a nightmare.
She’d done nothing wrong, and yet the thought of confiding in her sisters or Aunt Beatrice caused her cheeks to burn with shame.
Her fingers curled into fists. How dare Mr. Lawrence tell false tales about her? If she crossed paths with the blackguard any time soon, she would be sorely tempted to throttle him in full view of the ton at large. If someone was going to ruin her reputation, she preferred to do it herself.
Unfortunately, she wouldn’t be the only one to suffer, which left her in a bit of a bind. Not only must she contend with Mr. Lawrence’s lies and the rumors surrounding her, she had to figure out how to avoid crossing paths with Lord Geoffrey, a difficult task when they traveled the same circles.
It was fortuitous she and her family were planning an evening at home. The quiet would allow her time to think of an acceptable excuse to bow out of Lady Eldridge’s annual ball tomorrow night. It remained to be seen if she was creative enough to fabricate an excuse to miss every other event of the Season.
Two
In the middle of Xavier Vistoire’s morning exercises, the old rooster began crowing in the farmyard outside. Even with the window boarded in his prison cell, he couldn’t avoid the obnoxious sound.
Lamplight illuminated the slanted walls of the attic. He couldn’t stand upright in some parts, but it certainly wasn’t the worst place Xavier had ever spent a night. Nevertheless, he’d welcome the chance to wake in an alley with a terrible case of cottonmouth, a skull-splitting headache, and the freedom to make bad decisions all over again.
Xavier paused in his exercise, holding himself parallel to the plank floor. “Benny, wake up” he yelled to his gaoler who was snoring just outside the attic door. “It is time to milk the cow.”
A drawn out groan filtered under the door, and he imagined Benny stretching his massive frame to release the kinks he must have from spending the night on the stairs. “I’m not asleep,” he mumbled.
Xavier lowered his body toward the floor and raised it again. Routine had become his sanity and keeping his strength was necessary as he planned his next escape. “I could do the milking for you, if you like.”
“No, thank you, Mr. Vistoire.”
It had been worth a try. He supposed he would have to break out of the attic just like every other place Benny had tried to hold him.
Earlier in the week, Xavier had kicked loose the boards nailed over one of the farmhouse’s bedchamber windows and climbed down the drainspout. He’d almost been free, but Benny returned from his monthly excursion to the village early and caught him in the meadow. For a large man, he was fleet-footed.
Now, Xavier was back in the attic. From his previous stay, he knew the window lead to a four-story drop to the hard packed ground, and the moth-eaten clothes kept in the trunk weren’t strong enough to fashion a rope. Benny had repaired the door, and Xavier was not supposed to break the lock this time. Even if he ignored his gaoler’s request, Xavier wouldn’t make it past Benny now that he spent most of the day guarding him.
The stairs groaned under Benny’s weight. Xavier pushed to his feet and approached the door. “Mon ami, today you will allow me to go, no?”
“No,” Benny said. His lumbering footsteps sounded on the stairs, growing quieter as he moved farther away.
Xavier sighed. Nothing ever swayed his unlikely companion.
Other than the beginning of his incarceration, Xavier had no contact with anyone besides Benny, which suited him fine as long as he was stuck here. The other gents who’d grabbed him outside of the Den of Iniquity and brought him to the farmhouse had been unable to hear, or else hadn’t wanted to listen. No matter how many times he’d denied being a French spy, they had kept hitting him and asking the same questions. Eventually, they must have decided he was telling the truth because they left and hadn’t returned.
Yet, a little over two years since he was snatched from the alley leading to the gaming hell, he was still a prisoner.
When Xavier was reasonably certain Benny had left the house to see to the morning chores, he grabbed the lamp from the primitive bedside table and hurried to the weak spot he’d discovered in the floor last night. The board bent slightly under his weight and crackled. Xavier bent down to investigate. He pried up the edge of a plank and a piece of it broke away. The wood beneath the surface had begun to crumble.
He smiled. “Dry rot.”
Standing, he slammed his boot heel against the floor and heard the sweet sound of splintering wood. He stomped the spot repeatedly until the board gave way and fell in pieces to the room below
. A beam of light poked its way through the hole, and he crouched to determine what room was located beneath this part of the attic. Debris littered a large bed covered with a faded blue-stitched quilt. Once he’d created a hole big enough to climb through, he would have a soft and quiet landing.
He returned to stomping the floor to make as much progress on the hole as possible while Benny was outside. By tomorrow, he hoped to have his escape route ready. He would leave after nightfall when he heard Benny snoring and make his way back to London. The farmhouse was north of the city, or so he had gathered from his nightly conversations with Benny, which often were one-sided since Xavier’s gaoler was not a verbose man.
How far from London, Xavier didn’t know. He’d been in and out of consciousness for the trip there. Benny didn’t know either. The man barely recalled living anywhere else. He was six when his mother died, and he was sent to the old farmhouse. Benny had never gone any further than the village ever since. After the caretaker and his wife passed away several years ago, Benny had been without regular human contact. It was a wonder he wasn’t chattier.
Xavier abandoned the hole in anticipation of Benny completing his chores and dragged the trunk filled with the tattered clothes over it before he returned to the house. As he had discovered the first time he was locked in the attic, there were an abundance of useless items stored here.
He grabbed an overhead rafter at the highest point in the attic, made sure it could hold his weight, and continued his exercises while he waited for Benny to bring his breakfast. A loud clacking sound from the lock tumbling interrupted his last exercise. He finished pulling himself up, so his chin was higher than the board before he dropped to the floor and moved toward the door.
“Porridge again, my friend?” he asked as the door swung open.
Benny grunted in reply and ducked to enter the doorway. He was empty-handed.
Xavier frowned. Benny thrived on routine, too. No porridge, or any morning fare, alerted Xavier that something was wrong.
Benny pursed his lips, which seemed to be permanently stained burgundy from eating an unusual amount of pickled beets. “Come to the kitchen.”
The hair on the back of Xavier’s neck stood on end. Occasionally, Benny brought him below stairs for companionship, but his voice never quivered when he spoke. Something was definitely out of sorts. “Why?”
Benny lunged and clamped his burly hand around Xavier’s upper arm. “Please,” he hissed. His breath smelled of vinegar.
Xavier allowed Benny to pull him toward the stairway. He couldn’t ignore a possible opportunity to escape, even if he didn’t know what he would find below stairs.
In the kitchen, nothing appeared to be afoot. A fire burned in the red brick hearth blackened with soot. Steam rolled from the spout of the heavy kettle hanging over the flames, and a tin of porridge and a large bowl sat on the wide-plank table.
Tension drained from his body. “You could have just said you were lonely. You had me worried for a moment.”
“As you should be,” someone said behind him.
Xavier spun toward the sound, and his pulse ripped through his veins. The man responsible for his abduction and interrogation was standing in the pantry doorway with a pistol pointed at him.
“What do you want, Farrin? Nothing has changed. I am still not a French spy.”
A leisurely smile spread across the blackguard’s thin lips. His rust-colored hair lay slick with pomade against his head. “Benny,” he barked.
Xavier’s gaoler grabbed him from behind and slammed him onto the wooden bench at the table. His meaty hands gripped Xavier’s shoulders to hold him in place.
He gritted his teeth. “Benny, what did we agree about not manhandling me?”
“Sorry, Mr. Vistoire.” The man loosened his grip and bent forward, bringing his round face into view. Xavier could see the gaps where he was missing teeth. “You have a visitor,” he whispered.
“So I see,” Xavier drawled.
Even though his heart was pounding, he wouldn’t give Farrin the satisfaction of knowing he’d caught him by surprise. Before the interrogation could begin, he recited the story he’d told the blackguard two years ago. It hadn’t changed in the weeks following his abduction when Farrin ordered his henchmen to beat the truth from him, and it was the same now.
“I am an American. I hail from New Orleans, and I’m not a bloody Frog, as your countrymen have so cleverly dubbed the French.”
He cared nothing for either country’s politics. He only wanted to go home.
“I know who you are, Mr. Vistoire, and what you are not. At the moment, you look like something the dog dragged in.” He made a show of leaning toward Xavier and sniffing. “And pissed on.”
Benny bent forward to sniff him too. His unruly brows angled toward each other in confusion. “I don’t smell anything. No dogs have been around for a long time now.”
Farrin cocked a hip on the edge of the table, ignoring Benny’s observation. Xavier took in the richness of his navy blue coat and the perfect tailoring. His clothing suggested wealth, but the deep lines of his face told another story. He wasn’t a pampered son of nobility. He had seen a good many days of labor in his past.
Xavier scowled. “If you know who I am, why are you still holding me?”
The man didn’t acknowledge his inquiry, and instead, passed an assessing glance over Xavier from head to toe. His top lip curled as he found him lacking.
Xavier’s fingers twitched with the urge to smooth his unruly dark hair. Vanity had an odd way of rearing its head when his appearance was the least of his concerns. Farrin’s brown eyes gleamed, revealing the pleasure he took in his discomfort.
Xavier sprawled insolently on the chair. He’d perfected indifference years ago. “Had I known I’d have a visitor, I would have summoned my valet first thing.”
Farrin reached inside his coat and retrieved a piece of paper. “I am in need of your services.”
Xavier accepted the sheet he held out and unfolded it. There were primitive ink drawings of the interior of a house and an address written on the page. “Do I look like I am a servant? Do you mistake me for a bloody footman or butler?” He flicked the paper back at him. It floated to the floor.
The man sighed as if he were dealing with a child then bent to retrieve the drawing.
“You should hear Tommy out,” Benny said in his ear. His fingers were still digging into Xavier’s shoulders to keep him immobilized.
Farrin nailed Benny with a scathing look, and Xavier felt the tremor pass through the larger man.
“I’m not supposed to call him Tommy any more,” Benny whispered in his ear. “He is Mr. Farrin now. Listen to him because this is your chance to go home.”
The mention of home caused Xavier’s eyes to narrow. Was this a new means of torture? Dangling what he wanted most in the world in front of him just to snatch it away, or did Farrin hope to use Xavier’s longings to manipulate him? He’d sooner trust a snake than the blackguard.
Farrin’s keen gaze bore into him. “You do wish to go home again, do you not?”
“What do you want?” In Xavier’s experience, no one did anything for another person unless they wanted something in return.
Farrin imitated a sheepish shrug. The hardness to his eyes said he wasn’t ashamed in the least. “An interested party is willing to pay handsomely for a map kept at this address. I want you to search for it tonight while the residents are attending a ball.”
He slid onto the bench across from Xavier, spread the paper on the table, and touched his finger to the diagram. “It is likely to be in one of three rooms. The library, the study, or the master’s chambers. I will tell you how best to search for the hiding spot to make quick work of it.”
“A map?” Xavier gaped at the drawing then at the lunatic sitting across the table. “Like a treasure map? As in pirates with buried gold, or leprechauns and rainbows?”
“Like a bloody map,” Farrin snapped, his face flushing crimson.
“It is the key to you leaving England. That’s all you need to know. Retrieve it, hand it over to Benny, and you will be on the next ship sailing to America.”
Benny grunted in surprise. “I can leave the farm? Can I go to America too?”
Farrin’s icy gaze darted to the man standing behind Xavier. He could feel Benny shrinking back.
“If you want it,” Xavier said, pulling the man’s attention back toward him, “why not retrieve it yourself? Or use one of your men.”
“Because if you help me, I will help you in return. Tonight you could be a free man.”
The devil, he would be free. He knew a liar when he saw one. Drumming his fingers against the table, he pretended to give Farrin’s offer serious consideration. “If I agree to do your dirty work, how do you propose I go about it? I cannot fathom the butler will grant me entrance to search the premises while the residents are away.”
“Wedmore House is between butlers, which I’ve come to understand is a common condition.”
“And the other servants?”
“There is a housekeeper, cook, coachman, and a lady’s maid. The maid has been visiting her sister and her newborn nephew on the evenings the ladies are away. The cook and housekeeper return to their own homes at night, and the coachman has quarters in the coach house.”
“You seem to know a lot about the goings-on around there.”
“The streets have eyes and ears, Mr. Vistoire. I know a good many things about a lot of people.”
“Again I ask, why me?”
Farrin’s eyebrows rose on his forehead as if he was bewildered by the question. “How many times have you almost escaped, Mr. Vistoire? You are harder to contain than water in a bucket full of holes. I have no doubt you are capable of getting away if you are about to be discovered.”
Oh, Xavier would find a way out. If Farrin believed he would return with or without a map, the man was a fool. Once Xavier was out of sight, he would be on the next ship home.
“Besides,” Farrin said, “if you are captured, no one will care what happens to a French spy who has escaped from custody.”
Secrets to a Gentleman's Heart (Gentlemen of Intrigue Book 1) Page 2
