CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“MISS VICTORIA AND Mrs. Hamilton aren’t at home, you know,” Wilhelmina warned the Earl of Wickford as she held out her hands to relieve him of his curly brimmed beaver and driving gloves. “They’re off to Bond Street for some fancy new duds to wear to the theatre with you tomorrow night. You’re welcome to wait, but only the good Lord knows how long they’ll be, what with Missy takin’ such care over every blessed penny she spends of Quen—, er, Mr. Quinton’s money.”
“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Flint, but I’m here to see Mr. Quinton,” Patrick told her, handing the housekeeper his cloak just as soon as she was done flicking at his best hat with a small wire brush she had pulled from one of her many apron pockets.
“Quen— Mr. Quinton’s in the library,” she said then, carefully folding the cloak before draping it neatly over her forearm. “Locks himself in there now just like Missy does. And I’m Miss Flint, your lordship. A spinster’s a spinster, I say, and I don’t need to take on any hoity-toity airs like some I could name.”
Wilhelmina shook her head sadly as she led the way toward the back of the house—as if resigned to the fact that she was one of the few remaining sane souls in a world gone mad—and leaving Sherbourne to follow dutifully along in her wake, feeling as if he had just been transported back to the nursery and firmly put in his place by his nanny. “Yes, ma’am—Miss Flint,” he declared firmly. “Anything you say, Miss Flint.”
“Like I told Missy over and over,” she said then, oblivious to his sarcasm and doggedly returning to her original theme, “the daft man spends money like a drunken sailor out on a binge anyway, so what’s a few pennies more for somethin’ pretty for herself?”
“Or a few pennies piddled away on a butler and some other servants?” Patrick interjected mildly, just to hear the feisty housekeeper’s reaction.
Wilhelmina skidded to a halt and turned to take umbrage at such a ridiculous suggestion. “A butler? Whatever for? Whyever should we be wantin’ one of them useless, stiff-as-starch bodies around here?”
Patrick shrugged his shoulders, considering his answer. “Why, for one thing, a butler could answer the door for you.”
“My legs look broke to you?” Wilhelmina scoffed, taking a large cloth from her apron pocket and (as long as they were just standing in the hallway and not really doing anything anyway), giving a nearby table a quick wipe.
The Earl frowned slightly, then pursued hopefully: “A butler could take charge of helping arriving guests with their outer garments—managing the disposition of their cloaks and hats and the like.”
“Like I just did?” Wilhelmina asked incredulously, looking at him piercingly as she slipped the cloth back into her apron pocket.
“Exactly, Miss Flint!”
“After this butler you’re talkin’ about takes these cloaks,” she pursued interestedly, “what does he do with them? Don’t tell me any of those high and mighty blokes I’ve seen struttin’ down the street with their noses higher than a lamppost hang them up either, ’cause I won’t believe you.”
Patrick smiled, beginning to realize how neatly he had been cornered by the woman. “No, Miss Flint, the high and mighty butler does not usually deign to hang up the coats. He merely turns them over to a footman.”
“And he hangs them up?” Wilhelmina pushed, smiling a bit herself.
“Uh…sometimes,” he admitted, stroking his smooth chin. “It varies, depending on the size of the staff. Let’s see, he could turn them over to an underfootman, who in turn could deliver them to a housemaid, who would then—”
“Who would then hand them back to the underfootman, to hand to the footman, to hand to the butler, because the bloomin’ visitors would be ready to leave by then and calling for their duds!” Wilhelmina ended triumphantly, causing the two of them to go off into peals of laughter.
“What’s going on out here, Willie my love?” Quentin asked from the doorway to the library. “You’ve got no need to go flirting with the Earl now that I’m home.”
“Miss Flint wasn’t trifling with my affections, Quentin,” Patrick assured the man, “although I must say I am tempted. We were only indulging ourselves in a little game, and your dear lady has just neatly trumped my ace.”
Quentin nodded, as if Wilhelmina’s victory didn’t surprise him in the slightest. “Always gets the last word, my Willie. She’s going to make me a real brimstone of a wife, not that I’m complaining, you understand.”
“Oh, fie on you, Quentin Quinton!” the housekeeper scolded, hiding her flaming cheeks in her hands. “I never said yes to you.”
“You never said no, either, if I recollect correctly,” Quentin reminded her, winking broadly in Patrick’s direction. “Like that grand good time we two had down at the spinney when you—”
“Don’t you go throwin’ my past in my teeth, Quentin Quinton!” Wilhelmina shrieked, cutting off her beloved’s flow of fond reminiscence.
“Now, now,” Patrick interjected, hoping to calm the waters he had inadvertently stirred.
Wilhelmina wheeled around to face the Earl. “The man thinks a wife is part kitchen stove, part bed warmer. Would you marry a man like that?”
Patrick’s lean cheeks puffed out a bit as he started to answer, then deflated again in an audible rush of released air as he stopped to consider just how he might best attack that particular question.
“Did you ever hear such a damned obstinate woman? It’s a wonder to you that I still want to wed her, isn’t it?” Quentin demanded, taking Sherbourne by the shoulder and turning him about rather sharply so that Quinton could look the younger man in the eyes.
Stepping hastily back two paces, Patrick spread his arms wide as if to distance himself from the two irate people and said genially, “Don’t you go putting me in the middle of it, if you please. I hereby cast myself firmly in the role of innocent bystander! Somehow you have mistaken me for some wise Solomon, which I most assuredly am not. However, the answer, as far as I can see, lies quite simply in whether or not you two love each other now as you say you did all those years ago.”
“Well of course we do!” the two answered in belligerent unison, immediately casting the hapless Earl in the role of instigator.
Patrick grinned at the pair of them. “Well, I believe you! You don’t have to bite my head off!”
“Oh, laws!” Wilhelmina exclaimed, aghast, before clapping a hand to her mouth, having just then realized she had been arguing with a high-class nobleman as if he were “ordinary people.” Then, before anyone could stop her, she scampered quickly away to the back of the narrow house to compose herself.
Patrick lowered his arms and took a step toward Quentin, opening his mouth to apologize for upsetting Miss Flint, but Quentin forestalled him by reaching out to grab the Earl’s right hand hard in his and pump it up and down vigorously.
“How can I ever thank you, son?” Quentin asked earnestly. “Willie’s been avoiding me like some kind of plague ever since we found my letters to her tucked away in Quennel’s desk. She didn’t have to really believe that I sent for her until she saw them for herself, you understand. I think it gave her a bit of a shock to figure out that she’s always been and always will be my one and only true love.”
“I believe I can imagine how that knowledge could serve to unsettle a person,” Patrick said dryly, trying without success to pry his hand from the other man’s beefy grip.
Quentin chuckled shortly. “Knocked her for six, not to wrap it up in fine linen. Well, never mind that now, right? We’ll be getting ourselves bracketed all nice and tight before the month’s out, I’ll wager, and we’ve got you to thank for it. This calls for a bottle of old Quennel’s finest, damme if it doesn’t!”
Leaving Sherbourne to stand by himself openmouthed in the hallway—massaging his sore right hand while he gathered his thoughts—Quentin fairly danced through the open library doorway and over to the full decanter and fine array of wineglasses set out on a silver tray on one corner of the desk.<
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“Here you go, my boy,” Quentin said, offering the Earl a full glass as Patrick moved into the room. “Drink hearty!” he suggested before downing his own portion in one long gulp and then tossing the thin crystal goblet into the cold fireplace, where it shattered into a million needle-thin splinters. “A little trick I picked up somewhere on my travels,” he informed his guest, who was observing him owlishly. “I think it has something to do with having good luck.”
Patrick looked at the shards of broken crystal lying on the hearth and then back to the flamboyantly outfitted Quinton, who looked less like a man of the world and more like a delighted, oversized schoolboy than anyone he cared to think of at that moment. “Seems a capital idea to me, Quentin,” he agreed, gifting the man with a slow, appreciative smile. “Here’s to good luck!” he said, saluting the older man with his wineglass before draining its contents and sending it winging toward the fireplace, where it exploded in a satisfying crash.
The two men stood in companionable silence for a few moments, admiring their handiwork—Patrick privately thinking the exercise to be edifying in some strange way, although potentially quite wearing on the family crystal, and Quentin trying hard to keep a brave face once he realized there’d be the devil to pay if he couldn’t clean up the mess without Wilhelmina getting wind of it—before Sherbourne cleared his throat and said in a businesslike voice: “Now tell me why you sent that note round to my town house, good sir. If I read it correctly, you believe Miss Quinton might be in some sort of danger.”
Quentin immediately abandoned his role of jovial host and looked up at Sherbourne, mute appeal dulling his lively blue eyes. “It is Victoria—you’re right enough about that, and about the danger too—if m’brother was half the bastard I’m beginning to think he was. It seems as if it wasn’t enough for him to push poor Elizabeth’s father into giving her to him in marriage, or working it so that Willie and me had our falling out. Oh yes, I suspected something havey-cavey about that business at the time, although it took Willie telling me about it last week to prove the whole of it. I tell you, son, the man was a real piece of work! Come round here behind the desk, and I’ll show you what I mean.”
The Earl followed silently as Quinton walked behind the large desk, pulled the top left drawer completely out, and reached a hand inside the resulting space. He heard the muted sound of a spring being released, then stepped back quickly as a section of what had appeared to be the solid base of the desk fell forward onto the floor.
“Very neat,” Patrick commented, bending down to slip a hand inside the dark cavity and retrieve the slim ledger that lay inside. “Quennel’s private account book, I presume?” he asked, rising to his feet and handing it to Quentin unopened.
Quinton nodded, saying, “I keep it there so as to make sure Victoria never gets her hands on it.”
Patrick walked back around to the front of the desk, poured two full glasses of wine, handed one to Quinton, and then sat down in one of the uncomfortable straight-backed chairs. “What was the man dabbling in, then? Espionage?”
Taking a deep drink of his wine before answering, Quentin smiled as he quipped, “Selling secrets to Napoleon? No, it was nothing so dramatic as that. I can’t be sure, but I’d say it was blackmail Quennel dealt in—with quite a bit of success, judging from the figures written down in this little book. After cutting his teeth so successfully on Elizabeth’s father, I guess he decided to branch out a bit.”
“Blackmail!” Sherbourne’s head was immediately filled with a half-dozen divergent thoughts, ranging from his final meeting with the Professor to the small wooden box he had last seen tucked under Pierre Standish’s arm. “Keep going, Quentin,” he said softly. “I’d like to hear more. Although I believe I’d like you to start at the very beginning with Miss Quinton’s grandfather, please.”
Quinton sat down heavily in his brother’s chair and spread his beringed hands on the surface of the desk, as if bracing himself for the task ahead. “That’s a long story, my friend, and not really mine to tell,” he said, sighing. “You’ll keep it mum, won’t you? Willie and I are the only ones left above ground who know the whole of it, and Elizabeth never gave permission for Willie to tell Victoria.”
“You have my word, Quentin,” Patrick vowed solemnly, looking the older man straight in the eye.
“Very well, then,” Quentin returned, nodding. “Since there’s no way to dress this up in fine linen, I might just as well come out and say it—Victoria ain’t Quennel’s daughter. Elizabeth fell head over ears in love with William Forester—son of the local doctor, you know, and a fine, tall figure of a fellow—but the poor lad died in a fall from a horse before they could be married.”
“Now why do you suppose this little bit of information serves to so gladden my heart?” Sherbourne slid in quietly.
“I knew something about it because Quennel and I were studying our Latin grammars in the next room when the squire came to our father for advice, seeing as how Elizabeth had told her father she was breeding. Papa was the vicar, you’ll recall. A few days later I got the itch to wander—Latin verbs always did that to me—and by the time I found my way home again the deed was done; Elizabeth and Quennel were married. You could have knocked me down with a feather—as Elizabeth never made much secret of her low opinion of m’brother. Now, you tell me—was it blackmail or not?”
Patrick chewed on the question for a moment, then answered, “It’s all in how you look at it, I imagine. The squire may have felt Quennel was doing him a great favor. After all, the marriage certainly prevented a scandal, although it must have been dreadful for poor Elizabeth. First she lost her beloved William, and then she was forced into marriage with someone she particularly disliked.”
“The squire died alone and quite penniless not six months after the marriage—and he had been comfortably plump in the pocket all his life,” Quentin informed the Earl softly. “Quennel saved the squire all right, and then took the man’s daughter and fortune for himself. Yes, I call it blackmail.”
“Damme!” Patrick swore savagely, slamming his fist into his palm. “I wish Quennel were still alive so I could take my whip to him. Poor Elizabeth, she must have welcomed death.” Then, looking carefully at Quentin, he asked, “Why have you and Willie kept all this from Victoria? I can understand not telling her when she was still a girl, but don’t you think it’s time she knew? It’s not as if you’re preserving some fond memory of her father for her, you know. As a matter of fact, I think the knowledge would go a long way toward easing her mind about her less-than-daughterly feelings for the man.”
Quentin took another bracing drink from his glass. “Willie was only following Elizabeth’s instructions,” he explained, looking into his glass as if for answers. “I guess poor Elizabeth felt the child would have it bad enough once her mama was dead, without knowing that the man she was living with was no relation to her. Besides, knowing Victoria a bit now m’self, I’d say it wouldn’t have taken much for her to confront Quennel with her knowledge and then strike out on her own, as if a young female with no money could make her way alone in this wicked city.”
“But she has you now, Quentin,” Patrick put in gently. “You may be no blood relation to her, but you are soon to wed Miss Flint, and it’s clear Victoria considers the both of you as family. No, I can’t agree with Elizabeth’s logic anymore. You have to tell her.”
Quentin drained his glass in one swallow. “I’ll think on it, son,” he promised quietly. “I do love the lass, you know. She’s a good girl; bright as a penny and has a kind heart. Besides, maybe then she’ll give up this silly search for Quennel’s murderer. As I said, I think she could be putting herself in real danger.”
Patrick poured the older man another liberal portion of wine. “Tell me about it, Quentin. I think it’s time I hear it all.”
Quinton started off slowly, telling Sherbourne how Victoria had thought the Professor had left her penniless until she had found the first small stack of currency tucked
between the pages of one of his daily journals. This one discovery had been followed by others, the bills seemingly placed randomly in various books throughout the library.
“She wasn’t looking for money, you understand,” he put in to clarify the reason for the search. “She was looking for names that fit the initials P.S.”
“Ah, yes,” Patrick said. “The notorious snuffbox you told me about. Go on.”
“Yes, well, while Victoria was looking for suspects, I started smelling something fishy about this money that kept turning up all over the place. I’m no Methodist, you understand, and I’ve seen a lot more of life than my dear, innocent niece. I started coming downstairs after she was abed and doing some snooping of my own. It wasn’t long before this whole business started to reek to high heaven.”
“You found the Professor’s hiding place and read his ledger,” Sherbourne assumed correctly.
“You didn’t look at it, so you don’t know that there’s nothing there to read. It’s just page after page of initials and numbers, sort of like a code,” Quentin told him, “but it didn’t take me long to figure it out. The initials stand for names and the numbers are the amounts of money he had gotten from each of his victims. Some of them must have been paying Quennel for years. My brother may have told everyone that he was writing a history of the English upper classes, but what he was really doing was digging up any dirt he could find on those poor unsuspecting souls and then taking money not to write about them. He hid the money he gouged out of each of them in places that mentioned their names—a sort of filing system, I suppose. Lord, it pains me to think we were related.”
Sherbourne stood up and began a slow circuit of the room. “It’s beginning to become clear to me now,” he said thoughtfully. “My few meetings with Quennel were spent as interviews, with him questioning me about my family history for his manuscript. I was flattered, of course, but when I told him I had already done extensive work on a history myself and didn’t see the need to continue our talks, he became quite agitated, telling me that none but a man as dedicated as he could ever possibly prepare the true, definitive history. So it was information for blackmail he was really after, was it?”
The questioning Miss Quinton Page 12
