Gideon’s eyes were closed when they entered the room in which he lay, but there was a crease of pain in his forehead, and he certainly wasn’t asleep.
He turned his head at their approach and his expression was hostile. He wasn’t going to answer questions willingly; perhaps he wasn’t going to answer them at all.
“Hiding behind a woman’s skirts,” he sneered, and Sir Humphrey started forward angrily.
Jack caught him by the arm and held him back.
“How did you know there was something in the library?” he asked almost pleasantly.
“I had a dream,” Gideon replied insolently.
Jack smiled. “So did I,” he said. “It told me you’re going to hang.”
Gideon’s eyes narrowed. He had certainly committed enough capital offences for that to be the case, but he still thought he could evade the rope.
“No, I won’t,” he said. “Do you think my uncle is going to let me hang? He has the ear of the King. Even if I’m convicted, I’ll be pardoned.”
Sir Humphrey opened his mouth to speak. It was his son that Gideon had nearly murdered, and he was angry. Then he felt Jack’s grip on his arm tighten and he suddenly decided to leave the questioning to Riversleigh.
“Perhaps you might be pardoned, even acquitted,” Jack said calmly. “But only if you survive long enough to stand your trial. And there are so many misfortunes that can befall a man—particularly when he’s already injured. The wound may become infected, or you may fall and open it again. It’s so easy to bleed to death.”
Gideon stared at him, understanding dawning in his angry eyes.
“You wouldn’t dare!”
Jack smiled coldly and Gideon began to feel doubtful. He knew that neither Jack nor Alan had any cause to love him—perhaps Jack really would carry out his threat.
“If I answer your questions, will you tell my uncle where I am?” he demanded.
“I think that could be arranged,” Jack agreed.
“What do you want to know?”
“What made you think there was something hidden in the library?”
“I found some papers in my uncle’s desk. He should have locked them up, but on one occasion he was interrupted before he could. He doesn’t know I saw them.”
“I don’t suppose you’d be here if he did,” said Jack. “What did the papers say?”
“They were notes Uncle made. I think he’d taken them from a diary. That didn’t interest me. I was only concerned with finding the pendant. It was there, wasn’t it?” He looked at Jack.
“Why did you want it?” Jack asked, ignoring Sir Humphrey’s amazed gasp.
“Because it’s worth a fortune, you fool,” Gideon said savagely.
“But, when you realised there was a trap set for you last night, you must have suspected it had already been found. You took a risk; you must have wanted it badly,” Jack said.
“That’s none of your business,” Gideon replied sullenly.
“It wasn’t. It is now,” said Jack implacably. “Anything you do is my business now.”
The two men stared at each other, they might have been alone, for all the notice either of them took of Charity and Sir Humphrey. The balance of power had changed, but their mutual dislike remained unaltered.
“Perhaps it was because you wanted a bartering point with Lord Ashbourne,” Jack suggested. “I’d heard he’d finally had the good sense to disown you. But everyone knows he collects such things.”
Charity looked at him sharply. She didn’t entirely understand what was happening, but it was becoming clear to her that Lord Ashbourne lay at the back of everything that had happened.
“What does Lord Ashbourne want?” she demanded harshly. “Why were those notes in his desk in the first place?”
Gideon turned his head on the pillow and looked at her.
“He wants the pendant,” he said softly. “Any way he can get it. He nearly cheated your fool of a father out of a fortune he didn’t even know he possessed! But if it hadn’t been for him,” Gideon looked at Jack with hatred, “I would have got there first.”
Charity’s eyes burned with fierce indignation and anger. She was standing on the opposite side of the bed to the others and, as she took a step towards Gideon, Sir Humphrey tried to intervene.
“M’dear, I think this is a matter…”
She looked up at him and as he met her gaze he faltered into silence.
“What did he do to Papa?” she said, her voice low and dangerous.
“You don’t think my uncle normally demeans himself by playing cards with country bumpkins, do you?” Gideon said scornfully. “As I said before, your father was a fool.”
“Gideon!” The sound of Jack’s voice was so compelling that both Gideon and Charity were startled.
Gideon turned his head towards Jack and began to regret the petty revenge he had taken on Charity. At that moment he was convinced that Jack was going to carry out his earlier threat, and he was afraid.
“Be careful,” said Jack with dangerous softness. “Be very careful.”
Beads of sweat stood out on Gideon’s brow and upper lip, and his mouth was so dry that he couldn’t speak.
“So, let us be clear,” said Jack, after a moment. “Lord Ashbourne tried to trick Mr Mayfield out of possession of the pendant—and you tried to get hold of it first so that you could use it to force your uncle to acknowledge you again. Have I that correctly?”
Gideon nodded, unable to say a word.
“You’ll hang, Gideon. In the circumstances, I don’t think your uncle is going to lift a finger for you.”
“But the scandal,” Gideon croaked. That was how he’d always escaped the consequences of his actions in the past, right from the moment when he’d almost killed Jack. Lord Ashbourne didn’t care for scandal.
“We’ll see,” said Jack. “Alan!” He summoned his servant. “Watch him!”
“Yes, sir.” Alan looked at Gideon with dislike.
“Charity,” said Jack quietly. She looked at him as if she didn’t know who he was, but when he held out his hand imperatively she walked over to him and allowed him to guide her out of the room.
Sir Humphrey, still too staggered to think of anything to say, followed them downstairs.
“We must send someone to the inn to see the wounded servant”, Jack said as he closed the library door.
“What? Good God! I’d quite forgotten the fellow! What a head you have,” Sir Humphrey exclaimed.
“I don’t think what we’ve just heard has come as such a surprise to me as it has to you,” Jack said apologetically. “I’ve had my suspicions for some time. Though I admit I hadn’t guessed that Gideon was involved.”
He was looking at Charity as he spoke. She seemed to be in a daze, and he knew that she had not been prepared. He took her hand and led her to a chair. She sat down obediently, but she hardly seemed to know that she wasn’t alone. Her whole awareness was taken up by the sudden and unexpected knowledge that her father had been cheated out of Hazelhurst—and out of an inheritance he hadn’t known he had.
Until that moment she had felt more exasperation than sympathy for the situation in which her father had found himself. She had been angry with Mr Mayfield for what she had seen as his folly. But now she knew he had been the victim of another man’s duplicity, and the full force of her rage and dislike was directed towards Lord Ashbourne. He had caused all the misery and pain her family had suffered in the last year.
“Suspicions!” Sir Humphrey was still preoccupied by what they had learnt from Gideon, and by the amazing notion that Jack seemed to have anticipated it. “And a pendant? You said you’d found a pendant?”
“The night before last. It was hidden in a cavity behind the bookshelves. It’s by Hilliard,” Jack said, his eyes still on Charity.
But Sir Humphrey had never heard of the miniaturist and he didn’t care who the pendant was by.
“You mean that, when we were discussing it yesterday, you knew all the time that there was
really treasure here?” he demanded.
“It was my fault,” said Charity distantly. She was looking pale and almost unnaturally calm. “When Jack first showed it to me I didn’t want to tell anyone until I’d decided what to do with it.”
“And then events rather overtook us,” Jack continued. “I’m sorry, Sir Humphrey.”
“Well, I’m not sure that I blame you,” the magistrate confessed. “All this is beyond my experience. I wouldn’t have taken that stuttering fool’s ramblings seriously. Is that when you first started to be suspicious?”
“That’s when my initial nebulous doubts were confirmed,” Jack replied. “And it was also the point at which it became obvious that Lord Ashbourne must be involved in some way.”
Charity looked up at that. “You mean, you knew he was behind everything?” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did try, at least once,” Jack said. “But we were interrupted and the subject never arose again.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “When did you try to tell me?”
“It was after I’d first shown you the pendant,” Jack explained. “We were discussing my plan to trap the thief and I said we wouldn’t have to wait long, that he’d have to make his move within the next two weeks. I was just about to tell you why when Sir Humphrey arrived.”
“I still don’t see…” She frowned; she didn’t seem to be thinking as clearly as usual.
Jack took her hand.
“In two weeks, in less than two weeks’ time now, Hazelhurst will belong to Lord Ashbourne,” he said gently. “The stuttering thief said they had to find the pendant—only he called it the treasure—quickly, within that time period. But that amount of haste could only be necessary if the new owner knew what they were looking for. They had to find it before he arrived.”
“I see.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve been a fool.”
For a moment she frowned distantly into the fire; then she stood up in sudden decision.
“I’m going to London,” she announced. “I thought when we caught the thief this business would be ended, but it isn’t. Gideon was only a distraction; Lord Ashbourne is the real villain. I’m going to confront him.”
“But you can’t…” Sir Humphrey began, confused and appalled by the speed at which events were overtaking him.
“Wait!”
Charity was already on her way to the door when Jack seized her arm and swung her round to face him.
“What are you going to say to the Earl when you meet him?” he demanded.
“I’m going to tell him what we know. I’m going to ask him why he did it—and I’m going to make sure he never does anything like this again. Ever.”
Charity’s eyes burned with a greater rage and a more implacable sense of purpose than she had ever before felt. She was impatient of restraint and she tried to pull her arm away from Jack’s grasp in her haste to start for London.
“How?” Jack put his hands on her shoulders and almost shook her. “How are you going to make sure he never does it again? The law can’t help you—I don’t think the Earl has done anything illegal. So what are you going to do—shoot him?”
He had had a horrifying vision of Charity turning up at Lord Ashbourne’s house, armed with a pistol and bent on vengeance. He had never seen her so angry. “Then you’ll be the one to hang,” he finished harshly.
“What do you mean, he didn’t do anything illegal?” Charity demanded. “He cheated Papa. He stole Hazelhurst.”
“It’s not as simple as that. Gideon was lying to you.”
“I don’t understand.” She stared up at him. The immediacy of her rage had passed, but not her determination. “Are you saying that Lord Ashbourne isn’t responsible? You just said he was.”
“He is.” He met her eyes squarely. They had both forgotten Sir Humphrey’s presence. “What he did was immoral—but not illegal. And I don’t think you really understand what he did do. You think he lured your father into a card game and then cheated him out of a fortune, and ultimately out of his home, don’t you?” His eyes bored relentlessly down into hers. “But there’s one thing I’m certain of,” he continued, “the Earl never cheated in a card game.”
“Gideon said he did. Why shouldn’t I believe him?” Charity was beginning to feel confused, almost suspicious. She didn’t understand why Jack seemed to be defending Lord Ashbourne. She’d expected him to support her, to feel the same outrage that she felt—why was he protecting the Earl?
“Why shouldn’t I believe Gideon?” she said again.
“Because he was trying to hurt you,” Jack said.
He was desperately trying to make Charity understand what he thought had happened, but he was still haunted by the vision of what she might do if he failed, and in his anxiety for her he was neither as gentle nor as conciliatory as he might have been.
“He had to tell us nearly the truth—he was too afraid of me not to do so. But you spoiled all his plans and he wanted revenge—so he twisted the story just enough so that it would still be believable, but so that it would also cause you the maximum amount of pain. It would amuse him to set you and Ashbourne at each other’s throats.”
For a moment there was silence in the library. Then Charity lifted Jack’s hands from her shoulders and stepped away from him, deliberately distancing herself from him, and Jack felt a stab of pain at the coldness in her voice.
“Then what do you think did happen?” she asked.
“I think Lord Ashbourne knew about the pendant, and I think he might well have flattered your father into playing cards with him to get it,” Jack replied. “But he didn’t cheat. The Earl is a devious, and in many ways an unscrupulous man—but he has his own peculiar code of honour, and he would never cheat. It wouldn’t accord with his own image of himself.”
“I don’t see that what you have said makes any difference at all,” Charity said inflexibly. “I don’t care whether he cheated or not. It seems to me that everything that has happened to us has been the Earl’s fault. I don’t care whether what he did was legal or not. He’s not going to get away with it.”
“I didn’t say he should get away with it,” Jack replied. “I said you should know what you’re blaming him for—and what he isn’t guilty of.”
Charity looked at him sharply and Jack gave a twisted half-smile in response. He knew she wouldn’t welcome what he was about to say, he knew he might even alienate her completely—but he was still afraid of what she might do.
He was also certain that in the long run it would be far better if she didn’t persist in blinding herself to some of the more distressing aspects of the situation, though later he wondered if he should have given her more time before he said anything.
“What do you mean?” Charity demanded, and now there was an underlying hostility in her tone.
For the first time it had dawned on her that Jack and Lord Ashbourne came from the same world—and that they’d known each other for years. What a fool she was! All the time she had been thinking of the Earl as the outsider in her world—but that wasn’t how it was. It was she who was the outsider in Jack’s and Lord Ashbourne’s world! No wonder Jack was defending the Earl.
If Jack had known what she was thinking he might have approached the situation differently—but he didn’t; and he was still trying to prepare Charity for what she would have to face if she confronted Lord Ashbourne.
“I believe you can blame the Earl for encouraging your father to play cards with him,” he said slowly. “But not for forcing him to do so. You can also blame him for having done so with a secret ulterior motive. And you can blame him for having continued the game until Mr Mayfield was twenty thousand pounds in debt—there was always something slightly odd about the fact that your father lost almost exactly the same sum as his estate was worth.”
That was one of the things which had always seemed strange to Jack, even before he had suspected there was anything more sinister behind the debt.
“But
you can’t blame Lord Ashbourne for not having given your father enough time to repay his debt—he gave him a whole year,” he continued, even though he knew that Charity might not accept what he was saying. “Perhaps the Earl thought that by doing so he was giving your father a fair chance to recover himself. Nor can you blame him for Gideon’s presence, the Earl certainly wouldn’t have permitted that if he’d known anything about it—and, most important of all, you can’t blame him for your father’s death,” he finished more gently, because he thought it was that belief which lay at the root of Charity’s distress.
She stood, shocked and still. Jack’s words washing over her like icy water. She knew he was right about Gideon; the Earl would have been as much a victim of his nephew as she and her mother would have been if Gideon had been successful.
But she couldn’t be as dispassionate as Jack apparently was about what the Earl had done. And Mr Mayfield had died so quickly after that bitter card game that in her mind the two events were inextricably linked. She couldn’t rid herself of the notion that her father must have been feeling desperately unhappy, despairing even, when he died. Lord Ashbourne might not have caused Mr Mayfield’s death, but he was certainly responsible for the distress he must have been feeling at the time.
Jack was watching her closely and he saw the hardening of her purpose in her eyes. She still intended to confront the Earl, and to do so half armed, because she still hadn’t accepted one basic, unpleasant fact.
There was one last thing for him to say. He knew that if he did so not only would he hurt her, but she might also never forgive him for it. But he also knew that there were others involved who would be less considerate, and he wanted her to be prepared.
“Your father must always have had a choice,” he said gently. “No one, not even the Earl, can force a man to play cards with him against his will.”
To Jack, that was the key to the whole affair. What he believed Lord Ashbourne to have done was immoral, devious and dishonest. But everything he knew about the Earl convinced him that Lord Ashbourne had neither cheated, nor forced Mr Mayfield to play cards with him. So Charity’s father must have had a choice—and he had made the wrong one. He was not blameless for what had happened to his family. No man needed to gamble with his home.
Ten Guineas on Love Page 21
