Gabby shifted in her chair, and Piers’ eyes, which had been gazing into the distant past, snapped to her, and the look of pure hatred on his face froze her to her bones.
“I would have gotten through to her. I was willing to forgive, you see, and forget all about it, such was the depth of my love for her. And that’s when she told me.”
Gabrielle was torn between wanting to hear the whole sorry tale and wanting him to shut up and not issue another word. She felt sure she didn’t want to hear whatever was to come next. Yet, she needed to know the full story. If only to know how best to play the situation.
“Not only had she supposedly given the wastrel her heart, but everything else as well. Yes, she had allowed him to tup her as though she were a lowly housemaid. And she couldn’t possibly marry me…” Piers’ eyes held hers in their furious, raving gaze. “…not when she was pregnant with his little bastard.”
Gabby couldn’t contain her gasp of shock, and he seemed to take a perverse pleasure in it, his face splitting into a cruel grin.
“That’s right, Gabrielle. Your whore mother was already with child. You.”
Gabby’s head spun with the implications of what Piers had said. Her father hadn’t been a rich man, and when he’d died, she and her mother had been poorer still. She remembered once, when her mother was obviously worried about money, asking if they should not come to England to her mother’s family.
Maman wouldn’t speak of them except to say that asking for their help would be impossible, and to say that they would never want to hear from them. The subject had obviously distressed her, and so Gabrielle had never asked again.
Now she knew. She was a disgrace. A reminder of her mother’s fall from grace. A dirty secret to be ashamed of and embarrassed by.
Gabby swallowed the lump in her throat and raised her chin defiantly. She would not be cowed by this man or the secrets of her past.
“I was not so callous as your grandfather, Gabrielle. I was willing to take you on, raise you as my own. But your mother fled in the night. Her filthy Frenchie had come back for her, and off they’d sailed. Never to be seen again.”
Gabby’s stomach was roiling with the conflicting emotions surging through her.
Good Lord in heaven, it was simply too much to bear.
Her life suddenly felt as though she’d been plunged into a Gothic novel Evelyn had insisted she read.
“And what a miserable life you gave her,” Piers continued sadly. “You and your damned father. Poverty, no social standing, none of the jewels and fine silks and riches that should have been hers. I would have given her the world, and you ruined it all.”
There was no sense in trying to reason with a madman, Gabby knew. Anyone who would hold her accountable for the apparent sins of her mother, when she hadn’t even been born, belonged in Bedlam and nowhere else.
But the fire of Gabrielle’s spirit had been roused by his cruel words about her parents and, indeed, herself.
“My mother was happy,” she ground out, fixing him with as cold a stare as she could muster. “Far happier than she would have been with a madman like you.”
His hand darted out and slapped her, stinging her cheek, before she even had time to react.
She didn’t care.
She wasn’t sorry.
Gabby raised her chin another notch.
“Too much of her stubbornness in you.” Piers scowled before his face cleared, and he smiled that blood-curdling smile once more. “But not for much longer.”
The temptation to overpower Piers was almost overwhelming, but though he was older now, he was still a crack shot, and the risk was too high. Besides, there were still unanswered questions.
“I am not my mother, Piers,” she said now. “Why kill me? Especially when you’ve been like a father to me. I trusted you.” She knew her tone was imploring, but she wanted desperately for this all to be a misunderstanding. “I loved you.”
Her words, rather than get through to him and bring back even part of the man she knew, seemed to ignite his temper even more.
Leaping to his feet with a howl of rage, Piers pressed the end of the pistol to her brow. “You are not your mother, but you are the reason she isn’t here with me. You are the reason she left me. You are the damned reason I never had children of my own.”
His hands were shaking, and Gabby was terrified he would pull the trigger.
“I hate you,” he spat with such venom that she couldn’t help but believe him.
But all these years, he had hidden it so well. Why?
“You could have killed me years ago. You could have killed me when I got here. Any number of times. Why didn’t you?”
Piers scoffed.
“I didn’t know who you were, you stupid girl,” he said, but mercifully, the question seemed to have caught his attention enough to make him remove the gun from her skin and sit back down. It remained aimed right at her, however.
“You look like her, of course. But I see your mother’s face in every dark-haired lady that goes by me. So I didn’t make the connection. And, of course, you have your father’s name.”
He said this as though it were her very greatest sin.
“It was only when Jonathan told me that he’d fallen in love with you that I decided to delve deeper into your background. I loved that boy as I would a son. I wasn’t about to let him make the mistakes I had because of a beautiful woman.”
At the mention of Jonathan’s name, Gabrielle nearly winced with the pain in her heart.
Piers’ betrayal would kill him.
“Imagine my surprise when you turned out to be her, the girl who had stolen my life.”
Gabrielle shuddered at his words. He really was deranged.
“I realised then that I could solve two problems at once — save Jonathan from his foolish heart and pay you back for the pain you had caused me. But, obviously, the amateur I hired botched the job, and you somehow managed to stay alive.”
“But when I came here,” she argued, trying to understand the impossible, “I was alone with you. You had every chance.”
“My dear, I have every intention of seeing you dead. I have no intention of being the one held accountable for it,” he answered smoothly.
“Your damned captain was sniffing around too much. He wouldn’t bloody well stay away. So, of course, my hands were tied. He would have known it was me.”
“So what changed?”
“Jonathan, of course. He arrived, and I had the perfect opportunity to blame someone else.”
Gabby frowned in confusion. She had no idea what he meant.
“At first I tried to convince him that Townsend had been to blame. But sadly there were too many holes in that story for it to stick.”
“So, who—” she began to ask, but then it struck her.
Oh my God.
Jonathan!
“What did you do?” she growled, feeling her anger getting the better of her.
“He left me no choice, Gabrielle,” he said in answer. “If he had just gone along with it being Townsend—”
“What did you do, Piers?” she repeated, nearly shouting in her fear and frustration.
Piers sighed.
“Really, Gabby, is there any need to be so dramatic? Jonathan swore he wouldn’t live without you. And since you’re going to die, it seemed fitting that he should be blamed for it. I will miss him, of course. But he will hang for this.”
“How?” she gasped, horrified at the thought.
“Why, my letter to Winchester explains it all. How you had been safe here until Jonathan’s arrival and then suddenly, you had mysterious accidents, attempts on your life. The evidence really does speak for itself.”
“My God.” She breathed. “You’re mad.”
“Angry, Gabrielle. Furious. Vengeful. But not mad,” he answered with a cold smile.
Gabrielle’s mind was working at breakneck speed. She needed to get out of here and get to London.
“‘Tis a shame,
a real shame, that Jonathan will hang or this. But then, he really should have stayed away in the first place.”
Piers had decided that the time had come to kill her. Gabrielle knew by the sudden, steely determination in his gaze.
He stood and so did she.
She would not sit there like a coward while he loomed over her. He was a coward. He wasn’t stronger than she.
“Goodbye, Gabrielle,” he said softly, looking triumphant.
Gabby scrambled desperately for some plan, something to keep her alive. But her dagger would be no use to her. The shot would come before she could even dive inside her robe for it.
All was lost. This was the end of her life. The ultimate betrayal.
She wanted Jonathan more than ever in that moment. If only so that his face would be the last thing she saw.
She would not close her eyes. She would not look away.
Somewhere inside the crazed man in front of her was the man she had trusted. And he should see her clearly when he pulled the trigger to end her life.
The cock of the hammer sounded loud as the boom of a firework. It echoed round the tension-filled study.
I love you, Jonathan, Gabby thought as she awaited the deadly bang.
Suddenly, the door swung open, and Evelyn stood there, dressed in her night rail, her eyes wide with shock.
Piers was distracted for mere seconds as he whipped round to see who had entered.
It was all Gabby needed.
Quick as a flash, she sprang forward, knocking the gun from Piers’ hand and landing a facer on his cheek. Her hand screamed in pain as she threw all her weight into the punch, but she didn’t care.
Piers fell in a crumpled heap at her feet, and Gabby snatched the gun from the ground, holding it pointed directly at him.
He was out.
Most likely only for seconds though, so they needed to act fast.
Gabby risked a glance up at Evelyn who was still standing in the doorway, her jaw now opened in shock. She was staring at Piers, lying unmoving on the floor.
“Evelyn,” Gabby called, needing the other woman to rally and help her.
Evelyn’s brown eyes snapped to Gabby’s.
“I only came downstairs for a drink,” she lamented.
Gabby couldn’t help a quick grin.
“And you shall have one,” she said. “We both will. But first you need to help me tie him up. And then,” she continued determinedly, “I need to get the hell out of here and go to London.”
THE DAY WAS bright and warm, and at the offices of headquarters, Andrew was feeling decidedly less-than-confident that something wasn’t going on.
His instincts were screaming that the man in front of him was hiding something.
“I can’t image where else he would have gone,” Andrew said, casually leaning back in his chair, acting for all the world as though he suspected nothing.
Winchester, sitting behind his desk, shrugged his shoulders.
“It does seem out of character,” he said, his tone relaxed. “But then, he’s never been the same since Paris, really. A mission going so badly wrong like that can do funny things to a man. I’ve seen it countless times. Perhaps he’s decided he wants out.”
Andrew studied the man in front of him intently. It would have been possible, Andrew could admit. But not now. Not when Gabrielle was back in Jonathan’s life. There was no way in hell he would walk away from her. And the fact that Winchester was trying to convince him that Jonathan hadn’t been here.
It just didn’t sit right.
Andrew had found that, generally speaking, if a man had something to hide, silence always made him nervous, and he would reveal a tell somewhere. A twitch of an eye, a tick of a muscle. While he watched, Winchester shuffled papers on his desk, gathering up a couple of items and placing them in a drawer.
And that was all Andrew had needed.
“Well, I should perhaps stop by his townhouse and see if he’s made an appearance there,” Andrew said pleasantly, standing and holding out his hand to the other man.
Winchester looked relieved that Andrew was leaving.
Shaking Andrew’s hand, he smiled, seeming much more at ease.
“‘Twas good to see you, my lord,” he said. “You are greatly missed here at the agency. But I imagine the duties of your earldom keep you more than busy enough.”
“They do indeed,” Andrew agreed affably, removing his hand and gathering his greatcoat and beaver. “But I am always available to stop by and keep an eye on things.”
His tone was pleasant, but he knew the warning was clear. He wasn’t going to shuffle quietly away.
As Andrew stepped onto the street outside the sprawling redbrick, he checked his watch fob then alighted his waiting carriage.
He would bet his life that one of those papers Winchester had so casually removed from the desk was the missive from Piers. And that meant that Jonathan had been there and had handed that letter over.
Andrew’s mind was speeding with thoughts going round and round.
Why would Winchester lie about having seen Jonathan? And why would Jonathan have gone missing? None of it made any sense.
He was torn, too.
He knew that Evelyn and William would be arriving in Town today. Their carriage, although it had left the same day he had, albeit it later, would be significantly slower than he had been riding alone. Ideally, Gabrielle would have been well enough to make the journey with them. So the best thing to do would be to go to the Mayfair townhouse and await their arrival. But what he really wanted to do was return to Norfolk and find out what Piers had said in that letter.
Andrew sat back against the plush velvet seat of the carriage as it rumbled its way through the streets of London. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he shouldn’t have left Piers’ estate, that he shouldn’t have left Gabby there. More urgently, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something had happened to Jonathan.
Where the hell was he?
“YOU CANNOT BELIEVE that I would do such a thing, Winchester.”
Jonathan was not going to plead. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to beg. But he could at least try to reason with the man in front of him.
“You know me,” he said again.
“I thought I did,” Winchester bit back. “How could you do something like this?”
“I didn’t!” Jonathan yelled. “It’s Piers. He has set the whole thing up, and if you don’t let me out of here, he’ll kill her.”
Winchester eyed him in disgust.
It was no use. He wasn’t going to believe Jonathan’s claims. And why would he?
Piers Casings had been a stellar part of the agency since long before Jonathan had come on the scene. Who would have thought that underneath the façade of a perfect, English gentleman, lurked a coldblooded killer?
What’s more, Jonathan could not even say why Piers would want Gabby dead.
“You will hang for your crimes, Spencer. I will see to it, if only to honour Casings’ wishes.”
Winchester turned and left the dark room that Jonathan was caged in as though he were an animal.
His frustration was bubbling inside like a volcano about to erupt. And yet, it had nowhere to go. He had already bloodied his hands more than once trying to pull at bars and locks on the doors and one, tiny window.
He was trapped.
Gabby would die.
And he would hang.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“IT DOES SEEM rather foolish, in hindsight, to set off for London in the middle of the night,” Evelyn called to Gabrielle.
Of course it was foolish. It was the height of irrationality, and very likely to bring them harm. But she had no idea what was happening to Jonathan, or if she was already too late.
In truth, she had barely thought through the consequences of her actions as she rushed around, readying herself for the journey.
She had made a feeble attempt to get Evelyn to stay behind, but the woman was stubborn to a fault,
and Gabby didn’t have time to argue with her. After they’d tied Piers up and made sure he was secure, Gabby had called for a footman to fetch the local magistrate.
The young man had clearly been shocked and confused when he’d walked in the room to see Gabrielle and the countess, both in their nightwear, tying Piers up like a piece of game and holding a pistol to his head.
But he was either far too well trained to say anything, or he didn’t much like his employer, because, without a word of objection, he’d dashed off to do Gabrielle’s bidding.
When Piers had come round, Gabby had taken great pleasure in watching the dawning realisation on his face. First confusion, no doubt, because his hands were tied behind his back, his feet were bound, and they’d tied him to a chair for good measure, then horror as he realised that his plan had failed, Gabby was still alive, and he would be punished for what he’d done.
The look of hatred on his face as he’d glared at Gabby was still hard to understand, given their history together. But she didn’t have time to mourn the loss of the man she’d thought him to be.
She had to get to Jonathan.
“You will pay dearly for what you’ve done,” she promised him in a whisper.
He didn’t answer her. Just glared at her. And Gabrielle found that the most upsetting thing of all, after their many years together, after she had trusted him and loved him like a father, was that he did not speak a single, solitary word.
Scoffing in disgust, she turned and left the room, choosing to wait outside for the magistrate.
That portly man arrived thirty minutes or so later, by which time Gabrielle felt like a horse chomping at the bit, so eager was she to get away. A brief explanation of events and a raving, deranged confession from Piers scattered with oaths and vile names for both Gabby and her mother, and the magistrate was away again with every assurance that justice would be served.
Finally, finally she was free to leave.
Gabby dashed upstairs, ignoring the staff huddled in the foyer awaiting an explanation.
She had met Evelyn who was coming back down dressed, to Gabby’s surprise, in breeches.
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