He looked at the column with dates and noted that Eastman’s deposits had begun almost the same day Hunt had left for St. Claire. But he was still troubled by the Langford name. Where had he heard it?
He unlocked his middle drawer and withdrew his file on the case. Nothing was in order and he’d scribbled a few notes on miscellaneous scraps of paper before he’d departed for St. Claire. Names, addresses and directions along with leads, impressions and conclusions were jumbled together, but he found the notes from his first meeting with Eastman.
And there it was. Langford. Eastman’s clerk. He recalled now that Eastman had told him he could go through Langford if he had anything urgent. He closed the file, returned it to the drawer and turned the lock. If Eastman was the leak, the whole secrecy issue had been a pretense. And why would he order an investigation of himself?
Hunt stood and retrieved his greatcoat from a peg. He had one final question.
Back in the same lounge where his assignment had begun nearly four months ago, Hunt put his newspaper aside and took a drink from his stout cup of coffee. The clock in the foyer struck half eleven. Eastman was late.
He was about to leave when the undersecretary rushed in, looking harried. He dropped into the chair facing Hunt and leaned forward, looking over both shoulders before he spoke.
“Have you heard the news? Good God! When will it end?”
“When will what end?”
“It’s Bascombe. He’s dead.”
Of all the things that might have put Eastman in a dither, Hunt had not expected that. The governor had appeared well when he’d last seen him, but if Eastman had heard the news so quickly, Bascombe must have died shortly after Hunt left the island. He remembered the man’s florid complexion and asked, “Apoplexy?”
“Murder.”
Murder. Had Bascombe betrayed his partners? Then why was Eastman nearly stricken by the news? “Do you know how it happened?”
“No one knows. His clerk reported that he found Bascombe in the foyer of his mansion. He’d been knifed in the middle of the night. No one heard anything. They think he must have come in late and the murderer was waiting. Or that he answered a late caller himself instead of waking the servants.”
“Is that all you were told?”
Eastman shook his head and waved one arm dismissively. “Some rubbish about a black-sailed ship making port after dark and leaving before dawn. Twaddle. An outrageous excuse by the local constabulary to cover their incompetence.”
Hunt met Eastman’s glance. “I’ve seen that ship, Eastman. It is not the first time it’s made port in San Marco. Previously, I believe the locals were paid to look the other way while it took on supplies. That was the schooner I saw in Blackpool.”
“Pirates? Bascombe was killed by pirates?”
“Just a guess,” he said. But it was a good guess and gave rise to another question. What had the governor done to enrage the pirates enough to take the great risk of sailing into San Marco and sending someone to the governor’s mansion to kill him? And who was issuing orders, with Rodrigo gone? “When will you get another report?”
“The next packet due from those parts should arrive a fortnight hence.”
Hunt leaned forward and lowered his voice. “When you asked me to take this job, you told me that no one in the Foreign Office knew about it, because you feared a leak. But you told me that in case of an emergency, I should contact you through your clerk. A Mr. Langford?”
Eastman nodded. “That’s right.”
“So Langford knows about my investigation? And he knows everything else that passes through your hands?”
“Well…” Eastman hedged. “Not everything.”
Hunt stopped right there. One way or another, both Langford and Eastman were involved. But to what extent? Until he could unravel this knot, he could not trust anyone.
Eastman braced himself by taking a glass of sherry from a footman and then waving him away. “One more thing,” he whispered. “Doyle is being appointed governor and being sent back to St. Claire.”
“When does he leave?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
Blast! He would have to work fast.
Elise folded a nightgown and put it away in a bureau. A trunk containing the items on the list she’d given Lockwood had been delivered earlier in the morning. Sarah’s maid was pressing her black bombazine mourning gown and a few other items.
She felt a little silly, though. With Barrett dead, she should have gone back to the house. Surely Lockwood was wrong. How could she still be in danger when the greatest threat to her life and sanity was now lying in a coffin?
Oh, but at a price she never would have paid!
Hunt. Surely she was entitled to think of him as “Hunt” after last night? Her limbs weakened with the memory. What could she do? He’d already confessed to a murder that was, in fact, her fault. Had she not come to Sarah for help after Barrett’s last attack, had she not told Hunt what had happened… Then it would have happened again. And again. Hunt had paid the price for her freedom.
Tears welled in her eyes and she blinked them away. Now was not the time for weakness. No matter what Hunt said, the moment William was safe and she had petitioned the court to appoint a suitable guardian, she would confess to the murder. She would insist that he had accepted the blame in a mistaken act of chivalry and she would claim responsibility.
And William would be raised without a mother or a father.
There were no good decisions for her but to preserve her honor. And to free Hunt.
A soft knock at her door pulled her from her introspection. “Come in,” she called.
A maid curtsied. “My lady, Lord Lockwood is below and requests your company.”
Her heartbeat tripped, as it always did when she thought of seeing Hunt. She patted her hair into place and smoothed her gown before hurrying down to the sitting room.
He turned from the fireplace as she entered the room and smiled. She felt a telltale heat sweep up from her middle all the way to the roots of her hair. He was remembering last night. And so was she. And if he did not stop looking at her that way, it would happen again. “Lord Lockwood,” she said, dropping a quick curtsy.
He laughed. “The maid is gone, madam, and so is my sister. ’Tis I who should give the bow.” He came to her and pulled her into his arms, and his heat seeped into her. How would she ever live without him?
When she looked up at him, he dropped a tender kiss on her lips and then held her away with a sigh. “None of that at the moment, my dear. I fear I might disgrace us in my sister’s sitting room. How would we ever live that down?”
Elise could only imagine the teasing he would endure in such a case. She smiled as she sat on the sofa. “I think we have much more to live down than a tiny indiscretion in your sister’s sitting room, Hunt. But why have you come in the middle of the day?”
Hunt sat beside her and took her hands. Oh, dear. Nothing good came of it when he did that. She braced herself and waited.
“I met with Lord Eastman of the Foreign Office this morning and he informed me that Governor Bascombe has been murdered.”
She took a moment to comprehend the news. She hadn’t known him well, but the governor had been kind to her. “Who would do such a thing?”
“We have reason to believe it was someone from Blackpool. And we believe it was on someone else’s orders.”
“Who?”
“Elise, I know you have a fondness for him, but—”
“Mr. Doyle,” she guessed.
He nodded.
“Surely you are mistaken. Why would Mr. Doyle order such a thing? I never heard him say anything derogatory about the governor and never saw the slightest enmity.”
“I would stake my life on the fact that he is involved in the surge of piracy in the eastern Caribbean. Doyle killed Bascombe to gain the governorship, and now that he has it, there will be no impediment to him doing as he pleases on the island.”
“Governor? I
wonder if that is what he meant when he hinted that he might not be going to India after all. That he had other possibilities.”
“When did he tell you that, Elise?”
She frowned, trying to remember. So much had happened in the last few days that she could not recall exactly when. “A few days ago. Three? Four?”
“The news only just arrived in London this morning,” Hunt said.
“Mr. Doyle? But that is preposterous.” But was it? “Hunt, there was a man from Blackpool who used to buy pastries when he came for supplies. His name was Mr. Lowe, and he said the ‘charge man’ liked sweets. But he always laughed when he said those words, and I recall thinking he meant something else entirely. Could he have meant chargé?”
“I wish I had known this, Elise. Yes, he could have meant just that. What else do you remember?”
She remembered Governor Bascombe sitting behind his desk and agreeing to oversee the transfer of titles. “He was a good man. I wish I could have done more….” The letter! Heavens! She had forgotten entirely about it. The shock of finding Barrett alive and of not finding William had completely erased any memory of it. “A moment, please,” she told Hunt as she stood and ran from the sitting room.
Upstairs in her bedroom, Elise found her writing box sitting where she’d unpacked it. She had not had time to remove the dust it had accumulated during its storage in the attic, but it appeared entirely undisturbed. Barrett would have had no interest in anything she would have written previous to her return. She opened it and lifted the pen tray to find the sealed oilskin pouch. She stared at it for a moment, wondering what to do, then moaned with the fear that it could contain something that might have saved the governor’s life, had she only delivered it in time.
Back in the sitting room, she placed the packet in Hunt’s hands. He looked at the address, then back at her. “How did you get this, Elise?”
“Governor Bascombe asked me to deliver it upon my arrival here. I…forgot. And now it is too late.”
“Why did he give it to you and not put it in the courier’s pouch?”
“He said it was personal and did not want it sitting on a clerk’s desk waiting to be delivered. I swore I would deliver it to Lord Eastman at once—to put it in his hands only. I failed him, Hunt.” She sank onto the sofa beside him. “What if there is something in there that could have saved him?”
“Nothing could have saved him, Elise. Doyle must have given the order for Bascombe’s murder before he got on that ship. Perhaps before Bascombe even gave you the letter.”
She hoped that were true. She could not bear to have another death on her conscience.
“And I think it may be best that you never delivered this.” With an apologetic glance, he broke the seal, opened the packet and withdrew a single sheet of paper.
“But, Lord Eastman—”
He read the letter, then read it a second time. His face was less troubled when he looked back at her. “I will take it to him, Elise. He will need to see this. Is there anything else?”
“I…from the day I saw him skating on the canal, Mr. Doyle has been asking about anything I might have brought from St. Claire. Any souvenir or keepsake. I thought it was because Captain Gilbert had died….”
Hunt cursed and stood, going to look out the window. “Doyle killed Gilbert for this letter. He thought the governor had given it to him. He has been searching for it since.”
The robbery! Barrett’s papers riffled. And it had been Mr. Doyle looking for that little packet safely tucked in the attic? “When he came to pay his respects yesterday, he asked me if there was anything he could fetch me from my house. And he asked again about the things I’d brought from the island.”
Hunt turned back to her. “Listen to me, Elise. If he thinks you have the letter, he will not hesitate to kill you for it. Do not be alone with him, whatever you do. Turn him away if he calls again. This is the last piece,” he held up the letter. “I think we have everything we need to make a case for treason, now. But it will take a day or two to put it together. I’ll go to Eastman now and put it in his lap. Then I will be back this evening. Meantime…”
Elise stood as he came toward her. “Yes?”
He slipped his arms around her and kissed her deeply, as he’d done last night, until she was weak and senseless. “Think of me.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hunt had not thought it possible to crowd even more people into his tiny office, but somehow they fit. Auberville, Travis, Charlie, Eastman and Andrew stood lounging against bookshelves, walls and cabinets, listening in rapt attention as he finished his story.
Eastman reached out for the letter Hunt had just read aloud. “So Bascombe suspected Doyle all along? Why the hell didn’t he tell me?”
“He couldn’t trust the courier pouch. He knew Doyle, as the chargé d’affaires, also had access to that pouch. The only thing he could think to do was request that he be reassigned. I suppose he thought if Doyle was in some other part of the world, he would forget about piracy. And without him on the island to pass the information to Rodrigo, the whole operation would fall apart, thus solving the problem.”
“So Langford, as my clerk, could copy shipping schedules, routes, bills of lading, and any other useful particulars—thus from Langford to Doyle to Rodrigo. The men be damned!”
“It is worse than that. I believe Doyle planned the whole thing years ago, just after his first assignment on St. Claire. He saw the potential and seized the opportunity.
“And they were ready to blackmail you,” Hunt added with a grin. “I nearly believed it. When Charlie showed me the deposits into your account, I could think of no other reason. Then I noted that the deposits were all recent. You see, from the time Doyle knew he was going to be sent home, he was planning to return. He arranged for Bascombe to be killed, and should anything happen to Rodrigo, Sieyes would take over. And all with scarcely an interruption in their scheme.”
Eastman looked thunderstruck. “Is that what those deposits were for? I thought it was an error and would be corrected.”
Hunt took the letter back. “I’d like to keep this for the time being. I have reason to believe that Doyle killed Captain Gilbert looking for this. And I think he made more than one attack on Lady Barrett—one on St. Claire, and one just two nights ago at Thackery’s. He would be the one who told Rodrigo that Layton was a spy, and that we were coming to Blackpool. And he hired a killer here in London to put me out of his way. He wants this letter, gentlemen, and he is going to have to come to me to get it.”
“Good work, Lockwood,” Eastman said. “I am off to arrest Langford.”
“Not yet, if you please. Keep your eye on him. Have him followed. But do not let him know we have discovered his game. I do not want anything alerting Doyle that we are on to him. Once I’ve found him, we’ll arrest Langford.”
“Be careful,” Auberville warned. “Seems to me you are painting a target on your chest by keeping that letter.”
Hunt nodded. “That is my plan.”
There was a knock and Andrew, closest to the door, opened it. Harry Richardson was standing there, a handsome young boy at his side. His dark hair and wide green eyes were so like Elise’s that Hunt felt a tug at his heart.
Harry grinned. “See, lad? I told you there’d be a party.”
“We had him,” Sarah said, a scowl marring her pretty face. “We knew exactly where he was. And then, when Mr. Renquist went back to fetch him, poof! He was gone.”
Elise took a deep breath and braced herself, all Barrett’s threats coming back to haunt her. My brother knows where he is, and he knows what to do if anything happens to me. “Where was he, Sarah?”
“Just out of town, with…your brother.”
Her brother? Oh, how could he? But she knew quite well how he could. Money. Everything had always come down to that for Franklin Clarke. But would he actually harm William? That would be stooping low, even for Franklin.
“Do you have any idea where he might ha
ve hidden him? Any place he would feel safe in leaving him?”
Elise shook her head. “Did he say anything?”
Sarah wouldn’t meet her eyes. “He said, ‘Good riddance to the boy.’”
She wished she could tear at her hair, scream her frustration to the heavens or raise Barrett from the dead and make him tell her what he’d done with William. Instead, she stood up from her dressing table and went to look out her window at the sound of a coach arriving. Pray it was Hunt! She needed him now—his solid strength, his undaunted determination, his calm reassurance that everything would come aright.
Though night had fallen, the streetlamp was bright enough for her to see the Lockwood crest. She was about to turn and go downstairs to greet him when she saw him reach back into the coach and lift something out.
And there, beneath the streetlamp, Hunt knelt in front of a little boy, straightened the lapels of his jacket and smoothed his unruly brown hair. She covered her mouth to silence her sob of joy. Then Hunt held the boy’s shoulders as he spoke, and the boy nodded and threw his arms around Hunt’s neck.
Elise’s heart swelled and she nearly burst with love for both these men.
Beside her, Sarah gave her a quick hug. “Thank heavens! Go to them, Elise.”
She raced down the stairs just as the butler opened the door and Hunt walked in.
“Mama!” William cried and ran into her arms. “I missed you so much!”
“William!” she sobbed. She looked into Hunt’s eyes, unable to speak for utter joy. He smiled at her and nodded.
“Mama, Hunt says I am to stay with you now. May I?”
“Yes. Forever, Will.”
Hunt slipped one arm around her and the other around William, ushering them toward the small private parlor in the back of the house, Sarah trailing behind with a beaming smile.
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