Controlling his temper with difficulty, Justin said, “I will pay the debt, sir, but only on the condition that, in return, you relinquish authority over all Sellafield properties to me.”
“What? The devil you say! I won’t do it.”
“I am sorry to hear that. I shall endeavor to visit you occasionally in prison.”
“Now, see here, Justin, they ain’t going to throw me into debtor’s prison. I’m still a peer of this realm, damned if I’m not.”
“Then you have nothing to fear.”
“I suppose you think your mother has nothing to fear. Bailiffs in the house, me on the penniless bench, finished and aground. How do you think she will feel?”
“Perhaps she will convince you to sign authority over to me,” Justin said, moving to his desk and opening a drawer. “I had the papers drawn up two days ago. You need only sign them, and I will give you a draft on my bank.”
“That’s extortion.”
“I prefer to think of it as sanity. I’d have done it long since if I hadn’t felt guilty about inheriting the money and worried about what people would think.” More gently he added, “I will promise to seek your advice when I need it, sir, but the land will fare better in my hands than it does in yours. You know it will.”
Sellafield glared at him.
“You will have to decide quickly,” Justin said. “I should be at the palace right now, and Mama must be waiting for you to escort her to the ball.”
“Well, she ain’t,” Sellafield growled. “She dined out this evening and means to go with a party of her own.”
Fearing he already knew the answer, Justin said, “With whom did she dine?”
“Now, how the devil would I know that?”
“She ought to have told you,” Justin said. “Most wives tell their husbands where they intend to dine, and with whom.”
“That just shows you don’t know much about wives, lad. In my experience, they don’t do any such thing.”
“Mine will,” Justin said grimly.
“If you ever get one. Oh, don’t look daggers at me. I’ll sign your damned papers. Don’t see that I’ve got much choice, do I? Give them to me.”
Justin spread the papers on the desktop and moved so that Sellafield could sit to sign them. His impatience stirred again when the earl chose to read each one first, but he suppressed it, hoping he was doing the right thing.
A rap at the door heralded the entrance of a footman who looked particularly wooden-faced. “Begging your pardon, my lords,” he said, “but I’ve got a message for Lord Raventhorpe.”
“What is it?” For once Justin did not trouble to hide his impatience from a servant. To his surprise, the man hesitated, glancing at Sellafield. When Justin held out a peremptory hand, he gave him a folded slip of white paper.
Frowning, Justin unfolded it. The frown deepened and fear knotted his stomach when he read, I must see you at once. It is a matter of life and death! Letitia Deverill.
Glancing at his father, he said, “You must excuse me, sir. I have pressing business, I’m afraid. Keep one set of those papers, and leave the others there.”
“What about that bank draft?” Sellafield demanded.
“I’ll get it to you before breakfast, but I hope you believe me when I say that if you—” He broke off, turning back to tell the footman to await him in the corridor. When the man had gone, and had shut the door, Justin said, “I warn you, sir, if you don’t draw the bustle, much as I shall dislike it, I will let your creditors know that henceforth they must apply to me to settle your debts.”
“You wouldn’t do such a damned unfeeling thing!”
“Oh, yes, I will. Now, will you give me your word that you’ll make a real effort to curtail your extravagance?”
Bitterly Sellafield said, “Would you trust my word?”
“I believe it is as good as my own, sir. Do I have it?” Trying not to think about the note he held, he forced himself to wait for an answer.
“Very well, damn you, you have it.”
“Thank you.” With that, he snatched up his cloak from the chair where Leyton had left it and hurried from the room to find the footman awaiting him. Making sure the door had latched firmly, Justin said urgently, “Where is she?”
“In the little parlor off the stair hall, my lord. With her ladyship gone out for the evening, I did not know what else to do with her.”
“Of course not. I, on the other hand, know exactly what to do with her. I shall drop her in the Thames.”
The footman’s mouth twitched.
Justin grimaced. “Think that’s amusing, do you?”
“N-no, sir.” He could not meet Justin’s gaze.
With a sigh, Justin said, “Look here, I’ve got a strong notion that I’m going to want Leyton. He’s either still in my bedchamber or he’s gone to his room. See if you can find him for me without drawing my father’s notice. I don’t want his lordship to see Lady Letitia before I can get her out of the house.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Tell Leyton to wait for me in the front hall.” Turning away, he strode to the stairs and hurried down them, trying to ignore the knot of fear that had twisted his stomach since reading Letty’s note. He had not lied in telling the footman what he would like to do to her. He only hoped that she had exaggerated her need.
“Oh, thank heaven you are still here,” she exclaimed, starting toward him when he flung open the door.
One look at her told him she had not exaggerated, for her usual confident demeanor had given way to visible distress. Thus, instead of demanding to know what the devil she meant by coming to his house in such an improper way, he crossed the little room in two long strides and caught her by the shoulders.
Peering anxiously into her eyes, he said, “What is it, Letty? What has upset you so?”
Having expected him to shake her or, at the very least, to lecture her before giving her a chance to speak, Letty felt a surge of relief. “They’re going to assassinate the queen,” she said.
“What?”
“It’s true, sir. I did not know what to do, because Papa and Mama have left for the palace already, and I’ve been dismissed from my post—banished from court, in fact. I’ve still got my badge of office, but I don’t know if it will still get me into the palace, and even if I could get in, I doubt that they would allow me to approach Her Majesty. I was so afraid you’d have gone already!”
“Well, I haven’t. My carriage should be waiting at the door.”
“Very likely it’s there,” she said, “but any number of carriages are standing in the square just now. Not only did I not pause to inspect them but your porter answered the door the moment I pulled the bell. I know I ought not to have come here alone, but my companion is still sick, and Jenifry stayed with Liza. That is another whole story, I’m afraid. Oh, Justin, Catherine Witherspoon is dead, or at least she’s dying! It’s all quite horrid.”
“You can tell me everything in the carriage,” he said. “We must make haste, though. As it is, we may be too late.” Nodding to Leyton, who was waiting in the hall as ordered, to accompany them, Justin urged Letty toward the door.
“How could we be too late?” she demanded. “They won’t dare kill Victoria at a state ball with a crowd of people and the hereditary grand duke of Russia looking on. Indeed, for the moment, at least, she must be safe, although I suppose we cannot be certain of that.”
Putting a hand under her elbow as they hurried down the steps to the carriage, he said, “It would be easier to get close to her at a ball than almost any other time, I’d think, but what makes you think anyone means to assassinate her?”
“Apparently, Charles Morden gave Catherine something to give to her. Liza said Catherine meant to give it to me, actually, but I cannot think that is right. She must have thought it was a gift from Sir John Conroy—yet another attempt by the horrid man to wriggle back into the queen’s good graces. But for some reason, Catherine refused to give it to her. At least, Li
za said they fought because Catherine had refused to do as he demanded.” Letty fell silent as he helped her into the carriage, trying to remember just what else Liza had said.
Shouting to the coachman to get them to the palace as quickly as he could, Justin climbed in beside her. As they waited for Leyton to follow suit, he said, “Perhaps you had better begin at the beginning. I might understand better if I knew how you know that Catherine is dead, or dying, what the devil Liza has to do with it, and who exactly wants to assassinate the queen.”
Explaining quickly how word of her banishment from court had come just before Miss Abby summoned her to Upper Brook Street, she described all that she had heard and seen there. “Catherine said that it was a test of Morden’s power over her that he could force her to meet him at the house tonight. Even so, I’m certain that Liza said she had refused to give their gift to me or to the queen.”
“I presume he has been meeting Catherine there straight along, then.”
“Yes, only I thought she was meeting Sir John.”
Justin grimaced. “Just how did Morden force her to meet him tonight?”
“Liza said he threatened to tell Witherspoon that Catherine had seduced him, rather than the other way round,” Letty said indignantly.
“Did Catherine know what the gift was? Is that why she refused?”
Letty hesitated. “I think she must have guessed in the end. Liza said … Let me think. She said … Yes, she said that Catherine no longer believed him, that just before he struck her, Catherine said she did not believe they meant to save her, after all—meaning Victoria, of course—but really to assassinate her. So …” Again, she fell silent while she tried to order her scattered thoughts.
“Good Lord, this may be my fault,” Justin said, staring at her.
“How could that be?”
“I told Conroy that the only way he would find his way back into the queen’s favor was if he had the good fortune to save her from assassination. I was joking … No, not joking—I was being sarcastic, trying to show him how futile his quest was. Could he possibly have believed that was a way to impress her?”
“I don’t know, sir, but it isn’t Conroy who tried to force Catherine to deliver the gift. It was Morden. I’ll warrant they told her it was some sort of a harmless device that looked threatening enough to frighten Victoria.”
Justin said, “But if Catherine knew they intended to save her, the notion must at least have come from him, and thus from me. It was a stupid thing for me to say, but the more I think about it, the more likely it is that Conroy might have seen it as a way to prove himself to her. He could be a party to the plot, at all events.”
“Justin, Sir John can’t want Her Majesty dead! How could he benefit?”
“A good point, but nonetheless he must have suggested the sham assassination attempt. Perhaps now Morden means to lay all blame at his door.”
“And perhaps we are simply leaping to conclusions,” Letty said firmly. “Perhaps they have no intention of killing anyone. After all, if Catherine did not give the thing to Her Majesty …” A new thought struck her. “But why would Morden have become so murderous, then?”
“You said Liza told you he struck Catherine when she refused to deliver his gift. Perhaps he simply flew into a rage, and did not mean to kill her at all.”
“Even so, if he does mean to kill Victoria, and he suspects that Catherine lived long enough to warn her, won’t he feel a certain urgency to carry out his task?” The fear Letty had harbored from the instant that Catherine had mentioned the plot surged again. It had subsided with the opportunity to tell Justin about it, and her belief that the queen was safe for the moment, but now it threatened to overwhelm her again.
“Why do you say ‘task’?” Justin asked abruptly. “Do you suspect that he is working for someone else besides Conroy?”
“I do,” she said instantly, as her thoughts suddenly grew clear. “Moreover, I think I know who. Morden speaks German when he’s angry. I’ve heard him, and Jenifry once told me that his valet, who’s been courting her, comes from Hanover.”
Leyton, who had been sitting stiffly erect in the forward seat, made a sound that drew a glance of disapproval from his master.
Ignoring them, Letty went on. “Before Jen began cooling toward Walter, she once tried to tell me how lucky Victoria is that England allows a woman to rule, and other things that seemed odd for her to say. At first, I thought she had been reading the papers or talking politics belowstairs, but I soon realized that she was parroting someone else. When I taxed her with my suspicion, she admitted that Walter said such things, and she insisted that he sounded sensible. I pointed out certain errors in his arguments, and not long after that, she began having difficulty with him. He even struck her once, I believe.”
Leyton growled audibly.
Justin said, “A man like his master, then, but I doubt that you believe that devilish valet aspires to assassinate Victoria and has persuaded Morden to do it.”
“What I think,” Letty said with a glance at Leyton, “is that although Charles Morden serves Sir John Conroy, he also serves the King of Hanover. And if you doubt motive from that quarter, sir, you are not as astute as I think you are.”
“Dear old Cumberland,” he said musingly. “It’s certainly true that he stands to inherit Britain’s throne if anything happens to Victoria before she marries and has a child. If he’s heard that she is thinking of marrying her cousin Albert, he must be wild, and many believe that he’s killed at least once before.”
Letty looked out the carriage window. Traffic clogged the streets. “Please, tell them to hurry, or we’ll never make it in time. It’s just occurred to me that if Morden does intend to see this thing through, more people than Her Majesty may die. Justin, my parents are there, and doubtless yours as well!”
“The coachman is driving as quickly as he can,” he told her. “We’ve nearly reached Piccadilly, so we’ll be there soon. In the meantime, we had better devise a plan for when we arrive.”
“Can we not just tell the guards that someone is trying to assassinate the queen? They might not have heeded me alone, but surely they will listen to you.”
“They will listen, but what then? Recall that it is still possible there is no plot. Even if one exists, do you truly expect the queen’s guards to storm her ball?”
She chewed her lower lip. “I suppose they might hesitate to do anything so dramatic. The queen would be furious if they spoiled everything and then could find no bomb.”
“I don’t suppose Morden would show them where he’d put it, either.”
“But we must do something,” Letty protested. “At the least we must learn what gifts Her Majesty has received tonight, but only think of the time we will waste if we try to ask everyone who might have given her one! It’s the first state ball of the Season, after all. I should think a number of people will give her things.”
“The best approach would be to arrange for Her Majesty to put off opening any wrapped packages until someone can examine them,” Justin said.
“You will have to tell her, then.”
“I can’t walk bang up to her and begin speaking,” Justin pointed out. “Not only does protocol forbid it, but half a dozen people would stop me before I could gain her ear. She is more accessible to her ladies than to her gentlemen, however. If I get you inside, do you think you can manage to speak to her?”
“Yes, I must,” Letty said confidently, steadying herself as the coach picked up speed. “Until the bedchamber crisis poisoned her mind against all Tories again, she had grown quite friendly to me. The note I received did suggest that she has heard rumors about the house, though. If she has, she may order me clapped in irons rather than listen to anything I say.”
“It’s more likely that Conroy has made suggestions to someone close to her. In my opinion, at this point, he would have to be extremely careful about what he said. After all, he’d still have to explain how he knew about that house.”
&
nbsp; Letty said, “Lady Tavistock wrote the note, so he must have spoken to her. Perhaps he only insinuated the worst. The queen is certainly angry enough to accept the merest excuse to dismiss her sole Tory maid of honor.”
“Tavistock may not have said anything at all to Victoria yet,” Justin said.
“Do you think she would dare dismiss me on her own?”
“Oh, certainly, if she thought she had cause. As you noted yourself, Victoria has no reason to love you. She would readily forgive her chief lady of the bedchamber for such a small offense.”
“Well, if Her Majesty doesn’t know I’ve been dismissed, I can easily speak to her. Protocol or not, she knows I frequently act impulsively. Moreover, even if she did order my dismissal herself, I doubt they will have told all the others. They would never expect me to ignore a direct order from the queen, after all.”
“Then it’s worth a try. Whilst you approach her, I can look for Melbourne, Wellington, or your father. Any one of them will grasp the danger quickly, and two of them can walk right up to Victoria and march her out of the room, if necessary.”
Realizing that he referred to Melbourne and the duke, Letty said, “Do you think Papa wouldn’t do that if he thought it necessary, sir?”
Instead of answering her directly, Justin said quietly, “Your parents seem to have played little or no role in tonight’s incident so far. Am I to believe that they simply went straight on to the ball after learning of your dismissal?”
The silence that fell then took her mind right off what lay ahead.
Justin said quietly, “You didn’t tell them, did you?”
“I … I couldn’t. They would have been so …”
“Disappointed?”
She nodded, not looking at him.
The silence in the coach grew heavier, and for a moment she feared he would demand to know more, or tell her what a fool she had been. Then she realized he would say none of those things with Leyton present. He said nothing more, in fact, until the carriage drew to a halt before the well-lit entrance to Buckingham Palace.
Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 04] Page 30
