At Long Last

by Shirlee Busbee

  "How?" Jeremy demanded, suspicious.

  Patrick pulled on his ear. "It isn't easy to explain," he began slowly. "But we think that Boots took advantage of her—used her love of your father to benefit himself. We think that she may know who Boots is. We've narrowed it down to one of Tony's Daggett relatives, but we don't know which one."

  "Does she?"

  "Probably," Tony admitted reluctantly.

  "And she told you who he is?" Jeremy asked looking at Patrick.

  Patrick looked at Tony, who made a face and shrugged his shoulders.

  "Well, not exactly," Patrick said lamely. "Actually, I never asked her to name him."

  "What? Why ever not?" demanded Jeremy, his blue eyes incredulous. "If Mother knows who this villain is, why didn't you simply ask her to tell you?"

  "Because I didn't want her to know that we don't know who he is—I acted as if I knew his identity," Patrick muttered uncomfortably.

  So far Patrick had managed to skip around the complete truth, but keeping Mary's part in the debacle of five years ago from her son was proving damned difficult. Patrick didn't know how Tony would have handled the meeting with Mary, but he had managed the situation as best as he was able. Mary Montgomery had been caught off guard and had confessed more than he had hoped, but she was no fool and was likely to prove a wily adversary—as Arabella had warned. Even if he had ignored Arabella's advice and had simply asked Mary to name Boots, he didn't think she would have proven to be very cooperative. Everything else aside, she disliked and distrusted both him and Tony—why should she help them? If anything, she was more than likely to throw a rub their way.

  He was convinced that Arabella's reading of her stepmother was correct; a demand for Boots's identity would have sealed Mary's lips and revealed the weakness in their own hand. His blackmail attempt and pretense about knowing who Boots was had seemed the likeliest way to find out who had been her partner in destroying the engagement between Tony and Arabella.

  "But why? She would have told you. It seems to me," Jeremy said disgustedly, "that you have turned a simple matter into a complicated one."

  "Dash it all!" Patrick exclaimed, stung by the criticism from the very man he was trying to protect. "She wouldn't have told me, you young fool!"

  "But why not?" Jeremy asked bewildered. "You said she was helping you—why wouldn't she tell you his name?"

  Patrick threw an agonized glance at Tony.

  "Because she's afraid of him," Tony interjected quickly, improvising as he went. "He's threatened to hurt you and the children if she exposes him, but she's willing to help us trap him. Patrick has asked her to write to Boots, telling him that he has the note, and she has agreed to do so."

  It was clear that Jeremy suspected that there was something smoky about the story he was being told, but the main facts hung together and made a twisted kind of sense. He also discovered that, for the present at least, he preferred to leave the subject of his mother's involvement alone. She was helping them find Boots, and that was the important part.

  "So what do we do now?" Jeremy asked.

  "We wait for Boots to try to kill me," Patrick said cheerfully, relieved that the heavy ground had been covered safely. "You and Tony shall have the pleasant task of seeing that I stay alive and that we catch Boots in the process of trying to murder me... hopefully, before he manages to put a period to my existence."

  "I think it will be simpler and much safer, if we merely follow the servant who will be delivering the note that Mary is no doubt writing at this very moment," Tony said dryly. "Since Franklin has his own bachelor quarters in town and Uncle Albert is living at River's Bend, their home plantation, we shouldn't have any trouble identifying Boots."

  * * *

  Tony was correct: Mary was indeed writing a note to Boots at that very moment, but he miscalculated about her use of a servant to deliver it. Shaken and alarmed by Patrick's visit, it took her several moments to compose herself after he had left. When she finally had herself in hand, she sat down at her dainty writing table and swiftly wrote out her message. The existence of the note to Molly Dobson made her wary about entrusting her own note to a mere servant and after finishing it and sealing it, she decided to see that the missive reached the hand of its intended receiver herself. She could trust Daggett to see that it was destroyed. He was very careful that way. Her lips tightened. And he should have been more careful about what became of the note he had written to that slut Molly Dobson. She shrugged. There was nothing she could do about that now. Now all she had to worry about was seeing that her note reached him and that he could think of a way to pull the teeth from that detestable Blackburne.

  * * *

  Delivering her note to its intended recipient proved relatively easy. It was simple enough for her to press the note into Daggett's hand that night when they met at a small soiree being held at the Gayle plantation. In this case, small meant thirty people or more, and as she wended her way through the gaily garbed group, nodded to this acquaintance and that, she was positive that no one had seen her pass on the note.

  Despite Arabella and Jeremy's attendance at the same function and their discreet surveillance, neither one of them was able to report anything of interest back to Tony and Patrick when they met later that evening at Greenleigh.

  They were gathered in the front saloon, the four of them scattered comfortably about the room. Tidmore had served the gentlemen whiskey and Arabella a cup of steaming mint tea. Leaving behind a full decanter and a silver pot with more tea, he bowed and departed. Like the good servant he was, his face gave no clue as to what he thought about the oddness of his mistress entertaining two well-known rogues at that hour of the night—even if her brother was present.

  Her bronze satin slippers lying on the floor in front of the sofa, her bare feet tucked up under the skirts of her amber-hued silk gown, Arabella said wryly, "Tidmore is bound to wonder what is going on. It is shocking enough that I chose to live by myself, but after tonight, I am sure that he and his wife will be convinced that I am becoming quite fast."

  "Will they talk, do you think?" Tony asked, a slight frown marring his forehead.

  She shook her head. "No. They are loyal to me." She made a face. "They will just worry and fuss at me—very, very diplomatically and with great affection."

  Seated beside her on the couch, his long legs sprawled in front of him, Tony lifted her hand and kissed it. "It is very easy, my love, to view you with great affection. I know I certainly do."

  "Must you?" Patrick asked in a pained tone, though his gray eyes were twinkling. "We have important things to discuss—you may woo and court your wife at another time."

  Arabella blushed, and Tony laughed.

  "Of course," Tony said easily. "And you're right." He glanced across to where Jeremy stood in front of the fireplace, one arm resting on the mantel. "You saw nothing? Nothing at all?"

  Jeremy made a disgusted face. "Oh, we saw plenty. All three of the Daggetts were there this evening and Mother greeted and chatted with each one of them. But I never saw her pass any note to one of them."

  "Jeremy's right," Arabella added. "If I hadn't known better, I would never have thought she had anything on her mind but visiting and having a pleasant evening with friends. Cousin Agatha was by her side most of the time, and I don't remember there being any particular time Mary was alone with either your uncle or your cousin Franklin." She looked thoughtful. "Or Burgess for that matter. She spoke to each of them, but I couldn't see that she acted strange or different than she did with everyone else. I definitely did not see her pass on anything."

  Patrick, who had been seated in the chair across from the sofa where Arabella and Tony sat, got up and took a brief turn around the room. "I was so certain," he said half-angrily, half-ruefully, as he came back to stand in front of the pair on the sofa, "that she would send the message to him by a servant. I thought by now we would know who he is."

  "We can't be positive that she has even passed the message on
to him," Jeremy said quietly. "While we are here speculating, one of the servants from Highview could be trotting down the road, the note clutched in his hand."

  "Thank you very much for that observation, dear brother," Arabella said tartly. "It is so reassuring to me to know that the message that may send a murderer after my husband is at this very moment being delivered."

  "Well dash it all, Bella! I was only trying to consider all the possibilities," he replied defensively. "Tony and Patrick spent the entire afternoon and evening lurking in the woods watching for one of the servants to leave, while at the soiree you and I hovered over Mama like a hawk over a rabbit. She probably thinks we've gone daft. I can tell you that Cousin Agatha sent me some deucedly odd looks." He grinned sheepishly. "She even complimented me on my care of my mama. Said I was a good boy to watch over my mother so solicitously."

  Everyone smiled. A small silence fell, and they sipped their whiskey and tea and considered the situation.

  "Well?" Jeremy finally asked. "What are we going to do now?"

  Tony grimaced. "For now, we can do nothing but wait." He glanced at Patrick and grinned. "And as Patrick said earlier, wait for Boots to try to kill him."

  Patrick bowed mockingly. "Anything for my friends, dear sir. Even my life." His teasing manner passed, and he mused aloud, "I wonder if Boots has even received the note. Or if, as Jeremy suggested, it is indeed being delivered at this very moment."

  * * *

  If Boots had been surprised when Mary had pressed the tightly folded slip of paper into his hand at the Gayle soiree that evening, he had given no sign of it. A charming smile fixed on his face, he had gone on as if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred. But the small slip of paper burned in his hand, and even after he had carefully tucked it into his waistcoat pocket, he was uncomfortably aware of it.

  It wasn't until after the soiree had ended and he had ridden home that he had any privacy in which to read it. The contents angered him more than they alarmed him, and the more he thought about it, the less disturbed he became. He was almost relieved.

  So Blackburne has Molly's note, he thought slowly. Now isn't that interesting! And he is attempting to blackmail Mrs. Montgomery and me. I wonder whose idea that was? Tony's or Blackburne's? At any rate, he didn't believe Blackburne's threat for a moment. Or that Tony didn't know every move that Blackburne made. They probably plotted it all out together, he mused with a thin smile.

  Absently tapping his bottom lip with the note from Mary, he wandered around the small room. It was obvious that he was going to have some major, er, tidying up to do. And rather smartly, too. Mary was no threat; she never had been—which was the only reason she was still alive. No, she'd keep her mouth shut. She had too much to lose if the truth came out. Basically proper ladies were so alarmed by even the merest hint of scandal being attached to their names that most, like Mary Montgomery, would rather die than admit having sailed too close to the wind, no matter the reason. So, for the time being, she wasn't a problem. But Tony and Patrick... They had to be taken care of. And, of course, Arabella, too.

  He frowned. He knew it had been a mistake when he had crept into Arabella's bedroom and tried to frighten the whereabouts of the note from her. Except for gaining her room and his undignified escape, nothing had gone right that night. Unconsciously he reached up and touched the spot where the pitcher had hit him. He was, he admitted, still furious at Arabella for having bested him—and with a water pitcher at that.

  He had cursed himself for a fool a dozen times for having acted so recklessly that night, knowing that this present situation was his own damned fault. He couldn't have aroused Arabella's curiosity more than if he had sent a note himself, telling her to look for a mysterious object. He glanced at the note he held in his hand. Obviously she had found Molly's note and briefly he wondered where she had found it, but then he moved on to more pressing things.

  Tony. Patrick. Arabella. Each one had to die. But how? Avoiding detection and suspicion had always been paramount in his mind—besides the fortune, of course.

  He sighed. He certainly hadn't planned to become a murderer. In fact, he had planned nothing, he admitted frankly. It had all just come about.

  Certainly he had never planned Mercy's death. He smiled. He had merely wanted to stir things up and see what would happen when Tony learned that she had run off with that Terrell fellow. It had been so easy to drop the word into the ear of one of the biggest gossips in Natchez, knowing the fool would run straight to Tony with the tale—greatly embellished by that time.

  No, he hadn't planned Mercy's death, but he had been pleased that things had worked out so providentially. After her death, he couldn't deny that he had hoped that Tony would drink himself into a stupor just as his father had done and kill himself, but that hadn't happened. Ah well, one couldn't have everything.

  As for Elizabeth, well that, he freely admitted, had just been plain bad luck. Of course he hadn't been happy when Tony had remarried. After Mercy had died he had grown used to the idea of Tony breaking his neck someday and the Daggett fortune ending up in its rightful hands, but then that pleasing prospect hadn't happened. No, instead Tony had married again.

  He had been reasonably content to wait, not yet having committed himself to cold-blooded murder.

  Having become obsessed with the notion of having all of the Daggett fortune—and not just the portion doled out to his side of the family—for his waiting game to pay off, it was imperative that Tony remain unencumbered. Elizabeth had to go, but he hadn't yet hit upon a way to remove her when she had surprised him rifling through her jewelry box that night.

  Which one of them had been more surprised was hard to tell, but he at least had had the presence of mind to bring up his pistol and shoot her before escaping out the upper veranda doors. My God! But he had been terrified as he had fled over the railings of the veranda and ran for his horse, hidden nearby in the forest. His heart had pounded so violently he had been convinced that everyone within five miles of him could hear it..

  Elizabeth's murder had shaken him badly. He had never killed anyone in his life and he had been thoroughly shattered by what he had done—shattered enough that any notion of murdering Tony was pushed aside. As time had passed, however, he had become more used to the idea of murder to gain what he wanted, and viewed Elizabeth's murder as something that had been simply necessary.

  It was the silly bitch's own fault, he thought disdainfully. If she had gone with Tony to dinner at Blackburne's, as I'd assumed she had, none of it would have happened. Not then at any rate. But certainly before the brat she carried was born.

  It was probably just as well that he had been running so desperately low on cash at the time that he had considered robbing Tony's rooms upstairs at Sweet Acres. And he probably wouldn't have, if, when he had called earlier in the day, Tony hadn't mentioned that he was dining at Blackburne's that evening. It had been a mistake on his part, Boots admitted, to assume that Elizabeth would be accompanying Tony, but it had all worked out in the end.

  At least with Arabella, he hadn't had to resort to murder. Yet. He had been as shocked and startled as anyone else when Tony and Arabella had become engaged five years ago. Ironically, he had been nerving himself finally to kill Tony when the engagement had been announced. Used to thinking of the Daggett fortune as coming his way one day, it had been imperative that a wife or child was not in Tony's immediate future. Glad to put off the moment he would have to risk his own neck to kill Tony, he settled for destroying the betrothal. Considering the way her family felt about the engagement, it had been child's play to enlist Mary's help and set up the scene at the lodge. That, he decided with a reminiscent smile, had worked out perfectly.

  Until recently. His smile vanished, and he scowled.

  He'd invested a lot of time in his quest for Tony's portion of the Daggett fortune. In the beginning he'd never thought it would take so long—he'd certainly never planned to wait for more than a few years to get his hands on it
, but he was not a brave and reckless soul like Tony. He had to be careful. Didn't want anyone to suspect him. And then, he thought with a smile, there was the Westbrook fortune. Ah, for that he could wait. It made the fortune held by both sides of the Daggett family look paltry in comparison.

  In time his money problems had eased, and that had made the wait more endurable. He would admit, however, that if Tony had managed to break his neck anytime during the past decade or so, he would not have shed any tears—even if it meant giving up a large part of the Westbrook money.

  His expression grew sullen. Glancing at Mary's note he realized that he was not going to be able to wait until after Tony inherited the remainder of the Westbrook fortune to act. It was true Tony's current fortune was impressive, but combined with the Westbrook fortune... His lips thinned. To have come so close only to lose in the end was galling and a burning sense of angry, bitter resentment flashed through him. That damned Tony! The bloody bastard had ruined everything! He was, he admitted with an ugly smile, going to enjoy finally killing Tony. And his dear friend, Patrick Blackburne. And of course, sweet Arabella. He took a deep, calming breath. Now how, he wondered, was he going to kill the three of them without any hint of blame traveling his way?

  Pacing the confines of his room, Boots gave it a great deal of thought. Dawn was just breaking when an idea occurred to him. Oh, how delicious, he thought smugly. And it will work, with no one doubting the conclusion.

  Smiling, he sat down and wrote three notes. Yawning, he stood up and stretched. Bed for a few hours, and then he would see to it that the notes were delivered. By this time the next day, it would all be over. He frowned. There would be, of course, a few more details to take care of, but he didn't feel they were beyond his capabilities. After all, once one had murdered, what were a few more?

  * * *

  When the note was delivered to Arabella that evening, she was sitting on the veranda enjoying the faint, refreshing breeze coming up from the river. The sight of the small black servant astride a rather moth-eaten mule loping up her driveway had surprised her, and when she discovered that he had come to deliver a note to her, she was aware of a flutter of anxiety.