Bexley-Smythe Quintet 02 - Rhyme and Reason

by Catherine Gayle

  “Mr. Goddard!” she repeated more insistently.

  Halfway down the steps in the front of the house, Thomas stopped and turned. “Yes?” he said impatiently.

  Miss Emery could hardly catch her breath from chasing after him. “Let me come with you. I have an idea of where they might be.”

  There wasn’t time to waste arguing with her. He nodded, then looked at his horses. “Can you ride?”

  “As well as any man of my acquaintance and a great deal better than some.”

  The butler had already fetched her bonnet and gloves. He pressed them into her hands before she walked through the door and outside. “You aren’t in your riding habit, miss. Your father will be most displeased…” Nevertheless, he turned to fetch something to put over her dress.

  Miss Emery raced down the steps and took Thomas’s arm without waiting for Sadler to return with her pelisse.

  “Toward the park,” she said as he helped her up to the sidesaddle. “Lady Venables overheard Sir Lester saying something about the seclusion afforded by the arbor, though she didn’t realize there was any greater significance to what she heard.”

  The seclusion of the arbor? Good God. Thomas leapt up into his own saddle. As he took the reins from the footman who’d remained with his horses, the butler raced out the door and down the steps with Miss Emery’s pelisse.

  “What should I tell Lord and Lady Teasdale about where you’ve gone?” he asked. He held it limply in his hands as they both nudged their mounts into motion.

  “I’m sure you can think of something to tell Mama,” Miss Emery called over her shoulder, thoroughly heedless of the others walking by on the street who might hear. “If you can’t, ask Rose. She’s always got an answer waiting on her tongue.” The butler likely couldn’t hear the last of that because of how far they’d already traveled.

  Thomas glanced over at her. She had pulled her gloves and bonnet on haphazardly. The bonnet seemed likely to fly off at a moment’s notice. Even still, a look of fierce resolve was settling in her eyes.

  Christ, why had he allowed her to come with him? Lord and Lady Teasdale probably wouldn’t be very happy to know she’d gone off alone with Thomas, of all people. Particularly not when she wasn’t properly attired. And if Hammond truly had taken Mattie to some secluded arbor at the park, and Thomas took Miss Emery there as well, was he any better than the baronet?

  She was an excellent rider as she’d claimed. His horses were racing down the streets as fast as he dared travel with carriages, other horses with riders, and people on foot. The horses’ hooves clopped against the cobblestones, rattling around in his brain.

  He had only wanted to do what was right for Mattie, but he couldn’t risk another lady’s reputation in the bargain. He drew back on his reins. She glanced over her shoulder as he fell behind, then turned around to meet him where he’d drawn his mount to a stop.

  “We didn’t think this through. I should take you back.”

  Miss Emery’s jaw dropped and she gasped. “Absolutely not. There’s no time, you said so yourself.”

  “But your reputation,” Thomas insisted.

  “If Mattie’s reputation can survive all her brother has done, then mine can survive a ride on a horse with a gentleman in the park. I will not sit by while a scoundrel ruins her, sir.” With that, Miss Emery crossed her arms over her chest and stared forward, not looking anywhere but straight ahead.

  For a few more moments, Thomas warred with himself over turning around despite Miss Emery’s objections. But then what she had said finally got through all the thoughts running rampant in his head: if Mattie’s reputation can survive all her brother has done…

  How deeply had Lord Stalbridge’s gambling problems (and whatever else he might have done) harmed his sisters? If the scandal had been great enough she worried about telling even him about it, then she likely had few decent options for marriage. If Sir Lester damaged her reputation and it was no longer simply the pall cast over the sisters by the brother’s actions…

  Thomas was more certain than ever before that Sir Lester Hammond’s interest in Lady Matilda Bexley-Smythe was an ill omen, and that it had everything to do with Stalbridge’s gambling.

  He urged his horse back into a gallop, certain Miss Emery would follow.

  He only hoped he wasn’t already too late.

  For more than an hour, Thomas and Miss Emery had been jointly scouring every inch of the park and arbor in their search for Mattie and the rascal Hammond. As of yet they’d had no success. Their failures had led them to stop and ask people in the park if they’d seen either of them on more than just a few occasions.

  “Oh, yes,” Mr. Jenney, the local butcher, had said. “They passed by here quite some time ago. How could we have missed them, what with the reckless manner in which Sir Lester was driving that curricle?”

  Then a bit later, Mrs. Lennox had added, “When you find him, let him know I’ll be reporting him to the magistrate for being a lawless degenerate. He could have hurt someone, the way he was driving that curricle. It’s a miracle he didn’t harm Lady Matilda, the poor dear. She looked quite fearful.”

  “How odd. You’re not the only one looking for them either,” Mr. Nelson had said a few minutes after that when they’d stopped him. “Not sure what that other gent wanted with them. Some fellow on a horse I hadn’t seen here before, but so many are here on holiday there’s no telling who he is.”

  Countless others had given them similar accounts.

  None had been able to tell them the whereabouts of Sir Lester Hammond and Lady Matilda Bexley-Smythe, however, beyond something similar to, “They went off toward the arbor nearly an hour past,” or, “Everyone seems to be looking for those two. Saints above, I do hope Lady Matilda is unharmed.”

  The likelihood she remained unharmed grew smaller by the moment.

  The trees had grown thick in a vast portion of the arbor. Any number of paths took off from the main one, leading into various well-shaded venues away from prying eyes.

  Only fifteen minutes ago, Miss Emery had suggested they should separate in order to search more ground. Thomas had considered it, even if only briefly, before stopping that plan before it ever started.

  If Lord Teasdale knew that his daughter was with him—and there was no reason to believe otherwise, given Sadler’s state when the two had left—and then anything were to happen to her…

  Not knowing who else was searching for them, not to mention why someone else was searching for them, the thought of splitting up seemed far too great a risk. So they remained together, working their way bit by bit through the heavily wooded area of the park.

  The last thing he wanted was to let Miss Emery know how discouraged he was becoming. She was bound and determined that they would find Mattie before anything untoward had happened, and that her friend would be perfectly all right.

  Yet the simple fact that Mattie had been seen with Sir Lester Hammond by so many people, and that both of them were now missing, meant Miss Emery’s hopes were all in vain. In Society’s eye, something untoward already had taken place, whether that was the truth of it or not. Even if she hadn’t been physically harmed in any way, the damage to her reputation had already been accomplished.

  Lady Matilda Bexley-Smythe was as good as ruined.

  Only yesterday, he’d told her she would never have anything to worry about as long as he was with her. He’d meant it, too. But how could he protect her from her worries—not to mention his own—if he wasn’t with her?

  He’d failed her on that score, and the blow to his sense of honor was as sharp as a sword.

  “Perhaps we should try that path,” Miss Emery said, pointing to the left. She held a hand to her forehead to guard her eyes from the sun more fully than her bonnet was managing. “I think I see…well, something other than trees for once, though I can’t be sure what it is exactly.”

  Thomas turned his head in the direction she’d indicated. There was definitely something there, though wha
t it was he couldn’t be sure. They pair of them had already been fooled on a few occasions by clusters of flowers and the like.

  He didn’t want to hope, lest his hopes be dashed once more, but neither could he leave any option unexplored. “Yes, I suppose we should try that one.”

  He nudged his horse into a slow trot, and Miss Emery came along beside him.

  When they broke through a particularly dense section of beech trees into a sparse clearing, he was so startled by what he saw that he nearly lost his seat. Thomas hadn’t been unhorsed in more than ten years. He felt more comfortable in a saddle than he ever had on his own two feet, yet he hadn’t allowed himself to hope.

  Beneath a bower of green with the occasional flicker of sunlight filtering down through the disparate leaves, three horses were grazing beside a curricle. With nothing more than a brief glance at once another, both Thomas and Miss Emery prodded their mounts into a full gallop.

  Once they came around the side of the conveyance, they couldn’t have missed the shouting if they’d tried.

  “You’re a damned cur.”

  “That may be true, but it seems rich coming from a moral degenerate who has gambled away more than he ever owned in the first place. I can’t see how she’d be better off in your care, if that’s what you’d like to call the way you’ve been neglecting your mother and sisters.”

  “Being trapped into a marriage so you can have her dowry in order to hurt me would be better than being safely at home with her family, would it?”

  It must be her brother. He couldn’t imagine who else would be arguing with Hammond like this might be.

  “Stalbridge?” Thomas said to Miss Emery, just to be certain.

  She nodded.

  Thomas kicked his heels into his horse’s flank, urging it to go faster through the thicket toward the voices. He spared a glance behind him, although it proved unnecessary. Miss Emery was keeping pace with him as well as any rider he’d ever known.

  “You’d rather see her ruined, then? Half the town has seen her alone with me today you know. Her reputation is in tatters even as we speak. The only way to repair it—”

  Mattie tried to say something, but her strained words were quickly overwhelmed by the two men arguing. When Thomas and Miss Emery burst through the line of trees, though, Mattie spun around and let out a cry of surprise. She blinked as her gaze moved between the people surrounding her, though she never fully met Thomas’s eyes.

  He wanted to go to her, to draw her into his arms and offer what comfort he could, but he didn’t dare do anything of the sort with the murderous expressions coming from both Hammond and Stalbridge at the moment.

  He did drop down from his horse, however.

  “This is a private conversation, sir,” Stalbridge bit out.

  “Perhaps you ought to have had it in private then,” Thomas muttered beneath his breath. He didn’t think Stalbridge heard him, so he moved over to assist Miss Emery in dismounting as well. Then he turned to face the three in the middle of the clearing. “Lord Stalbridge, I believe you already know Lord Teasdale’s eldest daughter, Miss Emery. I’m Thomas Goddard.”

  “Goddard?” Stalbridge all but roared. He stalked across the clearing, eyes ablaze and arms swinging as though he might strike at Thomas. After a better look at Thomas’s size, however, it appeared the marquess thought better of using his fists at the last possible moment. He stood there fuming, his arms hanging limp by his side. “If you’d just done as Danby swore you would, then none of this would be happening.”

  “Perhaps Lady Matilda and I ought to have been consulted before you assumed everything would go as planned, then.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Thomas noticed Miss Emery moving closer to Mattie and taking her hand. Mattie’s head was down, as though there was nothing more interesting to look upon than her half-boots. Christ, but he hated to see that. Yet couldn’t allow too much of his focus to turn to the two ladies just now when, at any moment, Stalbridge might change his mind and attempt to plant him a facer.

  “You don’t intend to marry my sister then?”

  “Of course he doesn’t,” Hammond put in. The baronet moved closer to the other two men, his arms crossed over his chest. “If he had any intention of marrying her, he would have already used the license Danby sent him. And now that Lady Matilda has been alone with me for so long, and it’s so well known—”

  “I’ll marry her,” Thomas interrupted.

  Mattie’s head shot up, and for the first time since Thomas and Miss Emery arrived, she met his gaze. He couldn’t tell what emotions were roiling through her at the moment—fear, joy, confusion, embarrassment—but they were close to overwhelming her. She looked fit to burst into tears at a moment’s notice.

  Nothing in the world could convince him to look away. “I’ll marry you, if you’ll have me.” His chest felt tight with air he couldn’t seem to expel. Keeping his eyes trained upon Mattie, he spoke to Stalbridge again. “If your sister is willing to marry me, then she can have the protection of my name, such as it is. There’s no need for her to be anywhere near this blackguard ever again, even if he thinks he’s soiled her reputation. Whatever is between you two, whether it’s money or something more sinister than that, you can sort it out in some other manner than by bartering a lady’s dowry.”

  A single tear dropped down Mattie’s cheek. Thomas wanted to brush it away, but his feet were rooted in place.

  “I don’t have the marriage license any longer. Before I ever met Lady Matilda, I’d ripped it into bits and tossed it into the ocean. I didn’t believe I could ever be good enough to marry a lady. Not someone of my low birth. But if it is between me and Hammond, then by God, Mattie… Just marry me. Let me prove myself an honorable man, even if I’m no gentleman. We can have the banns called, or I’ll purchase another license, anything you want as long as you’ll marry me.”

  “You don’t…” Mattie blinked back more tears. She spread her free arm wide, as though to encompass all that was happening around them. “You really don’t care about all of this? The scandalous nature of it all? You would still have me as your wife even with what they’ll say after today?”

  Thomas had to hold back a chuckle. “My father was a duke’s by-blow, and I grew up as part of the servant class. I’ve never taken part in Society, never been to a London Season. Why should any amount of scandal bother me in the slightest?” He closed the distance between them and dropped to a knee before her. “I’ve told you all of this before, and I meant it. I mean it. Of course I would still have you as my wife. Please, Mattie. Do me the honor of marrying me.”

  A smile as beautiful as anything he’d seen in his entire life crept to her lips. “I—”

  “I’ll be damned before I’ll let some bastard’s low-born son steal her dowry from me, Stalbridge.”

  In a blistering moment, Hammond had crossed to them and grabbed Mattie by the arm, pulling her backward despite her shriek of pain. Thomas staggered toward her, desperate to protect her in some way, but Hammond jerked her back so hard she stumbled and fell into him.

  Miss Emery covered her mouth with one hand.

  Stalbridge stood still, looking lost and pained. “He’s not… No one is stealing anything.”

  Hammond sneered. For the first time in Thomas’s experience, the baronet’s external appearance matched what he knew to be inside. “You owe me a hell of a lot more than just what her dowry consists of. Be glad I haven’t involved the authorities. She’ll marry me, you’ll give me her dowry, and we can forget about the rest.”

  A physical ache had started in Thomas’s chest and was spreading at an alarming rate through his body even to his fingers and toes. Mattie’s eyes were wild with a fear he’d never seen in her before. He hated seeing her like that.

  It was too much. He couldn’t…

  “You can have the dowry, but you can’t have Mattie,” Thomas said, without really thinking through what he was saying.

  Hammond’s eyes shot to him. “What
?”

  Stalbridge said nothing. He merely stared, slack-jawed.

  “Her dowry. It’s yours, if you’ll unhand her right now and cancel the rest of Lord Stalbridge’s debts to you.”

  “But my sister’s dowry is held in trust. It can’t be delivered to anyone but her husband,” the marquess stammered.

  Thomas ground his jaw together. “If she’ll agree, Mattie and I will marry. Her dowry will be delivered to me, and in turn I’ll give it to Sir Lester, provided he releases her this very moment, never harms her in any way again, and agrees to cancel any remaining debt you might owe him.” He looked straight at Mattie and no other. “I’m not a man of great means, but Danby has provided me with a settlement and a living. It’s not what you’re accustomed to—”

  “I don’t care,” Mattie said in a rush, and his heart lurched. “I don’t need much. Only—”

  “Stalbridge owes more than double her dowry, and that is only what he owes me.” Despite his arguments, Hammond’s grip upon Mattie’s arm was loosening by the moment. “God only knows how many others he’s indebted to. Even if I agree to your terms, what will stop the rest from doing the same as I intend or worse? There are other sisters.”

  He couldn’t worry about what might happen in the future, though, and he couldn’t try to save them all. All he had the time or energy to deal with was the present—he had to ensure Mattie’s safety in the here and now.

  “There’s nothing I can do about that,” Thomas said carefully. “And if you’re right about how many people Lord Stalbridge is indebted to, then the likelihood you’ll ever see a ha’penny more than what I’ve offered is extremely slim. If you want to walk away with anything at all, I urge you to accept my terms.”

  Hammond ran his free hand through his hair roughly. “But—”

  “Yes,” Mattie said. She pushed herself away from Hammond and crossed to stand before Thomas. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

  In the haze of emotion converging on him, Thomas hardly recognized Hammond’s voice in the background yelling that he must purchase a license and marry Mattie tomorrow and immediately hand over the funds, or Stalbridge blubbering about how he couldn’t allow Mattie’s dowry to go to the blackguard, or even Miss Emery and her squeals of delight over their betrothal.