by Jo Goodman
"I have already decided that I must get her away from Bowden Street."
"Robert and Esme, also."
"Of course."
"Where will they go?"
"A safe place. Trust me."
"I do." She hesitated. "I could help you."
"I think not."
"The children trust me. You don't know them."
Eastlyn supposed the time had come to tell her about his encounter with young Robert Colley. "That is not precisely true. I expect Robert will not have forgotten me." Before she could insert a question, East told her the whole of it. He thought Sophie would be unhappy with him for disturbing the nursery, but he was not prepared for the sharp regret that made her teary. "I didn't mean to wake him," he said quickly, "but you must see that I had to return his soldiers. He would have been blamed for the missing ledger otherwise."
She nodded and gave him a watery smile, blinking back the tears. "You mustn't mind me. I expect it is because I miss them. You cannot know what it was like to be shut away from them for an entire month. I could hear them whispering in the hall. Sometimes Esme would slip drawings under my door. They did not understand any of it, of course, but I imagine they thought I had done something terrible to be locked in my room for so long. I was glad when Tremont made me accompany him to the Park. It was far better than being a prisoner at Bowden Street."
East stood and went to her. She stepped into his embrace and laid her head on his shoulder. His chin nudged her hair. It was no less a sweet comfort for him than it was for her. "Robert will be happy to see you again," he said. "His sister, also, I expect." He heard Sophie sniffle once, then felt her searching the pockets of his frock coat for a handkerchief. He set her away from him as she blew her nose and then led her back to the bench. She sat while he stacked the ledgers again and carried them to the table.
"I was never able to find your journal," he said, setting the books down. "I searched for it in the carriage and later, in my home. It doesn't seem that I left it behind, so I must have carried it here with these. Did you come across it?"
"No. Where did you find it in the first place?"
"At Number Fourteen."
"That's not possible. If you had taken it from Tremont Park, that would be understandable, but not from Bowden Street. I left none of them behind when I departed for the country."
"You are certain?"
"Quite. They are all accounted for. Why did you think it was mine? Did you read it?"
"No. That is, I only glanced at it. I found it when I was returning Robert's soldiers to the toy chest. I thought you would want it back, so I took it."
"If you found it there, it was probably one of Abigail's."
"She kept a diary?"
"She used to. I do not think she writes often now. Sometimes she wrote stories for the children. I expect it was one of those that you found."
East said nothing. He ran a hand through his hair, furrowing it deeply as he contemplated a point beyond Sophie's shoulder. The line of his mouth had flattened, and his eyes were narrowed.
"What is it?" She was becoming familiar with this particular expression of East's and knew it was nothing behind her that had captured his attention. "East?"
"I'm not certain," he said.
"Perhaps if you say it aloud..."
A crease appeared between his eyebrows, and he took a short, impatient breath before he spoke. "What if the journal was originally with Dunsmore's ledger? And what if Robert found it when he hid his soldiers there?"
"He cannot read her script," Sophie said. "He would have mistaken it for one of his mother's storybooks."
"Yes. And carried it back to his room."
"Why is that important?"
"It's not. What is important is why Dunsmore would have kept one of Abigail's journals in the same hiding place as his ledger." Now East focused his eyes sharply on Sophie and saw that she understood. "We have to find the journal."
Sophie was already rising to her feet. "If you truly carried it into the house, then it must still be here." She swept through the door as he opened it and felt him closely at her back as she hurried up the stairs. On the threshold to her bedchamber, she paused. "Wait here a moment. We must pretend everything is as it was on the night of the ambassador's ball." She did not wait to confirm that he was in agreement, but slipped inside her room and closed the door.
Sighing, East hooked his left arm as if he were hefting the books he had carried in that night. He placed his right hand on the doorknob and gave it a small twist. Sophie flung the door open and pulled him into the room. Her kiss was not as urgent as the one she had offered a fortnight earlier, but she threw her arms around him just as fiercely, and he had to tighten his grip on the imaginary pile of ledgers under his arm.
Sophie broke the kiss suddenly and whispered against his mouth, "What happened next?"
"I believe you demonstrated considerable eagerness to have me in your bed."
That was how Sophie remembered it also. She pulled him toward the bed, more impatient now than persuasive, her lips but a hairsbreadth from his. "It is awkward, is it not? Did it seem so at the time?"
"If it did, I didn't mind." He looked down at himself and realized his arm was no longer in a position to hold the books. "I dropped them here."
Sophie eased her arms from around his neck, but stayed close. "Here? At the foot of the bed?"
"Yes... and one started to fall... and—" East hunkered down and began sweeping under the bed with his hand. "I remember pressing it against the bed with my knee, trying to keep it from dropping to the floor and waking your aunt."
Sophie joined him, lowering herself until she was prostrate with a clear view of under the bed. "Will you give me the candle, please?"
East took it from her bedside table and put it in her hand before he stretched out on the floor as well. The tiny flame was all that was necessary to reveal the location of a book far under the bed. The green leather spine was dulled by a few dust motes, but it was recognizable to East as the journal he'd found.
Dropping his shoulder, East stretched his arm far enough to catch the book with his fingertips. "I must have kicked it under here." He pulled it out and sat up, leaning back against the bed frame. Sophie joined him, drawing her legs up, careless that her silk gown was stretched tautly from knee to knee. She peered over East's lap as he opened the book.
"It is most definitely Abigail's," she said. "Though I can see why, at a glance, you would have mistaken it for mine. There is a great similarity in our copperplate script."
East nodded absently and continued to thumb through the pages, skimming the neat handwriting for particulars. "There appear to be no stories here for the children."
Sophie held up the candle to provide better light. Individual words leaped out at her as East paged through the journal, but she had no sense of the whole. "What are you looking for?" she asked. "What will make you stop long enough to read carefully?"
"Names. Dunsmore. Tremont. Your own." Although there were dated entries, they were of little help. Neither he nor Sophie had more than a vague idea when Abigail might have learned something that placed her life in jeopardy.
"Abigail called Harold 'Dearest,'" Sophie said. "She always did. I doubt she would refer to him in her diary in any other manner. Tremont has been 'Father' since she married Harold. I am 'Fia.' It is Esme's way of saying my name, and Abigail adopted it."
East gave Sophie the journal and took the candle. "You will find what we are looking for more quickly than I."
"Assuming there is something to find."
He acknowledged the truth of that, but could not bring himself to believe otherwise. "Go on," he said. His tone was both gentle and encouraging. If Sophie found nothing at all, it would be hard for her, he realized, but finding something would be harder.
Sophie started at the beginning, running her finger quickly along the edge of each page as she read. Her features remained expressionless save for intense concentration. Occasionally h
er lips parted, changing shape around words she gave no sound. For slightly more than a quarter of an hour there was only the sound of the pages being turned and the soft hiss of the candle flame.
"What is it?" East asked when he saw her finger slow. In the stillness of the room, her sharp intake of air also caught his attention. "Read it to me, Sophie."
She nodded faintly, holding the journal with a sure grip to steady her hands. "It has occurred to me that no woman can truly know the heart of the man she loves until he has become her husband. The ardency of courtship is no predictor of what may follow, indeed, courtship itself seems a cruel convention that serves to prepare no one for the realities of marriage. I do not know what I might say to him as I am no longer confident of the bent of his mind. He argues so fiercely that he frightens me, and I find myself wondering what manner of retribution there would be were I to speak my thoughts aloud."
Sophie softly cleared her throat. "That is a single entry. What follows was made sometime later, perhaps after a few hours of contemplation, perhaps after days of it. Her hand is heavier here, and the strokes are broad. Even the ink has a different appearance. I suspect she was drawing it from a different bottle." Sophie continued her voice grave, "I have determined that the children are best served if I keep my own counsel, for I realize now that I comprehend little of the ways of their father and grandfather. How fervently I wish that I might have remained in ignorance, for sometimes it seems that the stain of another generation has been visited upon my children. Can they be innocent when their blood is also his blood? It seems there is but one innocent here, and I find it increasingly difficult to look upon her. There are moments when I think she suspects the truth and remains here to punish them, mayhap punish us all. When there is a calm upon me I doubt thoughts such as these, and can understand they are but a fancy. What demands might she make on my family if she was as certain of the truth as I? She rarely speaks of her own father and never of the accident that confined him to his bed. Perhaps it is because she would find no sympathetic ear or comfort in false platitudes. How can Father offer consolation when he acknowledges openly that he shot his cousin and admits privately that he was acting according to his own conscience? What manner of conscience excuses murder? "
Sophie lowered the journal onto her lap. "I cannot read more."
Eastlyn did not take the book from her, slipping his arm around her shoulders instead. She turned into the shelter of his embrace and remained there, unmoving and quiet. There were no tears now, but a terrible ache of acceptance that closed her throat.
"It's enough, Sophie," East said gently. "You have done enough."
Sophie closed Abigail's diary. "Will it serve as proof, do you think?"
East remained silent for a long moment, thoughtful of his response. "Archimedes said that with a fulcrum and a lever that was long enough, he might move the world. The stack of ledgers belowstairs is our fulcrum." He took the journal from her lap and held it up. "And this is our lever."
Suspicious of his intentions, Sophie looked at him askance. "What is it that you mean to do?"
His smile held cold resolve, not humor. "Publish them, Sophie. Books are meant to be published."
Chapter 16
"What's wrong with calling the lot of them out and shooting them?" Lord Northam chose a card from his hand and tossed it on the table. "Your restraint is admirable, East, but what is the good of being a crack shot if you don't mean to take aim and fire?"
West made his play and took the trick. "I'm for shooting them."
"It has much to recommend it," Southerton said. He followed West's lead. "Although with so many of them to dispatch, you'd have to start deuced early in the morning. I'm afraid you couldn't count on me in that event. Like to sleep in." He felt three pairs of eyes regarding him with considerable interest and not a little knowing humor. He remained unmoved by their regard. If they wanted to see him before the noon hour, they should not have been so eager to help him find Miss Parr. What man would want to leave his bed while she was still in it? "Make your play, East. And have a care not to renege."
East made his selection and laid it carefully on top of the others. He gave South his pointed attention. "It may still come to shooting someone."
Chuckling, North played trump and took the trick. "Can't say that you'd enjoy that, South. Hurts like the very devil." He tapped the edge of his collected cards on the table, squaring off the trick. "There's also a great deal of fussing by women, one of whom is certain to be your mother. You should think about that before you take another jab at East."
South pretended to consider this sound advice. He darted a glance at Eastlyn. "You'd be cruel enough to allow me to live, wouldn't you?"
East let his faintly ironic smile speak for him.
"Bloody hell, man, but you are without a conscience." While the others were laughing, South gestured to a footman to bring drinks to their table. The play resumed until they were served; then they simply folded their cards and tossed them into the middle of the table.
The club was crowded this evening, but the conversation all around them did not impede their own. As was their manner when things of import were to be discussed, they did not invite the attention of others by behaving with unexpected gravity. Individually regarded by society as careful, considerate men, their reputation when they were in one another's company was something else entirely. No one in the club gave them the slightest heed when rich, rolling laughter fairly erupted from their table.
"Chamber pots," South said as the laughter subsided. "Damn me, if East's not talking about chamber pots again. Messy business, that. You all can't have forgotten what it was like."
"Still," West said, "it was an inspired stroke. And it brought the Bishops to heel. These account books could do the same thing, especially if East makes them available for public inspection."
North regarded East over the rim of his glass. "Do you really mean to publish the ledgers?"
Eastlyn nodded. "It is already being done."
"What about making them public?" asked South. He gathered the cards and began idly shuffling them. "There is considerably more at risk here than one of the Bishops dirtying his pants. They will not be merely made a laughingstock, East. They will be ruined."
"Are you trying to talk me out of it?" East asked.
South shook his head. "Simply advocating for shooting them."
West rolled his tumbler of Scotch between his palms. "You are inviting us rather late to the table." There was no censure in his voice; it was only a statement of fact. "But it is better than not being invited at all, I suppose." He said this last while darting a mildly critical glance at Southerton. It served to remind that worthy that he had never asked them to come to his aid. Friendships being what they were, they elected to mount a rescue anyway, as much for South's sake as to see the delectable Miss India Parr again.
East smiled as South squirmed uncomfortably under West's cool regard but spoke to save him when he considered it had gone on long enough. "I would have said something sooner, but I had to consider Sophie's wishes."
"You are a deep one, East." North sipped his drink. "Married for so long, and none of us with any inkling of it." He glanced at South and Westphal and saw by their expressions that, indeed, he had spoken for them as well. "She really was so fearful for you?"
Eastlyn nodded. "She still is. These weeks since the ambassador's ball have been difficult. First, there was the matter of the Gentleman Thief. That bit of intrigue did nothing to ease her mind. I think she suspected me of those thefts until you had the good sense to get yourself shot during the apprehension. Even though Sophie was entirely put out with me at the time, she could still acquit me of shooting you."
This raised North's chuckle. "So you were in her good graces again, though I doubt it lasted overlong."
"How could it when South immediately got himself into a fix? Sophie was not yet settled with what Lady Dunsmore had revealed in her journal, nor with my plan to publish the whole of i
t, when I learned that I must leave London."
"Didn't say you must," South said somewhat defensively.
"Lady Northam said we must. Women always think they know what it is we should do, and I think it is badly done of them to be right so often."
This gave them all pause. Eastlyn finished his drink and then broke the silence. "There is more," he said quietly. "Sophie is carrying my child."
That news effectively put the others back in their chairs as they considered the likely order of events. "God's truth," West said feelingly, "it is a good thing that you married her." A muscle jumped in his jaw. "Society has no use for bastards."
Because East understood the very personal nature of this remark, he let it pass. "I want to live with my wife," he said. "I want to be able to escort her on my arm as my marchioness. Whatever scandal attaches itself to us, it will be short lived. I would prefer that none of it touches our child. To that end gentlemen, it is better that I confront the Bishops now."
"What about Dunsmore?" North said. "You have been clear in the telling of this that he is no member of the Society."
"And he will be dealt with apart from them." They did not ask East to explain himself, and he did not offer.
"What do you require of us?" South asked.
East pointed to the cards in South's hands. "Deal," he said. "And I shall explain all."
* * *
The invitations went out two days following. Each was sent in an elegant envelope that had been made with linen fibers and flecked with gold. The carefully set seal was that of the Prince Regent. The fine copperplate engraving on the card inside couched the command for the presence of each man as a request. It was to be a sennight hence that the prince would dine with company at Windsor Castle. No one who received this invitation considered declining it. It would not be politic to do so, no matter what personal opinion was harbored for the prince. There always existed the possibility that an opportunity would present itself to encourage Prinny on a different course of thinking, one that would parallel one's own and win favor with like minds in Parliament.
