Valiant: Gentlemen of the Order - Book 3

by Clee, Adele

  Mr Golding’s chin dropped. He gripped the arms of the chair with his bony fingers and pushed to his feet. “Excuse me a moment while I discuss this with my nephew.”

  The second the lawyer left the room Buchanan spouted threats.

  “I swear I shall string Ramsey up from the scaffold and let the crows poke at his flabby flesh. Did I nae tell ye, lass, to stop inviting the lech into yer home? And as for that drunken devil upstairs, why I’ll shove his head in a whisky cask and wait till there are nae more bubbles.”

  Evan Sloane seemed disinterested in Buchanan’s ramblings. “Miss Hart.” His intense gaze pinned her to the chair. “When I described this unfolding nightmare, I spoke of our frustration. My comment in no way reflected the nature of our relationship.”

  Did he have to speak so openly in front of Buchanan? Yes, the man knew they were supposed to marry, but knew nothing of their amorous liaisons.

  “Pay it no mind, Mr Sloane. You were right. Mr Golding and his nephew have pushed us to the limits of our patience.”

  As if on cue, the shouting started above stairs. She hoped Mr Wicks had stumbled whilst in a drunken stupor, and the loud bang was not him assaulting his uncle.

  Evan glanced at the ceiling. “Perhaps I should intervene.”

  “It might be prudent.”

  Evan pushed to his feet, but the slow plod of footsteps on the stairs made him hesitate.

  Flustered, Mr Golding hobbled back into the room. “It seems this Ramsey fellow knows you’ve been to visit me numerous times and has asked Bonnie to probe my nephew for information. He swears he’s told her nothing about the contract or the delicate nature of our business.”

  “Bonnie’s a rum old lass. I can tell ye that.” Buchanan grinned. “Aye, she’d have told me anything I needed to know in exchange for a few shillings and my company this evening.”

  Mr Wicks was hardly discreet in his drunkenness. Drunken fools had loose tongues. No doubt Bonnie extracted enough information to please Mr Ramsey. After all, Mr Ramsey was the one bringing gifts.

  “We must assume Wicks was too inebriated to recall the conversation,” Evan said, coming to the obvious conclusion. “I caution you against telling your nephew anything about our business in future.”

  Mr Golding’s shoulders sagged. “I’m tired, Mr Sloane, weary, and seek a quick end to this matter. There’s little more for me to do or say. I suggest you attempt to find your legacy with the clues given. When you do, return to me in Long Lane, and I shall read the last entries in the notebook.”

  The lawyer was scared. Fear clung to him like a starving urchin. She had seen it that day in his office, and it gripped him now. He’d manipulated events because he wanted this business done quickly.

  “You’re hiding here,” she blurted. “It’s not just about the instructions in the notebook. You’re frightened. You believe someone has discovered you have knowledge of the clues, and now you know that man is Mr Ramsey.”

  “Money is the devil’s currency, Miss Hart. It makes good men do wicked things. If this Mr Ramsey knows of my involvement, I suspect he will come knocking.”

  “Perhaps you should remove to Keel Hall until this is all over,” Evan suggested.

  “There’s no need.” Mr Golding lowered his voice. “Should anything untoward happen, you must visit the optician.” He paused and caught his breath. “We should part now. The rest is up to you.”

  They left the house wiser than when they entered.

  In the coming days, you’ll not know who to trust.

  When Mr Golding uttered those words in his office, Vivienne hadn’t imagined he might be referring to himself. By rights, she should be angry, livid, but his actions stemmed from desperation. The same urgency to get this matter over with now compelled her.

  Vivienne and Evan waited in the carriage on Kennington Road, while Buchanan scouted the area to ensure Mr Ramsey hadn’t followed them to Lambeth. Within seconds of them settling into their seats, Evan mentioned the subject tormenting both their minds.

  “Vivienne, let me explain what I meant earlier.”

  “Honestly, there is no need. You were happy until I arrived amid a thunderstorm to turn your life upside down.” And all because Mr Golding had encouraged her to deal with things promptly.

  “I wasn’t exactly ha—”

  “I would never have held you to the contract if it wasn’t for finding our legacy. I thought our lives were in danger. I didn’t know it was Mr Wicks who’d donned a mask and ransacked my home.” Yet despite all the trauma and turmoil, she wouldn’t change a thing. She’d suffer again for one kiss from Evan Sloane’s skilled lips.

  “Vivienne, I didn’t lie earlier. The struggle for the truth has been wrought with problems. But I see our relationship as separate to the case. Indeed, I hope things continue once we’ve found our lost legacy.”

  She’d like nothing more than to spend her life wrapped in his arms, but it was a fantasy. Everything had changed.

  She had fallen in love with him, this spectacular specimen of a man who stole hearts, not bounty. These strange emotions had to be love. The longing, the profound ache, excitement, desire, her preoccupation with his happiness—the list was endless—the willingness to make sacrifices.

  “Evan, I don’t regret anything that’s happened between us, but I cannot be your mistress. And we would have been fools to marry because of a contract. I know that now.” Knowing he’d married her out of duty would hurt more than being apart.

  “What are you saying?”

  She fought the urge to slide across the carriage and ease the tension from his shoulders, soothe the frown lines from his brow. “That we should do as Mr Golding says. Concentrate on solving this quickly. Forget everything else.”

  “Forget? You’re rather fond of that word.” He remained silent for a time, his gaze focused on the window. “Will you not stay with me tonight?”

  “I think it unwise to do—”

  “Please, Vivienne.” He settled those hypnotic green eyes upon her. “Come to my room. Have the bed. I’ll take the chair. Just stay with me.”

  She smiled. “We’ll be writhing between the sheets within a minute of you closing the door.”

  He managed a smile, too. “You thrust the scroll into my hand and said you trusted me. Let me keep my word. Let me prove your trust is not misplaced.”

  How could she resist such a heartfelt plea?

  “I suppose it cannot hurt.” Everyone knew it was better to surrender to a pirate. “But I’ll not have you sleeping in the chair. You may lie on top of the coverlet.” She sighed. “I doubt I shall get a wink of sleep.”

  “You can sleep during the long carriage ride. Tomorrow we journey to Highwood.”

  Chapter 17

  Having spent the night in bed, facing each other while still fully clothed, talking about things Evan would never dare mention to his friends, let alone a woman, they both slept on the journey to Bedfordshire. But Vivienne’s insistence that Mrs McCready and Buchanan travel with them was the main reason Evan had closed his eyes.

  He had not sent word to Highwood, informing them of his impending arrival. Consequently, the air in the grand hall thrummed with nervous tension. Mrs Elkin, like most experienced housekeepers, spoke with calm aplomb when firing instructions to the staff. Maids curtsied and footmen bowed before hurrying to attend to their tasks.

  “While the maids prepare the rooms, perhaps you’d like to take tea in the drawing room, sir. I’ve taken the liberty of putting Miss Hart in the east wing, her companion in the chamber next door.”

  “Thank you, Mrs Elkin.”

  Drat! His apartment was in the west wing, hence the reason the housekeeper had placed an unmarried woman far from his reach.

  “I shall speak to Cook, sir, prepare menus for the coming days and have them brought to you within the hour.”

  Evan smiled. The woman wanted to know how long he planned to stay but would not ask directly. “Excellent. We will dine at seven o’clock. Tha
t should allow a little more time to prepare. No need to go to too much trouble as we must head back to London in a day or two.”

  The next few hours passed quickly. While Vivienne took a nap, Evan met with his steward, Mr Bradmore, who wished to take advantage of his master’s sudden appearance and discuss the plans for the new tenant cottages. The steward would have rambled on about estate business all afternoon had Evan not promised to return in a week.

  Under the guise of taking Miss Hart on a tour of the gardens, Evan escorted Vivienne on the mile walk to the memorial grounds—a row of depressing mausoleums housing the graves of Daniel and Livingston Sloane, amongst others.

  “Is Lady Boscobel buried here?” Vivienne glanced at the weathered tombs, pointed to the only one with a bouquet of hothouse flowers in a stone vase to the left of the entrance.

  Evan nodded. “My great-grandmother died at the grand old age of ninety-four, the year after I was born. Mrs Elkin changes the flowers weekly as a mark of respect.”

  “Which one is Livingston’s resting place?”

  “The one guarded by the statue of a wanderer.” He gestured to the figure of a robed man clutching a staff, perched above the entrance to a gloomy mausoleum. “Livingston and Maria are buried there.”

  “It doesn’t seem right to disturb his grave.”

  No. Evan had been plagued by similar thoughts all morning. “It won’t hurt to enter the tomb. All the clues point here—the painted vignette of the house, Gray’s poem of death, the compass leading us northeast of London. Equally, the mausoleum lies northeast of the house. We’ve every reason to believe this is where he hid the treasure.”

  Vivienne stared pensively at the entrance, lost in a sad, wistful dream. “While it must be obvious to you that finding any treasure would ease my financial burden, it was never about the money.”

  Evan closed the gap between them. The need to hold her and kiss away her melancholy took command of his senses. He clasped her upper arm and drew her around to face him.

  “It’s never been about the money for me.”

  It started as an amusement, a way to ease his boredom. It started as a need to prove his worth to a deceased relative he’d never met, to correct misconceptions, to right a wrong. And yet none of those things mattered now.

  She laughed and glanced at her surroundings. “No, clearly you have no need of pirate gold. Your sense of duty brings you here. In that respect, you possess a quality your ancestor lacked.”

  He took a moment to consider her words.

  Duty? He had no loyalty to the man who had them chasing their tails. Livingston had lived by his own code, a code some might consider selfish. Despite being born into privilege, he turned his back on his family. Perhaps his return to Highwood, his desire to have his mother raise his child, was a way of correcting his mistakes. The prodigal son returning to the fold.

  “The irony is I pride myself on the fact I avoid commitment, and yet I stand here as master of this estate, a commitment I take seriously. I stand here as an agent of the Order, committed to work I value and deem necessary.”

  She touched him lightly on the cheek. “The difference is, those things are within your control. You avoid things you cannot control because it scares you to think you might try your best and still lose something precious.”

  “Life is cruel. Like my father, I avoid anything that might cause pain.”

  “And yet what counts is not the material things we leave behind. What counts is who we loved and who loved us in return.”

  His heavy sigh was a sort of exorcism—an expulsion of false beliefs.

  The darkness left his body, leaving a newfound clarity.

  “I encourage D’Angelo to mask his pain, to use women and drink and vengeance as a means of coping. When our task is over, I must help him find another way to banish his demons.”

  Vivienne came up on her toes and kissed him gently on the mouth. “Love is the only thing capable of freeing Mr D’Angelo from his torment. Love is the key to the shackles that bind him to the past.”

  “Then there’s no hope for him.”

  “There is always hope.”

  Evan stared at her, his heart swelling, his body infused with a warm glow, though he struggled to label the feeling. “Before we continue our quest, may I say how much I respect and admire you, Miss Hart.” He wished he’d crossed the ballroom and asked her to dance, wished he’d turned to her in Gunter’s and commented on the fact they’d both chosen pineapple mousse.

  Her smile failed to reach her eyes. “I have always admired you, Mr Sloane. Even when you dumped me in a carriage in my stocking feet.”

  He laughed, though he was troubled by the unspoken words hanging in the air between them, troubled by the words craving a voice, nagging at his conscience.

  “Then I pray you still admire me when I make you hold the coffin lid while I examine the contents.” There, light-hearted banter banished the need to speak from the heart.

  She seemed suddenly fearful. “I’ll do it, of course. As long as you do not disturb his remains.”

  “The clue to our legacy may be apparent when we enter the tomb.”

  “There’s only one way to know.”

  The solid stone door moved with surprising ease. One would be mistaken if they expected to find the pungent smell of rot in the air, or an atmosphere permeated with damp and decay. No. Evan inhaled nothing but a cold, sterile emptiness.

  “It’s freezing in here.” Vivienne snuggled into her pelisse and rubbed her arms. She scanned the rectangular stone tomb, ran her gloved hands over the carved figures of a bearded man and a young woman lying next to each other, holding hands. “Livingston and his wife are buried together?”

  “Yes.” Evan stood for a moment and let the strange wave of loss pass over him—the stark realisation nothing was permanent. “I’ve never been in here, but I know my father visited often.”

  He braced himself to answer her next obvious question.

  “Is your mother buried here?”

  Nausea roiled in his stomach. “She is in a tomb with my father, one almost identical to this.”

  Vivienne did not reply, but sidled up to him and slipped her hand into his. He clutched it, taken aback by the immeasurable sense of peace.

  He was in love with her.

  He was certain—as certain as a man who’d never known love could be. But a mausoleum was not the place to make a declaration.

  “There’s an inscription.” Keeping a firm grip of his hand, she studied the plaque. “Kindred souls in heart and deed. I rather like that.”

  Perhaps the inscription was their legacy.

  The knowledge that love lived beyond the grave.

  “It will be impossible to move the tombstone.” He’d need Buchanan’s help, would struggle even then. “Clearly, Livingston did not intend for us to look inside. We should examine the carvings.”

  “There’s little to examine. Maria is holding a fan in her left hand, and Livingston looks to be holding a compass in his right hand.”

  Evan leant forward and studied the compass closely. “There are no markings on it, but it points south.” He led her outside and glanced out over his lands. “The only point of interest south of here is the lake.”

  “Livingston liked the water. Let’s walk there.”

  They walked through a small copse down to the lake.

  “If you stand between the lake and these trees, you can see the house.” She took to mumbling then, muttering about the book, reciting parts of the poem from memory. Evan watched in awe, consumed by nothing but the intense rush of emotion he’d managed to name.

  After minutes of pacing back and forth, nibbling on her bottom lip, she gasped. “Evan, I know where we should look. We need to dig beneath that beech tree.” She pointed, her hand trembling. “The couple on the vignette sat beneath a tree, reading a book. When we look at the vignette on the fan, I’m sure we’ll find it’s identical.”

  Evan studied their surroundings, noting sh
e had a point.

  “You think they’re reading Thomas Gray’s poem?”

  She hurried over to him and captured his hands. “Gray’s poem is about how people are remembered, about their successes and failings, about hiding truths. Will people remember him stretched beneath the beech tree? When he’s gone, will they notice his absence?”

  “And if we find nothing?” Would Livingston have him digging up the entire estate?

  She shrugged. “We go back to the mausoleum and begin again. What have we to lose?”

  Perhaps it was the frisson of trepidation, or the unsettling feeling they were being watched, that made him say, “We should work under cover of darkness. We’ll return late tonight with a lantern and spade.”

  And after the information he’d gained from his steward, he’d come armed with a loaded pistol.

  * * *

  To dinner, Vivienne wore a simple dress of deep emerald green. Against the soft glow of firelight she looked delicate, so dainty. Yet Evan had never met a woman with her strength and determination.

  He watched her eat, consumed with strange thoughts. Love was like a potent drug, stirring a man to imagine himself a devoted husband, a father to a brood of healthy children, the master of a house filled with love and laughter. Happy.

  Still, the sense of foreboding sat like a brick in his stomach. Perhaps he was trained to expect misfortune. Perhaps a man who had never uttered the word love had every right to be concerned.

  He led her from the dining room, telling the footman they would stroll around the garden before returning to take refreshments in the drawing room.

  “You told no one we were coming down to the lake?” he asked, draping her cloak around her shoulders as if she were a child in need of coddling. He stole any opportunity to touch her now. “And you have the fan?”

  “No one knows of our plans tonight.” She placed her hand on his chest, finding a reason to touch him, too. “And you’ve already asked me about the fan.”

  “Yes,” he breathed. The need to carry her to bed outweighed the need to dig a hole in the darkness. “Let’s pray we resolve this matter tonight.” He had every reason to believe they would.