“That man has spent many an hour by your bedside,” said Kate as she started to feed Alethea a thin but tasty broth.
“He is a man who takes his duty seriously,” Alethea said, but her heart skipped with hope,
“Pishposh. He could serve that duty well enough by coming in, looking you over quicklike, and then leaving. He sat here, read to you a bit, talked when you woke, even though you made little sense at times, and always fretted that you were in pain or had taken a fever. I was that worried for you when you married him, but not now.”
“You were not worried,” Alethea grumbled. “You were too busy matchmaking to be worried. And do not deny it. So how could you be worried when the marriage was the fruit of all your devious schemes? I had thought it was just the once, you know, but later realized that you were never near when he was, that you did your best to leave us alone.”
“Humph, and just why could I not worry, I ask? I could have been wrong. ’Tis pleased I am that I am right as always.”
Alethea dearly wanted to argue with Kate, but she was feeling very sleepy again. That worried her, but Kate assured her that she was improving every day, staying awake longer each time she woke up. As she closed her eyes, Alethea wished that Hartley were by her side. She had only shared a bed with the man for a few nights, but she missed his heat, missed the way he wrapped her in his strong arms. The return of that pleasure was a good reason to recover as soon as possible.
Hartley followed Aldus, Gifford, and Argus out of Sir Harold Birdwell’s small townhouse. Watching Argus question the plump, balding man had been fascinating, but hearing the man convict himself with each word had been heartbreaking. The sound of a shot made him wince even though he was not surprised. What choice had the old fool left himself? At least this way, they could use what he had told them to stop any damage he might have done and leave his family without the taint of treason destroying their lives. He stopped and looked at Argus when the shouts and screams began inside the house.
“Best we go back in,” said Argus.
“How could he have been so stupid?” muttered Gifford.
“I have come to the conclusion that men of a certain age can lose their minds for a little while,” said Argus. “They do things they would never have done before, everything from leaving for a long journey to India or some other hot place that does not have good whiskey or taking a mistress half their age or turning to wild nights of gambling and lechery. I think they face their mortality suddenly, and it unhinges them. Old Birdwell believed he had bewitched and won a beautiful young woman, and as long as he gave her all she wanted, she would stay with him and keep his flagging manhood from flagging any further.”
“How would you know if it was flagging?” asked Hartley, as reluctant to step back into the house as Argus appeared to be.
“That is the usual reason a man like him starts trotting after a young beautiful woman, especially one who has been a faithful husband and loving father for—what?—five and thirty years? It usually ends with a ruined marriage and strain between the father and children, not in turning traitor and ending your life with a bullet in the brain. Let us go back in. If naught else, we can assure the widow that she will not be suffering for his mistakes.”
“You think Lady Birdwell knows?”
“The wives usually know most of what their husbands are up to.”
“That is rather frightening,” muttered Aldus as he marched up to the door and let himself in, forcing the others to follow.
As his friends and Argus moved to deal with the hysterical servants, Hartley walked over to Lady Birdwell. She was, by his figuring, at least five and fifty, but she was still a good-looking woman, a bit plump, with more gray than brown in her hair, but stylishly dressed and not too careworn. She stood in the doorway to Sir Harold’s office, staring at the man slumped over his desk surrounded by gore-stained papers. There was no sign that she was weeping, and he wondered if she was in shock. He touched her arm, and she turned to glare at him.
“See what you have done?” she snapped. “He was just a foolish old man. Why could you not have let it go, left him alone?”
“My lady, I think you know exactly why he did this,” Hartley began, seeing the knowledge in her tear-filled eyes.
“I know. He did it because she bewitched the old fool. Stupid, stupid man,” she muttered, her voice shaking with the grief she tried to hold in. “I thought if I just ignored it, it would pass, that it was just a need he had to feel young again. Do we not all feel that need from time to time? But then I began to realize it was more, far more, and something that could destroy us. I tried to tell him so, but he would not listen to me. And now see how it has ended. I will lose it all, not just my husband.”
“And why should you lose everything just because your husband had an accident cleaning his gun?” Hartley asked very softly, not wishing the servants to overhear him.
Lady Birdwell stared at him. “No one will believe that.”
“They rarely do, but it stands. He has paid for his crimes. There is no need for you and your children to do so.”
Finally, she wept, and Hartley pulled her into his arms. He held her until she gathered her strength and pulled away, wiping the tears from her face. She glanced around her to see the other men watching her, and all her servants sent on errands. After studying their somber faces for a minute she looked back at Hartley.
“And what will happen to her, to the one who made him do this?” she asked. “My poor Harold did a stupid thing, but he was not alone. He was led to this by that woman.”
“We know,” Hartley replied. “We are working to bring her to justice. I am sorry the path to that has caused you grief.”
“That did not. Harold did. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Let us in there to go through his papers.”
“Should you not wait until they have removed him?” Even as she voiced the question, two footmen arrived with several blankets and performed that duty. “I need to tend to the body. Do as you like.”
“Lady Birdwell, I sent your husband’s secretary to make certain that whatever money your husband had here or at the bank or in funds is protected,” said Argus.
“She would take that, too?”
“She has before. It needs to all be secured before she gets word that your husband is dead.” Argus kissed her hand. “I am most sincerely sorry for your pain, my lady.”
“No, you have naught to apologize for.” She sighed and looked toward the desk where her husband had ended his life. “The pain I feel now is for that foolish man. He betrayed our marriage, but he did not deserve such a punishment for that. And mayhap I feel some sorrow for the fact that there is no more chance for my husband and I to regain what was lost.” She looked at the four men watching her. “In truth, I am indebted to you all, for this could have cost me everything and left my children scorned and penniless. Good hunting, my lords, and be sure to invite me to her hanging.”
Hartley watched her leave, walking away to see to the cleansing of the body of a man who had betrayed her. “I hope no one minds that I have, more or less, promised to keep this silent.”
“Not at all,” said Argus. “The man’s wife and children do not deserve to suffer for crimes they did not commit. I never have believed in taking everything a traitor owned when it meant his entire family was destroyed. Wives and children have no control over what the lord of the house does. Now, shall we get this distasteful chore put behind us?”
For nearly an hour they searched through Sir Harold’s papers. Hartley carefully set aside the few things he felt might be helpful yet did not incriminate the man. A glance through the ledgers Birdwell had been working on when he and the others had arrived to talk to him told Hartley that the man had been spending lavishly on his mistress, Claudette.
“Aha!” Sir Argus held up a sheaf of papers. “Our fair viper got herself a new house out of the poor old fool. This may show why we found nothing of interest in her lodgings.”
“Let us go and search this one.”
After bidding a somber farewell to Lady Birdwell, and gaining assurances that they could return to search more thoroughly if they needed to, Hartley and the others climbed into the carriage and headed for the late Sir Harold’s love nest. Hartley knew Birdwell was no completely innocent victim; the man could have resisted temptation. He certainly could have refused to pay for his delights with his country’s secrets. Yet it was sad that Claudette had brought a good man down, caused him to pull away from his family, hurt them, and stain his own honor.
He looked at his companions and saw that they, too, brooded in silence. “At least his family will not suffer. Once his treason was known, there truly was no other way for him.”
“True,” agreed Aldus. “And this way his widow does not have to suffer the scorn or the poverty. It is still a dreadful, sobering matter. On the other hand, if we had spies as cold-blooded and cunning as this bitch, we would rule the world.”
“At least the male part of it,” drawled Gifford. “I think, however, the female half of the world would soon have all those Claudettes dead and roasting in hell. Mayhap we move too carefully.”
“We do,” said Hartley, “but we have to. She can flee the country all too easily. Even if we got word of her flight, she could still be waving at us from the deck of whatever fast-moving ship she boarded. Between the smuggling and the spying going on between us and France, there must be a dozen ships slipping in and out of each country’s borders every day and night.”
“I know. I just feel as if we put the gun in the old fool’s hand.”
“Claudette did, and so did he. He broke his marriage vows, as many of our class do, but that does not excuse him for pleasing his lady love by handing over important shipping information.”
“Many good men died because of that,” said Argus, revealing by the tone of his voice that he had little sympathy for Sir Harold. “Alone and at sea, and with no wife to cleanse their bodies and give them a decent burial. And, now, there is the fine love nest he gifted Claudette with. I doubt we will find her there.”
As the carriage stopped and they all climbed out, Hartley said, “Then we must hope that she had to flee so quickly she left something of importance and interest behind.”
Argus just grunted and, without pausing to knock, let himself into the house. The hall was filled with servants who had obviously been busy stripping the house of anything valuable. It did not take long to get them all rounded up and secured. Leaving Argus to question them and Aldus to make sure that all the valuables were retrieved from the bags and trunks littering the foyer, Hartley and Gifford began to search the house.
It did not take much longer to realize that there were no incriminating papers left behind. A few half-burned letters added a few names to the list of people they needed to question, but there was little else. Hartley walked into the bedroom the lovers had obviously chosen for their own and grimaced. It looked and smelled like a bordello.
“My Ellen would cringe if she saw this,” said Gifford.
“Your mistress has exquisite taste,” said Hartley as he searched the clutter on the dressing table. “Except in her choice of protectors.”
“So kind.” Gifford sighed and began to search the bed. “Appalling as this is, it must have cost Birdwell a small fortune.”
“She left in a hurry,” Hartley said as he viewed the mess in her dressing room. “I doubt she has been gone very long.”
“How could she know about Birdwell so quickly?”
“Had a servant in her pay, I suspect. Whoever it was probably ran here before the smoke from the gunshot had even cleared away. Mayhap ran to her when he heard we were questioning Birdwell.” He sighed as he took a final look around the room. “I was hoping to find some jewelry. Some piece of what she stole from the compte and his wife would have been a very nice prize.”
“Well, she missed one piece of her jewelry. Mayhap this will help.”
Hartley looked at the ruby earring Gifford held up, and his heart skipped a beat. Grief pinched at him as he took the earring from Gifford. He could see his sister wearing the pair of ruby drops, smiling with pleasure over the gift her husband had given her on the birth of their son. He clutched it tightly in his hand, silently promising his sister that he would make the woman pay for what she had done.
“It was Margaret’s,” he said. “De Laceaux gave the pair to her when Bayard was born.”
“With Germaine’s testimony that she saw Claudette take the jewels, it should provide a nail in the bitch’s coffin.”
“It will help. We still have to catch her, though.”
It was almost dawn by the time they sent the servants away and secured the house. Hartley was exhausted as he made his home and up to his bedchamber. He stood beside the bed, stared at the empty expanse, and then turned to go to Alethea. She woke even as he entered the room. Kate slept on a cot in the corner, and he made his way silently to the bedside.
He kissed her and savored both the passion and the peace the caress filled him with. Sitting by her side on the bed, he held up the ruby earring. She stared at it and then looked at him, the knowledge of what it was in her eyes.
“Do you want me to see if it tells me anything?” she asked.
“No. Mayhap later, if we continue to have trouble finding her. I recall all too well what touching something else the woman had held did to you and would prefer that you do not have to go through that again.”
“It is proof that she was there that day on the beach, is it not?”
“It is, and it might be enough if we catch her. I want more, though. I want proof that she killed Rogers and Peterson, proof that she works for our enemies. I want every black deed she has committed to be known and have her condemned for all of them. I want all her allies to hang with her. However, if this is all we have when we find her, I will use it.”
“Will you tell Germaine?”
“Not yet.” He yawned and then stood up. “I would very much like to stay with you, to crawl beneath the covers with you and hold you, to let your sweetness wash away the ugliness we saw tonight.” He told her about Birdwell.
“That poor woman. I am glad you let it end as it did. She does not deserve to pay so dearly for her husband’s idiocy. If it was known what he had done, she would lose everything.”
“Yes. I just hope that we stopped Claudette from being able to take what was left.”
“Come to bed, Hartley.”
“No. You are still too wounded to have a hulking great man in your bed.” He kissed her again. “Soon, though. Sleep well, love.”
She watched him leave and sighed. This was hard on him, and she was useless to help. That would end soon, however. Alethea was determined to get out of her sickbed as soon as possible. She needed to be there for him when he failed and when he finally won. Everything inside her told her that, although the chase was going to be a long one and danger was ever present, Hartley would win. As she snuggled down beneath the covers, she prayed that that was a true knowing and not just wishful thinking.
Chapter 14
“Oh! Foul, I say! Foul!”
Alethea laughed as she watched Germaine swing her racket at a laughing Bayard, who easily dodged it. Four of her cousins were also in the garden, and they hooted with laughter as Germaine chased Bayard around. Two were Penelope’s half brothers—Artemis, who was eighteen, and Stefan, who was sixteen, both much closer to being men than boys. The other two were Argus’s natural sons, the fifteen-year-old Darius, and Olwen, who was just eleven. She knew they gathered here to help in protecting Germaine and Bayard, to ensure that there were plenty of eyes searching for a threat as well as many voices to cry out for help if it was needed. Armed men stood guard elsewhere. She also knew that many of her relatives helped in the hunt for the man who shot her, as well as for Claudette and her sister. Yet the presence of the boys also helpe
d Bayard and Germaine reclaim a little of their lost childhood.
It all should have comforted her, and it did, but it also made her feel like a prisoner in her new home. Alethea also missed Hartley. He was always gone, trying to hunt down their enemies or find more proof to send Claudette and her allies to the gallows. For eighteen long nights she had slept alone. The doctor had removed the stitches from her wound only yesterday, the wound an ugly scar but firmly closed. Yet she slept alone last night—again.
No matter how often she scolded herself for needlessly worrying, Alethea couldn’t stop herself from wondering if Hartley would ever return to her bed. He might even be waiting to see if she was already carrying his child, that he had only come to her bed to breed one. With each new reason she conjured up for why her new husband was not sharing a bed with her, Alethea’s spirits sank lower.
“Stop it.”
That deep, sharp voice startled her out of her increasingly melancholy thoughts, and Alethea looked up to find Artemis glaring down at her. He stood like a challenging warrior, with his feet apart and his arms crossed over his chest. She started to ask him what he wanted her to stop and then recalled that he was extremely empathic.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, fighting to subdue a blush. “I was just thinking.”
“Very loudly. I do not usually sense one of our blood, so you had let your shields down.” He sat down next to her. “What were you thinking about? Why your husband is not here?”
Alethea frowned at him. “You do not have Modred’s gift, do you?”
“God save me, no. ’Tis not difficult, however, to discern one type of happiness from another. Having lived through Penelope’s romance with Radmoor, her bouts of thinking herself unworthy, cast aside, unlovable, and so on”—he waved one long-fingered, elegant hand in the air to imply that the so on was infinite—“I recognized your increasing sadness as similar to hers.”
“Oh.” This time there was no controlling her blush. “It matters not. Foolishness, that is all.”
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