“What do I need?”
“Love, my sweet niece.”
Love. Did she love him? While she had admitted she was fond of him and had formed an attachment to him, she questioned whether it was love. He admired her, and his attentiveness was flattering. When he spoke of leaving, she was upset. At first, she determined it was because he declared himself unworthy of winning her approval. She never could resist a challenge, and she had been determined to prove him wrong. But what if her disquiet stemmed from something deeper than a thwarted plan or a difficult feat?
“You’re right. When Lord Newgate and I became engaged, I imagined it was love, but it was for all the wrong reasons. He had a title. We matched each other, physically at least, and he paid attention to me. But with Alfred, it’s different. He’s attentive, too, and I find him attractive, yet there’s something more. I want to be with him because of who he is. When he told me he was leaving, it ripped open a hole.” She tapped her breast near her heart. “I know if he leaves, he will take the best part of me along with him.”
“You do love him, don’t you?”
“I do.” This created even more problems than had it been desire, because knowing it was love opened up a terrible, aching vulnerability inside her. “What if he doesn’t love me in return?”
Her aunt wrapped her arms about her shoulders and squeezed. “But what if he does? Are you brave enough to find out?”
“I am.” Emotion shook her voice, and Lady Diane leaned in for a quick embrace.
“Don’t let him get away. You must fight to keep him, and now you will do so for the right reasons, not because he is a problem you can’t solve, but because with him, there will be no problem in life you can’t take on.”
The butler interrupted. “My lady, I apologize for the intrusion.”
“Yes, Gerard?”
“It’s your husband, my lady.” The butler paused, and she bit her lips to prevent herself from laughing, a difficult task when disapproval radiated from the top of his thinning gray head to the bottom of his bowed legs. “He’s yelling.” He raised his chin and sniffed. “Perhaps your ladyship could speak with his lordship and—”
“Tell him to stop scaring the maids?” Lady Diane laughed, a twinkle of mirth adding a sparkle to her blue eyes. “Where is he, Gerard?”
“Upstairs, my lady. If you’ll come with me, I shall escort you to his lordship, though it is not necessary. You can follow the string of profanity. The air has turned quite blue.”
“Thank you, Gerard. I shall come straight away.”
With a final kiss on Evie’s cheek and plans to meet later in the afternoon, Lady Diane departed.
Evie leapt from her seat at the escritoire and twirled in circles about the room until she was too dizzy to stand. Staggering like a drunkard to the window, she clutched the sill for support and let out a shaky laugh. “What an astonishing morning!”
Miracles abounded, and she glanced out the window in time to witness another one. The rain had stopped. Feeble rays of sunshine floated through dispersing clouds, illuminating the most beautiful sight in the world—a rainbow. Even though she didn’t believe in signs, she saw it as a benediction of her love for Alfred and a promise the curse she so despised was at an end. With a light heart and swift feet, she raced from the room and out the front doorway, determined to seek whatever treasures lay at the end of the rainbow.
Chapter 15
“You are a damnable coward and a dishonorable cur!”
Alfred, who had completed most of his packing and had been about to seek out Lord Atwood to discuss the changed plans, was surprised when the man himself barged into his room flinging insults.
“Atwood?” Over the last week, he had come to recognize the various moods of his host. When he was hungry, it was wise to avoid speaking until he had cleaned his first plate. Rain irritated him and put him in ill humor, but a good cigar and a glass of whiskey smoothed the edges of his displeasure. He wasn’t a complicated man, nor had he ever mistreated him; therefore, Alfred was at a loss to explain his lordship’s foul mood and caustic tongue.
“What’s this I hear about you leaving?”
“How did you find out? Did Evie come and speak to you?”
“No, I heard it.”
“Where? Aside from your niece, I have not told anyone about my plans.” He gestured to his packed luggage. “Even your manservant is unaware. I told him to leave and packed on my own.”
The older man reddened and jabbed a blunt finger into Alfred’s chest. “It doesn’t matter where I heard it. The point is I did, and I don’t care if you make one hundred journals for my niece or buy her a new drawing pencil for each day of the year, you had no right to break your word to me and my family.”
Alfred pinned the other man with a hard look. “You were eavesdropping on my private conversation!”
Atwood jabbed him in the chest again. “So what if I was? It’s my house. She’s my niece. I have a right to know what’s going on, and it’s a good thing I listened in, too. Otherwise you would’ve slunk out of the house in the dead of night like the miserable lout you are!”
Alfred grabbed the old man’s finger and stopped him in mid-poke. “Three times you have insulted my name and called my honor into question. I would caution you against attempting a fourth.”
“I’ve stated the truth. You are a coward, a wee speck of a spineless scoundrel.” He advanced and backed Alfred farther into the room, ever nearer the open window and the hard ground some ten feet below. “You worthless, craven son of a—”
Using his strength to push past the considerable bulk of the angry man, Alfred retreated to the opposite side of the room, keen to be away from certain danger near the window. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “If you’d shut up a minute, you daft prick, I’d tell you my true purpose in pretending to leave. I’d tell you I lied to your niece so she can come to the conclusion she cares for me on her own. I don’t want to force her into a situation not of her own choosing. I care for your niece and intend to marry her, but do you give me a chance to explain any of this? No. You jump to the worst possible conclusion, insult my honor, and expect me to be grateful for the experience. I am no lap dog, Lord Atwood, but a man the same as you, and you will treat me as one, you pompous, arrogant—”
“Pretending to leave?” All malice had gone, and rage’s swift fire had died.
“What?” Alfred’s head reeled from his host’s sudden mood shift. From blind rage to open curiosity, it was nearly impossible to keep up. He sank to the bed. “I was on my way downstairs to inform you of this development, but you found me before I had a chance to explain.”
“Yes, ahem, well, I’m glad we’ve cleared up this misunderstanding.”
Though it wasn’t an apology, he knew it was all he was going to get.
Atwood clasped his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels.
“My lord, is there anything else I can help you with?”
“Another visitor arrived today, a man who claims an acquaintance with you. His arrival detained me from seeking you out after you left my niece in the library.”
Now he was intrigued. Aside from Lord Stanton, he had told no one other than his mother of his whereabouts.
“Who is it?”
“Follow me, son.” The two men rose and exited the room, but instead of proceeding down the hallway to the main staircase, Atwood led him down the servants’ staircase and through a side door leading into his study. A man stood before the fireplace, his hands clasped in front of him as if in prayer.
“William Blackburn!”
The minister crossed the room in two long strides and clasped Alfred on the shoulders. “Didn’t I say we’d meet again?”
“You did indeed, my friend, though I had not expected it to be so soon.”
Atwood, after closing the door, had sunk into his leather chair and poured himself a drink from the snifter, downing the amber liquid in one swallow. He offered one to each of his guests, but th
ey declined, Alfred preferring to keep his wits about him until he knew what he was dealing with. “I confess I am surprised to see you here,” he said now to the new arrival. “Are you acquainted with his lordship, William?”
“As of today, yes.”
Something had happened causing his friend to leave his parish and travel upon dangerous roads to the home of a man with whom he had no acquaintance. Alfred’s mind spun, generating a list of potential disasters. “What has happened? Have you had word from my family? Is my mother ill? My sisters?”
“Calm yourself, son,” Atwood said. “No harm has befallen your kin.”
William patted Alfred’s shoulder. “Why don’t you sit over there by his lordship. He’ll explain what he knows.” He took a seat opposite Lord Atwood and waited until his host had downed another finger of brandy.
Setting his glass down, Atwood withdrew from the depths of his pocket a large envelope stamped with a familiar seal.
“You received word from Stanton?”
“About a week ago I received this letter from him,” Atwood confessed. “How did he know where to send it?”
“I wrote to him the morning your niece and I left The Hare and Hound and explained her hurried flight from London. I informed his lordship I was acting as her escort and protector in lieu of a suitable relative. In my postscript, I told him I hoped to keep her in Hasselworth at your estate until her father could come and take her home.”
Lord Atwood closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “At least she is still safe.”
“Of course she’s safe. Why wouldn’t she be?”
“In this letter, Stanton disclosed some shocking information. Lord Westby is dead. Murdered by an infamous smuggler named Harry Michelson.”
“Murdered?”
William thrust a glass into his hand. “Drink up. It’ll help you get past the shock.” He drained the contents before grabbing the brandy snifter and pouring himself another.
The alcohol was already working its way through his veins, easing the initial panic he’d just experienced upon learning of Lord Westby’s death. “What happened?”
Lord Atwood thrust the letter under his nose. “Read.”
By the end of the letter, he was numb from disbelief. The Westby sisters’ father was a traitor and had been murdered by his former associate.
“She doesn’t know? Any of it?”
“No. I confess to being a coward. After receiving the letter, I have been debating how to tell her, delaying the moment, when your friend arrived at my door bearing even more distressing news.”
Alfred’s head whipped around, and he pinned his friend with a desperate stare. “William?”
“About two days ago, several horsemen rode by the church. They were a rough-looking pair. Their clothes looked like they had been slept in several nights. Mud covered their boots. One of the men had jet-black hair, arms the size of hamhocks, and obsidian chips for eyes. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t frightened.”
Hamhocks? Hadn’t there been a rowdy group of travelers at The Hare and Hound who looked as William described?
“They stopped and asked me if I had noticed a woman matching Lady Evelyn’s description riding in a coach through here. I feared for the lady’s safety, so I lied and told him no coach had been through because of the weather. They left, and I ran to the farmhouse we stayed at after the coach accident, but the horsemen were already there. I listened outside as the farm wife, not knowing she should be quiet, told them all she knew about her, including which way she was traveling. The men, now knowing where she was, decided to celebrate with a pint or two at the local inn. It was the one bit of good news in this disaster, so I took off after them and convinced the innkeeper to keep the drink flowing. Once the alcohol had done its work, we misplaced their horses to slow them down, and I borrowed a horse and raced here as fast as I could.”
“How did you know where to find her? She never divulged her travel plans.”
“You forget I was her seat mate. She often recorded the day’s events in a small journal, and on one of the pages, she wrote of traveling to see her uncle, Lord Atwood, in Hasselworth. In spite of my questionable behavior on the coach, Alfred, I was concerned for her—a lone woman traveling by herself—it worried me. When I read she intended to stop at her uncle’s, I was relieved and took comfort she would be in the bosom of her family at journey’s end.”
“The men you describe, William, were guests at an inn called The Hare and Hound. We stopped there after we left you and the others at the farmhouse. If they had tracked us to the inn, why not confront us there? Why circle back to the farm?”
“As near as I can tell from their conversation with the farm wife, they had been following you two but lost your trail the following morning. On my way here, I stopped at the Hare and Hound. When I questioned Mrs. Olin, the landlady, she told me the riders drank heavily. One of the lads couldn’t hold his drink—for once the liquor loosened his tongue—and he spoke of their mission to any and all who were willing to listen. When Mrs. Olin heard, she kenned they were up to mischief involving the young lady, so she made sure the men passed the night in a sound sleep by slipping a sleeping draught into their next round of ale. After awakening and finding you gone, they returned to the last known place she had been, the farmhouse on the coach road.”
He owed the suspicious Mrs. Olin a great debt, for if William was right, she had saved Evie from falling into those brutes’ hands. Their landlady’s actions were heroic, but the reason for those actions remained unclear.
“Why are they searching for her? It wasn’t until I arrived in Southampton that I discovered the forged notes she carried. Why come for her now?”
Lord Kendrick stood and paced, his restlessness fueling his own anxiety. “I can answer some of your questions. After I received Lord Stanton’s missive, I sent out several letters of inquiry to the staff at Westby house in London. It appears she did not leave London unescorted. In fact, she traveled to south London with her maid, Camilla St. John. When she switched coaches and boarded the southbound coach to Surrey, she left her maid behind. It is my guess the group of horsemen learned of her escort, doubled back to south London, and interrogated her.”
“Is there any way to confirm this?”
“I wrote to Camilla’s mother and received a letter from her yesterday. Almost five days ago, a large man with black hair arrived unannounced at her home. He took Camilla from her mother’s home, and when she did not return by nightfall, her mother asked friends and neighbors to search for her. Camilla was found lying in the gutter a mile from home, beaten and unrecognizable, but alive.”
Fear coursed through his body. “It has to be those banknotes.”
“I tend to agree with you. If they are forged and she took them, she has angered the smuggler. Did she tell you where she got them?”
He replayed his many conversations with her, trying to find a nugget of information to explain the danger she found herself in. “She told me she found them in a pile of old books in a secret nook next to her father’s study. When she found them, she likened it to a sign from God because it meant she could go to France and break her curse.”
“She planned to travel to France?”
“Yes, she had it all worked out. Once she talked to you and found out where the gypsies stayed when on the Continent, she was going to sail across the channel, find them, and make them lift her curse.”
“Foolish child. Does she not realize there is a war in France?”
“I asked her the same, but she insisted it was her money and she would do as she pleased.”
“It seems it was not her money,” William said. “What if the smuggler, after killing the lady’s father, returned to London to retrieve those banknotes and found them gone? What would he do?”
“If they were illegal and could implicate him in a hanging offense, he would try to get them back,” Lord Atwood said.
“He sent his hired thugs to retrieve them. That’s why t
hose men have been following you and why they beat her ladyship’s poor maid.” William bowed his head and murmured a prayer for the unfortunate serving girl.
Questions still tumbled about in Alfred’s head and one returned, prodding him to ask if what he suspected was indeed true.
“But what of Newgate’s role in this? He was livid when he discovered the coachman with the forged notes. What of him?”
Lord Atwood sighed. “We must conclude Newgate is involved with Michelson, and if he was in Southampton, my guess is he and Michelson are going to be shipping out soon, carrying forged banknotes as cargo.”
“If he’s sending forged banknotes to France, he’s a French sympathizer!”
“My fear exactly. Unbeknownst to His Majesty, England is funding France’s war against us. Not to mention if Michelson perceives Evie’s knowledge is a threat to him or his business, he will want to remove her from play.”
“Remove her? What do you mean?”
William put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It’s safe to say she is in grave danger. She must leave and go where she won’t be noticed. Where do you live?”
“Near the Scottish lowlands, some hundred miles from Stanton. Why?”
“It’s our best option, my lord. To stay here would bring disaster to you and your wife. To go to London would mean a certain death. Lord Newgate is not an option because of his association with Michelson. She must leave with you, Alfred.”
“We have already discussed I will marry her, my lord, but how can we wed? The banns have not been read. I have no license.” He rose and paced, his anxiety heightened as he contemplated rushing her into marriage when she might or might not be indifferent to him. “I had planned to court her, but there is no time. How am I going to convince her to be my wife? I spent the last hour trying to convince her I was not a good match for her.” He threw up his hands. “She will not take this well.”
“I know, so you’ll have to compromise her.”
He couldn’t credit what he heard. “I beg your pardon, sir? Compromise your niece? You do a disservice to her by the mere suggestion, and you insult my honor.”
Silence Is Golden Page 12
