“She refused to believe me,” he said, shaking his head. They had arrived at her waiting carriage.
“You must want to inform Lucas of our afternoon,” she said. “Please let me provide a ride back to our house.”
Mr. Harrington stared past her at the horses and the waiting coachman. It took him a few moments, but when he turned back to her, he had made a decision, it seemed. “Thank you, yes.”
They climbed into the coach as her maid scrambled up to sit beside the driver. “How did you convince her you were not the culprit?” Beatrice asked as she settled into the seat, intrigued by the picture he was painting of his childhood self.
He chuckled. “I made her believe it was one of my brothers, of course. A servant would have spoken up by then. My parents were not harsh, and the punishment would not have been great. For members of the household who weren’t her sons, that is.”
Beatrice lifted a hand to cover a smile. “For you, that must have been a fate worse than death.”
He lounged against the seat and slowly nodded. “You will never know the pain I suffered.”
She giggled at the absurdity of it, and his eyes gleamed with humor in response.
“Once I had narrowed it down to one of my brothers, it was easy,” he said. “James had recently received a new ball for Christmas, and he frequently talked Theodore into playing with it inside, even though the rules only allowed outside play.”
“If they were both known to break that rule, how did you know which one it was?” Beatrice asked, glad she had pursued the line of questioning.
“Ah,” he said, adopting a wise tone. “That is where some knowledge of the suspect comes in handy. Theo was the bowler in the family. But James was the hitter. They may have both been culpable, but James was the one who took out the vase, and I knew it.”
“Did you tell your mother?” she asked.
He smiled his half smile. “Never. You never betray a brother in need,” he said. “But I made him sneak puddings to me for the whole month.”
She laughed even as her heart turned over in her chest. Oh yes, she was in trouble.
…
It was a strange feeling, returning to the scene of the crime, Gemma thought as she glanced about Perry’s study. Light streamed in from the doors leading to the gardens, bathing the delicate furnishings. She and Lucas sat on a rose-colored chaise, while Perry perched across from them looking rather like an uncomfortable elephant amidst doll furniture.
“The Latin phrase,” she said, when she could no longer bear the tense silence. “Does it have some meaning to you?”
“I cannot shake the feeling that I have heard it before,” Perry said. “I have been turning it over in my mind, but every time I get close to some sense, it flutters away.”
Gemma glanced at Lucas. He shook his head. “I am not familiar with it outside of history books. It clearly is important to him, but I wouldn’t weight it too much. He might be suffering from grandiose delusions.” He looked at Perry. “How many payments have you made, thus far?”
“That was my fifth. I do not know how long I can continue. The amounts he demands are reasonable, as if he knows how much I can afford to lose. I do not know when, but I do know he will escalate to the point where I am unable to pay him,” Perry said.
Gemma agreed with his assessment, from what she knew about the crime. Before she had met Lucas, her experience with the crime of blackmail had been limited to Uncle Artie’s old stories and sensational novels, but she understood it well. Many times blackmailers started off with small demands, but as they grew either more confident or desperate—depending on their situation—the amount would grow exponentially. Eventually it would reach the point where the victim could no longer afford the secret.
“Do you have any thoughts on who it could be?” Gemma asked.
“I confess, I do not. Much of my focus has been keeping my wife from finding out about what is happening.” Perry dropped his head into his hands. So, Lady Perry did not know the secret. It could be an illicit affair, but she did not think that would warrant blackmail. Most lords—and ladies—of the ton were engaged in liaisons with partners who were not their spouses.
Gemma changed tactics. “Did you by chance meet a Nigel Thorne during your stay at the Waverly country house a few months ago? It may have been one of the locations at which you made a payment.”
Lucas touched her hand, a quick, light gesture of comfort. How had he come to know her so well so quickly?
Perry’s head shot up. “Yes. Nigel Thorne. Tragic, that was. He was shot dead in the library at the house party.”
Gemma blinked. “And did you not find that odd, sir? That he was murdered in the same location as you were instructed to produce a blackmail payment?”
Perry’s head swiveled back and forth between them. “Well, no. The investigators assured us it was a common housebreaker. There was no reason to not believe that.”
Gemma could not believe the man’s obtuseness. She was not without her doubts that Nigel’s murder was connected to the extortion affair, but she at least heavily weighed the coincidence. This man did not even grasp it while they were asking him directly about it. She met Lucas’s narrowed eyes and wondered if they were completely wasting their time.
“Was anyone in attendance at the house party acting suspiciously?” she asked, switching from the previous line of questioning. She was not inclined to explain to him why Nigel was probably connected to the case, and it did not seem as though that would prove successful enough to warrant opening herself up to the pain of it all.
“I have been turning that over and over in my head, believe me,” Perry promised. “But it was the normal circle. It was a larger gathering, certainly, and there were several nights Lady Waverly opened the house to more guests, including the third night—when I was to make my payment in the library.”
The night Nigel was killed.
Lucas squeezed her hand, and Gemma let the warmth of it soothe her battered heart. Most days she was able to soldier on, the act of hunting for her cousin’s murderer enough to keep her moving forward. It was nice, though, in the moments where grief caught up to her, to have Lucas nearby.
But how was she going to live without it when they went their separate ways?
She needed to cut herself off from it. To distance herself, so that the end wouldn’t hurt so much. But not yet. She’d take it in this moment when she wasn’t strong enough to resist.
Soon, though.
“I wish I could point with certainty to someone who was a guest, but in truth it could have been anyone on that night,” Perry continued, unaware of her inner turmoil. “There were people in and out of the house—it is a wonder anyone can keep track of that.”
A dead end again. Gemma tried to remind herself that Perry had been the result of a supposed dead end, but then she thought about Perry.
Dead end, indeed.
“Do you have any enemies, Perry?” Lucas asked. “Anyone who would want to target you or your family?”
Perry’s expression turned bewildered, and he ran a hand through his thick blond curls. Gemma was thankful Lucas had not taken up that particular fashion style.
“I cannot imagine why anyone would. The offense for which he is blackmailing me happened long ago and affected only two people, neither of whom is out to destroy me,” Perry said. A child, Gemma thought. An illicit child, it must be.
“Do you know when or how the person obtained this information?” Gemma asked.
“I don’t. But I know he must have dug rather deep. It is extraordinarily well hidden.”
“Until now,” Lucas murmured and exchanged a look with Gemma. This didn’t feel like opportunistic blackmailing. As with Lucas, it seemed as if the extortionist first chose the victim, then the damning secret.
“Perry.” Suddenly Lucas’s whole body tightened like a coiled spring. “That ring you wear…”
The blond man looked down at his hands as if he’d forgotten what was there.
On his right middle finger he wore a thick gold band with a ruby inset.
“My father’s.” Perry twisted it in what seemed a familiar gesture. “He died several years ago. He gave this to me before he passed.”
“May I see it?” Lucas asked. He stretched out his hand, and Lord Perry placed the ring in his palm.
“My lord…” she began, curious, but he just shook his head once and ran a finger over the jewel. In a swift move, he flipped the ring to examine the underside of it. She saw his muscles stiffen further under his jacket as he stared at whatever he had found there.
“I have this ring,” he finally said.
“You mean one similar to that,” Perry said.
“No. Not one similar to it. One exactly like it. My father gave it to me as well. It has this same engraving on the inside.” He handed it to Gemma.
The metal was still warm from his hand. She checked under the band and saw a symbol engraved on the gold.
It was amazingly intricate. The center was the head of a lion wearing a crown; surrounding it were four symbols.
“Do you know what the images are?” she asked, and Lucas shook his head. She looked from him to Perry.
“No, I am not sure I even noticed them, to be honest. I thought the lion was a nice touch, but didn’t think much of it further,” he said.
“Of course you didn’t,” Gemma murmured. “Do you think your fathers knew each other? Is that what this means?”
“I never heard my father mention Lord Perry, other than in passing perhaps,” Lucas said, and Perry nodded his agreement.
“And now you are both victims of the same blackmailer. In your words, my lord, this cannot be a coincidence,” she said, goose bumps rising on her arms.
“No,” Lucas agreed, “No, it cannot.”
…
“Well,” Gemma said as they settled into Lucas’s carriage. “That was…something.”
“You mean Perry’s a bloody idiot,” Lucas summed up, stretching a booted leg to rest on her bench—what she was coming to realize was his favored position. Her stomach clenched as she remembered what had taken place not long ago and not far from where she was sitting. He gazed at her now with hooded eyes, and she wondered if he was remembering the interlude as well.
She cleared her throat and tried to ignore the insistent throbbing between her legs. One look from him reduced her to a quivering pile of mush.
The carriage jolted forward into the quiet street.
“How do you think we should proceed, my lord?”
“Are we back to ‘my lord’ even here, then?” Lucas’s deep voice stroked over her skin like a silk glove. She shivered and tried to steel her nerves.
“Oh, do stop teasing me and be serious, Lucas.” The man flashed her a wicked grin and she felt her heart thump harder in her chest.
“Of course, my dear. We must be serious,” he said, still eyeing her as if he wanted to eat her up in one bite.
She tried to ignore the heat prickling at her skin and charged forward, though she was sure the slow burn rising in her cheeks gave her away. “I think we must discover how your fathers knew each other, and what happened to make them drop out of each other’s lives.”
“We are looking at this as if they were the only two with rings. Perhaps the connection is more tenuous than that. Maybe they were acquaintances who went their separate ways, and that’s why I never heard they were friends,” he said.
“Correct me if I am wrong, but that ring looked expensive, and the engraving quite intricate. Even if there were more than two of them, it could not have been a large number. It seems notable, at the very least, that both your fathers owned one. Do you think you would be able to find any information your father had about it?”
“Possibly at the country house, but not in London, no.” He stared out the window, contemplative. “I have an idea,” he finally said slowly. She could tell he was hesitant to suggest it.
“We’ve come this far, my lord. We have survived a fictional engagement and encounters with both a pistol and a dimwit. I am confident we can handle whatever you may suggest,” she said, hoping to lighten the mood.
He flashed a genuine smile, not his usual smirk or sardonic grin, and her heart fluttered. When he truly smiled, his eyes lit up and crinkled slightly at the corners, and the fine contours of his chiseled face became more defined but somehow softer, too.
“This is true.” He paused and grew serious once more. She immediately missed the crinkles around his sharp green eyes. “I have an old friend. I think she would know if there were a connection from long ago that may have been forgotten by others.”
“Someone from your espionage days?” Gemma queried, all innocence.
“I do not have espionage days. But yes, someone who deals in information. I shall try to arrange a meeting with her,” he said.
“I shall come, too, of course,” she said, lest he think he was going to cut her out of what seemed like a fascinating interview. She continued before he could disagree with her. “What on earth do you think is going on, my lord?”
He peered out of the carriage to the fog-shrouded gray streets of the city. His brow furrowed as he sank deeper into the shadows, as if he were completely lost in thought.
“I think someone is bent on revenge,” he finally said, not looking at her. “For what, I cannot guess.”
“That all seems so dramatic,” Gemma said.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I have plenty of enemies who would wish to hurt me, I have no doubt. People of my station always have enemies. But it is difficult to ignore the ring, which seems to imply that my father and Lord Perry’s are wrapped up in this somehow. Perhaps even the true targets of this villain.” She wished she were brave enough to slide across next to him and offer him the comfort he had done for her. But fear and uncertainty held her rooted in her seat.
“What was he like, your father?” she prompted when he didn’t continue further.
Lucas did not answer and for some time the only sound in the carriage was the muffled clop of horse hoofs on cobblestones. She worried that she had pried too far into an uncomfortable subject, and she twisted her peach silk gloves in her hand.
“We were not terribly close,” Lucas finally said, and she paused her silent fretting. “Until today, the word I would have used to describe him was honorable. Very hard. Distant. But honorable. There was a time, when I was about eight or nine, when a horse thief stole one of my father’s favorite mares. He was captured by the local magistrate. His sentence was, of course, death—the mare was very expensive, after all. My father took me into town, though, to the magistrate’s. He asked to see the thief, who turned out to be a boy no more than a year older than I was then. His father had been killed a month earlier by some bandits, and his family was starving. He had five younger sisters and his mother to look after. The magistrate was a bastard. Not of birth, of course, but of disposition. I was terrified of him and tried not to show it. My father confronted him and told him to release the boy immediately. The magistrate was furious—I think he perversely enjoyed the power of taking someone’s life.”
Gemma cringed at the picture he painted. She knew men like this magistrate, men whose little portions of power teased out all their existing demons to wreak havoc on their own little world.
“The magistrate refused to grant him leniency, until my father told him that he’d given the boy permission to take the horse. That he’d forgotten until just then, but that the boy couldn’t be punished for my father’s mistake, and that my father would bring in witnesses if necessary.”
“He committed perjury,” Gemma said. “Did the magistrate relent?”
“He had no choice at that point,” Lucas said. “Either he accused one of the wealthiest and most powerful gentlemen in the land of perjury, or he let the boy go. My father placed him in a lose-lose situation, and he hated him the rest of his miserable life for it. But the boy was released.”
“And did he steal again?” Gemma asked.
/> “No. My father gave him a job in our stables, where he still works as head stable master,” Lucas said with a slight smile. “He’s a good man, and wonderful with horses. But that is what I think about when I think of my father. He may not have been a loving father, or even a good one. But the memory of that day at the magistrate’s has stuck with me. Not everything in life is black and white. Lying can be honorable; saving a thief can be the ethical choice. He could be harsh, too, certainly. But I will not forget the lesson of his mercy.”
Gemma shook off her self-consciousness and reached over to place a hand on his knee. He looked at her with sadness in his eyes.
“I do not want to believe my father could have done something to incur so much vengeance,” he said. “But that does seem where this is headed, does it not?”
“I think,” Gemma chose her words delicately, “that even our heroes are often flawed. That does not make them bad people. It makes them human. When we look up to people, we make them into caricatures rather than appreciating them as a whole. When we see them making poor decisions or disappointing us in some way, we feel as if the whole of them is invalidated. Instead, we should view them as more valid. A misstep off the path to a moral life does not make one evil. Only if one steps off and does not return are they a bad person. Remember, for whatever your father did, he not only saved a life, but he shaped yours. The world would be less had he not done so.”
Lucas reached for her hand, intertwining their fingers. “You are quite wise, my dear,” he said. She searched for any hint of sarcasm in the words, but found none.
“A complicated man raised me,” she said in response. “My views of the world tend to be a bit more fluid than your normal society lady.”
“To Uncle Artie,” he said, raising their joined hands to his lips. He kissed her knuckles, and she felt a flutter race into her stomach. They locked eyes. The carriage rolled to a stop, and she pursed her lips, disappointed. Lucas laughed at her petulant expression. “Timing has never been our strong suit, has it?”
Chapter Eight
One Step Behind Page 9
