Barefoot in Hyde Park (The Hellion Club Book 2)

by Chasity Bowlin

“There are only two people in the world who would say so… you and my wife,” he said. As upset as she was, he had to wonder if it could get any worse. Regardless, he didn’t have the luxury of waiting. Events with Elsworth were coming to a head and she would have to be warned. “But as today is the day for confessions, I fear I must tell you about your other grandson and the enormous mess he has made for us all.”

  “Oh, what now?” she wailed.

  “He knew about the changes in your will—”

  “Potential changes!” She paused long enough to dry her eyes, before continuing, “Nothing was set in stone, yet. In truth, I’m not even sure I would have been able to go through with it.”

  Val sighed. “Yes, potential changes… but he was less certain of my response to your managing than you were. He did not believe that I would capitulate to your wishes and wed, either a woman of your choosing, your meddling or one chosen on my own. To that end, he has been engaging in business on speculation of his soon to be changed circumstances.”

  “Has he lost our fortune when it wasn’t even his to gamble with?” she asked with a gasp. “I can’t be poor, Valentine. Not again. Not at my age!”

  There was nothing for it but to speak quickly and put it all on the table. It would break her heart, but doing so slowly would not make it less painful. “His business endeavors are profitable… but illegal and immoral. He has thrown in with traitors who are selling shipments of munitions to the British government, stealing them back en route to their destination and then selling them to those in France who would stir rebellion and war once more.”

  Her face paled and she clutched at her chest alarmingly. “Oh, God. Oh, dear lord in heaven!”

  Val poured more wine into her glass and pressed it into her hand. “Sip that. And do not dare to have been an audacious woman for all of your life and succumb to apoplexy now that I need you to be made of sterner stuff!”

  She gave a startled laugh. “You’re certainly right, of course. Apoplexy is only for weak-minded fools or those who have the theatrical skills to use it well and judiciously. You’re certain of his misdeeds, then?”

  “Yes. And what’s more, the nephew-by-marriage of this great-aunt of Lillian’s whom you’ve embroiled yourself with is also part of the scheme… quite possibly the mastermind. In fact, I’m not entirely certain, knowing what I do now of your plots and schemes, that you didn’t first put them on to Elsworth.”

  More hand wringing and then she drained her wine glass before promptly holding it out for him to refill. “What will we do, Valentine? This could destroy us!”

  “It will not. I’m doing what I can to put a stop to it. And I know you dismissed concerns for Lilly, but our marriage puts her in the way of far more than just his inheritance. If he is no longer in line to inherit the funds these people are counting on for their future endeavors, he will be of no use to them and they will not let him walk away with what he knows. He knows that as well as I do. Any man can be driven to commit atrocities if he feels his own life is at stake.”

  “You really think he tried to kill her?”

  “I really do,” Val said. “I don’t think he wants to, and I don’t even think it was his idea. Mr. Littleton has also been murdered. I suspect that Marchebanks, who is the nephew to the woman you bribed to provide this bequest to her, is attempting to claim those funds for himself. Eliminating Lilly eases his path to getting those funds immediately and the future influx from the easily led and managed Elsworth. In short, we’ve both put her in danger, albeit unwillingly, and now we will both have to get her out of it.”

  The old woman nodded. “You should go to your wife. When he returns home, I will deal with Elsworth.”

  “How do you mean to do that?” he asked.

  “There is a plantation in Jamaica that needs to be managed. I think it will do him good to get away from England and see to business on the family’s behalf,” she said firmly. “He’ll be leaving immediately, even if I have to charter a ship for him myself. Discreetly, of course. One doesn’t make a production when one is attempting to flee the country.”

  It was a solid plan, hopefully one that would get Elsworth out of the line of fire and keep him from getting into even more trouble later. Val rose. “I’ll see you in the morning, Grandmother.”

  “Tell her I’m sorry. I never intended for my actions to hurt her or cause her harm… I just didn’t realize—well, it doesn’t matter what I didn’t know. It only matters what I’ve done and that she has been hurt by it.”

  “I will tell her,” he promised.

  “I like her, you know?” his grandmother admitted. “From the very start, even before I decided upon this course for you. I liked her as a person. She was polite and well mannered, terribly intelligent, and I could see that hint of rebellion in her eyes that told me just how she struggled to maintain that always poised and polished image.”

  “I know that you did. And tomorrow, you will tell her so yourself,” Val said.

  “I will. If she is amenable to speaking with me. You will smooth the way, of course?”

  He nodded and then turned to leave the room.

  *

  Lilly swiped angrily at her eyes and the moisture gathering there. She had not actually let her tears fall, but they kept forming and she kept dashing them away. It shouldn’t have hurt so badly. But then again, she shouldn’t have put so much stock in that false overture of familial concern. It had represented the thing she had longed for her entire life—acceptance. And now, faced with the prospect that it was all a lie, she felt unsettled, angry, hurt, and as if she had somehow been reduced to being a small child again, longing for things that were truly never to be.

  The door opened and she felt his presence as he entered the room. She didn’t know where Val had gone or what he’d been doing, but she was fairly certain it had something to do with his cousin. Regardless, she kept her face averted. The last thing she wanted to do was let him see her in such a state.

  “We need to talk, Lilly,” he said softly.

  “Can it wait until morning?” she asked. “I’m quite tired and I’d just like to sleep.”

  “I don’t think it can, actually. Grandmother just told me what happened at dinner… but there are other equally pressing matters to address,” he replied.

  Lilly took a deep and fortifying breath before turning to face him. “I feel like such a fool. I should have known that it wasn’t truly a gesture of goodwill from my mother’s family. I can’t believe I was so gullible!”

  “It was never her intent to hurt you or even to deceive you. She simply wanted us to be together and did whatever she thought might be necessary to make it so,” he offered.

  “Well, it does hurt. I’m as alone as I ever was,” she said.

  He took on a mock wounded expression. “Surely not! Do I mean so little to you then?”

  Lilly smiled in spite of everything. “You know what I mean!”

  He moved forward and sat down beside her. “I do know. I know that it pains you to think that you’ve no family, that you’ve no one to care for you… but you do have people who care for you, Lilly. If you let her, my grandmother would be your greatest ally. She did choose you, after all.”

  “Why did she?” Lilly asked. “I can’t imagine that there are any young women out there more unsuited to being a future duchess than I am. Are you certain she likes you?”

  He laughed then, and when he spoke, his tone was very gentle. “Quite certain. She’s unorthodox in her thinking and more than a little rebellious in her own way. You, Lillian Burkhart Somers, Viscountess Seaburn, are not the only woman who dislikes having to obey the rules.”

  “I dislike being lied to, regardless of her lack of ill intent,” Lilly stated. “Though I daresay I shall forgive her in short order. She will command it and I will have no option but to obey.”

  “She’s an old woman and one who is used to getting her own way,” he said. “And in most cases, not that I will ever admit it to her, her way has
been the best one. I am sorry you were hurt by her managing and manipulation in this instance. But she did reveal to me that she was acquainted with your great-aunt, who is quite healthy, and that she agreed to the scheme only because they were desperate for money. Which means that Marchebanks was likely doing whatever he had to do in order to get his hands on the money to be settled on you as well as anything that Elsworth might inherit in the future.”

  “So the money was real, but my family having any concern for me whatsoever was complete and utter fiction,” she surmised. “Was the dowager duchess going to have Mr. Littleton send me a false notification of my great-aunt’s death or would the funds simply have appeared as if by magic?”

  “It would have come to you regardless, and still will. The bequest is very real. My grandmother intended to honor that regardless of whom you chose to marry. She is inordinately fond of you, whatever you may think.”

  Lilly felt very small in that moment, as if she were sinking in upon herself. “I think it only hurts so much because it’s what I used to dream about as a child… that one day someone would tell me I’d always been wanted.”

  He pulled her close, holding her. It wasn’t in his power to take her pain away. Nothing was ever so hurtful as disillusionment. “You are wanted… perhaps not by your mother’s family or even your father’s, but by Effie, by Willa, by my grandmother… and very much by me.”

  Lilly didn’t wish to talk about it anymore. Whatever had been done by the dowager duchess, she would make her peace with it eventually. But for now, she very much needed to move on to other things.

  “What did you discover today?”

  “My valet might be a daily trial to me, but he does have his uses… he managed to discover from Elsworth’s valet that my cousin required several stitches for a mysterious cut on his arm. Your handiwork, I can only presume.”

  Lilly nodded. “Very likely. I didn’t question him to see just how serious an injury I had dealt him.”

  Val nodded. “I also discovered that at the time of our visit to Mr. Littleton’s office, Elsworth was meeting with his tailor… and the valet was present for the meeting. He’s deeply disappointed in my cousin’s fashion sense.”

  “So Elsworth couldn’t have been in Mr. Littleton’s office!”

  Val let out a sigh. “Initially, I thought so, too. But then I discovered the direction of this tailor… he’s only a street removed from Mr. Littleton’s office. And with the numerous alleyways connecting the two, it would have been possible for Elsworth to slip out the back unnoticed.”

  “Fenton hardly strikes me as the sort one confides in, so how did he convince Elsworth’s valet to simply tell him everything?” Lilly mused.

  “Port. He bribed him with port.”

  “Your valet steals spirits and you’re perfectly fine with that?” she asked with a laugh.

  “It wasn’t actually purloined… I gave it to him for the express purpose of bribing his brother-in-arms for information.”

  “Your cousin is many things, and he’s certainly made threats, but is he a murderer?”

  “I can’t answer that… not yet at any rate. And until I can, you will do whatever is necessary to avoid him. Now, go to sleep. I should have some answers by morning about this bequest my grandmother conned your family into making to you. Then we’ll know more where we stand.”

  Lilly laid down on the bed, and pulled the covers over her. “Thank you, Valentine.”

  “For what?”

  “For being a better man than anyone believes you to be,” she said.

  If he replied, she didn’t hear him. She’d already drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  They were strolling arm-in-arm down Jermyn Street toward Duke Street and the endless parade of people using that route to reach Piccadilly and all the shopping beyond. Beside him, Lilly was in a far better frame of mind than she had been the night before. While breakfast had been a slightly tense affair, it appeared that she and his grandmother had reached an uneasy truce.

  “Where are we going?” she demanded.

  “We have to meet someone,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Your replacement,” he answered.

  She paused, her steps slightly out of rhythm with his for a moment. “I presume you mean as a companion and not a wife!”

  He laughed. “Certainly. I happened to encounter this particular woman in Whitechapel, while coming back from the same seedy warehouse where I’d observed my cousin and his compatriots. She offered invaluable assistance in providing the much-needed distraction I required in order to get away without being caught!”

  “If you encountered a woman on the streets of Whitechapel in the evening, then she is… well, suffice it to say, improper!” Lillian replied in a heated whisper.

  “In most cases that answer would be yes and I believe the term you are looking for is prostitute,” he replied, seemingly careless of the fact that several people around him gasped and one woman placed her hands firmly over the ears of the child walking next to her.

  “Really, Valentine! You enjoy being shocking!” she accused.

  He couldn’t bite back a grin at her scandalized tone. “Where’s my rule breaker now? Don’t go all buttoned up and straight-laced on me, Lilly. I couldn’t bear it!”

  “Well, your grandmother will not bear this! Have you considered what she will do when she finds out what this woman’s background is? And what of this poor woman? It’s terribly cruel to pull her out of such an environment only to toss her back into it in a matter of days or hours simply because the notion of your grandmother employing such a woman amuses you,” Lilly pointed out.

  “Trust me,” he implored. “She’s not in the common way, at least. She speaks very genteelly and whatever circumstances may have led her to Whitechapel, I’m convinced that she is not a fallen woman! I think this could be a good solution for everyone.”

  Val turned away just in time to see the woman in question. She was standing across the street from Fortnum and Mason, watching all the fashionably-dressed people going into and out of the store. “There she is,” he said, pointing her out to Lilly.

  He heard his wife’s gasp and surveyed the woman’s appearance once more to see what might have been so shocking. She stood on the corner, waiting to cross the street, with her hands clasped in front of her and her shoulders straight. Her pelisse was a bit shabby and worn, but not so much that anyone looking at it would have thought her out of place on those streets. Indeed, she might have been a governess or a servant dressed as she was. Even her bearing and posture was that of a lady. Which meant Lilly’s gasp was one of recognition and not surprise. “Do you know her?”

  “I do, indeed,” Lillian replied. “She worked at Millstead Abbey School when I was there so many years ago. What are the odds, Val, of her being the woman you ran into last night and being a past acquaintance of mine?”

  He frowned. “Limited. The odds are extraordinarily limited. I’d daresay impossible, even. And I think we need to find out precisely what she’s about.”

  As they approached the woman, her gaze was drawn to Lilly. In fact, she watched Lilly with a depth of emotion playing over her features that left Val utterly puzzled.

  “Who are you, Madam?” he demanded.

  She looked to Valentine and then back to Lillian and it was to his wife that she spoke. “When I was at the Millstead Abbey School, you knew me by the name of Anna Hartnett.”

  “I remember you,” Lilly said. “You were very kind to me… the only kind person in that whole wretched place. But then one day you were simply gone.”

  “Not one day,” the woman answered. “It was the day your father came to Millstead Abbey and dropped off your half-sister. That was the very day I was banished from there, sent off without a recommendation.”

  “What has my father to do with all of this?” Lilly asked.

  Val was watching the two women. It hadn’t been immediately obvious to him, but now, staring f
rom one to the other, it could not have been more clear. There was a marked resemblance, one that left him all but speechless. Surely, it was not what he thought. But then the woman who had called herself Anna Hartnett looked at him and it was such a knowing, measuring gaze, that he knew instantly he was correct.

  “Let us go in and have some tea,” he said. “There’s a coffee shop just around the corner that should have a private parlor available.”

  The woman glanced down at her shabby pelisse, but then simply lifted her head high again. “Certainly. I think there is much to discuss, my lord.”

  *

  Lilly recalled a dozen instances where Miss Anna Hartnett had been all that was kind and loving to her. She’d tended scrapes and bruises, snuck her extra treats from the kitchen, and soothed her when she’d been ill. In retrospect, the amount of attention the woman had lavished on her while still managing to do her work at the school was nothing short of miraculous. It hadn’t lasted very long, less than a year. Had it not been for the presence of Willa and the bond that had formed between them almost instantly, no doubt the loss of Miss Hartnett would have left her utterly despondent as a child.

  Despite that, she found the woman’s presence under their current circumstances to be highly suspect. The sheer number of coincidences required for her to encounter Valentine while he was out engaging in his clandestine activities as an agent of the Crown, even if an unofficial one, was impossible to fathom. It was even more impossible to accept. There was clearly a connection somewhere and she wouldn’t be satisfied until she knew precisely what it was.

  Lillian stood apart from Miss Hartnett as Val engaged the private parlor for them and ordered refreshment. After a moment, they were shown into the small room and the door closed behind them. It was a cozy space, filled with well upholstered chairs and a small table, though it was certainly cramped.

  “Why are you here?” Lillian asked, as soon as the three of them were alone in the room.

  Miss Hartnett smiled. “You are certainly as direct as ever, Miss Burkhart.”