Counterfeit Countess: Brazen Brides, Book 1

by Cheryl Bolen

  She had begun to shiver. He felt deuced responsible for her discomfort, first for bringing her out on a day like this and second for not taking a barge. Had they come by water, they would have arrived, conducted their business, and returned to London by the time the skies burst. Lastly, he regretted that he’d been guilty of what she had called him. What was it? Oh, yes, he'd been damned pig headed.

  He assisted her in removing her cloak and was pleased to see her dress beneath it was dry. The dress she had worn yesterday. The one with the low neckline. And lopsided breasts. He jerked his gaze back to her moist face and without thinking what he was doing, he gently brushed away droplets from her brow. “Forgive me for being so bloody pig headed,” he said.

  Her warm brown eyes softened. “It’s not your fault it’s raining, silly!” Her teeth rattled, and she was turning blue. Which made him feel even more wretched.

  When the innkeeper’s wife entered the chamber he offered to pay her handsomely if she could procure a dry wrap for his “wife.”

  A few minutes later the woman returned with a hand-knitted shawl which Edward was only too happy to place around Maggie’s trembling shoulders.

  She looked up at him gratefully. “Thank you, my lord. No garment has ever been so treasured.”

  Once they had drunk hot cider Maggie stopped shaking.

  Then the thunder struck.

  And Maggie screamed.

  He whirled toward her and saw sheer fear on her face. It took him a moment to realize thunderstorms terrified her. He moved to stand behind her, placing firm hands on her trembling shoulders. “You’ve nothing to fear,” he said in a soft voice. He had never seen a grown person more frightened, yet oddly, no tears gathered in her eyes. Just like the night of the theft. Was this stoic creature the real Maggie? He was coming to believe her hysterics that first night and the following morning had been a ploy to gain his sympathy. Which meant she was not possessed of the truthfulness he was beginning to credit her with.

  She gave a long, bitter laugh.

  “What’s so amusing?” he asked.

  “You have your aversion to bodies of water; my aversion’s to thunder.”

  “Aren’t we a pair?” he said with a chuckle, shaking his head. He came to sit on the bench next to her and took her hand in his.

  She gave him a puzzled look.

  “We must convince the innkeeper we’re husband and wife.”

  “A good thing we’re not traveling in your crested coach.”

  “Yes, isn’t it?” He hated to think what sordid tales would get back to Fiona.

  The skies flashed white again and thunder rumbled in the distance, then grew to a roar. The very bench they sat on shook. And Maggie nearly jumped out of her skin.

  “Don’t be afraid.” Like the circling motion of his hand over hers, his voice was gentle.

  “I know better,” she said in a painfully fragile voice. “I try to tell myself I’m indoors. I’m safe from danger, but still I can’t dispel my unreasonable fear.”

  “Do you know why you’re so afraid?”

  She nodded solemnly. “For years I didn’t, but now that I’m an adult I’ve been able to comprehend the source of this vexing fear.”

  “Which is?”

  “There was a terrible thunderstorm the night Rebecca was born. I was only seven and not permitted in Mama’s chamber.” She sighed. “It was a difficult birthing, and Mama screamed throughout the night. I wanted to go to her, but they wouldn’t let me.”

  “Your mother died?” he asked in a concerned voice.

  She shook her head. “Not until many years after that, but every time there’s a thunderstorm I am possessed of the keenest sense that something horrible will happen to my mother--or to someone I love. I still feel it though I know how ridiculous my fear is.”

  “At least you’re intelligent enough to have traced the fear to its source.”

  The thunder cracked again, and Maggie went dead still--except for the trembling and the frightened pucker around her mouth.

  “It’s not going to hurt you--or anyone you love,” he assured.

  She frowned. “I know the wisdom in what you’re saying, my lord. But I cannot seem to govern my own wretched fears.”

  He scooted closer to her and settled an arm around her quivering shoulders. “Don’t think about it. Let’s talk of something else. Do you play whist?”

  “I enjoy the game very much,” she said in a flat voice, her gaze riveted to the flames in the fireplace.

  “I would imagine you’re good at it.”

  “You will have to judge for yourself,” she said lifelessly. “Perhaps we can play tonight. That is, if you’re not engaged for the evening.”

  A pity he couldn’t tell her the truth, that Lord Carrington had ordered him not to allow her out of his sight. Edward did not wish for Maggie to think he was forming an attachment to her, nor did he wish for her to believe he was gallant. “I’m not engaged this evening. Perhaps Mr. Lyle will be able to make a fourth.”

  “He’s such a nice man. He sent me the most beautiful flowers.”

  Nothing nice about that, Edward thought. Stinking up my home. “He’s a tolerable whist player.”

  The innkeeper’s wife returned with a tray heaping with hot food. The way she stole a glance at them as they huddled together in front of the fire told Edward she thought the two newly married. “Madam,” he said to the woman, “could you direct us to the lodgings of Mr. Andrew Bibble?”

  “Well if it were night 'e’d be right here in our tap room,” she said with a laugh, “though, come to think of it 'e weren’t here last night. Might be that 'e be out of town. 'e leaves town on important business from time to time.”

  “To London, I suppose,” Edward said.

  She shrugged. “I couldn’t say. Mr. Bibble don’t speak much about 'imself.”

  “Where are his lodgings?” Edward asked again.

  “If ye stays on this street till ye pass the docks, ye’ll turn right at the next street. His house is down on the right. Got a bright green door.”

  “I thank you,” Edward said, rising and offering Maggie a hand. “Come, my dear, we’ve hot food to eat.”

  Thankfully, the lightning and thunder had moved to the west.

  After they ate and settled with the innkeepers, they started for Andrew Bibble’s. A light mist had replaced the rain, but it was still beastly cold. His glance slid to the muff Maggie seemed only too eager to slide her hands into.

  He turned the gig onto the first street past the docks, and quickly saw a house with a bright green door.

  “I daresay, my lord, you’re surprised a mere woman could give accurate directions,” Maggie said factitiously.

  “One wouldn’t have to read a map in order to find Mr. Bibble’s home,” he countered, drawing his gig in front of the house.

  After he helped Maggie down from the box they walked together to the door, and Edward rapped sharply. They waited a moment, but no one answered.

  “I supposed we should have asked if Mr. Bibble has a wife,” Maggie said.

  “He certainly has a dog,” Edward grumbled.

  The bark of what sounded like a big dog continued relentlessly.

  “If Mr. Bibble were out of town,” Maggie said, “it’s unlikely he would leave his dog indoors while he was gone.”

  “If he’s not married, surely he has a housekeeper,” Edward mused.

  He had been rapping soundly on the door for a good two minutes when he stopped and tried the knob.

  “My lord!” Maggie shrieked in a scolding voice.

  He paid her no heed as the door glided open and he stepped into the untidy house. Then he halted in mid stride as he realized the house was not merely untidy. It had been ransacked. That would explain the opened books fanned out on the wood floor and the gaping cabinet doors where pots and utensils and linens spilled out. Edward’s heart thumped. He shouldn’t have brought Maggie.

  Her mouth clamped shut as she followed toward the
sound of the yapping hound.

  He saw the blood first.

  Then he saw the body of the man he presumed to be Andrew Bibble.

  Chapter 9

  Maggie screamed.

  “Go back!” he ordered as he surged toward the body. “Whoever did this might still be here.”

  Instead of obeying him, the maddening wench pushed past his outstretched arm. “We’re safe,” she said in a shaky voice. “This must have occurred last night.”

  He remembered the innkeeper’s wife saying Bibble had not been to the taproom the night before. An unusual occurrence, she had said. Edward dropped to one knee and lifted the man’s lifeless arm to feel for a pulse. The arm was stiff. Cold. Taking the pulse was useless, but Edward still tried.

  “Look! There’s blood beneath him,” she said.

  Edward rolled the rigid corpse over. The handle of a long knife protruded from the victim’s belly, red staining his shirt and coat liked spilled ink on parchment. Edward fought back nausea.

  Drawing in her breath, Maggie spun her head away from the morbid sight.

  “A pity we don’t actually know what this Bibble looks like,” he said, studying the dead man’s fair face and blond hair. Edward would guess the man was the same age as he.

  “It’s got to be him, I’ll vow.” Her voice grew even more solemn as she bent over to stroke the mongrel lapping at her skirts. “You poor pooch,” she said sweetly. “I feel so responsible. Your owner had been perfectly safe these two years past, but once I arrived in England--and The Scoundrel’s things stolen from me--Mr. Bibble’s killed.” She straightened and faced Edward. “This is no mere coincidence.”

  “I’ll own it’s not,” Edward said as he stood and put both hands on her shoulders, peering into her wide chocolate-colored eyes. “Don’t waste your remorse on him. If he was important to Henshaw, he was up to no good.”

  Her gaze scanned from the sad eyes of the dog beside her to encompass the disorderly room. “I’m certain the same person who went through my possessions was at work here.”

  Edward chuckled. “How can you make that assumption with such conviction?”

  “Quite easily. Just look at the method behind this search. It’s identical to the method used in my chambers. The storage pieces have been completely emptied of their contents, then the contents thoroughly searched.” She gazed pensively up into his face. “Will you think me correct if the deceased man’s clothing has been slashed?”

  A grin tweaked at the corner of his mouth. “Shall we go see?”

  They mounted the narrow stairway, first Maggie, then Edward. Despite that she wore several layers of clothing--including the soggy red cloak--his gaze fastened on the sweet movement of her hips. Until he yanked his gaze back to safer territory.

  Both of the upstairs bedchambers had been completely ransacked. The coverings were stripped from the beds and feathers from the slashed pillows littered the rooms’ other meager contents which had been dumped willy-nilly. In the second room, Edward’s eyes locked on the dead man’s clothing strewn on top of the bed, the shoulders of every coat slashed.

  The dog went straight to his master’s clothing and whimpered.

  “Oh you poor thing,” Maggie uttered, petting the long, beige hair of its back.

  “It seems you’re right, madam.” It chilled him to his very bones to think this murderer had rummaged through Maggie’s things. Thank God she had been away from home for Edward had no doubt the murderer would have killed her too. “Your pillows weren’t slashed, though.”

  “I had been in my chambers less than a day. The . . . killer knew I wouldn’t have had time to conceal something in the former countess’s pillows--if I had something to conceal--which I assure you I do not.”

  He nodded as he swept a protective arm around her trembling shoulders. “I’d better get you out of here.”

  She stiffened. “We can’t go until we conduct a search of our own. The killer obviously seeks something he didn’t get from me.”

  Damn! Of course she was right. That the killer was still so wildly searching meant that the elusive something he sought--which Edward suspected was a document--was still missing. Which could mean that Maggie might be in danger. Until that document was found, the killer would assume she knew something that might lead to the document. Edward’s gut clenched. “What if he comes back?”

  “He won’t,” she said in an assured voice.

  “What makes you so confident?”

  “He must have done this last night. I’m also extremely confident the murderer is not from Greenwich. Therefore, he left Greenwich after his dirty deeds were done and planned to be far away when the body was found this morning.”

  She made perfect sense. “Will you be all right searching the upstairs while I search down?”

  She nodded.

  Given that the house was so small, it would not take them long to conduct a search. There was no desk, but Edward deduced that the dead man must have kept his papers in a wooden box because the emptied box reposed on a slender table above a heap of papers strewn on the floor. He stooped down and began to go through them. There was a letter from a solicitor in Bloomsbury regarding the disposal of Bibble’s mother’s estate, a receipt for stocks in a Birmingham factory, a poem written in a feminine hand, and a lease agreement for the house in Greenwich.

  He heard Maggie’s light footstep hurrying down the stairs. “Look at these!” she exclaimed, extending her palm, which held men’s rings and studs made of precious jewels. “This shows the murderer was disinterested in riches.”

  It also showed Maggie’s honesty. As desperate as she was for money, she could easily have slipped the jewels into her reticule and sold them for a substantial amount when she returned to London.

  “Which is really quite chilling,” she continued. “It would be much less frightening were we up against a mere thief.”

  “Indeed.”

  She eyed the papers in his hand. “Have you found something?”

  “Nothing important.”

  “Does it not strike you as incongruous that a man who lived so modestly was in possession of such expensive jewels?” She asked. “And his clothing was rather well made--before it was slashed, of course.”

  “I was wondering the same thing. We neglected to ask if Bibble had a livelihood here in Greenwich. He appears to have come into some small sum from his mother and owned stocks which I assume paid quarterly dividends.”

  She was standing some ten feet away from the corpse, her head askance as she peered at it. “What age would you say he was?”

  “Bibble?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose he’s the same age as I.”

  “Which is the same age as The Scoundrel. I wonder how many years he was associated with my late husband.”

  Was she wondering if perhaps Henshaw and Bibble might have been at school together? Edward began to examine the books lying on the floor. He stacked them, thirteen volumes in all, on the table where the wood box stood. The dead man read Walter Scott, Oliver Goldsmith, Thomas Paine, and Fielding. Fielding? Was it a bit too ironic that the only book Henshaw brought to Virginia a Fielding novel? Edward turned back to Maggie. “Which Fielding book was stolen with Henshaw’s things?”

  She bit at her lip as she thought for a moment. “My first instinct was that it was Tom Jones, then I wondered if it was Moll Flanders, but I must go with my first instinct. I’m almost one hundred percent certain it was Tom Jones.”

  Edward looked at the book in his hands. Tom Jones. The cryptographer in him had him wondering if the two men somehow communicated through the pages of this novel. He started to thumb through its pages, looking for any kind of marking.

  There was none.

  “I see where your mind’s taking you,” she said, moving toward him, “but you must own the book was exceedingly popular. My father had a copy.”

  He laughed. “So did mine.”

  She shrugged. “Anything else?”

  “If
there was something here, it’s gone now.”

  “I agree. What are we going to do about the body?”

  “I suggest we return to the Spotted Hound and Hare,” he said, his hand dropping to her waist, steering her toward the door.

  It was only then he realized the skies had turned black again. As they reached the door, the sound of distant thunder rumbled. Maggie went stiff. The thunder grew louder. And, like a rag doll, she collapsed against him. His protective arms swooped around her and he murmured, “We can’t stay here.”

  “I know,” she said morosely.

  “If you could just make it back to the Spotted Hound and Hare. It’s not very far.” He looked down into those frightened eyes and without being aware that he was doing so, he cupped a gentle hand to her face.

  And felt a violent quivering.

  As if she were awash at sea and he her rescuer, her arms reached around him and held firm. Then she nodded.

  She seemed so frail he did not trust her not to swoon and spill into the lakes of mud that had puddled on the streets outside. In a gallant gesture, he scooped her up, carried her into the blinding rain, and set her on the seat atop his gig. Leaping up beside her, he took the reins, then gathered her close and swept half of his great coat around her. Not that it did any good. She was already as drenched as if she had taken a swim fully dressed.

  A moment later he was disembarking at the inn, giving orders to the ostler to see after his horse and scooping up the terrified Maggie.

  Now lightning whitened the skies and the roar of the thunder cracked directly overhead.

  She screamed and buried her face into his chest as his arms tightened around her. Ten strides brought them back into the warmth of the inn. He carried her directly to the flaming hearth and set her on the same bench that she had sat on earlier, but she continued to cling to him.

  He sat beside her and held her close, his hands weaving sultry circles on her trembling back.

  When their hostess entered the chamber and took in the tender scene in front of the fire, she said, “The poor lady! She’s as wet as a 'erring! What she needs is dry clothes.”