The earl sat behind the desk, and Goodfellow and the burly groom who stood guard turned Higgins to face him. Lucy suspected they deliberately waited until the countess came in so she would see that bit of business. Goodfellow leaned on one of the grain sacks they had stacked by the window, half sitting, his eyes on Higgins. Two empty chairs had been placed next to the surly butler.
Gibbons went to the storeroom door, and, at David’s gesture, led Miller, who was still gagged, and Spangler to the empty seats. Spangler glanced around frantically and opened his mouth to complain. When he saw the countess, he shut it and sat.
David ordered gags removed, saying, “No one will speak unless spoken to. I will ask the questions. Gags can be put back in place.”
From her place in the back, Lucy could see no facial expressions, but Spangler’s grip on the chair and rigid posture expressed sheer terror.
Eli, Morgan, and Gibbons stood to the side with Goodfellow, and Maddy leaned on the back wall on one side of Lucy, with Rob on the other, shoulder to shoulder with her.
The countess stepped forward. “Really, David, is this theater piece necessary? I borrowed the family carriage. Surely—”
“Quiet.” David’s cold hard words had the desired effect. “You can make this easy by answering my questions. We’ve already spoken with the criminals sitting in front of you. You can simplify these proceedings by answering me.”
The dowager’s chin tipped up. “Is this any way to treat your mother?”
David didn’t hesitate. “I’m not sure I understand that word, madam. Your behavior flouts every ideal of motherhood I know. For the moment, you are accused of criminal activity and, as magistrate, I have questions.”
The dowager turned to glare at Rob. “You cannot possibly believe the word of that, that misbegotten whelp!”
“You may certainly face your accusers. They are arrayed in front of you.” David gestured toward the men in chairs. “Shall we begin with fraud,” he said, indicating Spangler, “or at the other end with attempted kidnapping and murder?” David gestured toward Miller and Higgins.
“What can they possibly have accused me of?” she demanded, her voice beginning to wobble.
“To begin with, you are accused of fraudulently conspiring with Mr. Spangler to subvert your husband’s will and skim money from the heirs.”
“Nonsense, I—”
“We have Mr. Spangler’s testimony regarding my father’s will.”
“You can’t believe a lying cheat!”
“Perhaps not.” The accused began to preen, but David unfolded the sheaf of papers Lucy had watched Morgan hand to him. “Then again, his words ring true when matched to this list of bank accounts. Since I know well the size of your widow’s portion—about which you complain regularly—and am aware that you have no source of ready income—as you remind me daily—can you explain the movement of money into these accounts?”
“What accounts? My name is on no accounts.” The ostrich feathers quivered above her head.
“Of course not. Your man of business—Mr. Ransome, I believe—did an excellent job of masking your name, but that they are your accounts, I have no doubt. At first blush, it appears you’ve been skimming money from the estate for a long time. The bank has been notified that the estate has an interest in the accounts, and they are frozen.”
Lucy wondered if he bluffed, but the countess obviously believed him. She began to sputter; David raised a quelling hand.
“Do you deny recruiting Spangler to subvert the intent of your husband’s will?”
From her place behind but to the side, Lucy could see the dowager’s face flush red. “That worm took advantage of your father when impaired at the expense of the estate. Willowbrook, the money, all of it belong to… you.” Everyone in the room heard her hesitation. Lucy, for one, believed she meant to say “to me.”
“Thank you, your ladyship,” David intoned. “You just affirmed what Mr. Higgins told us. I will take that as an admission of guilt.
“Guilt? I defended your honor. I—”
“Quiet!” David overrode her. “Don’t make me restrain you.”
“You—” The countess’s voice shook with rage.
“Don’t test me.” David’s merciless tone had the impact he desired.
“She’s gritting her teeth so hard she may harm her jaw,” Maddy murmured.
David took a deep breath and got to the heart of the matter. “You are accused of orchestrating an effort to terrorize Miss Lucy Whitaker from Willowbrook, to replace her with a false heir, an effort that intensified when the true heir appeared, culminating with injury to Mr. Robert Benson, innkeeper of Ashmead, and of attempts to abduct Miss Whitaker, and in the murder of Lieutenant Robbins, who came to her aid.” He scanned every face in the room, returning to fix on the dowager. “There may be more, but that will do for now.”
The dowager remained upright and silent for the barest moment before she began to shake, and Lucy braced herself for an explosion that surely must come. She glanced up at Maddy, who stood rigid and white-faced at her side.
Maddy leaned her head down. “I’m so sorry, Lucy,” she whispered.
Lucy sagged against her friend, but still no words came from the countess in the face of David’s unrelenting accusations. “These men face prison, transportation, or hanging for crimes you ordered. They won’t protect you.”
All color drained from the dowager’s face, and she swayed on her feet. Rob grabbed a chair from the corner of the room and placed it next to her. He didn’t touch her. She threw him a poisonous look and seemed to regain control.
That woman feeds on hate and bile, Lucy thought. Rob stepped to the side to stand by Eli and Morgan, leaving a cold void along Lucy’s left side, cold that seeped right into the hole in her heart as she watched the drama drawing to a close. It’s over. And now he will leave.
“No denial?” David glanced at the men in front of him. “Do any of you have anything to add to your testimony?”
“I didn’t lie,” Spangler muttered, while Miller sank into his seat, chin lowered to his chest.
Higgins twisted in his chair and gave the countess an agonized frown. “You don’t deserve such treatment. You defended the honor of the House of Clarion.”
“I think the Earl of Clarion understands honor far better than any of you,” Rob said from the side. Eli put a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
David’s gaze never left his mother’s face. “As magistrate, I’m ordering these men bound over to the jail in Nottingham, Spangler to await the quarter session. The other two will await trial for their crimes in the assizes.”
Assize has the power to order hanging! The sick feeling in Lucy’s stomach intensified.
Miller leapt to his feet, only to be pushed back by Goodfellow. “You’re letting the old lady off?” he shouted.
Lucy thought she heard David’s assurance the countess would meet her due over the din that followed, but she didn’t wait to be sure. She had heard enough. With another quick squeeze of Maddy’s hand, she left them all preoccupied with crime and punishment. By the time she approached the main corridor, she broke into a run.
Willowbrook! She needed Willowbrook, her peace, her place of security, at least for as long as she had it.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Lucy slipped away just before the countess collapsed, and Miller tried to escape. By the time they restored order, Rob realized she was gone. Goodfellow told him later that she rode back to Willowbrook.
Maddy leaned over her mother, vinaigrette in hand, attempting to rouse her. Rob suspected the old bat chose not to rouse.
David let his anger show now that the official part of his duties had finished. “Leave her, Maddy. We’ll have the footmen haul her to her room. We can arrange transportation to Northumberland tomorrow.”
“Northumberland?” the countess choked. She sat up, sputtering and coughing, slapping Maddy’s hands away. “It is a wreck of a barn.”
“If it is p
rimitive when you get there, you can blame your crimes, Madam. I’ll order repairs. Your accounts will give us the funds to do so—money that might better be used elsewhere—the repairs are necessary because I expect you to spend the rest of your life there. You will do no more harm to those I love.”
“Maddy, inform your brother I will not be treated in this high-handed manner.” The dowager, still sitting on the floor, lifted her chin at her daughter.
Maddy rose and stood at David’s side. “David has my full support,” she said.
In a corner of the room, Rob’s men milled around, ill at ease, embarrassed at the family drama unfolding in front of them. Eli looked sick at heart.
“Are we needed here?” Gibbons asked softly.
“I’ve put you and Goodfellow at the earl’s disposal. He may need you to escort the countess into exile. Report to me at the Willow when you’re done.”
“Back to London, then, Major?” Goodfellow asked.
The stab of pain Rob felt took him off guard. Back to London, away from Lucy. He took a deep breath. “Back to London,” he agreed. But I need to speak to Maddy first. There has to be a way… He glanced at his sister and brother, who embraced as their mother was led away. Perhaps tomorrow.
“Coming home, then, Robbie? Da will want to hear it all.” Eli’s words penetrated Rob’s fog of confused feelings, everything that drove him away, everything he had been determined to avoid, everything he’d come to crave. Home. Da. He’d left a change of clothes and a few belongings at Willowbrook. The urge to use that as an excuse to ride after Lucy gripped him. But what will I say? She would hate London. She said so.
“Home, Eli. It’s time,” he said at last.
Morgan chose to linger with Gibbons and Goodfellow. Rob didn’t ask why.
When Rob and Eli reached the Willow, the telling of the tale didn’t take long in the convivial atmosphere of Robert Benson’s sunny office. Words depleted, Rob sipped his ale slowly, wishing it to last. He stared at the beam of light across the battered old table, avoiding Da’s eyes, savoring his company.
“What now, Robbie? Sell Willowbrook?” Eli asked.
What indeed. Rob didn’t look up.
“Don’t you have clients waiting in Nottingham?” Da asked.
“I told you this morning. I have the day at leisure and a good thing, too, when Morgan came and—”
Rob glanced up to catch Eli’s arrested expression.
“But I’ve been meaning to look in on Ellis and Emma. They’ll want to hear the news about the excitement at Caulfield Hall, for certain,” Eli said, rising. “Think on the sale, Robbie. I’ve been keeping my eyes out for a suitable place for Lucy, like you planned.”
“Enough, Eli,” Da said sharply, sending him on his way.
“You ran him off,” Rob murmured, drinking the last bit of ale.
“Aye. Now tell me what you plan to do with Willowbrook.”
“I plan to sell it.” I always did, didn’t I?
“So, no change?” Da shook his head in disappointment.
Rob leaned across the table. “My life is in London. I never pretended otherwise. I’ve stayed away from my work long enough. It’s a good life, Da. I have respect. I’m good at what I do.” His father didn’t speak, and so he went on. “I know I stayed away too long. I’m sorry. I can be back to visit. Emma and—”
“Why did you leave, Robbie? Why stay away?” The old man’s eyes pinned him in place. There could be no evasion this time. Rob told him about that morning at Caulfield Hall, even, painfully, the part about Maddy.
“Someone needed to tell you Lady Madelyn is your sister. I should have done it sooner, and I’m sorry about that, Robbie. But you let that old witch’s words keep you away all this time?”
“I don’t give a damn about the opinion of the Countess of Clarion. I never did. I stayed away because of you, Da.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“You lied to me. The man I respected more than any man on earth lied to me.”
“I have never lied to you in my life!”
Years of hurt rose from the depths to churn in Rob’s gut. “You let me believe I was your son.”
“You are my son, Robbie. Don’t be daft.”
Rob raised both hands to push the lie away, but the old man leaned closer and went on. “When I had the chance to marry your mother, I jumped at it. You were born a few months later. When they set you in my arms, you were my son. In my heart, always. I never thought otherwise. I never thought to tell you otherwise because you are my son. It just didn’t occur to me, like I didn’t think to warn you about Lady Madelyn. That’s the one thing I regret. I’m sorry for that.”
“But the earl—”
“Forfeited all rights. If the reprobate had attempted to claim you, I would have shot him. You were mine.”
The two pairs of eyes held across the table. Rob broke away first.
Da spoke again, more softly. “I can’t say I regret him leaving you Willowbrook, though. It brought you home.”
“I thought he wanted to make me into some sort of landed gentry, something I never wanted,” Rob muttered. “Maddy says he did it to spite David, making us both miserable in one act.”
“Caulfields weave an awful tangle,” Da said, shaking his head. “There’s one more thing you should know. The old earl offered me money to marry your mother. I wanted to shove it down his overbred throat. I would have starved in a barn with the pair of you, but Mary deserved better. I demanded the Willow instead. Got him to sign it over, free and clear.”
“How could you manage that? He left bastards across the county. He can’t have cared about one more.” Rob’s astonishment left him breathless.
Da cringed at the word but answered anyway. “I was groom at the hall. I saw him molesting the Earl of Summerdale’s foolish daughter in one of the stalls. When I found your mother weeping in the still room, I threatened to tell the girl’s father.”
“You blackmailed the earl?” Shocked and amused at the same time, Rob choked on his words.
“He tore the chit’s gown. Damn fool’s button got caught in the lace at her neckline. I kept the piece with the button still in it.” Da’s smug expression warmed Rob to his toes. Realization that his raising by this honorable man had been a blessing overwhelmed him in a flood of gratitude. He swallowed past the lump in his throat, grinned at the man across the table, and squashed the urge to leap up and hug the old man and embarrass the both of them.
“Still leaving?”
“Aye, Da. My work is still in London, and I’m no farmer.”
“You won’t come back, not easily,” the old man said.
“Don’t say that. We’ve made our peace, haven’t we?” Rob knew he had.
“Not with Lucy here. What do you mean to do about Lucy Whitaker?” Da’s knowing eyes reduced Rob to the confused boy who left Ashmead.
With Lucy here, would I stay away? Could I stand to see her and not—. “She won’t come to London. She has some daft idea about finding a cottage and raising her bees. It is hers to choose, isn’t it?”
“Have you asked her?”
“To come to London with me? No. I asked her what she thought of the place, but her answer was an adamant no. I’m wondering if I could ease her into the idea.”
Da snorted at that. “You might try talking to the woman, Robbie. Women put store by a proper proposal. Some uncomfortable conversations are better had sooner rather than later.”
Rob couldn’t deny the truth of that. Not after the one they had just had. Finally. “You’re right, of course. But right now, I have a powerful thirst.”
The two man rose and walked to the taproom, Da’s arm came around Rob’s shoulder.
“Need another ale then, Robbie?” Eli called.
Behind the bar, Emma drew two pints. “Give the lad some room, you two. Quit grinning like fools.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Lucy stared at the empty parlor of a tiny cottage, one smaller than she hoped, but p
erfect in most ways. The smell of dust and misuse assaulted her, and faded curtains blocked the light of the sun, but those things could be easily remedied. If Agnes moved with her, they would pose no problem. The estate agent in Nottingham had been gratifyingly swift in his response, and now Lucy faced what could be her future if she chose it.
She had walked the perimeter of the property, confirming that it did indeed have adequate space for a bee yard. A stone walk, lined with overgrown patches of green, meandered some distance beyond the rear of the house, past three apple trees thick with fruit, to an open area which, the estate agent assured her, had once held kennels. It would do for her bees.
A garden shed in decent repair leaned against the stone fence marking the end of the property, one sufficient for her equipment. If the vegetable patch behind the house and flower beds around it were weedy and overgrown as well, she could envision them in glorious bloom. It would do. Lucy doubted she’d find a place better, one more suited to her requirements.
Now she paced from room to room on the ground floor of the cottage itself. The building lacked a full cellar but sat up a bit on its foundations and boasted four small rooms down and four up. The room across from the parlor might serve for an office, she thought. Her desk would fit along one wall and still allow space for a bookshelf. Other bookshelves might go under the windows that opened, one to the front and the other to the side.
The hearth lay to one side, clustered like the fireplaces in each room around a central chimney, one that appeared sound. The door next to it led to a kitchen, made smaller by cupboards built into one wall but adequate for a single woman’s household. The kitchen lacked Willowbrook’s Rumford stove, and the rough stone fireplace was, no doubt, too small for one. They would cope. In addition to the door she came through, another led outside to the rear of the house and the vegetable garden. She went to a third, which led to the final room.
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