“What?”
“It’s a serious question. Like Rock, I also received a note outlining your grotesque lies about Clara Matthews. So ironic, coming from a man with such an…unlucky…history.”
Stephen went rigid. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he said, very, very quietly.
Sir John laughed, the ridiculous high-pitched sound grating on Caroline’s last nerve. He was playing to his audience like the most seasoned of actors, projecting his voice, allowing his hand gestures to become more and more wild, his eyes glittering madly.
“Why nothing at all, my lord! Wynnie was merely making conversation. But you must admit being connected to you is extremely hazardous to one’s health. In the past two years you’ve lost your brother and your father to accidents. Now a business acquaintance is dead, and the last person to see him alive was…you.”
Speechless with horror, Caroline stared at Sir John. Had he lost his mind? An accusation like that in front of so many witnesses practically insisted Stephen call him out! No one took honor and family more seriously than her husband.
She held her breath, hardly daring to move. Dueling was illegal and taken very seriously by the authorities. Would that be enough to overcome the idiot dandy’s words?
It seemed so. Stephen’s handsome face might have been carved from stone. “Grief has turned your mind, Sir John. Again, may I offer my sincere condolences on the loss of your friend. Come along, Caroline. Good day, gentlemen.”
Together they trotted their horses forward on the gravel path. After a swift glance sideways she mirrored Stephen’s stance exactly, head high, back rigid and gaze straight ahead as they left the two men and the rest of the crowd behind.
Relief surged through her body, until a furious bellow sounded behind them.
“Damn you to hell, you guttersnipe bastard!” screamed Sir John. “This is not finished! Not by a long way!”
***
“I’m sure I advised you and your wife to remain inside Forsyth House.”
Stephen gritted his teeth at White’s words and shifted on the padded chaise in his blue drawing room. Sure they might be technically correct, but it felt like he’d gone back in time to age thirteen and a master’s office the way the man was pacing and glaring. All the scene needed was a length of birch, although if White produced a cane he’d be heaving the much smaller man out a window rather than assuming the position.
“The head cold story wasn’t plausible in the slightest. Besides, we—”
“It’s my fault,” burst out Caroline in a rather miserable tone, her constant squirming on the chaise next to him, indicating she was reliving similar occasions at Miss Ashley’s Academy. “I couldn’t stand being indoors for one more minute. Waiting for information is unbearable.”
White’s stern expression didn’t waver. “Of course it is, but the instruction was for your own protection. You were extremely fortunate someone didn’t put a bullet in your backs as you rode away.”
“Except if we hadn’t have gone to Hyde Park, we never would have learned that Wynn-Thorne also received a note alleging I accused him of Clara Matthews’ murder,” Stephen pointed out coolly.
“Hmmm. Talking of notes, it seems your elusive former houseguest borrowed pen, ink and parchment from a footman the night of Ardmore’s ball.”
“So you think Taff wrote and sent the notes to Rochland and Wynn-Thorne?”
“Perhaps. I’m not sure. I have Rochland’s note, but alas no handwriting sample from Mr. Martin to compare it with.”
Stephen twisted his fingers together. It was either that or start one of Caroline’s porcelain smashing sprees. “So what do you know? Have you or your band of merry men discovered anything helpful to the investigation? Anything at all?”
“Of course,” White replied, gaze narrowing in affront. “We are the intelligence arm of the government after all.”
It took a mammoth effort, but he didn’t roll his eyes. “Well then. Will you please share?”
“I don’t usually, but in this instance I believe it is in everyone’s best interests.”
“Wonderful,” muttered Caroline and Stephen nearly smiled at his wife’s obvious irritation with White’s dissembling. It really was uncanny how similar their thoughts and reactions were, especially to blatant waffle.
Finally White ceased his pacing and elegantly folded himself into a high-backed chair. “I’ll begin by saying Mr. Captain Tavistock Martin is a very interesting creature.”
Stephen felt his brow furrow. “Mr. Captain?”
“Yes. His late parents must have been rather playful types. Captain is his first name, not a rank. We thoroughly searched our records and he never served in the military at all. Unlike his father, also a Tavistock Martin, who belonged to the British East India Company and fought under Cornwallis. Unfortunately Martin the elder was killed in an attempt to put down a rebellion in Mysore. His body was brought home by his dearest friend and long-time comrade, one Sergeant Bruce.”
“Sergeant Bruce?” gasped Caroline. “As in Sir Albert Bruce?”
White nodded in approval. “One and the same. It seems Sergeant Bruce distinguished himself in several skirmishes, heroically saving the lives of quite a few British soldiers and was well rewarded for his trouble. He made a lot of money in India and bought himself a baronetcy, although as you know, he’s been unable to purchase husbands for his daughters.”
“So the entire poacher debacle at the clearing was a complete fabrication,” spat Stephen, his fists clenching. “Lady Bruce knew exactly who ‘rescued’ me.”
“Well, the poachers may or may not have been real, but Nora Bruce’s reaction to Taff was certainly false. She and her husband took young Martin and his mother in somewhere around 1791. Mrs. Martin died of a fever the following year, so the part about him being an orphan was accurate enough.”
“This is all very interesting,” said Caroline, leaning forward to rest her chin on her hands. “But it still doesn’t explain why Taff hates my husband so much he’d frame him for murder.”
“I’m getting to that part,” replied White in a decidedly miffed tone.
“My apologies,” said Caroline. “Please continue.”
“As I was saying, young Martin was raised by the Bruces alongside their own children. By all accounts, over the years he became particularly close to the eldest daughter…”
“Hermia,” breathed Stephen, his heart beginning to pound.
“Yes. Many of the neighboring landowners, and the villagers for that matter, believed Martin to have romantic feelings for Miss Bruce. It’s unclear whether she felt anything in return, but the point became moot when she started stepping out with a young and extremely eligible nobleman in mid 1809.”
“My brother.”
“Correct. Hallmere and Miss Bruce spent a great deal of time together and were seen frequently in the Dover area, although not in London. The liaison was cut short a year later when she died after slipping and falling from a particularly treacherous cliff path. Although to put it plainly, despite an investigation at the time, I am not at all convinced that was how events proceeded.”
“Do you think…” whispered Caroline, her eyes huge in a starkly pale face.
“White thinks,” said Stephen bitingly as he got up to pace the drawing room, unable to sit still for a moment longer. “That the local magistrate was either a fresh-faced fool or an elderly drunk. He failed to ask some bluntly relevant questions after such a strange event.”
“Especially considering Miss Bruce was not the only person to, er, slip and fall that day,” said White. “Martin washed up on the beach hours later with horrific injuries, but somehow a local physician managed to save his life. The physician has since passed, but my men talked to his son, a physician in training as it happens. Apparently they’d never seen a man so close to death actually live.”
; “Dear God,” said Caroline. “So what really happened there? Were Taff and Hermia together? Did they fight, he pushed her and in remorse attempted suicide? Or did she slip and he tried to save her only to fall himself?”
“All excellent questions, Lady Westleigh. But not nearly as excellent as the question one of my men asked the physician’s son—”
“Which was?” cut in Stephen impatiently. The more words that spilt from White the sicker he felt, although now he could feel perspiration gathering at his temples as well.
White scowled at the interruption. “The son was just a shy, spotty lad watching from a corner when this happened, and the magistrate, yes, an elderly drunk, failed to ask him a single question about such remarkably odd proceedings. My man asked the lad, do you remember anything unusual about Mr. Martin’s injuries? And do you know what he said? That all the injuries, the broken bones, the bruising, the lacerations were consistent with a plunge down a cliff face. Except…”
“Except?” said Stephen, bracing his hands on the top of a chair, every instinct he possessed screaming that something shocking, even worse than Taff’s lies, was about to be revealed.
“Except the deep stab wounds to Tavistock’s right hand, chest and neck.”
His vision blurred. He could hear voices, one feminine, one masculine, asking him if he was well, but they seemed very far away. Muffled. Like they were trying to speak to him from under a body of water. Was he even still upright? He couldn’t tell, his body had turned so cold. Utter numbness in every limb, right to the tips of his fingers and toes.
Unhappily every other part of his body shutting down somehow resulted in absolute clarity of mind, and one thought continued to churn until he thought he might be violently ill all over the pale blue carpet.
Wynn-Thorne and Sir John said Gregory and Hermia were together on the cliff top the day she died.
The story they’d offered at the Piccadilly meeting—so many details with Hermia’s threat, his father’s decree and Gregory’s pleas—yet nothing which could be proved or disproved as all three people involved were dead. But if Gregory had been there on the cliff top…
Was it possible? No. His conscience shied away from even completing the thought.
Cruel logic dragged it back.
Was it possible his brother murdered Hermia Bruce and attempted to murder Taff?
A raw cry of denial tore from somewhere deep inside him. But too many things were starting to make sense. The Bruces’ strange behavior. The poacher ‘rescue’, the cart, Taff’s comings and goings, always away when awful things happened, and finally Rochland’s death and the false notes.
Everything circled back to Taff.
For God’s sake, the man actually spoke of his ordeal at William’s picnic! I underestimated and foolishly engaged with the enemy, he threw me over a cliff…I didn’t fall all the way down so I survived. Unfortunately my…comrade…wasn’t so lucky. Even though it has been a few years the loss still affects me greatly.
Not a French enemy. Gregory Forsyth.
Not a comrade. Hermia Bruce, the woman he’d loved.
Oh fuck.
Sharp pain burst through the thick fog surrounding him, and Stephen shook his head as he realized he was kneeling on the floor of the drawing room and shaking violently. Caroline knelt next to him, her face parchment pale. White stood about two feet away, a pink palm indicating he’d been the one to administer the resounding slap to the face.
Stephen flexed his stinging jaw. “Bloody hell. Don’t do that again. Ever.”
“We lost you there for a short time, Westleigh,” White murmured calmly, but his eyes were bright. Calculating. “Was it something I said?”
“No,” he said. “It was something Wynn-Thorne and Sir John Smythe said when I first met with them and Kimbolton.”
“Do share.”
“Gregory was with Hermia Bruce the day she died. According to them…now what was the story? Ah yes…she threw herself off a cliff because my brother wouldn’t marry her.”
Caroline gasped. “They actually said that?”
“Yes.”
She covered her mouth with her hands and swayed. “Oh God, Stephen. At our wedding ball Taff talked about his wife who died four years ago.”
White’s expression transformed to a portrait of utter grimness.
“If Hallmere did indeed murder Hermia Bruce and attempt to murder Tavistock Martin, that would certainly generate plenty of motive for revenge against you, Westleigh. I doubt his plans are complete, so it’s a good thing you’re all here in town. I’ll post extra guards around the perimeter until he can be located.”
All here. Stephen’s heart stopped beating. “No.”
“What? What is the matter?”
“My mother,” he croaked. “She’s at Westleigh Park.”
***
If Stephen kept up this frenetic level of activity, he would surely collapse again.
Gnawing her lip, Caroline pondered the best time to inform her husband she had packed a small travelling satchel and would be accompanying him to Westleigh Park. He’d already lost a very heated debate with White about the mode of travel. Despite better speed, horseback was immediately vetoed for safety reasons, so Stephen had reluctantly agreed to travel by carriage.
Staff had been dispatched to all corners, and now the last of the supplies were being stored in the carriage. Weapons. So many daggers and pistols it made her tremble. A small mountain of food including a basket of bread, cheese, pastries and fruit for the journey, as well as flasks of lemonade and a full bottle of whisky.
Now Stephen was methodically checking the horses, but he looked awful. In the space of half an hour, pure torment had etched deep grooves into his deathly pale face and his shoulders were hunched like an old, old man.
“Stephen,” she began, hurrying forward to put a hand on his arm, but he shrugged her off.
“I’m a little busy right now, Caroline. Long journey ahead.”
“I know that, but you need to slow-”
“Spare me the kind words,” he snarled. “As the bastard who left his mother alone and unprotected in the country, I don’t deserve them. White might think it’s far better to sit tight and hope that Taff or Sir John or Wynn-Thorne or any other man who currently holds a bloody goddamn grudge against me, restricts their vengeance activities to London-based Forsyths…but I cannot take that chance.”
“Of course not. How many armed outriders is he providing?”
Stephen paused and braced one hand on the side of the carriage while two fingers pinched the bridge of his nose. Oh God, her husband was going to explode at any minute. Whether with anger or fear, she couldn’t quite tell.
“Four. They should be here soon. I told him I was leaving at two o’clock sharp.”
“We were leaving,” she said firmly.
“What?”
Even though he couldn’t see her, Caroline assumed full battle stance. Back straight, hands on hips and eyes narrowed. “We.”
“You’re not bloody going.”
She stepped forward and wrapped her arms tightly around him, pressing a soft kiss to the back of his neck. “Oh, yes, I am.”
“God damn it, Caroline! No, you’re not! It could be dangerous!”
“You have two choices, husband. One, I go with you. Two, I follow you on my own, without the protection of weapons, armed guards, footmen and coachman.”
“Three, you bloody well do as you’re told and stay right here.”
“Unfortunately there is no third option in my world, Stephen. Where you go, I will go and all that.”
He cursed fluently. Several times. For a long moment Caroline held her breath as he visibly warred with himself.
Then his shoulders sagged. “You will not leave the carriage under any circumstances. Is that clear?”
“Yes,”
she replied, mentally crossing her fingers. If he was in any danger, she would be out the door and brandishing whatever weapons were available. It couldn’t be that difficult to shoot a pistol, surely.
“I mean it, Caro,” he muttered, tilting his head back until his cheek rested against hers. “I couldn’t bear it if…”
“I’ll be fine. And so will your mother, so stop torturing yourself.”
Stephen sucked in a harsh breath and slammed his fist against the carriage door. “I raised my voice. Waved her away. And all the time she was right, about the group and what they did.”
“Jane will forgive you. However, if I were you, I would not so much as raise an eyebrow over a party or modiste bill ever again.”
“But what if Taff—”
“Don’t imagine the worst-case scenario. Taff could be in France and your mother sipping tea in her rose garden right now. Let’s take this one step at a time and consider the facts, hmmm?”
“Stop it. You’re starting to sound like me.”
“A very low blow, Lord Westleigh.”
The tiniest of smiles tugged at his lips. “Hellion.”
“I shall take that as a compliment,” she replied pertly, leaning down to pick up her satchel from where she’d stashed it behind a carriage wheel. “Now let’s be away.”
They must have looked a sight as they pulled away from Grosvenor Square, the carriage practically groaning with coachman plus two burly footmen at the front and another two perched on the back. Not to mention the four heavily armed riders accompanying them.
Caroline grinned briefly as she stretched her legs on the opposite seat. “People will think this carriage contains royalty at the very least.”
“It might do.”
“That is true.”
He cleared his throat. “You know, Caroline, I could hire someone to make enquiries. About your father I mean. I understand you have very little information about him, but there are professionals who can follow the flimsiest of leads and end up with excellent results.”
To Love a Hellion (The London Lords Book 1) Page 26