Mignon stared blindly at her hands, the fingers so tightly interwoven that the knuckles ached. Jesse had been kind to her and a more than enjoyable companion while his star was on the rise. It was no more than he deserved that she should warn him that he was suspected of some crime.
Crime? Mignon jumped as if bee-stung. Why had she not thought sooner of Dulcie’s fascination with the recent murders and robberies and of her determination to prove Leda innocent? Surely Lady Bligh did not mean that Jesse should take her friend’s place on the gallows? Miss Montague might sympathize greatly with the unfortunate Leda, though she was by no means convinced that the old woman was innocent. She also might have suffered a great confusion of feelings for Jesse Saint-Cyr; but she would by no means stand idly by while an innocent man hanged, even when the man was so accomplished a deceiver.
But was Jesse innocent? He had been inside Bligh House and could easily have learned the location of her room, as could have Lord Jeffries. Had Ivor, in some perverted spirit of revenge, set Jesse up as a scapegoat?
“I fancy,” remarked the Baroness, disrupting Mignon’s train of thought, “that we shall do well enough if the thing does not come too suddenly to a crisis.” Her dark eyes rested on her niece. “You look exhausted, child, and so am I. I suggest we all retire early.”
Mignon made no demur; this suggestion fit in excellently with her own half-formed plans. She would take her candle from the sideboard that stood in the hallway and light herself to her chamber; then, when the rest of the household was asleep—
She glanced at her aunt, who looked exhausted. Better, perhaps, that she had received no opportunity to burden Dulcie with confidences. If Mignon was in a pickle, it was entirely her own fault.
Lady Bligh laid her hand on her niece’s arm. “There’s no help for it, child; we do what we must. Try and have a good night’s sleep. Things will seem brighter on the morrow, I promise you.”
Chapter 29
“So you came,” said Jesse, his handsome face aglow. “I had hoped you would. I will never forgive myself for the horrid things I said to you.”
“You gave me little enough choice!” Mignon neatly avoided his embrace. “I begin to think, Jesse, that you have made a cat’s-paw of me.”
He looked sorrowful. “Can I be blamed if the anguish of separation has driven me to desperate measures? Tell me that you have reconsidered, Mignon.”
“I have not.” Mignon sat down in a mahogany armchair of graceful proportions, with fine details of grooving and reeding in the arms and back. She drew a deep breath. The journey to Crown Court had proven remarkably free of difficulty; she had encountered only a solitary horseman who was apparently inebriated, judging by his inept handling of the reins. “Jesse, I must talk with you.”
“Of course.” He lounged upon a lacquered wooden settee with a caned seat, gracefully carved arms, turned legs, and well-designed horizontal splats. “You must know, puss, that you can say anything to me.”
Indeed? Had Mignon spoken her mind, he would probably have dealt her physical violence. She thought with amazement of those happier days when Jesse had loaded her with caresses and sworn eternal devotion, days when his touchy temper had seemed a manly thing. Devotion there had been, Mignon realized, but to her fortune rather than to herself.
Unhappily, she glanced around the room. This expensive hotel with its honeysuckle-worked pilasters, iron balconies, marble flutings and paterae was hardly typical lodgings for an unknown and penniless actor. Her impulse to warn him of impending trouble died. “I’ll pay you nothing,” she said abruptly.
Jesse cocked a brow. “Have I mentioned payment? How unfeeling you are, Mignon. Have you no thought for the hours we passed together? Very agreeable they were! I doubt your family would find them so at second hand, were the tale of your indiscretions to be on every tongue.” He smiled, somewhat maliciously. “ ‘Twould be a wonder that cast the other marvels of the Metropolis into the shade.”
Mignon looked at him, her suspicions at last confirmed. A pity that behind that handsome face was a mind so small and mean. “If you ruin me,” she said carefully, “you will also do yourself harm. My aunt knows the whole story, and she will protect me from your slanders as best she can. It is you who have the most to lose, Jesse. My aunt will see to it that you never perform again.”
Instead of being taken aback, he smiled. “I would be very surprised if your aunt does anything at all.”
Mignon opened her mouth to argue but was distracted by a slight noise. Before Jesse could move to stop her, she had darted across the room and wrenched open a door. On the floor of the closet lay Viscount Jeffries, apparently unconscious, bound and gagged.
“What have you done?” Mignon worked frantically at the ropes, which were only loosely tied. A pulse beat at Ivor’s temple. “Thank God he isn’t dead!”
“He’ll be well enough,” Jesse said indifferently. “For all it will avail him! You waste your time, puss. He’s not likely to revive under your tender ministrations, having been stretched out stiff as a corpse for the past hour.”
“Why have you done this?” Mignon wrenched away the cruelly tight gag. And then she knew. “Dear God,” she whispered, sinking back on her heels. “He was in this with you, no doubt the ringleader! Is this how you repay him, by playing him false? What now, Jesse? You will leave him to take the whole blame, I suppose?”
“How protective of him you are!” Inexpertly, Jesse took snuff. “And how indignant in his behalf. It appears you are in love with the man, murderer or no.”
“Does it?” Mignon countered. “You should know, Jesse, that I left my aunt a note telling her I’d come here, in case you tried to prevent my return.”
“I anticipated no less. You may as well expect a miracle, puss, as expect your aunt to rescue you.” He rose, his harsh expression belying his honeyed tones, and Mignon shrank back against the Viscount’s inert form. “A pity you were not more agreeable, Mignon! We might have had a bright future, you and I. Instead, I’ve been forced to find other means to support my tastes.”
“The robberies,” whispered Mignon.
“You may blame yourself,” he said, with a trace of his old daredevil grin. “You served me a monstrous bad turn when at the last minute you turned craven. You were willing enough to flirt with danger, but when it came to the sticking point you turned missish, and confessed all to your brother rather than eloping with me to Gretna Green.”
“You think that!” Mignon felt as though the ground had been cut from beneath her feet. To mask her growing fear, she absently chafed the Viscount’s wrists.
“Who else could have told him? Though I suppose I must be grateful you didn’t divulge my name. It was a terrible blow to my pride—and to my pocketbook.” Jesse brushed a lock of black hair from his noble brow. “So you see why it pleased me to serve you an equally bad turn! You would seem the logical choice to abet me in crime, were my guilt to become known. But Bow Street was slow to take up the gambit, even when we so carefully arranged that the gentlemen at Rundle and Brydges could describe you so carefully.”
“We?” echoed Mignon. Surely Ivor was not so heartless that in one moment he embraced her and in the next contrived to put her neck in a noose! So stunned was Miss Montague that she merely blinked when hasty footsteps sounded in the corridor and Mrs. Harrington-Smythe burst into the room.
“What the bloody hell are you doing still here?” she demanded, and then spotted Mignon, crouched by the Viscount. “Well! I don’t know when I’ve seen a more affecting scene. Jeffries is hardly in the pink of perfection now, is he, miss? I didn’t think he’d be overpowered so easily.”
Mignon recognized that nasal whine. “Charity?” she gasped. There was scant other resemblance between this dark-haired woman, elegant in a traveling outfit of sapphire velvet and fur, and Lady Bligh’s homely maid.
Jesse grasped a heavy reticule that dangled from the woman’s wrist. “It went well? The Baroness?”
“Deep in the sleep
of the innocent.” Charity wrenched away and moved to a bow fronted mahogany chest with inlaid shell ornaments. She yanked open one of the drawers and emptied into it the contents of her reticule. Mignon saw papers and jewels, among them the note she had penned to Dulcie and a lovely string of pearls. “Which she is not. Even so, I’ve no stomach for what’s planned. I’m getting out while I can.”
“It’s a little late for that.” Jesse watched as Charity extracted a handful of glittering gems from the drawer. “Where the devil did you get those?”
“Where do you think?” Charity stuffed the jewels into her bodice. “From a certain gentleman. As to the Baroness, I’ve done my part. I slipped the drug into her food easily enough.”
“He gave them to you?” Jesse appeared stunned.
Charity’s glance was unfriendly. “Of course not. You may be fool enough to follow instructions and wait patiently for your share. I’m not!” She looked at the Viscount, still motionless and prone. “A pity that Jeffries is fated for so sad an end. He was an extraordinarily fine-looking figure of a man.”
“You mean to kill Dulcie,” said Mignon, not caring to dwell upon Charity’s assessment of the Viscount. “Why?”
“She knows enough to hang us all.” Charity’s voice was cold.
“Enough!” Jesse interrupted.
Mignon looked from one of her captors to the other. “You’re related.” Now that Charity was no longer in disguise, the resemblance was clear.
“Aye.” Charity cast a disgusted glance at him. “My cousin, who wished to marry a fortune. I took the job at Bligh House to keep an eye on you for him, not dreaming where it would lead us.” She turned back to Mignon. “It seems fair, since you landed my cousin in the suds, that I should repay you by eloping with your brother.”
“Maurice?” Mignon’s voice was faint.
“Maurice. He’s a great deal more credulous than you. I accepted his offer of marriage, naturally. ‘Tis a double windfall since, on your death, your fortune will also pass to him.” Charity moved away. “Enough is right! You must make your own plans, Jesse.”
It seemed that Mignon, as her exasperated mother had long predicted, was indeed destined to come to a bad end. With no hope but to delay the unhappy moment, she played for time. “Since you mean to kill me,” she protested, in wretchedly unsteady tones, “you might at least tell me why. It was the two of you who committed the robberies, contriving to make Leda look guilty, who murdered Lord Warwick and Zoe and Mary Elphinstone?”
“It was the three of us,” corrected Charity. Anxious as she was to leave, she could not bypass the opportunity to gloat. “This is all your fault. If not for Jesse’s determination to have you, we wouldn’t have been drawn into this thing.”
“You’re forgetting about your own greed,” snapped Jesse. “You were already a rich man’s mistress, living off the proceeds. And what will he say when he finds you’ve run off with another man? I wouldn’t give a brass farthing for your chances then.”
Charity shrugged. “Why should he say anything? Maurice isn’t a healthy man. Doubtless I’ll be widowed ‘ere long.”
“You’d kill Maurice?” whispered Mignon, startled not so much by their callousness as that any woman would choose her brother over the Viscount, for surely it was he of whom they spoke. But why should they be concerned with the opinion of a man who lay trussed up like a chicken on the floor? One who appeared to be slated for death himself? Mignon decided that the clarity of her thinking left much to be desired.
“Why not?” Jesse threw himself sulkily onto the settee. “She’s already killed one man.”
“Warwick was the price I had to pay for your pursuit of Miss Montague.” And then Charity’s voice trailed off as yet another person paused on the threshold.
Charity might have turned into a white-faced statue; Jesse might have frozen in his indolent position on the settee; but Mignon was on her feet in an instant and flying across the room. “Tolly!” she cried and ran into his arms. “Thank heavens you’ve come!”
“What the devil is all this?” Lord Barrymore’s strained tones may have been accounted for by the fact that Charity had drawn a deadly little pistol, or alternately the grip that Mignon had on his waistcoat. “Miss Montague, what are you doing here?”
“I had to come! Jesse was going to blackmail me. Oh, Tolly, they were behind everything, the robberies and the murders! They admitted as much.”
“Did they?” He sounded thoughtful, and Mignon peered anxiously into his face.
“They mean to kill Dulcie, too,” she added. “Tolly, we must stop them!”
“I see.” He set Mignon gently aside and smiled down at her. “You are very like your aunt, you know, though without her acumen. I believe the Baroness had already determined that Jesse and Charity robbed Rundle and Brydges, that Jesse broke into Lady Coates’ home and stole her faro bank, and heaven only knows what else.” He looked at Jesse. “You damned bungler! Everything would have gone off perfectly well had you not mixed up those banknotes.”
Mignon was horrified. “It was you, not Ivor! You are the third person, the rich man whose mistress Charity is. You cannot be in need of wealth. But then, why?” Was it her imagination, or had the Viscount stirred?
If Lord Barrymore noted Miss Montague’s tendency to babble, he attributed it to an understandable nervousness. “To prove that I could,” he replied amiably. “At first it was no more than a pleasant diversion. Then you came onto the scene.” With a finger, he flicked her cheek. “Initially, I contrived to make your acquaintance through mere curiosity, to see what manner of female had so enthralled poor Jesse. Then it amused me to take a more active role, thinking that when you overcame your infatuation, as you were bound to do, our Jesse being devilish handsome but not particularly bright, you would turn to me. You were of invaluable assistance in keeping me informed of your aunt’s endeavors.”
Mignon looked at the actor, still sprawled on the settee, his handsome face marred by petulance. Everyone was looking at her. What, she thought frantically, was she to do? “I was a fool,” she said.
“Ah, well,” commiserated Tolly, “I was willing to overlook that. A pity, my dear, that you did not allow me to sweep you off your feet.”
“It would have mattered little,” Charity interrupted waspishly. “Whichever of them you wed, you would not have lived long. It is not difficult to contrive an unfortunate accident.”
Mignon backed away. Once more she knelt by Ivor, taking comfort from the warmth of his body, the steadiness of his pulse.
“Very touching,” remarked Lord Barrymore, as Mignon dabbed at the Viscount’s forehead, bloody from a cut. “How much help had you to subdue Jeffries, Jesse? I doubt you could inflict that much damage alone.”
Jesse scowled. “They’ve been paid well to keep their traps shut.”
“I wonder why I tolerate your ineptitude!” sighed Tolly. “It is due to your cousin, of course. Who appears dressed for traveling. Planning a midnight flit, my dear? Perhaps to Gretna Green? But you have not even asked about the success of this evening’s endeavors.”
Charity’s expression was venal. “You got it?”
“I did.” Lord Barrymore smiled. “The Bank of England has been relieved of a great deal of bullion, no thanks to your efforts. Your swain must be growing restless. You have kept him waiting overlong.”
That Charity turned ashen beneath her makeup, and that Jesse tensed, went unnoticed by Mignon. She was staring down into Ivor’s face, regretting all the harsh words that had passed between them. Now she would have no chance to apologize.
“We’re wasting too much time,” Tolly continued, in different, more authoritative tones. Charity trained her pistol once more on Ivor. “It will look like poor Mignon killed Jeffries, her partner in crime, and then, guilt-ridden, committed suicide. Not here, of course; but I have the perfect place in mind.” He frowned. “A note explaining all, I think, but that can be penned in Bligh House. Come!”
As if on cue, th
e glass in the French windows shattered with such force that shards and fragments of broken wood and glass exploded into the room. Lady Bligh, looking remarkably unruffled in a fur-trimmed black cloth mantle and an oval-brimmed bonnet tied with a rakish bow beneath her chin, made an entrance as effective as any Shakespearean heroine. In her hand was an extremely efficient-looking pistol. “That wraps it up nicely,” said the Baroness. “Jessop, see to the door.”
With an agility that belied his battered appearance, Ivor sprang to his feet. He smiled down at Mignon, his brown eyes no longer cold and suspicious, but glowing with a combination of excitement and something less easily explained. “Jessop!” hissed Dulcie, her dark eyes intent on her captives, all of whom showed signs of recovering from their stunned shock. “Stop making sheep’s eyes at my niece and admit our reinforcements. Any effort at escape is useless, Barrymore.”
What inspired him to such folly no one could later say, but even as Ivor was admitting Gibbon, Willie and a disheveled Crump, Tolly sprang. Without so much as an eyelid’s blink, the Baroness discharged her weapon into his heart.
It was not to be expected that the remaining culprits would allow themselves to be taken calmly off to gaol, but their struggle was brief. Jesse was quickly overpowered by Gibbon and Crump, while Charity went down to defeat when Willie broke a vase over her head. The only further casualty was Lord Jeffries, who received a wound in the arm when Charity’s pistol discharged.
“Poor Mignon!” said Dulcie, apparently no whit disturbed by the fact that a corpse lay at her feet. “It was necessary that we hear the truth from their own lips, but I did not intend for you to be placed in danger. If only you had heeded me and stayed safely in bed! Your rebellion caused us a few bad moments and inspired a rapid change of plans. Still, it worked out nicely, did it not? All in all, you have done very well, child.”
Miss Montague had no ear for her aunt’s accolade, nor eyes even for Tolly’s corpse. She stared with horror at the blood that gushed from Ivor’s arm. “It’s nothing,” he murmured. Twittering, Willie fashioned and applied a makeshift tourniquet. “Truly! May I tell you how very, very sorry I am to have so grievously misjudged you?”
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