Sarah snatched up her bonnet and called for her phaeton.
Twenty-one
SARAH tried to calm herself as she drove the short distance to Peter Cole’s house. She needed to see Peter alone but she had little hope of eluding Jenny. Well, perhaps Jenny might be obliged to listen to a few home truths about her brother. Sarah wouldn’t spare her if she saw no other way.
“Sarah!” Jenny smiled at her as she entered the drawing room. “What a delightful surprise. We were just talking about you.”
For a moment, Sarah was thrown off her stride. “Oh?” she managed.
“Yes, the Fenwicks are having a picnic by the river next week, to take advantage of this fine weather we’ve been having. Would you like to come?”
Sarah couldn’t seem to make her frantic brain understand the simple question. “I came to speak with Peter,” she blurted out. “Alone.” She turned to Peter. “It’s about that matter you were investigating.”
Peter eyed her for a moment in silence. Without looking at his sister, he said, “Excuse us, will you, my dear? We’ll go to my library.”
“Oh, don’t go,” said Jenny, jumping up. “I shall run upstairs and see if I can locate that embroidery pattern I was telling you about, Sarah. You know, the one with the forget-me-nots.”
“Oh, er, yes,” Sarah said blankly. She couldn’t recall such a conversation. She was merely grateful to Jenny for taking herself off without fuss.
Once she judged Jenny was out of earshot, Sarah rounded on Peter. “You told me you had no knowledge of Brinsley’s bastard son!”
Peter raised his brows. “That is correct.”
“Don’t lie to me! You placed the boy with a family in St. Alban’s.”
Peter’s lips compressed until they were white. He barely opened them to speak. “Who told you this?”
“I employed an investigator,” said Sarah. “You’ve led me a merry dance, haven’t you, Peter? Letting me think you had nothing to do with the business, when in fact, you were the one who placed the child? Probably paid for his upkeep into the bargain, didn’t you? I’m sure Brinsley did not.”
His gaze darted to the door. “Keep your voice down, for God’s sake! What do you want?”
Sarah stood. “I want you to take me to him. I want you to tell his people who I am and that I shall be responsible for his welfare from now on.”
“You don’t understand—”
“Take me there, Peter. Take me there, or I swear I’ll make you regret it.”
“All right, all right,” Peter said in a low, angry tone. “I’ll take you there. But don’t say a word of this to Jenny. I’ll come up with a story to satisfy her.”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside.
“We’ll go now?”
“If you wish.”
Jenny stepped into the room then, and nodded as Peter told her they needed to go to the city to meet with Brinsley’s solicitor. “Some small concern over Brinsley’s will,” Peter said smoothly. His sister accepted the story without demur. Well, why shouldn’t she? She had no reason to suspect any other purpose to their outing.
“Ah, here’s the tea,” said Jenny, as Sarah rose to leave. “You will take some refreshment before you go, Sarah? Do have one of these little cakes. They are delicious!”
Sarah declined the cakes but obligingly gulped down some tea. Her stomach churned with suppressed excitement while she tried to look interested in the embroidery patterns her friend had drawn. Her heart beat hard and fast. Finally, she was going to see Tom.
She didn’t know how she managed to endure another fifteen minutes of tedium, but she was thankful when Peter stood abruptly and cut short the conversation. “We’d best be going now.”
Jenny jumped up also. “Oh, no! How silly of me. I brought down the wrong pattern. You wanted the forget-me-nots, not the violets, didn’t you, Sarah? You must stay a moment while I fetch the right one. I’ll be back in a trice.”
“We don’t have time.” Peter frowned, then winced as if in pain, his fingers pressing his temple. His lips barely moved as he forced words out. “Must . . . go . . .”
“Do you have the headache, Peter?” Alarmed, Sarah watched him sway. “Are you ill?” She started up, toward him, hands outstretched. “Peter, what’s the matter—”
She staggered as his weight sagged against her, her arms automatically going around him. “Peter!” He was too heavy for her to hold upright. All she could do was assist him to crumple to the ground.
Unconscious. His thin mouth was slack, his eyes closed, sandy lashes brushing his cheek. His skin was pale as lilies. Sarah kneeled beside him and cocked an ear to listen at his mouth. Relieved that he still breathed, she scrambled to her feet, calling for help, and almost collided with her sister-in-law.
“Oh, Jenny! We must ring for assistance. Peter has had some sort of attack.”
Jenny spared her brother a brief glance, but her attention was focused on Sarah. She gripped Sarah’s upper arms, bringing their faces close together. The stark fear in Jenny’s eyes made Sarah gasp.
“No,” Jenny whispered, a small sob in her voice. “Leave him. You must come. There’s not much time.”
Jenny turned, clearly expecting Sarah to follow. She yanked on Sarah’s arm when she didn’t move, making her stumble along with her. Sarah glanced over her shoulder at Peter’s recumbent form. “You’re not just going to leave him like that?”
“Yes, of course. We need to get away before he comes after us.”
“But how—?” Shock had made Sarah stupid. What was happening? What was going on?
Jenny kept tugging at her arm. “It was the tea. I drugged it. Don’t worry, he’ll be perfectly well in an hour or so. Oh, hurry! He’ll kill me if he wakes and finds us still here.”
Sarah dug in her heels. “Not until you tell me what this is about.”
Blowing out an exasperated breath, Jenny said in a low, trembling voice. “You are going to visit a child today, yes? A boy. Don’t deny it. I heard you. I was listening at the door.”
Slowly, Sarah nodded. She could see no point in denying it if Jenny already knew.
Her friend’s brown eyes focused on her, compelling in their raw grief. “You called him Brinsley’s son. He’s not Brinsley’s son. He is mine.”
The shock of it sent Sarah’s mind reeling, and Jenny took advantage of her surprise to propel her from the room. Jenny took the key and locked the drawing room door from the outside. In the hall, Jenny moved toward the front entrance and this time Sarah moved with her. “Where are you taking me?”
“I’m not taking you. You know where the boy is. You’re taking me. Quickly, now. Before he wakes.” She hustled Sarah outside and down the steps toward Sarah’s phaeton. When the groom had handed Sarah and Jenny up, Jenny took the reins and gave him the office. The groom stepped away from the horses’ heads, clearly startled when Jenny called out a quick dismissal.
“I want to see my child,” she whispered fiercely at Sarah’s protest. “I heard you say you knew where he is. You said St. Alban’s. Take me there.”
“But . . . you mean you didn’t know where he was until now?” Some inkling of the truth was slowly dawning on Sarah. Disoriented as she was at the latest turn of events, pieces of the puzzle were clicking into place. The thick-headed shock that had gripped her as she’d watched Peter crumple was beginning to fade.
Jenny shook her head, her eyes bright. “They took my baby from me, smuggled him away. They told me he was dead, but I knew better. I knew in here.” She pressed a fist to her chest, jerking on the reins and making the horses jib and the phaeton jolt.
Sarah stared at her in horror. The poor woman! What she must have endured, being separated from her child all these years. No wonder she’d never married. No wonder there was such a sense of melancholy in that house.
Better to have no child at all than to spend weary years wondering what on earth had become of him, whether he was safe, housed, fed. Loved. Sarah had experienced a mer
e taste of that agony over Tom, but how much worse would it have been as his mother, his flesh and blood?
The phaeton swayed wildly as Jenny took a corner too fast. Sarah clung to her seat, afraid they’d overturn. Clearly, her sister-in-law was in no state to drive.
“Shall I take the ribbons, dear?” Sarah suggested it gently, easing her hands over her friend’s. “I’ll take you there. I promise I will.” Jenny released the reins without demur and Sarah brought the horses’ reckless pace back to a steady trot.
Sarah glanced at Jenny. “I cannot imagine what that must have been like. How could Peter have kept him from you all those years?”
“You don’t know Peter very well if you can ask that. He is the most cold-blooded man I know. All these years—” Jenny tilted her chin, squeezing her eyes shut as if willing back tears. “I thought my baby was in an orphanage somewhere, or worse, left to fend for himself. I’d no notion where he was until I overheard you talking with Peter.”
“I can’t believe it. Surely he wouldn’t deny you your own child?”
“Upon my honor, he never said a word. How did you find out?”
Sarah told her the history of her search for Tom. At least, she could reassure Jenny that the boy was happy and healthy and living with a family who evidently cared for him. She related all that Finch had discovered, but Jenny didn’t seem to take comfort from the news.
“He never told me.” She repeated it over and over with a kind of wonder in her voice. “He never told me he knew where my son was.”
Grimly, Sarah thought of Brinsley and the foul lies he’d told. That fiend! All those years, she’d believed him the father of another woman’s child. That the man she’d once loved would be cruel enough to invent such a tale made bile rise in her throat. At that precise moment, any remaining vestige of that long-ago love withered.
She felt physically sickened to finally know the truth. A surge of nausea made her slow the horses, press one hand to her stomach while the other tugged on the ribbons.
Quickly, she pulled over to the side of the road, as far as she could. She gasped. “Think I’m going to be ill.”
Handing the reins to her distracted companion, Sarah leaped down from the carriage, twisting her ankle a little as she doubled over to heave up her breakfast onto the grass. Even as she retched, she was aware they had no time for this. Jenny needed her. With Peter on their heels, there was no time to waste.
When the worst had passed, she wiped her mouth with a handkerchief and took deep, steady breaths. A stray suspicion struck her. Surely, Jenny hadn’t drugged her, too? Perhaps by mistake?
She turned back to the carriage and raised her gaze to her companion’s, trying to divine the truth.
“Sarah, hurry! I am sorry you were sick but please hurry. We must get there before it’s too late. There’s no telling what Peter will do when he finds we’re gone.”
Slowly, Sarah climbed back up to her seat. If their positions were reversed, she would be equally unconcerned with Jenny’s suffering, she supposed. She hadn’t spared Vane, had she? Nothing had mattered more than finding that child.
“You must love him very much,” she said gently.
Jenny nearly bounced out of her seat. “Hurry! Oh, you’re too slow. Let me drive.” She yanked the reins away from Sarah and the carriage lurched forward once more. Sarah clapped a hand to her bonnet as the wind threatened to lift it from her head. She prayed Jenny wouldn’t overturn them before they reached Tom’s home.
“Do you think Peter will follow us?” asked Sarah. “Do you think he’ll guess where we’ve gone?”
Jenny barely glanced at her. “Why do you suppose I’m driving like this? We need to get the boy before Peter catches up with us.”
“Get him? But it might not be that simple. He has a family now. People who care for him. Do you intend to steal him away?”
Jenny bit her lip. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’ll do, but you can be sure Peter won’t even let me see the boy if he can prevent it. A boy,” she whispered. “They didn’t tell me when they took him from me.”
“Oh, my dear.” Sadly, Sarah shook her head, aching for that young, frightened girl.
They crossed a small stream and the wheels juddered over the wooden boards of the bridge. The cottage they sought was in sight through a stand of trees. Sarah’s thoughts turned to Tom. According to Finch, the boy believed he was an orphan. How would he react when his long-lost mother suddenly arrived on his doorstep?
Using the directions Finch had given her, she guided Jenny down a lane shaded by chestnut trees. Jenny was tense, almost feverish in her excitement. She seemed to have no doubt of the outcome of this visit or even to give much thought to how she’d break the news of his birth to Tom. In fact, Jenny seemed to have no thought for Tom at all. No thought beyond herself.
Sarah bit her lip. Hadn’t she been similarly oblivious as she’d argued with Vane?
She touched Jenny’s wrist. “Wait.”
Her friend glanced at her. “What?”
“Jenny, stop. Pull up. I want to speak with you about this properly before we arrive.”
Jenny shook her off and kept on. “I can’t. We must get there as soon as we can, don’t you see? Before Peter can stop me.”
“No, Jenny,” Sarah said. “I beg you, consider for a moment. Think of Tom.”
As Jenny continued to ignore her, Sarah gripped her wrist hard. “Please listen to me! Jenny, he is happy here. He thinks the people who look after him are his parents. He will be confused and hurt when you tell him the truth.”
No reply. Jenny didn’t so much as check the horses as they swept through the gate.
“And then what?” Sarah persisted. “Where will you take him if you can’t go back to Peter? Do you even have the means to support yourself? Think about the consequences.”
Jenny’s lips set in a grim, stubborn line, her eyes burning bright. “I have waited ten years for this.” She glanced at Sarah. “You’re not a mother. You wouldn’t understand.”
VANE leafed through a small pile of letters, all that was left of the documents Brinsley Cole’s valet had stolen. Vane had spent a lot of time and effort tracking down the rightful owners of this sensitive material, counseling them to burn the evidence. He’d also made discreet inquiries about the sources of funds Brinsley had received.
There remained only the small sheaf of personal letters that were most properly Sarah’s. He would give them to her. He couldn’t begin to say why he hadn’t handed them over before now.
Jealousy. It hardly seemed possible he could be jealous of a dead man, and one as revolting as Brinsley Cole at that. But perhaps that was the reason. He could admit it to himself, even if it meant . . .
Wait. His eye caught on a phrase “with child.”
What he read in the letter made him bite out an oath and ring for his carriage to be brought around. As an afterthought, he said to Rivers, “Has Lady Vane gone out?”
“Yes, my lord. The mistress took her phaeton.”
“Where? Where did she go?”
“To call on Miss Cole, I believe.”
Vane cursed viciously and took the stairs at a run.
VANE arrived at Cole’s house to find the place in disarray. Peter Cole stood in his entrance hall questioning servants and directing others, while Vane handed his hat to the harassed butler.
He strode forward and bunched his hands in Cole’s coat, lifting him clear off his feet. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”
Cole looked like he’d seen several ghosts. “I haven’t done anything with her. She is gone to find the boy,” he choked out. “I’m telling the truth. Please!”
Vane scrutinized Cole’s face for a moment, then decided he believed him. He set Cole on his feet.
Peter said, “Quickly! Is your curricle outside?”
Vane nodded.
“Then come on. I’ll explain on the way.”
As they settled into the well-sprung racing vehicle, Pet
er said, “I have something of yours.”
“Let me guess. A bank draft for five thousand pounds.” Vane grimaced. “I should have known.”
Peter nodded. “Of course, I didn’t cash it. I’m sorry I didn’t return it to you sooner. But the circumstances—”
“Never mind that.” Vane shrugged impatiently. “I’ve stopped payment. It’s just a worthless piece of paper now. I want to know what has happened to my wife.”
“Of course.” Peter shifted in his seat. “No doubt you’re aware of this boy your wife has been seeking.”
Vane threw him a searing glance. “He’s your son, you bastard! Why didn’t you just tell her and be done? Why let her think the boy was Brinsley’s? If you only knew . . .” He shook his head. All the pain they could have avoided.
“My God. How did you—” Peter’s voice scraped as if Vane’s hands were about his throat again. “You? You have the letter?”
Keeping his eye on his horses as he negotiated the busy streets, Vane nodded. “Brinsley’s valet sold it to me, among others. Brinsley ordered his man to sew a packet of incriminating letters into the lining of Brinsley’s favorite coat. After his death, my wife sent a trunkful of her dead husband’s clothes to the valet, never suspecting what was among them.” Vane’s eyes narrowed and he glanced at his companion. “Brinsley blackmailed you, too, didn’t he? His own brother.”
Cole swallowed. “Yes. But you must believe me—the accusations in that letter are untrue. The child is not mine, I—” He gave a harsh sound like a half sob. “I never did what Jenny accused me of. An abomination. I would never, never do such a thing. That was why I wrote to Brinsley. He could attest that I wasn’t even in London at the time Jenny claimed I’d . . .”
Vane didn’t comment. He’d never come across a case of incest before, but he was past the age where he refused to believe it was possible. True, in his letter to Brinsley seeking help for his pregnant sister, Peter had vehemently denied her accusation, but he would, wouldn’t he? A man might father a bastard and Society would look the other way. But to father the child on his own sister was something else entirely.
Wicked Little Game Page 28