A Gentleman Always Remembers

by Candace Camp

  She realized with a start that she had perhaps given away more than she should. Eve sneaked a glance at Lily, but the girl was not even looking at her, just staring at the ground, wrapped up in her own unhappiness.

  “I know that you get to where you miss a person less,” Lily admitted. “It was that way when our mother died. But it’s different, isn’t it? Neville won’t be dead. He won’t be gone forever. I’ll see him sometimes surely, and even if I don’t, I will know that he is still here, just not with me. I’ll know that Neville’s off in some house somewhere with Priscilla, living a life with her. Perhaps even coming to love her. I will hear about him, know about him. I just won’t share anything with him anymore. And it seems too awful. I can’t bear it!”

  Great tears pooled in the girl’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

  “Lily, my dear.” Eve wrapped her arms around the girl and laid her head against hers.

  Eve wished that she could tell Lily to go ahead and seize her happiness with Neville. But she could not. It would be a tremendous scandal for all concerned. Even Lily, no matter how blasé she might feel about facing the ton, would learn how hard it would be in reality. And it would be irresponsible indeed to drag her whole family into the quagmire of scandal, especially with Camellia facing her first Season.

  Eve sighed and patted Lily’s back, murmuring, “It will get better, sweetheart. It will, I promise.”

  Eve stayed in the garden for a time after Lily hugged her and left. She had not had much time to herself just to sit and think. Perhaps it was better that way. It might not do to think too much about what she was doing with Fitz, or she might conclude that the wild, exciting, wonderful path she was roaring along with him was simply too dangerous, not only to her reputation but to her heart as well. What she had told Lily about falling in love again had simply flowed out of her unscripted, without thought, but she knew as soon as she said it that it was the truth. She was falling in love again, and it was more intense, more pleasurable than the first time.

  The only problem was that she was falling in love with a man who had no intention of marrying her or spending his life with her. She had known it from the beginning, but that would not make it any easier if—no, when—it ended. The fact that she had gone into this affair with her eyes wide open meant only that she could not wail and moan and blame Fitz when it fell to pieces. She had known the consequences, and she had gone ahead, unheeding.

  The sun fell lower in the sky, throwing the area where Eve sat into shadows, and she realized that it would soon be time for tea. It was just as well, she thought; she had little liking for the gloomy turn her thoughts had taken. Whatever the future might bring, surely it would be better to enjoy what she had now instead of thinking about what would be.

  She had barely reached the terrace when she saw Fitz. He started toward her, his face grim. Her gaze dropped to the white square of paper in his hand, and she knew why he was seeking her out. He stopped before her, holding out the letter with its now familiar handwriting.

  “This was on the hall table.” Fitz took her arm as her fingers closed around the square of white, and he led her to a chair at the end of the terrace.

  Eve opened the letter, amazed that her hands did not shake. She was not, she realized with some amazement, frightened—not with Fitz beside her. Quickly her eyes scanned the missive.

  “Same sort of things—Bruce was a ‘thief,’ a ‘disgrace’; the sender will create a dreadful scandal; ‘what would Stewkesbury think of the wife of a thief and a suicide?’”

  “He would think this bloody villain ought to be caught and punished,” Fitz put in. “I can tell you that.”

  “But here, this is new. He offers to ‘relieve’ me of the problem of the watch. I am to take it ‘to the summerhouse and leave it inside the door, tomorrow at one o’clock in the afternoon.’ I am to tell no one.”

  “Ha!” A broad grin split Fitz’s face, and he brought his hand down sharply on the table. “The slimy little scoundrel’s outsmarted himself this time.”

  Eve smiled. “I take it you have a plan.”

  He leaned over, heedless of who was watching, and kissed her full on the mouth. “You’d best believe I do. Stupid of him, really, to put his scheme into play in my territory. But of course, if you had obeyed his orders and not told anyone it probably would have worked out. He can sit at a distance with a spyglass and keep watch to make sure you leave the watch and walk away. He can see that there is no one lurking around the summerhouse.”

  “But . . .”

  “But what he cannot see is inside the summerhouse, at least not any farther than directly in front of the door. And I shall be waiting inside the summerhouse, at the back. I’ll go there before dawn, long before he could be waiting and watching—and in the dark he wouldn’t be able to see me anyway.”

  “By yourself?” Eve asked in alarm. “Fitz, no, I cannot like that!”

  He smiled at her indulgently. “Do you think I cannot take care of one rogue?”

  “What if that rogue has a partner? There could be two of them. Or more.”

  “Ah, but I will have a brace of pistols. But perhaps you are right. I could take Neville with me. After all, I don’t want to put a bullet in him—I could be off a bit and shoot him straight through his heart. Then I wouldn’t be able to question him. Better to take Neville. We can grab him and truss him up, even if there are two of them. I cannot think that there is a whole gang of men involved in this haphazard bit of extortion.”

  Eve had to admit that any more than two men was far-fetched; nor could she believe that Neville and Fitz would not be able to overcome the man or men, especially given Fitz’s skill with a pistol. Still . . .

  She frowned. “It seems awfully simple.”

  Fitz chuckled. “The best plans often are.”

  Eve still could not shake her worry when she left the house the next afternoon after lunch. Fitz had left her room early the night before, saying with a smile, “I should get a little sleep this night, don’t you think?” Naturally, since he had left before dawn, she had not seen him all day. Neville too was absent, a fact that Lady Symington brought up at luncheon, with an accusatory glance around the table.

  When the meal was over and Eve was able to escape, she was held up at the door to the terrace by Lily, who was worried about Neville’s absence. Eve did her best to reassure her, pointing out that he and Fitz had doubtless gone hunting—which, actually, was not that far from the truth. But it was difficult to detach herself from Lily, for when Eve told the girl that she was going for a walk, Lily suggested that she join her.

  “No!” Alarmed, Eve shook her head. She did not think that Lily would expose their plan, but she could not take the time to tell her the entire story now. She was already a little late; she would have to hurry along the garden path to make it.

  Lily looked at her oddly. “Eve . . . is something the matter?” Her brows drew together. “Something is going on, isn’t there? Fitz and Neville are in on it too.”

  Eve stared at her in dismay. “No, Lily, please. I have to leave.” When the girl opened her mouth to protest, Eve quickly shook her head. “Really. I am late. I cannot tell you, and it will ruin everything if someone comes with me. Just trust me. Trust us. I shall tell you all about it later, I promise.”

  Lily set her chin stubbornly, but she said only, “You’d better. Oh, this is so maddening.”

  She turned and stalked away as Eve opened the door and slipped out onto the terrace. Eve ran lightly down the steps and took the quickest path through the garden to the summerhouse, walking as fast as she could. Her hand went to her waistband to touch the watch pinned there. It had seemed the easiest way to make it clear to her enemy that she was bringing the watch.

  When she reached the summerhouse, she stopped and unpinned the watch, then stepped inside the door and laid it down on the floor a few feet inside. She carefully did not glance toward the corner of the room, where Neville and Fitz lounged on benches. She could s
ee them out of the corner of her eye, but she was not sure she would have if she had not known to expect them. Fitz had been right; it was dark inside the summerhouse, shuttered as it was for the winter.

  Eve stepped out and cast a glance around. Surely that was natural; the watcher would think it odd if she did not. Putting her head down she walked rapidly back toward the house.

  As she had expected, Lily was waiting for her when she returned to the house. Lily met her in the corridor and took Eve’s hand to lead her into the study. When Eve stepped into the study she was surprised to see that Camellia sat in one of the chairs before the fireplace. Though all of Camellia’s spots had gone and she had been up and about the last couple of days, she had not yet gotten fully dressed and gone downstairs.

  “My dear.” Eve smiled and went over to take Camellia’s hand. “I am happy to see you up. I thought you were not ready yet to come downstairs.”

  “I’m feeling well, really,” Camellia assured her. “I could have come downstairs before this.”

  “But I told her she would prefer taking her meals upstairs,” Lily added.

  “Ah, I see.” Eve nodded her head wisely. “Today you did not want to cool your heels upstairs.”

  “Precisely.”

  Eve glanced around. “But why are we in the study?”

  “We didn’t want to stay upstairs with the others because we knew you wouldn’t tell us anything with everyone around. And if we went into the drawing room or the music room we might run into Lady Symington. So . . .” Lily spread her hands out as if showing her the study.

  “Of course.”

  “Now.” Lily plopped down onto the low stool beside Camellia’s chair. “Tell us all about it.”

  It was pointless to prevaricate, Eve knew. It was a wonder, really, that the sisters had not already guessed that there was intrigue afoot.

  Eve told them about the letters; she could remember them almost word for word, she had looked at them so many times. The girls asked questions, most of which she could not answer, and leaped to the same conclusion she had, that the man who had broken into the house weeks earlier might very well be the same person who had written the letters.

  “It’s so odd,” Camellia said, frowning. “Who could it have been? We thought—that is, well, Lily and I were worried that it might be—”

  Lily, who sat in the chair across from Camellia, sat up straight, exclaiming, “Cosmo!”

  “Yes, I mean, that’s what I thought, but how could it be? Why would he—”

  “No!” Lily shook her head, pointing toward the door, at which she was staring, transfixed. Eve and Camellia turned, following her gaze.

  There in the doorway stood Fitz, his hand grasping the arm of a middle-aged man several inches shorter than he. The man was dressed in rough workman’s clothes, and his hands were bound behind him. He wore a brown cap on his head, but his hair, sandy in color and mixed with gray, straggled out from beneath the cap.

  “I mean, Cosmo,” Lily went on. “There he is.”

  Chapter 20

  Camellia’s jaw dropped, but an instant later she sprang to her feet and charged toward the door, her fists clenched. “You! What are you doing here?”

  “Now, don’t go fussing at me, Cammy honey,” the stranger whined.

  “Don’t you dare call me ‘Cammy honey’!” Camellia drew back her arm, fist doubled up, her face set in furious lines. “I ought to knock you back where you came from!”

  “An admirable sentiment, my dear cousin,” Fitz said smoothly, releasing the man’s arm and coming up to take Camellia’s. “But it wouldn’t be sporting to draw his cork right now. His hands are tied, you see.”

  Neville took Fitz’s place at the man’s side, closing the study door behind him. He steered their prisoner to a straight-backed chair and shoved him down into it. Then he turned and held out his other hand. In it lay Eve’s blue enameled watch. He walked over to Eve and handed her the watch.

  “Thank you.” Eve smiled and tucked the watch into her pocket.

  “My pleasure.” Neville swept her a bow. “Though I must say the chap didn’t provide much sport. He threw up his hands as soon as Fitz pointed a pistol at him.”

  “He would,” Camellia said sourly. “All he dares to hit are women.”

  “I never hit you, Ca—” The man wisely stopped at the look on Camellia’s face.

  “Only because you knew I’d take a knife to you if you did.”

  “Cam, sit down, do. You’ll tire yourself.” Lily slipped her arm around her sister’s waist and led her back to her chair.

  “I take it, then, that I am right,” Fitz said to Lily and Camellia. “This chap is your stepfather. Cosmo Glass.”

  “Yes.” Lily also cast a look of loathing at the man. “I hate to admit it, but it’s true. Why is he here?” She turned toward her stepfather. “Why did you come here? Why would you steal Mrs. Hawthorne’s watch?”

  “I didn’t do nothing wrong,” Cosmo protested.

  “We caught you picking up the watch,” Fitz pointed out.

  “I was just doing a job. They paid me to come over and pick up the watch. They said it’d be lying there in that little house, and it was. All I had to do was pick it up and take it back. Why would I want to steal that little thing?”

  “Because you’re a thief and a liar and you’ve never done an honest day’s work?” Camellia shot back.

  Cosmo’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment his face was filled with hatred, but in the next instant the expression dropped away, and he said pathetically, “Now, Camellia, you oughtn’t be saying such harsh things about me. I fed you and clothed you all those years—”

  “I think it’s best not to get into how you treated my cousins,” Fitz said, breaking into the man’s speech. “This is a lovely story about someone paying you to retrieve the watch, but I have to ask, did they pay you to break into this house as well? Were you paid to steal the watch then as well?”

  “I didn’t break in anywhere!”

  “Is it really necessary for me to bring in the maid who saw you?” Fitz asked. “I think we all know it was you. Just as it was you who tried to break in here the evening of the wedding.”

  “Now hold on a minute, I wasn’t breaking in anywhere!” Glass straightened indignantly. “I was just trying to see my daughter get married. My little Mary. I raised her from the time she was just a little thing, and they wouldn’t let me see her on her happiest day. I was doing what any father would.”

  “Mary was fourteen when our mother made the mistake of marrying you,” Lily retorted. “You never raised her or any of us. You just used her to run that tavern, and then you took the money.”

  “You came to the wedding party because you hoped you could get money out of Mary or the earl, that’s why,” Camellia added. “We all know that, so you might as well stop lying. Why are you after that watch?”

  “I don’t want it!”

  “Why did you write those letters? Why did you threaten Mrs. Hawthorne?” Fitz strode closer to the man, looming over him, his blue eyes cold as ice.

  “I didn’t!” Cosmo shrank back in his chair as far as he could, hunching his shoulders against a blow.

  “You know,” Lily said thoughtfully, “I think he’s telling the truth about that.”

  “What?” Fitz turned toward her.

  “About writing those letters. Eve told us what they said. And I don’t know, they sounded too smart for Cosmo.” She glanced at her sister. “Don’t you think?”

  Somewhat reluctantly Camellia nodded. “She’s right. I’ve seen notes Cosmo’s written. He could never string together that many coherent sentences. Certainly not legible ones.”

  “There! You see?” Cosmo smiled triumphantly.

  “Besides,” Eve stuck in, “it makes no sense that he would linger around here just to steal that watch. Why would he even know about it? There are far more valuable things in this house to steal than that.”

  “Very well.” Fitz smiled down at the
man in a way that boded no good for him. “I am willing to believe that you are not the instigator of this plot, only the rather dim accomplice.”

  “Accomplice? I didn’t do nothing wrong. I was just doing what I was paid to.”

  “The same could be said for a hired assassin,” Fitz replied. “It scarcely means you’re blameless. Tell me who these people are that you were supposedly working for. Why did they hire you to steal the watch?”

  A crafty look came over the man’s narrow face. “How much is it worth to you to know?”

  “I beg your pardon. You’re trying to bargain with me?”

  “You can’t expect me to turn over my employer, now, can you? I mean, I won’t be getting what I was promised for this, and a man’s got to make a living, right?”

  Fitz looked at him for a long moment. “Your gall is astounding. The only thing we know for sure is that you tried to steal this watch, not once but twice, even breaking into this house to do so. These are serious offenses, Mr. Glass. Theft. Attempted burglary. Extortion. You could spend the rest of your life in a British gaol. Or perhaps you’d be transported to Australia. Does that appeal more? Of course it’s likely that you would die in the hulks waiting to be transported.”

  “You’re not going to turn me in,” Cosmo replied confidently. “That’d be something of a scandal, wouldn’t it, your cousins’ stepfather getting tossed into jail? I know you highfalutin’ types. You wouldn’t want that.”

  “No, I wouldn’t.” Fitz leaned down, bracing his hands on the arms of the man’s chair. “You’re right. I doubt I would report you to the authorities. More likely I will lock you up in the cellars. There are secret ones below the ordinary ones, you know. Been here for hundreds of years. I could leave you there to starve. No one would ever hear you. Of course there are also all the tarns around here. Terribly deep. A man could easily be trussed up and tied to a stone and tossed into one of them. I don’t think anyone would miss you, do you?”