The Sins of Lord Easterbrook

by Madeline Hunter

  “A few pounds are missing from the desk,” she said.

  “I do not think that they came for a few pounds. A second intrusion, Leona. It does not bode well.”

  “We do not know for certain that there was a prior intrusion.”

  “We do now.” He turned to Miller. “What brought you here?”

  Miller's face found some color. “I heard something, I thought. I came to investigate and next thing I knew I was out.”

  Easterbrook gazed at him long and hard. Mr. Miller's face turned to stone. Easterbrook's attention shifted to the wall against which Isabella stood.

  “You found him. Did you hear or see anything?”

  Isabella's gaze remained fixed on the floor. “I thought that I heard a movement when I opened the door. Then something falling. I could be wrong. I am not sure. I saw him on the floor and became very afraid and confused.”

  “So a sound did not bring you here to begin with? It was only once you were in the chamber that you thought someone was in the house?”

  Her head lowered more. “I—it is all confused now—perhaps I heard something before—I am not sure now.”

  The three footmen entered the library to report that no one was hiding in the house or in the garden.

  “Help Miller back to Grosvenor Square. You will let them support you, Miller. Do not leave your chamber until a surgeon has seen that wound and given permission for you to be up and about. Take the carriage, then send it back to me in the morning.”

  After the servants left with Miller, Easterbrook spoke to Isabella. “It was fortunate that you raised the alarm. I must speak with your mistress now.”

  Isabella hurried away. Easterbrook paced the edges of the library, containing his anger with difficulty.

  The hardness that he normally buried was having its way, and anyone who entered this chamber would feel it. He was thoroughly Easterbrook now, to an extent he had never allowed her to see before.

  “It might have just been a thief looking for a few pounds,” she said.

  “Unlikely. If you doubted your instincts about the first intrusion, there is every reason to trust them now. The money was only taken to give others a reason to think that you were wrong if you claimed there was more to it. Which there was.”

  His pacing took him near the fireplace. He stopped and scowled at the object near his boot. “What the hell is this?”

  “A torch, I think. I found it near the open window. Fortunately it went out.”

  He picked it up. He strode to the window and flipped the drape's fabric. There, on the inner surface, one could see soot.

  Leona's nape prickled. Images invaded her head, of Miller being a bit longer in arriving here, and of drapery aflame, and fire spreading.…

  She walked over to inspect the drape. Fear struck deeper. Miller's intrusion might not have stopped it. Perhaps only Isabella's arrival had kept that torch from being held longer to the drape.

  She and Isabella might have been trapped above while the flames fed on all the books and furniture. They might have remained ignorant of the conflagration until it was too late.

  A hot fury broke in her, conquering her icy terror. “They must be very afraid if they would try to kill me.”

  “If the intention was to light the room on fire, they would have made a pile of books to burn. Look at the soot on the fabric. See the five dark spots. A hand extinguished the embers with the cloth, then deliberately left the torch to be found. The intention was not to burn down the house, Leona, but to frighten you with the evidence they could do it if they chose to.”

  They had succeeded. Fear clutched her again, and the anger could not hold it back. Chills vibrated through her. She hated how afraid she felt, and how vulnerable.

  “You seem to surmise their intentions very quickly,” she said.

  He did not miss the thinly veiled accusation. He met her petulant tone with his own, tight, angry one. “As you would have surmised them once you were calm and considered the evidence. All the same, the risk of a fire was real, no matter their intentions. The torch could have easily set these drapes aflame.”

  She knew what this had been. She had seen it before. She had spent most of her youth battling the insidious insecurity and worry that it created.

  Coercion. A sly threat intended to plant anxiety and fear and make her hesitant and careful. An outright attack would not eat at one's confidence as badly as the terror that some unknown person stalked and waited.

  A man had been hurt tonight. Would it be Isabella next time, or Tong Wei when he returned? Or her? Would the house truly be set on fire next time?

  A memory screamed, of being yanked through the air as a horse clamored by. A brown horse. Tong Wei had spoken of a brown horse following them.…

  “This is not their first gesture,” she said. “It is only the most dangerous.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She told him about the brown horse. And Tong Wei's conviction that someone watched her movements and her house.

  Christian's face hardened to the firmest angles and his mouth to its tightest line. “I should have insisted that you move to Grosvenor Square.”

  “Your invitation had nothing to do with my safety. Do not imply that my refusal led to this night, as if it were my own fault.”

  He raised one hand in an impatient gesture. “You would have been protected. So far you have not been harmed, but—I will visit that house across the way when the carriage and footmen return.” It sounded more like a threat than a plan. “Our intruder may have taken refuge there when Isabella raised the alarm.”

  “If so, he will be long gone before the carriage comes. I do not think you will find him, but if you want to go and look I will be safe until you return.”

  He hesitated, clearly torn. She could tell that he wanted to take some action, whether useful or not.

  “Are you certain that you will not be distressed to be alone? The culprit is long gone, but you are unsettled.”

  “I am not as unsettled as you think,” she lied. “Nor am I alone. Isabella is here. I would prefer that you go and see now. Perhaps you will learn something to ease my mind.”

  He peered at her as if he tried to determine if he dared believe her. Or, perhaps, to check just how badly her mind needed easing.

  “Go,” she urged. “I would like to be reassured that I am not living across from my tormentors.”

  “You are admirably brave, Leona. Most women would refuse to be alone for a week.”

  He took his leave, with a promise to return in five minutes. She walked over to the hearth.

  It was much easier to be brave when one held an iron poker in one's hands.

  Christian barely contained his fury while he sought the garden gate and the back door of the house across the way. It was just as well that he had not taken one of the pistols from the carriage. If he had, any intruder lurking in this dark building would have fared far worse than Miller.

  As soon as he entered the kitchen, he knew that the building now held two apartments. The kitchen had been obviously arranged to accommodate two cooks.

  He assumed that the families were above. He was now the intruder in the night. All the same, he climbed the stairs to the ground floor and eased open a room in the front.

  The moonlight allowed him to assess its contents quickly. Lightly patterned chairs surrounded a table that held a sewing basket. A delicate settee hugged the far wall. The evidence of feminine occupants reassured him. It was possible that the man of the house had been the one that Tong Wei saw watching, but the room almost appeared too domestic for nefarious purposes.

  He climbed the stairs, passing the next level that would hold the private chambers of this first apartment, and went on to the next. Doors stood open here, revealing little furniture. He entered the chamber facing the street, and walked to the windows.

  Across the way he could easily see the window to Leona's drawing room down below. He pictured Tong Wei standing sentry there, gazing up. The
emptiness of this apartment all but screamed at him. There were no souls up here, sleeping or otherwise.

  He walked to the fireplace and used the flint to light a lamp on a nearby table. He carried the lamp around the chamber, illuminating it better. Back near the windows he paused.

  The lamp's glow revealed dark shadows on the floor. He bent and touched them. Ashes. Some of them still formed little mounds. He smelled his fingers. Someone had stood here a long while, perhaps often, smoking cigars.

  He would find out if the family below let out these upper floors, or if an estate agent managed the whole premise for someone else. In the meantime—

  He felt his coat. His palm landed on a flat, small object. How like Phippen to remember such a thing, even when his master was roused in the middle of the night for an emergency.

  He removed the case from his coat, and thumbed out one of his calling cards. He set it on the sill of the center window.

  Leona knew it was Easterbrook when she heard the steps on the stairs. She gripped the poker tighter anyway.

  He did not stop in the library. Instead she saw him continue up to the next level. Perhaps he did not trust his servants to have searched well enough.

  He finally joined her five minutes later. He was not as angry now, but she doubted his face would find softness for a long while. Still, taking some action, any action, had blunted the worst of the danger sharpening in him.

  He paused when he saw her. Then he walked over and gently pried the poker from her hand. He set it back by the fireplace.

  “You cannot stay here,” he said. “Short of sending a small army of servants to live here with you, day and night, I cannot be confident of your safety. You must vacate this house.”

  She looked around the library. It was not really her home, but it had become familiar now, and served as a refuge. She did not feel so much the foreigner here. She guessed that the independence of this house meant even more to Isabella and Tong Wei.

  “Please do not expect me to join you at Grosvenor Square. None of us belong there.”

  “If I say you belong there, you do. No one will treat you otherwise.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He offered his hand to help her to rise. “Go back to your bed and try to sleep. I will be here until dawn, and make all arrangements. I have already told Isabella to pack for both of you.”

  Frightened though she was, she did not care for the presumptions in his plans to protect her. “When I said do not ask me to go to Grosvenor Square, I did not mean that you should skip the request and just assume the result. I appreciate your help and concern, but the decision must still be mine.”

  “I can see that your spirit is returning. That is a good sign. However, you will depart this house tomorrow, in my carriage, with your lady's maid. You will leave London completely, and we will make sure it is known that you did.”

  “I do not want to leave London. I have matters to attend—”

  “You will leave London, Leona. One way or another, you will. I will brook no argument on this.”

  No, he wouldn't. She still sensed a dangerous anger that he barely controlled. She doubted he would hear reason once he made a decision tonight.

  “If I am leaving London, where am I going?”

  “To my country estate. You will find it very pleasant.”

  “I think that I will find it an inconvenient interlude in performing my duty.”

  He strolled over, lamp in hand. He moved it slowly, so that its golden glow bathed her. “You look lovely in that modest nightdress, Leona.” He reached out and touched one of her long curls. “Much like a girl I knew once in Macao. I am thinking that I should escort you upstairs, to make very sure that no one lurks up there.”

  Even the remnants of the night's fear could not stand against the way he stirred her with this sudden shift in attention. His mood added to the excitement. It enhanced his mystery and inserted a note of thrilling fear.

  She stepped away. “You are guarding us tonight, remember? You must avoid distractions.”

  “I suppose so. Especially since I am certain that a similar distraction is why Miller ended up on the floor.”

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  Christian made short work of packing Leona off to the country soon after dawn. As soon as the coach rolled he mounted his horse to return home. Once there, he climbed five flights of stairs and opened the door of a chamber on the first servant's level.

  A pretty blond maid bent over a bed while she pressed a rag to Miller's head. From what Christian could see, the invalid was too aware that the ministrations brought the maid's round breast within tantalizing range of both his hand and mouth. The most primitive masculine heat filled the chamber, and the maid recklessly stoked the fire.

  “Mending quickly, I see,” Christian said. “It would not be wise to overdo it, though.”

  The maid startled badly. She blushed dropped her rag, picked it up, curtsied and rushed away.

  Miller made a movement to stand. Christian gestured for him to stay put.

  “Is Miss Montgomery well, sir?” Miller asked. “I feared the shock was affecting her right before you arrived.”

  “Miss Montgomery is well, and safe, and on her way to Oxfordshire. With her maid.” He settled his boot on the edge of Miller's bed and propped his crossed arms on his knee while he bent and hovered. “I need you to think very hard about what happened, Miller.”

  Miller pondered the matter. “I entered the library and noticed the window had been left open. Then I was hit from behind. It was as I told you before.”

  “You misunderstand me. I know the events. I am not hoping that you will remember more. I am telling you to think about what happened, and why.”

  Miller managed to appear perplexed despite the spiking caution leaking out of him. But then Miller was very good at dissembling.

  “I was caught unawares.”

  “You were caught unawares because your thoughts were elsewhere. You went to the library to meet someone. A pretty someone with long, dark hair, in a white nightdress.”

  Miller's eyes bulged in shock. “Sir, I would never presume to—You accuse me of the worst disloyalty. I am most grieved, however, that you would cast aspersions on Miss Montgomery.”

  Oh, yes, young Miller was very good. “You are trying my patience. We both know Miss Montgomery was not the only pretty someone with long dark hair in a white nightdress last night. Nor was she the one who found you.”

  Miller touched his bandaged head and dramatically grimaced from the pain. He arranged to lose some color in his face. “She heard something and came to investigate.”

  “We will not argue our differing versions of the night's events. You are of no use to me if you are not beyond distraction when you serve me. If harm had come to Miss Montgomery, I would have seen to it that you held no more trysts, ever again, due to incapacity.”

  Miller truly blanched this time. “It will not happen again, sir.”

  “Good. I expect that you will be up and about in a day or so. I will have some matters for you to address then. I will leave instructions on your desk in the study for when you are ready.”

  He left Miller and went down to his apartments. He told Phippen to send for coffee, then made his way to the dressing room off the fencing chamber. He threw open the trunk, retrieved the leather half folio at its bottom, and carried it back to his chambers.

  He settled in his favorite chair. It was time to read this, much as he would rather not. Despite last night, Leona had indicated that she was still determined to expose whoever could be exposed.

  If there were any whoevers, and the evidence now suggested there really were, something might be found in these notes that would identify them, even if Leona's father had not realized it.

  Three hours later he closed the folio. The anger of the night returned, only now it aimed in new directions, including those far into the past.

  Reginald Montgomery had amassed an impressive amount
of evidence to support his accusation that a secret company, based in London and owned by men of power, contracted ships for smuggling opium into China. By interviewing captains and bribing sailors, by obtaining records of ships’ movements, he had created a chain to support his theory that lacked only the final links.

  Worse, his investigations indicated that this company did not only operate in the East and transport opium, but also smuggled goods that avoided tariffs in the West Indies and around Europe and even into England itself.

  That explained these bald threats against Leona. Her persecutors thought she knew more than she did. It was not only the exposure of opium smuggling into China that they feared, but the revelations of crimes closer to home, revelations that would cost them more than a few stained reputations.

  Montgomery had been methodical and thorough. He provided lists of names, of captains who conspired for certain and others he only suspected, of customs officials being bribed, of merchants who accepted the goods.

  Regarding the owners of the company, however, Leona's father only posited one name with any secure belief that he was correct. Indeed, he speculated that this man was the founder of the whole enterprise.

  The Marquess of Easterbrook.

  Leona kept eyeing Isabella. Isabella kept avoiding looking back. That alone made Leona think that Easterbrook's allusion to Mr. Miller's distraction might have been correct.

  She said nothing about it the whole of their first day in the carriage. The coachman made a very leisurely pace, and they stayed the night at an inn outside the county border of Oxfordshire. When they resumed their journey the next day, she debated whether she should quiz Isabella about Mr. Miller.

  It did not help that she was in no position to scold. Isabella knew what happened the night that Easterbrook stayed in their house. If the mistress dallied with a lord, the maid might think it fine to dally with a manservant. Yet the costs were different for the maid, and higher in the game of survival.

  “Isabella, Lord Easterbrook said something that worries me. About you and Mr. Miller.”