Of all the luck: Sophie was standing there, talking to Miss Monroe and Miss Upton when Adam was directed up to the group by Miss Lemagne. He felt as if he were being dragged to his execution as they approached the group.
“Felicity, it’s been such a lovely party, but I’ve got to get home to Daddy,” she said. “I promised I’d be home before dark, you know, because Brilla is still new and all. Thank you so much for having me, and for such a lovely party. I’m so very excited for the wedding!” Her voice rose in a little squeal.
Adam just stood there for a moment. He wasn’t truly ready to leave; he’d hoped to speak to Sophie one more time, and maybe even walk her back to the Castle if she was ready to go. But Miss Lemagne was holding on to his arm and everyone seemed to be looking at him expectantly.
“Mr. Quinn is leaving too,” Miss Lemagne said after a pregnant pause. “He’s offered to help me with a hack. You know how difficult it is to find them sometimes.”
He glanced at Sophie, who was intent in conversation with one of the other ladies and who was absolutely not looking in his direction. Damn. He couldn’t even catch her eye. “Thank you for a very nice afternoon, Miss Monroe,” he said, having no polite choice. Someday, he’d have to talk with his mother about how to extricate himself from an untenable situation like this without embarrassing anyone—including himself. “I wish you all the best with your upcoming wedding.”
Sophie still wasn’t acknowledging him or the fact that he was leaving, even as he looked back over his shoulder when he and Miss Lemagne walked away.
Well, he could get her into her hackney cab and then go back into the party and talk to Sophie. Maybe she’d be ready to leave too.
* * *
Sophie was irritated enough by Miss Lemagne and Mr. Quinn’s sudden departure that she decided it was time for action. She needed to do something instead of standing around feeling helpless about everything.
“Felicity, do you think I could have a word with you, inside, for a moment?” she said, giving her friend a warm but meaningful smile.
“Of course, Sophie.” They linked arms and walked into the sitting room, and when Felicity would have taken a seat on the sofa, Sophie balked.
“Is there somewhere more private we can talk?”
“Oh. Is this about . . . the investigation?” she whispered, looking about. “Yes, of course. We can go into the parlor.”
“How about your father’s study?” Sophie asked. She wanted an excuse to be in there one more time, just in case she had the chance to look through that last drawer.
“Well, I suppose. Daddy doesn’t really like me to go in there, but . . . all right. It is more private.”
As Sophie had hoped, Felicity acquiesced and led the way to the study.
“What is it? Did you find out who the blackmailer is?” Felicity asked right away.
Sophie took her friend’s hands and led her away from the door. Standing in front of the large desk, she drew in a deep breath. “No, but there’s something else I feel I need to tell you.”
“All . . . all right. You look so serious, Sophie. What’s wrong?”
She drew in another breath. “I learned something about Mr. Townsend that I thought you should be aware of. Something that might change your decision to marry him.”
Felicity blanched. “What do you mean? Of course I’m going to marry him!” She withdrew her hands from Sophie’s and seemed a little angry. “What is it that you think would make me change my mind?”
Sophie decided it was just easier to say it out right, fast and smooth. “Mr. Townsend beats his slaves. He hurts them. He beat one of them so badly he died.”
Felicity stared at her, eyes wide, face draining of color. Her mouth moved, but she didn’t seem to be able to form words.
“I thought you should know, Felicity, because . . . well, because . . .” Sophie spread her hands around to encompass the entire situation. “If he ever found out about . . .” she added barely above a whisper.
“I . . .” Felicity was still staring at her. “No, no, it’s . . . it’s all right. Of course I’m going to marry him. He’d never hurt anyone—he’d never hurt me.”
“But, Felicity—”
“No, Sophie. There’s—just stop talking. Carson loves me. He’s so kind and gentle—he’d never do what you’re saying. I don’t believe it. It’s a lie. Whoever told you that is lying.” Now her lovely face was flushed red and she was so agitated her hands were flying around. “It’s a lie.”
“Felicity, it’s true. I saw it. I saw evidence of it—didn’t you notice the bruises on Brilla? He gave them to her. He beat her brother to death. He’s a brutal, violent—”
The door to the study slammed open and both women spun around as Henry Monroe stalked in, followed by Carson Townsend.
“What is this all about, Townsend?” Mr. Monroe was saying. He appeared agitated and upset. The younger man had a more calculating, set look on his face that instantly made Sophie nervous.
When Mr. Monroe saw the two women standing by the desk, he halted. “What are you doing in here? Felicity! What is the meaning of this?”
“Is it true, Carson?” Felicity said, spinning to him, her eyes wild and glittering with tears. “Did you beat a man to death? One of your slaves? Did you?”
Townsend’s expression changed from calculating and determined to one filled with loathing. “Get away from me, you damned darky bitch.” He shoved her hard, and she stumbled backward, nearly falling to the ground.
Sophie gasped and stepped back, bumping into the desk as Henry Monroe lunged at the younger man with a roar. Townsend dodged the older man’s clumsy attack, spinning to the side as Monroe crashed into the wall and tumbled to the floor. When Townsend swung back around, he was holding a revolver.
And he was pointing it at Felicity and Sophie.
CHAPTER 16
Adam got Miss Lemagne her hackney and was able to send her off home without further incident. He breathed a sigh of relief as the cab trundled off down the road, and he turned back to the Monroe house.
Though he was tired of socializing, Adam wasn’t about to leave without speaking to Sophie again. Especially after this most recent incident where she wouldn’t even look at him as he left to get Miss Lemagne’s hackney.
But they were still no closer to finding Pinebar Tufts’s and Billy Morris’s murderer. Today hadn’t helped much at all—while he couldn’t eliminate Mr. Monroe from being the culprit, he wasn’t convinced the older man was. Stuart Howard was another possibility, and as Sophie surmised, he had the opportunity to learn about the family secret. But Howard hadn’t struck Adam as someone conniving enough to carry out a blackmail plan—especially one as complicated as this seemed to be, with a delivery person in the form of Piney Tufts.
And then there was the fact that whoever killed Tufts had gone through the trouble of making it look like suicide. He’d killed the man, and then strung him up in a public place.
Whoever killed Tufts and Billy Morris had watched those men die when he strangled them with a walking stick. He was there, close up to their faces, kneeling over them—and he watched as the life went out of them.
What sort of man would do such a thing? What sort of man would kneel over someone, holding a stick across his throat, and watch him struggle while crushing him so he couldn’t breathe? Someone who hated.
Adam had the image of Billy Morris in his head, with the killer looming over him, there among the massive marble blocks outside the Capitol, in the shadow of that elegant, significant building, slowly murdering a harmless man.
He stopped suddenly as he came around the back of the Monroe house to join the party.
A thought whisked through his mind, and he needed to capture it. Something someone had said . . . something . . .
He remembered it now. Provest, the marble finisher . . . I always come home wearing some of it, too—like the way she sparkles. Damned impossible to get out of the clothes, though, no matter how hard my missus wash
es’em. Them little gritty sparkles make me trousers and coat look like the starry sky.
The killer had been kneeling among the marble blocks and grit while he killed Billy Morris. Adam had seen the marks in the dust and dirt. The effort that would have gone into kneeling into the ground, holding himself steady as he crushed the life out of Billy Morris . . . the minuscule marble grit would have embedded itself in the fabric of the killer’s trousers.
And today, Sophie had seen tiny glittery crystals on the front of a pair of trouser legs.
On the front of Carson Townsend’s pants.
CHAPTER 17
“I’d hoped to have this conversation in a much more dignified fashion, but obviously that’s not going to be the case.” Carson Townsend’s elegant demeanor had given way to one of cruelty and barely restrained violence as he locked the door to the study.
Henry Monroe pulled himself slowly to his feet, out of breath, his face white with shock. “How dare you speak to my daughter—”
“Sit down. You. There. Now.” Townsend gestured with the revolver and a defeated and frightened Monroe sank onto a chair in front of the desk. Felicity collapsed into the other one, her face so gray she looked as if she were about to faint. This left Sophie standing next to the desk, which was fine with her. Although her mind was reeling, she was also very aware of the revolver in the top drawer of Mr. Monroe’s desk. If she could edge around to the other side . . .
“How dare you try and trick me into marrying a nigger,” Townsend said. His eyes burned with fury. “I ought to shoot you right now.”
“It wasn’t a trick—”
“Passing her off as white when her mother was a goddamned slave? That’s one hell of a trick, and something I knew you’d pay dearly to keep secret.” Townsend’s voice was cold and hard.
Sophie smothered a gasp. Townsend had been the blackmailer?
“How . . . how did you . . . find out?” Monroe said, licking his lips and struggling to take a breath. Sophie hoped the man wouldn’t expire from a weak heart in the middle of all of this. “Wh-when?”
Townsend curled his lip at Felicity. “It was only by accident, but I was ever so glad it happened. Imagine if I’d gone through with the wedding? I’d have been a laughingstock if the truth ever came out!”
“But it would never have come out,” Monroe whispered as Felicity sobbed softly, hunched in her chair.
“But it did. And if I found out, then anyone could.”
“But how did you find out? I did everything I could to keep that secret for eighteen years. Lived away for more than a year, got new servants twice, moved three times . . . how?” Monroe sounded lost and desperate.
“As I said, it was a lucky accident. When your dear, sweet nanny was dying, remember, Felicity? I sent Deucy over with a home remedy to help with her cough? He overheard the woman telling you that you were her daughter.” His eyes blazed with fury. “Deucy, loyal bastard that he was, came home and told me I was marrying a darky. He had a smirk on his face when he did, and I—well.” Townsend shrugged. “He got the punishment he deserved, and I made certain no one else would learn the truth. You know how those niggers talk.”
As she battled the horror of what she was hearing, Sophie edged around the desk, slowly and carefully while he gave his furious, spittle-flecked speech.
“And then I had to decide what to do about the situation,” Townsend said. He shifted, moving the revolver so it was pointed directly at Henry Monroe’s forehead. “I wanted to kill you for doing this to me. I nearly came over that night and put a bullet into your head. How dare you do such a thing!”
He was breathing heavily, and the gun trembled in his hand. Sophie was afraid he’d accidentally set it off and blow Mr. Monroe’s head off right here.
By now, she’d reached the corner of the desk and dropped her hand to close it around the drawer handle. She had no idea whether the revolver inside was loaded, but at least she could try. Carefully, she began to ease the drawer open as Carson Townsend continued on his diatribe.
But Townsend got himself under control and continued.
“Then I thought—why make it so easy on the bastard? If I kill him, it’s all over with. Instead, I decided I’d make you pay. Literally. I’d make you pay for me to keep the secret—that is, until the time was right for me to divulge it to the world. Then I could reasonably break off the wedding—everyone would understand why I wouldn’t want to marry a darky, I’d be richer for it—and you’d be ruined.
“But of course, I didn’t want to take the chance you’d discover it was me—you’re a smart enough gent, Henry, that you’d probably watch for whoever was picking up the money. And so I hired Pinebar Tufts to be my messenger boy. I knew you and Stuart knew him—the better to throw off suspicion onto someone else—and I’d met him when we filed a patent for a new milling grinder earlier this year. He was eager to find a way to make some extra money.
“But then Piney thought he should get more money after he realized what was going on. And that made me angry. He was trying to blackmail me?” His mouth was wet with saliva, and it spewed everywhere as he talked. “That bastard deserved to be lynched. He was just as bad as you—trying to fool me into marrying a nigger.”
Townsend fell into silence for a moment, and Sophie tensed as his harsh breathing filled the room. He looked as if he were ready to act—what else could he do? He’d just confessed to murdering Pinebar Tufts.
She slipped her fingers into the drawer and closed them around the revolver, praying she was holding it in the right direction, that she could get it out easily, that it was loaded.
“I think it’s time for you to pay for what you did—what you tried to do,” Townsend said, moving closer to Henry Monroe, holding the revolver aimed at the man’s forehead. “And you”—he looked at Felicity, who cowered in her chair—“I’ll take you with me. Not as my wife. But you can fulfill other duties in my household.” His smile was so cold and lecherous that Sophie felt ill. “After all, you’re a very lovely woman.”
Suddenly, the study door rattled in its hinges as someone knocked. “Sophie? Mr. Monroe? Are you in there?”
It was Adam.
When Townsend spun to look, Sophie yanked the revolver out of the drawer.
“A private meeting,” Townsend called through the door. “Go away.”
“Sophie, are you in there?”
“Yes!” she cried, as Townsend whirled back, fury on his face. She pulled the trigger on the revolver as he spun, his gun lifted, and the kick and boom shocked her so hard she stumbled back.
Blessedly, the revolver had been loaded.
CHAPTER 18
“Sophie!”
The door creaked in its hinges as Adam slammed his shoulder and the entire force of his body against it.
One of the servants came running as he slammed against it again, and the man helped as he rammed into the door a third time.
It splintered from its hinges and Adam stumbled into the room, his own revolver in hand, his false arm lifted in front of him like a slender shield. He took in the scene in an instant as the servant rushed past him to Henry Monroe, who was gasping for air in his seat.
Carson Townsend was on the ground, holding the side of his belly, which appeared to be bleeding from a bullet wound. He was gasping for breath and his face was gray.
Sophie and Felicity were clinging to each other—or, more accurately, Felicity was clinging to Sophie, who was standing there with a revolver in her hand and a shocked expression on her face. Felicity was sobbing and Sophie, for once, seemed to have nothing to say until she saw him.
“Adam.”
He went to her, but all he could do was place a hand between her shoulder blades, for she was still attached to a sagging Felicity as if the poor girl would never let her go.
“It was him,” Sophie said. Her gray eyes were huge in her face, and she still gripped the revolver. “He did it . . . all.”
“I know,” Adam said. “I reckon you can give me
that now.” He gently uncurled her fingers from the death grip on the firearm.
“I s-shot him. Is he g-going to die? I didn’t mean to kill him, b-but . . .”
“I don’t think he’s going to die,” Adam replied honestly. But at the moment he wasn’t certain he’d care if the man did expire on the ground.
He’d heard enough outside the window of the study to know what a cold, amoral man Carson Townsend was.
* * *
The moment Constance settled back in her seat in the hackney, she burst into tears. Thank Heaven Adam Quinn had already walked away.
She sat in the carriage, silently furious, tears rolling down her cheeks.
She hated herself.
Hated what she’d done—hated that she’d caused that noble Adam Quinn to look at her as if she were a leper.
Hated that she’d used her fury toward Jelly as a way to hurt Sophie Gates.
Hated that she’d teased and exaggerated and made sly comments meant to drive Sophie Gates—who’d been nothing but kind to her—from Adam Quinn, when anyone could see the two were besotted with each other. And that they would make a wonderful match.
She hated that she grieved for Jelly, who’d left her. Who, after more than twenty years of mothering her, holding her, loving her, had simply left. Run away.
How could she?
Didn’t she care about her, Constance? Didn’t she care that she had no mother, no one who loved her?
Didn’t anyone care that her world was about to be turned upside down in this horrible war?
Didn’t anyone care that she’d nearly lost her father, and that a black man had had to save his life?
And that she’d shot a white man in order to save a black man?
Constance sobbed and grieved and loathed all the way home, and was grateful that Mr. Quinn had given the hackney driver directions so that all she had to do was get out of the carriage and pay.
And then when she found out he’d already paid the fare, she began to sob even harder. She’d been so awful to people today, and over the last several days since Jelly had left and she’d turned into a spy.
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