Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 03]
Page 25
Downstairs in the parlor, they found quite a crowd. Brookhaven and Deirdre, Marbrook and Phoebe, an excited Meggie, a string-tangled kitten . . . and Mr. Stickley, the solicitor.
Everyone was smiling, except for the kitten.
When Sadie entered, Mr. Stickley moved forward, his prim smile sincere and admiring. “Your Grace, I am so happy to see you again!”
Sadie cleared the surprise from her throat and managed to answer graciously enough. “Thank you, sir. It is nice to see you again as well.”
He made a neat little bow. “And my sincerest congratulations on your excellent match, my dear! I knew that one of you ladies would win!”
Sadie frowned anxiously. “Oh, dear. No one has told you—I’m not really Sophie Blake.”
Mr. Stickley chuckled indulgently and clapped his hands together. “Of course you aren’t! My goodness!” He reached into his coat and pulled out a slip of paper. “Nonetheless, here you are! May you use it in good health!”
Confused, Sadie took the paper—and then realized that it was a check. A very large check. Her fingers went suddenly numb and the check floated to the floor.
Mr. Stickley peered worriedly into her face. “Are you all right, Your Grace?”
The room threatened to tilt. Graham’s arm came about her, strong and warm. She steadied at once. She reached out a hand for the check that Mr. Stickley had retrieved from the floor. “If you don’t mind, sir . . . I should like to read that again.”
The paper was cool and crisp in her hand. The amount was as she’d first thought—nearly thirty thousand pounds. This time, however, it was the name on the check that caught her up short.
Sadie Westmoreland Blake Cavendish, Duchess of Edencourt.
“Blake?” Her throat tightened. She looked helplessly at Deirdre and Phoebe. “What . . . what is this?”
Deirdre grinned. “Congratulations. You’re not an orphan anymore.”
Phoebe shook her head, smiling. “Actually, you haven’t been for fifteen years. Mrs. Blake legally adopted you when she brought you home to Acton.”
Deirdre’s grin turned fierce. “That’s her account and she’s standing by it, by God.”
“Adopted?” Sadie blinked. “Then . . . we truly are cousins?” A real family.
Phoebe gazed at Sadie with gentle understanding in her eyes. “Graham did it.”
His strength and steadiness had never left her. She’d leaned into him as naturally as she’d breathed—without thought or hesitation. Now she turned to him, so many questions bubbling forth that she was mute with them.
He smiled down at her, then touched the tip of her nose with his finger. “You are Sadie Blake. Mrs. Blake will swear to it in any court in the land.”
Sadie blinked. “But . . . she hates me.”
His smile turned a little sad. “I’m fairly sure she hates everyone. I’m positive she hates me, since I am the one who pointed out that if you received the inheritance then you would be able to pay her back her two hundred pounds.”
Deirdre snorted. “It wasn’t hers to begin with.”
Sadie looked back down at the check in her hand. “Shouldn’t I give her some of this? I mean, she’s the real Pickering, not I.”
“Don’t you dare!” Deirdre plunked both hands on her hips. “Do you know why she sent her housekeeper to that orphanage? She was looking for a girl to pass off as Sophie to win the prize!”
Phoebe nodded. “She finally confessed that she only gave up on the idea when you turned out to be . . .”
“Plain,” Sadie finished without a hint of rancor. “It all makes sense now.” She gazed down at the check in her hand. “Fair enough, then.” She turned to Graham and offered him the check with a smile. “For your Edencourt.”
His hand closed over hers, the check inside. “For our home, Sadie Westmoreland Blake Cavendish, Duchess of Edencourt.” He raised their joined hands and kissed her knuckles. “It’s very nice to meet you at last.”
A real love.
She laughed and curtsied. “Likewise, Your Grace.” Then she smiled up at him with all the love she’d never thought to show him again, a smile that brought wonder to his eyes and a gasp of astonishment from Mr. Stickley.
“But you may call me Sadie.”
Chapter Thirty-four
Squinting against the afternoon light, gray and pearly though it shone through the clouds, Wolfe stumbled from the public house and wiped his foul-tasting mouth on his sleeve. Bracing one shaking hand against the doorway, he leaned to spit on the cobbles. The barmaid had let him sleep off his binge in her bed, though she’d been sorely put out this morning to discover that there was no coin to repay her generosity.
Wolfe’s head rang and pounded and generally felt as if a crew of laborers were erecting a gallows within his skull. The image of a noose swung behind his dazzled vision for an uncomfortable moment. Then he managed to dispel it by dwelling upon the sizable assets of the aforementioned barmaid.
With such uplifting thoughts to bolster him, he managed to straighten his back and stand erect. He ran both hands through his unwashed hair and then smoothed them down his coat front. Still flat, even at his age. Forty-mumble was only the middle of his prime. He had many, many years to enjoy the fruits of his labors. For the time being, however, he needed to hit Stickley up for an advance on his retainer. There was still the matter of the Marquis of Brookhaven to dispense with. When that bloke lay cold, there would be no more chances for the great-granddaughters of Sir Hamish Pickering to lay hands on a nickel of the old bastard’s gold.
With a somewhat less than upright, shambling motion, Wolfe began to wander his way through the winding streets and alleys of Shoreditch, making his way back to more respectable environs. Too bad. The very smell of the piss-and-soot–coated cobbles put a spring in his step that had never been accomplished by the scent of flowers or perfume of the finer life.
“Back to the office,” he muttered to himself, then snickered. “Tick-tock, old boy, time is money.” Who was it who used to say that until Wolfe wanted to brain him with a cricket bat? Oh, yes. Mr. Wolfe the Elder had been wont to spout that homily to his dear partner, Stickley the First.
Now there was a bracing thought. Imagining parting ways with Stickley forever brought a beatific smile to Wolfe’s face that nearly eradicated the reddened eyes and greenish pallor.
The squalor of Shoreditch behind him at last, Wolfe paused before a Fleet Street shop window to adjust his cravat. Oh hell, where was his cravat? Recalling that he’d used it to bind the hands of the barmaid at some point in the last few days, he shrugged. The wench could burn it, for all he cared. Soon he’d be swimming in luxury, the happy and hard-working recipient of nearly fifteen thousand pounds of interest from the Pickering Trust.
Stickley would no longer be needing his half, of course.
While Wolfe tried to force his fumbling fingers to do something useful with his collar, two ladies passed behind him. He could see their fine bonnets and shawls reflected in the mirror and the bored footman trailing behind with the parcels. Wolfe twitched with irritation. Ladies were parasites, too uppity to pay their own way with honest whoring. Soon he would have enough money to surround himself with eager prostitutes and like-minded friends for the rest of his life.
Such sybaritic pleasure almost distracted him from the ladies’ conversation—that is, until he heard the name “Edencourt.”
“Oh, no! It’s her money, not Edencourt’s! Nearly thirty thousand pounds they say.”
The other woman sighed enviously. “Can you imagine? A young, handsome duke and all those riches. She’ll be sleeping in Lementeur nightdresses, I expect.”
The other woman snorted, no less enviously. “With that inheritance, she’ll be gowning her maidservants in Lementeur!”
“But isn’t it romantic? I heard that he stole her away to his estate and wouldn’t let her leave until she promised to marry him.”
I should have killed that scrawny bitch when I had the chance!
“Sir, I think you’d best move along now.”
Wolfe found himself turned by force. The footman—damn, he looked more like a bodyguard than an simple manservant—stood firmly between Wolfe and the shocked gazes of the two ladies. The two very wealthy, likely very highly placed ladies. Wolfe fought down the volcanic rage searing his gut long enough to smear an apologetic smile on his features and mouth some banal obsequiousness. The footman released him at last and Wolfe backed away, bowing and smirking and generally making himself sick with his own desperation.
How could it have happened? When he’d left this world only a few days ago, that horse-faced bride of Edencourt’s had been exposed as a fake! Now she had the inheritance? Wolfe strode to the nearest newsboy, who was tying up the last of his unsold sheets for the day.
Wolfe shoved the fellow aside and grabbed up a gossip rag.
“Oy! That’s a farthing!”
Wolfe turned the full force of his rage at the sniveling worm. The fellow paled and backed away from Wolfe’s red, maddened eyes, making a small superstitious motion against evil as he did so.
Wolfe ignored him then, ripping the sheet in his urgency to read it. There it was, in the Voice of Society’s column.
“If the Duke and Duchess of Edencourt weren’t previously the most fortunate couple in England, already having the grace of fine looks and true love, then they surely are now. The Duchess, it seems, is the lucky winner of a charming contest between herself and her lovely cousins, now both wed to the brothers of Brookhaven, the marquis himself and his brother Lord Raphael Marbrook. Lady Edencourt has inherited a vast fortune for wedding her duke. Your Voice of Society now wonders if this will become the latest vogue in bequest—the legacy goes to the one who makes the best match of all!”
Gone. Evaporated. Sucked away by that prancing duke and his sponging relic of an estate.
Wolfe’s hands began to shake once more. This time the rage was nearly swallowed by the panic and fear. He had people looking for him—people who now knew he had no more expectations of even his paltry retainer.
Oh, damn. His gut went to ice at the memories. He’d held his creditors off for months with stories of the wealth due him from the Pickering Trust. Lies, mostly, but everyone remembered how rich old Hamish had become. Wolfe had flung that name about with comfortable abandon, relishing the respect that had risen in the eyes of everyone who heard that he was executor of such wealth.
Never mind that it was Stickley who—
Stickley.
Wolfe pressed the heels of both hands to his aching forehead. There was something he needed to remember about Stickley . . .
It’s what my father would have expected of me.
Ah. Yes.
Wolfe drew in a long, shaken breath. That had been a close call there for a moment. He’d thought he might have to run for the West Indies or, God forbid, the Americas.
But there, as always, as dependable and useful as a boot scraper bolted to the doorway, was Stickley. Reliable, loyal Stickley, who had so thoughtfully arranged for Wolfe to be kept in the style to which he’d become accustomed.
Wolfe smiled, his thoughts resting fondly on Stickley for the first time in his memory.
He really was a fine old stick. Wolfe almost regretted having to kill him.
A FEW HOURS later, Mr. Wolfe was staring down the barrel of a very large, very black hunting rifle that lay perfectly poised in the arms of his erstwhile partner, Mr. Stickley.
“I should put that silly little pistol down if I were you, Wolfe,” Stickley said with more panache than Wolfe would have credited him with. “You’re outgunned.”
Wolfe rapidly calculated his chances of killing Stickley before he himself was killed. The hell of it was, rifles just worked so much better than pistols! Pistols were forever jamming and if one had to shoot very far, they were distressingly inaccurate.
Deciding to live to fight another day, Wolfe bent to set his pistol on the floor. The rifle remained aimed at him for several long moments.
“What is the meaning of this outrage?”
Outrage. Wolfe’s nerves twitched. The prissy little sod’s very language grated on Wolfe’s ear like the sound of a saw.
“I’m sorry, Stick, old man.” Apologize. Lap it up. Convince the smarmy little bastard to let his guard down. Then kill him and break into the safe.
It was a hell of a plan.
Not as good as the one that didn’t include Stickley armed and ready for him, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” he pleaded. Oh, how I want to hurt you. He opened his hands wide to demonstrate his helplessness and took a step forward. He had the reach on Stick. He could probably rip that rifle out of the smaller man’s hands if he chose to.
Then he would pound the little bastard’s face to mush. When the body was found, he’d be sure to cry all the way to the Bank of London.
Stickley seemed to be buying it. He lowered the rifle slightly. “You said you weren’t going to harm Miss Blake or the duke.”
Wolfe shrugged. “Are they harmed? I came out of the matter with a bloody nose, I’ll remind you! And that duke won the day in the alley as well. Kidnapping Brookhaven came to naught and I never personally laid a finger on Lady Brookhaven. I simply encouraged Baskin’s infatuation.” While he spoke, he eased forward a fraction of an inch for every word. Then he lunged for the rifle.
There.
With a mighty wrench, he pulled the gun out of Stickley’s grip, then quickly switched it to aim at him. “Ha! You’re dead now, you little sod!”
Lamplight flared in the darkened room. “No, he isn’t,” a voice said pleasantly.
Wolfe turned to see a full audience of—blast it!—witnesses. Standing in the room were the Duke of Edencourt, the Marquis of Brookhaven and that literal bastard, Lord Raphael Marbrook.
“How thoughtful of you to recount your sins to us, Mr. Wolfe.” The marquis’s tone was dry. “There were some there I hadn’t even known of.”
Witnesses or not, Wolfe was the only one who was armed. He pointed the rifle at the gentlemen before him. “My lords, Your Grace, I’m sorry to inform you that you’ve all just purchased tickets on the ‘Make My Wife a Widow’ ship—” He smiled nastily. “Which sails immediately.”
Stickley was shaking his head. “I always thought you were simply drunk most of the time. I never realized that you were in the process of becoming the stupidest man alive. If I knew you were coming with enough certainty to assemble this esteemed panel of witnesses, don’t you think I would have used similar forethought to remove the bullets from my rifle?”
The three gentlemen opposite him pulled rifles of their own from behind their backs. “These, however, are quite loaded. Aren’t they, Mr. Stickley?”
Wolfe turned on his partner in fury. “You’re just as guilty of all that as I am, Stick. If I hang, you hang with me!”
He turned back to Brookhaven. “Do you want to know who attacked your fiancée and kidnapped your brother just before your wedding?” He raised one finger to point at Stickley. “This man right here was by my side all through that adventure.”
Brookhaven narrowed his eyes. “Are you saying that Stickley was there, helping you stage a highway robbery on my carriage?” He moved nearer. “Are you saying that he held a gun on my brother’s wife, my fiancée, and that he locked him in a rotten basement for days without food or water?”
Wolfe nodded vengefully. “He did!”
Stickley shook his head wearily. “So much whiskey, Wolfe. I knew it was only a matter of time until you lost your mind.”
“What?” Wolfe looked from one man to the next but saw not an iota of suspicion about to fall on Stickley. He waved the rifle in frustration. “Ask your wife, Marbrook! She was there!”
“Oh, my, yes,” Stickley nodded and made for the door to t
he kitchen. “My lady, if you please?”
When Lady Marbrook came out, Wolfe gaped. Then he smiled at her, his last hope. She drew back, her brows rising in alarm.
“Rafe, make him stop.”
Lord Marbrook put an arm about her. “It’s all right, darling. Mr. Wolfe seems to have experienced some confusion about the night before I was kidnapped. He’d like you to clear something up for us all.”
Wolfe raised his hand to point at Stickley. “There were two of us that night, weren’t there?”
Lady Marbrook blinked at him. “Two? Are you sure?”
Wolfe’s jaw dropped. “You saw us both!”
She shrugged. “I can’t really recall. I was so terrified, you see—a helpless lady alone on a dark road with a highwayman . . .” She shook her head regretfully. “I’m not sure what I saw.”
Wolfe saw it all now. Stickley had made a bargain with them. His capture in exchange for sheltering beneath their protection and probably a bit of something on the side.
Then the watch piled into the room, rough men swearing and shoving him, all eager to claim the bounty for his crime.
As Wolfe was taken away he could only glare hotly at Stickley through the barred window of the wagon like a caged animal.
MRS. O’MALLEY WAS a woman of great wisdom and tolerance. She knew that if her eldest daughter, Patricia, claimed to have returned from England because she’d been fired from her job for slacking work, then the real reason was best left unspoken for the moment. As if one of her children had ever slacked a day in their lives!
It was a man, of course.
Mrs. O’Malley had five sisters and three daughters. She could tell the difference between the strained pallor of heartbreak and the despair of failure.
Even the boys, bless them, knew that someone had broken their beloved sister’s heart. They cast worried glances and muttered dark words about the “damned English”—but not in Patricia’s hearing, for it only made her paler yet.
Mrs. O’Malley dried her hands of dishwater and moved to where Patricia sat peeling potatoes for the noon meal. A family of seven hard workers could eat a fair pile of potatoes, but Patricia had peeled enough for an army.