“Overdoing it a bit,” Rand grumbled under his breath, but he waved a haughty hand at the inn’s servants, as any duke’s man would, and put a foot on the stairs to seek their rooms. The sound of footsteps drew his attention, and suddenly his cousin’s odd behavior appeared clever indeed.
Colonel Fairweather paraded down the steps, a captain at his heels, and brushed Rand aside, dismissing him without a glance. Rand’s lips quirked, and he suppressed a grin; the disguise was working.
Blair didn’t accompany his superior, but he normally wouldn’t, not in officer’s quarters. Rand looked down on their departing backs in time to see his cousin step into the colonel’s path with every show of an accidental encounter, timing his well-planned maneuver perfectly.
“I beg your pardon,” Charles snapped, nose high, in a tone that implied the other party was at fault. He retrieved a quizzing glass on a silken ribbon from his coat and raised it to his eye.
Fairweather’s face paled as if he had received a shock, but he bowed clumsily and forced an oily smile. “Your Grace! We were not expecting you.”
“Of course not. If I told people to expect me, my visits wouldn’t be unannounced, would they?” Charles asked, forcing a haughty laugh. He narrowed his eyes. “Colonel Fairweather? You are in Bristol? Didn’t I just see you in Portsmouth last week?” He managed to convey both puzzlement and surprise, as if he didn’t know full well Fairweather would be in Bristol and in that very hotel.
“Three weeks, Your Grace, but yes. We have been billeted here to keep the peace. Bristol requires—”
“Yes, yes,” the duke said, with a wave of his hand. “Civil unrest. Mob actions. Terrible thing, last spring. Can’t have it. See to it you keep the peace.”
“Certainly, Your Grace. Bristol is a dangerous place, much more so than Portsmouth,” Fairweather said. “You must have a care.” He sounded concerned enough, but Rand saw a threat behind the words.
“Really?” Charles drawled. “Ought I to worry so much?” He wrinkled his face as if in thought. “Perhaps I should send for a private guard.”
Fairweather laughed nervously. “Goodness. I wouldn’t go that far. We are well able to protect you as long as you and your people are careful.” He stared intently at Stewart. “I don’t believe I’ve met your assistant,” he said at last.
“I was forced to obtain a new one after my miscreant cousin broke his parole and disappeared,” Charles told him, peering up from under deceptively lazy eyelashes. He didn’t bend to introduce Stewart.
“I heard something of that in Portsmouth. Unfortunate,” Fairweather said.
“Disgraceful! Our family does not hold with scandal!” Charles replied.
“Well, you should not. I heard he was caught with another man’s wife. Indiscreet, that! I wouldn’t be surprised to hear your family wished that kept quiet,” the colonel said, watching the duke with a cunning expression.
The duke responded with a raised chin, an icy stare, and the slightest movement to indicate he would turn away, cutting out the colonel.
“You will be careful during your stay,” Fairweather put in quickly before he could.
“I certainly will! I’ll tell my people also,” the duke replied. He sniffed at Fairweather, and his lips twitched. “We’ll have to schedule another delightful dinner, Colonel. Soon.”
“Of course.” Fairweather bowed and took his leave. When he stomped to the door, Rand could almost imagine steam rising from his head.
Charles winked up at Rand on the stairs before he turned to the innkeeper one last time. “That will do, Mr. Boxley. Kindly have someone see to my team.”
With two regiments billeted in Bristol, Charles quickly scheduled a joint meeting for the following day. Mid-morning, he and Stewart reviewed questions and approaches as they sat at a table in their private salon. They knew Fairweather to be guilty but had no proof. They were less sure about Ichabod Manning, colonel of Bristol’s other quartered regiment. Corruption could run wide as well as deep.
The two men sat at their rest without jackets or cravats, legs stretched across the inn’s second-rate carpet, while Rand paced restlessly from the newly painted hallway door to grime-coated windows that overlooked the street. His casual dress matched theirs, but his hair was bound in a damp towel stained brown from the strong coffee he used to darken his hair. He grimaced at his reflection and glanced back at the duke’s brass carriage clock resting on a butler’s cabinet. A few more moments should do it.
He ran a finger down the glass to make sure the filth was on the outside. Most of it was. He turned on his heels and went to the cabinet with the built-in bar. He considered pouring a glass of whisky but thought better of it. On a day that promised to be as long as it would be difficult, it was too early to start. A valet would not attend meetings or social activity, and that left Rand feeling trapped in their quarters. He paced toward the room he shared with Charles, circling the table.
“Do sit down. You’re upsetting my equilibrium,” the duke snapped.
“You don’t need me,” Rand replied. He unwrapped his head covering, dangled it between finger and thumb, and grimaced. He made short work of storing the offending object in an oilskin pouch left on one of the empty chairs for that purpose.
He caught the amusement in his cousin’s face when Charles said, “You’ve managed a dark mahogany. I rather like you with dark hair.”
Rand grunted and sat down with the others. “I hope I don’t have to do this often. The servants will wonder.”
“They assume we swill coffee,” Stewart said without looking up from a report he appeared to be memorizing. “Although you’ll want to wait until the smell abates before you go downstairs.”
“So, I’m to stay here? I’ll crawl the walls.”
“If you’re caught and they toss you in jail, I’ll leave you there this time,” Charles said, with every sign of cheer. “You won’t do us any good there—or Meggy either. Stay in. It’s safer.” The duke began to organize papers into the document box.
“I should make sure Meggy arrived safely.”
“She stepped off the mail an hour ago. Brill sent up a message,” Charles said, glancing up.
“You might have told me!” Rand slammed a hand on the table.
“You might have stayed still long enough,” Charles replied. He relented to smile. “I only got word a moment ago. It came with the fresh coffee.”
Stewart’s mouth quirked in amusement. He handed his papers to the duke, suggested they get ready, and disappeared into his own room.
Rand carried the oilcloth pouch as he followed his cousin to the room they shared. He put the pouch and the basin full of used coffee into the cupboard at the bottom of his washstand, grateful the duke traveled with his own bath set. When he finished drying his hair, another towel sported brown stains. He added it to the cupboard and locked it.
Frustration boiled in Rand’s gut. When Charles required help tying his cravat, it nearly boiled over.
“Have a care you don’t choke me!”
“Have a care you don’t drive me to it,” Rand spat back.
Charles reviewed his appearance in the wall mirror, pronounced it “sufficient,” and tapped his hat on his head. He turned and paused when he saw Rand. For a moment, he studied him closely before taking hold of both of his cousin’s arms.
“Listen to me. If you go out—when you go out—have a care. If they catch you this time, it may be worse than jail.”
“I’m not a damned fool, Charles.”
“Not in general, no, but a lovesick one nonetheless,” the duke said. He moved toward the door and stopped as if something had just occurred to him. “My valet does not wander the streets. He certainly does not moon after some woman. Have a care you don’t bring down disaster on us all.”
When the duke left, Rand l
eaned against the window frame and watched wagons and horses jostle pedestrians and sailors swagger along the walkway, while gentlemen avoided offal in the street and leant ladies their protection. The street, like the inn, had an air of respectability while lacking distinction or pretense to fashion. As he watched, traffic parted, wagons pulled to the side, and those on foot moved against the buildings. In a moment, he saw why.
A company of soldiers marched down the street in reasonably good, though far from perfect, order. A burly sergeant plodded along at their side, thick arms swinging along until he came next to the hotel. He paused then and let the troop move ahead, before he looked up at the building and frowned. Rand pulled back to the side, and his heart stuttered. Blair peered from window to window, a sneer gradually replacing the frown. He turned and followed his men with a jaunty air as if he had no cares.
Rand spun sideways to lean his back against the wall, breathing hard. He doubted he’d been seen, but Fairweather had assuredly reported the return of the Under-Secretary of Troublemaking Investigations to Blair. They would be watched.
I’ll be damned if I’m going to stay cooped up here like a troublesome child. He thought quickly. The duke’s valet might not prowl the streets, but a groom might. If Brill wasn’t in the mews, he’d find clothes to borrow on his own.
Two can play the same game. If he’s watching Charles, I can damn well watch where he goes.
Chapter 34
Meggy had no trouble acting pathetic for her husband’s little charade. In the dress Charles purloined from a laundry line and smarting from the beating her husband had given her when he saw it, she felt pathetic enough.
He had only hit her twice, and provided an explanation, “So’s you know that dress ain’t yours to keep.” He didn’t need a reason, Meggy knew. He enjoyed it. He punished her far worse for the sport of it. That he only hit her twice showed how glad her return made him.
“Th’ Under Secretary for Nosing Where He Don’t Belong is back. We’ve been watching his hotel for three days with no sign of his cousin. Claims the lobcock disappeared. You, my girl, are going help us get rid of him.”
When he demanded she tell him the entire story of her abduction, she did her best to appear shaken while she repeated the story she and the Duchess of Sudbury had concocted.
Standing outside the officer’s headquarters, she reviewed the conversation over and over. Stewart had warned her she had to keep it straight, or they would suspect.
“He dragged us along the coast almost to Cornwall,” she told him. “When I escaped, I knew you would be here. I walked up the coast.”
“Cornwall?” Fergus rubbed his chin then as if in thought. She hated it when he looked thoughtful. She feared she made a mistake in her story.
“Almost,” she clarified. “We stopped in Watchet. There’s a house outside it on the coast.”
When his hand darted out to grab her chin, she cowered. “Did you tell him we were moving to Bristol?”
“No,” she lied. “I told him nothing.”
“Lie to me and you’ll pay, Megs, you know that.” His eyes gleamed. “And you say he has the boy with ‘im there?”
She assured him Rand had hidden Drew there, terrified he might be able to tell she had lied.
“He ain’t no fool. Must think we’re in Portsmouth. Still, he poked his nose in here once.” When he breathed deeply, his foul-smelling breath revolted her. “What house?” he demanded at last.
“He called it Grinley. It’s a big crumbling ruin. No roof on half of it.” Such a place existed, a minor holding of the Duke of Sudbury, long in ruin and given over to iron mining. Relief that at least part of her story was true calmed her.
While they waited to be admitted to the duke, she held her ribs. They felt dislocated where he had punched her. The other hit had been to her cheekbone. She knew a rising purple bruise testified to the force.
“Adds to your story,” Fergus said when he saw her rub it. “The bastard beat you.” He chuckled at his own wit. “Nobody beats my wife but me.” Chuckles turned to raucous laughter, interrupted only by the opening door.
“Do as I told you like a good girl, Megs, like you did before,” Fergus hissed in her ear, while he pulled her forward, adding to the bruises already covered by the modest sleeves of the farm wife’s dress.
Windows filled the room with sunlight. Maps and documents littered the center of the wide table around which five men sat. She recognized three: Fairweather, the Duke of Murnane, and Walter Stewart, who watched her keenly. The duke, she noticed, studied them from under his lashes, his face fixed with a disdainful sneer she might once have seen as genuine. One of the others wore a colonel’s insignia, and the fifth appeared to be an army clerk of some sort. Two soldiers guarded the door, and another stood at attention behind the table that was situated between two windows.
“Is this the woman my cousin debauched?” Charles demanded, casting a disdainful eye toward her as if he had never seen her before. Debauched? Rand? Meggy struggled to suppress hysterical laughter.
“Done it and beat her, too, after he took her from me,” Fergus spat. “Look what he done to her! Still has my boy, too, and the other one.” Meggy had never been to a real theater, but she doubted the acting there would outshine these two men.
“What is that to me?” the duke drawled.
“I believe, Your Grace, Sergeant Blair thinks that, having posted his bail, you were responsible for your cousin’s good behavior,” Fairweather put in.
“How tiresome,” Charles sighed, tipping his head back. After a moment, he addressed Meggy and her husband directly. “Is it money you want?”
For a moment, she thought Fergus would say yes. She recognized his greedy expression and held her breath. In the end, he said, “No, Yer Grace, I want justice. He can’t take a man’s children no matter what title his relative holds. Or should I say titles. There’s an earl there, too, in’t there?”
Charles waved a dismissive hand. “Drag my cousin back to jail for all I care. Let him rot there.” He squinted his eyes in a show of weariness. “My uncle, the Earl of Chadbourn, may have more tender feelings, I fear. He certainly would not want the family name dragged through the mud.” He tipped his head, scrutinized Meggy, and pretended to consider the matter.
Meggy thanked God she had met the earl and knew better. The entire balmy family didn’t give a fig what Fergus thought.
“No, he wouldn’t care for it at all,” the duke said with a weary sigh. “What do you propose?” He cast Fergus a shrewd look.
Meggy’s husband moved restlessly at her side. Is it possible they don’t have a plan? she worried. Fairweather nodded at them as if to say, “Get on with it.”
“If he ain’t in jail in two days, I’ll bring suit in Lincoln Inns, see if I don’t. What will your uncle think then?” Fergus demanded. He meant to send the duke packing back to London to prevent such a scandal, giving them time to unload the goods they had accumulated already. Why wait two days?
“Surely you don’t expect me to locate my libidinous cousin for you,” Charles said.
“Find the daft prigger. Meg’s says he’s in Devon, down the coast near Watchet.” He yanked her forward. “Tell ‘em, Megs.”
She did, exactly as they planned. In London, the duke had sounded certain that if Fairweather and Blair sent his toughs to find Grinley, it would buy him four days before they discovered there was no sign of Rand, the children, or any habitation whatsoever in the ruins. The ache in Meggy’s stomach warned her that she felt less sure of it.
Fairweather grimaced. “Surely you don’t believe the scoundrel can be trapped, Your Grace,” he said. “He’ll be gone by now. Sergeant Blair is determined in this matter. He can be quite dogged when he believes he is wronged. Perhaps you ought to warn your uncle, who will not want the scandal.” He glared at Fergus.
“Sergeant Blair, I regret your grievance and will consider the matter. Two days, you say? That isn’t enough time to complete my work here, but I’ll think about it.” He turned to the colonel Meggy didn’t recognize, handed him a document, and asked a question. His action dismissed Blair more rudely than if he had simply told him to get out.
Meggy noticed that Stewart had never taken his eyes off her. Before Fergus could pull her from the room, she yanked her right ear, the signal they had devised for “I have information.” One for information, two for trouble, three for get me out now. Stewart blinked but gave no other sign he’d noted the message.
“Pardon me momentarily, Your Grace, while I speak to my sergeant about this reprehensible disruption,” Fairweather said, rising. The duke waved a careless hand to send him along.
Once in the hallway, Fairweather led Fergus and Meggy to a small storage room nearby.
“What do you mean telling him where his damned cousin is? We want him out of here. Now!” he complained as soon as the door closed. “I told you to threaten scandal. That lot hate it and will do anything to stop it.”
“You forgetting about the boy, Fairweather?” Fergus countered, one hand still clamped on Meggy’s arm. “They’ll put him in the witness dock, and you’ll swing along with me.”
“If you’d done him like I told you, he’d be no threat, but you had to make a few crown off him. Now what?”
“Now we have a solicitor show the duke papers to be filed in London, and we send someone to Grinley for the boy. Once I have him, I’ll take care of him once and for all.” Fergus said.
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