“In any case,” the object of her pity continued, “the war ended shortly after Father died, and Morgan decided to end the deception. He came here to meet me in the spring of 1815.” A ghost of a smile played over his lips. “Can you imagine my reaction upon first seeing my twin? It was amazing, an instant feeling of kinship.”
He drank another swig, then another. “We had a month to get acquainted. One morning I told him I meant to reestablish him as a member of the family. He said he had an urgent matter to settle first that would take several months. But he promised to return for Christmas.” He swirled the brandy in his glass. “That was the last time I saw my brother.”
Juliet swallowed. If this was an act, it was a very good one. And yet…
“I take it that kidnapping Juliet for the smugglers and going aboard the Oceana were the matters he needed to settle?” Griff asked.
Lord Templemore shifted his gaze to Griff. “I suppose so. Until now, I knew nothing about any smugglers or kidnapping. When he didn’t show up as promised, I searched for him, but could learn nothing. I only discovered where he’d been once the Oceana went down. The ship’s owners sent me a letter listing the passengers and crew who were lost.”
Moving to the desk, he picked up a sheet of paper, and handed it to Griff.
Griff scanned it quickly. “But this says, ‘in reference to your inquiries.’”
Alarm flickered over Lord Templemore’s face, though he masked it so quickly, Juliet couldn’t be sure. “Yes. That’s how they found me. As a last resort, I’d sent inquiries to ship owners, hoping someone might have information regarding Morgan.”
Griff glanced again at the letter. “The ship sank a few months after we saw him last. So it’s been nearly two years since he disappeared.”
Lord Templemore merely nodded. They all knew what that meant. Two years—nobody came sailing home after two years lost at sea. Not alive, anyway. Tears burned behind Juliet’s eyes. It couldn’t be true. She refused to let it be true. Morgan was here, in front of her…and manipulating her sympathies once again. How typical.
Rosalind’s voice broke the somber silence. “So you have no idea why he consorted with those smugglers? Or why he agreed to kidnap Juliet for them simply to gain the name of the Oceana and the date of July 17?”
“No idea at all. I wish I did.”
“Yes, so do I.” His uncle sounded almost sarcastic, and Juliet wondered why.
“In any case,” Lord Templemore remarked hastily, “you now see why he can’t be in London spreading rumors about your sister-in-law. If he’d survived that wreck, he’d have come home. It’s far more likely that your family servants talked of the matter.”
“Possibly,” Griff agreed noncommittally.
Juliet’s gaze swung to him. He knew perfectly well the servants knew nothing.
Griff stepped forward to hand Lord Templemore the letter. “I do appreciate your being so frank, your lordship. This is a rather delicate matter…for both of us.”
His lordship smiled as he took it. “You keep my secrets and I’ll keep yours?”
“Something like that.” Griff extended his hand. “We won’t take any more of your time. I can see you’ve done your best to find your brother. I’ll try a few inquiries myself, but it doesn’t sound promising. We’d appreciate your keeping us apprised of further developments.”
“Of course,” Lord Templemore said, shaking Griff’s hand. “If there’s anything I can do to squelch these…er…rumors…”
“Your stepping in would only make them worse.”
“Probably.” He cleared his throat. “Well, unless there’s something else…”
Juliet leaped to her feet in alarm. “See here, Griff, you aren’t simply accepting this bizarre tale, are you? There are too many questions unanswered, and the matter of the rumors left to resolve. We can’t walk out of here just like that—”
“I agree with Lady Juliet,” Mr. Pryce interrupted. “You have to stay the night in Llanbrooke anyway, since it is much too late to set off for London. Are you at that horrible inn, the Peacock’s Eye?”
“I’m afraid so,” Griff admitted. “It appears to be the only inn in town.”
“Then you should stay here instead. That way, if more questions arise tonight, you can renew the discussion. Besides, why endure such wretched accommodations when Sebastian has a mansion all to himself? He can make you quite comfortable.”
“Uncle Lew—” Lord Templemore began warningly.
“Don’t be inhospitable, my boy. It’s bitter cold out there—surely you don’t expect these poor ladies to suffer the miserly comforts of the Peacock Stye. Good God, man, where is your compassion?”
“I was merely going to suggest,” his lordship said evenly, “that Knighton may not wish to stay under my roof, considering the trouble my brother caused his family.”
“Nonsense,” Rosalind put in, with a familiar gleam in her eye. “I confess that I wasn’t looking forward to returning to that nasty inn. As long as Juliet doesn’t mind—”
“I don’t mind at all,” Juliet interrupted, though her reasons for wanting to stay differed vastly from Rosalind’s. Rosalind was probably playing matchmaker, envisioning a grand marriage between Juliet and the rich brother of her kidnapper.
Well, Rosalind could envision it all she wanted, but it wouldn’t happen. Especially if Juliet was right—and his lordship really was Morgan Pryce. Perhaps she was foolish to still think so, considering the letter and other evidence, but she would swear his lordship was hiding something. The holes in his tale were large enough to sail the Oceana through. She’d learned two years ago not to let her sympathetic nature distract her from the facts.
“There! You see, Sebastian?” Mr. Pryce said triumphantly. “We’re all agreed. The Knightons and Lady Juliet will stay here tonight.” He held out his arm to Juliet. “Come along then, all of you. We’ll get you settled in.”
Juliet took his arm and he led the way out the door, but when they reached the hall and he realized his nephew wasn’t with them, he paused and stuck his head back into the study. “Sebastian, are you coming?”
“In a moment. I have some business matters to attend to first. Go take care of our guests. Put them in the east wing, and tell Cook there will be five for dinner.”
“Certainly, my boy,” Mr. Pryce answered, then shut the door. As they walked off down the hall, he let Griff and Rosalind move ahead, then spoke in a voice meant only for her. “I say, Lady Juliet, would you answer one question?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you and your family wait two years to come looking for my nephew?”
She sighed. “Until this new gossip started circulating, I preferred to let sleeping dogs lie. My family abided by my wishes.”
“And now that the sleeping dog appears to be dead?”
Appears to be? She took a stab in the dark. “You don’t believe that.”
He flashed her a pained smile. “Sebastian has pronounced Morgan dead, and his opinion is all that counts.”
What an odd thing to say. “Is it indeed?”
“You’ll find out soon enough that it is.” Raising his voice, he turned to her sister and began asking about their trip from London.
How very strange. She didn’t doubt Lord Templemore’s wild tale about having a twin—Mr. Pryce had corroborated the story, and parts of it fit very well with Morgan’s history, as Griff had noted.
Yet why did Lord Templemore show so little grief over his brother’s death? He’d mourned his father—a man he clearly disliked—yet he didn’t seem to mourn his brother, whom he’d expended considerable time and effort searching for. Not to mention his uneasiness around her, and his uncle’s enigmatic statements.
Separately, they were just odd stitches, but together they made a badly patched tapestry. And on this one matter she was resolved—she wouldn’t rest until she unearthed the grimy fabric beneath all those patches.
Chapter 3
A clean glove often hides a
dirty hand.
English proverb written on a list once mounted on the Templemore schoolroom wall
O nly after the sound of footsteps along the corridor faded did Sebastian leave his study. A brief walk, another turn, and a flight of stairs later, he entered his former schoolroom, which now served as his workshop.
Where maps and lists of moralistic proverbs had once hung, pistol stocks and barrels rested on nails. A crude scarred table replaced the schoolboy desks and creaky globe. On one end lay his sketched designs and books. Upon the other were scattered locks, priming pans, copper casings, percussion caps, and bottles of fine-grained saltpeter, charcoal, and sulphur from which he made his own gunpowder.
It was to that end of the table he moved, snatching up a rasp and a stock for a set of dueling pistols he was designing. The rough maple snagged at his leather work gloves as he sat down and began filing away unfinished portions.
Working a stock usually relaxed him, but not today. What in God’s name was he to do about this mess?
The Knightons’ timing was abominable. A pity he hadn’t thought to have someone in the village alert him whenever strangers came to Llanbrooke, so he could avoid them entirely. But after two years, he’d let down his guard.
Devil take the Knightons for bringing Juliet here. Especially now that she’d grown up. At eighteen, she’d moved with the awkward uncertainty of a girl unsure of her attractions. She’d been oddly untouched, probably because responsibilities at home had kept her from moving in society.
At twenty, however…She packed an amazing amount of mature woman into that lethal little body. And what had merely tantalized him then was bedeviling him now.
He was an idiot, as bad as his rakehell father. He should be plotting how to allay her family’s suspicions, not sifting through all her words to glean her memories of their week together. Did she remember the hours playing chess in the cottage in Rye? The easy conversations in the carriage? The kiss they’d shared at the end?
The rasp fell still in his hands as he stared off at nothing. That final kiss—what had he been thinking? In a week of chaste companionship, he’d not even touched her, and he’d succeeded in freeing them both from the smugglers.
Then he’d had to go and do something risky like kiss her.
At the time he’d thought to assuage her anger for when he rode away without her. Instead, his foolish impulse had made him yearn for the budding woman inside the girl. Thank God they’d parted then, or he’d have disgraced the name of Blakely forever.
Unfortunately, all that long-suppressed desire had surged back at the sight of her today. It was perfectly understandable—he’d lived in austerity all his life, striving to erase his father’s excesses and his mother’s absence by a self-imposed adherence to duty and honor. Of course he would find Juliet appealing. Who wouldn’t?
But he couldn’t allow that to color his response to the situation. He had much to conceal. He mustn’t let sentimentality or other annoying urges alter his purpose.
Without warning the schoolroom door swung open, and Uncle Lew entered. With a groan, Sebastian bent over the stock.
“I thought I might find you here,” Uncle Lew stated as he perched atop a stool across the table from Sebastian.
Sebastian continued to work the wood, in no mood to discuss this with his blasted uncle. Not until he figured out how to fix the situation.
His uncle drew out an enameled snuffbox, pinched some snuff, and snorted it as casually as if this were a fashionable London salon. But Sebastian wasn’t fooled by his nonchalant air.
“I thought you had matters under control,” his uncle finally drawled. “You claimed they wouldn’t come looking for you.”
Wincing to hear his own half truths echoed back to him, Sebastian rasped away half the penciled design before realizing it. What else could he have told his uncle? He hadn’t wanted to worry him. Not with so many other matters to worry him when he’d first returned from Sussex. Like how to find Morgan.
“You said even if they came after you,” his uncle went on, “you could handle it.”
“I can.” Sebastian worked the rasp with a vengeance, and sawdust puddled on his knee. “I will.”
“As you handled Crouch? By agreeing to his terms even though it meant kidnapping an innocent?”
“I executed that kidnapping perfectly without hurting her, and then got her out of it unharmed.” His uncle raised an eyebrow, and he growled, “I’d like to see you do better.”
“Oh, I’m not insane enough to take on a band of smugglers single-handedly.” His uncle flicked a particle of snuff off his coat sleeve. “Or arrogant enough to carry a woman into danger with the assumption that I can save her in the end.”
“Deuce take it, Uncle!” He tossed down the rasp. “What do you want from me?”
His uncle’s cool gaze pinned him. “I want you to admit you don’t have everything under control for a change. That you occasionally blunder.”
The fact that Uncle Lew was right didn’t make it any easier to accept. “I didn’t blunder. I did what I had to—found out what Crouch’s men had done with Morgan.”
“For all the good it did.” Uncle Lew pocketed his snuffbox. “If the Navy Board hadn’t told us two months ago that he’d been spotted on a pirate ship, we’d still be thinking he’d gone down on the Oceana.”
Sebastian sighed heavily, then dusted sawdust off his trousers. That was the hardest to stomach—that the kidnapping, the final confrontation with Crouch, all had been for naught. “You’re welcome to go home whenever you wish, Uncle Lew,” Sebastian grumbled.
“Oho, my boy, you will not shake me off that easily, though I daresay you’d like me to trot across the park to Foxglen, so you can throw our guests out on their ears before they start punching giant holes in your paper-thin fabrication.”
“Our guests?” With a snort of disgust, Sebastian tossed down the stock. He’d ruined it, anyway. “You invited them, not I.”
His uncle waved his hand dismissively. “A minor detail. How else could I react, after hearing how you destroyed that poor girl’s life?”
“I was trying to protect her, blast it! I told you—Crouch didn’t just want ransom money; he wanted revenge on Knighton for some business dealings gone sour. That’s why I agreed to Crouch’s terms. He would have had her kidnapped, with or without me.” He shuddered. “And raping Knighton’s sister-in-law would have made a fine revenge.”
“At least you protected her from that.”
“I protected her from everything.”
“Then why are she and her family after your blood?”
The lash of his uncle’s words raised welts on his conscience, exactly as the man had intended. He ignored them. And the image of Juliet’s accusing eyes. Devil take it, he’d done his best under difficult circumstances. He refused to feel guilty about it. “Perhaps they don’t view matters as I do.”
“Can you blame them? When you didn’t bother to tell them any of this? You simply restored her to her relations and vanished, instead of remaining to accept whatever penance they required.”
“A trial? That’s what Knighton would have required, I assure you.”
“Not if you’d offered to marry her and make it right.”
He scrubbed a hand wearily over his face. “Don’t think I didn’t consider it.” Especially after that kiss. “But it was too risky. If they’d dragged me off to hang instead, who’d have been left to search for Morgan and take care of Charnwood? Remember, they had ample reason to despise me, since Lady Helena and Knighton’s friend Brennan were also thrust into danger while I was trying to extricate Juliet from Crouch’s clutches.”
“So you didn’t execute the kidnapping perfectly after all, did you?”
Shooting him a foul look, Sebastian rose and walked to the fireplace, where he crouched to throw a log on the fire. Blast, but it was cold up here and always had been. “I had matters well under control until they showed up. It wasn’t my fault that Lady Helena and Bren
nan blundered in where they shouldn’t have.”
“And I suppose it’s not your fault that Lady Juliet’s reputation is now on the verge of being ruined by gossip.”
“I had nothing to do with that!” Highly offended, he straightened to face his uncle. “What kind of wretch do you take me for?”
His uncle took out his snuffbox to dip more snuff. “I don’t know. A kidnapper?”
“Very amusing. But I took great care to keep Juliet and her reputation from suffering. I counted on her family keeping the matter quiet, which they did. As for this new gossip, I don’t believe there is any such thing. I’ve seen no mention in the London rags. And after all this time, why would anybody gossip about what happened? Who could know? If there truly is any gossip, it’s probably minor. They’re simply trumping it up to engage our sympathies, make me reveal myself. Which I refuse to do.”
“So you’re going to let her suffer through it on her own?”
Sebastian bristled. “See here, if I learn that there is indeed talk about her in London—which I highly doubt—I’ll do what I can to quell it. But after this matter with Morgan is settled.” He paced before the fire. “It’s not as if I actually did anything to her while I had her in my care; I acted with the utmost propriety.”
“Did you?” Uncle Lew cast him a sly look. “That must have been quite taxing. The young woman is lovely, a temptation to any man with eyes.”
Sebastian struggled not to scowl. It annoyed him that Uncle Lew had noticed Juliet’s loveliness, and his annoyance annoyed him, too. For God’s sake, Uncle Lew was over twice her age. “All the same, I behaved as a gentleman. I have nothing to be ashamed of.” Except for that one kiss. That one perfect, sensuous…
By thunder, why must he keep thinking of it?
“If you’ve done nothing wrong, tell the Knightons the truth.”
“Certainly. Then on Knighton’s way out of town, he can stop by the magistrate’s and arrange to have me carted off to London in chains. I prefer to keep my neck the appropriate length, thank you very much.”
After the Abduction Page 4