The sheer force of her fury scorched the air above James’s head like the flames of dragon’s breath. “The count de Bonneville stole those diamonds from me. I never gave them away. A gift from my darling James? As if I could ever let them out of my sight!”
“I daresay the count would insist otherwise. Since he is in the county, perhaps we can set the matter straight once and for all.”
“And that’s another thing,” Ophelia exclaimed. “That horrid man with the dirty boots, who strides about Morecroft as the count de Bonneville, is an imposter.”
If his eyes were not so sore, James would have rolled them. “Really, Ophelia, it no longer matters to me how you came to give him those diamonds.”
“I’m telling you, James, that man is not the count. Most definitely not. The crook who stole the Hartley Diamonds from me was far prettier, not so rough about the edges, and certainly not as tall or broad at the shoulder.”
He looked at her thoughtfully. He supposed she ought to know, having come into close contact with the villain.
Interesting.
“He wore gloves the entire time, whereas this man here does not seem to possess a single pair. And the real count has the strangest color eyes. I could have sworn they were lilac. Quite mesmerizing. I do believe that’s how he came to remove the diamonds from my neck. He put me in a trance of some sort.”
Grieves snorted quietly, and she glowered at him.
“In any case, that man who stayed at the Red Lion is not the count I met.”
“Ophelia,” James muttered feebly, “I need my rest. Please.”
He heard the gentle clink as Grieves set down the bowl of shaving water, and then the rustle of her skirt as she rose from her chair by his side. “I shall return very soon,” she snapped, as much, he guessed, for the valet’s benefit as his.
“I await the event with baited breath, madam,” Grieves replied.
James lay very still and stared at the ceiling. He remembered the night he found Ellie in what he assumed to be the “count’s” bed at the inn. All rumpled and tempting in a ruffled lace shirt and nothing else. He envisioned the solitary pair of boots by the bed. The bottle of brandy and the single glass.
You’re fortunate, sir, that although I can seldom afford it, I’m partial to the taste of fine brandy.
In Brighton, she’d whispered those words to him just before she ran away, her kiss still stinging his lips.
Then the single diamond in the box. Catch me if you can.
“Is everything all right, sir?” Grieves inquired.
“Hmmm.”
“I wondered, sir, because despite the severe lack of humor in your current situation, you appear to be smiling.”
Was he? He touched his lips with tentative fingers, just to be sure. Indeed, he was smiling.
Because the notorious Ellie Vyne was caught.
***
Her father finished his third cup of tea and leaned across the table to spear another slice of bacon on the prongs of his fork. Today his first thought, yet again, was his belly’s needs. Followed by his next potential route to riches.
“If I were you, Mariella, I’d fix on the Shales. If you can’t bring yourself to think of the elder one, then settle for the son and heir.” He chuckled gruffly. “At least you won’t be troubled with wifely duties in the bedroom there. He won’t be as much trouble as that Hartley bugger. You’ll handle young Shale much easier, m’dear. Any more tea in the pot?”
She watched the grease running down his chin. “I have no intention of marrying anyone.”
“Nonsense. You’ll marry as soon as the right opportunity comes our way. I see the admiral never took the matter properly in hand all these years. He let you waste too many chances of a rich husband. With me at your side, you can go far in the world. Now your pa is here to set you straight.”
Another man who thought to set her straight, she mused. “You had some hopes of matrimony yourself, sir, with Miss Osborne, if I am not mistaken.”
“The horsey girl?” He wiped a hunk of bread around his plate. “Aye, her father is a prosperous gent to be sure.”
Her aunt came in with a letter addressed to “The Count.” She placed it gingerly beside his plate and backed away. Ellie had explained Josiah’s true identity to Aunt Lizzie last night. The amount of scandalous trouble he was capable of causing the Vyne family was now evident to her too.
“What’s the matter with you, woman?” he grunted, bemused. “I don’t bite.” Snatching the letter up, he opened it with his buttery knife, but then passed it across the table to Ellie. “Tell me what it says, m’dear.”
According to Aunt Lizzie, it had been brought over from Merryweather’s by the chimney sweep, who was charged with calling at every house until he located the missing fellow.
Ellie unfolded it slowly, and her gaze fell at once on the embossed crest she could not fail to recognize. Her heart thumped against her ribs. It was racing uncommonly fast today.
“Well, m’dear?”
Sir, your presence is requested at Hartley House today at three in the afternoon. We look forward to resolving this matter to the satisfaction of all parties.
He coughed until a piece of bread shot out of his throat and landed on the table. “Looks like they’re willing to pay me what I’m due.”
Ellie stared at the words on the paper until they danced about like butterflies. “I’m not certain you should go,” she muttered. It was likely they did not want her father for the same reason he assumed they did.
But he was an optimist. “I’m not afraid of those grand folks in Morecroft. In fact”—he poked a finger into the tablecloth and left a grease mark—“I ought to sue Hartley for beating me like that—me, a defenseless old man, minding my own business—”
“Cheating him out of a thousand pounds.”
Her father’s eyes narrowed. “I told you that’s a fib, Mariella.” Reaching over, he snatched the letter from her hand and stared at it upside down. A slow smile oozed over his lips. “My word against his. Aye. We’ll see what I can get from that old bat, Lady Hartley, when I accuse her blessed grandson of trying to murder me with his bare hands. He threw the first punch. I’ve got witnesses. I’m due something, to be sure. These rich buggers think they can treat a poor fellow badly and pay no recompense. We’ll see about that.”
“Since you’ve masqueraded as something you’re not, I hardly think any magistrate will take your word against Mr. James Hartley’s.”
Josiah tucked the letter inside his waistcoat. “Speaking of masquerades, you’d do well to hold your tongue, m’dear, unless you want me to tell everyone about your little adventures in breeches.”
There was nothing more she could do. He would not be persuaded against going to Hartley House to get his “due.” Ellie feared no good could come of it, but he insisted this was a “matter for men to mind.” She was powerless, therefore, to prevent him going off to board the mail coach that afternoon.
***
James swung his crutches impatiently, finding it very difficult to pace effectively without two working legs.
Grieves observed with caution. “It will not heal any quicker, sir, if you put weight upon it so soon. You did hear Dr. Salt, did you not? Perhaps his advice escaped through the opposing ear to which it entered, with little solid matter to obstruct its progress.”
“Yes, yes. But I can’t stay cooped up in this damned house, Grieves.” He almost toppled over while negotiating a turn with his crutches. “I must be able to ride again.” Trapped in that house, he was forced to endure daily doses of Ophelia Southwold, which only made things worse.
“And so you shall ride again, sir, as soon as your ankle is healed.”
James had just discovered that his carriage was on blocks. According to his grandmother, it was leaking from the roof, the springs were inadequate, and the wheel had not been mended sufficiently. It was now waiting for a superior wheelwright coming from Norwich—as soon as weather permitted. His curricle was like
wise out of commission for a variety of small problems. Lady Hartley insisted that she could not allow her grandson to risk his safety and health by venturing out of the house again until he was completely healed and had passed Dr. Salt’s rigid inspection. As well as her own.
“You seem to forget, James,” she’d told him during her last visit to his chamber, “that you are our only hope for the future generation of Hartleys. I cannot allow any more accidents to befall you. Had you any brothers or cousins, I daresay it wouldn’t matter quite so much if you chose to fling yourself willy-nilly into a vehicle that defies death each time it goes out onto the road.”
A mild exaggeration, but he knew what she was up to, of course. His grandmother assumed that by separating him from Ellie for as long as possible, she could break the connection. In the past, it might have worked. His attention did have a tendency to wander and was easily caught by a pretty face. But that was the old James.
This afternoon as he practiced with his crutches, she rushed into his room without knocking, out of breath from having hurried up the stairs for possibly the first time in her life.
“Her father, James! That man who has been masquerading about as an exiled French nobleman is naught but a confidence trickster and Mariella Vyne’s father.”
He hobbled around to face her. “Yes. I am aware of the fact.” Had he not been in quite so much pain from his various wounds, he might have been able to enjoy the expression on her face more than he did. “He has arrived in answer to my summons, I assume.”
“You summoned him here? What on earth for?” She dropped into a nearby chair, her clawed fingers wrapped tight around a lace kerchief. “You cannot mean to continue this charade with the Vyne girl. Not if you know her father is a—”
“I thought you’d like to have a count in the family, Grandmama,” he remarked wryly.
“But he is not—”
“What grounds do you have to doubt his veracity?”
“For pity’s sake, James, one only has to speak with the fellow.”
“And so I intend to. As I cannot descend the stairs, he’ll have to come up here, won’t he?”
Horror rendered her face frozen, but behind her cold eyes there was a flicker of anguish, as if she knew he had finally beaten her, grown up at last and shaken off her claws.
“Grandmama,” he said slowly, “you will accept my decision in this matter.”
She looked at him blankly. “What matter?”
“That little thing—my future happiness.”
“There is no need to—”
“You will tell no one about that man’s true identity. Or I’ll sell this house and everything in it.” He could do it, of course. It was all his, every stick of furniture, every plate. “And I’ll move abroad.”
“James, you wouldn’t—”
“It is just the two of us left now. We Hartleys are a dying breed. If you want me to treat you with respect, you will do the same to me and honor my wishes.”
“Very well then.” Her lips turned down, and her eyes watered, but still she shed no tears. Had she sat on a pin, her expression would be the same. “Do as you see fit. But do not blame me for the wretched depths to which she will bring you with her lack of decorum and undesirable relatives.”
“Thank you, Grandmama.”
The threat of tears briskly thrust aside, she muttered angrily, “Now I cannot think what you will say to Lady Ophelia, who has devoted herself to your nursing.”
James arched an eyebrow and looked around the room, which was noticeably free of Ophelia’s presence. “She did? Probably went off to buy a new hat and forgot her nursing duties.”
“At least, James, Ophelia Southwold is a wealthy widow, still young enough to bear children. She is also the daughter of an earl. She may not be a fresh-faced ingénue in her first Season, but she would have sufficed.”
“Any port in a storm, Grandmama?”
“Scorn all you wish, my boy, but she is everything that Vyne girl is not.”
How true, James thought, and vice versa.
“If I might interject, my lady.” Grieves stepped forward. “Lady Southwold did appear a trifle untrustworthy. I fear her devotion is a thing freely given out with very little value to it.”
That caused Lady Hartley to demand whether James always allowed his servants to speak up without being addressed, to which James replied, “Grieves is not just a servant, Grandmama. He is a friend.”
He had never realized it before, but it was true. How clear life had become of late.
“Kindly send the count up to my chamber. He and I have much to discuss.”
Chapter 24
Josiah Jankyn returned from Morecroft eventually, looking considerably smaller than he did when he left. Ellie, watching her aunt make pastry in the kitchen, was shocked to hear the door bang suddenly and see him scuffing along the hall toward them with the lugubrious demeanor of a sick spaniel.
“Well?” she demanded. “Did you get what you expected?”
His gaze lifted slowly from the tiled floor. “I got the promise of coin, if that is what you mean, Daughter.”
“But you do not look very pleased about it.”
He took a deep breath, and his chest heaved. “Bleedin’ fellow’s only gone and given me a job, hasn’t he? Means to make an honest man of me.”
Ellie stared. “A job?”
“That’s right. A post in some office, if you please. Sitting at a desk.”
From the way he said those last four words, anyone might think he was sentenced to be hanged. Ellie put down the rolling pin she’d been swinging merrily in both hands before he entered the cottage. “But you cannot read or write.”
“Aye, but I can count, as he says. Seemed to think that was funny. Fancy it! He means to put me to work, Daughter. “
“The gall of that gentleman,” she muttered dryly.
Aunt Lizzie wiped her hands on her apron and exclaimed at his “good fortune” in finding a post with a steady wage. “There are many who would be grateful for such a chance,” she added with a quick glance at her niece. “A chance to settle down and be responsible. I daresay it will give you an opportunity to pay back some of your creditors, once you have a steady income, Mr. Jankyn. And then you need not hide and dash about from place to place.”
His usually swarthy face became the color of her pastry dough. “Aye,” he replied distractedly. “So it will.”
Ellie turned away and looked out of the window at the snow-laden sky. So James had not felt it necessary to pay her father off. Instead, he’d tried to help with a long-term solution, even offered to give the man a place in his company. She dare not try to think what it meant. Surely he could not accept a man like Josiah Jankyn as a father-in-law. Yet, if he felt shame in the connection, he could simply have paid the man to leave, and he did not. Well, perhaps, it was nothing more than a kindly gesture.
Behind her, Aunt Lizzie continued in a jolly voice, “You must think seriously of matrimony now, as a widowed fellow, working and settled. Jane Osborne will be ordering her bridal linens before we know it.”
Josiah mumbled something under his breath.
“Do be careful not to burn your mouth,” Aunt Lizzie added. “Those tarts over there have not long been—”
He did not pay heed, and a second later, Ellie heard her father cursing broadly through a spray of pastry crumbs. The strength and longevity of his curses, however, suggested he was troubled by far more than some hot jam.
Early the next morning, as she came downstairs, Ellie found her father already half out of the door. He laughed sheepishly when she asked him where he meant to go. Perhaps, she remarked jokingly, he went to propose to Miss Osborne.
He shook his head. “A permanent arrangement of that sort would put the shackles on me. I don’t want a large property to manage. I’m better off when I can move about. Settling in one place for more than a few weeks is not good for my bones.” He paused on his way out and looked at her over his shoulder. “You’
re like me, Mariella. I see that. We weren’t made for being still. ’Tis the gypsy spirit in us Jankyns. It won’t be long before your feet itch again. I told Hartley that, but he’s not the sort to listen. A fellow in love is often blind to the truth.”
“In love? With me?”
“Oh, aye.” He sniffed. “Why else would he punch my guts out and then turn around and offer me a bleedin’ job? Fellow can’t know whether he’s coming or going.”
With that, he was gone, leaving her standing in the hall, listening to the faint drip of melting icicles from the eaves of her aunt’s cottage, her heart squeezing tightly under her ribs.
Well, James had been in love before, of course. Or thought he was. No doubt the pain would pass, like indigestion. Besides, Ellie was certain she would soon feel the signs of her regular visitor signaling that there was no babe and therefore nothing to hold him to the plan of marriage. It was only a little late this month.
***
Jane Osborne complained loudly to anyone who listened that she’d been ill used by the “count.” Her tears soon dried however, and before too long she was declaring herself happy to see the back of him, because he’d taken enough money from her as it was. Over the course of the next week, it was discovered that Ellie’s father, in just the few days of his residency, was reputed to have taken money and valuables from half the widows in Morecroft and made quite a good start on those in Sydney Dovedale too. How he managed it in such a short period of time no one could say. Ellie felt certain it was a gross exaggeration, and she suspected that some ladies claimed themselves victims merely to have their share of attention.
Since Ellie was a known acquaintance of his, it was widely declared her fault that the deceiving scoundrel had ever set foot in the county. Ellie Vyne had always been trouble, was the general consensus.
And it soon became much worse. Jane Osborne, still smarting from the loss of yet another prospective husband and the humiliation of being tricked out of her coin, consoled herself by spreading another new rumor.
When Aunt Lizzie heard it, she went directly to Ellie.
“Lady Mercy Danforthe apparently told Miss Jane Osborne that James Hartley paid five thousand pounds for five nights in your company. What a mischievous, wicked child to start such gossip!”
The Wicked Wedding of Miss Ellie Vyne Page 30