by Jo Beverley
She’d felt completely different the other night in his room.
How odd.
“So you rode off on my horse and returned where?” he prompted. “Maidstone?”
“To my sister’s house near there. She took me home.”
“To the father who failed to ransom you. Was he so vile?”
She hadn’t told him about the switched notes because she hadn’t been sure whether to broach her plan. Her reasons for hesitation were different now—he might think her unnatural, unwomanly, to want revenge.
“The ransom note was never found,” she said.
“Another failed agent, as with my horse?”
She gave a short, bitter laugh. “Indeed. Except that this failed agent was the cause of all the trouble.” It would not be held back. “It was my brother, Augustus,” she said, hearing a hiss in her words.
“What did he do? Lose the ransom note?”
“Deliberately. And then he substituted one that seemed to be from my lover, announcing our plan to run off and sin. And,” she added grimly, “after all it was his plan in the first place!”
“Ah, gaming debts, I assume.”
“How—” But she broke off with a sigh. “Is it so common for men to lose huge sums at the tables?”
“Common enough, though it doesn’t usually lead to such a complicated drama. Gaming debts aren’t claim-able by law, you see.”
“Coxy said that.”
“I’m sure he knows all about it,” he remarked. “Thus, there are other ways to make losers pay. If the gaming is among gentlemen, then any defaulter will be ostracized. Fear of that usually makes them find the money. If they can’t, they blow their brains out or abscond to a foreign land.”
“If only Augustus had chosen either of those.”
“Miss Barstowe, I like your spirit.”
Bella laughed and she did truly feel lighter. Because of his admiration.
The streets were now almost deserted as the weather grew more ominous, but it didn’t seem to bother him, and she certainly didn’t want to end this meeting.
“Coxy seemed a gentleman,” she said, but then added, “more or less.”
“There’s a distressing number of more-or-lessians about. From our brief acquaintance I’d say he was less.”
“You’re probably correct, because he wasn’t able to use the threat of exposing Augustus to other gentlemen to squeeze the money out of him.” Bella considered her plan. Though misty, it involved catching Augustus in the act and shaming him. She, however, had the advantage of not wanting money. Shame would be enough. “Where do men like that gamble?” she asked.
“Usually a gaming club, more generally called a hell. But why would your brother play in such places rather than in better circles?”
Bella answered without hesitation. “Because he had to preserve his pristine reputation, especially from our father, who detested gaming above almost anything.” She clutched her hat against a gust of wind, looking up at him. “Can a person conceal his identity in hell?”
His eyes smiled. “Too profound a theological question for me, Miss Barstowe, but in a hell, he could give a false name. As long as he played with coin, no questions would be asked.”
Bella considered that. “But he ran into debt.”
“Which meant the men he played with accepted his vowels.”
“Vowels?”
“A written promise to pay, abbreviated to IOU.”
“So a fortune could be lost, a family ruined, by a few letters on a piece of paper?”
“Yes, sadly that can be the case.”
“Tragically,” she said, thinking of Hortensia Sprott, left in poverty by a father’s vowels. That fueled her desire to expose her brother. Perhaps she could expose others at the same time and prevent some future suffering.
“Coxy took Augustus’s promise to pay,” she said, “so he must have felt sure he would get his money. Why?”
“We can’t be sure, but is your brother clever?”
“No.”
“Then he probably thought he was concealed by a false name, but was in fact known by all the sharps.”
“Sharps?” she asked.
“Men, occasionally women, who make their living at the tables. They’re usually highly skilled players, but they’ll cheat if they need to, and do it skillfully enough that many a pigeon will never know they were plucked.”
“A pigeon,” Bella said with relish, able to let go of her hat, though she didn’t trust the calm. She smiled at her companion. “I like the thought of Augustus as a pigeon, especially a plucked one.”
“And baked in a pie,” he said, eyes twinkling. But then he came to a halt and asked, “Is that your purpose?”
Bella searched his features, but in the end she had to act on instinct. “Yes.”
“How?”
“By exposing his addiction to gaming.”
His brows rose. “And you came to a sea captain for help. Why?”
Put like that, it was ridiculous. Bella could hardly confess that he’d been her mythical hero for four years.
“Because I know no one else who might be able to help,” she said. “You’ve already educated me about gamesters.”
“That doesn’t mean I am one.”
“But you do know how to deal with dangerous men. I’m sure you have knife and pistol with you now.”
His smile was wry. “True. Very well, Miss Barstowe, let us consider the matter. Without commitment,” he warned. “When pressed for payment, why did your brother come up with such a wicked plan? Why not confess to your father? It’s the usual way. The father berates the son, but pays up for the honor of the family.”
Bella shook her head. “Father would have done more than berate. He’d have stopped Augustus’s allowance and imprisoned him at Carscourt.”
She managed not to say, As he did me.
“Then why didn’t Coxy go directly to your father, threatening to expose your brother as one who doesn’t pay his debts of honor? I’d say he was gentleman enough to make that threat credible.”
“Debts of honor?” Bella scoffed. “Pigeon droppings, more likely.”
“Very apt, and thus they are called. But why didn’t the sharp take that route?”
“He didn’t say, but I can guess. Any inquiries around the area would have told him what Father was like. Stern, rigid, and unforgiving. He’d punish Augustus, but he wouldn’t pay. He’d think shame was his just deserts.”
As with me.
“What’s more, he was a magistrate. He would have found some crime to lay against a sharp and inflicted the worst punishment he could. Lud! Augustus has that position now, making judgments about poor unfortunates from the magistrates’ bench, when he’s a worse sinner than all of them.”
“The poor unfortunates are there for a reason.”
“I hope you never end up facing him.”
For some reason, he smiled, as if seeing a prospect he relished.
“So the sharp is balked,” he said, “and abducts you so that the ransom will pay the debt.”
“At Augustus’s suggestion,” Bella reminded him.
“I don’t forget that. I’m puzzled that he didn’t let the plan go ahead. Your father pays the ransom. Any anger falls on your head for wandering too far afield. His debt is paid.”
“Do you doubt my story?” Bella demanded, hurt. “I have no proof.”
“I believe you believe it.”
“What purpose could Coxy have in weaving it?”
“None, it would seem, but I would like to understand your brother’s plan.”
“He’s never liked me, so perhaps my fate wouldn’t weigh with him.” Even to Bella that didn’t seem enough. “He’s always been selfish. But yes, it’s hard to think he abandoned me to such a fate.”
Rain splashed her cheek, and it almost felt like a tear.
Captain Rose moved them to a more sheltered spot, frowning at the darkening clouds. “We should get back to the Compass, but let me sp
eculate. Unfortunately I occasionally meet such men—weak and utterly selfish, and therefore always afraid. He probably intended the plan to go through, but then he began to wonder if the sharp had told you of his part, carelessly or out of spite. Or if you’d overheard something. His imagination would paint the worst outcome. If you never returned home, you could never expose him.”
“That’s monstrous!”
“But he is, isn’t he?”
Bella covered her mouth, but she knew it was exactly the right word. That knowledge had driven her here, to this desperate association. She’d simply not worked through the damning details.
“Your dear Augustus must have been very, very frightened when you returned home.”
Bella had never thought of that. “So that’s why he was so vicious!”
“How?”
Bella shook her head. “Petty things, but wearing. It doesn’t matter.”
“I doubt that,” he said, but a gust of wet wind caused him to shield her. “Back to the Compass. So you returned, were not believed, and were imprisoned. Not unreasonable treatment of a daughter who had apparently run off with a lover and been gone for days, though some families would attempt to conceal the incident, or cover it with a marriage.”
“They tried the latter. I refused.”
“Why?”
She turned narrow eyes on him. “Would you marry a foul harpy twenty years your senior who would always regard you as a penitent, never to be given any freedom to sin again?”
“Hard to imagine the situation, but no, Miss Barstowe, I wouldn’t. Do you know the amount of your brother’s debts?”
“Six hundred.”
“A modest amount to cause such mayhem.”
“Modest! Smuggling must be a very profitable business.”
“It is, but I am not a smuggler. Or rarely,” he amended.
But then the rain swept in suddenly, in a drenching downpour. He put an arm around her and hurried her toward a building. “The Crown and Anchor. They’ll serve us tea.”
Bella was having to run to keep up with him. “It’s where I was held!” she reminded him. “Someone might recognize me.”
“Let them,” he said, with a flash of grinning teeth.
Bella laughed. For the joy of running. For a man’s strong arm. For the delight of the confident grin. When had she last been so carefree?
As they dashed into the inn she thought, At the masquerade. With the goatherd. Slipping out onto the balcony for naughty kisses.
And Captain Rose was the Duke of Ithorne’s bastard brother.
She stood stunned by the thought. Had this man, shaking water off his three-cornered hat, been at the revels, disguised as a goatherd? It wasn’t beyond belief.
Was that why she had become so attracted to him so quickly today?
What of the footman? Captain Rose again?
It thrilled her, but worried her at the same time. Might he recognize Kelano? What would be the consequences of that?
Images of beds rose in her mind. . . .
“What’s amiss?”
Bella started out of her thoughts to find him looking at her.
“Are you still worried about someone here recognizing you after four years? I doubt I would have without prompting, but in any case, why would it matter?”
Bella didn’t have to reply, because a woman marched into the hall. “Don’t you go getting your wet all over my floors, Caleb Rose!”
Caleb. For some reason the biblical name didn’t suit him.
“I can no more help it than a duck straight out of a stream, Aunt Ann,” he protested. “Have pity on two ducks and provide tea.”
“Oh, go on with you,” the plump woman said, chuck-ling. “Sari, get some towels!” she called as she led them to a small parlor with one narrow window and four plain chairs. It was warmed by a fire, however, so Bella took off her cloak. The rain hadn’t soaked through, thank goodness, so she hung it on a hook on the wall.
Captain Rose was still teasing the middle-aged innkeeper, and being treated the same, with much laughter. As Bella stripped off her gloves and held her hands out to the fire, his behavior made her smile. Surely a man must be good to be treated with such affection.
A maid came in with linen cloths, and Bella wiped the rain off her face and hat as best she could as she tried to assess similarities between goatherd and sea captain. Tall. Well built but not heavy. Stubble on the chin . . .
He turned and caught her studying him. Both maid and innkeeper had left, so they were alone, and though the door was open Bella felt a frisson of impropriety. It arose, she realized, entirely from seeing him as an ordinary man. No, not ordinary, but a man she might—she hesitated over the extraordinary notion—might marry.
He gestured to a chair near the fire. “Why don’t you sit down and tell me exactly what you have in mind for your brother.”
Bella took a chair on one side of the fire and he sat in the other, doing it with neat grace. It was a strange thing to note, but she remembered the way he’d lounged the other night. Graceful, but in a more animal way. The effects of drink, she supposed. She was surprised he was going to content himself with mere tea after the chilly rain.
Changeable as the sea, indeed.
He raised a brow. “You’re studying me as if I’m a mystery.”
“Perhaps I’m wondering how shocked you’ll be at my plan.”
It was true. To propose revenge to a smuggler and scoundrel was one thing. To mention it to this man now made her nervous.
The innkeeper returned then, bringing the tea tray herself. She poured for Bella, adding milk and sugar as required, and put the cup and saucer in her hands. “There, now, ma’am, that’ll warm you. And don’t you let him get up to any of his tricks. I’ll let you pour your own, particular as you are,” she said to Captain Rose. “You behave yourself, my boy, and keep this door open.”
She swept out, and as Captain Rose poured a small amount of milk into his cup, he pulled a wry face. “Clearly she feels entitled to treat me like a naughty boy.”
“It’s good that someone does.”
His lips twitched. “Ungrateful wench.”
She smiled back at him, suddenly very . . . happy. Yes, that was the word. Another unfamiliar sensation, but here in this cozy room, by a warm fire, sipping sweet tea, she felt happier than she could remember.
He poured tea into his cup and drank some. Bella realized something else.
“This is excellent tea.”
“You’re a connoisseur?” he asked, watching her over the rim of his cup.
“No, but I know good from bad, I think, and I like this.”
“It is a blend I like, and Aunt Ann serves it here to customers likely to appreciate it. Let’s return to the punishment of Augustus the Vile. Do you have any notion how to expose his sins?”
Bella had to confess, “No. I thought of merely catching him in the act, but that wouldn’t achieve much, would it?”
“He would very much dislike it.”
“True. And perhaps I could spread the news.” In the Fowler letter, she was thinking, but the sins of a country baronet wouldn’t interest that lady. “He plans a marriage, you see, to a sweet and innocent young girl. I don’t just seek revenge. I need to ruin him so he can’t marry Charlotte Langham or any decent woman. So he can’t hurt people anymore.”
He was looking at her blankly, and she turned away. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m burdening you with all this. I was mad to come to Dover.”
“Nonsense. As I said, I’ll help you if I can, but you can’t be the one to speak of your brother’s sins. It would be taken as spite.”
Bella looked up again and sighed. “I know. It’s hopeless, isn’t it?”
He offered her more tea and she accepted it. He took a second cup himself.
“Death would be the ultimate justice,” he said.
She searched his features. “I couldn’t kill him. Perhaps a stronger woman could, but no, I couldn’t.”
&n
bsp; “Could you bring yourself to hire his killer?”
She felt pinned by his questions, as if on trial. Strangely, her principal thought was that she wouldn’t want her brother’s death on anyone else’s conscience, but especially not on this man’s.
“No,” she said. Not wanting to seem weak, she added, “Death’s too good for him.” Abruptly, she realized it was true. “I want him to live with his penance as I did,” she said, “but all life long. And I want him so thoroughly shamed that he’ll have to stop being a magistrate. Stop going in decent society. So that he’ll not even be able to walk down a street . . .”
The words had spilled out of her, but now she looked at him, wondering if he was disgusted.
All he said was, “He might, after some years, blow his brains out. Would that distress you?”
“No,” Bella said. “I don’t think it would. I’m sure that’s very unchristian.”
“There’s nothing wrong in wanting just revenge on the blackguard who caused you so much pain, and yes, Miss Barstowe, I will help you if I can. After all, this matter touches me. I was entangled with your mishap, and I intend to make your brother pay. The question is, do you want to be involved, to be present, or will you be satisfied that it has been done?”
Bella put down her cup and saucer, dazed by the choice. Her desire for retribution had been powerful, but her vision of it had been very misty. It still was, but the question he’d posed was startlingly clear.
She inhaled, but then said, “If possible, I would like to be involved. And yes, to be present. But . . .”
He raised a hand, smiling. “No need for buts until we know what’s involved. Does your brother live mostly in the country or in Town?”
“In the country. In Oxfordshire. He visits London occasionally, but rarely.”
“Interesting. London offers more anonymity.”
“I think he used to go more, but he was set upon by ruffians and has avoided the place since except for business. Oh, that was Coxy’s work. His retribution.”
“A coward,” he said. “As I thought. But if I know the country, no matter how devious your brother is, some people will know his vices and his haunts. It’s in Oxfordshire that we’ll find information and a plan.”
“Oxfordshire,” Bella said, intending to say that she could not return there, especially not to the area around Carscourt. But that would be where the plan would have to take place.