by D. M. Quincy
Nicholas appeared genuinely shocked. A full range of emotions flitted across the boy’s face, from denial to shock, to disbelief, and then finally a dazed acceptance.
“I have not met any of them, you understand. I rather should have liked to meet my sisters.” Nicholas spoke almost to himself. “I have always known about them and have often wondered what they are like.”
“It is understandable that you would desire to know your relations.” Atlas felt for the boy. Vessey had been cruel to both Nicholas and his mistress. From what Atlas knew of Wendy, she could have been a positive force in Nicholas’s life. She might have given a motherless child some of the affection he’d undoubtedly craved.
“My father mentions Francis almost constantly now.” Nicholas’s face clouded. “He says Francis is very much like him, while I am more similar to my mother.”
Atlas fervently hoped it was true, but he could see that the comparison hurt the boy.
Nicholas’s voice wavered. “It is obvious to me that Vessey wishes Francis were his heir.”
“I doubt that is true.” Atlas silently cursed Vessey. “He could have married the boy’s mother and ensured that any children she bore him were legitimate.”
Nicholas gave him a look. “Mrs. Pike was a hatmaker’s daughter. Not exactly an appropriate match for a marquess in my father’s view.”
“Nonetheless, he made his choice, and that is why Francis is a by-blow, and you are your father’s heir.”
“Of late, Father has been remarking upon how clever Francis is. I cannot help but wonder whether that woman … Mrs. Pike … attempted to negatively influence my father’s opinion of me.”
“Why would you think that?”
“She might have done so to boost her own son in my father’s eyes. Vessey is now insisting that I depend upon Francis’s counsel once I assume the title. He views my half brother as a practical man who will do what needs to be accomplished in order to ensure that the marquisate continues to flourish.”
Atlas laid a comforting hand on Nicholas’s shoulder. “I have no doubt that when it comes time for you to assume your duties, you will execute them admirably, with or without Francis Pike.” Atlas briefly considered whether Vessey intended to sow rivalry and suspicion between his sons. “When you are the marquess, you can do as you please. You shall certainly not be bound by any strictures or guidelines your father attempts to set down while he still lives.”
Nicholas smiled. “I did not intend to bore you with my troubles. Shall we go down and join the others? I should not like to keep them waiting.”
“One more thing before we go down.”
“Yes?”
“Do you know if your father owns a flintlock pistol, one that would have been purchased from Grierson’s? It has a carved walnut stock, and the barrel is particularly memorable because it is sheathed in silver.”
Nicholas shook his head. “I do not believe my father owns a pistol that fits that description, but there is a man named Jasper Balfour who does.”
Atlas stilled. “How do you know that?”
“I have seen him with it. We are not close, but we have socialized on occasion. Balfour and I often run in the same circles.”
“When did you see him with the pistol?”
“I cannot be certain of the exact date. A few weeks ago maybe.”
“His father told me that pistol had been stolen.”
“Yes. By his son. It is an open secret among the young men in our circles. Jasper is deeply in debt. He gambles heavily but does not wish for his father to know. Some of his debtors, less than savory characters, have threatened Jasper, which is why he carries the pistol everywhere he goes to protect himself.”
“He no longer carries it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because the pistol is in the possession of Bow Street. It is the weapon that was used to kill Mrs. Pike.”
* * *
It was well past ten in the evening by the time Atlas departed his sister’s home, but he did not make for home to Bond Street. He had a different destination in mind.
“Why are we going to the home of Lord Balfour?” Charlton inquired after allowing Atlas to commandeer his carriage.
“Jasper Balfour was in possession of the murder weapon in the days before Mrs. Pike’s murder and lied about it. He claimed it had been stolen.”
“You think the whelp killed her? But why?”
Atlas tapped his foot impatiently against the carriage floor. “That is what I intend to find out.”
“I would be most surprised if young Balfour resides at his father’s residence,” Charlton remarked. “Most young bucks about town do not live in the family home.”
“To be completely honest, I have no idea where Jasper Balfour lives, but I hope his father will enlighten me.”
“What if they are all asleep?”
The moment their destination came into view, it became apparent that Lord and Lady Balfour had not retired for the evening. Light burned in every front-facing window of the large stone townhome. Groups of mingling people could be seen through the windows.
“It is Wednesday,” Atlas said.
“As it has been all day,” Charlton replied.
“Balfour holds a salon every other Wednesday evening.”
“Perhaps we should return on the morrow, when the man is not entertaining.” Charlton peered out the window. “It is not as though we were invited.”
“This is hardly a social call.” Atlas rapped on the ceiling to signal for the coachman to stop. “You need not feel obliged to accompany me. I will see myself home.”
“I most certainly am coming.” Charlton followed Atlas out of the carriage. “Who knows what mischief you might get yourself into?”
By the time they reached the landing, a footman had opened the shiny black front door to admit them. Once inside, Atlas and Charlton presented their cards.
Lord Balfour appeared shortly thereafter. “Welcome gentlemen,” he said warmly, hurrying toward them. “You are always welcome at our salons. Please consider this to be a standing invitation to attend at any time.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Atlas struggled to contain his impatience to speak to the younger Balfour. “I apologize for the intrusion, but I hoped to speak with your son. Does he reside here with you?”
“Jasper? No, he keeps rooms at the Albany. However, as fortune would have it, he is in attendance this evening.”
Altas’s veins pulsed with anticipation. “Do you know where I might find him?”
Concern flickered in Lord Balfour’s round face. “Is something amiss?”
Atlas felt an affinity for this man who had once been his father’s friend. But it was possible the elder Balfour knew the murder weapon had been in his son’s possession. It would not be the first time a father lied to protect his son.
“No,” Atlas said, “nothing to concern yourself over. I have a question to ask him, just to clear up a minor issue, you understand.”
The older man’s worried expression relaxed, and Atlas felt a twinge of guilt. “Jasper’s around here somewhere with his friends.” He looked into Atlas’s face. “He is a good boy, my Jasper. He has gotten himself into trouble in the past, but my son has truly straightened himself out since then.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Atlas smiled. “I would not want to keep you from your guests.”
“But you are my guests, you and Lord Charlton,” Balfour protested. He clasped Atlas’s shoulder with a meaty hand. “Silas’s son is always welcome in my home. You so resemble your father. I will always stand ready to assist you in any way that I can.”
Atlas thanked Lord Balfour before he and Charlton went off in search of the man’s son.
“Well, that is deuced awkward,” Charlton commented as they threaded their way through the chattering guests. “The man has practically embraced you as family, and yet before this evening is out, you might very well be accusing his son of murder.”
Atlas grimaced. “
Perhaps Jasper will have a reasonable explanation.” In fact, Atlas hoped so. He had no desire for his father’s friend to discover that his wayward son might also have murderous impulses. Lord Balfour seemed to be a decent sort.
They found Jasper in the library, enjoying cheroots and brandy among a group of young men. The room’s twin French doors were open to the outside, filtering out the smoke in exchange for a cool, light autumn breeze. Jasper’s library companions included Francis Pike and Harry Dean, the young man who’d dueled with Pike after insulting Wendy. Dean had said the two had made amends. Their relaxed postures in each other’s company suggested Dean had not exaggerated.
“Mr. Catesby.” Curiosity lit Pike’s gaze. “Come to partake in the discussion and debate that are the hallmarks of a Balfour salon?”
“Not this evening, I’m afraid.” He turned to Jasper. “Do you have a moment?”
“Me?” Jasper darted a look at Pike before taking a long, slow inhale of his cheroot. “As you can see, I am engaged at the moment. Would you care for a cheroot, Lord Charlton?”
“Not at the moment.” Charlton moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Atlas.
“This matter is of some urgency.” Atlas’s tone left no doubt that he would not be put off. “It would be best if we spoke in private.”
Jasper blanched. “Whatever for?”
“Look here,” Pike interjected amiably, coming to his friend’s rescue, “Surely it is nothing that cannot be discussed here in the privacy of his lordship’s library.”
Atlas couldn’t decide whether Pike was prying or whether he was simply naive about what his friend might be capable of.
Atlas stared directly into Jasper’s apprehensive eyes. “I think a private discussion is in everyone’s best interest, particularly yours.”
“Very well.” Jasper tossed a comfit into his mouth. “We can use the gallery chamber.”
When Atlas stepped aside to allow Jasper to lead the way, he caught Charlton’s eye.
The earl reached for a cheroot on the table. “I believe I shall have a smoke after all.” Pike stepped forward to light Charlton’s cheroot. “I shall be out on the terrace, enjoying my cheroot and this lovely evening.”
Jasper led Atlas to a magnificent gilded chamber where priceless paintings adorned red silk walls. One long wall featured six glittering, golden-framed mirrors that began at Atlas’s feet and towered over him.
Atlas closed the doors for privacy, and they were alone in the opulent chamber. Jasper shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “What is this all about?”
“Why did you say your father’s gun had been stolen when you are the one who took it?”
“That is a lie!” Jasper’s flushed face glistened with perspiration. “Where did you hear that?”
“I think we both know it is not a lie. You had that gun for protection because you owe people a great deal of money.”
Jasper clasped his hands behind his back. “That does not mean I killed Mrs. Pike.”
In the mirror’s reflection, Atlas could see Jasper’s fingers were so tightly interlocked that the skin on his hands had gone white. “Perhaps not. But if you did not kill her, I believe you know who did, and now is the time to tell me.”
“I do not know anything about it. It is true I had the pistol, but it was stolen.”
“Did you tell anyone that your gun had been taken? If I go down and ask your friends about it, will they say that you informed them that your gun was missing before Mrs. Pike was killed?”
Jasper rocked his upper torso back and forth. “I cannot recall.”
“If you do not start telling me the truth, I shall have to summon Bow Street.”
He scoffed. “As if I, the grandson of a viscount, would ever be made to answer to a runner.”
“Perhaps I should inform your father that it was you who absconded with his prized pistol and, in all likelihood, used it to kill Mrs. Pike.”
“No, you cannot do that.” Jasper clutched Atlas’s arm, his fingers digging into Atlas’s skin beneath his sleeve. “I did not kill Mrs. Pike. I swear it. He wanted me to, but in the end I could not do it. She seemed like a nice enough harlot. I had no quarrel with her.”
“Why would you agree to murder Mrs. Pike if you held no ill will towards her?”
“To settle a debt. I have so many of them.” Jasper swiped the perspiration from his upper lip with the back of his hand. “I do not want my father to know that I have disappointed him again.”
“Who had a quarrel with Mrs. Pike?” Atlas pressed. “Who asked you to kill her?”
Jasper reached into his pocket with trembling hands to withdraw a comfit. “He said all I had to do was fire one shot, and then all of my debts would be erased.”
“Who said that?”
Jasper sucked on his comfit. “To my shame, I was desperate enough to briefly consider doing as he asked.”
The confession poured out of the young man like water cascading from a broken dam. Atlas sensed Jasper’s relief at finally unleashing all that had been bottled up inside him.
Jasper swallowed the comfit, his rapid-fire words stumbling all over one another. “But in the end, I just could not do it—it was too terrible—so he grabbed the pistol from me. He took it before I knew what was happening, and then he shot her himself when she was leaving Covent Garden.”
“Who?” Atlas asked patiently, although his heart was racing. “Slow down, take a breath, and then tell me who killed Mrs. Pike.”
Red-faced and perspiring, Jasper did as Atlas suggested. He managed to refrain from chattering long enough to suck in a lungful of air.
A commotion sounded out in the corridor. People’s shouts. Footsteps. The sound of someone running with extreme urgency drew closer and closer until the door to the chamber burst open.
A wild-eyed footman stood in the doorway panting heavily. “Are you Mr. Catesby, sir?”
Atlas kept his gaze glued to Jasper. “I am and we do not wish to be disturbed.”
“Lord Charlton insisted sir. He said it was most urgent.”
“Tell the earl that, whatever it is, it will have to wait.”
“I do not think it can wait sir. Someone shot his lordship.”
Atlas spun to face the flushed messenger. “What?”
“Someone shot his lordship,” the young man repeated.
“Who? Lord Charlton?” Atlas felt the blood rush from his face. “Are you certain?”
“Yes, sir. It is the earl.” The young footman was breathless. “And he is bleeding something awful.”
CHAPTER 21
Atlas’s stomach roiled at the sight of Charlton reclining in Balfour’s library, a fast-spreading crimson stain soaking his white linen shirt.
“What in Hades happened?” Atlas demanded as he pushed through a small crowd of onlookers to reach his friend.
Charlton grimaced. “A bullet flew through the air, and I managed to get in its way. I am fine, truly.”
“You do not look it.” The ashen hue of Charlton’s face alarmed him. “How did this occur?”
“I was in the garden, smoking a cheroot, when I heard a loud pop.” Perspiration added an unhealthy gleam to the earl’s complexion. “And then I felt an excruciating pain in my side.”
“You are bleeding.” Atlas dropped to his knees beside his friend. He fought the urge to cast his accounts as the metallic scent of blood—Charlton’s blood—filled his nostrils. “We must stop it.”
“We have staunched the wound,” Lord Balfour assured him. Atlas hadn’t noticed his host’s presence until the man spoke. “The doctor has been called for and should be here shortly.”
Charlton set his head back against the sofa and closed his eyes. “Feels like he is taking a bloody long time.”
“Hold on.” Atlas gripped Charlton’s hand. Fear rippled through him at the clammy feel of his friend’s skin. “You heard his lordship. The doctor is coming. Do not fall asleep.” Or lose consciousness. Or die on me.
“No w
orries.” Charlton smiled weakly. “I have absolutely no intention of going anywhere.”
Atlas’s throat constricted. “See that you don’t.”
* * *
“Fortunately, the bullet passed clean through,” the doctor said after examining Charlton a short while later. “His lordship should recover nicely.”
“Are you certain?” Atlas pressed. “Why is he so pale?”
“No doubt from the shock of taking a ball to the gut.” The doctor opened his distressed black leather bag and proceeded to set out instruments on the table next to Charlton’s bed.
Once the doctor had arrived and proclaimed the earl well enough to be moved, Atlas and a Balfour footman had carried the patient to one of Lord Balfour’s guest chambers, a large room bedecked in pale velvets and dark woods.
“If a man has to be shot, this would be the wound to receive,” the doctor continued. “No bones were struck, and it appears that no major organs are affected.”
“I believe the doctor means to say that I have perfected the art of getting shot,” Charlton remarked.
“As only you could,” Atlas said.
Charlton’s clothes had been removed, and he was propped up in bed, with pillows supporting his back, the white bed linens pulled to his belly. Charlton’s state of dishabille sent shockwaves through Atlas. The earl’s pale, bare torso lent him an air of vulnerability. It was a sight so far removed from Charlton’s customary bright sartorial splendor that it was rather like seeing a rainbow drained of all color.
And the bandage covering Charlton’s side was a stark reminder of how close the earl had come to catastrophe. A few inches had been the difference between survival and disaster.
“I will need to properly clean and rebandage the wound,” the doctor said.
“May I be of assistance?” Atlas asked.
The doctor shook his head. “I have done this sort of treatment far more often than I should like.” He rolled up his sleeves. “I will just go and request that the footman bring up fresh water and clean linens.”