Passion Favors the Bold

by Theresa Romain

  With one fingertip, he traced the line of the roof. If it were ever built, it would be a fine roof. He squinted, wondering if his hand would look like Matthew’s. If he imagined fiercely enough; if he squinted until light was no more than a pinprick.

  That was no good either. Matthew remained stubbornly gone, and Hugo’s hand was his own. It would never look again like his hand at eighteen, when he had become a twinless twin.

  The hospital was to honor Matthew, yes. Georgette had been right about that. And maybe Hugo, for his part, had been wrong. If the hospital was intended only to honor the dead, what sort of a purpose was that?

  It was meant to benefit the living, of course. But perhaps old Sir Joseph Banks had a point: the best way to care for people was the way they wanted to be cared for. Hugo had seen Lowe in his home, and the blacksmith was thriving. How well would his recovery have gone away from his family? Away from a son to put honey on the sutures, and a dog to try to lick it off?

  Well, the dog’s contribution probably hadn’t helped. But for the rest of it . . .

  Hugo had cocked up, and royally. He had planned for everything except the unexpected—and Georgette Frost had been nothing but unexpected since he came across her in boys’ clothing, waiting for a coach to take her away.

  Some part of him had never wanted her to go away.

  But logic was stronger. Forethought. Doing what was wise. Time and again, he’d done what was wise. He had sent her away, and sent away his friend, too. To be wise. So they could do what they wanted to do, without him.

  Goddamn it.

  The stubborn lock creaked and crunched, and the parlor door swung open. “Mr. Crowe,” came Jenks’s voice.

  Hugo emerged from behind the half-folded screen, leaving his hospital plans where they lay. “Mr. Jenks. Would you like to see me jailed?”

  “I’d like to see your ring.” The Runner held out a hand.

  Hugo frowned. “If you must.” Tugging the signet free, he crossed the room to Jenks and dropped it in Jenks’s palm.

  “Old gold.” Jenks held it up, holding it close to his eye. “I never forget a detail, Mr. Crowe. Or should that be Starling?”

  “Ah.” Now that Jenks had spoken the word, it was a relief. “You know who I am.”

  “Doctors don’t wear signets, my lord. Not unless they’re something else, too. I took the liberty of searching your chamber this morning—”

  “What?”

  “—and checked the plates in your books. Lord Hugo Starling.” Jenks made a little bow. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “You don’t sound terribly cut up about the fact that I lied about who I was.”

  “You didn’t lie about the fact you were a doctor, which was the most important thing to the people hereabouts.” Jenks returned Hugo’s ring. “And today, you did keep lying about who you were to save that woman you were with. Which was the most important thing to me.”

  “You searched her room too.” It was not a question.

  “Of course.” Jenks stood aside. “You’re free to go too, Lord Hugo. I can’t hold the son of a duke.”

  That was sudden. And unexpected. Hugo had done the worst job preparing for the unexpected. “I don’t want you to let me go because of who my father is. I want you to let me go because I’m innocent of anything to do with the theft from the Royal Mint.”

  “What does the latter matter as long as you’ve got the former?” Jenks spoke blandly as ever.

  “It matters, Mr. Jenks.”

  The Runner regarded him narrowly—and after a moment, his manner softened. “So it does. And I’ve come to believe it, proof aside.”

  “You have?” Hugo looked at the signet, then tucked it into his waistcoat pocket where his watch ought to have been. “Then why did you lock me in here if you knew who I was?”

  “I needed others to think I thought you were guilty.”

  “And why do you believe I am innocent? Not that I am trying to persuade you otherwise.”

  By way of answer, Jenks walked across the room to the folding screen. “Pretty,” he said. “Must have cost a mint. Don’t you think? It’s rich, even for a baronet.”

  “Ah . . . yes?”

  Jenks regarded the expensive panels. “Do you know the names of the guards who were killed at the Royal Mint?”

  “Ah . . . no.”

  “No one ever wonders about them. But they gave their lives for that gold, and it has their blood on it.” One by one, he collapsed the panels. “Their names were Harris. Sweeting. Davidson.” He gave the screen a push, sending it crashing to the floor. He looked up, eyes cold and hard. “And Jenks.”

  “Jenks,” Hugo repeated, understanding dawning. “Your brother?”

  A slight nod. “My brother. That gave me the justification to take an assignment I would have wanted all the same.”

  “I am very sorry for your loss,” Hugo said.

  Another slight nod. An expression—though of what, Hugo could not be sure—flickered over the Runner’s impassive features, then was gone.

  “How strange,” Hugo said, “that we Londoners should end in Northumberland, and both of us because of a lost brother.”

  Jenks tilted his head.

  “I had a twin, you see,” Hugo blurted. “Everything I’ve done since he died—really, everything I’ve done since he was born—has been affected by that.”

  Words uncorked like the old bottle of whisky that had helped him heal, he told the Runner everything. Matthew’s death. Hugo’s medical career. The hospital plans he carried with him everywhere. His attempts to get it funded. The falling-out with the duke.

  “I thought I could help people in a way I couldn’t help Matthew,” Hugo finished. “That’s the purpose of the hospital.”

  “But is the point building the hospital, or helping people?”

  “It’s . . . both.” The answer was tentative. “It’s using the hospital to help people in a way no other building or treatment or medical professional is able to.”

  Hugo realized something then. “You trust in my innocence, you say, but here is proof. Look—here, on the back of this page. I date all my changes to the plans. Here, on the date of the theft from the Royal Mint, is a set of changes I made after dining with the president of the Royal College.” He gave a short laugh. “I annoyed him dreadfully, and he did the same to me. So when I returned home, I made alterations that were the opposite of everything he’d recommended.”

  “Hmm.” Jenks skimmed the line of changes. “You’ve hardly left anything unaltered.”

  An apt description as any of the journey northward, which Hugo had begun in utter certainty. He’d been so sure he knew every step, the next one, the one beyond. Nothing had gone as he’d thought it would.

  It had been easy for him to say he and his father didn’t speak anymore. He was still the son of Willingham, with a ducal carriage whenever he wished it and a quarterly allowance generous enough to meet his every need and want.

  What more could I sacrifice than I already have? he had asked his father. He had lost a twin, yes. But there were many other types of closeness; more than he had ever dreamed before he began dreaming rather than merely planning.

  Georgette had helped him see that. He had found her dreams the happiest sort of contagion.

  She had helped him savor passion. Revel in romance. Experience . . . love?

  He had, after all, stopped reading when she wanted him to. He had crossed the country for her. He had taken a bullet for her.

  It wasn’t love as he had ever felt it before. This was a sturdy feeling, built brick by brick from fondness and laughter and annoyance and lust and mischief and admiration.

  Sometimes in chemical equations, the sum of the whole was greater than the parts. He did not know why, or how. But it was possible in nature, and so it was possible in Hugo. He had not added up the sum of what he felt for Georgette, but it was surely greater than all the little parts of which it was made.

  Because it was love,
he knew now. He loved her, and he had told her to leave.

  And for the second time in his life, he had lost half of his heart.

  “What are you going to do now?” Hugo asked. “Has your investigation come to an end?”

  “Nearly. Yes.” Jenks eyed the folding screen with distaste, then picked it up and leaned it against the wall. “I told another untruth. No one left gold in my room.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Three thieves, Lord Hugo. Three thieves not yet caught. Or two, if the poor devil who got himself burned near Doncaster was one of them.”

  “You are turning them against one another,” Hugo realized. “If a thief is here, he’ll wonder which of his comrades has taken such a rash step.”

  “Just giving them a little nudge,” admitted Jenks. “They’ll do the rest themselves. And soon, I’ll find a piece of the puzzle that hasn’t fit anywhere else. Something that’s not as it ought to be, or something out of place. Like a board that’s a different color, showing where something’s been pried up. Or—”

  “A wine barrel,” blurted Hugo.

  The wine cellar. The old bottles, the old barrels, the new ones. The largest of the barrels was the one of Madeira, atop which he had thoroughly debauched Georgette.

  “The barrel of Madeira,” he said aloud. “It is old, but the lid is new. It bears investigating, Mr. Jenks.”

  “The Madeira.” Jenks looked struck. “I searched every corner of that wine cellar—but barrels don’t have corners. Never thought of the gold being hidden inside one of them.” He eyed Hugo dubiously. “If the gold is there, you’ll get the reward. If you want it. If you want your name in this business.”

  “Now that . . . she . . . is gone, it’s all right.” Hugo considered. “I could use a bit of the good sort of notoriety.”

  “The one who finds the gold will get that, make no mistake.” Jenks turned toward the door. “No time like the present for a search, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Wait.” Hugo called him back. “Mr. Jenks. When you take the money back to London, will it help? Will it help with the loss of your brother?”

  “Damned if I know,” said Jenks.

  “Damned regardless,” said Hugo. Or so it seemed. Doing nothing was no way to help with grief. Yet doing something was never enough.

  But when Faust had tamed the heavens and the earth, he found that his soul was his own after all. Maybe someday, somehow, there was peace to be found.

  Maybe it could come, despite all his hesitation, in the form of another person.

  “I will see the criminal brought to justice,” said Jenks. “Justice can’t help my brother now, but it can help Mrs. Keeling. Miss Linton. All the bondagers and hinds hereabouts.”

  “So you mean to arrest Mr. Keeling?”

  “Aye.” Jenks copied the local dialect. “And,” he added, “Sir Frederic Chapple.”

  * * *

  It all unraveled quickly after that.

  As Hugo and Jenks soon found, thousands of gold coins were in the barrel of Madeira. And who had put them there? Who had had access to the barrel, from London ever-northward?

  At some point, the gold had been in Derbyshire. At some point, half of it had been removed and stowed in the barrel.

  “Anyone could have stolen the key to the wine cellar.” Sir Frederic’s left hand was cuffed to a chair in the grand parlor. It had taken some wrestling to achieve this. “I am innocent, Mr. Jenks! I would never tamper with such a fine Madeira.”

  “Mr. Keeling might,” Jenks said. “And I notice you’re not willing to adulterate wine, but you don’t say anything about being unwilling to steal gold.”

  Sir Frederic turned an unhealthy curdled color.

  He made a most unlikely criminal, this well-fed and comfortable man. But Keeling, held in a separate chamber, could not cast blame enough upon Sir Frederic. “He planned it all. He knew me from a boy. I was only following his orders.”

  “I’m not a bad man,” Sir Frederic insisted. “The theft—it wasn’t for me. I did it for my tenants. The doctoring, the money—I want them to have good lives.”

  “And none of the money went toward these fine furnishings?” asked Jenks. “Or the barrel of Madeira in which the coins were stashed? The wrong thing for a fine reason is still wrong.”

  “No one was meant to die,” said the baronet. “It wasn’t so very wrong. If no one was hurt. I say . . .” With some effort of his cuffed hand, he pulled forth a small pocketbook and pencil from his coat. He scrawled a little note, then stuffed the book and pencil back in his pocket.

  And pulled out a pistol.

  He aimed it at his own temple, hand quivering. “It wasn’t supposed to go like this.”

  “See here,” said Hugo. “I’m a good doctor, but I can’t piece brains back together.”

  “Tell me,” Jenks said. “Tell me how it was supposed to go, Sir Frederic.”

  With quavering hand holding the gun, Sir Frederic told him.

  He had begun planning the theft as soon as he inherited the baronetcy several months before. He couldn’t bear to live in Northumberland and run a baronetcy without money; he, used to all the comforts of life.

  For years, he had sponsored a ragged school—education for children of the streets. It was good, he thought, to see them educated. He wound up with dozens upon dozens of grateful youths growing into respectable trades, positions in great houses, advantageous marriages.

  He also wound up with a few criminals in his pocket.

  After their years in London, these men had scattered. But Sir Frederic knew how to find them, and he collected them. Two from London, one from Derbyshire, one from Northumberland. They did not know one another; they only knew him. They called one another John Smith. And they all accepted his plan: steal money by following his instructions, and they would share it out together.

  But it didn’t go as it was supposed to go.

  The first problem was that the guards were shot, not evaded.

  The second problem was that the John Smiths stole a new sort of coin that hadn’t yet been released to the public.

  The third was they couldn’t keep from flashing the gold about. Smith One had given a coin to his lover in Strawfield, then later—accidentally, he swore—killed her. He was arrested.

  Smith Two had given a bracelet of reworked gold to his amour, a maid near Doncaster.

  He had been killed by Smith Three—Keeling—who had given gold to Linton.

  “I expected the thieves to distrust each other.” Sir Frederic closed pouchy eyes, the pistol quivering in his hand. “I counted on it. But I didn’t expect them to betray me. And they all did. They all betrayed me for love.”

  The story was as pitiful as it was dreadful. But it was not yet complete, Hugo realized. “What about Smith Four? You said he was a Londoner. Is he still at large?”

  “I’ve said enough.” The baronet pressed the pistol more tightly against his temple, drawing in a deep breath.

  “You’re from London, Sir Frederic,” Jenks said blandly. “Maybe you’re Smith Four. Someone used a pistol like that to shoot Lord Hugo, here. Oh—you didn’t know he was a lord? Yes. Son of the Duke of Willingham.”

  “Careful, Jenks.” Hugo wasn’t unwilling to put Sir Frederic to the verbal rack, but he didn’t want the man pushed too far. His finger was on the trigger, and if he pulled it, that would be an end to the truth.

  “I’ve enough to arrest you, Sir Frederic,” said Jenks. “Whether you shot Lord Hugo or not.”

  “But I’m the High Sheriff,” whimpered the baronet. “I lead law enforcement in this county.”

  The Runner smiled—almost. “And I’ve a warrant from King’s Bench. There’s always someone above you, Sir Frederic, unless you’re the king. And even then, you can be declared mad and your son set to rule in your place. Never think you’re too strong to fall.”

  Hugo recognized that sentiment. Unspoken, it was the motivation for his father’s preoccupation with what was proper. A d
uke could lead society by pushing its boundaries, or by dwelling on every manner and rule. Matthew’s death had made Willingham pursue the latter. Even a duke’s son could die.

  “Put the gun down, Sir Frederic,” Hugo said. “Don’t let the gold take another life.”

  “But I am ruined.”

  “Ruination is what you make of it,” said Jenks. “I’d say my brother was ruined when someone murdered him, but that’s only my view.”

  A quote came to Hugo’s mind. “Modo liceat vivere, est spes.”

  Jenks frowned. “You know we don’t speak Greek. Be reasonable, my lord.”

  “It’s Latin,” said Hugo. “Publius Terentius Afer. Terence. ‘Provided they are allowed to live, there is hope.’”

  “Hope,” said Sir Frederic. “Do you think—is there hope for me?” The idea seemed to buoy him. With a shaking hand, he lowered the pistol.

  Jenks seized it at once.

  “I’ve sent word to the closest constable,” he told Hugo. “He’ll muster a force to keep the prisoners secure. These criminals will all be bound over for the assizes.”

  “What will happen?” Hugo asked.

  “Keeling will swing, I’ve no doubt. Sir Frederic will be jailed until his case can be investigated further. He didn’t actually steal the money or kill anyone . . . unless he was the fourth John Smith. He might end up in Newgate yet.”

  “And Mr. Lowe?” Hugo held his breath.

  Jenks was silent for a long while. “He lost his toes,” decided the Runner. “He was threatened and injured. I believe he served as accomplice only under duress.”

  Hugo was satisfied with that. “And Mrs. Keeling? How will she be taken care of?”

  “Mrs. Keeling never stops talking,” said Sir Frederic. “If you once ask her what she wants, she will never stop complaining until the end of time.”

  “Then that’s what we should do,” Hugo said. “We should ask her what she wants. If she wants to stay on the land, some of Sir Frederic’s fine things could be sold to give her an annuity.”

  The baronet moaned.

  “And you, Mr. Jenks? What now?”