“Er, no, my lord. That one seems to have been the last. Of the hatchet-faced crones, in any event.” Wilson grinned nervously.
Elliot tried to reassure him with a warmer smile. “Aye, then. And good riddance to the lot of them! Is there something else, Wilson?”
“Indeed, my lord. MacLeod begs me to inform you that Viscount Linden has called. MacLeod put him in the drawing room to await your pleasure.”
“Humph,” muttered Elliot thoughtfully.
“My lord?” Wilson still stood before the desk, clinging to his notebook with a white-knuckled grip. “What would you have me do? About Miss Armstrong’s governess, I mean.”
Elliot stared at the earnest man and carefully considered his question. “Nothing at present, Wilson. None of today’s candidates was satisfactory, but you cannot be blamed for that misfortune. Perhaps something else will work out.”
Even as Wilson sighed his relief, his ruddy brows knitted together. “Something else, my lord?”
Absently, Elliot flipped open the top file from the stack on his desk. “Never mind, Wilson. My daughter certainly shan’t expire for lack of a governess. Please speak with Mrs. Woody. Ask that she assign one of the housemaids to see to Zoë’s needs for the nonce. A sort of abigail. Trudy, perhaps?”
Wilson bowed. “Yes, my lord. Trudy it is.”
From the hallway, someone cleared his throat. “ ’Twas a fair bird indeed, Rannoch, who just flew your coop.” Elliot and Wilson turned to see Lord Linden reclining indolently against the doorframe.
“Come in, Aidan, if you must,” answered Elliot dryly, even as Linden strolled toward the desk.
As Wilson made a hasty exit, the elegant viscount flopped down into his vacant chair. “Interviewing replacements for Antoinette, old man?” teased Linden, tugging off his tight kidskin glove to draw a jewel-encrusted snuff box from his snug coat pocket.
Rannoch looked up absently from the stack of files on his desk. “Go bugger yourself, Linden,” he replied coolly.
“Indeed! Better myself than your lady in black,” chortled the dandified Linden, deftly flicking open the bejeweled lid and dropping a pinch onto the back of his hand. “Daresay I couldn’t stir myself to poke at that old buzzard with Winthrop’s diseased rod.”
Elliot snapped shut the file and darkened his glower. There was a sad truth to Linden’s jest, for their friend Matthew Winthrop, despite all his solid strength and military bearing, whored like there was no tomorrow. “Good Lord, Linden. Have you indeed risen at the crack of, oh, what?” Elliot tossed a glance toward the mantle clock. “Four in the afternoon? And just to regale me with poor Winthrop’s sexual misadventures? I am indeed honored.”
Linden looked upward with a broad grin and inhaled his poison. “Ah, I see the way of this. Now that you are keeping country hours—”
“Linden!” Elliot darkened his glower again with immediate effect.
“Oh, very well!” replied Linden dismissively. “As it happens, I did not come to talk of Winthrop’s ill luck. However entertaining such a topic might be, I come bearing tales of another’s misery.” Linden paused to sneeze emphatically into his handkerchief
“Oh, God, what now?” Elliot rolled his eyes.
“Cranham,” answered Linden with a toss of his manicured hand. “Someone, it would appear, very nearly murdered him yesterday.”
A deadly still silence fell across the room. “Murder?” asked Elliot sharply. “When?”
Linden smiled and narrowed his gaze. “I wondered if you mightn’t ask that. Happened just after dusk, as I heard the story. Poor man was found behind a Whitechapel alehouse with a shiv in his gut. Wicked work, that.”
“Good Lord! Cranham knifed in the East End? What, pray, was he about?”
Linden shrugged equivocally. “No one seems to know, but rumor has it that a missive of some sort was found in his coat pocket. Something to do with you, Rannoch.”
“Me?” A cold, sickening sensation was wrapping itself around Elliot’s lungs. He willed himself to breathe. “Why, I have no notion … What did it say?”
Linden shrugged again. “That I don’t know, old boy. Thing to do, ring for that limp-wristed valet of yours. What that sly devil can’t tell us ain’t worth knowing!”
Elliot nodded, rose, and pulled the bell. Like a stealthy ghost, MacLeod floated in through the doorway, then just as quietly floated out in search of Kemble.
“Is he expected to survive?” asked Elliot as he strode across the room. He poured a whisky and a brandy, then dropped down onto the sofa near Linden’s chair.
Linden took the outstretched brandy. “Not likely. I daresay a fever will likely do him in, or so Winthrop tells me. Saw a good deal of that sort of thing in the war, old Matt did.”
“What do you think happened, Aidan?” asked Elliot uncertainly. He lifted his glass, stared across it at the viscount, then set the glass down again. “Some minor embarrassment with the money lenders?”
Linden shook his head. “Oh, Cranham’s under the hatches, all right, but not far enough to make the cents-per-cents cry foul! No, Cranham seems to believe it was you who tried to do him in, Elliot. In fact, your name and an ensuing string of rather creative blasphemies are the only coherent words he has managed to mumble.”
Elliot froze. “I tried to do him in? Me? Bloody hell, I passed up my opportunity to kill him. A clear shot, it was.”
“Much as I might relish a good scandalbroth, Rannoch, I am inclined to agree with you.”
“Inclined?” Elliot felt his anger flare. “Bloody well right you’ll be agreeing with me. Most assuredly, had I wanted Cranham dead, ’tis dead he’d now be!”
Languidly, Linden raised one elegant hand as if to forestall him. “Good God, Elliot. Pray leave off the enraged Highlander routine! It becomes you very ill. Certainly, I believe you, and Wilkins and Carstairs will bear witness to your gentlemanly restraint at the duel.”
“Bloody well right,” grumbled Elliot.
Linden dropped his hand. “But aside from my good opinion, unless Cranham regains the mental wherewithal to do something other than curse your name with his dying breath, I daresay one must agree that there might be some question.”
Elliot drained half his glass in one swallow. “I do not,” he replied stubbornly.
“Where were you yesterday at dusk, Elliot?”
Elliot scowled and narrowed his gaze at his companion. “Are you the damned watch now, Linden? I was out.”
“Out where?” asked Linden softly.
“Returning from … returning from a social engagement in the country. It is my business where. Certainly, I did not stop in the East End, of that you may be assured.” Elliot set down his glass with a clatter. “Damn it, Linden, a back-alley knifing is hardly my style.”
“I know it, Elliot. You are notorious for exacting your revenge in broad daylight. But I also know you’d been from home for three days. Were you in the Armstrong equipage with your coachman?”
“I rode,” barked Elliot. “I was on horseback.”
Linden’s brows went up in surprise. “Really? No witnesses to—”
A sharp rap sounded upon the library door, and Kemble entered upon Elliot’s command.
“Kem,” began Elliot bluntly, “what, if anything, have you heard about this knifing incident with Lord Cranham?”
“Very little until about an hour ago, my lord,” replied Kemble crisply. Then the willowy valet began to rattle off the details. “Mrs. Woody and Mrs. Nettles—she’s housekeeper to Lord Wainright—use the same coal porter, who is a brother to the butcher in Arch Street, near the chandler’s, and he met Cranham’s—”
Elliot waved his hand in surrender. “Stop, please, Kem! I am sure you prefer to keep your sources confidential. Just give us the particulars of the missive that was found in his pocket.”
“Ahem! Yes, the note. Reportedly, the author was anonymous. The note was delivered to Cranham’s rooms off Fitzroy Square at three o’clock yesterday afternoon by the cro
ssing sweep, who was given it by another urchin. The document instructed Cranham to meet the writer behind this particular alehouse, whereupon, for a certain sum of money—twenty pounds—Cranham would be given information that would prove ruinous to you.”
Linden fell backward into his chair and began to laugh. “My God, Rannoch! You were to be given up cheaply enough. Judas cut a better deal than that!”
“Twenty pounds was likely all the poor bastard had,” mumbled Elliot.
“A very astute comment, my lord,” remarked Kemble, nodding sagaciously.
Linden ceased his laughter at once. “What’s that?”
“It tells us something about the sender of the note, does it not?” answered Kemble. “I daresay the perpetrator was well aware Lord Cranham hadn’t a feather to fly with and set the amount accordingly. Ergo, one might assume that expediency, not money, was his real concern.”
“By damn, you’re right,” agreed Linden, his elegant blond brows drawing together. “Whom do you suspect, Kemble?”
The valet exhaled sharply and gave a theatrical roll of his limpid green eyes. “Well, I cannot possibly know, my lord! Nonetheless, it is probable that the attacker was, if you will pardon the irony, a man of Quality. Servants, shopkeepers, even bankers rarely suspect the financial straits in which the aristocracy often live. An ignorant man would have asked a hundred pounds!”
“A bit blunt, ain’t he?” asked Linden, turning to Elliot.
Elliot, however, was studying Kemble through narrowed eyes. “The goal was murder, was it not?” replied Elliot thoughtfully. “There was no information, and even if there had been, I daresay it could hardly have been worse than that which is already believed of me. Someone simply wanted Cranham conveniently and discreetly dead.”
“No surprise there,” muttered Linden, rising to refresh his drink. “Man’s a dashed nuisance.”
“Most probably,” agreed Kemble, ignoring Linden. “However, there remains a slight possibility that someone wished merely to cast blame upon you, my lord. If you’ll pardon my plain speaking, how came your coat and shirt to be torn and bloodied a few days past?”
“Aye, I was wondering when you would come around to that, Kem,” commented Elliot dryly.
“A duel, my lord?”
“Aye, with Cranham.” Elliot snorted derisively, absently rubbing his injured shoulder. “I all but shot into the air, even after the bastard wounded me.”
“Is it common knowledge?”
Elliot shot a questioning glance at Linden, who was settling back into his chair.
“No, I shouldn’t think so,” answered Linden thoughtfully. “Several people witnessed the argument, but they slipped away before Cranham’s challenge. Certainly, Winthrop and I have said nothing, dawn appointments being so ill received nowadays.”
Elliot nodded slowly. “And you may be sure Cranham’s seconds kept it quiet. Wilkins was humiliated by Cranham’s cheating. Young Carstairs, too, I daresay.”
Kemble nodded. “It is then possible, my lord, that the attacker was unaware your quarrel with Cranham had been settled and merely wished to make it appear that you lured him to his death.”
Elliot rubbed his hands up and down over his face. “Bloody hell. Can matters get worse?”
Kemble threaded his fingers and stared down at them studiously.
“Well?” demanded Elliot, looking at him.
The valet’s head came up. “Since you mention it, my lord, there is one thing. Your mistress reappeared in town, setting herself up in exceedingly fine rooms in Marylebone and reportedly taking on both a butler and a lady’s maid.”
Elliot’s brows shot up in surprise. “Did she indeed? I think I hardly care.”
“I am sure, my lord, that you do not,” responded Kemble. “But regrettably, Miss Fontaine has again vanished. The butler, who does not live in, discovered her rooms in a shambles and no sign of the woman.”
“Who had her so well set up?” asked Linden, clearly stunned.
“That’s the odd thing, my lord,” replied the valet. “Apparently, no one. Miss Fontaine somehow discovered the wherewithal to maintain herself.”
“And in a rather grand style, too,” mumbled Linden. “Tell you what, Kemble. Best keep an ear open. Let us know what grist the rumor mill grinds.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And Rannoch,” Linden continued stiffly, “I need not tell you that something wicked is afoot. Can you remain in town for a time?”
Elliot clasped his hands stiffly behind his back. “No, Linden, I cannot. I must return to the country.”
“A great pity,” murmured Linden, looking uncharacteristically grave. “I think you should not do so. I am worried.”
“My remaining here is out of the question,” answered Elliot dismissively.
Evangeline sat in the sunny rear gardens of Chatham Lodge, diligently sketching a patch of wildflowers. With an exasperated sigh, she put down her pencil. Who, indeed, was she trying to fool? The entire household knew that she was already awaiting Elliot, who was not expected until late in the afternoon. No one, save perhaps Evangeline herself, still bothered to pretend that he was coming to have his portrait painted.
Oh, Evangeline was slowly painting him, of that there was no doubt, but the majority of his time at Chatham was spent not seated obediently before her easel but walking, reading, or just laughing with her. Moreover, when Evangeline was otherwise engaged, as was often the case, Elliot seemed content to chatter aimlessly with Winnie or to turn pages for Frederica whilst she played the pianoforte, whispering suggestions and compliments into her ear. Evangeline was gratified to see that in Elliot’s company, Frederica lost the uncertainty and shyness that had plagued her since coming to Chatham. Their quiet camaraderie was comforting to Evangeline.
Quiet camaraderie was not, however, an element of Elliot’s relationship with Gus, Theo, or even Michael. In fact, Elliot’s attentions had something of an unsettling effect on her brother, for in his presence, eleven-year-old Michael seemed intent on being one of the men. Whatever mishaps and mayhem the Weyden boys instigated, be it gaming, shooting, or riding hell for leather across the countryside, Elliot seemed to enjoy cavorting like a boy whilst Michael did his best to swagger like a man. It was perverse, but, to Elliot’s credit, he did not permit the older boys to exclude Michael from any sport. Such gracious championing, of course, had the predictable result of instilling a mild case of hero worship in Michael’s youthful breast.
Nicolette generally admired Elliot from afar, seizing every opportunity to tease Evangeline unmercifully. “April and May, April and May,” she had chanted when at last Evangeline had acceded to Winnie’s wishes and called upon the dressmaker for new gowns. Nonetheless, Nicolette, too, unfailingly wore her very best frock to dinner when Elliot was present. Indeed, the man’s presence intensified every pleasure associated with life at Chatham Lodge, which had been an exceedingly fine place before that.
Uneasily, Evangeline shifted positions on the garden bench. There was something nagging at her, however. A troubling sense that all was not quite right with Elliot Roberts. Try as she might, Evangeline could never be more specific, but she felt it. Despite their many shared confidences, something still hung unresolved between them. No, not precisely between them, Evangeline reminded herself. They had made no spoken pledge to each other, nor would they.
Since that magical day by the Lea when Elliot had kissed her in the tangle of hornbeams, he had outwardly shown her no real passion. Though they had shared a kiss in his bedchamber, it had been one of promise but not desire. It was true that he often held her hand on those rare occasions when they were alone and sometimes brushed it gently across his lips. And although Evangeline was inexperienced in the ways of courting, she knew passion with an artist’s heart, and she recognized what she saw when Elliot glanced at her with that subtle, hungry look in his smoke-colored eyes.
Elliot did not speak to her of such things, but Evangeline was convinced of his lust for her.
His other emotions, however, were less apparent. As for her own sentiments, Evangeline was uncharacteristically confused. Her feelings for Elliot were an intricate knot, and from it she could unravel only one lucid truth. She felt a pure, heated desire when Elliot touched her. Never one to engage in foolish self-deception, Evangeline admitted that she wanted him, and she believed that he was well aware of that fact. Now she must wait to see what, if anything, Elliot would do about it.
“Miss Stone?” Mrs. Penworthy’s voice abruptly pierced her introspection. “Begging your pardon, miss, but a messenger’s just come with a letter. Bolton left it with today’s post. ’Tis on your desk in the studio.”
Evangeline was instantly alert. “A messenger? From town?”
The cheerful housekeeper bowed slightly, her ponderous key ring jingling as she did so. “Aye, miss, to be sure. And the letter bears Mr. Weyden’s seal.”
Two days after his disquieting visit from Viscount Linden, Elliot sent word around to his well-appointed stable instructing his staff to prepare his curricle and put to his best blacks. It was time, he decided, to travel up to Wrotham-upon-Lea in a better style. Forgoing the services of his tiger, Elliot set out from Richmond early and alone. The unsettling events of the preceding week had left him with much to consider, and careful deliberation was not one of Elliot’s strong suits. Nonetheless, he crossed the Thames into London and headed north, already lost in thought.
Today, Cranham lay near death in his London apartments. Kemble had discovered that, true to Winthrop’s prediction, a raging fever had taken hold of the baron, and he was not expected to last the night. Yet, other than Linden’s pointed barbs, no one had questioned Elliot about the stabbing, nor was anyone likely to do so. Elliot took no comfort in the fact that absent some damning evidence, the authorities would not dare to imply culpability on the part of a nobleman, even a disreputable one. In this case, however, they would not need to trouble themselves. Assumptions alone would do almost as much damage. Assumptions could shatter a man’s dreams, as well as his reputation, provided, of course, the gentleman in question still had one.
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