Gabriel joined the others on the wall that held the door. That door opened and a man rushed in on choppy, hurried strides. The sight of the sleeping Pritchard brought him up short.
“What the hell is this?” He grabbed Pritchard’s sheet and tore it back. “Where is this injury? Where is the surgeon? Wake up, you fool, or I’ll take a poker to your ass and see you jump fast enough.”
Pritchard woke with a jolt. He shrank back from his cousin’s hovering glare. “Injury? I’ve no injury.” He pointed frantically to where Gabriel stood, but Yarnell did not even notice.
“You wrote and told me you were injured, and I was to come with the carriage for you, but I do and I find you asleep like a prince in a chamber that must cost fifteen shillings a night.”
“I—that is, he—” More gestures.
“He did not write the letter, Mr. Yarnell. We did,” Gabriel said.
Yarnell froze. Slowly, he turned around and faced the wall across from the bed. He narrowed his eyes and examined them each in turn.
He did not ask who they were or why they were there. He only walked to the chair, sat, and crossed his arms over his chest.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“She is a liar and a thief, and her daughter is no better.” Yarnell offered his defense of the accusations against him.
“You are also a thief,” Gabriel said. “You coerced Miss Waverly to steal for you. Or do you deny you currently possess an early medieval brooch and buckle that came to you the same way this dagger did? Your cousin has already admitted he brought them to you.”
Pritchard had indeed blurted all he knew. Faced with three dukes, he at once threw in with them against his cousin. Yarnell turned a sneer in his direction.
Mr. Yarnell was good at sneering, Amanda thought. It was his only expression. She supposed it gave him some distinction, at least. Otherwise, a more ordinary man could not be imagined.
He stood no taller than she did, and while not slight of build, he showed none of his cousin’s corpulence either. Dark, closely cropped hair topped his head. Dark eyes squinted from beneath thick eyebrows. If one saw him in town, one would assume he was a gentleman from his dress and speech, but not a well-to-do one. According the Mama, Yarnell was up to his ears in debt, due to spending all his income hiring men to dig up what should have been fields planted with crops.
They all had gathered in Gabriel’s room for this conversation. Mama wore muslin the color of lavender. The dress must have cost at least a pound, what with its embroidered gray spencer. Mama had enjoyed telling her story again, and added some unnecessary embellishments such as a critique of the food Yarnell had given her. She had skipped quickly over her own culpability, or tried to. Brentworth would have none of that and quizzed her closely until the damning details came out.
Mama did not like Brentworth much now. She avoided addressing him, and when she did, she said Your Grace with a disrespectful, sarcastic inflection. Each time she did that, Amanda gave her a solid nudge.
“I stole nothing,” Yarnell announced, finally giving in to the urge to defend himself, despite having insisted he would answer to none of them. “Those items belong to me. They were found on my land, and the thieves that dug them up absconded with them, to sell them in London. The pit they dug is still there if you don’t believe me. Tell me how claiming back stolen property is stealing?”
“There are legal ways to claim stolen property,” Gabriel said. “They do not include breaking into houses or removing items from museums.”
“I have been in Devon all summer. I entered no house or museum.” He crossed his arms and raised his chin, daring them to prove otherwise.
“You used your imprisonment of Mrs. Waverly to coerce her daughter to do the deeds for you,” Gabriel said. Amanda could tell he grew angrier with each sentence Yarnell spoke.
“Mrs. Waverly did that, not me.”
“If you were not at the heart of it, why did you not hand her to the authorities? Why keep her behind a barred door at your home?”
“It was all her idea. She said she would get me back my stolen items if I let her go. It seemed a fair trade, but I didn’t want her just walking off instead of fulfilling her side of it, did I? As for the daughter here, whom you seem to think is some poor waif caught in a scheme not of her own making, I’m guessing she has been helping herself to goods and money all over London as long as she’s lived here. Actually, I think she and her mother planned the entire thing.”
Gabriel took a step toward Yarnell. Only Stratton’s firm grasp on his arm stopped him from going farther.
Amanda hated being accused, but other than denying it, what could she say? At least two people in this chamber knew just how capable she was if she chose to put her skills to use. Yarnell was bold, and far slyer than she had expected. He was building a story that would probably convince a jury or judge, too. One in which he was a small player in the drama, sitting in the wings.
Her mother had been muttering and tensing all through the interrogation. Now she snapped. “How innocent you try to sound, you scoundrel.” She stood and glared at him. “You have left out the last of it. Tell them how you suggested just two days ago that we continue, and have my daughter steal other things to which you could make no claim at all. The ease of it all got the better of you. A few more payments, you said, for your trouble. Then it would have been one more, then one more again I am sure.”
“Is this true?” Gabriel asked.
“Of course not.” Yarnell dared to appear indignant that anyone would give credence to such an accusation.
“Do you expect him to admit it? He wanted a strand of good pearls next. He thought it would be easy to take it apart and sell it bit by bit.”
“I know nothing about pearls,” Yarnell growled.
Gabriel looked ready to beat it out of him. Instead he strode to the door. “Gentlemen, a word.” The three of them filed out.
“Mama,” Amanda whispered. “The one letter not written by you. Did Yarnell write it himself?”
Her mother nodded. Amanda got up and walked out of the chamber.
The three dukes were speaking in low tones on the landing but went silent while she passed. She entered her own chamber and dumped everything out of her valise until she found the stack of letters. She plucked out the only one not written by Mama.
She returned to Gabriel’s chamber, but handed him that letter while she passed on the landing. “Yarnell wrote this one to me, about delivering the buckle.” She then left them to whatever they debated.
* * *
Stratton read the letter and handed it back. “It is good that she saved this. It is all that supports Yarnell was behind it. Otherwise someone might accept it was all her mother, or even mother and daughter together.”
“I doubt it will convince a judge, unfortunately. Not to the point of choosing the word of an admitted thief over a gentry gentleman,” Brentworth said.
Gabriel tucked the letter into his coat. “She did not give it to us thinking it would convince a judge. She hoped to convince us.” He had watched Amanda’s expression while Yarnell denied his role. She had seen how clever this had been arranged, and how her mother and herself might be considered the only culprits.
“Then we are agreed, gentlemen,” he said. “To swear down information about this matter would probably lead to Yarnell’s exoneration.”
“Those items were stolen from him,” Stratton said. “It does not excuse having them stolen back, or what he had his cousin do with Mrs. Waverly. But all of that, the kidnapping, the coercion to involve her daughter—all of it, relies only on Mrs. Waverly’s word.”
They all knew the value of that.
“I say that we retrieve the stolen items and see they are returned to their owners. If Yarnell was robbed, he will have to prove it through legal means,” Brentworth said. “Stratton and I will return to his house with him for that purpose today.”
“He may not hand them over,” Gabriel said. “He is nothing if not bold
.”
“He will hand them over. Do not doubt it,” Stratton said.
“Take the buckle and brooch back to London, then,” Gabriel said. “Once I return to town, we will decide how to make the returns.”
“I assume you would rather not knock on Nutley’s door and hand that buckle over,” Stratton said. “Brentworth and I will put our heads to it. There should be a way to be discreet.”
“Many ways,” Brentworth said. “We will also take care of Mrs. Waverly, if you want. We can stop at Southampton and see her onto a ship. Preferably one bound to an unfriendly nation. It seems unfair to inflict her on an ally.”
“I would be relieved if you did that,” Gabriel said. “I thought to send my footman Vincent on the task, but I don’t think he is experienced enough to recognize her inevitable blandishments for what they are. Before you leave Yarnell, make it clear we will be watching him and events in Devon. He has had a taste of easy money. He may decide to find another way to find more, and he has the mind for it.”
“We will collect him and his cousin now, and come back for the mother,” Brentworth said. “As for Miss Waverly—we leave her to you, Langford. It was a clear case of duress and even our antiquated criminal laws recognize that as mitigating, as you know. Whether a court will believe her, should it ever come to that, is questionable, unfortunately. Whether you as a duke and peer can or should overlook the expectation of legal process is something only you can decide.”
“You are also dukes,” Gabriel said.
“I would never question your honor, Langford. You know that. As for Stratton here, he has killed two men. The debate your conscience faces is a small one compared to that.”
Brentworth opened the chamber door and walked in. Stratton hesitated before following. He grasped Gabriel’s shoulder in a gesture of friendship and looked him in the eyes. “You know this woman as well as you know us. Better, if I am right on how it is between you. Don’t let honor make you an ass.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Amanda strolled through the garden of Liningston Abbey. Gabriel had brought her back here after she’d parted from her mother in Colton.
She’d grown nostalgic during those last hours with Mama. They would probably never see each other again. There would be no more periodic letters for Mrs. Bootlescamp waiting for her at the print shop. She would not be in London to receive them even if one did come, from wherever Mama landed.
Mama had been relieved beyond words to be offered exile. Learning two dukes would escort her to the ship did much to make the prospect more appealing. Amanda pictured her, dining with Brentworth and Stratton, amusing them with stories of thieving derring-do. She made Mama promise not to try and seduce either one of them, but she may have heard a lie in reply. She trusted Mama had sized up both men the way a thief would, however, and knew Stratton would never succumb, and Brentworth would never set her free afterward.
It had been a lonely journey back to this house yesterday. Gabriel had not been with her in the carriage. He often rode ahead, galloping hard. He brooded over something. Their parting, perhaps. She could not escape the worry that what he had heard in that chamber had made him question his faith in her, however. Yarnell’s explanation of everything had been terribly plausible.
At least the stolen items were headed back to London. She would have something of herself back once they were returned. With time, in a new world, maybe Amanda the thief would disappear again.
They would leave for Liverpool in the morning. Gabriel had given her the choice to go with Mama to Naples. She had not wanted that, not at all. She would instead go to America, as she so often dreamed. She would leave her entire history behind this time.
She returned to the house and the chamber she had used whenever in this house. She asked for dinner to be sent up to her. Gabriel had avoided her all day, even after they’d arrived. That was probably wise. She did not think she could spend hours on end crying inside but pretending to be normal.
The dinner arrived as the sun set. She watched the last light out the window while servants set it out, and after the door closed behind them. She did not care what had been brought, although she had eaten little all day.
Finally she decided that she should probably consider the future waiting, and her need for health and strength. She turned to avail herself of whatever meal had come.
Only then did she realize more than a meal had arrived. Gabriel stood there watching her. She noticed two plates on the table.
He gave her one of his adorable smiles. He held up a bottle of champagne. “I thought I would join you.”
She looked at that bottle. Memories of how they had shared similar ones rushed into her mind. Her heart broke then and there, with the meal and Gabriel waiting, with the sun sending its final, pink and golden light into the chamber. She covered her face with her hands and turned away and cried so hard she thought she would break apart.
His strong arms embraced her from behind. The warmth of a kiss pressed her crown. “Do not, Amanda. Please do not.” He turned her in his arms and she wept against his chest. “Forgive me, darling. I needed to think about some things. I did not mean to abandon you today or yesterday. I needed to . . . straighten my head.”
She had no idea what that meant, but she nodded. She pressed against him while he stroked her head and begged her to stop crying. She did eventually, dissolving into gasps and shakes while she regained some composure.
He guided her to the bed and sat with her there, waiting for it all to pass. She sniffed hard. “I did not mind that you were not with me. I understand that you face a duty that you do not like.”
“Ah, yes. Duty.” He gave her a kiss. “I think it is not my duty to punish someone more than a fair and honest judge would. It is misplaced honor to think I should. I know what I said to you, and the bargain we struck. It was a selfish one, born of a combination of hurt pride and anger.”
“I thought it quite fair.”
“You have blamed yourself more than necessary, darling. No one could expect you to do other than you did, with your own mother’s life at risk.”
“A thief’s life.”
“Yes, she is a thief. You are not. Not by nature and not by character. Even she saw it, from the time you were very young. She told me that. You were forced to play that role by Yarnell, but that is over now.”
She finally heard what he was saying. Really saying. “I will not sail to America after all?”
“Not unless you want to.”
“What if it comes out? It may someday. Yarnell may talk about it. The world could learn about us, about me. Your title, your name, could be tied to crimes that many will never excuse. What will people say if they learn of it, and it is known that you did not let a court decide my fate?”
“I expect many will say that the most decadent duke finally had his comeuppance, and from a little secretary at that. If there is scandal about the thefts, I will give the true story to Parnassus and live with whatever results.”
She barely breathed while her soul absorbed it. She gave a little laugh at her own astonishment. “I am glad you thought all day if you concluded I should have a pardon.”
“That is not what I was thinking about for so long.” He stood and offered his hand. “Come and share dinner with me.”
* * *
He opened the champagne and poured into the two glasses. Amanda’s high spirits delighted him. She looked so lovely in the light dusk that now lit the chamber. Beautiful and mysterious.
“What is that?” She pointed to several covered plates on another table.
“That is dessert. No peeking now. Eat your dinner.”
She did so, heartily.
“Amanda, in Colton, Stratton told me that I probably know you better than I do my oldest friends. I realized he was right. In the most essential way, I feel as though I know you better than anyone. I have never known a woman this way before, or experienced such intimacy. I never wanted to.”
“Your mystery wo
man is gone, you mean.”
“You misunderstand.” He took her hand. “I ache to know you in every way that I still don’t. I want to hear about those years at school, and the time you spent as a companion in the country. I even want to hear all about the scoundrel who seduced you. Everything.”
“That could take a long time.”
“Probably a lifetime, because just when I think I know it all, you will probably surprise me and reveal yet another mystery.”
Her expression transformed. Warmth and happiness deepened her gaze. “Are you saying that you would rather not part? That we can be together in London again? Lady Farnsworth did not appear nearly as shocked to learn about us as I expected, so if my situation with her can continue, we might be able to remain very good friends.”
Ah, sweet Amanda. She expected so little from the world. From him. “I would like to be more than friends, darling. I want to marry you. Please say you will. If you decline, I will never marry because, having shared love and passion with you, I am unfit for another woman.”
Her expression went slack. She peered at him, hard. “Is that wise? To marry me? A secretary and a thi—daughter of a thief?”
“Not at all wise.”
She burst out laughing. “You might have said you think it the wisest decision you had ever made, or at least something vague like, what is wisdom in the face of love?”
He laughed with her, then pressed his lips to her hand. “In the event you do not already know it, sometimes I can be an ass.” He looked in her eyes. “It is the wisest decision I have ever made. Promise me that I will have you my whole life, Amanda. I will go mad if you don’t.”
“I will marry you. Oh, yes, I gladly will.”
He raised her up so he could embrace and kiss her. “Are you finished with your dinner? Dessert still waits.”
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