Mrs. Lesley Patch
A twinge of unease slid down his spine. “Blast it all.”
“Exactly. And you read Nancy’s letter. She was clearly referring to her great-aunt in York.”
“One of them must be lying.”
“Yes,” she said in a tone of pure exasperation, “but what reason would Mrs. Patch have for doing so? From what I understand, Nancy has been visiting her for years. They are very close.”
“And what do they do when she visits?” he asked, falling easily into his role as investigator, though it had been months since he’d had anything to investigate other than what crops worked best in Yorkshire soil.
“I don’t know.” Jane tapped her foot impatiently. Obviously investigative techniques were rather lost on her. “Gossip. Discuss their dogs—between them, they have seven. I think one of the footmen said they used to go shopping together. According to him, George encouraged Nancy’s trips when he was alive. He even let her use the carriage, which is why it’s so odd that she took the mail coach this time.”
“She didn’t have a choice,” he pointed out. “I’ve got the phaeton, and I assume you took the family carriage to Hull the day she left.”
“I did, but why didn’t she just wait to set off for York until you were back or the family carriage had returned? For that matter, why not just get off at the village here while on her way, so she could get the phaeton from you? Nancy doesn’t like being crowded, so why go all the way to York in the mail coach? She had no reason to rush if this was just some little shopping venture.”
“Perhaps it was more than that. You said she went without her maid. Is that usual?”
“I don’t think so, but Nancy’s regular maid, Meredith, left service for a while to help her ill papa in London, and the present maid hasn’t been with her long enough to go on one of her jaunts. I don’t have any firsthand knowledge about the York trips, because Nancy has never taken one, with or without me, while I was at Rathmoor Park.”
How peculiar. “Why not?”
“How the devil should I know?”
Why were his perfectly logical questions annoying Jane? She eyed him as if he were a half-wit.
“But don’t you see?” she went on. “This visit is clearly different. Her going off on the mail coach, and without her maid. Her letter to the servants about her supposed trip to Bath, which didn’t mention any requests for clothes. Or, for that matter, her dogs.”
“You expected her to take her dogs?”
“Absolutely. She never leaves them at home for days at a time. They go everywhere with her—to London, to Brighton, anywhere she travels. At the very least, she would have mentioned them in her letter. The fact that she didn’t is worrisome.”
He eyed her closely. “So, what are you saying, Jane?”
“Something dreadful must have happened to my cousin. She obviously had a mishap between here and York.”
“And then wrote a letter to lie about being off on a jaunt to Bath?”
She huffed out a frustrated breath. “The letter has to be forged, don’t you see? Nancy wouldn’t create such a tale out of whole cloth. She isn’t capable of perpetrating such a falsehood.”
He bit his tongue to keep from admitting that Nancy had been more than capable of perpetrating falsehoods twelve years ago. But Jane didn’t know about that, and now wasn’t the time to tell her. First he must soothe her concerns.
“Do you have any reason for thinking that the letter is forged?” he asked. “Is there anything in the handwriting that you find suspect?”
“Not to the naked eye, but—”
“So you assume that a master forger has learned to copy Nancy’s hand well enough to fool her own cousin.”
A look of desperation flickered in her eyes. “It’s possible, isn’t it?”
“Possible? Yes. Probable? No.”
“Why not? I read about kidnappers in the paper all the time!”
“Yes, and they have reasons for their actions.” He fell back on what usually worked with sensible people whose panic kept them from thinking straight: simple logic. “What would be a kidnapper’s purpose in sending a forged letter?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “To put off anyone who might grow alarmed when she didn’t return. He had to throw possible pursuers off his trail.”
Dom flashed her a tight smile. “This mysterious kidnapper already had a day’s head start. By the time the servants grew alarmed enough to head to York after her, he could be in another county. So why trump up some tale about her traveling to Bath?”
“I don’t know!” Her cheeks bloomed a fetching shade of pink. “Sadly, my education didn’t include how to think like a kidnapper.”
“Ah, but mine did. Some of those cases you read about in the papers were ones I solved.” When that made her frown, he softened his tone. “This isn’t how kidnappers operate. If a man carries off a woman, it’s usually for one of three reasons: to elope with her, to force himself on her, or to ransom her off.”
Her lips began to thin ominously, but he pressed on, ticking each reason off on his fingers. “In the first case, Nancy can marry whom she pleases, so there’s no need for evasive letters. In the second, he’d simply force her; again, no reason for evasive letters. In the final and most rare case, which you seem to be considering, the only letter he’d send would be a ransom request. Have you received any?”
“Not yet,” she said sullenly.
Clearly, she wasn’t fond of simple logic. “Kidnappers don’t generally send evasive forged letters in the victim’s hand and then notes of ransom. They want to strike fear, not confusion, into the hearts of the family.”
She thrust out her chin. “I’m beginning to remember how sanctimonious you can be.”
He regarded her coldly. “I’m being logical. You simply don’t like my logic.”
“Because you keep dwelling on what couldn’t have happened. I need to know what could.”
“Fine. Instead of conjuring up criminal assaults, you should consider the possibility that Nancy merely wanted to get away. She did just lose her husband, after all.”
“That makes it sound as if she misplaced him somehow, instead of his being killed by your half brother.” When Dom tensed, she let out an exasperated oath. “I realize that Tristan was merely defending himself. If anyone is aware of how vicious George could be, it’s me. I’m simply . . .”
“Angry at me because I’m telling you what you don’t want to hear.”
She advanced on him with a dark light in her eyes. “And what exactly is that? Your theory that Nancy merely wanted to get away? Why should that bother me? Unless you’re implying that it was me she wanted to escape.”
“Certainly not. She thought you were gone off to London and unlikely to return anytime soon.”
“Well then, according to your logic, whom might Nancy have been trying to escape?” She started ticking possibilities off on her fingers, mimicking him. “The servants? The villagers? The tenants? You, perhaps?”
Her rapid-fire questions unnerved Dom. He wasn’t used to this new Jane, who threw his logic back in his face and didn’t simply accept his opinions. She was maddening.
She was magnificent.
Damn her. “Don’t be absurd—you know perfectly well that I never see Nancy. She would have no reason to escape me. But that’s not the point.”
“Oh? Then what is the point, Lord Rathmoor?”
Her use of his title added to his irritation. Officially he wasn’t even viscount yet, although everyone behaved as if he were, since George had sired no sons. “I never said she was trying to get away from anyone. It’s more likely she was trying to get away to someone.”
That stole the color from Jane’s face. “To. What do you mean?”
“Come now, you aren’t a girl anymore. After several years of marriage, Nanc
y has, well, certain needs. Her husband is dead, and she’s alone. Since either you or I have been at Rathmoor Park from the day George died, this would have been her first chance to get away to be with someone.”
Jane just kept gaping at him as if he were some foreigner newly alighted on English shores.
“It would explain her mysterious jaunts to York,” he went on. “And why Nancy concocted her ruse of a trip to Bath and left her maid behind. She wants to preserve her reputation before her staff, which is perfectly understandable.”
Thunderclouds wrought her brow. “Are you saying that my cousin would be so unprincipled, so shameless, so deceptive, as to run away to consort with a . . . a . . .”
“Paramour. Yes. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Nancy has obviously been having an affair.”
2
JANE WANTED TO throttle him. How dared he? She didn’t remember his being so cynical. So ungentlemanly.
So handsome.
Curse it, she didn’t find Dom at all attractive anymore, for one perfectly good reason. He’d thrown their future away, and she could never forgive him for that.
But it would be so much easier to stand firm against him if he’d grown a paunch and his hair had thinned in the past twelve years. Instead, he’d gained a rakish scar and a broader chest than she remembered.
And he wasn’t even a tiny bit gray! His hair was still as black as his iron heart, which seemed unaffected by their past together. Meanwhile, just being this close to him had revived her own cold, dead heart.
She’d have to make sure he couldn’t tell. He used to be wickedly good at reading her emotions, and she would die before she let him see how vulnerable she was to him after all these years.
“So without having any facts to support your theory you’ve decided that Nancy ran off to meet a paramour,” she told him. “Aren’t investigators supposed to consider all the evidence before they jump to conclusions?”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “I’m not jumping to anything. It’s the explanation that makes the most sense.”
“To you, perhaps. But if Nancy had a lover, I would know, I assure you. The woman is incapable of that level of deception.”
“Is she?” His eyes were cold and brittle as green glass in the morning light. “Perhaps you don’t know your cousin as well as you think.”
A pox on him! Was he alluding to the subterfuge he and Nancy had pulled off that horrible night at the Blakeborough ball? Because if so, he ought to come out and say it.
Then again, he was unaware that she knew the truth. He still thought she’d believed their nonsense. And at first she had. She’d assumed Dom was a villain, that somehow she’d missed a serious flaw in his character.
But as the years had passed and he hadn’t married any heiresses or become the subject of gossip about fortune hunters or even attempted to push his way into other society functions, she’d grown suspicious. By then, Nancy had been wed to George for a few years and the bloom of her marriage had withered. She’d been lonely enough to want to share confidences with Jane again.
It hadn’t taken much to get the truth out of her—that Dom had set up the entire thing. That the arrogant wretch had deliberately made Jane think he was a fortune hunter just to force her to jilt him.
He hadn’t even given her a choice! He’d placed her in a position where her pride demanded that she break with him, because he’d known exactly how she would react to seeing him make advances to her cousin. Because he’d known exactly where to insert the knife.
He’d gotten away with it, too. It still infuriated her every time she thought about it. Of all the pompous, unfeeling—
Jane gritted her teeth to silence the hot retorts she wanted to throw at him. After their encounter last year at George’s town house, she’d decided that if Dom hadn’t loved her enough to fight for her back then—or come back to fight for her later, when he was more financially secure—then he wasn’t worth the years she’d wasted on him.
The only thing she wanted now was for him to confess what he’d done and why. For him to admit that it had been a mistake. That he’d ended up alone without her because of his foolish pride and his assumptions about her character. The dratted man owed her that, at least.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t likely to get any such admission. Dom the Almighty had clearly grown even more arrogant now that he’d gained his inheritance and become Lord Rathmoor. Like Papa with Mama, he thought his opinion was the only important one, which was clear from his dratted elucidation of all the reasons Nancy was some sort of devious harlot.
Well, Dom could sling as much mud at Nancy as he pleased—Jane knew the truth. Simply because he’d once manipulated Nancy into a deception didn’t mean she was capable of adultery. If he intended to argue that, he’d have to provide evidence, not just vague insinuations.
“Actually,” Jane said, forcing sweetness into her tone, “I know my cousin quite well. I can’t imagine why you would think otherwise. Do you have any particular instance of deceptiveness you’re alluding to?”
When his eyes darkened at her aggressive pursuit of the matter, she added, “Because if you’re hinting at how I found the two of you together at the Blakeborough ball, I happen to know that Nancy didn’t want you to kiss her that night. It was perfectly clear from what I overheard.”
Wriggle out of that, Dominick Manton!
A shuttered look crossed his face. “I’m merely falling back on my years of experience as an investigator, which tell me that something other than a kidnapping is at work here.”
His voice was cool, remote—a far cry from the warm one she remembered from her youth, whispering sweet compliments in her ear.
It saddened her. When had he become so unfeeling and controlling? She remembered him as an amiable gentleman, who loved books and music and dogs and spoke to her with perfect candor. Now he was autocratic and dictatorial.
Had something happened to him during his career as a Bow Street runner to turn him into this rigid fellow without a heart? Or had he always been that way and she just hadn’t seen it, blinded by love?
“Very well,” she said. “You have your theory of what happened to Nancy, and I have mine. But either way, you have to go look for her.”
Stubborn to a fault, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Why?”
“Because I can’t go looking for her alone, of course. You know perfectly well it would be improper for me to wander the streets of York asking questions. Besides, even if it weren’t frowned upon, investigation is your particular skill, not mine. So you have to help me search for her.”
Irritation furrowed his brow. “What I meant was, why must anyone look for her? She’s a grown woman. If she wishes to run off, that’s her affair.”
“But you aren’t sure that’s what happened!”
He pointed to the letter from Nancy, which Jane clutched in her hand. “I’d swear that her missive isn’t forged. So she made her own choice to leave and to hide her reasons for it. We should respect that.” He searched her face. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”
Drat the man. How was it he could always read her so well? She’d better take care or she’d wind up spilling the secret Nancy had made her swear to keep some days ago. After all, Nancy wasn’t certain of anything yet. No point in stirring things up until she was.
But that didn’t mean Jane would give up on looking for her cousin.
“I’m merely anxious about her, and you should be, too. You’re her brother-in-law; she’s your responsibility now. Even if you’re right and she ran off with a paramour, that doesn’t mean she’s safe.” Mama hadn’t even been safe with her own husband, for pity’s sake.
She shoved thoughts of her long-dead parents from her mind. “Men do take advantage of widows with dower portions, as you well know. So don’t you think you should at least attempt to protect her, if only fr
om herself?”
He muttered an oath under his breath. Oh, Dom the Almighty didn’t like having his sense of chivalry used against him, did he? He prided himself on his character, and a responsible gentleman didn’t allow a female relation to be misused.
She pressed her advantage. “If you won’t help me, you’ll force me to go alone. Either way, I’m not letting Nancy stumble into an awful situation where some deceptive fellow—”
“Fine,” he cut in. “I’ll travel to York and make inquiries of this Mrs. Patch.”
“Right away?”
He raised his eyes heavenward. “If I must. But I have to return to the coast in time for my tenants’ meeting tomorrow.”
“And you’ll take me with you to York, right?”
“There’s no need.” A flush darkened his angular features, making the scar he’d acquired in their years apart stand in high relief. “And anyway, you can’t go riding the roads with me unchaperoned.”
“I’m nearly thirty, Dom—it’s not as if I’m some schoolgirl. If we travel in your open phaeton, no one will suspect us of anything scandalous. I realize that York is a couple of hours away, but with the days lengthening, we can be there and back before dark. And you did say you must go on from here to Rathmoor Park for your meeting.”
He advanced on her with a fierceness that took her aback. “You’re betrothed, or have you forgotten? What will your fiancé say when he hears you’re running about the countryside alone with me?”
When he stopped just short of her, forcing her to look way up to meet his gaze, she glared at him. “He’ll say that he trusts me. That he believes in me, no matter what. That he knows I’ll always do what’s right, regardless of the situation.”
And that’s more than you ever did, she nearly added. Because that was what stuck in her craw about how Dom had behaved in their youth. Without ever giving her a chance to prove herself, he’d simply assumed she couldn’t handle the massive changes in his circumstances.
Dom stared at her, then slowly lowered his gaze to her lips. “That’s what Blakeborough would say, is it? Somehow I doubt that.”
If the Viscount Falls Page 4