Heirs and Graces (Victorian Vigilantes Book 2)

by Wendy Soliman

  ‘We’ll live,’ Fergus replied for them all.

  ‘What shall we do with them, m’lord?’ Parker asked.

  ‘Lock them in Lloyd’s cell for now. We need to get Lloyd to a doctor. I don’t like the look of him.’

  ‘What the devil…?’ Franklin pulled one of Brody’s men to his feet and glowered at him. ‘What are you doing, siding with them?’

  ‘Who is he?’ Jake asked.

  ‘My daughter’s intended,’ Lloyd replied in a weak voice.

  ‘This is Travis?’ Jake wondered if the blow he’d taken to his head had dulled his senses. ‘I thought he hated the Armitages.’

  ‘Loyalty gets you nowhere,’ Travis replied, favouring one leg, blood dripping from a wound on the other. ‘I were loyal to Mabel and look where that got me.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ Jake said scathingly. ‘Brody saw you talking to my man in The Grapes, wanted to know what it was all about and bribed you into changing sides.’

  ‘So what if he did?’ Travis jutted his chin aggressively. ‘A man has to take his chances where he can.’

  Jake shook his head, not bothering to argue. ‘Lock them up, Parker. We’ll go back by road. It will be more comfortable for Lloyd and we can get him to a doctor quicker.’

  ‘I need to see my girl more than I need a doctor,’ Lloyd protested.

  ‘We can arrange for both,’ Jake assured him. ‘Parker, go back with Jed and get word to Thorndike. You know what to tell him.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Amelia watched Olivia as she paced the Grosvenor Square drawing room, her anxiety apparent as she glanced at the long clock for what had to be the hundredth time. Amelia looked at it too, convinced the hands must be stuck, since they didn’t seem to have moved since she had last consulted it.

  ‘What can be keeping them?’ Olivia demanded. ‘Surely they should be back by now. We ought to do something.’

  ‘Sit down, Olivia,’ Eva said gently. ‘Pacing will not help and there is nothing that we can do without making matters worse.’

  Amelia was still numb with shock at her brother’s unexpected actions. That he had taken the trouble to find her but not, apparently, to force her to return home, filled her with astonishment. And now he, Lord Torbay and Fergus had dashed off to the glassworks in a reckless effort to release Lloyd. Why had they not asked the police to intervene? Attempting it themselves was sheer folly. Her father’s men were brutal and answered to no law other than their own. Amelia was unsure if she feared more for Fergus or Henry. All she did know was that she would have a few sharp words to say to them both when she saw them next.

  If she saw them.

  Please God, don’t let anything happen to either of them. I couldn’t bear it.

  ‘I am sure they will be here very soon,’ Eva said with a confidence she probably didn’t feel, smiling at Amelia as Olivia resumed her seat but seemed incapable of sitting still.

  ‘I still find it hard to believe that Henry really has gone against Papa’s wishes,’ Amelia said, articulating her earlier thought. ‘It is so very unlike him. Are you absolutely sure he isn’t playing a double game, Olivia?’

  ‘What you did could not have been foreseen by your family,’ Olivia replied. ‘We all have a tolerance limit and I believe that in reaching yours and exerting yourself, you have given your brother reason to examine his own conduct.’

  ‘Perhaps, but Papa will not allow matters to rest there.’

  ‘With Jake working against him, your papa will not be the one in control,’ Olivia assured her.

  ‘Ah, we have been meaning to ask you about that,’ Eva said with a playful smile for Amelia. ‘There is something different about you this afternoon, Olivia. An awareness in your eyes I have not noticed in them before. Amelia and I both remarked upon it. Could it be that you have acquired more intimate knowledge of Jake’s controlling qualities? Finally.’

  ‘I cannot think what you are referring to,’ Olivia replied with a lofty toss of her head.

  Eva chuckled. ‘Oh, I am perfectly sure that you can. And not before time.’

  ‘Where are they?’ Olivia stood again, flounced her way to the window and cried out. ‘At last! They are here!’

  She ran to the door and threw it open before the footman appointed to do so in Parker’s absence could. Jake was the first to alight from the conveyance. Olivia gasped when they saw he was in shirtsleeves that were torn and bloodied and that he was moving awkwardly. She ran up to him and gasped for a second time probably because, like Amelia, she had just seen the cuts to one side of his face.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘Dear God, what happened?’

  ‘We have Lloyd here,’ he replied, briefly touching her arm as Fergus also alighted and helped a badly battered man from the carriage. Amelia’s eyes were trained upon Fergus and she breathed more freely when she saw nothing about him to imply serious injury.

  ‘Bring him inside,’ Olivia said, taking control.

  ‘Send someone to fetch Dr. Olgrave immediately,’ Jake said to the hovering footman. ‘And have Mabel brought down. She will want to see her father.’

  ‘Bring him into the small salon,’ Olivia said. ‘Fetch warm water,’ she added to a second footman.

  Amelia stepped forward and looked warily at her brother. ‘I hope you have not come to take me home because I have not the least intention of going and you cannot force me.’

  ‘Certainly I have not.’ Henry smiled at her and opened his arms. After a brief hesitation, she hurtled herself into them.

  ‘I came to make sure you were all right,’ he said, ‘but I can already see that you have never looked better. Rebellion suits you.’

  Further private conversation was impossible as Olivia arranged to have the injuries of the combatants examined and tended to while they waited for the doctor to arrive.

  ‘You are very welcome, Mr Lloyd,’ she assured their rather bemused guest when he thanked her for her kindness. ‘Take this chair, it is more comfortable. What a dreadful ordeal you have had to endure, but it is all over now. Mabel will be down directly.’ She turned to look at Jake and Fergus. They were comparing injuries in front of the fire and looking rather pleased with themselves. ‘Honestly,’ she said huffily. ‘You worry us half to death, yet you appear to have enjoyed yourselves.’

  ‘Hardly that,’ Jake replied, ‘but it was satisfying.’

  Olivia shook her head. ‘What will happen now?’ she asked.

  ‘Armitage was not there and doesn’t know his security has been breached, so the meeting will probably go ahead. Parker is sending a message to Thorndike. What he does about it is up to him. I am finished with the affair now that we have freed Lloyd.’

  ‘And what will happen to Armitage.’

  ‘Oh, I expect he will release the thugs we locked in Lloyd’s cell.’

  ‘Someone ought to pay for imprisoning Mr Lloyd!’ Olivia cried indignantly.

  ‘We were trespassing,’ Jake reminded her.

  ‘No you were not. Mr Armitage invited you in, you released a man who was being held against his will and you were set upon. You are the wronged parties.’

  ‘I rather think it is up to young Armitage here to resolve matters with his father. Unless I mistake the matter, he has plans of his own in that regard.’

  ‘Indeed I do and you can…’

  ‘Papa? Oh, Papa!’ Mabel blinked as though she thought she was seeing things, her surprise genuine. The ladies had decided against warning her in advance of her father’s probable release, just in case it didn’t happen. She ran across the room as fast as her condition permitted and launched herself at her father. ‘Are you all right? I’ve been that worried.’

  ‘Careful, love, don’t squeeze too hard. I’m right enough. I think his lordship took more of a battering.’

  Olivia looked at Jake through narrowed eyes. Apart from the obvious damage to his face, Amelia could see that he also had a swollen hand and couldn’t close his fingers.

  ‘The doctor
is here, my lord,’ a footman told them.

  ‘Carry Mr Lloyd up to a spare room where he can be examined,’ Jake replied.

  ‘I can walk if Mabel lets me lean on her shoulder.’

  ‘Lean on mine, sir,’ Armitage said. ‘It’s stronger.’

  Lloyd sent Armitage a probing look from beneath a grimy fringe of shaggy hair and nodded. ‘Happen I might,’ he said. ‘Happen I might.’

  ‘Mr Henry,’ Mabel said, only just noticing him. She blushed and lowered her eyes.

  ‘Mabel,’ he replied softly and with considerable emotion in his voice. ‘I am so very glad to see you. No one knew what had become of you. I hope we shall have the opportunity to talk later.’

  Mabel looked confused, mumbled something incomprehensible and bustled from the room behind her father and Henry.

  It was some time before everyone had been examined by the doctor, at Olivia’s insistence. There were no broken bones. Lloyd was in the worst condition but with a few days rest and some decent food to restore his strength, the doctor predicted that he would be as good as new.

  ‘What happens now?’ Amelia asked later when she was seated with Henry in the drawing room. Olivia and Jake were there too, as was Fergus, who kept his gaze focused almost constantly upon her.

  ‘I can answer that,’ Lord Torbay replied. ‘At least in so far as your father’s political ambitions are concerned. My friends in government circles took it upon themselves to intercept the attendees of tonight’s meeting and advised them very firmly that it had been cancelled.’ He smiled. ‘They have just sent word to that effect. Impressive since they had little time to prepare. Suffice it to say that the Radicals will know they have been rumbled and that they have lost credibility as a political force.’

  ‘Will they be convicted of Smallbrooke’s murder?’ Olivia asked.

  ‘There is no proof, and even if there was, since his death was not made to look like a murder, there is no charge to answer.’

  Olivia pouted. ‘I suppose not, but it seems unjust.’

  ‘Such is the way of political manoeuvring. But the death of their ambition to seize power through creating mistrust of the present regime will be a more severe blow.’

  ‘Not for Smallbrooke,’ Olivia muttered.

  ‘I am not happy about it either, Olivia, but it cannot be helped.’ Lord Torbay winced as he shifted his position. ‘However, Armitage, those people will blame your father for allowing details of their meeting place to leak out and they will ostracize him in future.’

  ‘Mr Cartwright will not be happy,’ Amelia said, feeling rather pleased about that. ‘Which means Edith will not be too pleased either.’

  ‘Edith will have greater concerns,’ Henry replied briskly. ‘I mean to divorce her.’

  ‘Divorce?’ Amelia replied in a startled voice. ‘How can you?’

  ‘Very easily. I am not quite as trusting as people imagine. I did not want to marry Edith, I knew we had nothing in common, but did not have your strength of character to stand up for myself, Amelia, when Father insisted. But I have suspected for a long time that she did more than visit her father on her long Wednesday afternoons away from the house. I didn’t much care…until I met Mabel, and then everything changed. I had foolishly forsaken the pleasure of marrying for love, believing Father knew best. But, having met Mabel, I became increasingly displeased by the sacrifice I had made, knowing my life with Edith would only get worse. And so, I had Edith followed and have irrefutable proof that she spends her afternoons with a junior barrister at her father’s chambers.’

  ‘Well well,’ Lord Torbay said, smiling.

  ‘Indeed. I have the law on my side and now that Father has been disgraced, I doubt if Edith’s father will put up much of a fight. I shall, naturally, retain custody of my son. Edith takes no interest in him anyway.’

  ‘Oh, Henry!’ Amelia jumped up and threw her arms around him. ‘I am so very glad you have come to your senses. I like you much better this way.’

  He smiled at Amelia. ‘I rather like myself this way too.’

  ‘Shall you ask Mabel to marry you?’

  ‘If she will have me.’

  ‘Of course she will. She adores you. We all condemned you for what you did to her but she couldn’t be persuaded to utter one bad word about you.’

  ‘Really? That is encouraging.’

  ‘But, what of Father?’

  ‘I think it is time he retired and allowed me to run the glassworks.’

  ‘Do you think he will agree?’ Amelia asked.

  ‘I know considerably more about his methods and his secrets than he realises. One word from me and the business will be ruined. I shall do it too, if he fails to cede responsibility to me. A small cottage somewhere out of harm’s way would suit him in his declining years. I would not foist him upon my sweet Mabel for any consideration.’

  ‘This is not the work of the past few days,’ Lord Torbay said. ‘You have been plotting this for a while, I think.’

  Henry inclined his head. ‘I have indeed, and I am grateful to Amelia for forcing my hand. Father has been hiving off profits from the factory to finance his political ambitions. When we are back to full profitability I shall be able to pay the men the wages they deserve. And I shall offer Lloyd the head manager’s job. There is no one better qualified.’

  ***

  Later that evening, Amelia found herself briefly alone. She needed solitude in order to come to terms with the events of the past few days. Everything had happened so quickly that she was struggling to keep pace with developments. Happy as she was for Henry, she wondered about her own position. She would willingly live with them, if invited to do so, but was unsure if that was what she really wanted.

  ‘I thought I would find you in here.’ Fergus joined her in the small parlour and placed a hand gently on her shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I am so very pleased for Henry,’ she replied. ‘He deserves to be happy, and seeing him with Mabel leaves me in no doubt that he will be. The way she looks at him with such total adoration brings tears to my eyes.’

  ‘But what of you, my love? What shall you do now?’

  ‘Free of the constant fear that my father will track me down, I can either live with Henry or look for a position.’ She glanced up at him. ‘I think I would prefer the latter. Independence suits me.’

  ‘Then I would like to employ you.’

  ‘Oh, in what capacity?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘As my wife, if you will have me.’

  Her mouth fell open. ‘Your wife!’

  ‘Don’t look so startled.’

  ‘But…but, you are a viscount.’

  ‘Mabel is working class but you see that as no barrier to her union with your brother.’

  ‘That’s different.’

  Fergus shrugged. ‘I don’t see how. The social divide you sent so much store by—’

  ‘Not me, but society.’

  ‘All right, but the rules apply every bit as much between working and middle classes as they do to my own class. More so.’ He sent her an intensely passionate smile. ‘Have you any idea just how rigidly that divide is enforced between upper and lower servants in households such as this one? Heaven forbid anyone who forgets their place.’

  ‘We barely know one another, Fergus,’ she said. ‘What if we were to make a terrible mistake?’

  ‘We know what is in our hearts and I know that I love you with every fibre of my being. Is that not enough?’

  Amelia thought how she had wanted to die if anything had happened to Fergus in the confrontation at the glassworks. Unlike Olivia, she had been too fraught to articulate her worries and had instead sat quietly in a vortex of anxiety that muddied her thinking and tested her nerves to breaking point. But he had survived and he was right about one important thing. The indefinable something that existed between them transcended class barriers. Besides, if Fergus didn’t mind society raising its eyebrows at his choice, why should she? Henry’s example had taught her
that happiness was a fleeting opportunity that seldom came twice. She would be a fool to squander this chance; especially since she loved Fergus with a passion that defied all logic.

  ‘Yes!’ she cried, flinging her arms around his neck. ‘Yes, a thousand times yes. If you are absolutely sure then I will marry you with the greatest of pleasure.’

  ‘Of course,’ Fergus said when he finally stopped kissing her. ‘I am only marrying you for your trust fund.’

  She punched his arm before lifting her face to receive another of his passionate kisses.

  ***

  ‘Keep still and allow me to see for myself.’

  A wolfish smile graced Jake’s lips. ‘With the greatest of pleasure.’

  Olivia rolled her eyes when Jake sprawled flat on his back in her bed, arms stretched wide, inviting her to examine his injuries, or any other aspect of his person that engaged her interest. She grimaced when she saw the extent of the bruising already forming on his chest and reached for the jar of Alkanet ointment supplied by Jake’s housekeeper, gently applying it to the afflicted areas.

  ‘If you continue to torture me in that fashion,’ he said, wincing to her touch, ‘then matters could become interesting.’

  ‘You are not well enough for what you have in mind, Lord Torbay. Behave yourself. You look as though you have been crushed by a raging bull.’

  ‘A very apt description. However, I was thinking more in terms of your punishment for disobeying me this afternoon.’

  Olivia bridled. ‘You have no authority over me.’

  ‘I beg to differ. You are mine, Olivia, and I warned you what to expect if you put yourself in danger.’

  ‘Ah, but I did not. And if I had not gone back to Chelsea when I did we would not have met Henry and you would not have been able to rescue Lloyd nearly so easily.’ She sent him a triumphant smile. ‘You ought to thank me, not scold me.’