“It seems you and I must have a long-overdue conversation, Your Grace,” Smallshaw said against her ear. “Or should I call you the Lady?”
Grace stiffened against him as her eyes went wide. He knew? Had Connor told him? But no, that wasn’t possible. If he had, she believed in her heart that Connor would have told her so. He had promised to keep her true identity a secret and she was certain that meant even from his friend.
His maniacal friend who was apparently abducting her.
Her mind raced as she tried to formulate a plan that would get her out of this situation.
“Please, Mr. Smallshaw,” she said against the pressure of his hand. Her words came out as little more than a mumble.
He withdrew his fingers slowly and she sucked in a breath of air. He had been half covering her nose as well as her mouth, and being able to breathe was now a pleasure.
“Do you promise not to scream?” he asked, his hand still hovering close. “Or make some foolish attempt to jump from the vehicle, which is locked, by the way?”
She tensed. The carriage was moving at a brisk enough rate of speed that even if Smallshaw was lying about the locked door, she wouldn’t risk an escape attempt or fear she would end up injured or worse along the side of the road.
For now, it was better to play along.
“I won’t scream or run,” she promised breathlessly.
He regarded her through narrowed eyes, but then nodded as if he had decided to trust her. “Good, then perhaps our time together can be pleasant enough.”
“Why are you in my carriage?” she asked, working to maintain that icy calm everyone always applauded her for. She needed it, needed the lessons in not revealing her vulnerability that she had held so dear all these years.
Smallshaw shrugged. “A tale as old as time, my dear. Friends meet, they share a common goal, one gets taken in by a harlot and everything gets ruined.”
“You’re angry Connor parted ways with you,” she said slowly. “You blame me.”
“Is that what he told you?” Smallshaw said, his voice taut with rage.
She shook her head. “No, actually, he said nothing. Higgins let it slip.”
Smallshaw let out a snort of derision. “That ass never liked me. I’ve never seen a servant who was so superior, as if he were above me. It’s almost as if he’s one of your foppish counterparts, Your Grace. Scum, the lot of you.”
Grace took it in. He was ranting about snobbery and class, which was something Connor also harped on. It must have been what drew them together as young men. She could certainly imagine Connor must have needed a friend who would understand his hatred for his father.
Only Smallshaw had obviously taken that far deeper.
“So is this some kind of revenge against Connor?” she said, trying to steer the conversation back to something that might have a chance of coherence. “You needn’t waste your time. I mean nothing to him.”
“Please don’t treat me like an idiot,” Smallshaw said with a dark frown. “I don’t like it. Obviously you mean a great deal to him. As does your alter-ego, the Lady.”
She swallowed. It was the second time Smallshaw had referred to her secret. But how should she handle that? Deny or confirm? Which would give her the most leverage?
Smallshaw obviously didn’t like her or her class. To acknowledge he knew something about her gave him an advantage, or at least he’d believe so. So even though it went against everything she had done for years, she forced herself to reveal the truth to someone she didn’t trust.
“I suppose you would like me to ask you how you know my secret,” she said.
His eyes lit up in triumph, just as she’d hoped they would. He all but cackled in glee as he leaned back to observe her response to whatever he would say next.
“Why, your lover told me,” he said with a nasty smile.
Grace flinched. “Connor gave you my identity.”
“Yes, but not on purpose,” he said, patting her hand like he was reassuring her. “In fact, I suppose you could say you both told me the truth.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“Connor came back from a visit with you, sick with some kind of upset,” Smallshaw explained. “He called you Grace, which led me to believe he had been with you. Up until that point, I wasn’t certain what exalted whore of the ton he had been fucking.”
She didn’t respond to his vile language, but shook her head. “And how did the fact that Connor and I were involved lead you to the identity of the Lady?”
“You wrote him a note, didn’t you? That night.”
“How did you know that?” she whispered.
He smiled. “Connor stuffed it in his pocket. When he removed his jacket, it fell to the ground, forgotten by you both, I would assume thanks to whatever passionate confrontation you had just participated in. And I found it.” He made a show of making his voice higher, a taunting version of a feminine voice. “I’m her. Please leave.”
Grace turned her face as if she had been slapped. She had written the note in a moment of pure anger and heartache. It was a fast and pointed way to prove what Connor refused to believe.
She’d never thought it would come back to haunt her.
“My God, the dramatics,” Smallshaw chuckled. “But the words served their purpose. I had seen the Lady’s handwriting here and there over the years, mostly in the letters Connor kept and mooned over.”
Grace caught her breath.
“Oh yes, I read them.” Smallshaw shrugged. “Never with Connor’s permission, of course. But when I saw what you’d written and the hand it was written in, it didn’t take much to put your name and the note and the truth together.”
Grace bent her head. Certainly there was no use denying what he knew now. Smallshaw might be quite mad, but he was obviously not stupid.
“So you know my secret,” she said softly. “And I assume you also wrote the note that I received today, telling me I’d been found out?”
He nodded. “I knew you would come here to talk to Connor about the threat and that would be the best time to strike.”
She stared at him. “But I still don’t understand why you would sneak into my carriage like this and… I suppose you are attempting to kidnap me? Am I not your publishing house’s best seller?”
His face grew hard. “Yes, which proves that the taste of the rich is low indeed.”
She blinked a few times. “Thank you.”
He shrugged. “I never wanted that trash to see binding, Your Grace. It wasn’t what we were meant to do, how we were meant to change society. But Connor wouldn’t listen to reason. And then others sent some vague threats and he didn’t listen to those, either.”
Grace watched him. He was growing more agitated with every word until he was almost purple with rage. This was a man out of control and that frightened her as much as his desire to take her confused her.
“I thought you would fade away,” he continued. “That we would be able to use the funds we gained from your foolish little tome to do real good works.” He slammed a hand on the carriage seat between them and Grace jumped at the violence of the act. “But then he started going into Society and stirring up the desire for your book more and more. He told everyone you would write more and he refused to look at the authors I wanted to publish.”
“I can understand why you would be upset, but I’m not writing another book,” she interrupted, hoping to calm the situation. “Connor lied.”
“Yes, he told me,” Smallshaw panted. “And then he fired me and offered me a pittance for all I did for him over the years.”
“I’m sorry about that,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm, conciliatory. “Perhaps I can talk to him, help you get your job back.”
“No, I have a better plan,” he said with a shake of his head.
She straightened up. “Mr. Smallshaw, I appreciate your situation, but in a few moments we’ll be pulling into the drive at my home and my servants will find you her
e. You’ll be arrested if you don’t release me. So there is no plan.”
He shifted. “Oh, but there is. Did you not notice that the footman you brought with you today was not there when you got into your vehicle?”
Grace hesitated. Normally when she went about town to visit friends, she didn’t waste a footman’s day by demanding he attend to her. She only took her driver. But she had asked for one today. To bring a gun. To protect her from likes of this very man. In her upset, she hadn’t even thought of the additional servant. Hadn’t he been outside the carriage?
“Where is he?” she whispered as her heart doubled its rate.
Smallshaw shifted again and produced a pistol from his pocket. A pistol he aimed directly at her heart.
“He put up a fight,” he explained with a small smile. “More than the driver did, but still, I had to shoot them both.”
Grace backed into the corner of the carriage, as if that tiny distance would prevent him from eviscerating her.
“You shot them?” she repeated, for she could think of nothing else to say when she was staring death in the face.
“I did. And now a man under my hire is taking us to our final destination.” He laughed. “I’m sorry, your final destination. Once we get there, I think everything will become clear.”
She couldn’t help but scream, but he didn’t cover her mouth as he had at first. In fact, he leaned back and smiled as he watched her do so.
“Yes, go ahead and do that now, my lady. We should be far enough into our trip that no one will hear you.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“There’s something about a man of action…”—The Ladies Book of Pleasures
Connor got to his feet to greet Seth and Jason as Higgins allowed them into the office. He was not surprised when neither man smiled at him and both refused refreshment from his servant.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Connor said as came around his desk and held out a hand. No one took it. “Ah, I see you have heard that Grace and I are…”
He paused, unable to say it.
Of course, it didn’t seem to be required. Lyndham stalked to his sidebar and poured a hefty tumbler of whiskey for himself before he slammed the bottle down and glared at Connor.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” he began.
It was Northfield who shook his head and interrupted his friend. “I’ve been telling you, Lyndham, he simply doesn’t understand the way things work.” He shifted his attention to Connor. “Do you think we’re in a club?” He looked at Lyndham before he repeated the question. “Does he think we’re in a club?”
“I don’t fucking care what he thinks,” Lyndham snapped. “You hurt Grace, which I specifically asked you not to do. A result of that is that you hurt my wife, which I do not allow any man to do without grave consequences.”
“Grave consequences,” Northfield repeated and got a glare from Lyndham as his reward.
“I understand if you want to remove your financial support,” Connor began. In truth, at this moment, he didn’t give a damn about the business. He had other concerns. “But before you destroy me for what I’ve done or not done to the Duchess of Jameswood, I hope you’ll listen to me, because she may be in danger and she won’t hear me anymore.”
Both men stopped. Lyndham’s anger and Northfield’s foolishness both dissolved.
“Danger?” Northfield repeated. “What kind of danger?”
“She’ll hate me for telling you this,” Connor said with a frown. “But that will be little change, I suppose. Grace is—”
“The author of The Ladies Book of Pleasures,” Northfield filled in smoothly. “Yes, we know.”
“She told Jacinda and Isabel,” Lyndham supplied.
Connor stepped back, surprised by the betrayal that admission caused. Somehow he had believed that was a secret only they shared.
“I see,” he said, trying to maintain his cool.
He obviously failed, for Northfield laughed. “Don’t have ruffled feathers, Sheridan. She only told them recently, after she told you. In fact, I think you are the one to thank for her newfound honesty.”
Lyndham nodded. “Yes, since meeting you, she is quite changed.”
Connor’s head was spinning and he shook it. “Since you know her identity, then did she also tell the other ladies that she was threatened by someone who knows the truth?”
Seth’s lips parted. “When?”
“Today,” Connor said.
Seth and Jason exchanged a glance. “Our wives met with her today,” Jason said. “But I don’t think she told them.”
“That is because she is the most stubborn, bull-headed woman,” Connor began.
“It sounds like you two are the perfect match,” Seth interrupted mildly. “But we will cope with that later. If Grace is being threatened, that is serious indeed.”
“She refuses to allow me to offer her protection,” Connor explained. “And insists on arranging it for herself.”
“Certainly I think we could ensure that happens,” Seth said. “In fact, I can call in some connections right away and—”
“Sir!”
Connor turned in frustration as his office door flew open and Higgins rushed in. His butler was red-faced and sweating.
“Higgins, it can wait,” he snapped, but to his surprise there was no apologizing or leaving from the servant.
“Mr. Sheridan, there is a dead man behind our stables and another badly injured,” Higgins burst out swiftly. “Please, you must come straight away.”
Connor exchanged a glance with Seth and Jason, and the three men all bolted after Higgins. They didn’t speak, but Connor wasn’t immune to the fact that they were likely thinking the same thing he was.
That if someone was injured, it could be related to the new threats against Grace.
He followed Higgins out the front door and down the drive to the stables, where the servant scurried around the back of the building. Connor skidded to a stop as he took in the scene that awaited him there.
A man lay on the gravel, two footmen applying pressure to a gunshot wound to his shoulder. The man was pale from a loss of blood. The other man was sprawled beside the first, the bullet through his forehead proof that he would not be waking up.
“Did you call for a doctor?” Connor asked as he stripped off his jacket and hurried to the side of the injured man to see if he could render any aid. The man moaned as the footmen pressed harder against the wound while Connor held him steady.
“Yes,” Higgins said. “As soon as they were discovered.”
“Who are they?” Connor asked, searching the men’s faces for some reason why they would be injured on his property.
“I recognize one of them,” Seth said as he came closer.
Connor looked up at him and his heart sank. Lyndham was white as a ghost. “Who is he?”
“That’s Grace’s driver,” he murmured. “And I would wager based on the matching livery that the other is one of her footman.”
Bile rose in Connor’s throat, but he swallowed it back and stared down at the injured man. He’d never paid much attention to Grace’s servants in the time they’d spent together. Just like any fop he would have censured for the same act, he’d had “better” things to do.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured to the man, who of course didn’t acknowledge him in his semi-conscious state. Then he looked up at Higgins and the small group of servants who had streamed from the house, stables and gardens to observe the chaos.
“Listen here, did any of you see anything that happened? Could you identify the attacker of these men or…” He broke off and gathered his composure. “Tell me what might have happened to the Duchess Jameswood?”
The crowd murmured amongst itself and Connor wanted to scream with frustration.
“I realize if you had seen the attack on the men none of you would have simply stood by. But was there anything or anyone out of the ordinary happening during the time Her Grace was calling on me or around the mo
ments she departed? I beg of you. If this is what has happened to her men, I cannot imagine what has happened to her.”
In the crowd, a hand lifted and as Seth stepped in to help steady the driver, Connor jumped to his feet and headed for the person who might have information.
“Come forward,” he ordered.
A slender boy of no more than fifteen did so, his cheeks pale and his hands shaking. Connor tried not to sound too harsh as he said, “What’s your name?”
“D-Digby, sir,” the boy stammered.
“What did you see?”
The boy sent a look toward Connor’s stable master, Fulton, and the older man nodded. “There’s nothing to fear. Tell him what you know.”
With that reassurance, the boy said, “Well, I was in the stable when he arrived, sir. And they told me to help him, you see.”
“Who, what are you talking about?”
Digby flinched, but Fulton stepped forward. “That’s right, I plum forgot.”
“What is going on?” Connor snapped.
“Mr. Smallshaw came by just after the duchess arrived,” Fulton explained.
“Adrian?” Connor repeated in shock. He spun on Higgins. “I thought I told you not to let him back inside.”
Higgins shifted. “You did, sir. But he had a few things he kept here that he didn’t take when he left. So I had them stored in the carriage house and told him he could collect them there.”
The stable master nodded. “He stopped by and said he wanted to pick them up. So I sent young Digby to assist.”
Connor swallowed. He didn’t believe that Adrian would be involved in this. He couldn’t.
Except that his friend had changed in the last few years. And his hatred of those in the upper class had mounted.
“What did Smallshaw say or do?” he pressed.
The boy was still shaking, but he managed to continue. “He was acting right peculiar, sir. He kept looking up at the big house and asking a lot of questions about visitors. I told him I didn’t know nothing about visitors. He had another man with him. A big fellow who didn’t seem the right kind to have in your stable if you wanted to keep all your tack and horses.”
A Measure of Deceit Page 21